Mr. Jacob’s bafflement equalled Faro’s own. “Come by it? What is that? I do not understand.”
“Did your customer tell you that he had inherited the brooch, by any chance?”
“It was my daughter you-Inspector Faro-spoke to.”
Ah, and that explains the case of mistaken identity, thought Faro, as Mr. Jacob darted behind the screen to reappear with a gazelle-eyed beauty.
Nadia was very young, so nervous as to be almost inarticulate in her forest-creature manner, but in a few years, Faro guessed, there would be few in Edinburgh to rival her exotic looks.
And Faro smiled to himself remembering a Bible picture from his childhood. If her father could have modelled a benign Fagin, then Nadia might well have been the lass setting the baby Moses adrift among the reeds.
Her father’s admonishing tones in their own language made her wild-eyed and tearful. Trembling, she would have disappeared behind the curtain screen but for his restraining hand.
Urging her towards the inspector, Mr. Jacob’s voice was stern indeed. At last, with downcast head, she began an unintelligible explanation.
“In English, daughter,” thundered her father.
Slowly she raised her eyes to Faro. “He came in and asked for my father. I told him my father was not here. He did not want to leave the brooch but he was in a great hurry.”
“How did you know that?” asked Faro gently.
“He went often to the door and looked up and down the street as if expecting my father to come.”
Your father-or the people who were chasing him, thought Faro grimly, having now deduced the reason for the bogus inspector’s anxiety and the urgent necessity of having the brooch transformed into a ring.
“He saw someone in the street,” said Nadia. “He seemed anxious and thrust the brooch into my hand. My father was to have it ready for him today without fail.”
“Today-you are sure of that?” said Faro.
Nadia looked at her father. “That is what he said.”
“He? He! Be polite, daughter, that is no way to address the inspector.” And bowing, “Her English-I apologise.”
“Allow her to explain in her own time,” said Faro with a smile.
In reply, Nadia touched her father’s sleeve, whispered, and then turning to Faro, Mr. Jacob said, “She thinks you are not the same man.”
“Ah,” said Faro. “Now we are getting somewhere. Your exact words, Mr. Jacob, if I recall them correctly, were that you did not recognise me again. Your daughter’s information confirms that I have never set foot in your shop before this afternoon-”
“But-but, sir,” Mr. Jacob interrupted, “it was the day you arrested the holy man, the one who was trying to steal from my shop-”
“A moment, if you please. A holy man stealing from you-and I was arresting him. Sir, you must be dreaming.”
“If it was a dream,” said the jeweller ruefully, “then it was a costly one. I lost much money.”
“I presume you have reported this theft to the police.”
Father and daughter exchanged anxious looks and shook their heads.
“No? Then I think you had better tell me exactly what happened.”
“You-the er, other inspector-was in a policeman’s uniform that first time.” Mr. Jacob shrugged. “It makes a man look different.”
“Describe this uniform, if you please.”
What Mr. Jacob described was worn by police constables. Detective inspectors, however, were allowed the privilege of plain clothes, if they wished. The experience of twenty years had led Faro to appreciate the advantages of anonymity in his line of enquiries, where an approach by an officer of the law was a hindrance rather than a help. Innocent as well as guilty were apt to become somewhat reticent when faced with an intimidating uniform.
“May we go right back to the beginning, if you please?” asked Faro.
At his stern expression, Mr. Jacob sighed. “Very well… Nadia will look after the shop while we talk inside.”
In the screened-off living quarters, domesticity was provided by a curtained bed in the wall for the father and a tiny room no larger than a cupboard for his daughter. From every corner, stuffed animals glared at them yellow-eyed and fierce. A tray of dismembered clocks and watches ticked furiously as if in a constant state of anxiety at the close proximity of soldering iron and Bunsen burner.
Inviting Faro to a seat by the fire, the jeweller began his strange story.
“A few days ago, a customer, a holy man-of your faith-wished to buy a diamond ring for his wife-”
“Ah, you must mean a minister,” interrupted Faro, and when Mr. Jacob looked even more confused, he added, “We call them ‘reverends.’”
Mr. Jacob nodded. “I understand. This reverend selected a ring priced at forty pounds and offered to pay with a hundred-pound banknote.”
Fraud. Such was Faro’s immediate reaction considering the few hundred-pound banknotes printed and in circulation. Only a foreigner would be taken in by such audacity.
“I see that you too are doubtful, sir, as I was. And so was this reverend. He said, ‘As I am a complete stranger you must be wondering if this note is real. I noticed a bank just across the road there. Would you care to ask the cashier to verify that this is a genuine banknote?’”
“Ah,” said Faro. “How very convenient. You go across the road and leave him in the shop. And when you return-” He shrugged, said sadly: “My dear fellow, this is a very old trick.”
“I am not stupid, Inspector. When I suggested that my daughter go to the bank instead, the reverend was not in the least dismayed. I was watching him intently and he was most complimentary about her. He talked-much as you have done, sir, curious about my reasons for coming to Scotland.
“Nadia came back and told us that both the bank cashier and the manager himself had assured her that the banknote was indeed genuine. I put the diamond ring into a box and from the safe, in the wall over there-” he pointed-”I gave the reverend his sixty pounds change.”
Mr. Jacob sighed and shook his head. “He seemed such a kindly man, but just as he was leaving the shop, you-I mean, the policeman-entered, seized him, and said to me: ‘I am a police inspector and I have to tell you that this man is a thief, well known to us. He has already been in prison three times.’”
Faro was puzzled. A trickster like the minister, who had been jailed three times, yet he had never heard of him.
Mr. Jacob continued: “I am an honest man, sir, and I had to protest that this time no fraud was involved, for the bank had examined the hundred-pound note and declared it genuine. You-er, this inspector-then asked me to show it to him. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘as I suspected; like many other shopkeepers and bank cashiers, you have been tricked by a brilliant forgery. This is a master craftsman and I am arresting him. I shall have to take the fake bank-note, which will be required as evidence later.’
“When he brought out the handcuffs, the reverend said to him: ‘They will not be necessary, Inspector. You have my word as a gentleman that I will come with you quietly.’
“But the inspector just laughed at him and I felt sorry for the reverend. He did seem like a real gentleman who had fallen on hard times. Who knows what sorrows and misfortunes had driven him to a life of crime.”
Faro was curious about the man’s identity. “Can you describe him for me?”
“Garbed all in black, he was. Tall, pale-skinned, light-eyed…”
Mr. Jacob ended with an embarrassed shrug, for the description also fitted the man who was now questioning him.
Faro suppressed a smile. Did all gentiles look alike to the jeweller?
“The reverend then began to plead. ‘There are hiring carriages outside. I will pay for one, Inspector. Please allow me this last indulgence.’ It was a wild day,” Mr. Jacob continued, “a blizzard blowing, so the inspector gave in.”