‘A clerical error,’ he said magnificently. ‘The necklace, I think. Now would you identify this, please?’
He opened the box with a flourish and took out the shimmering string of loveliness within. La Chatelaine hung over his stubby fingers and glistened like frozen tears in the grey and ugly room. Petronella took them and her face lit up.
‘Oh, this is marvellous!’ she said. ‘Oh, bless you! Where did you find them?’
‘One moment, Miss.’ Oates turned to a plump and shining little man who had been sitting unnoticed on the other side of Mr Campion and who now came forward.
‘Yes,’ he said, taking the string delicately from the girl. ‘Yes, definitely. I can identify them. This is La Chatelaine. It has been through our hands several times for restringing and so on. We attend to all Lady Lamartine’s magnificent collection of jewellery. Dear me, I never thought we should see this in its present lovely state again. You are to be congratulated, Superintendent. If these pearls had been separated it would have been a sin, a major sin.’
He dropped them back into the cotton-wool with a little gesture which was almost a caress.
Leo Seazon coughed. His face was expressionless but quite composed. He conveyed the impression of a man gallantly concealing a deep disappointment.
‘Well, now are you satisfied, my dear?’ he murmured. ‘The necklace goes back to its – ah – rightful owner, I suppose?’
‘I am taking the pearls to her ladyship tonight personally, sir,’ said Oates. ‘She’ll be very glad to see them.’
‘I have no doubt of that,’ said Seazon dryly and a little unpleasantly, but Petronella silenced him.
‘How did you get them?’ she demanded.
The Superintendent smiled.
‘Police methods,’ he said airily, avoiding Campion’s eyes. ‘The crook who performed the robbery in the first place was arrested and sent to jail. That was nearly seven years ago. We recovered practically everything he had had his hands on except the pearls. He’d hidden those in a place we didn’t think of searching, under a floorboard in his young lady’s father’s flat. He didn’t even trust her and the family left while he was in jail, so that when he came out and went back for his swag, he found the place had been done up and turned into fashionable little residences. As soon as he was certain he was not being watched, he made an attempt to get into the flat by telling the maid there that he was from the electric light company, but he was disturbed and went off without finding out if his cache was still undiscovered. At this time he was working as a waiter at the Spinning Wheel Club in the West End and the same evening he saw a guest come in wearing the very necklace he was after.’
Oates paused and a laugh of pure relief escaped Petronella.
‘And so he stole them again?’ she said. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Oh, Geoffrey!’
Leo Seazon watched the young man go over to her and his round dark eyes were not pleasant.
‘Very interesting,’ he said briefly. ‘It’ll make a delightful story. I must add it to my repertoire.’
There was a moment of silence. The young people stared at him in consternation and Petronella put out her hand.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she said huskily. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t?’
He regarded her coldly.
‘My dear child, I don’t see why not,’ he said drily and turned towards the door.
Campion rose.
‘I say, don’t go,’ he murmured affably. ‘Hear the rest of the story, since it interests you. Our Mr Roberts, the original crook, didn’t steal La Chatelaine in the Spinning Wheel.’
Leo Seazon swung round slowly and Campion went on, still in the light and pleasant tone that his enemies disliked so much.
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Our Mr Roberts, Mr “Stones” Roberts, merely saw the jewels at the club. He followed them and found it impractical to attempt to recover them that night. He hung about long enough to see where they were hidden, however, and made his plans to steal them. Unfortunately for him he took so long reconnoitring that by the time he made his successful attempt last night he had a couple of policemen on his tail. They caught him just as he was coming out of the house with La Chatelaine in his pocket. It was a “fair cop”, as he said himself. Does that improve the story, Mr Seazon?’
The handsome man with the distinguished iron-grey curls attempted to bluster, but his face was haggard.
‘I don’t understand your inference,’ he began.
‘Don’t you?’ said Campion. ‘Oh, well, then, you’re going to get a jolly surprise as well, because the house from which Mr Roberts took La Chatelaine last night was your house, Mr Seazon, and Mr Roberts, in the statement which he has made to the police, distinctly says that he followed you home after seeing you slip the necklace off Miss Andrews’s shoulders as you were helping her off with her evening cloak in the Spinning Wheel. It may be a lie, as I see you are about to suggest, but he was coming out of your house when he was taken with the pearls on him and he has described the drawer in the desk in your study from which he says he took them.’
‘Ridiculous! Why should I steal? I’m a rich man.’ Mr Seazon’s voice was not too steady.
Campion looked at Miss Andrews.
‘There’s a frightfully trite old saying about wealth not being able to buy one everything one wants,’ he said. ‘Well, there you are. I’ve said my piece. It’s up to Miss Andrews to prosecute.’
Petronella turned a pale, horrified face from her erstwhile admirer.
‘I won’t. I won’t, of course, if only he doesn’t talk,’ she said.
Campion held open the door to the retreating Leo Seazon.
‘He won’t, I’m sure,’ he said clearly. ‘But if he should, well, you can always change your mind, can’t you? It remains at your discretion, my children.’
In the background Oates chuckled.
‘Lay you six to four he don’t send you two a wedding present,’ he said.
Also available in Vintage Murder Mysteries
MARGERY ALLINGHAM
The Case of the Late Pig
‘Margery Allingham has precious few peers and no superiors’ Sunday Times
Private detective Albert Campion is summoned to the village of Kepesake to investigate a particularly distasteful death. The body turns out to be that of Pig Peters, freshly killed five months after his own funeral. Soon other corpses start to turn up, just as Peters’s body goes missing. It takes all Campion’s coolly incisive powers of detection to unravel the crime.
MARGERY ALLINGHAM
Flowers for the Judge
‘Don’t start reading these books unless you are confident that you can handle addiction’ Independent
The secrets of the respected publishing house of Barnabas Ltd. stretch back many years, but when one of the directors is found dead, locked in the company’s strongroom, it’s time for private detective Albert Campion to set to work, puzzling out the mysteries.
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Copyright © P. and M. Youngman Carter Ltd 1939
Margery Allingham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann in 1939
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library