The purloined parure 1

 

The purloined parure

 

Chapter 1

 

“You can’t nick me, squire, you gotta have a hideous corpus, and that you won’t find, nowise,” said Mickey ‘Cosher’ Stubbins.

“You’d be amazed what the lab-boys can do these days,” said Inspector Alexander Armitage. “But the pinch is valid, it’s for coshing Mosh Cohen in his jewellery shop.”

“Swelp me, it’s a lie! He couldn’t of seen ‘oo coshed ‘im from be’ind,” said Cosher.

“Well, as that isn’t common knowledge, that’s almost a confession. But as it happens, apart from having your work habits all over it, Mosh also caught a glimpse of your unlovely visage in the beautiful Venetian array behind the counter.”

“Wot?”

“He saw your ugly mug in the mirror and picked you out of mugshots.”

Cosher sighed.

That, he reflected, was unfortunately a fair cop; and Cosher had more sense than to flog a dead horse when the rozzers were ready to bury it.

“Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that,” said Cosher, gloomily. “And I fort I might get away with it, it not bein’ me usual time o’ year to do shops.”

 

Booked and arraigned for the coshing and theft, Cosher consumed tea and scones in Alexander’s office, something Alexander did for old lags who did not make things too hard for him, as a mark of appreciation.

“So, what did you want to tell me about the corpse?” Alexander asked, not bothering to explain that ‘habeus corpus’ was a different matter to ‘corpus delicti’ and that neither of them had anything to do with dead bodies, hideous or otherwise. “I always thought you were careful not to cause permanent harm with your cosh; you’re supposed to be a master of the craft. What happened? You got careless? Someone had a glass skull? Slipped and fell and cracked their head open elsewhere?”

“’Ere! Now don’t you go pinnin’ a killin’ on me!” said Cosher, licking jam from his fingers. “Cor, I fergits what decent cuppa you make, guvnor, one you can stand a spoon up in it.”

“I don’t like it the way most people make it either,” said Alexander, who liked a strong cup and knew which of his usual clients were happy for strong tea to be even stronger. He kept a small tin of Earl Grey for a particular bookie for when  he strayed outside his usual remit to dabble in bunco. “But what am I to think, Mickey? You did your best to make sure no dead body would be found, so the conclusion is that you are also the, ah, author of the unfortunate decease of the said body.”

“Well, I ain’t, and I won’t swing for no-one,” said Cosher. “Gawdelpme, Mister Armitage, you know me; strickly sparklers, me, an’ a delicate bit o’ cosh work if the owner don’t want to part wiv them.”

It was, reflected Alexander, unusual for a career criminal to change his modus operandi or to move outside his specialisation.  Cosher worked strictly from June to August, as a regular thing, on Jewellery shops. He occasionally moved down to the southern counties for September, his method being to find those jewellers who opened a back door or window to invite in a stray blessed draught of fresh air in high summer’s muggy heat, without thinking that they also invited in trouble in the person of Cosher. Cosher would slip in, and if necessary conceal himself until closing time, after which, he would surprise a tired jeweller reflecting on getting home to his evening meal, and cosh him with a scientific precision which left his victim bereft of his senses for no more than half an hour. With the owner’s own keys, he would open the display cabinets and strip them bare. He never touched safes, and he never broke in.

During the more inclement months of the year, Cosher maintained a steady income utilising a variety of costumes he had laboriously -collected and adapted from secondhand shops, jumble sales, and flea markets like Portobello Road. He could dress in the livery of a number of agencies who hired out staff casually for parties, or as a gas man, postman, policeman, removal man and other invisible people. By such subterfuge, he would enter large houses, find his way upstairs, and remove the jewels of the lady of the house. He had been known to leave a small fortune in furs represented by the coats of ladies attending a party where he was pretending to be a footman, because furs were not his thing.

“It’s safer not to go out of what you know,” said Cosher. “I remember the first time you nicked me was because I took a fancy to that pretty little clock with singin’ canaries. And I never knew it was a yoo-ni-kay piece until you saw it on me mantelpiece.”

“A rare piece of carelessness on your part,” said Alexander, gravely. “Like coming in on Mosh Cohen opportunistically.”

Cosher sighed.

“Well, he went out for fish and chips, and I saw he had to really pull the door to. So I waited, an’ he come out wiv the paper, because he might like fish ‘n’ chips, but the posh clients don’t like the smell o’ the paper. An’ I slid in like an eel, an’ he come in be’ind me none the wiser.”

“A Hanukkah feast he will long remember,” murmured Alexander. “Well, if you didn’t kill someone accidentally, and you aren’t branching out to hide bodies for other people, perhaps you can tell me how you came to have a body to hide?”

“Straight up, guvnor, I fahnd the bloody body. An’ when I say ‘bloody’ I ain’t jokin’. Give me a real turn it did! An’ I figured, ‘ere’s a body wot’s been coshed, an’ beaten bad enough to make a mess, an’ here’s me comin’ in as a gas man, in the sort o’ neighbour’ood wot ‘as bored maiden ladies be’ind lace curtains, an’ if anyfink gets me pulled in, I’ll get the blame, see?”

Alexander sighed.

“Cosher, did it never occur to you that if you’d squealed to me, I would have protected you? I know you won’t squeal in the normal way, and I honour your integrity, but a messy sort of killing....”

“Gawdstrewf, I wish I’d of fort of it. You’d take care o’ me?  I appreciallate that. Mind, I was sort o’ panicking, I ruddy well stood on it, and it kinda groaned an’ half sat up... you know ‘ow it is,” said Cosher. “Seen it orfen in the trenches, when they’re a few days old an’ the gas builds up. Bloody uncanny it is!” he wiped a hand over his mouth.

Alexander poured him another cup of tea and broke out a packet of rich tea. Cosher drank thirstily, and when Alexander refilled his cup dunked a biscuit happily.

“I do know how nasty it is,” said Alexander. “And it was a horrible shock, in peacetime London, long enough after the war for most of the nightmares to stay away, to come on a dead body.”

“You said it, guvnor!” said Cosher. “I ain’t religious, but bugger me, I crossed meself like a ruddy Catholic.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Alexander, recognising this admission as a recognition for more need of a Godly touch than any disparagement of Catholicism. “I might have done so, myself; a copper expects to find bodies at times, but when they are unexpected, messy, and at that level of decomp, it’s damnably unnerving.”

“Fanks for understanin’,” said Cosher. “Those of us wot saw war, we’re a breed apart from the youngsters comin’ up, they got no idea. Think guns is glamorous. Gangster movies and the like. When you’ve lived because Jerry’s[1] gun jammed an’ yours didn’t, it makes a difference.”

“You’re a bloody nuisance, Mickey, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad you made it through that,” said Alexander.

“Yerse, well, you ain’t a bad sort for a rozzer,” said Cosher. “I suppose now you knows ‘ow it was, I might as well tell you the rest. You ain’t got no chocolate biccys ‘ave you? It’s what I miss in the jug, chocolate.”

“I haven’t, but I’ll send you some,” said Alexander.

“Cheers, squire.  If no bugger nicks it,” said Cosher.

“If they do, I’ll send you some Exlax to melt on the illicit candle you’ll manage to get, to smear on the bottom, and see whoever steals it sweat,” said Alexander.

Cosher beamed.

“Cor, that’s bloody brilliant!” he said. “Well, I was in this ‘ouse, wot had belonged to some old dame wot had died nacturallilly-like, see? The rumour on the street  was that she ‘ad a magnificent parroo-er. D’you know what that is?”

“Yes, I am aware that a parure is a matched set of jewellery, consisting of at least five matching pieces, typically a necklace, ear-rings, bracelet, brooch, and hair ornaments or tiara,” said Alexander. “A demi-parure may be as few as two, but more usually three, matching pieces.”

“Cor, well, you learned me somefink,” said Cosher. “So there ain’t necessarillily pieces missing if there’s not as many pieces. Demi-parroo-er. I got it.  Anyways, she was s’posed to of hidden it somewhere, an’ it was a necklace, tiara, earrings, dirty great brooch wot could fit on the necklace to dangle, an an’ rings all in rubies an’ pearls. An’ I said to myself, Mickey, I said, if you get your ‘ands on that, you won’t never ‘ave to work again. Acoss there’s people ‘d buy that, no questions asked, no fence needed.”

“At least it isn’t the Greek Ruby Parure,” teased Alexander, mentioning one of the Royal Family’s treasures.

“Strite up, if I come on that, I’d give it back; I might be a thief, but I’m an Englishman,” said Cosher.

“After you’d nipped off one of the diamond-encrusted laurel leaves and one ruby as a keepsake,” said Alexander.

“Well.... maybe,” said Cosher. “But I wouldn’ sell that, I’d keep it wiv me medals, an’ say ‘God save the king an’ queen’ to it.”

“Well, you heard of it and went looking?” said Alexander.

“Yerse, this place in Orme Court,” said Cosher.

“And did you find it?” asked Alexander, who had his own ideas on this, given the detailed description Cosher had given.

Cosher looked shifty.

“I fell over the bleedin’ body afore I got a charnst to look,” he said.

“We’ll revisit that later,” said Alexander.

“Or we could forget it, later,” said Cosher, hopefully.

“I don’t think so,” said Alexander. “But for now, the body. Tell me what you can about it.”

“Well, it was this weaselly little bloke; ‘e’d ‘ad is front teef knocke aht, but you knows the type wiv an overbite, wot ‘ave large teef at the front, like a weasel, an’ thin faces to go wiv it? An’ if ‘e was much over five-five, I’ll be surprised. Eight stone weight or so, and I should know, ‘avin’ disposed of ‘im.  And worked over good. If it ‘ad bin summer, e’d ‘ave been three feed deep in flies an’ smellin’ like... well, you knows what like. But it was cold in that empty ‘ouse. So, I ‘ired a van, got a mate ‘oo can keep ‘is nose to ‘imself, an’ put on blue overalls an’ a false beard, and some packin’ cases. An’ I make sure to get there ahead o’ me mate, so I can get that body in a case an’ dahn the stairs so he don’t guess what’s really what. I filled another case wiv books to be as ‘eavy, an’ told ‘im I had a client wot likes old books, but we’d take some other furniture to cover for it, see? And he buys this. There are people who like books more’n jewels.”

“You’re looking at one,” said Alexander.

“Well, funny fing is, I took the books to a bookseller later,” Cosher scratched his stubble. “And he got all excited and said somethin’ about in candelabra. I didn’t see no candelabras though.”

“Incunabula,” said Alexander. “Books made before 1500AD, often hand written or very early presses.”

“Well, now, you learned me somefing else,” said Cosher. “And I wasn’t gwine to turn down three hundred nicker for them when I’d ‘oped to cover me van hire an’ packin’ cases. I can’t ‘elp thinking I didn’t make the best deal, but that’s why I do jewels. I can price a jewel. Books are beyond me.”

“I’ll see if I can’t track them down,” muttered Alexander. “They must belong to someone... and the body?”

“Well, I got a little allotment, see?” said Cosher. “I grows prize marrows, milk-fed, an’ real veg wot you can eat as well. So, I puts the body on me compost ‘eap in the middle o’ the night, and ‘it it wiv an axe until it’s easy to bury, and then it’s up to them little red worms.”

“There are probably teeth left,” said Alexander.

“Wot weren’t already broke,” said Cosher, shuddering. “It was a real beatin’, not scientific but vicious, and I reckon someone ‘ad used pliers an’ fings as well. The fingers.... not nice.” He swallowed. “An’ I put the ‘ead on a stone, an’ bashed it with a ballpine ‘ammer, an’ I set a bonfire on top as well, wiv hurdles rahnd, to ‘ide the glow, an’ I burnt any blood off of the ‘ammer an’ axe too.  An’ come the mornin’ I dug it all in, an’ nothin’ to show for it. That was a gruesome night’s work.”

“A most unpleasant experience all told,” said Alexander. “So, did you go back for the parure?”

“Nah! I fahnd the ruddy thing when I broke up the furniture for firewood, and there it is in the top of a table, in some sort of false drawer. ‘Course, it’s on its way to some French Nob now,” he added, his eyes sliding sideways.

“Fast bit of fencing,” said Alexander, pretending to believe him.

“Good contac’s,” said Cosher.

“Well, as you’re booked, I don’t have to ask you not to go anywhere,” said Alexander. “Being a witness to murder most foul, which, by the way, counts as part of corpus delicti which means the body of evidence, and was what you meant about there being no body.”

“I never knew that!” said Cosher.

“And now it’s up to me to establish a greater body of evidence, and put together a case to find out who did murder him,” said Alex.

“D’you think you could send for another pot o’ tea first?” asked Cosher. “An’ lemme take a jimmy; I’m burstin’.”

“I can arrange both of those,” said Alexander.

“D’you fink I’m in danger from the bloke wot did it?” asked Cosher.

“Frankly? Yes,” said Alexander. “But you describe what sounds like an amateur beating to me; not a mob job, so you should be safe in jail.”

“Gawdstrewf, ‘as to be the first time I been glad to be nicked,” said Cosher.

 

 

 

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[1] Jerry, a WW1 term for German, the enemy dating from 1916; also Bosch or Hun