I was halfway through my second cup of coffee at breakfast when the trouble arrived.
Not the client. The trouble.
Fritz had just set before Wolfe a golden omelet swollen with herbs and a slice of toast that looked as though it had received individual attention from a committee of angels. Wolfe was regarding it with the concentration of a man examining evidence in a capital case.
The doorbell rang.
Wolfe closed his eyes.
“Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whoever it is, I dislike him already.”
I went to the hall.
The visitor was a small, elegant woman wearing a gray suit that probably cost more than my monthly salary. She introduced herself as Vivian Ralston and handed me a card.
Five minutes later she was seated in the office across from Wolfe’s desk.
“My problem sounds ridiculous,” she said.
“Many do,” Wolfe told her.
“A jar of saffron has been stolen.”
I waited.
She waited.
Wolfe grunted.
She said, “It was worth twelve thousand dollars.”
That got our attention.
The saffron had belonged to her late grandfather, a spice importer with eccentric habits. Twenty years earlier he had purchased a rare cache of saffron threads from a remote valley in Spain. The collection had become famous among chefs and collectors. Most had been sold, but one crystal jar remained in a locked display case in Mrs. Ralston’s dining room.
The previous evening she had hosted a dinner party for four guests.
At dessert she had shown them the jar.
This morning it was gone.
The display case remained locked.
No sign of forced entry.
Only five people had been present.
Mrs. Ralston herself and the four guests.
“A classic impossibility,” I said.
“No,” Wolfe replied. “Merely a small impossibility. The large ones are more interesting.”
The guests were an art dealer, a chef, a food historian, and Mrs. Ralston’s cousin.
I spent the afternoon interviewing them.
The chef swore he admired the saffron but had no reason to steal it.
The historian gave me a forty-minute lecture on medieval trade routes.
The cousin was offended by the question.
The art dealer smiled too much.
By six o’clock I had accumulated twelve pages of notes and exactly zero facts.
Wolfe spent the afternoon upstairs with his orchids.
At dinner Fritz served roast duck with cherries.
The skin crackled beneath the knife. The aroma rose with wine, butter, and fruit. Wolfe consumed two portions while displaying no visible interest in crime.
Only afterward, with coffee in the office, did he finally ask for my report.
I gave it.
When I finished, he closed his eyes.
“Archie.”
“Yes.”
“Did any of them mention the display case?”
“They all did.”
“The lock?”
“Naturally.”
“The key?”
“It remained in Mrs. Ralston’s possession all evening.”
“Hm.”
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
Then Wolfe opened his eyes.
“The chef.”
“Why?”
“He is innocent.”
“That’s helpful.”
“The historian is innocent as well.”
“Marvelous.”
“The thief is either the cousin or the art dealer.”
“Based on what?”
“I shall tell you tomorrow.”
I hate it when he does that.
The next morning all five assembled in the office.
Mrs. Ralston looked nervous.
The cousin looked angry.
The art dealer looked confident.
Wolfe looked satisfied, which is always bad news for someone.
He began.
“The jar was not stolen after dinner. It was stolen during dinner.”
Nobody spoke.
“The display case was locked. Therefore the thief needed access to the key or needed the jar to leave the case before it was locked.”
The cousin frowned.
Wolfe continued.
“Mrs. Ralston displayed the saffron before dessert. At that time all guests examined it.”
“Yes,” she said.
“The jar was passed around the table?”
“Of course.”
Wolfe nodded.
“The thief exchanged it.”
The art dealer’s smile vanished.
I sat up.
Mrs. Ralston blinked.
“Exchanged it?”
“Indeed. The thief substituted an identical crystal jar filled with ordinary saffron. No one noticed because no one opened it.”
The room became very quiet.
“The following morning the replacement jar disappeared.”
Mrs. Ralston stared.
“What?”
“The thief removed it after realizing an unfortunate fact.”
Wolfe’s gaze settled on the art dealer.
“Your grandfather marked the bottom of the original jar with a small blue seal. Mrs. Ralston mentioned this to Mr. Goodwin yesterday. None of the guests knew it.”
The art dealer’s face had become expressionless.
Wolfe went on.
“The thief learned of the seal after the dinner. He returned, removed the substitute jar, and hoped everyone would assume the original had been stolen.”
I said, “But how did he get back into the house?”
“The simplest method. Mrs. Ralston’s guests left through the garden. One of them failed to latch the side gate.”
Mrs. Ralston gasped.
The art dealer said nothing.
Wolfe turned to him.
“You deal in antiques. You routinely commission reproductions. You alone possessed the skill and contacts required to prepare the duplicate.”
The silence stretched.
Then the art dealer laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he had lost.
“The seal gave me away?” he asked.
“Ultimately,” Wolfe said.
The man reached into his coat pocket.
“Then I suppose this belongs to Mrs. Ralston.”
He placed a crystal jar on Wolfe’s desk.
After everyone had departed, I examined the recovered treasure.
“Not bad,” I admitted.
Wolfe grunted.
“The duplicate was excellent.”
“You solved it from that?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The historian bored you for forty minutes.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone capable of enduring that voluntarily is innocent.”
I stared at him.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am not.”
He picked up a catalogue of orchids.
“Though it is a persuasive argument.”
“Then what was the real clue?”
“The thief removed the substitute jar.”
“Yes.”
“An innocent person would have left it. Only the guilty party knew it was dangerous.”
I considered that.
It was neat.
Elegant.
And annoyingly simple.
Wolfe opened the catalogue.
The case, as far as he was concerned, had ceased to exist.
Which was fortunate.
The orchids, unlike criminals, never argued.
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