“Yes, I’m afraid so. One of the staff, not a visitor.”
“Oh.” She sounded relieved. “Who was it? Aunt Daisy knows lots of them.”
“Dr. Pettigrew.”
“Isn’t he the stone man? I’m sorry it was him. He was nice to me and Derek … Derek and me, though he was perfectly horrid to the Grand Duke. Poor man! Will you find who did it?”
“Of course, pet,” Alec assured her, though so far he felt he was floundering in mud to the waist, without solid ground in sight. He bent to kiss her. “Nighty-night, sleep tight.”
“Mind the bugs don’t bite,” Bel responded drowsily.
He turned at the door to look at her. She was already fast asleep. She had no doubts of his competence. Nor, he reminded himself, of the rightness of his marrying Daisy.
Sam Johnson described a second marriage as the triumph of hope over experience. He was talking about a bad first marriage, though, and Alec had been very happy with Joan. Yet to be lucky twice seemed too much to hope for.
All life was a gamble, he reminded himself. If Daisy was prepared to take a gamble on him, then how could he not reciprocate?
Besides, he couldn’t live without her, even when her interference in a case was driving him round the bend.
She was not interfering, Daisy assured herself. She could hardly interview the victim’s senior assistant in the victim’s private office without making some reference to the deceased. And it would be rude to cut him off in the middleof his account of Pettigrew’s determination to master flint-flaking and his malicious triumph in his growing success.
At last Grange exhausted the subject. Daisy embarked on her questions about the work of the Mineralogy Department, and Grange suggested they should go along to the gallery to look at specimens.
For the first time in ages, the sun was shining. Brilliant light flooded through the tall windows on the south side of the gallery, lighting dancing dust-motes and gleaming on polished wood and glass. The fishy mouldings on the rectangular pillars stood out in sharp relief.
With measured steps, Pavett patrolled the gallery. There were few visitors, several school parties having cancelled trips because of the murder, Daisy gathered. But over by the windows, the sun picked out a pale blue uniform garnished with a surfeit of gold. The Grand Duke was leaning over the display case that held the ruby.
“Dash it!” Grange exclaimed. “He’s back. I’d better go and see what he’s up to. Excuse me a minute, Miss Dalrymple.”
Naturally Daisy followed. At the sound of their approaching footsteps, Rudolf Maximilian looked up with a frown. He beckoned imperiously and Grange hurried.
“You work here,nein?Come, see mine ruby.”
“Not yours,” Grange muttered half-heartedly, bending over the case.
Catching up, Daisy saw that the Transcarpathia ruby was in full sunlight. The stone cast a pool of red light, all too reminiscent of blood.
Grange straightened, his face pale. “That’s not beryllium aluminium silicate,” he gasped, with an accusing glare at the Grand Duke. “That’s paste. Strass glass. What have you done with the ruby?”
9
“Don’t touch!” Alec commanded.
Much to Daisy’s relief, he had miraculously appeared in the mineral gallery just as Grange made his accusation and pulled his bunch of keys from his pocket. A uniformed constable now stood by the iron-grated entrance. Tom Tring had gone first to the commissionaire, notebook in hand, then joined Ernie Piper in approaching each visitor and asking them to leave.
“Are you certain it’s not the real thing?” Alec continued.
“Fairly certain,” Grange said grimly. “It’s not easy to tell with the naked eye, but with the sun full on it, I ought to be able to see the ‘silk.’ I can’t.”
“Silk?”
“Rutile inclusions.” The explanation left his listeners none the wiser. “A closer look will settle the matter.”
“To me appears it not right,” put in the Grand Duke. “Mine muzzer and mine sister had once many gems. I know how should look, how should sparkle.”
“I bet you do,” snapped Grange, “since you pinched it.”
The Grand Duke drew himself up stiffly to his fullheight. “If you was nobleman,” he declared, “I meet you at dawn. In Transcarpathia, I take the horsewhip.”
