“Unfortunately I can’t find the carbon copy.”
“I assure you, sir...”
“I don’t doubt you,” I said hastily. “It’s just that the tax people have a habit of wanting documentation.”
“Ah.” His hurt feelings subsided. “Yes, of course.”
I thought a bit and asked, “When you delivered the stones to him, were they rough or faceted?”
“Rough, of course. He was going to get them cut and polished over a few months, as he needed them, I believe, but it was more convenient for us and for him to buy them all at once.”
“You don’t happen to know who he was getting to polish them?”
“I understood they were to be cut for one special client who had his own requirements, but no, he didn’t say who would be cutting them.”
I sighed. “Well, thank you anyway.”
“We’ll be happy to send you copies of the paperwork of the transaction, if it would be of any use?”
“Yes, please,” I said. “It would be most helpful.”
“We’ll put them in the post this afternoon.”
I put the receiver down slowly. I might now know where the diamonds had come from but was no nearer knowing where they’d gone to. I began to hope that they were safely sitting somewhere with a cutter who would kindly write to tell me they were ready for delivery. Not an impossible dream, really. But if Greville had sent them to a cutter, why was there no record?
Perhaps there had been a record, now stolen. But if the record had been stolen the thief would know the diamonds were with a cutter, and there would be no point in searching Greville’s house. Unprofitable thoughts, chasing their own tails.
I straightened my neck and back and eased a few of the muscles which had developed small aches since the crash.
June came in and said, “You look fair knackered,” and then put her hand to her mouth in horror and said, “I’d never have said that to Mr. Franklin.”
“I’m not him.”
“No, but... you’re the boss.”
“Then think of someone who could supply a list of cutters and polishers of diamonds, particularly those specializing in unusual requirements, starting with Antwerp. What we want is a sort of Yellow Pages directory. After Antwerp, New York, Tel Aviv and Bombay, isn’t that right? Aren’t those the four main centers?” I’d been reading his books.
“But we don’t deal...”
“Don’t say it,” I said. “We do. Greville bought some for Prospero Jenks who wants them cut to suit his sculptures or fantasy pieces, or whatever one calls them.”
“Oh.” She looked first blank and then interested. “Yes, all right, I’m sure I can do that. Do you want me to do it now?”
“Yes, please.”
She went as far as the door and looked back with a smile. “You still look fair...”
“Mm. Go and get on with it.”
I watched her back view disappear. Gray skirt, white shirt. Blond hair held back with combs behind the ears. Long legs. Flat shoes. Exit June.
The day wore on. I assembled three orders in the vault by myself and got Annette to check they were all right, which it seemed they were. I made a slow tour of the whole place, calling in to see Alfie pack his parcels, watching Lily with her squashed governess air move endlessly from drawer to little drawer collecting orders, seeing Jason manhandle heavy boxes of newly arrived stock, stopping for a moment beside strong-looking Tina, whom I knew least, as she checked the new intake against the packing list and sorted it into trays.
None of them paid me great attention. I was already wallpaper. Alfie made no more innuendos about Dozen Roses, and Jason, though giving me a dark sideways look, again kept his cracks to himself. Lily said, “Yes, Derek,” meekly, Annette looked anxious, June was busy. I returned to Greville’s office and made another effort with the letters.
By four o’clock, in between her normal work with the stock movements on the computer, June had received answers to her “feelers,” as she described them, in the shape of a long list of Antwerp cutters and a shorter one so far for New York. Tel Aviv was “coming” but had language difficulties and she had nothing for Bombay, though she didn’t think Mr. Franklin would have sent anything to Bombay because with Antwerp so close there was no point. She put the lists down and departed.
At the rate all the cautious diamond-dealers worked, I thought, picking up the roll call, it would take a week just to get yes or no answers from the Antwerp list. Maybe it would be worth trying. I was down to straws. One of the letters was from the bank, reminding me that interest on the loan was now due.
June’s tiny alarm clock suddenly began bleeping. All the other mute gadgets on top of the desk remained unmoved. June returned through my doorway at high speed and paid them vivid attention.
“Five minutes to go,” I said calmingly. “Is every single gadget in sight?”
She checked all the drawers swiftly and peered into filing cabinets, leaving everything wide open, as I asked.
“Can’t find any more,” she said. “Why does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I try everything.”
She stared. I smiled lopsidedly.
“Greville left me a puzzle too,” I said. “I try to solve it, though I don’t know where to look.”
“Oh.” It made a sort of sense to her, even without more explanation. “Like my raise?”
I nodded. “Something like that.” But not so positive, I thought. Not so certain. He had at least assured her that the solution was there to find.
The minutes ticked away and at four-twenty by June’s clock the little alarm duly sounded. Very distant, not at all loud. Insistent. June looked rather wildly at the assembled gadgets and put her ear down to them.
“I will think of you every day at four-twenty.”
Clarissa had written it on her card at the funeral. Greville had apparently done it every day in the office. It had been their own private language, a long way from diamonds. I acknowledged with regret that I would learn nothing from whatever he’d used to jog his awareness of loving and being loved.
The muffled alarm stopped. June raised her head, frowning.
“It wasn’t any of these,” she said.
“No. It was still inside the desk.”
“But it can’t have been.” She was mystified. “I’ve taken everything out.”
“There must be another drawer.”
She shook her head, but it was the only reasonable explanation.
“Ask Annette,” I suggested.
Annette, consulted, said with a worried frown that she knew nothing at all about another drawer. The three of us looked at the uninformative three-inch-deep slab of black grainy wood that formed the enormous top surface. There was no way it could be a drawer, but there wasn’t any other possibility.
I thought back to the green stone box. To the keyhole that wasn’t a keyhole, to the sliding base.
To the astonishment of Annette and June I lowered myself to the floor and looked upward at the desk from under the kneehole part. The wood from there looked just as solid, but in the center, three inches in from the front, there was what looked like a sliding switch. With satisfaction I regained the black leather chair and felt under the desk top for the switch. It moved away from one under pressure, I found. I pressed it, and absolutely nothing happened.
Something had to have happened, I reasoned. The switch wasn’t there for nothing. Nothing about Greville was for nothing. I pressed it back hard again and tried to raise, slide or otherwise move anything else I could reach. Nothing happened. I banged my fist with frustration down on the desk top, and a section of the front edge of the solid-looking slab fell off in my lap.