Chapter Five — The Unveiling
She knocked. After a long moment, the door opened, and there stood Mr. Jonas Flick in his apron, and behind him, face to the wall and half-covered with a dust sheet, stood a large canvas in a magnificent gilt frame.
And on his workbench, in a velvet-lined tray, lay five golden lumps of paste, half-shaped, catching the lamplight like captured lamplight — almost.
"Mr. Flick," said Verity pleasantly, holding up the little brass loupe, "I believe you left this in Mr. Wren's sketchbook. You were reading the topazes, were you not? Stone by stone."
Flick looked at the loupe. He looked at the canvas. He looked at Verity. And the fight went out of him like air from a bellows.
"I only ever wanted their likeness," he muttered. "Wren paints them so true a jeweller could copy the whole parure and never mistake a stone. I meant to exchange the paste copies at the centenary ball, when she wore the real ones among the crowd —"
"You meant to leave Lady Amelia wearing glass at her own ball," said Verity. "The constable will want the rest of the story, Mr. Flick. The laudanum in Digby's cocoa. The gold dust on the tin. Digby waved 'the frame man' through himself — you counted on that."
The portrait was recovered that night, quite unharmed.
The unveiling, when it came, was everything the theft had tried to prevent, and a little more.
The great hall of the Cheltenham Gallery glowed with candlelight.
The little orchestra — engaged for the occasion — struck up a waltz.
And Digby, the night porter, wide awake and polished within an inch of his life, was granted the honour of drawing the curtain cord, which he did with such ceremony that he nearly pulled down the curtain, the cord, and a small landscape, before the portrait stood revealed at last.
It was worth the wait. Lady Amelia, in gold silk, stood as if about to step forward into a dance, a ballroom shimmering behind her.
At her throat glowed the five Dovedale topazes; the matching earrings caught the light; the sunburst brooch burned at her shoulder.
Every jewel faithful — so faithful that Lady Amelia burst into tears and forgave it entirely for taking ten years off her.
Beside the portrait, in its velvet case, sat the true parure, so that all the town could compare Mr. Wren's jewels with the real stones, exactly as planned.
Mr. Wren took three bows and sketched the orchestra on the back of a programme.
Sir Basil made a speech in which the words "under my chairmanship" appeared eleven times.
And Tom Pye was discovered teaching Digby's granddaughter how to hold a brush, which Digby watched with his chest out like a pigeon.
"He never touched the real stones," Verity told Lady Amelia, as they stood before the portrait together.
"That was the cleverness of it, and the cruelty.
He did not want your topazes yet — he wanted their likeness.
A thief who steals the picture of jewels, and leaves the jewels, is a thief who means to come back for the jewels later, and leave you wearing glass at your own ball. "
Lady Amelia shuddered. "My centenary ball — ruined?"
"Saved," said Verity firmly. "Wear them, your ladyship. Wear them and dance. That is the best revenge on any thief — to enjoy the thing he coveted."
So Lady Amelia did. The orchestra played another waltz, and — because Alexander asked very nicely, and because Verity's new slippers were not entirely innocent of the matter — Lord and Lady Crowe waltzed.
"You know," said Alexander, steering her expertly around a potted palm, "when you lined up those peppermints like soldiers, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I had married the cleverest woman in Cheltenham. Possibly England. The palm agrees with me."
"The palm," said Verity, "is a palm." But she was smiling, and she let him keep the last peppermint, which in their marriage meant a great deal.
The waltz ended. The candles burned low. And as they drove home under a thin, kind moon, Alexander unfolded the evening's post, which had followed them to the gallery, and read aloud a letter on thick cream paper.
"'Lord and Lady Crowe are most warmly invited to the great Frost Fair upon the frozen Thames, where the celebrated Hartfield garnet necklace will be displayed in a grotto of ice —'"
He stopped. Verity had gone very still.
"Read the rest," she said.
"'— which,'" Alexander read, "'vanished during the skating demonstration, while a thousand people watched the ice.'"
Verity reached for her peppermint tin. It was empty.
"Alexander," she said, "buy more peppermints. We are going to need skates."