Trophies (45 page)

Stone. Not paste. Not glass. Stone.

No wonder someone had been trying to kill
me.

"Don't tell me that horrible thing's a real
sapphire," Patricia said. "I've shuddered every time I've seen it
on your hand; it's so gaudy."

"A tourmaline?" Caren suggested. "Iolite?"
Both, of course, being minor stones.

"Cubic zirconia?" Sherlock didn't sound
hopeful; we both knew Theresa better than that. Nuts she might be,
but she manufactured jewelry as a hobby and had studied gemstones
with the same intensity she brought to dynamite and anything else
that struck her fancy.

Lindsay grinned. "A blue diamond?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, as calmly as I
could manage with my pulse about to explode from my ears.

Theresa looked up from the depths of the
stone. The brilliance of her blue eyes, in the angle of the light,
matched the sparkle in her palm. "She's not."

What lunch I had been able to eat seemed to
dangle in midair inside me and I was uncomfortably aware of it. I
set the lager aside and rubbed my eyes. "All right, tell me."

"I think it's the Waterford Blue
diamond."

I shuddered. Her tone was so calm, so
matter-of-fact, as if she commented on nothing more sinister than
the price of gasoline and the cost of filling the tank. There were
days when I'd give everything Aunt Edith left me to be surrounded
only by sane people — including myself.

"I thought the Waterford Blue diamond was
stolen," Patricia said. "Years ago," she added, as if that fact
made all the difference in her argument.

"About forty of them," Theresa said, "from
the Marquis of Salisbury. It had been in his family since Elizabeth
the First gave it to his great-great-grand-something for his role
in destroying the Spanish Armada. Before that, Catherine brought it
over from France when she married Henry the Fifth, and the French
got it from some marriage way back ages before. No one remembers
where it originally came from, but because the intensity of the
color matches that of some Kashmir sapphires, people like to talk
about middle Asia as if they know something."

"I thought faceting stones was a recent
invention," I said. "If this was the Waterford Blue, wouldn't it be
rough cut, or tumbled smooth, or something medieval like that?"

"Sure, if it hadn't been recut twice, the
last time just before the First World War. Recutting knocked about
forty carats off its size, but—" Theresa flashed the stone in the
light of the dining room, and the blaze just about took my tired
eyes out "—there were good reasons for it. And the Marquis did have
it set in a gold ring with a mounting shaped like oak branches, and
wore it during the end of Victoria's reign and the beginning of
Edward's."

"Then what happened?" Lindsay's eyes were
wide.

Theresa shrugged. "Then he died of
consumption and the ring was put away in the family vaults. Until
someone stole it."

Sherlock rubbed his eyes and said one savage
phrase; I was happy to hear that Lindsay's military education would
be well-rounded. "And Robbie found it in the garret, and thought it
was fake, and wore it over half the city. Until someone smarter
than all of us combined spotted it, decided his law-abiding days
were well over, and tried to run this dingbat over with a
Suburban."

Lindsay grinned again. "Right."

I could have smacked her.

Caren clasped her hands atop the table and
leaned against Sherlock's shoulder. "What about the rest of the
jewelry?"

The look he gave me was not complimentary.
"There's more of it? Where?"

I glanced behind the coffeemaker and felt ice
invade my stomach, just as uncomfortably as that lunch. The hat box
was gone. Had Glendower actually gotten what he came for last
night?

We split up and ransacked the house, me in
the garret, Caren in her favorite room, Lindsay and a grinning
Bonnie in the bedrooms, Patricia in the kitchen and den. Sherlock
stalked from room to room like something wicked, muttering
imprecations under his breath and casting doubt on not only my
sanity but also my ancestry. Father would not have been amused.

"Found it!" It was Patricia's call.

Giddy with relief, I galloped downstairs and
was the last to arrive in the kitchen. "Where?"

Caren's face was hidden in her hands. "I put
it in the pantry when we cleaned up this morning and forgot all
about it. If only Glendower knew how close he'd been—" She raised
her face and met Sherlock's glare. Tears of mirth brightened her
eyes. She looked gorgeous. "Still like the way my mind works?"

He snorted. "Only if you quit hanging around
this clown." He punched my arm, not gently. "Obviously his
influence ain't good for you."

Theresa opened the hat box and gently set the
contents out on the butcher block table. I recalled how I'd dumped
them out onto that same space days ago, and shuddered at my
sacrilege.

"Wow," she said. Then, "Where'd I put that
loupe?"

Lindsay bolted from the room. Sherlock caught
her around the waist and tumbled her back. She screamed with glee.
Everyone but Sherlock and me, it seemed, was enjoying this
immensely.

"I told you to leave that case alone." He
pushed her toward the table and returned to the dining room
himself, glaring at Bonnie in passing as if she'd had something to
do with it.

"So did I." But Patricia's voice was
light.

"I didn't but I will," I said. "That stuff's
nothing to mess with."

"Nothing in there too wicked." Theresa's tone
was somewhere between distracted and defensive.

Sherlock eased the case onto the table at her
elbow and planted his fists on his hips. "So what have we got?"

"I don't recognize all of this." Theresa
waved the loupe toward the pipe and scent flask, then poised it
over the swan necklace. "But this one's definitely the Buckingham
estate's property and that's the Montgomery Stone Waterfall." She
pointed to the cascade of brilliant colors, green, blue,
purple.

My mind automatically changed that to
emerald, sapphire, amethyst. I grabbed the butcher block with both
hands and held on. I felt like such a fool. How could I have been
so blind?

"Montgomery?" Patricia said slowly.

"I caught that, too," Bonnie said.

They stared at each other like two soccer
moms who'd just hit on the perfect carpooling solution. As one,
they doubled back into the dining room. Patricia's voice trailed
behind them: "At least we know where we left that."

"What the hell are they on about?" I
asked.

"I think I know." Sherlock watched the door,
not Theresa as she hunched further over the jewelry, and from the
dining room came a crow of triumph. He muttered another rude word
and started walking, but they beat him back.

"I knew I'd heard that name recently,"
Patricia said.

Bonnie held the maroon leather address book,
open about halfway. "Lady Meara Montgomery," she read aloud,
"address in Northamptonshire." She glanced up. "Buckingham and
Salisbury are in here, too."

Sherlock froze. "How many people are in that
book, total?"

"Ten," Lindsay said. When we all turned to
stare at her, she shrugged. "I was curious. And they're all
titled."

"And there's ten pieces of jewelry," Theresa
said, "including the ring. Bingo."

"But if you count the pipe and the scent
flask—"

But she was shaking her head before I got
even that much out. "Those are nice pieces, but they're not in the
same category as the jewelry."

Sherlock turned his glare on me. "So what
does this mean? Did Edith Hunter intend to rob those people all
over again?"

"Just like you to assume the worst," Caren
said. "Isn't it obvious? She meant to return them someday."

"Aunt Edith return a trophy?" I shook my
head. That bit of her personality I understood to my core. "Not
ruddy likely."

Sherlock scratched his head. "Humph."

In the kitchen's sudden hush, a cell phone
twaddled some stupid little ditty. Even though I knew it wasn't
mine by the sound, like everyone else, I checked. Theresa snagged
hers off her belt, yanked out an old-fashioned antenna with her
teeth, and pushed a button. "Hello?" With her other hand, she held
the loupe over the Montgomery Stone Waterfall and lowered her eye
to meet it.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned away, as
if the sight was more than he could stand.

"Hey, yeah, I was calling about your Suburban
— I mean, the one you sold a few days ago. Would you mind telling
me who you sold it to?"

Revelations, it seemed, were coming thick and
fast now. I held onto the butcher block and drew a deep breath.

"Actually, it backed into my car in the
parking lot. A witness got the temporary plate number and that's
how I tracked it to you. Seems whoever you sold it to didn't
transfer the title properly and my attorney says that makes you
still liable . . . unless, of course, you have a bill of sale?"

I could only admire the imagination that
dreamed up that line. Judging by Sherlock's head shake, so did
he.

"Well, that lets you off the hook if I can
track this tourist down — what was that?" Theresa set the loupe on
the table and raised her eyes to stare into mine. "Jacob." She
paused, and through the sudden slow pounding of blood in my soul, I
could almost hear the poor sod on the call's other end spelling
that name. "Jacob Ellandun. Great. Thanks." She rang off.

"No." Patricia's voice was the barest of
whispers. "Jacob. Oh, no."

"Uncle Jacob?" Lindsay said. "Uncle Jacob is
Mister Suburban?"

The smiling face against the backdrop pastels
of his mother's roses, the handclasp and the quick glance down at
my diamond-bedecked hand; I'd been stalked, hunted, and hadn't even
realized it.

Bonnie wrapped an arm around Patricia's
shoulders. "Damn, sometimes I hate family."

Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. "Well,
that explains why Mister Suburban wore a ski mask in July, doesn't
it."

"It also explains why Jacob hung around the
gallery," I said. "He knew that, with Aunt Edith dead, I was in
charge of the show and I'd have to stop by occasionally. He checked
to make certain I wore the ring, then followed me when I left and
tried to run me over at the first opportunity." And I'd planned to
do the pub with the miscreant. I felt stupider than ever.

"I'll kill him." Patricia's voice was
stronger now and growing in volume.

Sherlock pursed his lips. "Not sure there's
any cause for that. We'd pretty much agreed Mister Suburban's an
amateur, which means this is probably Jacob's first foray into
crime."

She grabbed the front of his fatigues, stood
on her toes, and got in his face. "He's my brother and I will kill
him if I want to."

Sherlock froze, staring back like a
hypnotized cobra. I wasn't in much better shape. The mouse roared.
She'd manhandled my boss and I couldn't believe it. It wasn't only
Lindsay who'd learned from us, it seemed, which meant I was in
trouble all around.

"And he's an appraiser." She released him and
stepped back. "Of course he'd know a diamond when he saw one."

"Particularly one that damned big." I rubbed
my forehead and tried to think. Sorting out Jacob's crimes was one
thing; dealing with him was quite another.

"I'll
kill
him."

"But what do we do about him?" Lindsay
asked.

Someone else looking ahead, thankfully.
Lindsay and I tended to think alike; comforting in one way, scary
in another. If this was a genetic pattern, would she be the next
Ellandun family black sheep?

Sherlock managed a laugh. "Well, we quit
dangling the bait in front of him, to begin with." Again he ran a
hand through his hair, which was already on end. When he continued,
his voice was quiet, as if he spoke more to himself than any of us.
"He's just an amateur. Letting him know we're onto him should be
enough to scare him straight. After all, he hasn't tailed us since
I shot at him."

The kitchen phone rang and the cordless
echoed it from the parlor.

"I bet that's von Bisnon." Sherlock headed
for the phone.

"Salesman," I called out. "Time-share
condos."

"Refinancing," Bonnie said.

"Sex ads," Lindsay said.

"Shut up," Sherlock said, and picked up the
receiver. "Yo, boss?" For a moment he listened. Then he grinned.
"Somehow knew it was you. I'm gonna put you on speaker phone."
Sherlock touched the button, waited for the crackle to fill the
kitchen, then hung up the receiver. "You there?"

"I'm here." It was indeed von Bisnon's
elegant baritone.

"Good afternoon, sir," I said.

"Captain Ellandun, how are you?"

"Middling, sir." To say the best.

"Theresa and Bonnie are here," Sherlock said,
"also Robbie's girlfriend Caren, cousin Patricia, and niece
Lindsay. People, this is General Hugo,
der Graf
von Bisnon,
head of NATO Intelligence and our preferred boss."

There was a murmur of greetings. Lindsay
stared round-eyed at me and mouthed,
Really?

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Colonel. I
have your laboratory results." Von Bisnon paused. "I'm afraid
they're not pretty."

But I already knew and no longer needed the
lab results for confirmation. There was only one explanation for
the photo we'd found in Glendower's lair.

"Let me guess." I heard the tension in my own
voice. "The fingerprints on that Browning belong to Edith Hunter
and the blood on the grip is the same as that on the uniform
jacket. Am I right so far?"

Again he paused. "Yes. Yes, you are."

"And the ballistics on the Browning match
those from the murder of a security guard during a cat burglary
about forty years ago somewhere in Britain."

"Specifically the estate of the Earl of
Bedford. The murderer was never caught and the stolen necklace
never recovered."