We both paused, frozen in mid getaway, giving Lord Devon our full attention. It was that kind of ‘oh.’ “Yes, milord?” I said.
“Do you know if there has been any progress made concerning this dreadful jewelry matter?”
“Yes there has, milord,” I said. “I am pleased to say it should all be cleared up before the conclusion of the reception.”
“Not a theft, was it?” He pronounced “theft” as though its mere thought might endanger the very foundations of Powderham.
“A mere misunderstanding, milord. Nothing more. Please put your mind at ease.”
His eyebrows ascended. “Excellent!” He nodded, his face wreathed in very happy smiles. “Jolly good.” He looked at Watson, his face growing somewhat more serious. “Excellent actor, Edward Fox.” He shook his head gravely. “Remains of the Day. Hated that movie as a boy. Don’t mind me baring the old soul, do you old fellow, one actor to another?”
“Not at all, milord.”
“Your excellent portrayal of Edward Fox reminded me of it. As a boy they told me a thousand times Remains of the Day was filmed here. Dreadful film. I even watched it once. Could hardly stay awake. I mean you practically stand up begging Emma Thompson to hop naked in Hopkins’s tub, wot? Muss his hair a bit?”
“Quite,” said Watson.
Lord Devon looked into a glass and darkly. “Away at school you tell all your chums the bloody thing was filmed at Powderham. They don’t care the ruddy film’s boring. It’s Hollywood. Movies! With Hannibal the cannibal. You sit before the tellymax screen all puffed up, the ruddy thing begins. There it goes, sir, with that bloody ride up a hilly lane you never saw before and you pull up to a townhouse with a Georgian roofline decorated with bloody old urns. ‘Where the hell is that?’ shouts out Jimmy Brown. ‘That’s not Powderham,’ says Cyril Danforth. ‘Where’s that, Charlie?’ yells out Tommy Welles. “Where are the battlements?”
His lordship descended the remains of the stairs, clasped his hands behind his back, shook his head, and made his way toward the wedding party, still shaking his head. “Scarred me for life,” he muttered as he turned a corner. “Bloody movies.” Shad and I exited on tiptoe in the opposite direction.
“Now, was that a good save or what?” said my partner as we reached Ian Collier’s door.
“Save? Save?”
He gave me his hurt Watson expression. “Of course, Holmes. Where’s the head of security? Mission accomplished?”
“Shad, there is a built-in bumble factor in your Dr. Watson brain! It’s the size of a casaba melon!”
“Really, Holmes!”
“You know what they call a firefighter who does a superb job of extinguishing fires he himself has ignited?”
“What?”
“An arsonist!” I knocked on the door and entered.
The security officer on duty led us to an office, which led to an outer office and a secretary who led us to an inner office overlooking the deer park and lake. It was a well-lighted room, smallish, and tucked about with family photos, professional photos, and neat shelves of books. Ian Collier himself was older than I remembered, a testimony to the dozen years or more that had passed since I had last seen him. He was a pleasant-looking fellow of about Watson’s height, brown hair thinning on top and graying on the sides. He rose slowly behind his desk as we entered. He had a narrow face I hadn’t remembered as mournful but which certainly rated such a description a moment before he caught a glimpse of the professional help he was getting from Exeter. The expression then became something between flabbergasted and crestfallen.
“Blood and sand, Jaggs! What’s become of you?”
“I haven’t time to explain, dear boy,” I said briskly. I nodded at Shad. “Former Assistant Chief Constable Ian Collier, this is my partner, Detective Sergeant Guy Shad. Watson, this is Mr. Ian Collier.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Watson, extending his hand. They shook. Collier appeared to be waiting for an explanation I really had neither the time nor the heart to provide. Hence, I said, “Shad and I are traveling incognito.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he responded. He gestured at two red leather-covered captains chairs facing his desk. “Please. Be seated. Can I offer you some tea?”
“Thank you. That would be most welcome,” I said, lowering myself into the chair to Shad’s left. As we waited for Ian’s secretary to bring tea and biscuits, Powderham Castle’s head of security briefed us on the missing jewelry. I noticed while he was talking, family photo images randomly appeared in a screen on the shelf behind Ian’s head. Wife and two young sons perhaps ten and seven respectively. There was a single still of a golden retriever hanging on the wall opposite the desk. It looked as though it had been taken on a sunny day in a field of wildflowers. The tea was poured and I took my cup. Excellent blend, by the way.
“We need several things,” I said to Ian. “First, as discreetly as possible, have several of your security personnel go to the reception, locate, and extricate Miss Betsy Blythe.”
“The blind woman with the seeing-eye dog?”
I smiled. “She is not blind, and that dog is a Labradoodle bio with a human imprint. As soon as possible after grabbing them—”
“You said extricate them.”
“With prejudice. Once you have them, separate them. Make certain you get both woman and dog and that they cannot communicate. I doubt that they’ll be rigged with wireless, but be prepared for it just in case they are.”
“Very well.”
“Next, I need to interview Clarice Penne.”
His eyebrows went up. “You mean Timmy the Tortoise?”
“Yes. I need to do so in private, with Betsy Blythe, and without the dog.”
Collier was looking confused. So was Watson.
“Come now, gentlemen. Surely you can arrange a meeting. It must be near a place where we can have unobserved access to the ABCD cruiser.”
Collier leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “There’s a place just beyond the rose garden where you can have that meeting,” he said. “At the east edge of the garden where it drops down to the dressage lawn there’s a wall. It would conceal your cruiser.”
“Excellent.”
“Am I permitted to know what’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, old fellow. It’s like rescuing the troops from Dunkirk. If it had to be written up in triplicate and approved in advance, no one ever would have had the courage to take the responsibility.”
Collier looked at Watson, who chuckled. “Holmes really knows how to lead a charge, doesn’t he?” said my partner.
“Now that you mention it, the phrase ‘the brave Six Hundred’ does come to mind rather easily right now.” Ian Collier shifted his gaze back to me. “I’m not going to find out you two have escaped from some asylum am I?”
“No. I don’t believe you will ever find out.” I touched my fingertips together and looked over them, my eyebrows arched, my eyes widened, but not crossed.
He leaned back in his chair, raised a hand in dismissal, and dropped it to the arm of his chair. “I can arrange for you, your cruiser, Betsy Blythe, and Timmy the Tortoise to meet privately off the edge of the rose garden. Anything else?”
“When you took that imprint of your dog, Ian.”
The change of subject caught him off stride. Once his double take was done, he leaned back in his chair. “When I was forced to retire?” he asked, his face reddening.
“Yes. Do you still have that chip?”
He frowned. “Yes. It’s here in my office.”
“Excellent. We’ll need that.”