“Cellini’s salt-cellar?” As he sat down opposite Lord Funtington, Appleby showed surprise. “Isn’t that in Vienna?”
“You’re thinking of the big one.” Funtington was impatient. “Ours is much smaller, but the workmanship is quite as good. Cellini made it for Pope Clement VII, as he did many of his finest things. It’s been in my family for quite a long time. The second earl bought it along with some other Medici treasures. You’ll have heard of the Funtington Signorellis and the Funtington Piero.”
Appleby nodded. “Certainly. I’ve seen them in New York.”
Lord Funtington flushed faintly. “No doubt. We’ve been obliged to part, you know, with a number of our things. But we still have the salt-cellar. Or we had it – until last night.”
“It’s been stolen?”
Funtington hesitated. “It’s gone. The matter may be delicate. Discretion is needed, my dear Sir John. That’s why I’m uncommonly glad you have been able to come along yourself.”
“Discretion is something one has to be rather discreet about.” Appleby offered this stonily. “May I have the facts?”
“My wife gave a party last night, and we played – well, some rather childish games. You will understand that only quite intimate friends were present. Not more than eighty guests.”
“I see. A very cosy affair. And the games?”
“The games involved scampering all over the house. And for the last one we turned off the lights. I needn’t bother you with explaining it.”
Appleby nodded. “As to that, I’m quite willing to remain in the dark for the moment. And the salt-cellar?”
“There was rum punch and hot chestnuts going, and we thought it would be rather fun really to use Cellini’s piece. So we stood it beside the chestnuts on a table in the grey drawing-room.”
“I see.” Appleby, who had been making a note, took off his glasses and stared at Lord Funtington very hard. “You asked some eighty people into this house, showed them a pocketable object of enormous value, and then turned out all the lights. Am I to understand that when they came on again it was with immense surprise that you discovered the salt-cellar to have vanished?”
Lord Funtington frowned. “I’m dashed if I quite like your tone. But the thing had certainly gone.”
“What did you do?”
“Just at the moment, I didn’t do anything. Or rather I consulted my wife, and we agreed that nothing could be done. There was an exalted personage present, you see, and also several distinguished foreigners. There was nothing to do but pretend not to notice, and get in touch with the police – with yourself, in fact – afterwards.”
“I suppose you’ve also got in touch with your insurance people?”
“Oh – of course. That goes without saying.”
Appleby nodded grimly. “I’ve no doubt it does.”
“But now I’m uncommonly uneasy.” Lord Funtington hesitated once more, and rather distractedly reached for a silver cigarette-box. “Smoke? I keep on forgetting, since I don’t myself. Now, what was I saying? Ah, yes. The party was only friends, as I’ve said. Or rather friends and relations.”
“Quite so.” Appleby had known investigations drift this way before. “In fact, you believe that one of your own–”
The sentence remained unfinished. For a door had flung open. Lady Funtington, pale and agitated, strode into the room.
She took one glance at the two men, and appeared to divine the situation in a flash. “Charles,” she cried, “you must drop it. The disgrace would be unthinkable. I implore you to send that gentleman away.”
Appleby, who had stood up, smiled faintly at this note of melodrama. “I’m afraid I can’t be sent away, Lady Funtington. Your husband has called in the police, and I think he has communicated to his insurance company what is equivalent to a formal claim. Isn’t that so, sir?”
Funtington, who had also risen, moved uneasily. “My wife is right. I regret this.”
“Perhaps you do.” Appleby spoke softly. “But I am afraid it is your duty to speak what is in your mind.”
Funtington had walked moodily to a window. When he turned round, it was to speak with a sudden unexpected savagery. “Very well. Rupert Stride is in my mind. The name will tell you that he is my first cousin, damn him. And he’s much less my friend than my wife’s. He got back from some crazy wanderings in Italy a week ago, broke to the world. And his record won’t bear–”
“Stop!” Lady Funtington was now looking at her husband in momentary naked fury. Appleby kept still. This sort of fracas also was sadly familiar to him. “It’s mean and horrible. Rupert–”
“No doubt, my dear, you don’t relish inquiry about Rupert.” Lord Funtington gave a smile that Appleby judged extraordinarily ugly. “But one cat is out of the bag, anyway. If your precious friend stole his own mother’s diamonds, it’s surely likely enough that he wouldn’t stop at pocketing a bit of a mere cousin’s plate.”
“But he took the diamonds when he was a mere boy!” Lady Funtington was desperate. “And even if–”
“May I interrupt?” There was something in Appleby’s voice that made the excited husband and wife fall silent at once. “Lord Funtington, you had something to say about discretion. Well, I doubt whether it will be discreet to go on discussing the matter in this way. I have a practical measure to recommend.”
Lord Funtington produced a silk handkerchief and nervously dabbed his forehead. “Then recommend it.”
“I can have half a dozen skilled men here in ten minutes. And I propose that they search this house.”
“Search my house!” Lord Funtington was pale with anger.
“Certainly. It is an indispensable first step on any premises from which an article of value is reported to have vanished.”
“Then search and be damned.”
“Thank you. And may I ask you both to meet me here in three hours time?”
The salt-cellar, Appleby thought, was undoubtedly a magnificent thing. It had been fitted with a glass lining to which some grains of salt still adhered. He turned it in his hands so that the jewels and enamel gleamed again. And then he looked mildly at the Funtingtons across the table. “I’m glad it was so easy,” he said. “To tell you the truth, sir, your dressing-room was the first place I told my men to have a go at.”
Lord Funtington sprang up with a cry. He had every appearance of a man who has received a staggering shock. “How dare you, sir! This is a monstrous impertinence…a disgraceful trick.”
“It may certainly be the latter.” Appleby tapped the glittering salt-cellar before him. “It’s easier to play tricks with – isn’t it? – than a Piero or a Signorelli.” Appleby turned to Lady Funtington. “I am afraid that this must be very painful to you. And I am also afraid that we are not yet quite at the bottom of it. Do you know what I have here?” He picked up a small object from the table and held it out before him. “I found it wedged between the glass and the gold.”
Lady Funtington leaned forward, bewildered. “It appears to be a match – a sort of wax match. But an unusually small one.”
“Precisely. And it brings Mr Rupert Stride into the picture, after all. This sort of smoker’s match is far smaller than anything you get in England. It comes, in fact, from Italy, where it is called cerino. And from Italy Mr Stride returned only last week. I don’t think he gave these matches to your husband, for Lord Funtington doesn’t smoke… Ah, here is what I have been waiting for.” Appleby paused as a constable entered and placed a black garment on the table before him. “The gentleman didn’t object, Joyce?”
“No, sir – said you were welcome. Amused, he seemed to be.”
“Thank you.” Appleby waited until the man had gone. “Mr Stride’s dinner-jacket.” He turned the right-hand pocket inside out. “I thought so. Salt.”
Lady Funtington stared at the tiny white pile. “You mean that Rupert really–?”
“Yes, Lady Funtington. He pocketed the salt-cellar. But he did so guessing that it had been a temptation which Lord Funtington deliberately set in the way of his old weakness. Into the motive of that, we needn’t enter. Mr Stride then made his way through the house under cover of darkness, and left the salt-cellar where Lord Funtington would have some difficulty in accounting for its turning up. It would look, in fact, as if your husband were doing his own thieving with an eye to defrauding his insurance company.”
Appleby rose. “Neither gentleman can be said to have behaved well. But I must say that I prefer the reprisal to the original blackguardly plot.”