Dust and Diamonds

0:00 Hills Burning, Holmes Sniffing at a Shut Window

0:04 Watson: From the case log. Monday evening, the first of June, two thousand twenty-six. Los Angeles, a converted craftsman house above Echo Park. Two ridges over, the hills were burning. Our purifier laboured in the corner, and Holmes stood at the shut window, sniffing.

0:22 Watson: He had just spent three weeks on work that paid nothing. I had come home from the clinic and was unwrapping my day's fee: foil, still warm. Holmes: Chaparral, mostly. Black sage on top, sweet as a church.

0:37 Watson: You can't possibly smell that through a shut window. Holmes: Eucalyptus, now. And somebody's redwood fence, badly stained.

0:46 Watson: From two ridges away? Holmes: The second coat was a mistake. What's in the foil?

0:52 Watson: Tacos. Carnitas. Payment for one stitched thumb. Best rate all month, so sit down and eat.

1:00 Holmes: I don't eat while I'm working. Watson: You're sniffing a window. Holmes: Fair, Watson. Give it here.

1:07 Inez: This is Inez. Mister Holmes? You don't know me. Please don't hang up.

1:12 Holmes: It's raining behind you, Inez. Inez: What? Oh. My tenants, in the group chat. I manage the Palomar building, in the Jewelry District. The jeweler next door was burgled this weekend.

1:25 Watson: Ask her what she's lost, Holmes. Inez: Nothing of mine is missing. But the— the FBI keeps coming back to me. Please come tonight, I can't—

1:34 Holmes: Hold on. Stay on the line, Inez. Muted. The FBI holds that building, so we'd get no access and no thanks.

1:43 Watson: When did you ever want thanks? Holmes: And after my last three weeks, Watson, your clinic can't carry another unpaid month. Watson: You've been reading my ledger.

1:53 Holmes: You keep it under the fruit bowl. We're living on pork. Watson: Then here's an entry for you, Holmes. She's lost nothing, and they keep returning to a woman who merely manages the place.

2:04 Holmes: Federal men are thorough. Watson: Thorough knocks once. Holmes: That's irritating, Watson. Where are my shoes?

2:12 Watson: On your feet, since Thursday. Holmes: Inez, we're coming. Send the address.

2:18 Inez: Gracias. I'll wait at the door. Holmes: Masks, keys, tacos. Move!

2:26 Watson: Case log, same evening: Holmes went down the steps eating my fee, and neither of us had asked Inez about hers.

2:35 Two Nights on the Sidewalk, Then the Dark Lobby

2:39 Watson: The Bureau kept us on the sidewalk two nights. On the Wednesday morning, Inez walked us at last through the Palomar's lobby, dark as the screen behind it. Inez: Watch the step, Mister Holmes. The owners stopped paying for bulbs on the theater side.

2:54 Holmes: Theater side. Then the jeweler they robbed isn't next door at all. Inez: Next door, same building. Mister Arakelian rents the Alder corner, his own door, his own locks. Good thick walls between him and my dead theater.

3:10 Watson: And your half? Who comes and goes? Inez: Alley door, lobby, basement, all shut Friday at six, open Monday at seven. Every tenant gone home.

3:21 Holmes: And on Monday, the alley lock— Inez: Not forced. Not one mark. So the FBI asks who has keys. Four times they ask. I kept this building eleven years.

3:33 Holmes: Kept. You've already put it in the past, so the owners have given you notice. Inez: Not yet. End of the month, if the FBI is still coming...

3:43 Watson: I'm sorry. Kessler: Wednesday's Wednesday, Miss Inez! Those federal boys drank you dry.

3:50 Inez: Mister Kessler, please, not— Kessler: Today most of all. Nobody ever got arrested on a full jug.

3:57 Holmes: Charming. Watson: That left knee is finished, sir. Forty pounds of water will finish the rest of you.

4:04 Kessler: Tell it to my landlord, Doc. Twenty years welding pipe, the shop folds, now I haul what runs through it. Inez: Terrible, Mister Kessler. Terrible.

4:16 Kessler: There's that smile, Miss Inez. Wednesdays only, I can't cheer you all week. Holmes: A key, Inez, or a lockpick the Bureau can't detect. And yours are the only keys you know of.

4:30 Inez: Find who did this, or I'm— I'm the one who let them in.

4:35 The Jeweler Who Did Not Look Up

4:39 Watson: Round on the Alder corner, Arakelian had his trays laid along the glass and did not look up. Holmes: What did they take, Mister Arakelian? Not the figure. The things.

4:50 Arakelian: The figure the papers give you, up to fifteen million dollars. Here, the things. Engagement rings, young men paying by the week. Here, widows' heirlooms, left with me for safekeeping. Thirty years of people trusting me.

5:10 Holmes: Stacked in order, every label in its slot. Nobody tipped these out. Whoever emptied them was in no hurry.

5:18 Zuri: Arakelian. You look at me. What's left of mine?

5:22 Arakelian: Zuri, please, these gentlemen— Zuri: Since my first record I've been coming to you. Everything I left in that safe. What's left?

5:30 Watson: I know that chain. Half my clinic's teenagers have it on a T-shirt. Holmes: It clinks like a bag of wrenches. At least that one wasn't in the safe.

5:40 Zuri: Never comes off my neck, baby. Now answer me, old man. Arakelian: Nothing. Nothing is left. A woman put her husband's ring in my hand, she said, you keep it, you—

5:53 Zuri: Hey. Hey, don't do that. Don't you do that.

5:56 Arakelian: Thirty years, and I— The Bureau gave me back my client book an hour ago... Watson: Sit down, sir, you've gone grey. Let someone else make those—

6:06 Arakelian: No. I must telephone every family myself. Today.

6:11 A Steel Door at the Top of an Iron Stair

6:15 Watson: Above the balcony, at the top of an iron stair, Inez chose a key and put her shoulder to a steel door. Inez: My walk-round sheet, Mister Holmes. Every Friday, every Monday, I climb. Friday, six o'clock: booth empty, projector bare. Monday, seven o'clock: film on the projector.

6:37 Watson: Vinegar. That's old film rotting. A hospital basement full of old X-rays stinks the same.

6:45 Holmes: So an old thing, newly arrived. Your penlight, Watson. No can, no label. Scratched by hand at the head, neat little nicks. Last frames, a ship pulling off a pier. What picture is it, Inez?

7:00 Inez: Who can say? I was hired long after the screen went dark. I can't name one picture that ever played here.

7:08 Holmes: Pity. Watson: Who breaks into a building and leaves something behind? Inez: That's what frightened me. This door was never locked, nothing to steal. Monday I locked it and told only the lieutenant.

7:21 Holmes: Which lieutenant? Not the Bureau's, then. Inez: Pike, from the police. The FBI would only say, see, one more strange thing, and she has the keys. It means something, Mister Holmes. Doesn't it? It has to...

7:38 Holmes: Curious. But the stones left by the basement. Show me.

7:43 A Lieutenant in a Paper Suit

7:47 Watson: Two bored holes, one behind the other, let us through on our bellies into the vault, where Pike stood waiting in a paper suit. Keep that mask up, Holmes. This grey stuff is silica, and it stays in the lung for life.

8:01 Pike: You're the manager's man. Pike. Homicide, lent to burglary till somebody wants it back.

8:08 Watson: Lucky you. Holmes: Two reinforced walls, Lieutenant, and they surface square behind the safes. No trial holes. Someone told the drillers exactly where.

8:18 Pike: Maybe. Both safes torched after that, and that much steel stays too hot to touch for hours. They sat here and waited.

8:27 Watson: Good grief. Holmes: Inez showed us her film, and— Pike: No. Old junk in a dead booth. It stays out of my file, Holmes. The Bureau would hang it on her.

8:37 Pike: Mister Arakelian. I said wait out front. Arakelian: A torch in my vault, for hours, and no one comes? My alarm calls the company for every fault. I pay for this—

8:49 Pike: Your lines were cut in here, at your own panel. Cameras and alarm both died without sending one report. Holmes: So they were cut in the right order. One wrong wire and that panel telephones for help.

9:02 Arakelian: Who knows this order? Me, the installer. Thirty years the same wires, through the old theater wall—

9:10 Pike: Your lines. Your codes. I'd start remembering who knew them.

9:17 A Back Seat, Windows Up Against the Smoke

9:21 Watson: Zuri's car idled at the Alder curb, windows up against the smoke, and she waved us into the back seat. Zuri: Ash on my paint. Go ahead, detective, ask.

9:32 Holmes: Where were you over the weekend, Zuri? Zuri: Home. I was— Inglewood, all weekend, door shut. Write that down, Doctor, you look like you write things down.

9:43 Holmes: That phone has gone three times and you won't turn it over. A friend you'd answer. That's someone you owe.

9:50 Zuri: That's my manager. Same thing. Holmes: Is that so.

9:55 Watson: An hour ago you wanted Arakelian's head. You don't sound like a woman who lost everything in his safe. You sound—

10:02 Zuri: Oh, you want to be useful, Doctor? Ask what Arakelian owes. Ask who pays him now.

10:08 Holmes: You watched him weep in there, and you think it was for show. Zuri: I think nobody's collecting from a man who got robbed. That burglary is the best thing that ever happened to him.

10:21 A Back Office, Left Ajar

10:20 Watson: Lovely.

10:25 Watson: We found the back office door ajar and its owner at the desk telephone, his free hand pressed flat on a stack of envelopes. Arakelian: Two weeks. I ask only two weeks. No, listen, eleven years you've known me, when did I ever— please. Please.

10:42 Holmes: He hung up on you. Two weeks, and not one word about a burglary. That loan was overdue long before Friday.

10:49 Arakelian: Mister Holmes. Business has good years and bad years. Watson: You're insured, at least.

10:57 Arakelian: Naturally. I— I had my cover raised last winter, as any careful man would. Watson: Then the widows and the young men with rings, they'll be paid?

11:06 Arakelian: These families know me, Doctor. Nine I've called already. I'll call the rest, I will—

11:13 Watson: That isn't what I asked.

11:21 Arakelian: Forgive me. Close the door behind you. Watson: Why does a man who can't pay his lenders buy more insurance?

11:29 Fryer Grease and Smoke in the Alley

11:33 Watson: The alley behind Alder stank of fryer grease and smoke when Inez brought us to the door she had been questioned about four times. Holmes: Brass worn pale round the keyway. That cylinder is older than your eleven years, Inez. You never changed it.

11:49 Inez: The owners won't pay for bulbs, Mister Holmes. You think they pay a locksmith? Watson: My clinic rekeys every time a nurse quits. Eighty dollars.

11:59 Inez: Your clinic has patients, Doctor. I have pigeons. I decided a new lock was wasted money on a dead theater.

12:07 Holmes: Then every key ever cut for this door still turns it. Did you tell the Bureau that? Inez: They asked who has keys. I said— I said, me.

12:18 Watson: Oh, no. Holmes: Four interviews, and you gave them the one answer that hangs you. The true answer is anyone who ever carried a key here, anyone—

12:28 Watson: Easy. Who carried them before you? Somebody must have kept a list.

12:32 Inez: Old keys? I was hired long after. Ask who's been next door thirty years.

12:40 Notes on the Kitchen Table, Holmes Flat on the Floor

12:39 Holmes: Ah.

12:44 Watson: Home above Echo Park that night, I laid my notes on the kitchen table while Holmes lay flat on the floor with his eyes shut. Two entries, side by side. An alarm that never said a word. A bigger policy, bought by a man who can't meet a loan.

13:03 Holmes: You underlined that twice. A doctor only underlines a diagnosis. Watson: And this is one. What do you add?

13:11 Holmes: Nothing. Watson: Nothing. If I were wrong, you'd have said so by now, at volume.

13:19 Holmes: Whom are you— wait. Whom are you calling?

13:23 The Lieutenant Meets Them in the Showroom

13:27 Watson: Pike took my call seriously enough to meet us in the showroom, where Arakelian stood at his counter and Zuri had returned for her answer. Mister Arakelian, I'll say it to your face. You pay for cameras and an alarm that calls about every fault, and that weekend they died without sending one report.

13:45 Arakelian: Doctor, I told the lieutenant, thirty years those wires— Watson: You owe lenders you can't pay. You bought a bigger policy. Then you hired a crew to bore in and burn your own safes, and the insurer clears your debts.

13:58 Holmes: It holds so far, Lieutenant, and I can't break it. Every tray in sequence, every label home. Thieves don't tidy. Owners can't help it.

14:08 Arakelian: Mister Holmes. You also? Holmes: You said two men knew the order of those wires. The installer isn't begging anyone for two weeks.

14:19 Pike: That'll do me. Hands, Mister Arakelian. We take the files too, every drawer.

14:25 Zuri: What'd I tell you, Doctor? Ask what he owes. Arakelian: You. Since your first record I set your stones, and you set these men on me? I had it under my loupe, Lieutenant, and the famous chain is glass. Who believes a jeweler in handcuffs? That is why she wants me—

14:42 Zuri: Man's in cuffs and still appraising! You hear him? Pike: Then you won't mind somebody else looking at it.

14:49 Zuri: You got a warrant for my neck, Lieutenant? Pike: Cute.

14:59 Pike: Ashby Jewels, Lieutenant Pike speaking. You're the lender? He's under arrest. Hello? Line's dead.

15:08 A Week On, the Jeweler's Shop Sealed With Police Tape

15:06 Holmes: Well, well.

15:12 Watson: A week on, police tape sealed the jeweler's door, so Zuri came round through the dark lobby, and Holmes stopped her at the water cooler. Holmes: Your phone's quiet, Zuri. Last time it went three times in a car ride. Someone you owed has been paid.

15:28 Zuri: Maybe they got tired, detective. Holmes: Creditors don't tire. So real stones left that chain and money arrived. Sold, stolen, or both?

15:39 Zuri: Listen to you. Watson: Stolen puts you on the victims' list. Sold means a buyer, and a buyer talks. I'd rather hear it from you.

15:49 Kessler: Wednesday's Wednesday, folks. Feds in the walls, cops in the lobby, all this for jewels. Nobody'd cross the street to see closing night's reel back on that machine up there.

16:01 Watson: Mind that knee on the stairs, at least. Kessler: What stairs? I never go upstairs, Doc, not on this. Flat floors and a dolly.

16:10 Holmes: Well, Zuri. Which? Zuri: Arakelian's in your cells. Talk to my lawyer.

16:16 A Windowless Room and a Bolted Table

16:21 Watson: At Central, Pike gave us a windowless room and a bolted table, with Arakelian across it and his own files stacked at his elbow. Holmes: Your seized files, Lieutenant. An insurer's notice, his signature at the bottom. This policy lapsed unpaid a month before the burglary.

16:39 Watson: Lapsed? He told us he'd— Holmes: Raised it. He had. But that cover raised last winter is worth nothing unpaid. He collects nothing, Watson, and he owes every family for every stone himself.

16:51 Pike: Ledgers agree. Every page, and no crew paid, no drillers, no cash out. Lender's notary has him in Pasadena all weekend, signing papers.

17:02 Watson: Then I— I put you in those cuffs, sir. And I was certain. Pike: Which leaves that alarm.

17:09 Holmes: Cutting a line doesn't take codes, Lieutenant, only the order. Those wires have run thirty years through the old theater wall. Anyone who worked that side could learn them. Anyone at all who—

17:19 Pike: The theater side. That's your client, Holmes. Go home, Mister Arakelian.

17:25 Watson: Why sit in a cell, sir? One word about Pasadena— Arakelian: Pasadena is my house, Doctor. I pledged it. A widow gives a man her husband's ring because he owes nobody. And now I— now I owe her the ring...

17:40 Watson: Breathe, sir. Arakelian: Mortgage my house and I lose every client. So I kept quiet.

17:47 Watson: Sir, I...

17:50 Back Up After Dark

17:54 Watson: Inez took Pike and the two of us back up to the booth after dark, a carton under her arm. Inez: Mister Arakelian walks free, so who do they come back to? The one with the keys.

18:06 Pike: Your film, Inez. I swabbed the reel myself and told the lab it came off a boot. It's still out of my file, and nobody down there knows a reel exists. Same concrete as the breach.

18:19 Holmes: So the hand on this film had just crawled out of that hole. I called it curious and walked away. What's in the carton, Inez?

18:28 Inez: A list, the doctor said. The Bureau emptied the box-office cupboard hunting keys and left this, the old house manager's ledger. Who reads a dead theater's accounts?

18:39 Watson: Let me see. A man who wrote everything down, bless him. Here: Projectionist Kessler scratches every reel at the head, his own marks, so nobody swaps a print on him.

18:52 Holmes: Neat little nicks. The last page, Watson. Watson: Closing night, last show. The ship pulled off the pier, the house stood and clapped, lights up for good.

19:03 Holmes: A ship off a pier. Those are the last frames on this machine, so this is that reel. That night, where did it—

19:10 Watson: It's on the page. Home with Kessler, under his arm, and his alley key too. The owners let him go without a week's wages, and the manager hadn't the heart to ask for either back.

19:21 Inez: Kessler? My— my Wednesday Kessler? That's the name on my water invoices.

19:29 A Showroom With Every Tray Gone

19:33 Watson: Every tray was gone from the glass when Arakelian let us into his showroom, Pike at our heels and Zuri leaning on the bare counter. Holmes: Auction tags on the counters, Mister Arakelian, and the client book open beside them. You're selling up to pay the families.

19:49 Arakelian: Counters, lease, my father's loupe. It buys perhaps one family in ten. Zuri: Selling up? The doctor stood right here and said you bought a bigger—

20:01 Arakelian: A bigger policy, yes. Zuri, my cover lapsed unpaid a month before the burglary. I signed for the notice myself.

20:10 Zuri: And I sat in that car telling these two you came out ahead... Pike: Since we're correcting the record. A buyer's receipts, Zuri, Beverly Hills, that Saturday and Sunday. Your signature.

20:23 Zuri: Now hold on— Holmes: Not Inglewood with the door shut, then. Your last real stones, sold out the front door. That's why your phone went quiet.

20:30 Zuri: Okay. Okay! Write it down, Doctor: the famous chain is glass, and that weekend I— that weekend I sold what was left of it.

20:41 Watson: And you pushed us at Arakelian because nobody believes a disgraced jeweler— Zuri: About a chain? Nobody does. That was the whole idea.

20:50 Pike: Charming. Arakelian: I said it once, in handcuffs, and I'm ashamed. No one hears it from this shop again.

20:58 Holmes: Inez sent us to whoever has been next door thirty years. Someone knew your wires, and where to drill without one trial hole. Arakelian: Someone who— Kessler, from the booth. The day my wires went through his wall, he held the lamp for my installer.

21:15 Watson: The owners turned him out with nothing, the old ledger says. How did he take it? Arakelian: The last night he sat on my step till morning, a film can under his arm, cursing them.

21:26 Watson: Poor man. Holmes: And the spot for the drill? That basement has been dark for years.

21:32 Arakelian: He stored reels against my vault wall. He'd know the spot blind.

21:39 The Front Row, a Penlight and a Notebook

21:37 Holmes: Ah.

21:43 Watson: Holmes took the front row of the balcony, facing the blank screen, and sat me beside him with a penlight and my notebook. Holmes: Read me two entries, Watson. No comment. The booth first.

21:56 Watson: Inez, at the steel door. She locked it Monday, she told Pike and nobody else, and she couldn't name the picture. Holmes: Now the cooler.

22:06 Watson: Kessler, last Wednesday. Closing night's film, on the machine up there, and nobody would cross the street for it. Then, he never goes upstairs.

22:15 Holmes: You underlined neither. So you think they're nothing. Watson: One's a frightened woman. The other's an old projectionist making conversation.

22:24 Holmes: Watson, how can both of those be true?

22:28 Four at the Alley Door

22:32 Watson: Wednesday brought the water truck down the alley, and Kessler found four of us at the door: Holmes, Inez, Pike and me. Kessler: Wednesday's Wednesday, Miss Inez. Who died?

22:45 Holmes: Nobody yet. Last week you stood at her cooler and put closing night's reel back on a machine upstairs. How did you know it was there?

22:54 Kessler: Folks talk, Mister Holmes. Feds, cops, tenants. A man with a dolly hears the whole—

23:00 Inez: Which folks, Mister Kessler? I was so afraid I told only the lieutenant. Pike: Never went in my file. The lab thinks my swab came off a boot.

23:11 Holmes: So four of us knew there was a film, and not one could say which film. It took the old manager's ledger, and we opened that after you spoke. Kessler: So I guessed. I ran that booth— I ran that booth once, sure, before the lights went. Man gets sentimental, you know, he—

23:28 Watson: A guess that a dead machine had film on it? You told me you never go upstairs. Not on that knee.

23:34 Holmes: Bare Friday at six. Building shut till Monday at seven. Locked that same Monday, and your day is Wednesday. You could only have seen it while the building was shut.

23:43 Kessler: Shut how? Ask Miss Inez. She's the one with the keys, she's the—

23:48 Holmes: Then explain the flat brass key on your belt ring, worn as pale as this lock. Kessler: This old thing? Pike: Inez, lock it.

23:57 Pike: Hand that over, Mister Kessler. Kessler: That's a keepsake, Lieutenant. Hasn't fit anything in years...

24:04 Pike: Then it won't fit this. Inez: That's my lock. Every— every Wednesday I came down and opened this door for you.

24:14 Holmes: Then come upstairs, Mister Kessler. You know the way.

24:18 Up the Iron Stair Once More

24:22 Watson: Kessler climbed the iron stair ahead of us without a light, and Inez reached past him to open the booth. Pitch dark, that knee, and you never missed a tread, sir. Your old manager put you in his accounts: Projectionist Kessler scratches every reel. These are your marks.

24:40 Pike: With dust from that breach on them. You came out of that hole and put your hands on this film. Kessler: Hold her by the edges, Doc. That stock tears like wet paper.

24:50 Holmes: Breach dust, and your only worry is the film. Twenty years with a torch, Mister Kessler. What does a welder do while two safes cool?

24:59 Kessler: Two boys on shares drilled where I marked. I crawled through first, cut the lines in the order I watched them go in, and sent the boys off, and— Pike: Then the torch. Alone.

25:10 Kessler: Twenty years of pipe, Lieutenant. You think two safes trouble me? Shop folds, rent's due, and gold on the far side of my own wall.

25:19 Watson: Why climb up here at all, on that knee? Kessler: They put me out without a week's wages, Doc. Steel has to cool, and I had hours, so the knee could take its time. I threaded her up, one last showing. Ship pulled off the pier, and I stood in here and clapped.

25:40 Watson: To an empty house. Kessler: Then I went down, emptied the safes, and left her on the machine. She was home.

25:49 Inez: A locksmith's card, by my cooler, years back. You picked it up and laughed, Mister Kessler. I told the doctor a new lock was wasted money, as if I thought of it myself. Those were your words.

26:03 Kessler: Why'd you think I took this route, Miss Inez? Water doesn't pay. Every Wednesday I got to look at that lock and know my key still turned.

26:15 Inez: Four times they put me in that room. And you came with your jug, and you said— there's that smile, you said, and I— I smiled for you... Holmes: You kept this building, Inez. He only kept your lock.

26:31 Pike: Your key, Mister Kessler, goes in the bag. Now your hands.

26:37 The Last Entry in the Case Log

26:42 Watson: From the case log, last entry: our kitchen over Echo Park, where the purifier still laboured and a warm parcel of foil lay between Holmes and me. Holmes: Pork again, and not your clinic's. Lard and masa, wrapped by someone grateful. Watson: Tamales from Inez. Her fee, and we never did ask. So what's left?

27:04 Holmes: Kessler's charged. Torch and stones were in his water truck, under the jugs. Pike picked up the two drillers on his word.

27:13 Watson: And the widows' rings? Holmes: Back with their owners. Arakelian is telephoning every family himself.

27:19 Watson: The Bureau's stopped coming, so Inez keeps her job. But you heard him at that cooler, same as I did. Why didn't you—

27:26 Holmes: Pounce? I heard a man grumble, same as you. It only turned in the booth, when the ledger made that film closing night's reel. He'd said so first.

27:36 Watson: And the alley? She told us that lock was her own decision. Holmes: She believed it. He'd done her deciding for her, one jug at a time.

27:46 Watson: She's changed it, you know. My clinic's man, eighty dollars. Holmes: Put this in the log, Watson. Palomar closed. A new lock would have been cheaper.