The Case of the Corporal's Leave by Christopher Bush

Author:Christopher Bush [Bush, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2018-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

I’d had some facers in my time but that news about the jewellery seemed about the worst. Why in heaven’s name had it been returned? Had the thief got the wind up badly after learning through the papers that Pelle was dead?

That seemed a likely solution. Pelle had been knocked unconscious and then the thief had made off. By rights Pelle should have recovered in a few minutes and the affair would have been robbery with violence. Serious as that was, it was petty larceny compared with murder.

But whoever it was, the return of that jewellery seemed to me to let out Marion Blaketon. Somehow I couldn’t imagine her having several thousand pounds in her possession and then returning it to the owner. Indeed, if the situation before had seemed to me complicated, to say the least of it, it now seemed illogical to the point of chaos, and if I shrugged my shoulders with something like despair it was because three days of inquiry had landed us behind the point from which we had started.

And then I had a brainwave. It was more than that; it was something that made me heave a sigh of more than relief. Suppose, I told myself, that that ring was missing. Mightn’t that prove that Dane had been after it, and after nothing else? Once the ring was his, then the rest had been sent back.

I admit straightaway that I was jumping to conclusions, but at that particular moment I was ready to jump at anything. And it did seem a reasonable theory, and one that could almost be put up to Wharton. And I realized something else. If Kenray was examining the collection of jewellery, then there would be no need for me to question Grace Allbeck. Kenray would be the absolute last word. Even if that ring wasn’t there, he could deduce its value, and if it had any special history, then he would certainly know it.

With that I made my way out, and a dull muggy sort of morning it was. As I opened the door of Kenray’s shop I saw that the light was on. Grace Allbeck heard my entry and came in at once from the office. It was quite a moment or two before she smiled a welcome at me, and I was wondering if in some way I could have offended her.

“I’ve come on business,” I told her, and laid my little parcel on the counter. “Here it is, and I want you to send the cheque direct to my wife.”

She took down the address.

“You’re looking more yourself this morning,” I said. “The headache quite gone.”

“Quite gone,” she said.

“Good,” I said, and it didn’t seem too easy to make conversation. And then I thought of something.

“Tell me,” I said. “You remember when I brought that piece of jewellery in and how you asked if I’d mind telling you how it had come into my possession? Was that some sort of formula?”

“In a way, yes,” she said and her eyes seemed to be questioning me about something quite different.

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