After the reading of the will, he would wait a while before returning to the house.
He knew that the old man had never revealed the whereabouts of the proceeds from the diamond heist. It was a robbery that had resulted in him spending most of his adult life in prison. It had gone horribly wrong and people had got hurt. The diamonds were never recovered and no mention of them was made in the will. He was sure they had to be in the house. The man had always like games, hiding things in secret drawers and false bottoms of ornaments, so he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He also knew that the house was due to be demolished and the land cleared. The tiny but precious stones would be lost forever. Being the home contents evaluator for the insurance company, he would have the place to himself for hours to carry out his search. If it came to that, he could spend the entire day in there.
It turned out that he did just that. From an early morning start, he had not discovered the false drawer in the desk until mid-afternoon. It contained a written note giving a safe’s combination, and this was followed by another hour before he found the safe cleverly concealed behind a mirror in the bathroom. It turned out to be virtually empty. It only contained another slip of paper that read: ‘A tongue-tied one. (4 letters)’.
He was stumped. He was very much a numbers man, not a words person. He had never been any good at cryptic puzzles, with their clever clues designed to misdirect you. He thinks about times in the past, when he had looked up the answer only to realize that he couldn’t figure out why it was the answer in the first place. He sat down with it for a further hour.
He had hit a brick wall, and there was no way he could ask anyone.
He left the house late that day, never knowing about the hollow heal…
