However, Dr. Pettigrew greeted her courteously and answered her questions painstakingly, if with a heavy patience which suggested ill-disguised scorn for her ignorance. She finished by asking about the rock samples strewn on the work-bench under one window.
“Just some bits and pieces I picked up in Cornwall, on my summer holiday. Nothing of great value,” he added, but he rose from his desk chair and went over to the table.
“Isn’t that gold?” Daisy enquired, following, as a yellow gleam caught her eye.
“No, I’m afraid not. There is a little gold in Cornwall, but that’s just iron pyrites. Often known as fool’s gold.”
Daisy laughed. “I see why. And the others? What are those green crystals?”
“Polished up nicely, hasn’t it? That’s torbernite, a phosphate of copper and uranium. These blue crystals are azurite, a copper ore. Both copper and uranium are mined in Cornwall. It’s an area rich in useful minerals, zinc, lead, arsenic, wolfram, and tin, of course, which the Phoenicians came to trade for. This is its ore, cassiterite. Then there are the building stones, granite, sandstone, and slate; and mica; and the pigments ochre and umber. Useful stuff,” he repeated insistently, “not like those ancient, crumbling bones downstairs which absorb so much money and effort.”
Fearing a tirade, Daisy hastily finished scribbling shorthand hieroglyphics and said, “I’d better be getting along. I left two children in the gallery. Thank you for all your help.”
“Children? Maybe they would like a piece of pyrites each. Here—no, I’ll come along.”
They found Belinda and Derek entranced by the display of opals. Pettigrew actually unlocked the case and allowed each of them to hold one of the iridescent stones while he lectured them on the subject. Though he was rather condescending, it was kind of him, Daisy thought. She decided Ol’ Stony was not so stony-hearted as he was painted, in spite of his rudeness to Smith Woodward—unless the story of his brutality to the one-legged commissionaire was true.
She looked around. Between the rectangular pillars embossed, oddly enough, with sea creatures, she caught glimpses of a commissionaire’s uniform. The youngish man patrolling the aisles appeared to have a full complement of limbs. Of course, she couldn’t tell whether he was deaf, and even if he was, it would not prove Sergeant Hamm’s tale.
Pettigrew locked away the opals and gave the children the two small chunks of fool’s gold. He was starting to explain them, when the sound of the commissionaire’s footsteps nearby made him look round.
He frowned irritably. Then he looked beyond the approaching commissionaire and broke into a furious scowl. Abruptly deserting Daisy and the children, he stormed off towards a figure bending over one of the cases.
“There’s that damn fellow again. Hi, you!” he shouted. “What have you come back for?”
All over the gallery heads turned—except the undoubtedly deaf commissionaire’s. The object of Pettigrew’s ire straightened and swung round. Daisy saw that he was a slim young man, whose longish fair hair, parted in the middle andcarefully slicked down on top, matched a sweeping cavalry moustache.
The most notable aspect of his appearance, however, was his dress. His uniform would not have disgraced a foreign grandee in a Gilbert and Sullivan production, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, perhaps, or Prince Hilarion. The pale blue tunic with crimson facings was lavishly frogged and laced with gold, and bore the ribbons, stars, and sunbursts of at least a dozen orders. A crimson sash topped cream breeches, which descended into knee-boots with gold tassels.
The plumed helmet and ceremonial sword required by such a costume were absent. Daisy wondered whether he had left them in the cloakroom or had balked at wearing them in public.
On the other hand, he could hardly appear in public with a bowler, a soft felt, a topper, or a cloth cap to crown that get-up!
“What’s that uniform, Aunt Daisy?” asked Derek, who had a vast collection of lead soldiers at home.
Daisy’s confession of ignorance was drowned.
“I told you there’s nothing doing!” Pettigrew’s angry voice rang from end to end of the eighty-yard-long gallery.
The stranger’s was not as loud but reached Daisy and the children. “Dieser Rubin—dis ruby—belong mine family,” he said in a determined tone, his solid, obstinate jaw jutting.
“Oh, a foreigner,” said Derek dismissively.
“Used to belong,usedto belong,” corrected Pettigrew. “It’s mine now—the museum’s.”
“I ask for it to return.”
“You haven’t a hope in hell!”
“I ask de king, mine cousin.”
“Your sixteenth cousin fifteen times removed,” Pettigrewsnorted. “In any case, the old queen gave it to the British Museum. You’re out of luck. Get out of my gallery.”
“Here is public place,nicht wahr?” the young man demanded sullenly. “I may at mine ruby look.”
The Keeper glared but gave in. “I’ve got my eye on you,” he threatened, then retreated to bellow at the commissionaire to keep an eye on the interloper. There, too, he was defeated. Daisy saw him writing down instructions.
“May we go and look at his ruby?” Belinda asked. “It must be extra special.”
