Trustee From the Toolroom (39 page)

An hour later he heard the gate clang and heard Janice's footsteps on the path to the front door. He went upstairs and let her in before she could open the front door with her key. She dropped her satchel of school books and'flew into his arms. 'I'm glad you're back,' she said.

He hugged her clumsily. ' Miss me ?' he asked. She nodded.' Mm.' And then she said,' It's been dull, not having anything made.'

'You been all right at school?' he asked. She nodded. 'I'd have come home early if I'd known you'd be here,' she said. 'We play hockey for the last hour now, Mondays and Thursdays. This is Monday, so we've been playing hockey. But if I'd known you were here I could have come home after school.' 'Like hockey?' he asked.

She nodded again.' Aunt Katie bought me a lovely hockey stick with a green and yellow handle, new. Diana's got a new one, too. She's awfully good at hockey.'

She struggled out of her coat. ' I must put the kettle on because Aunt Katie will be coming home.'

He glanced at his watch. 'She won't be home for an hour.'

'She gets off an hour earlier now,' said Janice, rushing to the kitchen to fill the kettle. 'She started doing that when you went away because she said she ought to be at home when I get back from school because you weren't here, but I'm a big girl now, aren't I ? And then they started taking eight and tenpence from her pay packet each week because she left an hour early. Wasn't that mean of them ?'

Together they laid the kitchen table and put the macaroni cheese in the oven to heat and got out the bread and the butter and the jam and the cherry cake. Across the table she asked suddenly, ' Did you go to where mummy and daddy were buried?'

'Yes, I went there,' he said. 'We had a stone made and put it up to mark the grave. I took a lot of photographs for you, but I haven't had them developed yet. I'll take them up to London, to Kodak, tomorrow or the next day.' Better not trust them to a local photographer.

'Were they buried on the island?' she asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'On the island with the sea all round. Nobody lives there. You see, it's only a little island, and there isn't any water for people to drink, so nobody else can live there.'

She stood looking at him. ' Can you hear the sea from the place where they're buried ?'

'Yes,' he said. 'You can hear the sea all round.'

'I think that's nice,' she said. 'They always liked the sea.'

' I left the grey egg with them,' he said,' because I thought they'd like to have something that was yours. I buried it just underneath the sand.'

She nodded. 'They'll like that.'

That was the end of it. She did not speak about her father or her mother again till they showed her the photographs ten days later.

Katie came in before the kettle boiled. 'Keith!' she said. ' Why didn' t you let us know ? I didn' t really think that you'd be home for another month. Where have you come from ?'

'There wasn't really time to write,' he apologized. It was out of their economic way of life to send cables about the world. 'I came from the other side of America, right through. I left there . . . yesterday morning, I suppose. Times get a bit mucked up.'

She wrinkled her brows.'Flying?' He nodded. There was much to tell her, but it would have to wait till Janice was in bed. 'You've got so
brown,'
she said in wonder. 'Whatever have you been doing? Out in the sun?'

'That's right,' he said. 'I'll tell you about it later.' Janice said, 'Diana went to Bournemouth with her mummy and Johnnie, and they all came back ever so brown. Can we go to Bournemouth some day, Aunt Katie?'

'We'll go there one day, dear. Perhaps next summer.' Then they went in to tea.

After tea Keith unpacked his suitcase and got out the little presents he had bought for them in Honolulu and in Papeete, and gave them to Janice and to Katie. There was so much to tell them that Katie allowed Janice to stay up for half an hour longer, but it was a school day next day, and Katie took her off to see she washed her ears and neck properly in the bath after playing hockey and to see that she brushed her teeth and said her prayers and went to bed without reading. Keith washed the dishes while all thatwas going on, and when Katie came up from die basement room where Janice slept they were free to talk.' First thing,' she said practically, ' have you got any money, Keith ?'

He nodded. ' I was trying to sort it out on the plane, he said, 'but it's all foreign, so it wasn't too easy. I didn't have to spend very much.' He pulled a muddled sheaf of notes from his breast pocket, with a black wallet of travellers' cheques. He shuffled the pack. 'There's a pound note,' he said, pulling it from the mess. 'And there's another. These things must be francs. You see what you can make of it.' He passed the lot to her.

She opened the little wallet. 'There's forty pounds here that you haven't used!' she exclaimed.

'Is there? I knew there was a good bit left.' 'Well, thank the Lord for that,' she remarked. 'Are things tight?'

'Not worse than they've been before. We don't owe anything. I've got a little over three pounds in my purse. But there's ten guineas to pay next month for the school. Still, this will put us right. I think we've got about eight pounds in the bank.'

'We've got more than that,' he said comfortably. 'I paid in a bit over £6,000 this afternoon.'

"That's Janice's money,' she replied. 'We can use that for her school fees, but we can't use it for living on ourselves. We'd better open another account for her money.'

'It's not her money,' he retorted. 'That's coming along later. This is ours'
- It was midnight before they went to bed.

Next morning he wrote a letter of thanks to Mr Hirzhorn and packed it up with the coil winder in a little box to go to him by airmail. He spent most of the rest of the day in sorting out his vast pile of letters and answering the most urgent ones, thinking regretfully of Julie in her office in the house at Wauna and how she would have made a meal for them. Perhaps, he thought idly, one day Janice would become a secretary and would be able to help him. He gave up the correspondence early in the afternoon, and turned for relaxation to the design of the hydraulic models.

Next day, rested and refreshed, he took his hydraulic sketches up to Mr McNeil in the office of the
Miniature Mechanic,
and told him most of what had happened on his journey, and about Sol Hirzhorn and his Congreve clock. They lunched together at a nearby Lyons, and talked about the serial that Keith proposed for the hydraulic mechanisms. 'We've got quite a few subscribers in the Seattle and Tacoma district,' he told his editor. 'They told me that there are six or seven in Boeing alone.'

' I'll get hold of the subscription figures,' said Mr McNeil thoughtfully. ' I think a serial on model lumber mechanism is a good idea especially if you incorporate the bandsaw. After all, that's useful in the workshop, too. Besides being something really up to date for the Canadians and the Americans . . .'

Keith stayed quietly at home for the next six weeks, catchIng up with his work, developing the hydraulic models, and writing the serial. Then the
Clan McAlister
docked, and he was called down to the docks to see his packing case through
customs. Presently it was delivered to the house in Somerset Road upon a truck. He got the truck driver to help him roll the case on short lengths of steel bar from the workshop through the front gate and the front garden, and down beside the house to the back garden, where they left it in the middle of the garden path. Keith gave the driver five shillings for his help.

Next morning, after Katie had gone to the shop and Janice had gone to school, he unscrewed the sides of the packing case. The engine seemed in fair condition, though a good "deal of external corrosion was evident all over it. He got an enamel basin from the kitchen and drained the oil from the crankcase, spilling a good deal on the garden path to Katie's subsequent annoyance. She wasn't too pleased about the condition of the basin either, which she used for washing vegetables.

He had no chain blocks to lift the engine with, nor any ropes or tackle. He undid the main holding-down bolts from the wooden bearers, put a couple of coal sacks where the head would hit the ground, and turned it rather roughly on its side, using a length of one-inch round steel bar as a crowbar.
In
that position he could undo the bolts holding the sump in place.

That afternoon he rang up Mr Carpenter, the solicitor, at his office in Bedford Square.' This is Keith Stewart speaking,' he said. 'You remember? Commander Dermott's brother-in-law.'

' Of course I remember, Mr Stewart. You've been away, haven't you?'

'Just a short holiday,' Keith said. 'You know those diamonds that we were looking for?'

'I do.'

'Well,' said Keith. 'I believe they've turned up. My wife Katie - she was turning out the boxroom yesterday and she found a suitcase that she didn't think belonged to us, full of clothes. She showed it me when I got home and they were uniforms and things like that, and books and things. It must have been one that John left behind he hadn't told us about, or we'd forgotten. Anyway, there was a little box in it full of white stones, cut like jewels, if you understand me. Do you think they'd be the diamonds ?'

'Did you count them?' asked the solicitor. 'How many of them are there?'

'Half a minute, and I'll count them now,' said Keith. There was a pause. ' Forty-seven,' he said.

' That is the number of the stones that Mr Franck sold to John Dermott,' the solicitor replied. 'I should think you probably have found them, Mr Stewart. That's very fortunate, very fortunate indeed.'

'What had I better do with them?'

Mr Carpenter thought for a moment. 'They'll have to go back to Mr Franck as soon as possible,' he said, 'to be sold for the benefit of the estate. We shall have to re-open the matter with the Estate Duty Officer - but that comes later. I'll ring Mr Franck at once. Could you bring them up to my office tomorrow morning, if I ask him to come round? Say about ten-thirty ?'

'That's all right for me,' said Keith.

'You'll have to be careful of them tonight,' said the solicitor. 'If they're the diamonds, they're worth £27,000. It's just like having so much cash in the house with you. Does anybody else know about them ?'

'Not a soul,' said Keith. 'I haven't even told Katie. Arid there's no one in the house now, to hear us talking.' ' 'Well, be careful of them, and don't tell your wife or anyone. You'd better take a taxi in the morning, straight from your house right up to this office. I'll expect you at ten-thirty.'

Keith walked into the solicitor's office next morning, dressed in his soiled old raincoat and holding his dirty old felt hat in his hand. There was a florid man with Mr Carpenter, with curly black hair, middle-aged. They both got up when Keith came in. The solicitor said, 'Good morning, Mr Stewart. Mr Stewart, this is Mr Franck, ofRosenblaum and Franck, the diamond merchants.'

Keith said, 'Good morning,' and shook hands.

Mr Carpenter asked,' Did you bring those stones up with you, Mr Stewart?'

'I've got them here,' said Keith. He pulled a little cardboard box out of his jacket pocket and gave it to the solicitor. Mr Carpenter opened it, glanced inside, and handed it to Mr Franck.

The diamond merchant took it, glanced at the contents, and frowned. He took a monocle magnifying glass from his waistcoat pocket and fitted it in his right eye. Then he selected one of the largest stones and carried it to the window for a better light. He stood in silence for a minute scrutinizing it. Then he scratched it with his thumbnail and examined it again.

'What's this yellow stuff all over them?' he asked.

' I don't know,' said Keith. ' That's how I found them. Is there something wrong?'

'There's this yellow, gummy deposit on them,' said the diamond merchant. ' Have they been stored in oil ?'

'Not since yesterday,' said Keith truthfully. 'That's all I know.' He paused, and asked a little anxiously, ' Would it matter if they had ?'

Mr Franck shook his head. ' It'll polish off. I can scratch it off with my nail. They're diamonds all right,' he said. 'At least, this one is.'

He came back to the desk and put the stone in. the box with the others. From his attache case he took a little black leather case, opened it on the desk, and erected a tiny set of scales with minute weights handled by a pair of forceps. He weighed them all together, very carefully. Then he pulled a typed list from his pocket and consulted it. 'Ninety-seven carats,' he said thoughtfully. 'The diamonds that I sold Commander Dermott totalled ninety-two carats. But then, they've got this deposit on them now . . .' He took the two largest stones and weighed them carefully, and the two smallest stones, again consulting his list. He counted them for number.

Finally he put the lid on to the cardboard box and put away the scales. ' I think there can be very little doubt that these stones are the stones I sold Commander Dermott,' he said.' I can't be absolutely sure until we have them polished and examine each stone individually. I should like to take them and have that done, giving you a receipt for them, of course. Then I suppose that you would want them to be sold?'

A few minutes later he left the office, taking the diamonds with him, asking the office girl to call a taxi to the door. Keith said, 'Well, I'll be getting along. You'll let me know what happens ?' He got up and reached for his old, shabby hat.