The Jewel That Was Ours

clearly more authoritative man, with thinning hair and pale complexion. It was this second man who now asked the first, the last, question. And it was to this man that almost everyone now turned as the rather quiet, rather cultured, rather interesting, wholly English voice began to speak:

'I was a Classic in my youth, madam, and although I have always been deeply interested in the works of the Roman poets and the Roman historians I have never been able to summon up much enthusiasm for Roman architecture. In fact the contemplation of a Roman brick seems to leave me cold — quite cold. So I would dearly like to know why it is that you find yourself so enthusiastic. '

The question was balm and benison to Barbara's ears. But then the questioner had risen to his feet.

'. yes, it would be extremely interesting for all of us to learn your answer. But not — not for the moment, please!'

The man now walked down the central aisle and halted beside the projector, where he turned and spoke. Was it to her? Was it to her audience?

'I'm sorry to interrupt. But the people here know who I am — who we are. And I shall have to ask you, I'm afraid, to leave the next half hour to Lewis and to me.'

Dr. Barbara Moule almost smiled. She'd picked up the literary allusion immediately, and enjoyed those few seconds during which the man's intensely blue eyes had held her own.

It was Ashenden who went upstairs to knock on the door of Room 46.

'But didn't Sam here explain? I have a headache.'

'I know. But it's the police, Mrs. Kronquist.'

'It is?'

'And they want everybody to be there.'

'Oh my Gard!'

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

And summed up so well that it came to far more

Than the Witnesses ever had said

(Lewis Carroll, The Barrister's Dream)

THE BEAUTIFUL IF bemused Dr. Moule, invited to stay if she so wished, took a seat in the front row. The man spoke, she thought, more like a don than a detective.

'Let me outline the case, or rather the two cases, to you all. First, a jewel was stolen from Mrs. Laura Stratton's room in The Randolph. At the same time — whether just before or just after the theft — Mrs. Stratton died. What is medically certain is that she died of coronary thrombosis: there is no question of any foul play, except of course if the heart attack was brought on by the shock of finding someone in her room stealing the jewel she had come all the way from America to hand over to the Ashmolean Museum, or more specifically to Dr. Theodore Kemp on behalf of the Museum. I tried to find out — I may be forgiven — who would benefit from the theft of the jewel, and I learned from Mr. Brown here' (heads swivelling) 'that Mrs. Stratton was always slightly mysterious — ambivalent, even — about her own financial affairs. So I naturally had to bear in mind the possibility that the jewel had not been stolen at all by any outside party, but 'caused to disappear', let us say, by the Strattons themselves. It had been the property of Mrs. Stratton's first husband, and it was he who had expressed the wish, as stated in his will, that it be returned to England to find a permanent place in the Ashmolean Museum with its counterpart, the Wolvercote Buckle. As a piece of treasure of considerable historical importance, the Wolvercote Tongue was of course beyond price. In itself, however, as an artefact set with precious stones, it was, let us say, 'priceable', and it was insured by Mrs. Stratton for half a million dollars. I am not yet wholly sure about the specific terms of the policy taken out, but it appears that in the eventuality of the jewel being stolen, either before or after her death, the insurance money is payable to her husband — and is not to be syphoned off into some trust fund or other. At any rate, that is what Eddie Stratton believed — believes, rather — for I learned most of these facts yesterday from Stratton himself, who is now back in America.' Morse paused a moment and looked slowly around his audience. 'I don't need, perhaps, to underline to you the temptation that faced Mr. Stratton, himself a virtually penniless man, and a man who knew — for such seems to be the case — that his wife had run through almost all of the considerable money she had inherited from her first husband.'

Several faces looked pained and incredulous, but Janet Roscoe was the only person who did not restrain her disquietude:

'But that could nart be, Inspector! Eddie was out walking—'

Morse held up his right hand, and spoke to her not ungently:

'Please hear me out, Mrs. Roscoe. It was easy to pin-point the period of time within which the theft must have occurred, and not too difficult — was it? — to find out where the great majority of you had been during the crucial forty-five minutes. Not all of you felt willing to be completely honest with me, but I don't wish to labour that point now. As I saw things — still see things — the thief had to be one of you here, one of the touring party, including your courier' (heads swivelling again) 'or one of the staff at The Randolph. But the latter possibility could be, and was, fairly quickly discounted. So you will be able to see where things are heading, ladies and gentlemen.

'The immediate effects of the theft were considerably lessened both by the death of Laura Stratton and on the very next day by the murder of Dr. Kemp, the man to whom the Tongue was due to be handed over that day at an official little ceremony at the Ashmolean. Now one of the jobs of the police force, and especially the CID, is to try to establish a pattern in crime, if this is possible, and in this instance both Sergeant Lewis and myself found it difficult not to believe there was some link between the two events. They may of course have been quite coincidental; but already there was a link, was there not? Dr. Kemp himself! — the man who had one day been deprived of a jewel which he himself had traced to an American collector, a jewel for which he had been negotiating, a jewel that had been found in the waters below the bridge at Wolvercote in 1873, a jewel which once united with its mate would doubtless be the subject of some considerable historical interest, and bring some short-term celebrity, possibly some long-term preferment, to himself — to Kemp. Indeed a photograph of the re-united Buckle and Tongue was going to be used on the cover of his forthcoming book. And then, on the very next day, Kemp is murdered. Interesting, is it not? Did, I asked myself, did the same person commit both the theft and the murder? It seemed to me more and more likely. So perhaps I needed just the one criminal, not two; but I needed a reason as well. So my thinking went a little further in that direction — the correct direction. If the criminal was the same in each case, was not the motive likely to have been the same? In both crimes, the person who had suffered by far