Chapter Four — The Pattern-Book
In the carriage, Verity lined up her peppermints on the seat between them like soldiers.
"One," she said, touching the first, "only the painting was taken. The real parure, worth a fortune, left untouched in a locked office. So our thief did not want topazes. He wanted the PICTURE of topazes."
"Two." The second peppermint. "Mr. Wren paints jewels so faithfully that — in his own words — a jeweller could set stones from his canvas. His portrait was not a painting to our thief. It was a pattern-book."
Alexander frowned. "A pattern for what?"
"Three." The third peppermint. "A jeweller's loupe, not Wren's, not Tom's, tucked into the sketchbook among the jewel studies.
Someone has been reading those studies stone by stone.
Four — Mr. Flick, twice at the studio, asking 'how true the jewels were; would a jeweller know each stone?
' Five — gilder's gold dust on the cocoa tin lid, and Mr. Flick alone in the pantry for one minute.
Six — Digby's cocoa, sugared and drugged, and Digby waving through 'the frame man' with a picture under his arm, the wire of the frame uncut because a frame-maker lifts a canvas the way a shepherd lifts a lamb. "
Alexander stared at her. "Flick means to copy the parure."
"In paste," said Verity. "Five matched topazes, the earrings, the brooch — copied stone for stone from Wren's faithful canvas, which he can study at his leisure now that it hangs in his workshop instead of a gallery. And then —"
"The centenary ball," Alexander breathed.
"Where Lady Amelia will wear the real parure, in a crowd, by candlelight — and sometime between the dancing and the supper, the true stones are exchanged for the false ones, and no one knows for months.
" Verity gathered up her peppermint soldiers and ate the first in triumph.
"He did not steal the jewels, Alexander, because he means to steal them later — and leave Lady Amelia wearing glass. "
Alexander was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "That is diabolical."
"It is geometry," said Verity. "Theft with a pencil first, and fingers later."
"But why the portrait and not the sketchbook? The studies were in the studio—"
"Because the sketchbook never leaves Wren's side, and the portrait hung in a public gallery where a frame-maker comes and goes freely.
Also —" she smiled, "— because stealing a sketchbook looks like theft, and carrying a painting out under your arm looks like a frame-maker working late. Digby waved him through, remember."
The carriage turned into the narrow lane where Jonas Flick kept his workshop — gilder, frame-maker, and, if Verity was right, something else entirely.
"Now," said Alexander, squaring his shoulders, "we shall catch him red-handed. I shall pick the lock — I saw it done in a play once — with this paintbrush —"
"Alexander." Verity took the paintbrush away from him before he could wedge it anywhere unfortunate. "We shall knock."