Mrs. Farintosh’s Opal Tiara
I’ve long been fascinated by Sherlock Holmes’s cases which occurred before I met him. In April 1883, when Miss Helen Stoner consulted Holmes, she stated that Mrs. Farintosh had recommended him. I longed to hear about the earlier case, but I had to wait, as we were immediately occupied on the journey to Surrey to aid Miss Stoner. Later, when we were on the train back to London after revealing the truth behind the deadly speckled band and its resultant rough justice, I waited a suitable amount of time, and as soon as we were settled and the wheels began to roll, I asked, “Regarding Mrs. Farintosh, who recommended you to Miss Stoner . . . ?”
“You never forget anything, do you, Watson? Oh very well. I see I’ll get no peace until I tell you about that case.”
“It will while away the journey back to London,” I said . . . .
Early in December of 1880, just before you and I met on New Year’s Day, I lived in Montague Street, around the corner from the British Museum. I wasn’t as busy as I am now. I’d already retired for the night when I received a telegram asking me to come as early in the morning as possible to call on a Mr. Farintosh, who had a most urgent problem. I replied I would be there at nine, and then returned to bed without a thought as to what his problem might be.
The address wasn’t far, but in the interest of time, I took a hansom to John Street, just off the Strand near the Waterloo Bridge, and stood before a narrow three-story house, built of dark brick, with carved stone pilasters and an attic. The door was opened by a proper butler, whose name I later learned was Paxton, a solid fellow who looked as though he might wrestle horses, but was excellent with overcoats and umbrellas as well. “You are here about the missing tiara?”
I nodded, though I didn’t yet know what the urgency was for my summons. A missing tiara sounded less urgent than a missing person or a murder.
The butler ushered me into the morning room where the entire household awaited me – fourteen people, one or more of whom may or may not have taken the tiara. I hadn’t faced an audience of that size since I was onstage as Marzando the Magnificent’s assistant, and never as a consulting detective. I felt like an understudy opera singer performing Aida for the first time.
The room was well-appointed, with floor-to-ceiling windows for the meager December morning light. They were hung with yellow silk draperies patterned with latticework. Yellow, green, black, and white were used for the rug and upholstery, and the walls were painted a cheerful yellow. A large six-sided terrarium, lush with greenery, stood on a table near the windows.
A man stepped forward and identified himself as Gilbert Farintosh, pronounced Fairn-tosh, a Scotsman who spoke the Queen’s English. He asked me to follow him to his library, where he closed the door and turned to me in order to explain the reason for the telegram.
“My wife’s tiara is missing.”
I almost told him that was regrettable but beneath my services when he wrung his hands most anxiously and said, “Please let me explain. I know the problem must seem trivial to you, although the tiara is quite valuable.”
“It hardly seems to be as urgent as you seem to think it,” I replied.
“Please. I’m neither wealthy nor titled. I must earn my way. I’m a junior in the Foreign Office. My superiors have honored me by issuing an invitation to their annual Christmas Ball. All of the women will be resplendent in their gowns and tiaras, a way of evaluating them and by extension their husbands. This tiara has been in my family for more than a century, since an ancestor brought it back from India. It may hold the key to my advancement.”
I hoped that Foreign Office promotions weren’t based on tiaras, but I didn’t doubt it. “I assume you have searched for it already. When was its loss first discovered?”
“Late yesterday. The tiara is made of silver set with truly resplendent opals. My wife went to the locked cabinet where she keeps it to see if the silver needed polishing again. The box in which it’s kept was there, but was empty.”
“I see. Opals. Upala from Sanskrit, meaning ‘precious stone’. Was the box itself kept locked?”
“It was, as was the cabinet.”
“Where are the keys kept?”
“Lenora has an intricate little box with a trick opening. I gave it to her for a courtship present. Only the two of us know the secret to open it. That key and the cabinet key were both undisturbed in the trick box.”
A locked box in a locked cabinet with keys hidden in a secret compartment in a puzzle box. My interest was piqued by now. “What measures have you taken to find the tiara?”
“I gathered everyone in the dining room where I thought the tiara was least likely to be hidden, because people are in and out of it all day. My wife and I then searched the servants’ quarters in the attic. We found nothing. We then made our way down from floor to floor, but the answer was the same: The tiara had vanished.”
“No one left the room while you were searching?”
“No. Paxton kept stern watch over the room. Only the children were asleep.”
“They are how old?”
“Gil, Jr. is five, Susan is three, and little Petey is just over a year. We checked the nursery as well as their beds in case some diabolical person had hidden the tiara there. We were thorough, I assure you. We even looked under the beds to be sure the tiara hadn’t been attached to the bottoms. I knew of no one I could turn to. I didn’t want the police involved, or the news to reach the newspapers. I remembered hearing your name once mentioned in passing in the hallways at work, and that you are a consulting detective.” He spread his hands. “And here we are.”
“The difficulty of this case seems to be the time of the theft. We only know it was missing late yesterday. When was the last time your wife looked at it?”
“Sometime after we received the invitation to the ball. My wife thinks it was on the fourth. She remembers that was a Saturday, and the joint for Sunday dinner was delivered that day.”
“Today is the tenth. You found the tiara missing on the ninth. That narrows the time of the theft to five days. Now I need to meet the rest of your household.”
We adjourned back to the morning room where I met Mr. Farintosh’s brother, Harold, two years younger than Gilbert, who appeared to be about our age, Watson. Also present was Harold’s wife, Bess, and sitting quietly beside her was Mrs. Lenora Farintosh, who was younger than I expected her to be after having three children – all of them seated beside her. Her sister, Sylvia Somers, was probably around twenty-three. Gilbert Jr.’s governess, Miss Ida Ayers, was a pleasant but plain young woman of perhaps thirty-one, and Nanny Frakes was a cheerful cushiony woman of middle age.
The staff consisted of Paxton, the butler, Mrs. Bowles the cook, whose quarters both were off the kitchen ‘tween floors, Mary the parlour maid, and Edith the cook’s helper. From time to time, part-time workers came – window-washers, chimney sweeps, knife sharpeners, pot-menders – but none since October when the house was cleaned for the winter.
I stood near the terrarium while Farintosh introduced me to the household and explained what I would do. I watched them while I pretended to look at the scene in the glass box: Mountains covered in velvety smooth green moss, where ferns and other moisture-loving plants formed a dell with a ceramic dragon hidden in it. A circular mirror stood in for a lake with a pair of tiny glass swans swimming on it. Someone had spent considerable time on this creation.
Mrs. Farintosh noticed my attention. “My sister made that with the children.”
“Clever,” I said. Her sister blushed prettily.
“We did it last week,” Miss Somers said. “The day it rained. Sunday I think it was.”
“I put the swans in,” Susan whispered from her seat beside Nanny Frakes. “On the other side.”
Near the floor, seemingly stuck to the back of one of the table legs, was a bit of ferny green.
Farintosh finished relating to the household that they must tell me everything they could remember about the five days between the last appearance of the tiara and the previous night.
“No matter how trivial,” I added. “I will start with Mrs. Bowles, followed by Nanny Frakes and Miss Ayers. Please remain in this room until your turn, and pray do not discuss the case.”
Nobody seemed unduly alarmed at being questioned. I chose the cook first because her duties would need to be attended to soon. Mrs. Bowles was a substantial personage in a blue-print dress, covered by a capacious spotless white apron. I suspected she was a dab hand at pastries and the like. Her plain features were framed by a ruffled white cap.
“I never go upstairs ‘cept on special occasions,” she stated without preamble, “and there’s been none since the house was turned over.”
“That was in October.”
“Yessir.” She nodded emphatically.
“Have you heard anything about the tiara?”
“Only what’s been said ‘bout it missin’.”
“You haven’t seen anything suspicious in the five days since Saturday last?”
“Nossir.” She nodded again.
“If you think of something, let Mr. Paxton know.”
“I will, sir.”
“Thank you. You may go.”
Nanny Frakes raised her eyebrows at the door as she passed Mrs. Bowles, who gave her a nod.
“I’ll be quick,” I said as the door closed. Nanny Frakes was about forty. She wore a brown-print dress with another snowy apron.
“I don’t know anything about the tiara. I didn’t know it was missing until Mr. Farintosh came in the nursery last night, after they discovered it were gone.”
“I thought as much. If you think of anything let Mr. Farintosh know. You may take your charges to the nursery now, and send in Miss Ayers.”
She nodded and returned to the morning room. In a second or two, Miss Ida Ayers knocked on the door Nanny Frakes closed behind her. I’d made a list of their names and made a brief note as we talked.
The governess was dressed more modishly than the previous two – no apron, her dress of a striped merino wool with a lacy collar, a gold watch pinned to her bodice. As governess, she had more access in the house than the previous two, but she knew no more than they did.
“I’ve never seen the tiara and wouldn’t know it if I did,” she declared, her brown eyes opened wide. “This is my first year here.”
“How do you find the household?”
“Gil, Jr. is a precocious little boy eager to learn. Susan will start her lessons next year.”
“And the adults of the household?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Farintosh are lovely people.” She refused to say more.
I asked her to tell Mr. Harold he was next, and he entered within seconds. He was a lesser version of his older brother, as if one print had been made, but the ink had faded on the second copy. His dark hair was receding, his eyes a pale gray, his nose slightly pinched. His face was marred by a thin black moustache. His shoulders mimicked his moustache’s droop, sloping under his fashionable gray-on-gray coat. His voice was somewhat nasal, indicating a possible obstruction of his airways.
He, too, had noticed nothing amiss. He accompanied his wife on carriage drives in Hyde Park several times in those crucial five days. “She’s in the family way,” he said with obvious pride. “I’m scarcely two years younger than my brother, but he already has three children.”
And also a promising career and a house on a fashionable street were the words left unspoken.
He was between positions, he said, doing a little speculating. I managed not to prick up my ears at that, because obviously living in his brother’s house, without a job and a baby coming, he had need for money, but he shot that theory down in his next sentence.
“I’m not in a rush. Our great-uncle’s estate is almost settled. We both have expectations, as he died without other heirs beside the two of us.” He leaned back as if enjoying the inheritance in advance.
I thanked him and bade him to ask his wife to come in next. He turned at the door and looked as if he wanted to tell me his wife didn’t need to answer my questions, but thought better of it and slouched out.
Bess Farintosh was a petite woman with dark brown curls, held in place by carnelian combs. She wore a voluminous gown of soft wool in a shade of russet that set off her dark eyes and pale coloring. Several years younger than her husband, she still had a fresh dewy look, even after living with him. Perhaps she, too, had expectations, or possibly she hoped her brother-in-law would be knocked down by an omnibus and the tiara and all that accompanied it would become hers.
“I haven’t seen anything of that old tiara,” she said in a breathy voice. “Lenora should take better care of it if it’s so valuable.”
I refrained from saying that she’d locked it up twice and hidden the keys well while she explained to me how she went to bed early, arose late, and nibbled dry toast until noon. “After that, if the weather is fine, my husband takes me for a drive in the park, and then I may read a magazine or a novel, or nap until dinner.”
I nodded to be polite. I’ve no knowledge of the ways of women in the family way and didn’t know if this was the usual for ladies who need not work.
“Please ask Miss Somers to come in next,” I said as she slowly progressed to the door.
While awaiting Miss Somers, I looked around the library at the comfortable appointments, the leather chairs, the walls of books, the mahogany desk with ornate dagger letter opener, utilitarian inkwell, and a small globe that no doubt omitted Krakatoa, Zanzibar, Okinawa, and other islands of no importance to the Queen. The room was dark, lit only by oil lamps on sconces set into the wall. The sole outside light came from the hall through the glass transom over the door.
Miss Somers strolled in. She wore her blond hair in plaits wrapped around her head, perhaps in Viking style. Her eyes were green, and she wore a dress of the same color.
“Confound it, Watson, how do you describe all these details when you write our case studies?”
“Well, it isn’t easy. I take notes. Sometimes I go back and fill in from memory.”
“I took notes, but only to remember where they all were roughly during those five days.”
Miss Somers sat demurely in the green leather chair and waited for me to finish appreciating her beauty she had packaged so well. “I am Sylvia Somers,” she purred when I didn’t speak.
“Indeed. Tell me of your activities during those five days from last Saturday until yesterday.”
“Twice, I think, I went driving in the park with Harold and Bess. One day, I went with my sister to look at silk embroidery thread, but we didn’t buy any.”
“Why is that if you needed the thread?”
“I don’t like embroidery, and my sister couldn’t make up her mind between the greens or the mauves.” She pursed her lips.
“Did you know where the tiara was kept?”
“Vaguely – somewhere in their rooms?”
“Had you seen it before?”
“She wore it at her wedding.”
Interesting that she spoke of her sister as her, she, or my sister – never by name.
She had no more to add. I asked about the terrarium she had made with the children.
“I thought their little eyes would enjoy the greenery during the winter when there’s no color, and the sun sets almost before it rises.”
“Did you put it together, or did the two older children?”
“It was a combined effort. We even let little Petey put in some of the moss. I had to rework a lot of it later after they were in bed, but they had fun doing it.”
“What day did you make it?”
She pursed her lips again, thinking. She must have been told that was a pretty pose. “It was Sunday, as I’ve already stated. Gilbert bought the terrarium the week before when I suggested it.”
She had nothing to add. Like the others, she’d seen nothing, heard nothing. “Ask Mrs. Farintosh to come next, please.”
Her sister hurried in a few minutes later and sat down with a swirl of her skirts. She appeared to be in motion even when she was not. “Do you have any clues yet?” she asked anxiously.
“Some things have come to mind, but I need more information.”
“Watson, are you taking notes?”
“A few. I can’t possibly remember all these details, and I marvel that you can.”
“This is not a case that you helped to solve.”
He was being generous. “I can’t remember so many little things, like the fallen fern, when I haven’t experienced it myself.”
“You would remember that whether you experienced it or not.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“I do not.”
“What kind of information?”
“Since your oldest son is five, I assume you’ve been married for at least six years.”
“Nine. I was nineteen, Jason was twenty-two.”
“How long has your sister lived with you?”
“Three years. Our parents both died within weeks of one another. My father was a lawyer in Evesham. We used the inheritance for a debut for her, but she ‘didn’t take’, as they say. She’s twenty-two now, and I don’t know what to do about a husband for her. Gilbert has invited young bachelors to visit from time to time, but again nothing happened. I do wish she would make more of an effort to please.”
“Are you close?”
“Not in years past, because I was older, but now that she’s grown up, and we can share more activities.”
“Such as?”
“She’s interested in embroidery. We often go to match silks.”
“Do you enjoy embroidery?”
“I hate it. I much more enjoy gardening. Gil bought the terrarium for me, but she insisted on doing it with the children. How could I say no? They gathered the moss from the scrap of a garden out back. I do think I shall add violets, both purple and white.”
“Any other activities together?”
“We walk in the park.”
“Did you walk much during these five days?”
“The weather wasn’t clement enough this week. We were going to look at embroidery materials one day, but then rain blew up. Why these questions about my family?”
“I need to understand the background of the household. Did you engage your servants when you acquired this house?”
“Yes. My husband inherited it from his father. His mother died young. We were living here with his father when he died. There’s some ancient property in Scotland, but I’ve never seen it. We engaged all the servants ourselves, except for Mrs. Bowles. She was here already. When my husband’s father died, his butler retired, as did the maids. Edith was engaged after we moved here. Paxton came then, and later Mary.”
“And you have no reason not to trust them?”
“None at all. Paxton is the only one who even knew about the tiara. He has polished it several times. He seems pleased to be with a family who has a tiara.” Her mouth curved in a fleeting smile until she remembered she might never see the tiara again. “Interesting how people value their meager holdings. I’m sure the wives of dukes and earls never even bother to count their tiaras.”
“Their staffs may do that for them.” I returned to the questioning. “You are quite sure no one entered your house during those five days?”
“No one.”
“Perhaps some kitchen deliveries?”
“The meat delivery had been made before I looked at the tiara that day. The vegetables had been delivered earlier. They are due again tomorrow.”
“What do you think happened to the tiara?”
She turned her blue eyes, clear as water, to mine. “I really don’t know. I’ve lost sleep trying to figure out if I removed it in my sleep.”
“Are you prone to sleep-walking?”
“No, not at all, but I can think of no other way it could have gone missing. Oh, Mr. Holmes, please find it!” Her eyes glistened with tears. “It means so much to him! He thinks he needs it to advance at the Foreign Office. We have enough if he never gains another step up. We could make do with fewer staff! I’ve told him this, but he feels it’s a blot on his ability.”
“Do not worry. I shall find the tiara for you, and in time for the ball tonight. Now, if you could ask Paxton to come in.”
Paxton, perhaps more than any other member of the staff, knew what the loss of the tiara meant to the family, and it had happened on his watch. He was understandably worried, but in the tradition of butlers, kept his feelings to himself.
“Meat deliveries were made on that day for both the weekend and the rest of the week. In addition, vegetables were delivered. I supervised both. No tiara went out that door, I can assure you.”
“I’m sure you can, but I must leave no carrot unturned.”
Not only was I surprised at Holmes’s levity, but also at its use during an investigation. Later, he told me he was attempting to relieve the butler because by then he already knew what had happened to the tiara.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“I was born the youngest in Alfriston on the coast. I didn’t want to go to sea as my brothers did. Our father had been lost in a storm on the Channel. I was seven and frightened of the sea from that day on. At age nine, I began running errands and doing odd jobs at the pub, and later at the Mirleton, the large country house owned by the Gaylon family.” He stopped abruptly.
I didn’t question him further. No doubt some unpleasantness had happened, as it often does with these houses and their casts of characters. “What do you think happened to the tiara?”
“I cannot say, sir, but I am reasonably sure it didn’t leave the house – certainly not through the kitchen during deliveries. Mary and Edith are two honest girls, and Mrs. Bowles is the soul of goodness.”
I nodded and asked him to tell Mr. Farintosh I would like to speak to him.
“Very good, sir.” He left silently as butlers do, and Gilbert Farintosh entered.
“Well, Holmes, I hope you have some indication of what happened to the tiara.”
“I do, but first, I need to look over the house myself.”
He nodded. “It is near the noon hour. Shall we wait in the dining room? I’ve ordered a light collation if you care to join us, or I could have it brought here.”
“Perhaps later. A cup of coffee would be excellent.”
“I’ll see to it.”
I waited until they were all in the dining room and Paxton brought me coffee. I took the cup and saucer with me and drank as I descended to the kitchen.
“Lord, Mr. Holmes, I wasn’t expecting you,” Mrs. Bowles said as she removed a pan from the mountainous stove. The kitchen was warm with pots bubbling and delectable dishes laid on the long wooden table.
I put the cup down. “Excellent coffee. I’m just getting the lay of the land, so to speak.”
I walked around the kitchen, opened the door, and looked out into the courtyard. “The dustman comes once a week?”
“Twice, sir. He came on Monday, and again on Thursday, but no tiara went out of this kitchen. I check the barrels myself. There’s no telling what people will drop by accident late at night. Once I found a silver comb.”
“I’m sure the tiara didn’t escape your eagle eye.”
She stirred a pot and bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”
I took a few moments to question Mary and Edith. Neither contributed anything of value, except that the former described how she cleaned the house, specifically confirming how she had cleaned the legs of the table where the terrarium sat.
In a ragbag off the scullery, I found an interesting piece of silk. I folded it and slid it into a pocket. Mrs. Bowles’ and Paxton’s rooms were locked. I didn’t need to know more than where they were located on the half-floor between the basement and the next (add floor.)
I climbed the servants’ stairs, noting they were of better quality than many I’d seen. I started at the top floor, glancing into the rooms of the two maids with their neat possessions and pictures of family. I noted one had a photograph of a young man in a uniform in a plain frame on the cabinet beside her bed.
The next floor down held the nursery, the schoolroom, and the rooms of the governess and nanny. I didn’t disturb them. Still on the back stairs, I perused the next floor, where the rooms of Gilbert and Lenora were somewhat larger and more tastefully decorated in blues and mauves. All was as I expected. I looked in the cabinet, now left open and empty of its charge, the tiara. The box was there, but locked. I looked for the trick box and found it under folded handkerchiefs. The design was Chinese, and I had no difficulty in finding the secret compartment where the two keys lay in a small velvet bag. I replaced them and moved to the sitting room. Nothing to see there. I crossed the hall to the sitting room, now by necessity a bedroom for Sylvia while Harold and Bess occupied the next larger bedroom. She must have hated giving up the bigger room. Beyond, I found a series of even smaller rooms into which the children would move when they outgrew the nursery.
I took the main stairs this time, passing through the morning room, where I prepared my revelation. I didn’t bother with the drawing room, but opened the dining room door. The low murmur of voices stopped, some in mid-sentence. The longcase clock in the hall struck half-two.
“Did you find it?” Harold demanded as if it were his tiara.
“Yes,” Sylvia echoed, “did you find it?”
“Would you all please assemble in the morning room? Just the family.” A frown flitted across Paxton’s face, quickly replaced by a bland look. Farintosh could tell him whatever he wished later. I withdrew, leaving them to follow me.
They sat in the same seating as before, in a rough semicircle with Gilbert and Lenora in the center, Sylvia on the left curve facing Harold, and Bess somewhat recessed between the two brothers. They looked at me with expectant eyes.
“I have been all over the house,” I said, “looking for places where a tiara could be hidden if it weren’t smuggled out.”
Sylvia let out a little scream. “Do you mean some – some housebreaker has been inside these walls, endangering our persons?”
“I have found no evidence of that.”
“Have you found evidence of the tiara?” Harold asked with a smirk. He obviously thought I hadn’t.
“According to all of you, no one has entered the house, except for those who live and work here during the time the tiara was last seen on Saturday. Supplies brought to the kitchen were overseen by Paxton, who assures me that nothing left the kitchen that day and yesterday, when Mrs. Farintosh opened the box in which the tiara is kept to see if the silver needed polishing. Is this correct?”
Harold shrugged. Bess nodded. Sylvia said, “Mmm”. Lenora nodded, and Gilbert said, “That is what we believe.”
I took out my handkerchief and unfolded it to show a tiny frond of a small green fern. “I found this behind the leg of the able with the terrarium.”
“Mary must not have seen it when she cleaned,” Lenora said.
“Careless of her,” Sylvia said. “You must speak to her, Gilbert.”
“It was actually stuck onto the leg and completely unnoticeable in the shadows thrown by the lamps and the windows.”
“I’m sure all of the debris from the making of the terrarium were cleared away,” Sylvia said. “I put down newspaper before we started for that purpose, but it’s possible that I missed a tiny piece.”
“You didn’t come here to complain about the housekeeping, I hope,” Harold complained.
Sylvia smiled at him.
“No, that isn’t my purpose. I’m here to find the Farintosh Tiara, and that I have done.”
Gilbert sat straighter in his chair. “You have?”
Lenora looked relieved, no doubt because she felt responsible, and also the family’s standing table had been salvaged.
Sylvia let out a trill of laughter. “What a relief!”
I removed from my pocket the silk wrapping I’d found in the scrap bag. As I unfolded it, the family gradually realized what it was, but I needed them to confirm. “Is this the silk in which the tiara was wrapped?”
Sylvia arose and walked over to feel the silk to identify it. “I believe so,” she said as she sat back down.
I gave her a brief look to see if subterfuge were present. It was not.
“Where did you find it?” Harold demanded.
“It was stuffed into a ragbag in the pantry. Any idea how it got there?”
“Obviously the thief put it there,” Harold said.
“It must have been one of the maids,” Sylvia said. “I can’t imagine Cook climbing those stairs unless summoned.”
“Or that’s what we are meant to think,” I said.
“Tell us where it is, if you know,” Harold challenged.
“And who took it,” his wife said in a small voice. Harold gave her a sharp look.
I leaned over and opened the top of the terrarium, reached in, and started piling moss into one corner.
“Oh, you’re ruining it!” Sylvia cried. “The children will be so disappointed.”
“What has been unmade can easily be remade.” Soon I uncovered the stones that propped up the moss. Amidst them was the tiara, the mirror of the small lake in its curve. I drew it out of the terrarium and turned it so they could see the opals like glowing moons in the silver frame. Bits of moss and fern tendrils, along with some of the dirt from the underside of the moss, clung to it.
I held it out to Gilbert. “Is this the Farintosh Tiara?”
He took it and showed it to his wife who turned it over to look inside at the engraving. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yes! See – There is the engraved Farintosh Coat of Arms.” Then she said to her husband, “Please ring for Paxton.”
The butler immediately opened the door, his stoic face smiling with relief.
“Please see that it is cleaned,” she instructed him, “and don’t let it out of your sight.”
“Very good, Madam. I will watch it as a mongoose watches a cobra.”
“Well, that’s a little sinister,” Sylvia remarked when he’d left.
“Now for the best part,” Harold said. “Who is the thief?”
“That I cannot say. I was asked to find the tiara, which I have done. It has been restored to the family, and Mrs. and Mrs. Farintosh may now go to the ball in splendour. It is barely half-three, which gives you plenty of time to make your preparations.”
“Wait!” Bess interrupted. “How did you know it was there?” She’d been quiet throughout the revelation, and appeared somewhat worried.
“Madame, I eliminate the impossible and what remains, no matter how odd, has to be the solution. With no outsiders in the house, the theft therefore must have been done by an insider who had no opportunity to remove the tiara from the premises. The plan from the beginning, no doubt, was to do so later when the household was no longer under intense scrutiny. The terrarium was a brilliant place of concealment. Now, if you have no more questions, I’ll be on my way.”
No one could think of anything to ask at that point. I bowed to Mr. and Mrs. Farintosh. “Enjoy your ball tonight.”
I nodded for Farintosh to accompany me, since Paxton was occupied with restoring the tiara.
I entered the hall ahead of him. He closed the morning room door behind him. “If you could step into my library a moment . . . .”
I led the way, and he closed the door quietly behind him. “Well – Who did it?”
When I didn’t reply he said, “Was it the servants?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Was it my brother?”
“No, but possibly only because he hadn’t thought of it yet.”
“Surely not Bess.”
“No.”
“Then – ”
“If you have properties in Scotland, I think it would be wise for your brother and his wife to go there so their child will be born a true Scot. If you have another place, your sister-in-law should go there.”
“I take your meaning, sir. Thank you. I’ll see to it.”
His eyes looked sad, and I wondered if earlier discordant incidents, perhaps not of this magnitude, hovered around the edges of this family, and suddenly appeared more sinister in the light of the tiara’s theft.
“Enjoy the ball tonight.”
“Thank you. We shall.” He bade me good afternoon, and I thought to myself that Sylvia accomplished something in the theft of the tiara: Gilbert Farintosh could no longer feel comfortable in his extended family, if he ever had.
“I wonder if they really enjoyed the ball?”
“Mrs. Farintosh no doubt did. I’m sure her husband went through all the motions of it, but the jealousy within the walls of his house had to be on his mind.”
“How did you know it was the sister?”
“Harold spent all of his time with either his wife or at his club. That isn’t to say he couldn’t have done it, but I didn’t think he was devious enough. He wore his stupidity on the outside of his coat.
”Sylvia’s sweetness on the other hand, came with little pinches of pepper.”
“Yes, but how did you know she did it?”
“It was her idea to make the terrarium with the children so they could see greenery in winter’s bleakness, and she usurped her sister’s involvement. The maids had assured me that they regularly cleaned the legs of the table it sat upon. One of the children had spilled some of the water for the plants on the table top, and it ran down the leg before anybody wipe it up. Mary said she wiped all of the legs all the way around. She would’ve seen a bit of fern.
When the household slept, Sylvia crept through the house carrying out her plan. I suspect she took the tiara Saturday last when her sister and brother-in-law were at a party to which she wasn’t invited.
She hid the tiara in her room, and then had the brilliant idea to hide it in the terrarium. Lenora couldn’t say no to the children. After they planted it, Sylvia slipped down late one night during those five days before tiara was found missing and disguised it as part of the mountains. A clever plan. She didn’t see the tiny bit of fern, nor did she realize on the day that I visited that it hadn’t been there long enough to turn brown, so it couldn’t have been there the previous Sunday.”
“She may have planned to retrieve it that night while her sister was at the ball, perhaps to wrap it as a Christmas gift for someone and take it and other parcels out of the house that way. With a mind that devious, one need always to anticipate such behavior before more ruin is caused.”
“Holmes, you should write an agony aunt column for the newspaper! You solved the problem of the Farintosh tiara and gave advice on the domestic front. Well done!”
“Ha!” He looked out the window at the beginnings of spring, a far distance from December in London. “I found the tiara and the thief, but I can’t always solve human problems.”
“At least you gave Farintosh some suggestions for dealing with his relatives.”
“I did, to the best of my ability. I hoped it would be the solution for him. One must consider the safety of children around such aberrant personalities.”
The train began slowing as we came into Waterloo Station, and I wondered if this was the case that made Holmes wary of women, or if it had happened earlier.
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had your address . . . .”
Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small case-book, which he consulted.
“Farintosh,” said he. “Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson.
– Miss Helen Stoner and Sherlock Holmes
“The Speckled Band”
