Chapter 9 emerald necklace

Jack parked the car on the side of the road at the foot of the ramp.Every house in this area has a slightly sloping, wide and expensive lawn.As he stepped onto the large flagstones that ran parallel to the driveway, he noticed small holes in the flagstones that needed patching.In the garage next to the house, a new Caddy is sticking out. The fender at the rear of the car has been cracked. No repairs.The lawn still looks good, but needs a little more work.There was an old badminton racket on the lawn, and the cracked frame was taped.Judging from all this, it seems that the Danforth family is struggling to maintain their livelihood, and they are stretched out.

Danforth opened the door for Jack. She was wearing a bikini swimsuit and a pleasant-colored bandanna half-wrapped her head. Facing the strange visitor in a suit, although her voice was gentle and elegant, Jack could still speak. I could hear a trace of doubt she tried to hide, "Excuse me, who are you looking for?" Jack introduced himself.Mrs. Danforth gave him a slightly disturbed but pleasant smile, and glanced at his hands. "Are you here to deliver a check?" "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm not." "Oh, of course not." She bit her lip as if punishing herself.

"After a robbery, you don't get compensation so quickly." He could see that the thoughts in her head were racing.Her eyes were now on his pockets, a little frightened, but there was still a cheerful tone in her voice. "Could it be that you have recovered the stolen jewels?" "Sorry ma'am, no, we did not recover the jewelry." First relaxation, then panic, the two emotions intertwined and mixed under the cover of a school of innocence and intimidation. "But, I don't understand, so why are you here?" "Is your husband home? I was wondering if I could speak to Mr. Danforth?"

"Of course, please follow me." She led him across the house to the swimming pool in the backyard. As he walked across the room, Jack saw a stack of bills on the short coffee table in the dining room. "The red seal.Even if he didn't know it before, he now knew how he was going to deal with the Danforths.What they do is obviously not due to greedy nature, but just the need to survive. "Jani?" At first, Jack didn't see who Mrs. Danforth was talking to.Mr. Danforth, in shorts, was washing the swimming pool.He climbed out of the pool and onto the patio, wiped his hands, shook Jack's hand, and glanced at the card Jack handed him.With just one glance, the smile on his face was swept away by uneasy vigilance.

"Insurance investigator? Are you here to investigate the last time we were robbed?" "Exactly, I want to talk to you about your application for compensation." "Of course, I think we'd better sit down, that's more comfortable, sit here and have something to drink? How about a beer?" "Okay, thanks." "I'll get it, Danny." Danfur said Mrs. Jack noticed Mrs. Danforth give her husband a warning look before leaving, and Mr. Danforth nodded slightly.Jack smiled and talked to Mr. Danfor about the weather and traffic conditions for the weekend.

Mrs. Danforth returned with a tray of beer and glasses on a parasol-shaded table. "Now, what's the matter with our claim?" Mr. Danforth said while Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a newspaper clipping. "An anonymous person sent us this item, postmarked locally, no fingerprints were found on the envelope." As the Danforths read the report, Jack kept his eyes fixed on them. The content of the story Jack remembers very clearly, and the details are also very clear: two armed and masked thieves forcibly entered the house of the Fall couple, and found that only Mrs. Danfall was at home. They forced her to open the safe and hand over her jewelry.There is nothing wrong with this part, the problem is with the list of jewels that were robbed.He knew the Danforths would react when they saw the words "Emerald Necklace" circled by Anonymous, especially when they read the words "Anonymous annotated next to the newspaper clippings, those words The word is "this is bullshit".

Mrs. Danforth was pale, Mr. Danforth was flushed, and they saw the end, and then Mr. Danforth shrugged and handed the clipping back to Jack. "What do you want us to say about this?" "Is this 'bullshit, is it bullshit? Wait a minute, let me make a point or two before you answer my question. I have to tell you frankly that when we received your claim for compensation, The first thought before paying compensation is to make sure that this is not a robbery trick that you directed and staged. People often rob themselves, and the number of cases is amazing. However, in your case, we have not yet expressed Suspect."

"Thank you! Mr. Danforth swallowed hard, but his voice was still dry. Jack frowned. "Yes, we know of a couple of them, and though we don't know who they are, or where they're hiding—for they're too cunning—we know what they're doing, and it's not the first time they've been up to something. Still, if What puzzles us is why they sent us this clipping." "You say this clipping came from an anonymous person, so how can you be sure it was from them? It seems to me that it was done by a very boring person looking for something to do. The attraction of crime to boring people , like molasses attracts flies."

"That's true, but look at the tone of it, it makes more sense if we assume the clipping was from a gangster. But if it's from a gangster, it gets interesting." .Why would they say that if it wasn't true? They have no reason to lie about their crimes, and if we catch them, they'll get the same sentence whether the emerald necklace is stolen or not." Jack squinted Eyes on the Danforths. "Why would a utterly boring person harm you and make fun of your claims?" "Do boring people need a reason?" Jack sighed. "Let me make another point, and I'm speaking from my years of work experience. I've found that some people who have a bad business, or bad luck in the stock market, or someone in the family who is sick, and their expenses are increasing, or Sheer greed, in times of misfortune, often seeks to recover most of our losses from our corporations.

However, basically, people are relatively honest. When they are in a panic, they are eager to report the crime, and they often report more. Afterwards, although they realize that the things reported as lost were not actually stolen at all, because they are people, they are ashamed to admit their loss. Mistakes made in panic. Part of my mission is to give people the opportunity to correct their mistakes, and when I warn people that lying and making mistakes is a crime, I always reassure them that inadvertent mistakes, corrected before a formal claim for compensation, are not crimes. Of course, if the correction is too late, they must face the result, as if they are deliberately deceiving us.I don't mean to scare you, you understand - I'm just doing business. "

"We understand." "Okay, then the only thing left for us now is, may I ask you, do you want to revise the list of stolen items?" The Danforths glanced at each other, and then the husband pushed back his chair, took his wife's arm, and looked at Jack sadly. "Let's have a word in private, shall we?" "Of course." The Danforths walked through the backyard silently, and Jack looked in the other direction understandingly, but when he raised his glass to drink beer, he could still see two distorted figures on the glass. When the Danforths returned to the table, Mr. Danforth managed an odd smile from the corners of his mouth.He said: "Yes, we're going to correct the list of looted items. I was in town the night of the robbery, and that's what I do often when I'm in the office late at night. I took the emerald necklace out that morning to find The jeweler put some extra diamonds on it to surprise my wife on her wedding anniversary. When my wife called to tell me about the robbery, all I cared about was her safety. Two thugs forced her to open the safe, but they didn't hurt her.I forgot to tell her that I had taken the necklace.Until I realized that she had included the necklace in the list of robbed items, she had already given the list to the police and it was published in the newspaper. I thought it was too late to correct it, and I kept thinking, "Where is the necklace?" . "I didn't send it to the jeweler, it's still in my briefcase." He blushed. "I'd better put it back in the safe." Jack nodded. "It doesn't matter, as I said, corrections at this time are welcome." Saying that, he stood up and said goodbye. The Danfores held hands and watched Jack leave. As Jack drove away, he glanced back at them and waved to them. Jack stopped by a phone booth on the side of the road, and when the call was answered, he said, "Well, I got them to tell the truth, and as expected, the necklace was with them. Of course, they said it was an oversight. But as far as I know It is speculated that Mr. Danforth may have taken the necklace to the city to sell or pawn it. He stayed in the city overnight and planned to try his luck at the pawn shop or jewelry store the next morning. When his wife told him that he had been robbed For them, it is self-evident that it is a windfall, and they decided to take advantage of it to fish in troubled waters." Having said that, he smiled into the microphone. "They made us suspicious of each other, it made me mad, you see, when we saw the list of things in the newspaper, we were suspicious and angry at each other. Good thing the necklace is going back to the safe, mate, hold on Let's go again, when will you be ready, and when will we set off, I will be waiting for you at any time." ?