Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [17]
‘Brute!’ said Mrs St John, making a face at it. ‘How I hate you! I’ve a good mind to throw you out of the window.’
‘I shouldn’t do that,’ said Mr Pyne. ‘It might surprise people.’
‘You’re quite sure it isn’t the real one?’ said Daphne.
‘No, no! The one you showed me the other day is safely on Lady Dortheimer’s finger.’
‘Then, that’s all right.’ Daphne rose with a happy laugh.
‘Curious you asked me that,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘Of course Claude, poor fellow, hasn’t many brains. He might easily have got muddled. So, to make sure, I had an expert look at this thing this morning.’
Mrs St John sat down again rather suddenly. ‘Oh! And he said?’
‘That it was an extraordinarily good imitation,’ said Mr Parker Pyne, beaming. ‘First-class work. So that sets your mind at rest, doesn’t it?’
Mrs St John started to say something, then stopped. She was staring at Mr Parker Pyne.
The latter resumed his seat behind the desk and looked at her benevolently. ‘The cat who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire,’ he said dreamily. ‘Not a pleasant role. Not a role I should care to have any of my staff undertake. Excuse me. Did you say anything?’
‘I–no, nothing.’
‘Good. I want to tell you a little story, Mrs St John. It concerns a young lady. A fair-haired young lady, I think. She is not married. Her name is not St John. Her Christian name is not Daphne. On the contrary, her name is Ernestine Richards, and until recently she was secretary to Lady Dortheimer.
‘Well, one day the setting of Lady Dortheimer’s diamond ring became loose and Miss Richards brought it up to town to have it fixed. Quite like your story here, is it not? The same idea occurred to Miss Richards that occurred to you. She had the ring copied. But she was a far-sighted young lady. She saw a day coming when Lady Dortheimer would discover the substitution. When that happened, she would remember who had taken the ring to town and Miss Richards would be instantly suspected.
‘So what happened? First, I fancy, Miss Richards invested in a La Merveilleuse transformation–Number Seven side parting, I think’–his eyes rested innocently on his client’s wavy locks–‘shade dark brown. Then she called on me. She showed me the ring, allowed me to satisfy myself that it was genuine, thereby disarming suspicion on my part. That done, and a plan of substitution arranged, the young lady took the ring to the jeweller, who, in due course, returned it to Lady Dortheimer.
‘Yesterday evening the other ring, the false ring, was hurriedly handed over at the last minute at Waterloo Station. Quite rightly, Miss Richards did not not consider that Mr Luttrell was likely to be an authority on diamonds. But just to satisfy myself that everything was above board I arranged for a friend of mine, a diamond merchant, to be on the train. He looked at the ring and pronounced at once, ‘This is not a real diamond; it is an excellent paste replica.’
‘You see the point, of course, Mrs St John? When Lady Dortheimer discovered her loss, what would she remember? The charming young dancer who slipped the ring off her finger when the lights went out! She would make enquiries and find out that the dancers originally engaged were bribed not to come. If matters were traced back to my office, my story of a Mrs St John would seem feeble in the extreme. Lady Dortheimer never knew a Mrs St John. The story would sound a flimsy fabrication.
‘Now you see, don’t you, that I could not allow that? And so my friend Claude replaced on Lady Dortheimer’s finger the same ring that he took off.’ Mr Parker Pyne’s smile was less benevolent now.
‘You see why I could not take a fee? I guarantee to give happiness. Clearly I have not made you happy. I will say just one thing more. You are young; possibly this is your first attempt at anything of the kind. Now I, on the contrary, am comparatively advanced in years, and I have had a long experience in the compilation of statistics. From that experience I can assure you that in eighty-seven per cent of