Three of Diamonds: Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries (The Diamond Brothers) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Anthony Horowitz (anthonyhorowitz.com) is a world-renowned screenwriter for film and television, having received multiple awards. And he is, of course, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Alex Rider novels, which have become bestsellers the world over, spawned a major motion picture, and a line of graphic novels. A master of the spy thriller, Anthony is the only writer authorized by both the Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming Estates to write original Sherlock Holmes and James Bond novels, respectively. Anthony lives with his wife in London, England; they are parents to two grown boys. Follow Anthony on Twitter @AnthonyHorowitz.

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SO MUCH FOR A VACATION . . .

We had just reached the window when we heard the scream.

It was like no sound I had ever heard, thin and high and horribly final. The station was huge and noisy but the scream cut through the crowd like a scalpel. Everybody stopped and turned to see where it had come from. Even Tim heard it. “Oh dear,” he said. “It sounds like someone has stepped on a cat.”

Already a police car had arrived and several uniformed guards were hurrying toward the trains. I strained to hear what the crowd was saying. They were speaking French, of course. That didn’t make it any easier.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s terrible. Somebody has fallen under a train.”

“It was a steward. He was on the train from London. He fell off a platform.”

“Is he hurt?”

“He’s dead. Crushed by a train.”

I heard all of it. I understood some of it. I didn’t like any of it. A steward? Off the London train? Somehow I didn’t need to ask his name.

“Tim,” I asked, “what’s the French for murder?”

Tim shrugged. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know.” I stepped onto the escalator and allowed it to carry me down. “I’ve just got a feeling it’s something we’re going to need.”

Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries

BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

The Devil and His Boy

THE ALEX RIDER ADVENTURES

Stormbreaker

Point Blank

Skeleton Key

Eagle Strike

Scorpia

Ark Angel

THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES

Public Enemy Number Two

The Falcon’s Malteser

Three of Diamonds

South By Southeast

Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries

THE BLURRED
MAN

THE PEN PAL

I knew the American was going to mean trouble, the moment he walked through the door. He only made it on the third attempt. It was eleven o’clock in the morning but clearly he’d been drinking since breakfast—and breakfast had probably come out of a bottle, too. The smell of whiskey was so strong it made my eyes water. Drunk at eleven o’clock! I didn’t like to think what it was doing to him, but if I’d been his liver I’d have been applying for a transplant.

He managed to find a seat and slumped into it. The funny thing was, he was quite smartly dressed: a suit and a tie that looked expensive. I got the feeling straightaway that this was someone with money. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and as far as I could tell we were talking real gold. He was about forty years old, with hair that was just turning gray and eyes that were just turning yellow. That must have been the whiskey. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Blue smoke filled the room. This man would not have been a good advertisement for the National Health Service.

“My name is Carter,” he said at last. He spoke with an American accent. “Joe Carter. I just got in from Chicago. And I’ve got a problem.”

“I can see that,” I muttered.

He glanced at me with one eye. The other eye looked somewhere over my shoulder. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Nick Diamond.”

“I don’t need a smart-aleck kid. I’m looking for a private detective.”

“That’s him over there,” I said, indicating the desk and my big brother, Tim.

“You want a coffee, Mr. Carver?” Tim asked.

“It’s not Carver. It’s Carter. With a t,” the American growled.

“I’m out of tea. How about a hot chocolate?”

“I don’t want a hot anything!” Carter sucked on the cigarette. “I want help. I want to hire you. What do you charge?”

Tim stared. Although it was hard to believe, the American was offering him money. This was something that didn’t happen often. Tim hadn’t really made any money since he’d worked as a policeman, and even then the police dogs had earned more than him. At least they’d bitten the right man. As a private detective, Tim had been a total calamity. I’d helped him solve one or two cases, but most of the time I was stuck at school. Right now it was the week of vacation—six weeks before Christmas, and once again it didn’t look like our stockings were going to be full. Unless you’re talking holes. Tim had just seven cents left in his bank account. We’d written a begging letter to our mom and dad in Australia but were still saving up for the stamp.

I coughed and Tim jerked upright in his chair, trying to look businesslike. “You need a private detective?” he said. “Fine. That’s me. But it’ll cost you fifty a day, plus expenses.”

“You take traveler’s checks?”

“That depends on the traveler.”

“I don’t have cash.”

“Traveler’s checks are fine,” I said.

Joe Carter pulled out a bundle of blue traveler’s checks, then fumbled for a pen. For a moment I was worried that he’d be too drunk to sign them. But somehow he managed to scribble his name five times on the dotted lines, and slid the checks across. “All right,” he said. “That’s five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred dollars!” Tom squeaked. The last time he’d had that much money in his hand he’d been playing Monopoly. “Five hundred dollars . . .?”

Carter nodded. “Right. So now let me tell you where I’m coming from.”

“I thought you were coming from Chicago,” Tim said.

“I mean, let me tell you my problem. I got into England last Tuesday, a little less than a week ago. I’m staying in a hotel in the West End. The Ritz.”

“You’d be crackers to stay anywhere else,” Tim said.

“Yeah.” Carter stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. Except we didn’t have an ashtray. The smell of burning wood rose from the surface of Tim’s desk. “I’m a writer, Mr. Diamond. You may have read some of my books.”

That was unlikely—unless he wrote children’s books. Tim had recently started Lemony Snickett for the fourth time.

“I’m pretty well known in the States,” Carter continued. “The Big Bullet. Death in the Afternoon. Rivers of Blood. Those are some of my titles.”

“Romances?” Tim asked.

“No. They’re crime novels. I’m successful. I make a ton of money out of my writing—but, you know, I believe in sharing it around. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. So I give it to charity. All sorts of charities. Mostly back home in the States, of course, but also in other parts of the world.”

I wondered if he’d like to make a donation to the bankrupt brothers of dumb detectives, a little charity of my own. But I didn’t say anything.

“Now, a couple of years back I heard of a charity operating here in England,” he went on. “It was called Dream Time and I kind of liked the sound of it. Dream Time was there to help kids get more out of life. It bought computers and books and special equipment for schools. It also bought schools. It helped train kids who wanted to get into sports. Or who wanted to paint. Or who had never traveled.” Carter glanced at me. “How old are you, son?” he...