Chapter One #2
The shower was ending and sunset blazed through the clouds when they reached the hill down into Port Mabyn.
At the top, before the slope steepened, a rash of pastel holiday bungalows spread across what had been meadows.
There was a mini-supermarket, closed now, and a gravelled public car park.
From here there was a good view over the old part of town: Grey stone and whitewashed cottages, slate-roofed, clustered about the stream and up the steep slopes on either side.
Most were accessible only via a labyrinth of footpaths and steps.
A narrow stone bridge crossed the stream just before it widened into a crooked inlet of the sea, between rocky, precipitous headlands.
Within the sheltering arm of a stone-built jetty, three fishing boats at anchor bobbed on the dark water.
Eleanor drove on down, past the post office–newsagent–sweet shop, past the Trelawney Arms, Bob Leacock’s police station, B and below, smaller, in black script: The London Save the Starving Council.
She had pulled the Morris as far out of the roadway as possible, with two wheels on the pavement, two on the double yellow lines. The bonnet nudged a NO PARKING sign, leaving Eleanor barely room enough to open the door.
“Wait,” she said firmly to Teazle, then once she was out, “All right, come.”
The Westie sprang over the handbrake and down to the pavement and went to sit before a blue-painted door to one side of the shop. Her short tail vibrated with impatient joy. Home!
Eleanor retrieved the keys from the ignition and went to unlock the door.
After some fruitless fiddling, she discovered she had forgotten to lock it when she left, a not infrequent occurrence.
Really, modern Western life was so complicated, she reflected with a sigh.
It made one quite nostalgic for the rondavels of Botswana or the stilt villages of Malaysia.
She let Teazle in and the terrier scampered along the passage to the far end, then up the stairs on the right.
Once stepped on, twice shy, she would wait outside the door to the flat, well out of the way of the hordes of tramping feet that would soon be carrying goods to the stockroom at the back.
Eleanor turned on the light in the passage, a dim bulb dangling from the ceiling near the top of the stairs.
Then she went back to the car to begin unloading, serene in the expectation that those hordes would arrive at any moment to help.
Tipping forward the driving seat, she reached for the bag of clothes Teazle had been sitting on.
Beneath it was a black attaché-case. Eleanor frowned.
She didn’t remember anyone donating an attaché-case for LonStar.
Her memory for practical matters had never been of the best, but she usually knew exactly who had given her what.
Picking it up by the handle—it was surprisingly heavy—she carried it and the bag of clothes through the blue door.
Near the far end of the passage, opposite the foot of the stairs, was the door to the stockroom.
This she had inconveniently remembered to lock, or, more likely, Mrs Davies had locked it when she left after closing the shop.
Eleanor set down her burdens and felt in her pocket for her keys.
Where on earth had she left them now? Ah, dangling from the lock of the street door, of course.
Keys retrieved, she took the clothes and the attaché-case into the stockroom.
The bag of clothes she dropped on the floor in the back corner, out of the way of the shelves and racks of already-priced goods awaiting space in the shop.
The attaché-case she set on the long trestle table used by volunteers more businesslike than herself to sort and price the donated items.
Through the high window, the setting sun flooded the room with rosy light.
As far as Eleanor could tell, the attaché-case was real leather, not one of the modern substitutes.
It was in good condition, one corner just a trifle scuffed, but unfortunately on the top edge was an embossed monogram, the kind with superimposed, intertwined letters which are hard to make out—D, A, and W, she thought.
One couldn’t expect a customer with the same initials to happen to come into the shop in search of an attaché-case.
The letters weren’t conspicuous, though, half-hidden by the handle and not picked out in gilt.
She’d better see whether anything had been left inside it, on purpose or by accident.
Laying the case flat on the table top, she pressed back the shiny brass catches, opened it, and gasped.
On a bed of black velvet, a tangled heap of jewelry glittered and gleamed, gold, ruby-red, emerald-green, sapphire, amethyst, and the hard sparkle of diamond.
With tentative fingers, Eleanor picked out a bracelet and held it up to the light. Purple stones glowed with an inner fire.
Paste, of course, or the modern equivalent, but paste of excellent quality. Even if they were artificial gems, they must be quite valuable. How very generous people were, she thought, a little misty-eyed.
And doing good by stealth, too, not wanting to be thanked, slipping the case into her car when she was not watching, as if it were manna from Heaven.
What the kind donor unfortunately didn’t realise was that valuable gifts had to be documented. Jocelyn was going to have forty fits when she discovered that Eleanor had no paperwork, no signatures, to vouch for the provenance of the jewelry.
Nor had she the slightest idea of the identity of the giver.