Skin and Other Stories

'They might have seen it lying on the floor after the ice had melted,' Robert said. 'I agree it's unlikely. But if they had spotted it, would they have taken it?'

'I think they would,' the Inspector said. 'No one can resist a diamond. It has a sort of magnetism about it. Yes, if one of them had seen it on the floor, I think he would have slipped it into his pocket. But don't worry about it, doctor. It'll turn up.'

'I'm not worrying about it,' Robert said. 'Right now, I'm worrying about my wife and about our house. My wife spent years trying to make this place into a good home.'

'Now look, sir,' the Inspector said, 'the thing for you to do tonight is to take your wife off to a hotel and get some rest. Come back tomorrow, both of you, and we'll start sorting things out. There'll be someone here all the time looking after the house.'

'I have to operate at the hospital first thing in the morning,' Robert said. 'But I expect my wife will try to come along.'

'Good,' the Inspector said. 'It's a nasty upsetting business having your house ripped apart like this. It's a big shock. I've seen it many times. It hits you very hard.'

Robert and Betty Sandy stayed the night at Oxford's Randolph Hotel, and by eight o'clock the following morning Robert was in the Operating Theatre at the hospital, beginning to work his way through his morning list.

Shortly after noon, Robert had finished his last operation, a straightforward non-malignant prostate on an elderly male. He removed his rubber gloves and mask and went next door to the surgeons' small rest-room for a cup of coffee. But before he got his coffee, he picked up the telephone and called his wife.

'How are you, darling?' he said.

'Oh Robert, it's so awful,' she said. 'I just don't know where to begin.'

'Have you called the insurance company?'

'Yes, they're coming any moment to help me make a list.'

'Good,' he said. 'And have the police found our diamond?'

'I'm afraid not,' she said. 'They've been through every bit of that slush in the kitchen and they swear it's not there.'

'Then where can it have gone? Do you think the vandals found it?'

'I suppose they must have,' she said. 'When they broke those ice-trays all the ice-cubes would have fallen out. They fall out when you just bend the tray. They're meant to.'

'They still wouldn't have spotted it in the ice,' Robert said.

'They would when the ice melted,' she said. 'Those men must have been in the house for hours. Plenty of time for it to melt.'

'I suppose you're right.'

'It would stick out a mile lying there on the floor,' she said, 'the way it shines.'

'Oh dear,' Robert said.

'If we never get it back we won't miss it much anyway, darling,' she said. 'We only had it a few hours.'

'I agree,' he said. 'Do the police have any leads on who the vandals were?'

'Not a clue,' she said. 'They found lots of fingerprints, but they don't seem to belong to any known criminals.'

'They wouldn't,' he said, 'not if they were hooligans off the street.'

'That's what the Inspector said.'

'Look, darling,' he said, 'I've just about finished here for the morning. I'm going to grab some coffee, then I'll come home to give you a hand.'

'Good,' she said. 'I need you, Robert. I need you badly.'

'Just give me five minutes to rest my feet,' he said, 'I feel exhausted.'

In Number Two Operating Theatre not ten yards away, another senior surgeon called Brian Goff was also nearly finished for the morning. He was on his last patient, a young man who had a piece of bone lodged somewhere in his small intestine. Goff was being assisted by a rather jolly young Registrar named William Haddock, and between them they had opened the patient's abdomen and Goff was lifting out a section of the small intestine and feeling along it with his fingers. It was routine stuff and there was a good deal of conversation going on in the room.