He laughed. This had become an interview to savor. It was all too rare to meet a witness so adept at verbal sparring. Jessica Shaw had a quick intelligence. He told her, 'You haven't answered the question yet.'
'Which one? Oh, was Barnaby at home? No, he was not. He didn't get back till late. Lions.' She folded her arms, enjoying Diamond's puzzled reaction to the last word, making it plain that she wasn't intending to add anything.
'Live lions?' he asked after taking a sip of coffee.
'Very lively, so Barnaby tells me.'
Diamond's thoughts were on the safari park at Longleat. Julie was quicker on the uptake.
'You mean the Lions who collect money for charities, like the Rotary?'
'Didn't I make it clear?' said Jessica, eyes twinkling.
'You said he got home late,' said Diamond. 'What's late?'
'Oh, God. I don't keep a stopwatch for him. After I was in bed. Toward midnight. You don't regard him as a suspect?'
'We're trying to fix some parameters, that's all,' Diamond hedged.
She rolled her eyes. 'Could you fix my wonky exhaust while you're at it?'
'So you have a car?' He wasn't so slow himself when an opening came.
'Of course I have a car. I'm running a business here. And in case you were about to ask, I didn't use it on Monday evening. I didn't need to. It's just a short walk to St. Michael's and back.'
'Would you give me the make and number?'
She told him it was a new Peugeot 306. White. It seemed there was money in art, even in these straitened times. Or perhaps Barnaby Shaw was the provider.
'Your husband. Is he in business?'
'Houses.' She paused, playing her game of letting the wrong assumption take root, only this time Diamond was more alert. He wasn't thrown when she held her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. 'This high. He makes miniature houses.'
He smiled.
She said, 'Gullible people buy them for exorbitant amounts. He does a police station with a blue lamp at fifty pounds, if you're interested.'
Diamond was more interested in the way the pupils of Jessica Shaw's eyes reduced in size and the edge of her mouth turned down when her husband was mentioned. He said, 'Maybe we should check your handbag now.'
'What do you mean-we?' She got up and crossed the room to where a leather shoulder bag was hanging over a tall-backed chair. 'I'm not having my personal objects pored over by policemen, thank you.' She released the catch, felt inside and straightaway withdrew a folded brown paper bag. 'This I have no further use for.'
Chapter Twenty-one
A message was waiting for Diamond when he returned to Manvers Street after delivering Julie to the Royal United Hospital for the postmortem. Would he contact DCI Wigfull as a matter of urgency?
Generally he avoided the man. From experience, he was willing to bet that this was a gripe over areas of responsibility, but in a police station matters of urgency can't be sidestepped. He picked up the phone.
'Well, have you found your stamp thief?' he asked while Wigfull was still self-importantly giving his name.
'Is that DS Diamond?'
'Who else?'
'As a matter of fact, I have found him.'
'And is he a dead man?'
Was it an intake of breath he heard, or the wind abandoning Wigfull's sails?
'You still there, John?' Diamond asked. 'Was it Sid Towers?'
'What makes you think it might be?' Wigfull parried, the annoyance coming through clearly.
'Doesn't everything point to him?'
'I wouldn't have said so.'
'So you nicked someone else, then?'
'I didn't say that.'
'Aren't you going to say anything, John?'
'Has someone been talking to you?'
'No, I worked it out.'
'Have you also worked out how he got into the locked room?' Wigfull asked more warily.
'No. Have you?'
A distinct note of self-congratulation crept in. 'I believe so.'
'You've cracked it? Nice work,' Diamond, profoundly surprised, was gracious enough to say.
'That's why I asked you to get in touch,' Wigfull said with more elan. 'I'm here in my office with the Assistant Chief Constable, wrapping up my part of the case, so to speak. Why don't you join us?'
Mr. Musgrave was by common consent the most approachable of Avon and Somerset's three assistant chief constables. His florid countenance and portly shape attested to thousands of pints taken convivially with colleagues. A good listener, fair in his dealings and appreciative of jobs well done, Arnold Musgrave was the ideal man to have drop into the office at an auspicious moment.
When Diamond arrived, Wigfull was saying with the air of a man confident of a commendation at the very least, 'I dare-say you're familiar with the detective stories of John Dickson Carr, sir.'
'I daresay I am.' The ACC chanced his arm. 'My failing is I read these things and don't recall who wrote them or what they were about.' Spotting Diamond at the door, he gave a broad smile. 'Peter! You're looking chipper.'
'It's all show,' said Diamond. 'I'm up to my ears in problems. Unlike John Wigfull here.'
'He's about to tell us how he solved the case of the stolen Penny Black.'
'So I heard.'
'Could ease a few of your problems, Peter.'
'My fingers are crossed, sir.'
Both looked expectantly toward Wigfull, who smirked, producing a confident upward twitch of the large mustache. 'We were speaking of Dickson Carr,' he said with a donnish air. 'These detective writers of fifty years ago were expected to set puzzles for their readers, the sort of brainteaser you could do to while away a train journey as a change from the crossword, and Dickson Carr was one of the best of them. He still has a devoted following, I gather. His forte was the locked room puzzle.'
'Then I must have read one of them at least,' the ACC decided. 'Mind, I couldn't give you a title for love nor money.'
This didn't matter to Wigfull, into his flow now. 'A strange experience for me, dealing with a case like this one, with the hallmarks of an old detective story-the cryptic rhymes, the ingenious theft, the locked room puzzle, and the closed circle of suspects. But I relished the challenge. Something out of the ordinary. Once I knew of the connection with this group of detective story readers, the Bloodhounds, who meet in the crypt of St. Michael's, I was able to concentrate my inquiries.'
Mr. Musgrave nodded. 'Piece of good fortune, John, having one of them come to you with the missing stamp.'
Wigfull wasn't having that. 'The thief didn't do me any favors. It was deliberate, sir. Part of the plot. The way I see it, he was poking fun at the police, trying to show us up as, er-'
'Bumbling idiots?'
'Er, less than efficient, anyway. He stole the stamp and then handed it back, as if to prove he'd been toying with us. It was sheer bloody arrogance, coming on top of the rhymes he broadcast to all and sundry.'
'So you rose to the challenge?' said Mr. Musgrave. 'Good man.'
