The Old Vengeful

So it was worse than that: they were going to send her to prison . . . or was it Father, who was beyond their reach, who had committed some disgraceful act—even some treasonable act—?

No—not some treasonable act . . . not Father— never Father!

But . . . disgraceful? Dishonest?

'It wasn't his money?' Was that what the Vengeful had been carrying? The thought of some great treasure had been in the back of her mind all along, even though she had scorned the possibility of it—even though she knew that the Vengeful was a long-lost wreck, and that the survivors could hardly have got away with anything of value—

Or could they?

'It wasn't his, no.'

Or could they? But if they had . . . of what possible importance could it have been to the French, who had plundered most of Europe, from the horses of St Mark's to the hard cash in the treasuries of whole kingdoms? And . . .

and even more—even if Colonel Suchet had coveted it... there was no conceivable way that it could interest Josef Ivanovitch Novikov of the KGB—

'It was yours, Elizabeth,' said Paul.

She hadn't heard him properly. 'What?'

'It was yours.' Paul sat down on the edge of the bed, and started to reach for her hand, but then thought better of it.

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'He stole it from you.'

She had heard him properly, she just didn't understand what ne was saying. 'From . . . me?'

'Del Andrew took Ray Tuck—lifted him out of somewhere in the Essex marshes this morning, bright and early. And then made him sing by the simple expedient of letting him choose between singing and being turned loose on the street for Danny Kahn's boys to pick up ... So Ray Tuck sang like a canary.'

That was the authentic voice of Del Andrew, thought Elizabeth irrelevantly, while thinking at the same time from me?

'The funny thing is ... Ray Tuck sang true, and yet it was all a pack of lies, the song he sang, Del Andrew thinks—Harry Lippman's lies. Or maybe your father's lies, but we can't check on that now.'

'What lies, Paul?' All Elizabeth could think was From me?

How could Father have stolen from her, who had nothing to steal?

'Oh ... a cock-and-bull story about hidden treasure from the old Vengeful—how your father was picking it up bit by bit from somewhere in France, and Lippy was fencing it for him.

Which was a whole pack of lies, because there's no Vengeful treasure—or not this treasure, Elizabeth.'

She had to listen to what he was saying. 'How do you—how does . . . Del. . . know that?'

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'At first he didn't. But Ray Tuck gave him the name of one of the buyers—a dead-respectable jeweller who'd never handle

'dodgy' goods . . . apart from the fact that Lippy wouldn't have sold any to one of his 'straight' clients, Del says, and the jeweller himself wouldn't have bought this jewellery anyway, without proper provenance for the record.'

'Jewellery? What jewellery? What . . . ?'

'Provenance? 'Commander Hugh Loftus, VC—family heirlooms—item, one emerald-and-diamond necklace, with matching earrings, very fine—?12,000 . . . item, one diamond tiara set in gold, central stone umpteen carats, very fine—

?15,000 . . . those are two we've been able to check. And also some small trinkets Lippy couldn't bear to part with, because he loved good antique jewellery, which he passed on to his daughter to wear on Saturday, down the market. . . having paid the full market price himself, of course.'

Listening was one thing, but grasping the sense of it was still another. 'Why couldn't it have come from the Vengeful, Paul? How can you be so sure?' She grasped at the word

'antique'. 'If it was old—'

'It was old, but not old enough.' He gazed at her sadly.

'About 150 years old to be exact—between 150 and 130, that is.'

Elizabeth made the subtraction dumbly, hopelessly.

'Early Victorian. Made by a jeweller named Savage who opened up shop in Bond Street in 1832, which his son sold in dummy3

1883—they made the necklace and the tiara, anyway: their work is apparently quite distinctive . . . Lippy's buyer recognised it straight off, because Savage pieces are highly regarded in the trade—real craftsman's work ... So naturally Lippy would have recognised it too, it was right up his street.

Some of the rings and brooches he gave his daughter aren't Savage work—they're late Victorian and Edwardian, which is equally distinctive. So there's no possible doubt about it, Elizabeth.' He paused. 'And no doubt that it's yours, either.'

Elizabeth waited, oddly aware that her feet, which had been warm, were cold now.'