The Case of the Diamond Shadow Page 2

  Daisy was relieved to see that Miss Grantley was busy on the telephone when she finally walked into the office. Phew! thought Daisy as she slid into her place and instantly started on the letter that was by her machine. The boring task would give her time to think how to break the news to Miss Grantley.

  But she had been rattling away for only a minute or so when Miss Grantley put the phone down. ‘Miss Miller!’ she called from her office. ‘I’d like a word with you.’

  Uh-oh, thought Daisy as she scuttled past the curious glances of the other girls. Miss Grantley shut the door behind her. She did not ask Daisy to sit down.

  ‘So you want to leave us, Miss Miller?’

  Daisy flinched. People said Miss Grantley had spies everywhere! She began, ‘Well, I …’

  ‘Leaving us,’ interrupted Miss Grantley, ‘after all the good training and experience you have had here.’ Her helmet of stiffly-sprayed silver hair quivered with indignation. Daisy tried to speak, but Miss Grantley cut her off. ‘You modern girls just don’t know how to settle to anything.’

  ‘Miss Grantley, I …’

  ‘I just received a telephone call, Miss Miller, from a Mrs Helena Peabody. She’s the widow of an Australian millionaire jeweller, I believe.’ She managed to make the sentence sound very disbelieving indeed, as if such a combination was quite impossible. ‘She said she wishes to engage your services and would I give you a good reference?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Grantley?’ Daisy said meekly.

  ‘I told her the truth. I said you are a good typist and you do your work well, but without soul. I said you weren’t a born secretary, though competent. Your heart isn’t in it. I said you are like most young women these days, frivolous, flighty, and too curious by half.’ She glared at Daisy, as if daring her to disagree. ‘I said I wouldn’t be sorry to lose you.’

  Daisy’s heart sank. It was hardly a ringing endorsement. She wouldn’t blame Mrs Peabody if she had second thoughts. ‘Oh,’ she said, weakly.

  ‘Mrs Peabody asked me to let you go straightaway. Well, I wouldn’t do, only she offered to pay for a temporary girl to take your place from tomorrow, till I should find a permanent replacement.’

  Daisy’s eyes widened. Miss Grantley smiled sourly. ‘You must really have made an impression, Miss Miller. Can’t think why.’ Her eyes raked over Daisy. ‘You’d better watch out for yourself, young lady,’ she snapped. ‘The world isn’t a bed of roses, you know. Or if it seems like it, the thorns are only hiding beneath the petals.’

  ‘No, Miss Grantley,’ said Daisy, obediently, though inwardly she was exulting. Yes! It was really happening! What did she care about the Dragon’s stupid sayings? What did a dried-up old maid like her, who only cared about nice typing and neat margins, know about the world?

  ‘Off you go, Miss Miller. Finish what you’ve been doing, and clear out your desk this afternoon. You can call at the cashier’s for your final wages before you leave this evening.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Grantley,’ stammered Daisy. ‘You’ve been … you are very kind.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ snapped her boss. ‘Don’t be sentimental. Good day, Miss Miller. And try not to bring shame on my Bureau. It has a certain reputation, you know. It even reaches as far as Australia,’ she added, as a final touch.

  ‘You needn’t worry, Miss Grantley. I’ll do you proud, I promise. Good day and thank you,’ Daisy gabbled as she walked out of the Dragon’s office for the last time, head held high, eyes sparkling.

  If George and Miss Grantley had reacted in a thoroughly wet-blanket manner to her exciting news, her mother made up for both of them by being over the moon. Mrs Peabody had kept to her word and visited her at the dress shop. She had told Mrs Miller that while they were in London they would be staying at the famous Brooks Hotel, and Daisy would have her own room there. She’d also have her own time to see the sights of London. Her mother would be most welcome to visit her there in a few days’ time, and Daisy would most definitely be allowed to visit her mother whenever she wanted.

  Dorothy Miller had high hopes for her bright, lively Daisy. Things had not been easy for them both. Like her daughter, she knew this was a chance in a million, a chance Daisy must on no account pass up. She would miss Daisy terribly, but she didn’t want to let Daisy see that. The only thing she was worried about, she told Daisy, cheerfully, was that her daughter might not have enough really good clothes. Tomorrow, she said, Daisy should come with her to Gabriela’s, and pick out some new outfits. Mrs Miller would pay for them in instalments. Daisy hugged her mother and cried a little then too, saying she was afraid her mother would be lonely. Mrs Miller, holding back her own tears, hugged Daisy, dried her eyes and told her brightly not to be so silly, she’d be quite alright, she’d have bridge parties with her friends, play tennis, go to lectures, and oh, do lots of things! Daisy hardly listened to her mother’s brave talk; her mind was full of her own plans. Her life was changed, now. She was on her way to independence, into a brand new, exciting world!

  Four

  George gazed gloomily out of the bus window. He was on his way to have lunch with his married sister Betty in Upper Charlton, as he did every Saturday. Betty was the only family he had left in the area. Their mother had died a couple of years before, and their father had remarried only a matter of months after that, to a much younger woman who did not at all fancy having step-children around. She’d taken George’s father off to live in Edinburgh, where she came from. George had started work by that time and for a while he’d lived with Betty and her husband, till he found his own digs in Charlton Wells.

  George wasn’t gloomy because he was going to lunch with Betty and her husband, Eddy. His thoughts were on the events of half an hour ago, when he’d seen an excited Daisy off at the railway station. He’d felt like the world’s most boring stick-in-the-mud by comparison. He, too, wanted a life of fun and adventure — but no enticing advertisement had come his way, no rich Australian widow had offered him a ticket to an exciting future. Hell, he thought, I should do something about it myself. I should send off one of those coupons in Young Reporter, or Real Detective Mysteries, the ones which tell you to write off for details on how to become a full-fledged private detective. But all the ads he’d seen had addresses in the United States, and he had no money to get there.

  Eddy was the village bobby in Upper Charlton and had warned him those people were crooks anyway, con men, they’d just take his money and not give him any proper training. He said if George wanted to investigate crime, he should join the police. Hell, no, thought George, who’d want to be a plod, assigned to a dull little village like Upper Charlton, where nothing more exciting happened than some old lady’s cat getting stuck up a tree, or some prize vegetable being kidnapped in the middle of the night! Not him, no sir! It might be good enough for steady old Eddy Blake, but not for George Dale!

  The bus disgorged George at the village stop, and trundled slowly away into the hills. Betty was waiting for him at the cottage, her arms dusted with flour from the pastry she’d been rolling out. ‘Good to see you, Georgey boy! How are you?’

  George threw himself down on a chair. ‘Fine,’ he said, so gloomily that Betty laughed. ‘I’d hate to see you when you’re not feeling fine, then,’ she observed, sliding a rather nice-looking apple pie into the oven. ‘Come on, Georgey, tell me what’s up.’

  Betty was nearly ten years older than George, and inclined to mother him. George sighed. ‘If you must know, Daisy’s gone to London.’

  ‘To London! Why?’

  George told her, not omitting his own reservations. When he’d finished, Betty shook her head. ‘It’s all a bit sudden, isn’t it? Still, it’s a very good opportunity for her. And her mother has met the lady, after all.’

  ‘I just can’t believe it’s for real,’ grumbled George. He’d seen Mrs Peabody, in a loud tweed suit and even louder voice, at the station. The sight of her had checked his suspicions. How could she be up to no good? People who were planning c
rooked things didn’t try to attract attention to themselves. And Mrs Peabody stuck out like a sore thumb. But honour was honour. He couldn’t just admit he’d been wrong, could he?

  ‘Ah well, I bet Daisy’ll be back soon,’ said Betty loyally, but George didn’t answer. He was quite sure Daisy would never come back to her old life. Who in their right mind would?

  Betty shot him a shrewd glance. ‘How about going dancing this weekend? There’s a famous dance band up from London at one of the hotels in Greater Charlton at the moment, and I thought …’

  At that moment, Eddy appeared, freshly scrubbed and brushed. ‘Well, hello, stranger!’ he said, heartily, clapping George on the back. ‘Long time no see, pardner! How are the doings in your neck of the woods?’

  He always said exactly the same thing. It was meant to be like the dialogue in American detective stories. Coming from Eddy, George found it embarrassing. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he mumbled, but Betty cut in. ‘Daisy’s gone to London, Eddy! That’s why our George looks like he’s had a dose of castor oil. I was suggesting going dancing tonight to take his mind off it.’

  ‘I do not need my mind taken off anything!’ said George, indignantly.

  Eddy shook his head, mock-sadly. ‘Women,’ he said. ‘They get dazzled by the bright lights. Don’t worry. She’ll be back. Or if not, plenty more fish in the sea, eh?’ He roared with laughter.

  ‘It’s not that,’ began George, blushing, but Eddy ignored him. ‘Well, best to drown your sorrows in a good medicinal glass of ale,’ he said. ‘What do you say, Betty? Suitable medicine for a broken heart?’

  Betty smiled discreetly, and went to get the beer. George glared at Eddy. Broken heart indeed! Daisy was his friend, not his … his girl, for heaven’s sake!

  There was a loud knock on the door. Betty went to open it. A man in gardening clothes stood there. ‘You’re wanted right away up at The Hall, Constable Blake,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Eddy, ‘just as lunch was about to be served and all.’ He picked up his helmet from the hat stand, plonked it on his head and put on his jacket. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘One of the house guests, who’s up from London, was found tied up and gagged in one of the back laundries this morning,’ said the gardener, importantly. ‘He didn’t want to call the police, but Lady Eleanor, she insisted.’

  ‘Rightly so!’ Eddy said.

  ‘Can I come with you, Eddy?’ asked George, eagerly. At last, a spot of excitement!

  ‘Why not?’ said Eddy. He gave George a sly glance. ‘Might stop you mooning after that Daisy.’

  ‘I never!’ snapped George, but Eddy laughed. ‘Whatever you say. Coming, then?’

  The Hall, the ancestral home of the Charlton family, was a beautiful seventeenth-century mansion just out of the village. The Charltons had once been very wealthy, but no more. The last surviving member of the family, Lady Eleanor Charlton, could hardly afford to keep the place ticking over. Unmarried, with no children, she’d once had a younger brother, but he had been very delicate, and had died at the age of twenty. It would all have been rather sad, if Lady Eleanor hadn’t been the kind of woman who refused to be self-pitying.

  George had visited The Hall a couple of times, for garden fetes. He loved the old house, with its lovely golden stone walls and mullioned windows, and on this spring day, with all the flowers out, it was simply splendid. How dreadful it must be for Lady Eleanor to think of it going to strangers when she died!

  They were shown into a small, cold sitting-room. Lack of money meant very few rooms in the house were heated. Lady Eleanor soon strode in. She was in her early fifties, tall, rather untidy and dressed in an old tweed suit. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly, Constable Blake. And … George, isn’t it? Your brother-in-law George Dale?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I hope you don’t mind him tagging along, but …’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve decided to make the matter public anyway, so others may be warned. I should have done that from the start. I tried to keep it quiet, to my cost.’

  Eddy looked at her encouragingly. George’s ears pricked up.

  ‘I have a valuable diamond bracelet,’ went on Lady Eleanor. ‘It is one of the few really good pieces of jewellery that survived the family fortunes, or rather misfortunes. It’s of rose gold, set with three pink diamonds, surrounded by smaller white ones. I have never put it in a bank vault as some of my friends said I should. What’s the point of diamonds if you can’t wear them? Besides, what could happen to them here in Upper Charlton? This is a sleepy, peaceful place. Everyone knows everyone. When was the last time a crime was committed here?’

  ‘Er, I think it was …’ began Eddy, but Lady Eleanor ignored him. ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, a month or so ago, I received a card, from a fellow who calls himself The Shadow.’

  Eddy stared. George exclaimed, ‘The Shadow!’

  She shot him a sharp glance. ‘Have you heard of him, young man?’

  ‘No … but it sounds like … like something I’ve read,’ stammered George. ‘In a magazine, I mean.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Lady Eleanor, humorously. ‘That’s what I thought. A crook’s name from a penny novelette. Some kind of stupid practical joke, I thought.’

  ‘What kind of card was it? What did it say, ma’am?’ said George, eagerly. The day was changing faster than he could ever have hoped.

  ‘It was a square white card, like an invitation, or visiting card, in an ordinary envelope, with my name and address printed on it. It came with the rest of the mail in the morning. In extremely impertinent terms, it invited me, in the name of someone called The Shadow, to a special command performance, at my own home, entitled “Your Diamonds — Now You See Them, Now You Don’t!”’

  Eddy was furiously taking notes. ‘May we see this card, my lady?’

  ‘No,’ said Lady Eleanor, grandly. ‘I threw it in the fire. Such silly impudence, I thought at the time. Some foolish practical joke.’ She waved away Eddy’s regrets. ‘It wouldn’t have helped you, anyway. It was printed. Quite anonymous.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Besides, I thought that was the end of the matter. Then, a week ago, I received a telephone call, in the middle of the night. A voice informed me The Shadow would be visiting my house on Friday night. Well, I’m not afraid of voices on the telephone, and I’m damned if I was going to let some two-bit melodramatic villain put the wind up me or make me scuttle off to those sour gnomes at the bank. I’m a Charlton! I decided to fight and engage the services of a famous detective who had been recommended to me. He advised me to take the threat to my property seriously. He informed me that in the last month alone there have been at least three such cases involving this Shadow, where diamond jewellery was stolen from under their owners’ noses.’

  Eddy seemed bewildered. But George was in his element. All his reading had prepared him for just this sort of thing. But something nagged at him, too. He was sure he’d seen something about The Shadow in one of his magazines. Possibly a report of one of the diamond robberies Lady Eleanor had mentioned? No. He’d have remembered if it was that. He’d have to have a look, when he got home.

  Lady Eleanor was still talking. ‘So the detective devised a plan. He’d come as a guest to my home and keep watch. I invited a couple of other guests too, so it would seem more natural. He arrived two days ago and made a thorough search of the grounds before anyone else arrived. He also discreetly questioned the servants, to make sure no strangers had been seen in the neighbourhood. I entrusted the bracelet to him to keep on his person at all times.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said George, thrilled, ‘and he ran off with it! He wasn’t a real detective, but an impostor — he was, in fact, The Shadow!’

  Lady Eleanor looked at him, smiling. ‘I have to say that dramatic possibility crossed my mind at first, when we discovered both he and the diamond bracelet were missing. No. I’m afraid our man is a real detective — but he was outwitted by The Shadow.’

  She sighed. �
��Last night, I thought we had outwitted The Shadow. Hours passed and nothing happened. No lights suddenly going out, no tricks of any kind. At midnight, we all retired. I …’

  ‘Would you tell us, Lady Eleanor, who else was in your house party?’ said Eddy.

  ‘Of course. Besides myself and the detective, there was my oldest friend, Amanda Paisley, who married a Scottish minister and always welcomes a break from chilly Aberdeen; and a distant relative from Somerset, Henry Hayes. So there were just four of us last night, plus the servants. We played bridge most of the evening.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘We retired, as I said, at midnight. The detective said he was going to stay up all night in his room, though, keep an eye and ear out.’

  ‘But he was found in a back laundry this morning?’ said Eddy, scribbling away.

  ‘That’s right. When he didn’t come down to breakfast, we went to check on him and discovered the bed hadn’t been slept in. But his car was still in the garage, so he’d obviously not left. We looked for him everywhere, but didn’t find him for hours — this is a big house, and the back laundry where he was found hasn’t been used in years. He had been chloroformed, trussed up like a Christmas turkey, and shoved out of sight under some dirty old canvas that was left over from something or other.’

  ‘Cor!’ said George, eyes shining.

  ‘Cor indeed,’ said Lady Eleanor, dryly. ‘It was just like something out of one of those thriller novels.’

  ‘And the bracelet was gone, m’lady?’

  ‘Of course. The Shadow knew just where to find it — on the detective himself.’

  ‘Who knew he had it?’

  ‘That’s just it — only myself, and the detective, of course. I had mentioned my troubles to both Amanda and Henry, but they did not know I had given the bracelet to the detective. And the servants had no idea.’