The Stone Wife Read Free Page B

three thousand. It’s a mystery to me why the bidding went so high.”
    “The bigger mystery is why Professor Gildersleeve took on the gunmen,” Diamond said. “That wasn’t the act of an intelligent man.”
    “I warned him from the rostrum not to get involved,” Doggart said. “He took no notice. He was very agitated.”
    “We’ll look into his motives.”
    “Was the Wife of Bath a bawdy character?” Ingeborg asked.
    Neither man answered.
    “I’m thinking about the professor’s book,” she said. “He’d written about the bawdy tales.”
    “All I can recall about the lady is that she’d been married several times,” Diamond said. “I suppose you’d call her a woman of the world. I don’t remember anything bawdy, as you call it. My school would have made sure we didn’t get to read stuff likely to corrupt our pure young minds.”
    “ ‘The Miller’s Tale’ is the rude one,” Doggart said.
    Diamond grinned. “Now you mention it, yes, I do have a memory of that. A copy was passed round, but not in class.”
    “Your young minds weren’t so pure after all,” Ingeborg said.
    “I was being ironical. I bet you read it at school.”
    “That’s beside the point,” she said, giving nothing away. “We’re dealing with the Wife of Bath here, not the miller.”
    “One thing of immediate concern is what happens next about the tablet,” Doggart said. “Clearly someone will stop at nothing to acquire it. I can’t see the owners wanting it back in the Bridgwater museum and we can’t keep it on the premises here, with the risk of a break-in.”
    “That’s all right,” Diamond said. “It’s evidence. We’ll getit shifted to the nick. I’ll send a van and some fit young coppers. But I’ll let you know when to expect them. These villains are well capable of impersonating the police to get what they want.”
    “This much is certain,” he told Ingeborg when they were far enough away from Doggart. “It’s an organised crime—or was meant to be, anyway. We must get the local pond life under the spotlight. Use all our snouts to see if there’s word of a failed job that ended with a shooting.”
    “You want me to handle that?”
    “Not at this point. There’s something more urgent.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Don’t look so suspicious. I’ll get reinforcements.”
    “What for, exactly?”
    “Freeing me up to work out what the hell was going on.”
    “Okay,” she said in a tone that left him in no doubt she’d expected a better answer.
    But Diamond was off on his own track. “I need to look at it from the angle of the victim, try to find out why he was so keen to buy the tablet, as Doggart calls it. I find this fascinating. What’s so special about a beaten-up chunk of old stone you can hardly recognise as anything at all?”
    “He’s dead. He can’t tell us.”
    “We can question the other bidder, the London dealer who was pushing the professor all the way.”
    She nodded. This was a point she’d missed.
    “Who was he?” Diamond asked.
    “His name is Sturgess. Came down from London.”
    “Still about?”
    “Most of the bidders are, waiting to collect their purchases.”
    “Did Sturgess bid for anything else?”
    “I’d better find out. He could be gone by now.”
    She left to check and was soon back.
    “Sturgess is still here, but I don’t think you’ll get much from him.”
    “Try me. Did you say I’ll see him now?”
    “Yes, and he said you’ll be wasting your time.”
    “He’s got something to hide, then,” Diamond said. “Bring him in.”
    She hesitated. “What about all the other bidders?”
    “Are they outside as well?”
    “Well, yes. I’m thinking someone in that auction must have got a good look at the first gunman before he put his mask on. People were standing pretty close. We’re going to need statements from everyone who was present.”
    “Thanks, Ingeborg,” he said. “You’re a mind-reader.”

3
    Sturgess, the dealer from London,