Skin and Other Stories

She gave him the number.

Harry Gold dialled again.

'Mr Sandy?'

'Speaking.'

'This is Harry Gold, Mr Sandy, the jeweller. Have you by any chance lost your diamond?'

'Yes, I have.'

'Two people have just brought it into my shop,' Harry Gold whispered excitedly. 'A man and a woman. Youngish. They're trying to get it valued. They're waiting out there now.'

'Are you certain it's my stone?'

'Positive. I weighed it.'

'Keep them there, Mr Gold!' Robert Sandy cried. 'Talk to them! Humour them! Do anything! I'm calling the police!'

Robert Sandy called the police station. Within seconds, he was giving the news to the Detective Inspector who was in charge of the case. 'Get there fast and you'll catch them both!' he said. 'I'm on my way, too!'

'Come on, darling!' he shouted to his wife. 'Jump in the car. I think they've found our diamond and the thieves are in Harry Gold's shop right now trying to sell it!'

When Robert and Betty Sandy drove up to Harry Gold's shop nine minutes later, two police cars were already parked outside. 'Come on, darling,' Robert said. 'Let's go in and see what's happening.'

There was a good deal of activity inside the shop when Robert and Betty Sandy rushed in. Two policemen and two plain-clothes detectives, one of them the Inspector, were surrounding a furious William Haddock and an even more furious theatre sister. Both the young surgeon and the theatre sister were handcuffed.

'You found it where?' the Inspector was saying.

'Take these damn handcuffs off me!' the sister was shouting. 'How dare you do this!'

'Tell us again where you found it,' the Inspector said, caustic.

'In someone's stomach!' William Haddock yelled back at him. 'I've told you twice!'

'Don't give me that crap!' the Inspector said.

'Good God, William!' Robert Sandy cried as he came in and saw who it was. 'And Sister Wyman! What on earth are you two doing here?'

'They had the diamond,' the Inspector said. 'They were trying to flog it. Do you know these people, Mr Sandy?'

It didn't take very long for William Haddock to explain to Robert Sandy, and indeed to the Inspector, exactly how and where the diamond had been found.

'Remove their handcuffs, for heaven's sake, Inspector,' Robert Sandy said. 'They're telling the truth. The man you want, at least one of the men you want, is in the hospital right now, just coming round from his anaesthetic. Isn't that right, William?'

'Correct,' William Haddock said. 'His name is John Diggs. He'll be in one of the surgical wards.'

Harry Gold stepped forward. 'Here's your diamond, Mr Sandy,' he said.

'Now listen,' the theatre sister said, still angry, 'would someone for God's sake tell me how that patient came to swallow a diamond like this without knowing he'd done it?'

'I think I can guess,' Robert Sandy said. 'He allowed himself the luxury of putting ice in his drink. Then he got very drunk. Then he swallowed a piece of half-melted ice.'

'I still don't get it,' the sister said.

'I'll tell you the rest later,' Robert Sandy said. 'In fact, why don't we all go round the corner and have a drink ourselves.'