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By the time I made it back downstairs, brushed, scrubbed, lip-sticked, and skirted, Chamomile, the waitress, was delivering my enchiladas and Jason’s posole to the table.
Chamomile, who is all of twenty and excessively pretty, has had a transparent crush on Jason for as long as I’ve known her.
As far as I know, Jason’s never returned Chamomile’s interest, but her usual routine when waiting his table had always been to preen a little, toss her hair, and bat her eyelashes.
Chamomile is a sweet girl, actually, but she’s been persistent in the face of no perceivable return of her affections up until now. This evening, however, Chamomile was all business: polite but detached. Jason Wendell might as well have been Hank Edwards for all the special attention she gave him.
I couldn’t help but wonder if word had gotten out that Jason had asked me on a date. It certainly wasn’t that we were sharing a table at the Bird Cage which might have led to speculation. Everyone, even Chamomile, was used to seeing Jason and me together. Several times a week, Jason and I would just happen to be having lunch at the Bird Cage at around the same time.
The fact that this evening’s dinner had been planned in advance—albeit not for the Bird Cage Café—was the only thing novel about Jason Wendell and me having a meal together.
“We aren’t going to be late, are we?” I asked Jason as I pronged my first delicious forkful of enchiladas.
Apparently, rendering ineffectual aid to bludgeoned veterinarians and subjecting oneself to the sale’s pitches of aging conmen makes a person hungry.
“We have about fifteen minutes to eat,” Jason told me. “What took you so long?”
Clearly, my efforts in hair brushing and lip sticking had not impressed him because it seemed he’d not even considered that I might have spent the thirty-eight minutes we’d been apart on personal grooming.
“After I dropped off the animals at Georgia’s,” I told him, “I stopped by Hank’s to see what the sudden interest in the Museum of the Unexplained was all about.”
”And?”
“We seem to have a grifter in our midst.”
“We’ve had a grifter in our midst for years,” said Jason.
“You mean Hank? I wouldn’t call him a grifter.”
“I would.”
“I think a grifter, by definition, has to profit by his con,” I pointed out.
“Hank hasn’t?”
“He barely keeps himself in bacon, whiskey, and cigars, and—” I looked around the room before I said the next bit, just to be sure no one was listening. “Hank lives here for basically nothing.”
“You know I was the one who helped your Great Aunt Geraldine write that will,” said Jason.
“Well, then let’s have no more talk of Hank being a conman. He’s not a swindler; he’s just a bit eccentric.”
“A bit?” Jason raised one eyebrow over the spoonful of posole halfway to his mouth.
“Shall we return to the original subject?” I said. “We have a grifter in our midst. The genuine article.”
“Wouldn’t that be the counterfeit article?”
I spent most of supper and half the drive up to Santa Fe trying to convince Jason that Rex Popov presented a danger to the community and to one particular member of the community more than any of the others.
“I just know that Mr. Popov is here for some sinister purpose,” I said in conclusion.
“Maybe Rex Popov is the one who hit Reba in the back of the head and left her for dead? Maybe he did it because she was trying to get a refund?” Jason said dryly. He was clearly trying to change the subject. Apparently, spray-painted “diamond detectors” hawked as a ticket to finding the Lost Crown Jewels of Ireland did not appeal to Jason as subject matter for a riveting conversation, at least not after the first forty-five minutes.
“What are the Lost Crown Jewels of Ireland?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“Look it up on the internet,” Jason suggested. “Later. Tomorrow. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Fine,” I said, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Let’s talk about us,” said Jason.
“What about us?”
“You do understand that this is a date.”
“A date?”
I was turning into a parrot, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“This is an old-fashioned, I-like-you-and-not-just-as-a-friend date,” said Jason.
“Oh. Good.”
I like to think I have a way with words, but all my superior powers of elocution seemed to have deserted me.
“Good,” said Jason. “Good.”
For a pair consisting of a lawyer and a screenwriter, both of whom ought to be able to string together complex sentences at the drop of a hat, we weren’t doing very well. After about three minutes of awkward silence, I could take it no longer.
“About these Crown Jewels of Ireland—” I said.
“Fine,” said Jason. “I know you’re dying to find out all about them. We have ten minutes before we get to the venue. Look them up.”
I’d half expected that the very existence of the Lost Crown Jewels of Ireland to be a concoction on the part of Rex Popov, but a cursory search of the internet on my phone proved my suspicions to be unfounded.
“The Lost Crown Jewels of Ireland are a real thing!” I said.
“Really?”
Apparently, Jason had also had doubts.
“The lost crown jewels consist of a jeweled star of the Order of St. Patrick, a diamond brooch, and five gold collars of that order.”
“What’s a gold collar?”
I held up my phone to offer Jason a picture of the items in question, but he refused to take his eyes off the road long enough to look at it, which was probably prudent on his part.
“They’re sort of these chunky necklaces. Like you see in paintings sometimes.”
“In paintings?”
“You know those bearded royals with pointed beards, big collars, and puffy pants.”
“Puffy pants?”
Jason was laughing at me. I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t explaining it very well.
“I’ll text you a picture,” I said.
“Never mind,” Jason told me. “I’m not planning to start scouring the desert for any gold collars or stars of the order of St. Patrick.”
“Don’t forget the broach.”
“Or that. How were these jewels misplaced?”
“They were stolen from the Dublin Castle in 1907.”
“Who stole them?”
“The jewels were kept in a safe in the office of Sir Arthur Vicars. There were seven keys to the safe, two of which belonged to Vicars. He regularly got drunk while on overnight duty and one morning awakened to find the jewels he’d been charged with guarding draped around his neck.”
“That must have been embarrassing,” said Jason.
“It’s uncertain if that incident was a prank or a practice run for the actual robbery.”
“Any suspects?”
“Dozens, including Vicars’ mistress who soon after fled to France. Another prominent suspect at the time was Frances Shackleton.”
“The explorer?”
“No, his brother.”
“No American connection?” Jason asked.
“Some have claimed that the jewels were smuggled to the United States by the Irish Republican Brotherhood.”
“Well, there you have it,” said Jason. “Incontrovertible evidence that they must be around here somewhere.”
“Another theory is that the jewels were never taken from the castle but remain hidden on the premises to this day.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Popov had better take his diamond detector over to Dublin and have a search ‘round the castle.”
“Perhaps, he should. You can stop by the Museum of the Unexplained tomorrow and give him that valuable input.”
“How do you know he’ll be there?”
“Oh, he’ll be there,” I said. “When you’ve got a true believer like Hank on the hook, you don’t bother looking for fresh marks until you’ve bled him dry.”