Part 7 (1/2)

'Of course. Yes. But we don't need to.'

'If,' I said, 'there were any secret files, would you know that they were there?'

She nodded briefly. 'I wouldn't know, but I could find out.'

'How?' I asked. 'I mean, please would you?'

'What am I looking for? I don't understand.'

'Diamonds'

'But I told you, we don't .

'I know,' I said, 'but my brother said he was going to buy diamonds and I need to know if he did. If there's any chance he made a private entry on this computer some day when he was first or last in this office, I need to find it.'

OK.

She shook her head but tapped away obligingly, bringing what she called menus to the screen. It seemed a fairly lengthy business but finally, frowning, she found something that gave her pause. Then her concentration increased abruptly until the screen was showing the word 'Pa.s.sword?' as before.

'I don't understand,' she said. 'We gave this computer a general pa.s.sword which is Saxony, though we almost never use it. But you can put in any pa.s.sword you like on any particular doc.u.ment to supersede Saxony. This entry was made only a month ago. The date is on the menu. But whoever made it didn't use Saxony as the pa.s.sword. So the pa.s.sword could be anything. Literally any word in the world.'

I said, By doc.u.men' you mean file?'

'Yes, file. Every entry has a doc.u.ment name, like. say, ”oriental cultured pearls”. If I load ”oriental cultured pearls” onto the screen I can review our whole stock. I do it all the time. But this doc.u.ment with an unknown pa.s.sword is listed under pearl in the singular, not pearls in the plural, and I don't understand it. I didn't put it there.' She glanced at me. 'At any rate, it doesn't say diamonds.'

'Have another try to guess the pa.s.sword.'

She tried Franklin and Greville without result. 'It could be anything,' she said helplessly.

'Try Dozen Roses.'

'Why Dozen Roses?' She thought it extraordinary.

'Greville owned a horse - a racehorse - with that name.'

'Really? He never said. He was so nice, and awfully private.'

'He owned another horse called Gemstones.'

With visible doubt she tried 'Dozen Roses' and then 'Gemstones'. Nothing happened except another insistent demand for the pa.s.sword.

'Try ”diamonds”, then,' I said.

She Tried 'diamonds'. Nothing changed.

'You knew him,' I said. 'Why would he enter something under ”pearl”?'

'No idea.' She sat hunched over the keys, drumming her fingers on her mouth. 'Pearl. Pearl. Why pearl?'

'What is a pearl?' I said. 'Does it have a formula?'

'Oh.' She suddenly sat up straight. 'It's a birthstone.'

She typed in 'birthstone', and nothing happened.

Then she blushed slightly.

'It's one of the birthstones for the month of June,' she said. 'I could try it, anyway.'

She typed 'June', and the screen flashed and gave up its secrets.

CHAPTER FIVE.

We hadn't found the diamonds.

The screen said: June, if you are reading this, come straight into my office for a rise. You are worth your weight in your birthstone, but I'm only offering to increase your salary by twenty per cent. Regards, Greville Franklin.

'Oh!' She sat transfixed. 'So that's what he meant.'

'explain,' I said.

'One morning . . .' She stopped, her mouth s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up in an effort not to cry. It took her a while to be able to continue, then she said, 'One morning he told me he'd invented a little puzzle for me and he would give me six months to solve it. After six months it would selfdestruct.

He was smiling so much.' She swallowed. 'I asked him what sort of puzzle and he wouldn't tell me.

He just said he hoped I would find it.'

'Did you look?' I asked.

'Of course I did. I looked everywhere in the office, though I didn't know what I was looking for. I even looked for a new doc.u.ment in the computer, but I just never gave a thought to its being filed as a secret, and my eyes just slid over the word ”pearl”, as I see it so often. Silly of me. Stupid.'

I said,'I don't think you're stupid, and I'll honour my brother's promise.'

She gave me a swift look of pleasure but shook her head a little and said, 'I didn't find it. I'd never have solved it except for you.' She hesitated. 'How about ten per cent?'

'Twenty,'] said firmly. 'I'm going to need your help and your knowledge, and if Annette is Personal a.s.sistant, as it says on the door of her office, you can be Deputy Personal a.s.sistant, with the new salary to go with the job.'

She turned a deeper shade of rose and busied herself with making a print-out of Greville's instruction, which she folded and put in her handbag.

'I'll leave the secret in the computer,' she said with misty fondness. 'No one else will ever find it.' She pressed a few b.u.t.tons and the screen went blank, and I wondered how many times in private she would call up the magic words that Greville had left her.

I wondered if they would really self-destruct: if one could programme something on a computer to erase itself on a given date. I didn't see why not, but I thought Greville might have given her strong clues before the six months were out.

I asked her if she would print out first a list of everything currently in the vault and then as many things as she thought would help me understand the business better, like the volume and value of a day's, a week's, a month's sales; like which items were most popular, and which least.

'I can tell you that what's very popular just now is black onyx. Fifty years ago they say it was all amber, now no one buys it. Jewellery goes in and out of fas.h.i.+on like everything else.' She began tapping keys. 'Give me a little while and I'll print you a crash course.'