The Missing Necklace and the Nephew Who Remembered Nothing

English transcript

New dialogues and stories every day available in 21 subtitle languages.

My name is Stephen Vane and I am a private detective.

For 20 years I have solved crimes that the police could not solve.

People often ask me how I do it, and my answer is always the same.

I listen.

Criminals talk a lot, and every word is a small door.

Tonight, I want to tell you about one case, because it was small, quiet, and very strange.

I solved it in one night, with my eyes, my questions, and a glass of brandy.

It happened in October, in a large old house called Greystone.

The owner was Mrs. Eleanor Hart, a widow of seventy years.

She had invited a few people for dinner, her nephew Daniel, her old friend Mrs. Peake, and her lawyer Mr. Rowe.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Bell, had worked in that house for thirty years.

During the dinner, somebody opened the safe in Mrs. Hart's study and took a diamond necklace.

It had belonged to her mother, and it was worth more than the house itself.

She called me at eleven o'clock that night, and her voice was shaking on the telephone.

When I arrived, the police had already come and gone.

They found no broken window and no broken door, and they found no fingerprints at all.

In their opinion, the thief was not a stranger.

Everyone here is a friend, Mrs. Hart told me.

I do not know whom to trust.

I told her to trust nobody for one night and to let me work alone.

The rain outside was heavy, so the garden was deep in mud.

I looked at every window and every door on the ground floor.

Not one footprint came into the house, and not one went out.

This told me something important.

The necklace was still inside I also looked at the safe There was no mark on it no scratch no damage The thief had opened it with the key and the key lived in a blue vase on the desk Only three people knew about that vase Mrs. Hart, the housekeeper, and, as I learned later, the nephew.

I walked through the study very slowly.

A chair stood in the wrong place, close to the window, and a glass of brandy sat on the desk.

Mrs. Hart did not drink brandy, and the housekeeper did not drink at all.

I asked Mrs. Bell about the glass, and she said Daniel always drank brandy after dinner.

But he went to his room early tonight, she added quickly.

He said he was tired.

I also noticed one more thing, and this was the smallest clue of all.

The necklace box was back inside the safe, closed and tidy on the shelf.

A thief who runs away does not close the box.

A thief who plans to come back does.

At one o'clock in the morning, I went into the library where Daniel Hart was sitting alone.

He was 30 years old, well-dressed, with soft hands and quick eyes.

He smiled when he saw me, but his smile arrived a little too late.

You must be the famous detective, he said.

Please sit down.

Would you like a drink?

No, thank you.

I would like to ask you two or three questions, and then you can go to bed.

Of course, ask anything.

Where were you during dinner?

In my room, he said.

I was reading.

I had a headache, so I stayed upstairs.

That is strange, I said.

Mrs. Bell told me you were at the table until the coffee.

He laughed.

Mrs. Bell as old, she mixes up the evenings.

Perhaps, I said, what were you reading?

A mystery story.

I like mystery stories.

I like them too.

What was the title?

He looked at the ceiling for a moment.

I don't remember.

Something with a murder in it.

I put it down when my head started hurting.

You forgot the title of a book you were reading only a few hours ago, I said.

That is interesting.

People remember the titles of books.

I was tired, he said.

His voice was still calm, but his fingers began to play with a ring on his hand.

There was a glass of brandy in the study tonight, and a chair was moved close to the window.

Somebody sat there for a while and watched the rain The study I never went into the study Why would I Because the safe is in the study I said and because you are the only person in this house who drinks brandy He stood up and walked to the window.

This is ridiculous.

My aunt trusts me.

She has trusted me since I was a child.

I know, I said.

She showed you the key once, didn't she?

She told me herself an hour ago.

She said, I showed Daniel where I keep the key because he is family.

Only three people knew about that blue vase.

For a long moment he said nothing.

The rain hit the window, and the clock on the wall counted the seconds.

Then he spoke in a different voice, lower and harder.

Even if I knew about the key, that proves nothing.

Anyone could have seen the vase.

The housekeeper could have taken it, or the lawyer.

He knows where everything is in this house.

The lawyer did not drink brandy, I said.

The housekeeper did not open the safe because she cannot.

She does not know the numbers, and the safe needs a key and a code.

Your aunt told me who knows both.

That still means nothing.

I told you you were in your room, I said, but the chair by the window is still warm, and there is mud on the window handle.

Somebody opened that window tonight and looked outside, probably to check the rain.

A man in his room does not open a window in a storm.

He turned around.

This is ridiculous.

You are building a story out of nothing.

I am building a story out of small things, I said.

That is my job.

And there is one more small thing.

The necklace box was closed and put back in the safe.

A thief closes the box only when he plans to return for it later.

He wants everything to look normal for a few days.

So what?

Maybe the thief is coming back.

That is not me.

Then I will search the house in the morning.

Every room, every bag, every box.

I will start with the greenhouse because it is warm and dry in there.

People hide things in warm, dry places.

His face changed.

It was very small, just a movement of the mouth, but I saw it.

He looked at the door, then at the window, then at his own hands The greenhouse he repeated Yes Is there something in the greenhouse Daniel He sat down again and put his head in his hands for a minute I did not speak Sometimes the best question is silence and I have learned to use it.

Then he looked up, and his eyes were wet.

I owe money, he said, two thousand pounds.

I lost it at cards, and the men I owe are not gentle people.

They gave me until Friday.

I did not plan to hurt my aunt.

I only wanted to borrow the necklace for a week.

I was going to sell it, pay the men, and buy it back before anyone noticed.

So you used the key and the code?

I watched her open the safe last Christmas.

She did not hide it from me.

She trusted me.

His voice broke a little.

I took the necklace at nine o'clock while everyone was at the table.

Then I went to the study.

drank a brandy, and sat by the window until my hands stopped shaking.

I closed the box and put it back because I wanted a few quiet days.

Where is the necklace now?

In the greenhouse, he said, in a tin box for cigars, behind the flowerpots.

I put it there an hour before you arrived.

I stood up and put on my coat.

We walked across the wet garden together, and he did not try to run.

Behind the third flowerpot we found a small metal box, and inside it the diamond necklace lay on a soft cloth as bright as water in the dark.

Mrs. Hart did not send her nephew to prison.

She was old, and he was the only family she had.

But she sent him away that same week, and she never showed anybody her safe again.

He wrote to her twice a year, and she read the letters, and she answered none of them.

Sometimes people ask me why I told them this story.

I tell it because it shows how a crime is really solved.

It is not luck and it is not magic.

It is a warm chair, a glass of brandy, a closed box, and a man who forgot the title of his book.

New dialogues and stories every day.

Available in 21 subtitle languages.

My name is Stephen Vane, and I am a private detective.