Page 50 of Peril in Piccadilly
“Something like that.” I shrugged irritably. “I’ll admit that the thought crossed my mind, and before you looked at me. But simply because a brooch made of sapphires and emeralds went missing from the Cummingses, doesn’t mean that the ring that Wolfgang offered me was made from those same sapphires and emeralds.”
“Of course not,” Christopher agreed. “But it’s significant, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know that I do,” I said. “There are plenty of sapphires and emeralds in the world. Plenty of rings, too. And besides, Wolfgang wouldn’t resort to thievery.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, why would he? He’s theGrafvon Natterdorff with aSchlossin Baden-Württemberg. He has no need to steal other people’s heirlooms. I’m sure he has plenty of his own.”
“We have only his word for that,” Christopher pointed out, and when I turned to stare—or glare—at him, he added, “Be reasonable, Pippa. How do you know that he is what he says he is, other than that he says it?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I had taken for granted that he was telling the truth, because why wouldn’t I?
“He went to university,” I said eventually. “The Mensur scar, remember? Mensur dueling is something that the German students do at university. His family had enough money to get him an education.”
“That doesn’t prove that he’s theGraf von und zuNatterdorff,” Christopher answered. “He could be someone else, with enough money to go to uni. Like you and me. We don’t have titles, but we went to university. Besides, did you not tell me that your father had a Mensur scar?”
I blinked, surprised that I had never caught this anomaly on my own. “He did do.”
“And he was a craftsman, didn’t you say?”
“He was.” My father made furniture. Lovely, hand-crafted, expensive furniture.
“And if he had a Mensur scar,” Christopher continued, “then it’s not only the children of the wealthy who have them.”
Perhaps not. “Wolfgang had the money to stay at the Savoy, though.”
“But not forever,” Christopher said.
“Does anyone have enough money to stay at the Savoy forever? Does even Uncle Harold have enough money for that?”
“Of course he does,” Christopher said.
“Well, lots of people don’t.” Christopher and I certainly didn’t. For a few days, yes. For weeks at a time, no. “If Wolfgang were poor, don’t you think he would have stayed somewhere else from the start? Why waste money on the Savoy if you’re on a budget?”
“He may have had his own reasons for choosing it,” Christopher said.
“Such as?”
He gave a half-shrug. “Access to people with money? I wonder whether there were thefts at the Savoy during the time he stayed there?”
“We can ask,” I said, “although I can’t imagine that they’ll tell us.”
“The doorman told you that Natterdorff isn’t a guest anymore. He might tell you this, as well.”
I supposed he might. “Are we going to the Savoy, then?”
“No,” Christopher said. “But the next time you’re invited for tea or supper there, I plan to lurk in the lobby and follow Natterdorff home after he leaves you. And while we wait for that to happen, I shall ring up Tom and ask him whether there have been reports of thefts at the Savoy.”
“That will make for a handy excuse to contact him,” I agreed. “Home, then?”
“Home,” Christopher agreed, and took my arm for the descent into the underground.
The opportunity came soonerthan either of us had anticipated. That same evening, a note arrived from Wolfgang asking me to share luncheon with him the next day. Not at the Savoy this time, but at Sweetings on Queen Victoria Street in Blackfriars.
“A bit out of the way, that,” Christopher commented as we huddled over the note. “I wonder whether he lives out that way now?”
He might well do. It was certainly away from our usual haunts, which stretched from the Savoy on the Strand west to Piccadilly and Mayfair. Venturing east towards the Tower of London was unusual, to say the least.
