Sergeant Jameson strode in, crying, “What’s this, sir? That foreigner’s pinched the big ruby?”
“It’s gone,” said Alec, “but I have absolutely no evidence on which to hold the Grand Duke, especially as most of the rest of the unset precious stones are missing.”
“Oh lor’!” groaned Jameson. “On my watch, too!”
“Mine,” Grange wailed.
“Now that’s what I’m trying to find out.” Alec’s patience appeared to be wearing thin. “How soon would the substitution of paste gems be noticed? It seems Mr. Grange needs a machine to tell the good from the bad.”
Grange was beyond lucidity. Randell spoke for him.
“Ages, to be frank. We can go for weeks without any reason to examine the stuff on display in the gallery. It’s for the public, and not many of them know anything. Occasionally, we get accredited experts coming to take a look. We open up the cases for them, of course.”
“How long since you did that?”
“Weeks. A couple of months, at least.”
“Would you know if Dr. Pettigrew had shown anyone the jewels more recently?”
“Not necessarily,” said Randell, shaking his head.
Daisy put in her twopenn’orth. “Dr. Pettigrew opened one case and let Belinda and Derek hold a couple of opals.”
Alec had not hitherto noticed her presence. His mouth tightened in exasperation. “The opals have not been stolen,” he said irritably. “It seems they are virtually impossible to imitate. What you are saying, Mr. Randell, is that weeks can pass without any of the mineralogy staff so much as glancing at the contents of the cases?”
“Glancing, yes, especially when lecturing to parties of visitors. Examining, no. What’s on display has already been thoroughly investigated. Besides, as you’ve seen, for the most part it’s practically impossible to tell good strass glass from the real thing without instruments. A large ruby in bright sunshine …” He shrugged. “What are the chances of someone knowledgeable happening to look when the sun happened to strike it?”
“So the theft could have occurred weeks ago,” Alec sighed. “I must telephone my superintendent.”
“The Director will have to be told,” said Grange unhappily. “He’s at a symposium in Cambridge.”
“I’ll have someone at the Yard try to get hold of him,” Alec offered, and he went off to the Keeper’s office.
Tring gratefully accepted the loan of the camera and started photographing fingerprints. Ernie Piper, intercepting the worried commissionaire, tried to explain with gesture, paper, and pencil what had happened. Grange and Randell muttered together.
“It was that Grand Duke done it,” Sergeant Jameson said to Daisy.
“I doubt it. Actually, he drew Mr. Grange’s attention to the ruby in the first place.”
“That’d be a ruse, miss, so’s people’d think like you. Knowing it’d be found gorn in the end, see, and everyone’d suspect him right away, because of him claiming it’s his.”
“Well, if I’d stolen a ruby, I wouldn’t keep going back and laying claim to the substitute. Besides, lots of other jewels are missing, too.”
“So we don’t notice the ruby special, miss,” Jameson explained earnestly. “It’s another ruse. They’re cunning, these foreigners. Specially the Huns.”
As an example of muddled reasoning, that took the biscuit. Jameson would never make it into the plainclothes branch, Daisy decided. Nevertheless, she persevered.
“It seems to me it must have been a museum employee,” she said. “None of the cases was broken open, and only they had access to the keys.”
“Skellingtons,” said the sergeant darkly.
Daisy’s mind flew momentarily to the fossils down below, especially the Pareiasaurus Pettigrew had wrecked in dying. Was there a connection? Then she realized, “Oh, skeleton keys. I suppose it’s possible. But surely the theft couldn’t have taken place during opening hours, and the Grand Duke couldn’t have got in when the museum was shut.”
“Could’ve hid, couldn’t he? I mean, the night shift patrols the whole building, but it’s a big place, you can’t look everywhere with just a sergeant and two constables on duty, and the lighting in the basement’s something chronic. So I reckon the Grand Duke hid hisself at closing time—not in here, prob’ly, ’cause we check in here pretty thorough before we lock up—but if he’s got skellington keys for the cases he could have one for the big gate, too. See?”
He beamed when Daisy conceded he had made a persuasivecase for the Grand Duke obtaining access. She did not bother to tell him she still failed to believe Rudolf Maximilian would have drawn attention to the false ruby if he were the thief.
Alec returned, looking harried, and went to confer with Tring. Piper joined them, then Alec and Piper haled Grange and Randell off to the interrogation chamber. Tring came over to Daisy and the sergeant.
