The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds (A Dizzy Heights Mystery) Read online

  The official record showed simply that he had been wounded in combat, but the unofficial record kept by one of the junior officers said that he had been ‘rendered unconscious by a sign of dubious comic value while telling a joke of equally dubious comic value and being, in direct contravention of Standing Orders, sans tin hat’.

  He regained consciousness quickly, but the sign had opened a gash in his head that required stitches. He was taken to the local aid station where he was seen by an excitingly familiar American nurse. She stitched his head wound and demanded that he spend at least two hours of his next leave taking her to dinner.

  They married as soon as he was demobbed in 1919.

  And now, to the intense irritation of her extended family, she was a musician’s wife and living in London. Her uncles and cousins were completely unable to understand why she didn’t want to marry a member of the Maryland senate and settle down where she belonged. Only her Aunt Adelia supported her decision to lead an independent, modern life.

  ‘You probably ought to get back up to bed,’ said Skins. ‘I’ll not be long.’

  ‘I probably should,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do tomorrow.’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Today, then, pedant. Can I have a sip of your cocoa?’

  ‘Always.’

  Ellie stood and took the cup from him, kissing the top of his head as she did so. She took an enormous gulp of the hot chocolate and set off upstairs.

  Skins looked at the tiny dribble of cocoa she’d left him and settled down to read. In spite of his fervent belief that he wasn’t anywhere near tired enough to go to bed, it wasn’t long before he found his eyes swimming out of focus. It was time for bed after all.

  Chapter Two

  Sunday had been a day of rest, but the band had another late night on Monday in their regular slot at the Augmented Ninth. It was a new club that advertised itself as providing ‘the hottest jazz and the coolest cocktails’, and its clientele could listen to the latest tunes while getting themselves one more than one over the eight if they so chose. Skins had tried to tell the owners that if they had to explain the club’s name it probably didn’t work, but they were adamant. And he was right. None of the club-goers got it, but they knew it had something to do with music and they didn’t care as long as the music and the booze were good.

  Dunn had arrived home in the early hours of the morning and was fast asleep, dreaming about the band. Things were going well, but Skins seemed to have a broken bass drum. Every time he kicked the pedal it gave a rattling thud, not a satisfying boom. The more he kicked, the worse it got. He hit over and over again, getting faster and more urgent, while Dunn and the band marvelled at the speed and skill of their drummer’s right foot. Perhaps he should consider taking tap-dancing lessons. But the sound just wasn’t right. Maybe the skin was split.

  A voice accompanied his drumming. ‘Mr Dunn!’ it yelled.

  Very few people called him Mr Dunn.

  ‘Mr Dunn! Open up. It’s the police.’

  Dunn struggled to consciousness.

  The policeman was still hammering on the door.

  Dunn got up and went to the window. He opened it and leaned out over the street.

  ‘What,’ he said groggily. ‘The bleedin’ hell. Do you want?’

  The constable stepped back from the door and looked up. ‘Mr Dunn?’ he said. ‘Mr Bartholomew Dunn?’

  ‘The very same,’ said Dunn. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Constable Grine, sir. I’ve been asked to take you to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘No idea, sir. “Take a vehicle and pick up Bartholomew Dunn of 76 Coburg Road in Wood Green,” they said. And here I am.’

  Dunn sighed. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to put some trousers and boots on,’ he said. ‘You can come in and wait – the door’s open.’

  He closed the window and looked around for his clothes.

  Finally dressed, he made his way downstairs and found Constable Grine sitting in the front parlour reading one of Mrs Cordell’s magazines.

  ‘Will I be long?’ he said.

  ‘Long, sir?’

  ‘This business at the Yard. Will it take long?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. Depends what you’ve done.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Then it shouldn’t take long at all.’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘You’d know if you was under arrest, sir,’ said Grine. ‘I’d have said, “You’re under arrest.” I have a whole spiel to go with it about taking things down and using them against you at your trial. You’d definitely have noticed. But I haven’t said that, so you’re fine.’

  Dunn hunted round for a piece of paper and a pencil. ‘I need to leave a note for my landlady,’ he said. ‘She’ll wonder where I’ve gone.’

  ‘Your landlady, sir?’

  ‘She must have nipped out for a paper or something. She worries about me.’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  They left the house and Grine led the way to a Black Maria parked a short distance up the road.

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Dunn. ‘A prison wagon?’

  ‘It’s all that was available, sir.’

  ‘’Ere,’ said a shrill voice from the front door of number 74. ‘What do you mean by makin’ all that racket this time of the mornin’? Ain’t you got better things to do?’ She caught sight of Dunn. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘they’ve finally come for you, ’ave they? I knew it wouldn’t be long. No good ever come of havin’ musicians on the street.’ She leaned into the word ‘musicians’ to emphasize her contempt.

  ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later, Mrs M,’ said Dunn cheerfully. ‘They were always going to catch up with me.’

  ‘I knew it,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Well, good riddance to ya.’

  ‘See you later, Mrs M,’ he said. ‘Let Mrs C know where I’ve gone.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry about that. That poor woman deserves a better lodger than you after all she’s been through.’

  Grine opened the door at the back of the van and Dunn started to clamber inside.

  ‘Lovely woman,’ said Grine.

  ‘It’s a cheerful and friendly neighbourhood, Constable. Cheerful and friendly.’

  ‘It very much seems that way, sir. Make yourself as comfortable as you can. We’ve got one more stop to make, then we’ll go to the Yard.’

  The next stop, though Dunn was initially unable to work out where they were from inside the windowless van, turned out to be in Bloomsbury. He sat alone for about ten minutes in the motionless vehicle with only the ticking of the cooling engine to keep him company before the door opened and Skins clambered in to join him.

  Constable Grine slammed the door and a few moments later they were off.

  ‘Morning, mate,’ said Skins. ‘Nice day for an outing.’

  ‘Any idea what’s going on?’ asked Dunn as the van rattled along.

  ‘Not a clue,’ said Skins. ‘I was fast asleep, dreaming sweet dreams, and suddenly there’s Ellie shaking me awake and telling me that the police want to speak to me. I thought of legging it out the window before I remembered I hadn’t done anything.’

  ‘And your bedroom’s on the second floor.’

  ‘That, too. So I pulled on some trousers and went down to see what was what.’

  ‘And what was what? Grimes was in your morning room?’

  ‘Grine,’ said Skins.

  ‘Really? Poor bloke.’

  ‘Really. He was there, though, like you say. Although he was in the drawing room. The housekeeper had made him a cup of rosy and he was sitting there reading a magazine—’

  ‘Good old Mrs Dalrymple.’

  ‘Salt of the earth. Wouldn’t be without her. Always happy to supply visiting rozzers with tea, our Mrs Dalrymple.’

  ‘The boys in blue do like a cup of char. He’s quite a one for the magazines as well, that lad. He was reading one of
Mrs C’s when I found him.’

  ‘It’s important to keep up to date. So anyway, he says, “Would you mind accompanying me to Scotland Yard, please, sir?” And I said—’

  ‘You said you were only a drummer, but if he hummed a few bars your wife would probably be able to pick it up on the piano.’

  ‘He wasn’t impressed,’ said Skins. ‘Usually goes down all right, that one. So into the deafening silence that followed one of my best gags, I just said, “Why?”’

  ‘And he didn’t know.’

  ‘Apparently not. Just doing his job . . . they don’t tell him nothing . . . All the usual rubbish. So here I am with my best mate in the back of a Black Maria when I should be fast akip in my comfy bed.’

  ‘Still, like you said, it’s an outing, isn’t it?’ said Dunn. ‘Nice trip down to the river. Do us good.’

  ‘Not exactly sightseeing, though, is it? Why don’t they put windows in these things?’

  ‘To shield the alleged miscreants from the vulgar gaze of the populace, me old mate. You can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry gawping in at the prisoners. Wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘You’re much more thoughtful and considerate than people give you credit for,’ said Skins, stifling a yawn. ‘This better be worth missing my kip for. Have we got another gig tonight?’

  ‘Yup. It’s the dance lesson at Tipsy Harry’s.’

  ‘Oh, that one. That’s going to be a bore. Can’t they use a gramophone? I don’t mind playing for their posh dances, but a lesson?’

  ‘Apparently they tried a gramophone but it wasn’t loud enough. They need a band.’

  ‘And they chose us,’ said Skins.

  ‘They chose the Finchley Foot-Tappers first, apparently – they didn’t reckon a band of our calibre would be interested. The Foot-Tappers did one or two, I think, but they let them down at the last minute last week. One of the blokes had a word with Mickey and here we are.’

  ‘So I’ve got to play for dance lessons for people who are too good for a gramophone after . . . What time is it?’

  ‘It was showing five past eight on the clock on Mrs C’s mantelpiece when I left.’

  ‘After less than three hours’ kip, then. This better be over quick so I can get my head down this afternoon or I’ll end up face down in my traps tray.’

  The two men lapsed into silence as the van chugged through the London streets. The journey to Victoria Embankment only took another ten minutes, but by the time they arrived at Scotland Yard, they were both asleep.

  The door opened and slammed against the side of the van.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ said Constable Grine. ‘We’re ’ere.’

  They struggled out on to the street and followed Grine into the turreted red-brick building.

  ‘Yes?’ said the bored sergeant behind the counter in the entrance hall.

  ‘It’s me, Sarge,’ said Grine.

  The sergeant looked up. ‘So it is, lad, so it is. I thought you was out on a job for the Super.’

  ‘I was,’ said Grine, proudly. ‘I’ve got ’em.’

  The sergeant looked the two musicians up and down.

  ‘They don’t look like bank robbers to me,’ he said.

  Grine frowned in puzzlement. ‘They’re not. Not so far as I know, anyway.’

  ‘Then what did you bring ’em in here for? Superintendent Nicholls wants the two suspects for the Midland Bank job. I wondered why they wasn’t in handcuffs.’

  ‘I fetched these two for Superintendent Sunderland,’ said Grine. ‘Not Nicholls.’ This conversation wasn’t going at all the way he had expected.

  ‘Sunderland?’ It wasn’t going the way the sergeant had expected, either. ‘Sunderland up on the third floor?’

  ‘That’s right, Sarge. Sent me out first thing.’

  ‘But he’s on secondment to the War Office. What does he want with these two loafers?’

  ‘Oi,’ said Skins. ‘Less of the loafer.’

  ‘You look like you was dragged out of bed,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘There you are, then. Loafer. The rest of us was at work.’

  ‘And where were you at four this morning while I was at work?’ said Skins. The conversation definitely wasn’t conforming to his own modest expectations, either.

  ‘Four in the morning, eh? What are you, then?’

  ‘A musician.’

  ‘Jazz?’ said the sergeant, suspiciously.

  Skins nodded.

  The sergeant sneered. ‘Even worse. Bleedin’ racket. I liked you better when you was a loafer.’

  ‘Now, Sergeant,’ said Dunn in his silkiest tones. ‘Let’s not all get off on the wrong foot here. You don’t like musicians, my colleague here doesn’t like being called a loafer, poor Constable Grimes here—’

  ‘Grine,’ said the other three men in unison.

  ‘Poor Constable Grine here,’ continued Dunn, ‘has been sent on an errand for a senior officer. Why don’t you sign us in or whatever it is you do, and we can go and see this Superintendent Sunderland. You and my colleague can stop getting on each other’s wick, Grine can complete his task, Sunderland can tell us what it is he wants us for, and then I can get back to my bed. I’ve had three hours’ sleep and I’m due back at work at seven this evening. It might be a “bleedin’ racket”, but they only pay us if we’re awake to make it.’

  The sergeant looked him up and down again. He didn’t like being told what to do, especially by civilians, but he was forced to concede that the tall man was talking sense, even if he was a musician wanted for questioning by a superintendent seconded to the War Office.

  He recorded their details in the logbook and sent them with Grine to the third floor.

  Grine led them up more flights of stairs than Skins thought acceptable for first thing in the morning, and along a long, linoleum-floored corridor. He stopped at a door whose sign proclaimed it to be the entrance to the office of ‘Detective Superintendent O N Sunderland.’ He knocked smartly on the glass panel.

  ‘Yes,’ called a voice from inside.

  Grine opened the door a fraction and leaned in.

  ‘I’ve got the two men you wanted to see, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Have you, indeed?’ said the unseen voice. ‘Thank you very much. Send them in, please, Constable.’

  Grine threw open the door and ushered the two musicians into the office.

  Sitting behind the desk was a slim man who appeared to be in his late fifties. His thinning grey hair was neatly trimmed and his eyes were bright behind his round, wire-framed spectacles. His dark grey lounge suit was well cut and immaculately pressed, his silk tie perfectly knotted. He took off his glasses and stood to greet his visitors.

  ‘Skins,’ he said warmly. ‘Dunn. Do come in. How marvellous to see you.’

  Slightly puzzled, Skins and Dunn entered the room and shook the superintendent’s hand.

  ‘Sit down, please. Tea? Bring a tea tray, Constable, would you. And see if you can scare up any biscuits.’

  Grine closed the door behind him.

  ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ said Skins. ‘Before the war. Down in Gloucestershire. When Wally Holloway copped it at that party. You were Inspector Sunderland then.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Sunderland. ‘Must be, what, seventeen years ago now? I’m glad you remembered.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget our trumpeter being bumped off. I mean, we’ve had some savage reviews over the years, but no one else has been so disappointed that they killed one of us.’

  Sunderland laughed. ‘I should think it sticks in the mind, yes.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dunn, who had been struggling to recall. ‘Littleton Cotterell. You’re Lady Hardcastle’s pal. I remember now.’

  ‘That’s it. I used to be with Bristol CID, but I moved up here after the war. You’ve . . . you’ve changed a lot.’

  ‘Seventeen years, a world war, and being married to an American heiress will do that to a man,’ said Skins. ‘We w
ere just kids when you met us.’

  ‘I suppose you were, yes. You always seemed so self-assured.’

  ‘Cocky.’

  ‘A little,’ said Sunderland with a smile. ‘I confess I assumed you were older than you were.’

  ‘We used to get that a lot,’ said Skins. ‘But you can hardly blame us for being a bit lippy. One of our mates had just copped it. That was a bit of a “rum do”, as the officers used to say.’

  ‘Wasn’t it just? Rum do’s seem to follow Lady Hardcastle around, though. Do you see much of her these days?’

  ‘Her mate Flo and my wife are best pals. Have been for years. You know how it is when someone saves your life.’

  ‘Really?’ said Sunderland.

  ‘Long story. But they write every week. Phone calls, too. Expensive blimmin’ phone calls. So we see her and Lady H whenever they’re in town – Lady H’s brother and his family live in London. She claims she’s getting too old for nightclubs. Makes a great show of how Flo has to drag her along, but they always have a great time. They’re good company. The band loves them. How about you?’

  ‘I love them, too,’ said Sunderland.

  ‘No, I mean, do you see them?’

  ‘Not as often as I’d like, but we keep in touch. You know how it is.’

  Dunn was beginning to get the tiniest bit impatient.

  ‘No offence, Superintendent,’ he said, ‘but I’m assuming you didn’t drag us both from our beds for some misty-eyed reminiscences about the olden days. How can we help you?’

  ‘Dragged from your beds?’ said Sunderland with some dismay.

  ‘It was before eight in the morning,’ said Dunn.

  ‘Which seems like a perfectly reasonable—’

  ‘We’re musicians, Superintendent,’ said Skins. ‘We work nights.’

  ‘Oh my lord, I really am sorry,’ said Sunderland. ‘I honestly didn’t think. I just sent Grine off in a car—’

  ‘In a Black Maria,’ interrupted Dunn.