“Fear,” I said. “Nicholas Loder was afraid.”
“Oh.” He was briefly silent. “I could get the tests done anonymously, of course.”
“Yes. Get them done, then. I particularly don’t want to sell the Ostermeyers a lemon, as she would say. If Dozen Roses can’t win on his own merits, I’ll talk them out of the idea of owning him.”
“So you’ll pray for negative results.”
“I will indeed.”
“While I was at Milo’s this morning,” he said, “he was talking to the Ostermeyers in London, asking how they were and wishing them a good journey. They were still a bit wobbly from the crash, it seems.”
“Surprising if they weren’t.”
“They’re coming back to England, though, to see Datepalm run in the Hennessy. How’s your ankle?”
“Good as new by then.”
“Bye, then.” I could hear his smile. “Take care.”
He disconnected and left me thinking that there still were good things in the world, like the Ostermeyers’ faith and riding Datepalm in the Hennessy, and I stood up and put my left foot flat on the floor for a progress report.
It wasn’t so bad if I didn’t lean any weight on it, but there were still jabbingly painful protests against attempts to walk. Oh well, I thought, sitting down again, give it another day or two. It hadn’t exactly had a therapeutic week and was no doubt doing its best against odds. On Thursday, I thought, I would get rid of the crutches. By Friday, definitely. Any day after that I’d be running. Ever optimistic. It was the belief that cured.
The overworked telephone rang again, and I answered it with “Saxony Franklin?” as routine.
“Derek?”
“Yes,” I said.
Clarissa’s unmistakable voice said, “I’m in London. Could we meet?”
I hadn’t expected her so soon, I thought. I said, “Yes, of course. Where?”
“I thought... perhaps... Luigi’s. Do you know Luigi’s bar and restaurant?”
“I don’t,” I said slowly, “but I can find it.”
“It’s in Swallow Street near Piccadilly Circus. Would you mind coming at seven, for a drink?”
“And dinner?”
“Well...”
“And dinner,” I said.
I heard her sigh, “Yes. All right,” as she disconnected, and I was left with a vivid understanding both of her compulsion to put me where she had been going to meet Greville and of her awareness that perhaps she ought not to.
I could have said no, I thought. I could have, but hadn’t. A little introspection revealed ambiguities in my response to her also, like did I want to give comfort, or to take it.
By three-thirty I’d finished the paperwork and filled an order for pearls and another for turquoise and relocked the vault and got Annette to smile again, even if faintly. At four, Brad pulled up outside Prospero Jenks’s shop in Knightsbridge and I put the telephone ready to let him know when to collect me.
Prospero Jenks was where I’d found him before, sitting in shirtsleeves at his workbench. The discreet dark-suited man, serving customers in the shop, nodded me through.
“He’s expecting you, Mr. Franklin.”
Pross stood up with a smile on his young-old Peter Pan face and held out his hand, but let it fall again as I waggled a crutch handle at him instead.
“Glad to see you,” he said, offering a chair, waiting while I sat. “Have you brought my diamonds?” He sat down again on his own stool.
“No. Afraid not.”
He was disappointed. “I thought that was what you were coming for.”
“No, not really.”
I looked at his long, efficient workroom with its little drawers full of unset stones and thought of the marvels he produced. The big notice on the wall still read NEVER TURN YOUR BACK TO CUSTOMERS. ALWAYS WATCH THEIR HANDS.
I said, “Greville sent twenty-four rough stones to Antwerp to be cut for you.”
“That’s right.”
“Five of them were cubic zirconia.”
“No, no.”
“Did you,” I asked neutrally, “swap them over?”
The half-smile died out of his face, which grew stiff and expressionless. The bright blue eyes stared at me and the lines deepened across his forehead.
“That’s rubbish,” he said. “I’d never do anything stupid like that.”
I didn’t say anything immediately and it seemed to give him force.
“You can’t come in here making wild accusations. Go on, get out, you’d better leave.” He half-rose to his feet.
I said, not moving, “When the cutters told Greville five of the stones were cubic zirconia, he was devastated. Very upset.”
I reached into my shirt pocket and drew out the print-out from the Wizard.
“Do you want to see?” I asked. “Read there.”
After a hesitation he took the paper, sat back on the stool and read the entry:
ANTWERP SAYS 5 OF THE FIRST
BATCH OF ROUGH ARE CZ.
DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT.
INFINITE SADNESS.
PRIORITY I.
ARRANGE MEETING. IPSWICH?
UNDECIDED. DAMNATION!
“Greville used to write his thoughts in a notebook,” I said. “In there, it says ‘Infinite sadness is not to trust an old friend.’ ”
“So what?”
“Since Greville died,” I said, “someone has been trying to find his diamonds, to steal them from me. That someone had to be someone who knew they were there to be found. Greville kept the fact that he’d bought them very quiet for security reasons. He didn’t tell even his staff. But of course you yourself knew, as it was for you he bought them.”
He said again, “So what?”
“If you remember,” I said, still conversationally, “someone broke into Greville’s office after he died and stole things like an address book and an appointments diary. I began to think the thief had also stolen any other papers which might point to where the diamonds were, like letters or invoices. But I know now there weren’t any such papers to be found there, because Greville was full of distrust. His distrust dated from the day the Antwerp cutters told him five of his stones were cubic zirconia, which was about three weeks before he died.”
Pross, Greville’s friend, said nothing.
“Greville bought the diamonds,” I went on, “from a sightholder based in Antwerp who sent them by messenger to his London house. There he measured them and weighed them and signed for them. Then it would be reasonable to suppose that he showed them to you, his customer. Or showed you twenty-five of them, perhaps. Then he sent that twenty-five back to Antwerp by the Euro-Securo couriers. Five diamonds had mysteriously become cubic zirconia, and yes, it was an entirely stupid thing to do, because the substitution was bound to be discovered almost at once, and you knew it would be. Had to be. I’d think you reckoned Greville would never believe it of you, but would swear the five stones had to have been swapped by someone in the couriers or the cutters in Antwerp, and he would collect the insurance in due course, and that would be that. You would be five diamonds to the good, and he would have lost nothing.”
“You can’t prove it,” he said flatly.
“No, I can’t prove it. But Greville was full of sorrow and distrust, and why should he be if he thought his stones had been taken by strangers?”
I looked with some of Greville’s own sadness at Prospero Jenks. A likable, entertaining genius whose feelings for my brother had been strong and long-lasting, whose regret at his death had been real.
“I’d think,” I said, “that after your long friendship, after all the treasures he’d brought you, after the pink and green tourmaline, after your tremendous success, that he could hardly bear your treachery.”
“Stop it,” he said sharply. “It’s bad enough...”
He shut his mouth tight and shook his head, and seemed to sag internally.