The Attenbury Emeralds (5 page)

‘Northerby was giving Freddy a very fishy look, I thought. “Surely not, Arbuthnot,” he said. “Haven’t these things been kept in a bank vault since time began? Surely very few people indeed have seen them. Even the sort of people you refer to. What is all the excitement about, with the press at the gate, except that the emeralds are hardly ever seen?”

‘“They’ve been seen to be valued for insurance, I imagine,” said Freddy.

‘And at that point Attenbury rose to his feet, and said, “Shall we join the ladies? Mustn’t keep Reginald too long from Charlotte.”

‘So that was that. Off we all trooped to the drawing-room, where Mrs Ansel was playing briskly on the piano the latest hits from Irving Berlin, and Charlotte was surrounded by a sisterhood, motherhood, and all rabbit’s friends and relations. It was Freddy who went straight across to talk to her, I noticed, while Northerby went to sit beside Lady Attenbury. Mrs DuBerris was the only lady available to be sat beside, so I thought I would rise above our little spat, and I sat beside her.

‘“I hear you have seen two emeralds close up, this afternoon,” she said.

‘“Yes. Attenbury asked me to.”

‘“And the only difference between them was the inscription?”

‘I said that it was.

‘“But you don’t read Persian, do you, Lord Peter?”

‘“Fraid not.”

‘I was distracted being stung by the strains of “Ain’t misbehaving, all by myself”, because it was all too true – I wasn’t, and I was. And I’d had much more than enough of my fellow men and women by then. I thought of pushing off to bed early, just for some solitude, but instead I went to the billiard-room to footle around a bit, and by and by Freddy joined me, and we played a round. Still absolutely oblivious of what was going on. Not a clue.’

‘That’s a good teaser, Peter,’ said Harriet appreciatively. ‘I’m enjoying this. I should stay home and demand a story from you more often.’

‘What precisely is a teaser?’ asked Peter.

‘Another form of doom. A page-turner. You were absolutely oblivious of what?’

‘Bunter shall tell you that, because he didn’t have the luxury of oblivion. But before he does I have one more remark of Freddy’s to get into the tale. I asked Freddy while being soundly beaten at billiards what he had meant about Northerby needing to watch his step, and he told me that Northerby was on hard times. Something about the tea trade that had gone wrong. “There’s been some raised eyebrows in the City about this match, because Attenbury is rolling in it, and Northerby is on cheese-ends. Of course the old chap can afford to bankroll a son-in-law, but mostly men in his position want the wench to marry wealth. Very generous of him, what?”

‘“Well, he’s a soft-hearted fellow underneath all that barking formality,” said I. “With a particular soft spot for Charlotte.”

‘Freddy just looked at me enquiringly.

‘“She’s a devil of a sport on a horse,” I told him. “Only one of the family to share Attenbury’s passion for hunting. I believe that’s how they met Northerby.”

‘Right. If you have no more comments to make I will hand over to Bunter.’

‘I have one comment, my lord,’ said Harriet. ‘Unless you have been making half of this up, you have an extraordinary memory. How long ago is all this?’

‘Thirty years. Of course I’m not remembering everyone’s remarks verbatim, I’m making a good deal of it up, but the drift of what they said, and when they said it is all right. There is no more such a thing as a forgetful sleuth than there is such a thing as a flawless emerald. Now, Bunter, old fruit, stand not upon the order of your going, or on those library steps. Come and sit down and relate matters as they befell on your side of the baize door. Here is Harriet, all agog. You are agog, Harriet, I take it? It doesn’t sound like a pleasant state to be in. What exactly is it?’

‘I am very much agog,’ said Harriet. ‘We shall look it up later.’

‘Well, my lady,’ said Bunter, ‘I cannot make claims for my memory such as his lordship makes, but as I remember, it was upon this fashion…’

Goodness! thought Harriet. How like Peter Bunter has become…

4

‘When Lady Charlotte came to dress for dinner,’ Bunter continued, ‘she found that the emeralds laid out ready for her to wear did not include the carved central stone. They used to call it the king-stone, I believe. She at once rang for her maid. The maid was Jeannette, a French young lady who had been with the family some three or four years, ever since Charlotte graduated from the care of the governess. She came at once expecting to help her mistress dress, and was thunderstruck to find that the jewels were not complete on the stand, as she swore she had left them. She had fetched them from Lady Attenbury’s room, carried them down the corridor to Charlotte’s room, and laid them out ready only an hour since. The two women panicked – Jeannette with very good reason – and began to run around shouting for help.

‘The senior manservants of the household were in attendance on the guests assembling for dinner, but Jeannette fetched Lady Attenbury’s own maid, who opened the safe in Lady Attenbury’s bedroom of which she was trusted with the keys, to see if the emerald had become detached and was lying there loose, Jeannette all the while asserting passionately that it had been with the parure when she left it. When it was found not to be in the safe the panic escalated. Agitated voices reached me in my lordship’s dressing-room, and a couple of foot-men and the valet of Captain Ansel had also heard the commotion. A little parliament of the servants assembled. At my suggestion we began a systematic search of both the bedrooms – Lady Charlotte’s and her mother’s – and along the corridor between the two, which by unhappy chance was carpeted in dark green Axminster.

‘Time was passing, and Lady Charlotte was distraught. She was supposed already to be downstairs among the guests. Jeannette suggested that she simply put on her pearls, and go down. The stone must be somewhere near, and it would be found before her father or mother could ask questions. This simply provoked anguish from Lady Charlotte. She had already incurred her father’s displeasure by reluctance to wear the emeralds; they had been brought specially from London for her, and if she showed her face downstairs without them her father would interpret this as flagrant defiance. He might even suppose that the very absence of the Mughal stone was a trick of some kind that she herself had got up to in order to avoid doing what he asked of her.

‘There was now only some five minutes left before the dinner gong would sound. Crying woe was not getting anywhere, and the Axminster was greenly refusing to yield a dropped jewel. Sarah, Lady Attenbury’s maid, a lady of about her mistress’s age and with long service in the family, solved the immediate problem. I think she was as much concerned to avoid a public debacle and a scandal, which would certainly get into the press, as she was about the whereabouts of the jewel.

‘“Stop crying at once, Miss Charlotte,” said she. “You must wear the paste, and get downstairs immediately. Come here.” She produced the paste replica from a drawer of Lady Attenbury’s dressing-table, and put it round Lady Charlotte’s neck herself. “Run!” she said to the girl.

‘Meanwhile all the commotion had attracted the attention of the policeman who was posted on the upper corridor, who went and fetched Sergeant Parker, my lady—’

‘Goodness!’ said Harriet. ‘Charles?’ She was charmed to find that her brother-in-law had a part to play.

‘And he took over the direction of the search, which proceeded in an orderly manner. Of course he also reported the matter to Inspector Sugg.

‘When Sugg appeared, he was very confident. The gem could not possibly have left the house – he had men posted at every door. It would be recovered, and the culprit brought to justice. We might be sure of that. I must admit that I was not reassured very greatly by this, my lady.’

‘I should think not!’ said Peter indignantly.

‘You are running ahead of yourself, my lord,’ said Bunter reproachfully. ‘Until his investigation began you had no knowledge of Inspector Sugg, and no reason to think ill of him.’

‘Your capacity for being in the right is beginning to irritate me, Bunter,’ said Peter petulantly. ‘Shouldn’t you make a mistake or two, to soothe my feelings?’

‘I made a mistake at the time, my lord. But I do not recall your finding it soothing. You reproached me for it rather severely. You came to bed very late, and wearied by the unusual excitements of so much society. I did not tell you what had been happening until the following morning.’

‘At least you did tell me when I woke,’ said Peter. ‘The other guests learned only when they appeared for breakfast that the house was in purdah and that no matter what plans they had made, no matter who they were, they would not be allowed to leave until the mighty Inspector Sugg said they could. It was not a very jolly breakfast, that I do remember. It was a very troubled morning, come to that. Alarums and excursions on every side.’

‘Alarums indeed, my lord. But no excursions,’ said Bunter. ‘The whole household below stairs was thrown into crisis. If nobody could leave, then everyone including all their visiting servants required the usual three meals a day. The provisions had not been laid in for anything on that scale beyond breakfast of that day; the cook was distraught, the butler harassed, and those of us who were ourselves visitors, the personal servants of the upstairs guests, were attempting to help and getting in the way. “One thing we may all be sure of,” Mr Harris, the butler, told me. “They’ll be trying to pin this on one of us. I wouldn’t be in Jeannette’s shoes for all the port in the cellar.”

‘There was confusion on every side. The hall was full of bags which had been packed the previous night, or very early that morning, ready for guests’ departure. I regret to admit, my lady, a small detail escaped my notice entirely at the time; that is, a set of very expensive golf clubs being carried through the hall just before all movement of the luggage was suspended. It turned out that nearly every one of the guests had a very urgent appointment to meet later in the day, and they all fussed and blustered and threatened at the thought of being detained. But Inspector Sugg stuck to his guns, so to speak, and there was a confrontation between him and Lord Attenbury in the lobby, with voices raised loudly enough to be heard in the hall where several of us were struggling to sort out the luggage. Mr Northerby’s man was in the hall, and it stopped him in his tracks. It was very entertaining, my lady. A major row in which one is not oneself directly involved has a theatrical quality, and is capable of giving a perverse sort of pleasure, like the pleasure conferred by the gruesome events of a Shakespearean tragedy.’

‘How very Aristotelian of you, Bunter,’ said Harriet. ‘You mean pity and fear, I suppose.’

‘I mean excitement, my lady.’

‘Well, do tell me,’ said Harriet, ‘what the row was about – no, wait, let me guess. It was because Lord Attenbury didn’t want his guests to be questioned.’

‘Exactly, Harriet,’ said Peter. ‘His lordship had reluctantly accepted that since no amount of searching had produced the emerald, there was a possibility it had been stolen. He was happy to have Sugg arraign the servants, any and all of them. But as for the smallest aspersion cast on any of his house guests, it was unthinkable that any of them were involved. They were under his roof, and under his protection and it was an outrage beyond bearing to subject them to questioning.

‘“I can take them to the local police station for questioning if you prefer,” said Sugg.

‘Attenbury had brought me with him to confront Sugg, because he was convinced that “that odd Indian chappy” might have something to do with it, although I told him I couldn’t see how. “You may take their names and addresses before they leave,” he told Sugg. “But that is all. I absolutely forbid you to subject them to interrogation.”

‘“It is as witnesses I need to question them, my lord,” said Sugg. “Not as suspects. But question them I will.”

‘“You will not!” said Attenbury. “You are dismissed. Remove yourself and your men from my property immediately.”

‘“I’m afraid I cannot do that,” said Sugg.

‘“I hired you, and I am firing you!” said Attenbury, at the top of his not inconsiderable voice.

‘“I have reason to believe that a felony has been committed,” said Sugg stubbornly. “This is no longer a private arrangement with the police to protect your property. This is now a criminal investigation. I must remind you, my lord, that obstructing the police in the course of their enquiries is itself a serious offence.”’

‘Well, so far, bully for Sugg,’ said Harriet.

‘Oh, he’s not short of guts,’ said Peter. ‘Just brains. I thought Attenbury would bust a gasket. He stormed off to telephone the Chief Constable, who was, he declared, a friend of his. “And we shall see!” he said as he went.

‘Well, he did see. The Chief Constable backed up his man, and the enquiry went ahead as Sugg wished. Perversely, you might think, he decided to question the servants first. Attenbury made one last rather muted protest, saying that if the guests were questioned first they would then be free to leave, and the servants could wait. But Sugg said that when he had questioned the servants there would be in all probability no need to question the guests, and since his lordship had expressed himself forcefully opposed to questioning the guests…

‘So Sugg commandeered the gunroom as an interview room, and the servants were called in one by one.

‘As you can imagine, Harriet, there was an atmosphere of discomfort in the house. Mrs Ansel and Mr Pender had attempted to go out for a walk in the grounds, rather than stay caged up in their rooms. A policeman at the door had stopped them. The ladies had gravitated to the conservatory where they were playing a desultory round of whist. We gentlemen gathered in the billiard-room. I was very agitated – too excited to play. Abcock played a round with Freddy. I was fidgeting about, distracting him.

‘“Look here, Wimsey,” he said, in a while. “You’re putting me off my stroke. What’s the matter?”

‘“I wish the hell I knew what was going on downstairs,” I said.

‘“Oh, don’t let it bother you,” said Abcock. “It isn’t bothering me. If the damn thing has gone missing Papa will clean up on the insurance money, and make it up to Charlotte.”