“Don’t mention it. It’s a pleasure. You still haven’t answered the question about the diamonds.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you a thing, Sergeant,” Mason said, frowning as though trying to recall something to his mind. “She mentioned her brother’s being in the diamond business. It seems to me he’s out of town, or away, or something, and she’s running the business in his absence. I’m sorry I can’t tell you just what was said.”
“Well, we’ll come to that again later,” Sergeant Tremont said. “In the meantime, we go in through this door, Mason.” He led the way into an anteroom where a wiry individual in the early fifties jumped to his feet as the door opened, then, as he saw the expression on Sergeant Tremont’s face, sank slowly back into the chair. Sergeant Tremont said, without turning his head, “That’s Harry Diggers, the man who was driving the car. This is Perry Mason, the lawyer, Diggers.”
Mason nodded reassuringly. Diggers came forward to shake hands. Sergeant Tremont said to a property clerk behind a grilled window, “Let me have that Breel bag.”
The clerk passed out a voluminous black bag. The handles consisted of two imitation jade rings, some six inches in diameter. By pulling the rings apart, the contents of the bag were easily visible.
“That looks very much like it might be hers,” Mason said. “Is that some knitting she’s working on?”
The sergeant nodded, pulled out the start of a knitted blue sweater, a pair of knitting needles wound around with yarn, and a ball of dark blue yarn. Underneath that, he retrieved half a dozen pairs of silk stockings and said to Mason, “Notice the price marks, and the stock tags. We’ve checked back on those stockings. They weren’t sold. Someone picked ‘em up off the counter.”
“Indeed?” Mason said.
“Would you know anything about that?” Sergeant Tremont asked. Mason shook his head. “All right, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Tremont told him. He dug deeper in the bag and pulled out some packages done up in soft, white tissue. He unwrapped these, one at a time.
Mason stared down at the five large diamonds in antique settings. “Gosh!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know much about stones, but those look like a lot of money.”