Shattered by Dick Francis Page B

through her father, Rose may have imagined that that tape showed how to make an antique necklace.”
    I said doubtfully, “It must be more than that.”
    â€œWell... perhaps it actually says where the necklace can be found.”
    â€œA treasure hunt?” I shook my head. “There’s only one valuable antique gold-and-glass necklace that I know of, and I do know a fair amount about antique glass, and it’s in a museum. It’s priceless. It was probably designed in Crete, or anyway somewhere round the Aegean Sea sometime about three thousand five hundred years ago. It’s called the Cretan Sunrise. I did make a copy of it, though, and I once lent it to Martin. I also made a videotape to explain the methods I used. I lent that to Martin too and he still has it—or rather, heaven knows where it is now.”
    â€œWhat if there’s another one?” Worthington asked.
    â€œAre you talking about two tapes now? Or two necklaces ?”
    â€œWhy not two tapes?” Worthington reasoned, as if it had suddenly become likely. “Rose could have muddled them up.”
    I thought it just as likely that it was Worthington and I who’d muddled everything up, but we arrived safely at Bon-Bon’s house richer with at least two solid new facts: first, that Rose, Norman Osprey and Eddie Payne had spent their Sunday evening in Broadway; and second, that an elderly, thin, white-bearded, university-lecture-type man had walked into my shop as the new century came in with bells, and had not stayed to help Lloyd Baxter with his epileptic fit.
    As we scrunched to a halt on Bon-Bon’s gravel, Marigold came with wide-stretched arms out of the front door to greet us.
    â€œBon-Bon doesn’t need me anymore,” she announced dramatically. “Get out the maps, Worthington. We’re going skiing.”
    â€œEr ... when?” her chauffeur asked, unsurprised.
    â€œTomorrow morning of course. Fill up the gas tanks. We’ll call at Paris on the way. I need new clothes.”
    Worthington looked more resigned than I felt. He murmured to me that Marigold bought new clothes most days of the week and prophesied that the skiing trip would last less than ten days overall. She would tire of it quickly, and come home.
    Bon-Bon was taking the news of her mother’s departure with well-hidden relief, and asked me with hope whether “the upsetting videotape business” was now concluded. She wanted calm in her life, but I had no idea if she would get it. I didn’t tell her of Rose’s existence or the distinct lack of calm she represented.
    I asked Bon-Bon about White-Beard. She said she’d never seen or heard of him. When I explained who he was, she telephoned to Priam Jones, who though with his self-esteem badly hurt by Lloyd Baxter’s ditching of him, regretted he couldn’t help.
    Bon-Bon tried several more trainers, but thin, elderly, white-bearded owners of racehorses seemed not to exist. After she’d tired of it she persuaded her mother to let Worthington continue our journey, to take me where I wanted. I kissed her gratefully and chose to go straight home to my hillside house and flop.
    Worthington liked skiing, he said as we drove away. He liked Paris. He liked Marigold. He regularly admired her more bizarre clothes. Sorry, he said, about leaving me with the lioness, Rose. Good luck, he said cheerfully.
    â€œI could throttle you,” I said.
    While Worthington happily chuckled at the wheel, I switched on my mobile phone again to call Irish at his home to find out how the day had finally gone in the shop, but before I could dial the number the message service called, and the disembodied voice of young Victor W. V. said briefly in my ear, “Send your e-mail address to me at [email protected].”
    Holy hell, I thought, Victor had things to say. Flopping could wait. The only computer I owned that handled e-mail was in Broadway. Worthington with