A Matter of Inches

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3159, 20 April 1931, Page 7

A Matter of Inches

STORY OF A SULU PEARL. He came into the shop with the careless, leisurely air of one to whom time means nothing—a tall man, dressed in a well-cut suit, and smoking a large cigar. "I want a pearl," he said to the sleek-haired assistant who glided forward to attend to him. "The best you've got. I want it for a birthday

present" "A solitaire, sir?" asfcea* the man. "If by that you mean a solitary one —yes!" agreed the other. "And .'t must be a big one, too. It's for my wife; and a wife has a nasty habit of judging her husband's affection by the value of the birthday present he gives her. And the older they get the more they expect!" The assistant smiled as at a good joke. Grace and Smith's assistants always smiled at their customers' jokes, Just as they looked tearful when Informed of their woes. It was all part of their training. "About what price were you thinking of paying?" he asked, leading the way across the parquet floor to that portion of the shop where the pearls were kept. The tall man shrugged. "I really hadn't considered the ques-

tion of price," be admitted. "As a matter of fact, as long as I get what I -want, I don't think the price of it need matter very much. I would not give a thank-you for cheap jewellery —nor, I might add, would my wife!" Again the assistant permitted himself to smile. But as he reached down beneath the counter for a tray of pearls he was wondering just what the tall man was. He couldn't quite place

him, somehow. His bearing was easy

and his clothes were faultless, yet in - spite of that he had an idea that the man was not quite the gentleman he would have had him believe. "Are you staying in London, sir?" he asked, casually, as he straightened his back and placed the tray of pearls upon the glass-topped showcase which, in Grace and Smith's shop, did duty for a counter. "Yes," the tall man said. "I came up yesterday. I'm staying at Brownes' until I can find what I want, and then I shall go back to Gloucestershire: I don't care much for London," he added. Very few of Grace and Smith's country customers did care for London: and the astute assistant made a mental note of the fact that the man was staying at Brownes'. The majority of f ountry people stay at Brownes' when they come to London; and that fact made him wonder if he had not been mistaken. He looked at him again, vaguely aware that his gloves were a shade too yellow, his cigar a shade too long, his hat a shade too far back on his head, and his clothes just a thought too fashionable for a really well-turned-out man. "This is rather a fine pearl," he said aloud, rolling one across the black velvet base of the tray. "And here is another. This one is £2EO, arA this one—a shade larger—£3oo." "Hmp!" The tall man looked a* them. "Are those the biggest you have?" he asked. "I wanted something much bigger than either of those." "Bigger?" The assistant reached down for another tray. "I've got a bigger one here," he said, "and as fine

a gem as you could find anywhere in London." He picked up a pearl rather Mar'ger than a big pea, and held it towards the light. "Here you have a pearl of the first water," he went on in a voice warming to enthusiasm. "A pearl with a perfect skin and a fine orient. It's a Sulu Archipelago pearl, and absolutely flawless. That one is five hundred guineas." "Yes; that looks more like what I'm after!" the tall man replied. "Five hundred guineas, eh?" "And worth every penny of it, sir! In fact, I very much doubt if you would find another one like it anywhere in Bond-street. Look at its color! Look at its size!" "It certainly looks pretty good," the other admitted. He glanced along the show case, doubtfully. "Is that the best you have?" "The best anybody has!" retorted the assistant. "Nobody can Improve upon perfection, sir—and that pearl is perfection itself!" "Maybe, "maybe!" The tall man shrugged careless shoulders. "Personally, I don't know a Sulu Archipelago pearl from a Woolworth pearl," he confessed, "so that I shall have to take your word for it. You haven't anything bigger?" "I'm afraid not," the assistant said. ''-JVfl'yß got some very beautiful matched pearls—pairs, you know—for ear-rings and the like " And he was actually reaching down for them wlt9n the tall man stopped him.

"No-no!" he exclaimed. "I don't want a pair. I think I'll have the one you were, showing me just now." He took a well-filled wallet from his pocket as he spoke. "Just put it into a suitable case for me, and I think that will do. Five hundred guineas, you said?" "Five hundred guineas, sir!" re peated the assistant, eyeing the notes with considerable satisfaction. "And I'm quite certain your wife will be delighted with it," he added, thinking how delighted would be his own wife when she heard of the commission he had made on the deal. He replaced the two trays in their racks beneath the counter, went to pick up the Sulu pearl he had just sold —and stopped. It was not there. For a second he stood staring at the counter as though he could not believe the evidence of his own eyes. And in the silence the tall man laid five one-hundred-pound notes on the glass-topped showcase and immediately followed them up with* one for twenty pounds and one for five.

"Five hundred guineas!" he counted. But suddenly observing the assistant's face: "Anything wrong?" The assistant swallowed —hard. "Did you pick up the pearl, sir?" he .Jerked out.

"I?" The tall man looked at him. "No," he said. "I asked you to put it into a case for me. Why?" "Why? Because it Isn't here!'

' "Isn't here?" repeated the tall man, staring at him as though he had taken leave of . his senses. "What do you means by 'isn't here"' "I mean that it's gone! It's disappeared!" "Disappeared?" The tall man stepped back from the counter as quickly as though he'd been stung. "Disappeared!" he echoed. But already the assistant was searching feverishly among the other trays. There were some twenty or so pearls on the tray he had just replaced, but none of them was the precious Sulu pearl. "Are you—are you sure you didn't pick it up" he asked the tall man desperately. "Sure? Of course I'm sure!" The tall man seemed to be getting rattled. "I've already told you so. I haven't even touched the thing!" "Yet it's gone!" the bewildered assistant cried. "You must have picked it up!" The tall man retrieved his sheaf of notes from the counter. "I don't know what kind of a shop this is," he rapped out coldly, "but if you think you can talk to me like that " He paused, looking eagerly about him." And spotting a man In a morning coat and striped trousers standing over the other side of the shop he immediately crossed to his side. "Are you the manager of this place?" he asked brusquely. The man in the morning coat bowed. "I am, sir!" he replied in a pleasant voice. "Is there anything I can do for you?" "There is!" retorted the other. "For unless I'm very much mistaken I am being accused of stealing a pearl!" "Stealing a pearl?" The manager appeared momentarily taken aback. "You're —you're joking, sir—surely?" "I wish I were," the tall man assured him. "I think you'd better come over and talk to your assistant about it."

Obediently, though* with evident reluctance, the manager went across the shop to where the sleek-haired young man was standing in an attitude of deepest bewilderment. But when he had heard his story, and had seen for himself that the pearl was gone, his face grew very grave.

"It can't have disappeared into thin air," he said slowly. "And it can't have fallen through the solid glass of this show case." He looked from the assistant to the customer, doubtfully. "The thing must be somewhere!" he said.

"Obviously!" The tall man laid his stick on the edge of the glass, fetched out his wallet, and very carefully replaced that sheaf of notes. Then he buttoned up his coat, picked up hie stick again, and fixing the manager with a truculent eye demanded to. bnow what he was going to do about it. "Because I've got an important appointment to attend," he said. "And 1 don't want to be here all day."

'Tin afraid I shall have to call the shop detective," the manager murmured after an uncomfortable pause. "You can call who the devil you like," retorted the tall man. "But I'm going. If you want me, you'll find me at Brownes'."

"But one moment, sir" —the manager was getting hot and flustered. "Will you—won't you—won't you—have a word with the shop detective before you go? I mean the pearl has gone, and It would be in everyone's interest to get the matter cleared up as quickly as possible. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous!"

"I agree with you, heartily," replied the other. "It is ridiculous. I come here to buy a pearl and find myself accused of stealing one instead. It is ridiculous!"

"But try to place yourself in my position, sir " "I'd hate to place myself in your position!" thundered the tall man, blowing clouds of angry smoke from his cigar. "You've got my name, you've got my address, you know where to find me if you want me, and that's all that matters. I'd recommend you to search first your shop, and.then your assistant," he added. "I'm willing to be searched to my skin here and now!" blazed the sleekheaded young man. "Well, so am I!" replied the tall man. "Though people who offer themselves so readily to the Indignity of a personal search are the very people who have most to hide."

"I've got nothing to hide!" "Nor have I, my dear sir!" "Please?" protested the manager, glancing hastily round the shop. ''Come into my office, Davies. And you, too, sir, if you will have the goodness." "I'll see you in hades first!" rasped out the tall man.

"I don't think you will, sir." And now the manager's voice was steadier. He had caught the eye of a stout, rubicond little man who was standing beside the outer door; a man who, in response to a beckoning finger came quickly across the shop. "There's a little trouble here, Chambers, which needs your attention," the manager said to him. And very briefly he told him what had occurred. "Have you searched the trays and cases?" the detective asked the sleekhaired assistant.

"I've searched everywhere—but the pearl's gone!" "I see!" The detective glanced towards the tall man, questioningly. "Will you both accompany me to the manager's office?" he suggested then. "I'm sorry to trouble yon, sir," he added to the customer as that gentleman would have flared up, "but it's either this or the police."

And after a merely momentary hesitation:

"Oh, all right!" the tall man gave in wearily. "Just as you like. Though it will be many a long day before I or any of my friends come Into this shop again!" "Have you over been in it before, sir?" the detective asked.

"No, thank God, I haven't!" stormed the other. "If this is a specimen of how you ti-eat your clients."

But once inside the office, with the door closed and locked, the detective lest no time in pleasantries. Very briefly, but very concisely, he explained to both men that under all the circumstances he had no option but to search them. "If either of you has got the thing," he said, "put it on the table there and I give you my word that nothing further will be said about it. And I warn you, now, that if I have to search you, you don't stand an earthly chance of getting away with it. I'm far too old a hand at the game for that!" He looked from one to the other of them, keenly. And when neither moved: "Very well, I'll have to search you!" "Then start on me!!" offered the tall man, unexpectedly. "I'm in a hurry. I have an Important appointment in less than twenty minutes," and I don't want to miss it." "I'll search the assistant first, sir!" "No; search me nrst!" urged the tall man. "You can search him at your leisure, but I want to get away." He began to take off his coat, but the detective stopped him with a gesture. "The assistant first, sir!" he said doggedly. "That is our custom. We have no wish to.put a client to the indignity of a-search if it can in any way be avoided." "But I'm offering myself to that indignity!" the tall man cried. "Don't you understand me when I say that I'm in a hurry?"

"I'm sorry, sir," the detective apologised. "Damn you!" shouted the tall man. "You're doing this deliberately!" "I'm sorry, sir," the detective apologised again. "But orders are orders, and I have no option in the matter." But all the time he was searching the assistant, searching him with calm and methodical thoroughness, the tall man was urging him to greater speed. "I've got an appointment to keep!" he kept on saying. "I've got an appointment to keep!" But for all the notice the detective took of him he might have been speaking to a deaf man.

Finally, however, when it seemed that he had convinced himself that the missing pearl was not in the assistant's possession, he turned his attention to the tall man. "And for the love of heaven be quick!" that gentleman hissed, throwing his hat and stick on to the table and laying his cigar against a convenient ashtray. "And let me tell you that you'll hear more of this outrage before I'm through with you!" "I'm sorry, sir," smiled the imperturbable detective, calmly taking the coat the tall man threw at him. Indeed, as the examination proceeded, it seemed that nothing on earth could ruffle his even temper nor any threats alarm him. Coolly, methodically, with an almost maddening precision, he went on with his task; and he proceeded so slowly, and so painstakingly, that before he was more than half-way through it seemed as though the tall man would have an apoplectic fit.

"Hurry! Hurry, you fool!" he screamed again and again. "If I'm late for this appointment it'll cost me thousands —thousands, I tell you!" "I'm sorry, sir!" the detective replied stolidly. "But I've got my job to do, whatever happens." "And I'll see that you smart for it, too!" the tall man barked, his cheeks puffing out like the wattles of an angry turkey cock. "You fumbling fool!" ha shouted a second later. "Look what you're doing to the lining of that hat!" The detective glanced at him for a moment, and then laid the hat back upon the table. He was baffled, and was beginning to show it in his face. Never had he made a more careful search of a man, nor a more thorough —and yet the pearl had not been found. "All right," he said at last, very reluctantly. "All right. And I much regret the trouble you've been caused. On behalf of the firm, I offer you " "I don't want any apologies!" roared the other, struggling with his clothes as though his very life depended upon the speed of his fingers. But in the middle of tying his tie, quite suddenly, lie leaned over and stubbed his cigar Into the ashtray. "Damn you!" he snarled, "keeping me here like this!" The detective watched him, thoughtfully. But observing that, he retained the stub in his fingers, seeing him carry those fingers towards his pocket —quite suddenly he understood. With a cry of sheer joy he launched himself upon the tall man as a terrier might launch itself against a mastiff; and the very unexpectedness of the attack was the cause of its success. Caught unawares, the tall man went reeling back against the locked door, and long before he could recover himself the detective had grabbed that cigar stub and torn it apart.

"So you'd make me smart, would you?" he chortled, as the Sulu peail rolled out into his hand. "Well, well, well!" He laughed triumphantly. "Though you only just stubbed that cigar in time, my friend," he went on. "Another minute and the pearl would have been burnt to blazes. No wonder you were in such a mighty hurry to get away. No wonder you began to sweat when you saw the cigar burning down!" He turned to where the assistant was regarding him in open-mouthed amazement. "You've got the idea?" he asked. "See how he did it?" And when the sleek-haired young man merely continued to stare"He pressed the unlit end of the cigar over the pearl as it lay on the counter. Then ho replaced the cigar in

his mouth and pushed the pearl farther into it with the tip of his tongue. We must watch out for gentlemen with large cigars in future!"

"Good heavens!" ejaculated the assistant suddenly. "I remember thinking that his cigar was a shade too long!" "On the contrary," chuckled the detective, "it was a shade too short! Another half-inch and it would have lasted until he could have got outside. As it was, he had to risk burning the peari or stubbing the cigar—and fortunately for Grace and Smith he chose the lat> ter. Ring up the police, will you?"