Phyllis Wong and the Vanishing Emeralds (The Phyllis Wong Mysteries, Book 6) by Geoffrey McSkimming

Release date: December 15, 2018

Subgenre: Children's mystery, Paranormal mystery

About Phyllis Wong and the Vanishing Emeralds:

 

When Phyllis Wong—that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth—happens upon a mystery from the past that has proved unsolvable, she knows she has to try to get to the bottom of it.

More than sixty years ago an astonishing emerald necklace owned by the famous pianist Isabella Beaufort seemingly vanished off the face of the earth! Ever since, the disappearance has stumped the police, detectives and those associated with the missing priceless jewels. How did the prized Flurtis Emeralds vanish? Where are they today? Is there any way they can be traced, after so many cobwebs have covered the case?

Another mysterious intrigue right up the alleyway of our favourite conjuring Transiter!

The sixth Phyllis Wong: Time Detective mystery.

 

Excerpt:

 

Chapter one

A tiny glinting

PHYLLIS WONG, that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, was trying to stand as still as she could.

Standing still was not one of Phyllis’s favourite things to do. She would much rather have been practising, or better still, performing, her latest magic trick: the Supreme Rising Card, which she was perfecting with a brand new set of jumbo cards she’d recently bought from her favourite magic shop, Thundermallow’s. And if she wasn’t practising or performing the Supreme Rising Card, she’d rather be walking her small brown-and-white miniature fox terrier Daisy in City Park or somewhere. Or hanging out with her best friend Clement, a boy who was one year and ten days younger than herself and who was quite unashamedly eccentric. Or sitting in her favourite café, the Délicieux Café, which was in the bottom of Myrddin, the old apartment block where she lived.

Phyllis would rather be doing any of those things than trying to stand still, here in Mademoiselle Rondette’s Frock and Costume Boutique for The Discerning and Vivacious.

‘Now, my sweety,’ said Mademoiselle Rondette through a mouthful of pins, as she knelt behind Phyllis. ‘Try not to fidget while I tack up the back of your tails.’

‘Sorry,’ Phyllis apologised, hoping Mademoiselle Rondette didn’t see the small involuntary shudder Phyllis had just given when she’d been called sweety.

‘Not a bother, not a bother,’ muttered the couturier. She started threading the pins into the lining of Phyllis’s new frock coat, her fingers darting along the silk like a little swarm of bees buzzing busily across the fabric.

Phyllis watched as the neatly coiffured woman beavered away. This was the third fitting that Phyllis was having at Mademoiselle Rondette’s Frock and Costume Boutique for The Discerning and Vivacious. When it came to clothes, Phyllis wasn’t especially discerning or vivacious, but the boutique had been recommended to Phyllis and her father by a downstairs neighbour, Minette Bulbolos. Minette was a belly dancer and saxophonist (not simultaneously) at the Baubles of Baalbek Nightclub, and Mademoiselle Rondette often made some of Minette’s more spanglier costumes for her act. Minette was very fussy and particular when it came to her theatrical costumes, so when Phyllis had told her she needed some new threads for her magic act, Minette had almost insisted that Phyllis come to this place.

Now, as Phyllis’s new stage frock coat was beginning to take shape, Phyllis was starting to feel a little quiver of excitement. It had been a while since she’d got new costumes, and she’d liked working with Mademoiselle Rondette, who had listened carefully to what Phyllis had wanted to be included in the costumes. Mademoiselle Rondette had fashioned the new coat and the three pairs of black trousers and the long, flowing cloak (hanging nearby on a mannequin) with all the necessary pockets, secret flaps and special hidey-holes that a prestidigitator of Phyllis’s calibre needed.

‘When do you think they’ll be ready?’ Phyllis asked.

‘Stay still.’ Mademoiselle Rondette slid a couple of pins from one side of her mouth to the other. ‘I think you should be able to have them by … hmm … next Tuesday.’

‘Swell.’ Phyllis liked to use jargon from her great-grandfather’s time; he’d been one of the world’s most famous stage magicians and had also begun a career in the movies, way back in the 1930s.

Mademoiselle Rondette smiled, and the pins at the corner of her lips stuck straight up like porcupine quills in a stiff breeze.

Phyllis moved her head back so her long dark hair was away from the rear of the frock coat. Mademoiselle Rondette said, ‘Tut! Still!’ and Phyllis once again apologised.

As Mademoiselle Rondette pinned away, Phyllis let her gaze wander around the shop. Over by the big front windows were several tall racks of assorted gowns, cocktail dresses and formal frocks. Phyllis observed the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows, catching all the sparkly beads and sequins on some of the more eye-catching creations and shooting the bright reflections all around the walls in a shifting spectrum of riotous brilliance. It’s like a tipsy rainbow, Phyllis couldn’t help thinking, trying to find its way home after a big night out. She giggled quietly.

‘Tut!’ reprimanded Mademoiselle Rondette. ‘You will have this hem looking like a dog’s breakfast, luncheon and dinner all mixed up in the same bowl, the way you are fidgeting about.’

‘Sorry.’ Phyllis took a big breath and composed herself. She continued looking around the shop.

In the corner furthest from the door was a large brass bird cage on a stand. It had no bird in it, but an assortment of bright red and green and blue and yellow and orange feathers arranged in such a way that if you didn’t look too closely they might have been a bird—a very big bird of strange, exotic variety.

Phyllis smiled. Being a magician, she appreciated the notion that things aren’t always what they seem. It was one of the underlying secrets of what she did. She’d learnt from a very early age never to take things on face value.

 She looked across the room, to the smart gleaming glass and chromium counter with its antique cash register sitting at one end. On the wall behind the counter hung a painting in a fancy gold frame.

Phyllis hadn’t paid too much attention to the painting before. She’d been aware of it on her previous visits, but with all the excitement and activity of having her costumes planned and made and altered, her focus had been on other things. Now, today, as she was forced to remain as still as she could, she was able to study the painting at leisure.

It was a portrait, done in oils, and it showed an elegant lady wearing an ivory-coloured evening gown which fell from her shoulders to cover—in a shimmery sort of way—what Phyllis considered to be an ample amount of bosom. The lady wore long, shiny ivory gloves up to her elbows, and her golden hair cascaded to her shoulders. Her eyes were bright and violet, and Phyllis detected a twinkling in them, as though the lady knew a secret that she was perhaps keeping from the artist who was painting her. She had a small, heart-shaped mouth, her lips red and full, neither frowning nor smiling. Intriguing, Phyllis thought.

Phyllis had the impression that the portrait had perhaps been painted some time in the 1940s or 1950s. Despite its age, it still looked unblemished and fresh, almost as if it had been done last month.

The lady was seated, and her hands rested upon a long stem of gladioli flowers lying across her lap. Around the lady’s slender neck, and draped across her breastbone from pale shoulder to pale shoulder, was a beautiful necklace. A string of bright green, diamond-shaped emeralds were set on a gleaming golden chain. The emeralds glittered out from the canvas, with the biggest emerald hanging in the centre of the necklace and the other sixteen emeralds—eight on either side of the biggest gem—tapering away, becoming smaller and smaller the further they were from the centrepiece.

In the background of the painting there was a red velvet curtain, pulled partly to one side to reveal wallpaper decorated with faintly painted swans surrounded by vague patterns of swirling leaves.

Mademoiselle Rondette was still pinning and tacking and making small noises as she concentrated. Phyllis, trying not to move even her mouth very much, asked: ‘Mademoiselle?’

‘Yes, sweety?’

‘I was wondering. Do you know who the lady is in the painting behind the counter?’

Mademoiselle Rondette turned Phyllis slightly towards the mirror and began straightening the lining in the left tail of her coat. ‘I do indeed,’ she replied without looking up. ‘She is my great-aunt Isabella. Now let me ask you something. Do you know what you are going to put in these secret tail pockets?’

Phyllis’s eyes were still fixed on Great-Aunt Isabella. ‘Um … I was thinking of maybe hiding some … some … well, I haven’t made up my mind yet, to tell you the truth. I just want the pockets back there so when I do come up with a trick where I need those pockets I’ll be prepared.’

‘Aha,’ said Mademoiselle Rondette through her mouthful of pins. ‘I am thinking that perhaps you do not wish to tell me because you do not want to give away any secrets, oui?’

‘Well, no … well, yes. Honestly, I don’t really know yet. But the truth is, even if I did know what I plan to put in those pockets, it’d be against my code as a magician to tell you. It’s not me being rude or anything, I just—’

‘Say no more, Phyllis.’ The pins at the corners of Mademoiselle Rondette’s lips stuck straight up again as she smiled gently. ‘I respect your code, and I respect your secrets. Why, we couturiers also have our little tricks of the trade that we are loath to share with the outside world.’

Phyllis looked down and smiled at Mademoiselle Rondette.

‘I only request,’ she went on, ‘that you do not put anything too bulky in here. The fabric of this coat is very fine, and any obvious bulges will stretch the line. And it will also be quite noticeable if you turn around on stage.’

‘I get it,’ said Phyllis. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘You are very welcome.’ Mademoiselle Rondette gave the hem of the coat a sharp tug downwards. Then, when she was satisfied that the garment was sitting straight and true to the cut of the fabric, she stood and took the remaining pins from her mouth, sticking them deftly into a big red pincushion on a nearby table.

‘She was very beautiful,’ said Phyllis.

‘Mm? Who was very beautiful?’

‘Great-Aunt Isabella.’

‘Ah, yes. She was.’ Mademoiselle Rondette carefully peeled the coat from off Phyllis’s arms and shoulders and went to hang it on one of the production racks behind a dark green velvet curtain. ‘She was greatly admired as one of the most beautiful women of her day,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘She was also a wonderful pianist.’

Phyllis wandered over to the portrait, her eyes being drawn towards the staring, twinkling, knowing eyes of Great-Aunt Isabella.

As Phyllis came closer, the painting seemed to change. From the distance across the shop where Phyllis had been fitted, the painting had appeared smooth and clean and finely done. When she came nearer to it, though, she saw that each brush stroke was thick and bold, and that great clumps of paint had been applied in broad, sweeping crests of energy. Phyllis realised that it was only when you moved back from the portrait, about nine feet or so away from it, that the brush strokes somehow merged together to create the picture which was, at a distance, very realistic. It was a great credit to the portrait painter’s craft that the painting was able to seem, in this way, to move through space to become almost a different image, in the way the paint had been applied.

It occurred to Phyllis—and it made her smile—that this wonderful quality in the painting seemed like magic. A magic of the painter’s art.

Mademoiselle Rondette went to the counter, where she began making some notes and diagrams in a large production ledger. ‘Great-Aunt Isabella played all around the world, and was greatly admired by many, on all the continents,’ she said as she drew her pencil across the page.

‘I wonder if she ever met my great-grandfather,’ said Phyllis. ‘He was a world-famous magician, Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder! and he played in all the big theatres everywhere too. Before he went into the movies.’

‘I wonder,’ said Mademoiselle Rondette. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t know all that much about Great-Aunt Isabella’s life, apart from a few details about her professional engagements. Oh, and all the business to do with that necklace you see around her neck. But even that ended up to be a mystery.’

Phyllis raised an eyebrow in a go on, tell me more sort of way.

‘Yes,’ the couturier said. ‘You see, the necklace simply vanished. Its whereabouts is still a mystery to this very day.’

Phyllis glanced at Mademoiselle Rondette, then back at the portrait. The young conjuror’s eyes rested on the display of painted emeralds. A strange little oscillation zithered up Phyllis’s spine, and her skin began to tingle. ‘A mystery, you say?’ she ventured, intrigued.

Chapter two

Mystery from the past

‘OF COURSE you would not have heard of it at all, my dear,’ said Mademoiselle Rondette. ‘It was well before your time.’

Phyllis plonked herself onto a stool on the other side of the counter to Mademoiselle Rondette. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘I love mysteries.’

‘Oh, I bet you do.’ The mademoiselle smiled. ‘Mysteries and magic … they should go together, hand in hand, don’t you think?’

Phyllis thought for a few seconds. ‘Sort of. I have to create mysteries to do my magic,’ she said. ‘When I perform a trick, it’s all carefully worked out beforehand, and if nothing goes wrong then the trick works. But that’s different to real-life mysteries. A different kettle of fish altogether.’

Mademoiselle Rondette nodded. ‘You are right, Phyllis. A mystery in life is often something that has no solution to it, is it not?’

‘It can be. So you say the mystery about Great-Aunt Isabella’s necklace never got solved?’

Mademoiselle Rondette put down her pencil and gently closed her sketch book. She went to a tall stool on her side of the counter and sat elegantly. ‘No, it did not.’ She gazed up at the painting, and her eyes took on a faraway look. ‘It has never been worked out. The emeralds remain we know not where. It was all very terrible, in fact. It led to a complete reversal of Great-Aunt Isabella’s fortunes, and had a dreadful effect on her for the rest of her life.’

‘Tell me what happened, if you please to, Mademoiselle Rondette?’

‘You really want to know the story of the necklace? The mystery of the Flurtis Emeralds?’

‘I do!’

Mademoiselle Rondette smiled again, a smile shadowed (Phyllis thought) by some small sorrow. ‘Then you shall hear it. And I am glad to share it with you. As I said, my great-aunt Isabella travelled all over the world, performing. She had a great many admirers, and some of the more … shall I say … enthusiastic admirers would show their ardour in sometimes very exuberant ways. It was not uncommon, Phyllis, for some of the more keen fans of Great-Aunt Isabella to shower her with valuable gifts. Often, men gave her beautiful jewellery in appreciation of her wonderful talent. That was how she came to possess the priceless necklace containing the Flurtis Emeralds.’

Phyllis gazed again at the necklace hanging from Great-Aunt Isabella’s long, slender neck.

‘The necklace,’ Mademoiselle Rondette went on, ‘with all those exquisite emeralds in it, was very old indeed when it was given to Great-Aunt Isabella. It had been owned, before this, by a good many people: the stories go that it had once belonged to a succession of maharajas in India before it was somehow whisked out of India to end up in the collection of a Scottish laird.’

‘What’s a laird?’ Phyllis asked. She’d heard the word before but couldn’t recall its exact meaning.

‘It’s a title held by someone in Scotland who owns a huge estate. Almost like a baron. Someone very wealthy and from an old nobility. Now what was this laird’s name … ?’

Mademoiselle Rondette gazed at the portrait as she tried to remember. ‘Ah, yes, that was it. Southwell. John Southwell, Laird of Glengloaming. He owned a castle way up in the Highlands, as well as all the village and the land around it. Oh, he was immensely wealthy, Phyllis, and a dedicated collector of artworks and rare old books and the most precious jewellery he could find.’

‘Did the Laird Southwell give the Flurtis Emeralds to your great-aunt as a gift?’ Phyllis asked.

‘We think so. As I said, she was frequently being showered with gifts like that from enthusiastic admirers. We always thought that the Laird of Glengloaming was another in that long line of admirers, and that he’d given the necklace to her. Although nobody knows for certain where she got it from. She never kept records of all the things she was given … I don’t even know that she cared all that much about them at all, but she did wear the jewellery for her concerts and the like.’

Phyllis couldn’t even start to imagine how someone could have so many jewels and necklaces and things and not take care of them.

‘I only know bits and pieces of the story from my father. Great-Aunt Isabella was his aunt. He never saw her all that much, on account of her busy concert schedule and all the touring she always had to do. Well, anyway, to get back to the Flurtis Emeralds: apparently one evening John Southwell went to a concert in London and heard Great-Aunt Isabella playing. He was entranced, so much so that he bought a ticket for every performance she was to give during the rest of the season! Front row, centre stalls, every single evening. But that wasn’t all. He began writing letters to her, praising her for her talent and her beauty. One thing led to another, and soon he invited Great-Aunt Isabella to a weekend party up at his estate.

‘She was to come up for the weekend, along with a group of his friends. His castle was enormous, with lots of room in the place and on the estate grounds to entertain many people. While she was there, apparently the Laird of Glengloaming put an idea to her: he wanted to commission one of the art world’s most famous painters at the time to create a portrait of Great-Aunt Isabella, which would hang in pride of place in his castle. That—’ Mademoiselle Rondette cocked an eyebrow at the painting— ‘is the very portrait. “The Pianist”, by Daphne Girthstuddle, to give it its correct title. John Southwell commissioned Daphne Girthstuddle to paint it and Great-Aunt Isabella sat for it.’

Phyllis interlocked her left thumb with her right pinkie finger (something she often did when ideas were forming), and her brow creased slightly. ‘How come you’ve got it here?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ replied Mademoiselle Rondette, ‘it came to me from my father. You see, for some reason when the painting was completed, it never found its way up to the laird’s castle in Scotland. Somehow, Great-Aunt Isabella came to take possession of the portrait and she left it in her will to my father.’

‘So what happened to the Flurtis Emeralds Necklace?’

‘Like I told you, we don’t know. The necklace just disappeared … vanished.’

‘Really?’ Phyllis’s skin prickled. She frequently made objects vanish in her stage magic, but this was altogether different. At this moment it was as if a little, invisible finger from the past had all at once emerged into the present, and was crooking itself and beckoning Phyllis to come back to find out more.

‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Mademoiselle Rondette bit her lip gently. ‘Never to be seen again.’

Phyllis asked quietly, ‘Do you know when the last time was that she wore it?’

‘Ah. That I don’t know. The whole incident happened back in the 1950s. Great-Aunt Isabella was questioned by the police when she reported the necklace missing, and I’m sure she told them all about it. My father knew more about the whole incident than I do. But the family never liked to speak of it—largely out of respect to Great-Aunt Isabella, who changed dramatically after it all happened.’

‘How?’ asked Phyllis, a creeping sense of foreboding starting inside her.

‘Apparently she withdrew into herself, and shut herself away from the world and from her public. She became a recluse, and stopped practising and stopped giving concerts. She refused all offers to perform again. Some people believe that the disappearance of the emeralds shocked her so greatly that she found that she couldn’t trust people any more. Perhaps she believed that they—the emeralds—had been stolen from her. I have always thought this to be the case. It would explain why she no longer wanted to have anything to do with the world.

‘She remained shut away in her apartment, in an old block down by the river, seldom going out. That was where she was found, almost fifty years ago, all alone when life had at last deserted her.’

‘That’s sad,’ said Phyllis. ‘I’m sorry.’

Mademoiselle Rondette looked away from the painting, and her eyes rested on Phyllis. ‘Jewels and riches do not always lead to happiness, my dear. Sometimes they can lead to quite the opposite. And in very awful, unexpected ways.’

Phyllis had never been attracted to expensive jewellery, even though her dad could afford it. But even if she did have a passion for such things, Harvey Wong was not the type of father to over-indulge or spoil his daughter. The only thing he really helped her out with was her magic—he was nearly as enthusiastic as she was when it came to sourcing and purchasing a new or antique trick or an item of conjuring apparatus.

‘Develop your talents, Phyllis, my dear,’ said Mademoiselle Rondette. ‘Develop your skills and feed your passions. Become the best you can be at what you love doing the most. That is one of the secrets to happiness.’

Phyllis smiled. She liked Mademoiselle Rondette’s wavelength.

Mademoiselle Rondette looked at the drawings she’d made in her ledger; then she shut the book and replaced her pencil in the big glass jar where she kept all her sketching pencils. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I think that we maybe need one more fitting. How about next Thursday afternoon?’

‘Swell,’ Phyllis said distractedly. Her gaze had returned to the oil painting of Great-Aunt Isabella. The young prestidigitator could sense that invisible beckoning finger more strongly now—she could almost hear a voice accompanying it, a voice which could be whispering, Solve this, Phyllis Wong. You above all others have the means to try …

‘Phyllis?’

‘Huh? Phyllis started, and blinked at Mademoiselle Rondette.

‘I think you were a million miles away, perhaps?’

Phyllis grinned at her. ‘Just imagining,’ she said. ‘You know, mademoiselle, things vanishing isn’t all that uncommon.’

Mademoiselle Rondette looked questioningly at Phyllis.

‘For example,’ Phyllis went on. She reached over and took the pencil from the glass jar and held it out, the tip between her right thumb and pointing finger and the eraser end between her left thumb and pointer.

The couturier watched, her head turned slightly to the side.

Phyllis slowly waved the pencil up and down. ‘An ordinary pencil. Here one moment … gone the next!’

Suddenly the pencil had disappeared into thin air! Phyllis opened her hands to display that they were both completely empty, front and back.

‘But … but where—?’

Phyllis lifted up the corner of the big ledger. Reaching underneath, she rolled out the pencil across the countertop.

‘Well, I’ll be cross-stitched!’ gasped Mademoiselle Rondette, her eyes big and her eyebrows high on her forehead.

‘And sometimes,’ Phyllis said as she picked up the pencil, ‘things that have vanished can come back!’

 

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About Geoffrey McSkimming:

Geoffrey McSkimming is the author of the bestselling 19 volume Cairo Jim chronicles (published worldwide from 1991 -- 2008) and now the new Phyllis Wong mysteries, featuring the brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, Phyllis Wong. Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto, Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror, Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard and Phyllis Wong and the Girl who Danced with Lightning have appeared to widespread acclaim and much enjoyment. The sixth Phyllis Wong mystery will be published in 2018.

All of the Cairo Jim chronicles are now being e-published by 9 Diamonds Press, available through Amazon's Kindle platform. A brand new Cairo Jim story will appear in 2018.

When he is not writing stories of magic, mystery and adventure, Geoffrey appears at Phyllis Wong author shows with his wife, world-renowned magician Sue-Anne Webster. Together they bring the magic of story and the story of magic to life before their audiences' very eyes!

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