The Jewels of Sofia Tate (11 page)

“Glad to hear it. She's a dear lady and I just hope she pulls through. Your grandfather called Gerdie to tell her the news and we've come to see her.” Stan's grey eyes shifted to Garnet. “I see you brought a friend.”

“Yeah. This is Garnet Walcott. She was the one who found Elizabeth yesterday. Garnet, this is Stan Hunt, Gerdie's fiancé.”

Stan held out a hand and Garnet shook it awkwardly. “Pleased to meet you. It's good to know that Elizabeth has friends who check in on her. If it weren't for you,” Stan hesitated, “she might not be here.”

Garnet blushed. “Anyone would have done the same for her.”

Stan smiled again. “I'm sure you're right,” he replied.

“Anyway, we were just heading out,” said Dan. “See you.”

Stan nodded. “Goodbye, then.”

Garnet pushed the key into the lock and opened the front door. It felt odd to go inside without Elizabeth there. Ginger sauntered into the front hall with her tail straight up in the air.

“Hello, Ginger,” Garnet said, reaching out a hand to her. The cat rose on her hind legs, arching her shoulders and neck toward her.

“Looks like you've made a friend,” Dan said.

Garnet picked Ginger up and stroked her soft fur, then carried her like a baby to the kitchen to check the
feeding dishes. She regarded the nearly full bowl of cat food. “Why aren't you eating?”

As though she had just been insulted, Ginger struggled out of Garnet's arms and scampered off.

“She doesn't take criticism well, does she?” Dan remarked behind her.

“I guess not. Do you think there's something wrong with her? I mean, I've never had a cat. I used to look after a neighbour's sometimes, but that one ate. Don't you think she should've eaten something?”

Dan shrugged. “I've never had a cat either but she's probably okay,” he reassured her. “I've heard that's the beauty of cats. They can look after themselves, sometimes for days if they have to. Anyway, it doesn't look like Ginger's starving.”

“You're right about that,” Garnet agreed, thinking of the cat's weight when she picked her up. She took the water bowl and replaced it with fresh water before setting it back down on the floor. “Okay. That's done. It's showtime.”

They went to the living room, where Garnet picked the angel off the mantel and pushed the knob on the back of it. “See this?” she said, pointing to the tiny engraved letters on one of the wings. “This is one of the Bible verses.” Garnet reached for the magnifying glass that lay on top of the Bible and held it over the engraving.

Dan moved his head closer. “Matthew 28:5.” He reached for Elizabeth's Bible and quickly found the verse. “'And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.'” He shrugged. “So?”

“I know,” Garnet said. “But look at the next one. Psalm 45:13.”

Dan flipped through the pages in the front portion of the Bible and read. “'The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.'” He looked up. “At least now it might be discussing jewellery.”

Garnet chuckled. “That's what I said.”

He moved his finger down the page and scanned the entire psalm. “I don't know. This verse is about a wedding or something. The subtitle before the psalm says, 'A Song of loves.'” He shrugged. “I don't get it. I don't see a connection to jewels.”

“Let me show you something else,” Garnet said, not willing to give up just yet. “It's in the library.”

“What is it?” Dan asked as he followed her out of the room.

“A portrait of Sofia Tate. She's wearing the jewels.”

“I think I've seen it. A long time ago. Look, the thing is, if Elizabeth's lived in this house for sixty years and she's been looking for these jewels all this time, as she says, don't you think if they actually existed, she
would've found them by now? And if someone was going to hide any jewels, why wouldn't they just've stuck them in a safe or something?”

“Just look at it,” Garnet said. She flicked on the light, though it didn't help much, then walked up to the portrait. Dan followed. Garnet glanced over at him and saw that his face had changed. He seemed almost mesmerized as he regarded the portrait in silence. Garnet returned her gaze to the portrait and felt goosebumps prickle her arms. She rubbed them, but couldn't shake the feeling that Sofia was staring back at her.

When Dan finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost as if his throat were a little tight. “You know, I remember coming in here once when I was a kid. I went off exploring one day when my parents were talking to Elizabeth. Back then I thought the picture looked a little spooky because of her eyes, that she looked kind of real. But do you know what's kind of spooky about her now?” Garnet shook her head and Dan turned toward her. “She kind of looks like
you.”

Garnet stifled the alarm that rose up in her. “She does not!” she retorted, and quickly turned to glance in the mirror behind her. But Sofia's eyes reflected back at her again before she caught a glimpse of her own slightly bewildered eyes. “It's the hair,” she said firmly, as though she were trying to convince herself. “It's red like mine.”

Dan's eyes narrowed. “No, it's more than the hair. The eyes, the shape of her face. She really does look like you.”

“Well, if she does look like me, it's a weird coincidence, don't you think?” Garnet's voice was a little sharper than she had intended, but Dan was starting to freak her out. He gave her a strange look and she tried to soften her tone as she changed the subject. “So. How about those jewels?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “You don't give up, do you?”

“No. Because I really want to find them. Do you think we should start in here?”

Dan laughed out loud. “You're unbelievable!”

“I knew you'd see it my way sooner or later,” she said with a smile.

“Okay, so where do we look?”

Garnet surveyed the room. Reginald Tate's room. His haven with the portrait of his wife watching over him. What had he been like? How did he think? Elizabeth had called Reginald Tate “eccentric.” How does an eccentric person think?

An entire wall was lined with books from floor to ceiling.

“Nana once told me that you can't always judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can discover something about a person by what they read. Why don't we check out these books?”

They soon found that Reginald had owned a large collection of encyclopedias and travel books, law books, and religious books and novels by classic authors. A leather-bound set by Charles Dickens filled an entire section of one shelf and, oddly, there was a duplicate set on another shelf.
Reginald must have been a collector,
Garnet thought.

Garnet reached up and tugged at a copy of
David Copperfield
but for some reason, it was stuck in place. She tugged again, harder this time, but it wouldn't budge. Perhaps, after all these years, it had become stuck to the cover beside it. Garnet tried the next book,
Bleak House.
Again, it didn't move. Frowning, she pulled at
Great Expectations,
yanking it several times until, without warning, something clicked. The book tilted slightly forward and the entire Charles Dickens section of the bookshelf moved outward.

“Hey!” Garnet exclaimed.

Dan, who had been studying the book titles on the other side, hurried over. “It's a safe,” he said, pulling open the unlocked metal door and peering inside. “An empty safe. Too bad, or the mystery would be solved and we could all go home.”

“Very funny,” Garnet said, as she dragged over a chair to peek inside. “It must be the safe Elizabeth told us about. Remember? She said she had a locksmith crack
it open but there were only papers inside. Who'd have ever guessed it would be here behind some fake books?” She examined it more carefully but soon closed the door and set the shelf back into place. “I guess we'll have to keep on looking, 'cause you're right. There's nothing here.” She jumped off the chair and pushed it back, then checked the duplicate copies of the Dickens novels on the other shelf. These were the actual books.

Dan walked over to the desk and began to pull open the drawers. “Let's see what we've got here. A dried-up bottle of ink, fountain pen, silver lighter, matching cigarette case.”

Garnet turned. Sometimes such items were valuable at antique shops. “Let me see,” she said. Dan handed her the lighter and cigarette case. Though both were slightly tarnished, they were in good condition and Garnet saw that they had Reginald's initials engraved on them.

She flicked the lighter. It didn't light and had likely dried up, but when she pressed a button on the cigarette case, the lid popped open and inside were three hand-rolled cigarettes.

Dan bent his head to sniff them. “Bet those are stale,” he said.

“I wonder if he gave up smoking before or after he came down with pneumonia.” Garnet handed the items back to Dan and returned to perusing the bookshelf, her
attention drawn to the black spines of two large albums. She pulled one of them down and set it on the desk. The first page had a black-and-white photograph as thick as cardboard with an image of a male teenager posing with a man and a woman whom Garnet assumed were the teen's parents. Underneath was a picture of a young soldier.

“I wonder if those are pictures of Reginald. The uniform looks like it's from the Boer War,” Dan said.

“I think so,” Garnet said, turning the page. “Look, here he is with Sofia in these wedding photos. She looks young but kind of old, if you know what I mean. I think people in old pictures sort of look old themselves, even when they were young.”

The wedding poses were formal, likely taken at a studio. Reginald wore a suit and Sofia appeared elegant in a silk wedding gown. She looked small next to Reginald, who had, apparently, been quite tall. Despite being considerably older than Sofia, the set of Reginald's face made him appear distinguished. In the next photo, a slightly older man, possibly Sofia's father, Johann, posed with them.

Following the wedding photos came pictures of the couple with a baby in a lacy white christening gown and others when Albert appeared to be about a year old. But after this, there was a lapse in photo updates until Albert was about six or seven years old, when he posed by himself in some photos, and with Reginald in others. As a
young teenager, Albert appeared dressed in a suit, first in a photo by himself and then with his father and the man Garnet had assumed was his grandfather. Johann had aged greatly by this time, but he was grinning, as was Albert, as though they were sharing a private joke. Reginald didn't appear to be in on it, though, as his expression was as serious as it had been in all the other photographs.

Garnet closed the album and pulled out the next one. This one began with a young Elizabeth and Albert taken at the park with some friends, progressing on to their wedding, and finishing with Albert in uniform as he left for the war. The album was never completed and, as she flipped through the empty pages in the back, a loose picture that hadn't been fastened at the corners slipped out and fell to the floor. Garnet bent down to pick it up and saw that it was of Albert standing in front of an airplane with another young man in uniform. She recognized the man from an earlier photo at the park. Garnet turned it over and noticed some handwriting on the back.

“'Charlie and me in London. August 1941,'” she read. “He must have gone to war with his friend.”

She slipped the picture back into the album and returned to the wedding photos.

“See this?” Garnet said, pointing to Elizabeth. “I've seen her wear that locket. Albert gave it to her when they got married. She said it was a gift to Sofia from
Reginald when Albert was born. Did you notice Sofia wearing it in the christening pictures?”

“No,” Dan replied.

Garnet opened the first album again. “See? There it is,” she said, pointing to Sofia. “You know, I wonder where Elizabeth keeps it. I know she wasn't wearing it when she had the heart attack.”

Dan shrugged. “Why do you want it?”

“I was just wondering if she has any pictures in it. Some people do.”

“That's kind of personal, don't you think?” Dan teased.

Garnet felt her face go hot and she glared at him. “I'm just trying to gather all the information I can, that's all. I'm going upstairs,” she announced, and she made for the door.

Dan was only a few steps behind her.

The familiar mothball scent emanated from the closet as they entered Elizabeth's bedroom. Garnet immediately spotted a small wooden jewellery box on top of the dresser and she lifted the lid. Among several pieces of costume jewellery and the sapphire engagement ring lay the gold heart locket. Garnet picked it up and examined the engraving of a swirled floral pattern on the front and the smooth back with a few scratches from wear.

As Garnet used her nail to pry open the heart, she was
suddenly conscious of Dan behind her, his breath soft on the back of her neck. Her fingers felt unexpectedly clumsy, but despite this, she somehow managed to open it.

“Their wedding pictures,” Garnet said. “That's what she keeps inside.”

Albert and Elizabeth's faces had been carefully cut out into heart shapes on each side. He was on the left, wearing his air force cap, and she was on the right in a white hat.

“Can I see it?” Dan asked.

“Sure.”

Garnet turned to hand him the locket, their fingers touching as she passed it. She jerked back slightly and the chain slipped away and dropped to the floor. Dan bent down to pick it up and saw that Elizabeth's picture had fallen out. He was going to press it back into place when he said, “Hey, there's something engraved inside.”

“What? What is it?”