Chapter Three — Cocoa and Questions
The gallery office was a small, paper-smelling room behind the great hall, and on the desk stood the thing itself: the Dovedale topaz parure, resting in its open velvet case.
Verity counted without seeming to count.
Five matched golden topazes in the necklace, each the size of a hazelnut.
A pair of drop earrings. A sunburst brooch with a single fine stone.
Eight topazes in all, every one present.
"It is magnificent," she said. "And it never left this case last night?"
"Never," said Miss Honoria Fenn, Sir Basil's secretary, a neat young woman with ink on one finger. "The case was locked in the office, the office locked for the night, and I hold the only key but Sir Basil's."
"And yet," said Verity, "someone stole the painting of it, and left it."
Miss Fenn folded her hands. "I cannot account for it, my lady. Unless —" she hesitated. "The portrait was insured for five hundred pounds. Sir Basil mentioned it at the committee."
Alexander looked up from the cocoa tin he had been examining on the pantry shelf. "Five hundred? That is a motive with whiskers on."
"It is a motive with no sense on," said Verity. "If you mean to claim the insurance, you wait until after the unveiling, when the whole town has seen the painting. You do not steal it the night before, when half Cheltenham would say it never existed."
She turned to the cocoa tin. The lid, when Alexander prized it off, showed a fine dusting of gold — gilder's dust, the kind that floats off gold leaf and settles on a frame-maker's cuffs.
"Miss Fenn," said Verity, "do you ever gild picture frames?"
"My lady! Certainly not."
"Who was in this pantry yesterday afternoon?"
Miss Fenn thought. "Only Mr. Flick, delivering the great frame. He asked for a glass of water, and I — I stepped out to fetch Sir Basil's letters, not a minute." Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh. Oh, my."
"Digby's cocoa," said Verity softly. "Uncommon sweet last night."
They found Digby polishing the gallery's door handles with the air of a man polishing his own conscience, and Verity asked to see the dregs of last night's cocoa cup, which Digby had — from sentiment — not washed.
"Verity, you are not going to taste it."
"I am absolutely going to taste it." She did. "Sugar — a great deal of it — and beneath it, bitter. Laudanum, I should say. Someone sugared Digby's sleep, Alexander. Someone who knew he takes his cocoa at half past eleven."
"Miss Fenn brings the cocoa," said Alexander.
"And Miss Fenn never gilds," said Verity. "But a frame-maker, alone in the pantry for one minute with the cocoa tin —"
She was interrupted by the arrival of Lady Amelia Dovedale herself, in a carriage, in a bonnet, in a state. Lady Amelia was a handsome woman of fifty, and she clutched Verity's hands as though Verity were a life-raft.
"My portrait! My beautiful portrait! And the unveiling tomorrow — the orchestra engaged, the whole town coming —" She dabbed her eyes.
"Do you know what is worst? The parure was to sit in its case beside the portrait, so all could compare Mr. Wren's jewels with the true stones.
And next week is the centenary ball, when I shall wear the topazes for their hundred years in our family. "
"Your ladyship," said Verity gently, "has anyone admired the parure lately? Asked after it particularly?"
"Mr. Flick — the frame-maker — was most attentive at the last sitting. Asked whether I should wear the parure at the ball. I said of course — the Dovedale topazes have been worn at every family triumph for a hundred years." She shivered. "Why do you ask?"
Verity patted her hand and said nothing, but as the carriage rolled away she turned to Alexander with her eyes very bright.
"He asked if she would wear the parure at the ball," she said. "Alexander — I know why someone stole a painting of jewels instead of the jewels."
"Tell me in the carriage," said Alexander, "before you burst."
"In the carriage," Verity agreed, "I shall want two peppermints. It is a two-peppermint deduction."