An evening appointment should settle an old debt. Instead, a family ring disappears, and the host blames his visitors. Puz listens to the household and the guests. Before deciding who to believe, the detective must put a few uneasy moments back in order.
A promise to repay
Felix’s business had failed, leaving him owing Marin a large sum of money. When she asked for repayment, he offered a valuable diamond ring belonging to his wife, Clara. Clara reluctantly agreed to let it go. The ring would settle the debt once Marin received it.
Marin first called during the afternoon, but Clara was out. Felix asked her to return that evening. She brought her adult son, Owen, to witness the handover, and Mr Vale, an elderly jewellery expert, to examine the ring.
Mr Vale had once been a notorious pickpocket, long before he changed his ways. His hands now trembled when he held small objects. Owen, cautious rather than quick, took his time with papers and unfamiliar rooms. Neither man had been inside Felix’s house before.
The interrupted handover
They met in the sitting room. Clara sat on the sofa beside a small wooden table. Felix stood closest to her. Marin and Owen waited several steps away near the doorway with the repayment papers. Mr Vale sat in an armchair by the window.
Clara slowly eased the ring off her finger. She placed it in a little cream saucer on the table. Before Marin could approach to inspect it, all the house lights suddenly went out. Someone gasped, and there was a scrape beside the table.
A few seconds later, Marin switched on her phone’s torch. The saucer was already empty. She kept its beam on the table and Clara while everyone called out where they were. Felix was still beside the sofa; Marin and Owen were near the doorway, and Mr Vale was by his armchair.
Felix then went into the hall, saying he would check the lights. No visitor left the sitting room. About five minutes after the darkness began, the lamps came on again. Through the window, neighbouring homes and the streetlamps had remained brightly lit throughout.
Before an accusation
“Your visitors took it!” Felix told Marin. “That ring was meant for you, and now it’s gone.” Marin objected: she had come to receive the ring openly, with the debt marked as paid, not to leave with an accusation hanging over her. Clara, still upset, asked them to call Puz.
When Puz arrived, Felix pointed out Mr Vale’s old reputation. Owen insisted that he had never gone near the table. Mr Vale said his unsteady hands would make a quick theft difficult. Puz listened to each account without treating any of those claims as proof.
Puz asked each person to describe those first dark seconds again, then compared their accounts with the room’s layout and the lights outside. An old reputation was not evidence, and a claim of innocence was not an alibi.
The little saucer remained empty. Clara, Felix and the three visitors waited as Puz considered the evidence. Someone in that room had taken the ring. Who was it, and which clues pointed to that person?