A/N: Sorry for yet another extended absence. This chapter finds Erik and Nadir in Lyons, at about the same time that Anne is discovering Sophie's illness.
Erik:
Nadir and I watched as the jeweler set Anne's diamond into its setting with the greatest of care. The workbench was stained and eaten by acids, battered by tools, until it looked a thousand years old. The jeweler looked at least a tenth of that age, similarly stained, eaten and battered by time and by life.
"Why not a ring?" Nadir asked. "Is that not the tradition here?"
"It is." I replied, "but it wouldn't answer in this case. Anne would never wear a diamond ring—not with all that she does with her hands. She'd be too afraid of something happening to it. This will please her much more, and she'll wear it almost every day, wait and see—once I've finished personalizing it."
"Ah." nodded Nadir. "The pieces of ivory you bought, and the paints."
"Yes." I said.
The jeweler held the piece up to his eye and squinted at it, polishing it with a soft cloth. "There you are, sir." He placed the bauble in my hand. "A fine piece of work, if I do say so myself. It looks like the veriest dew-drop there."
"Thank you. It's beautiful." I told the man. "Would it be simpler for me to pay you out of my pocket, or for you to subtract it from the proceeds of the sale?"
"Please—accept it as a gift from me." The man spread his hands. "I hope this is only the beginning of our relationship. Should you ever have other diamonds to dispose of, I would be honored to represent you once again."
"If I should ever come by any again, I will certainly bring them to you." I said. "Have you a box, or some such?"
"Of course." He selected a dove grey velvet box and nestled the piece into it. "I hope that your wife is pleased with it."
"I think she will be overcome." I smiled behind the mask. I was looking forward to presenting her with it on our wedding morning. "Thank you again."
"You're welcome, sir…" He seemed torn. "Sir, my friend's Bontriomphe's son Aristide says that you are setting yourself up as a private inquiry agent, and that you are a man with some experience in handling matters of the greatest secrecy and most delicate nature."
I wondered precisely what my lawyer had been saying of me. At our first meeting I had hinted to him that I was a government agent who had been away on a secret mission for the last four years. Stories only tend to get larger in the telling. On the other hand, my entire life had been a matter of the greatest secrecy and most delicate nature. "He is too kind. I am, although I am not actively seeking cases as yet. Why do you ask?"
"I would like to consult with you on something which I am reluctant to tell to even such an old friend as Bontriomphe. Can you step back into my office?" he asked.
"Certainly, if you wish." The man told his assistants to manage the store and not to disturb us, and let me behind the counter. He looked askance when Nadir made as if to follow us.
"Let me introduce you to the gentleman who will be handling the Parisian office of my business, Nadir Khan." I said, smoothly and inspiredly. "He is privy to all aspects of my business."
What a good idea! Now that I was recovered and so thoroughly absorbed in my family, Nadir had been making noises about returning to his rooms on the Rue de Rivoli. If he were to take an office, he could vet the potential clients there and refer the live ones, so to speak, on to me—and to Jules. He would have an active role in all that was going on—his income, which I knew to be limited, would be augmented by his finder's fee, and—thinking of the image which I wished to present to the world—a mysterious masked private inquiry agent, who only took the cases he found of interest, and charged through the nose (so to speak) that image could only be boosted by a dark-skinned, exotic front man.
"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir." The jeweler showed us into his office, which had a massive safe in one corner, and a cluttered desk in the other. A newspaper and a magazine lay on top of the piles. The newspaper was folded carefully to a certain page.
"Please, have a seat." He waved at two seats, which we took. He did not sit, but clasped his hands in front of him.
"Thank you." I commented. I was only mildly interested in his problem.
"I do not know if you have been following this case, sirs—." He handed me the paper. It was another account of the robbery of the Count and Countess de Chagny. This one had an engraving of Christine printed in it—an old one, from when she was still at the Opera.
"As it happens, I have." I said. This man's little problem no longer seemed so little, and I was abruptly much more interested in it.
"As a jeweler, I have been sent a special edition of our trade journal, detailing every single piece of jewelry that was stolen. Some of the stones were very valuable, and in those cases, there are records of every facet, inclusion and flaw. The jeweler who assesses it makes a sketch of it. Each stone is unique—there will not be two stones with the exact same measurements—not even if they appear to match exactly."
"I believe I understand." I said. "Have you come across one or more of these stones, M'sieu?"
"Yes. But not recently. Some years ago, a young woman—an exquisitely beautiful young woman, who was, um, in a certain condition—," his hands described a convex arc in front of his own belly. "came to me with a diamond that she wished to sell.
"It was a very fine stone, of the first water, and almost five carats in weight. Seeing her, as she was, I thought I knew the whole story—a discarded mistress, increasing daily, who was selling her lover's gift out of need. I gave her a fair price." He said the last with some defiance.
"As it was such a good stone, I made an assessment of it. I made two copies of it, one for the buyer, and one for my own records. That way, if there was ever any question about the stone, I could refer to it. The stone I bought of that young woman was one of the stones from the De Chagny Marie Antoinette necklace—and the reason why I bothered to check my files was that the young woman was the Countess herself! I knew her directly I saw her picture in the paper. So you can see that I don't know what to do—I am afraid to go to the police, for fear of being accused of accepting stolen goods. Who would believe my story? The stone was sold to a client of mine three years ago, a man who bought it in good faith. I don't want to drag him into it—the more so as the stone was not a gift to his wife or even his daughter."
"I see…" I said slowly. A mystery was now cleared up for me. I knew where the money to set Anne and my son up had come from. Oh, my poor Christine! What had it cost her to steal from her husband to cover up her sin? "I would advise you to say nothing for the moment. More may be going on than you can guess at. A necklace so valuable would be insured. Suppose it was sold off, piece by piece, stone by stone, for ready money, with the Count's collusion, and when they were robbed, they saw the opportunity to collect the insurance money, and reported it gone with the rest?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the jeweler. "And it would be my word against hers…But then I recalled the affair of the Queen's necklace, when they duped the man with a look-alike? Perhaps the Countess has a double? It might have been a theft after all, only they did not know it. I am perplexed, and I confess it."
He was referring to a famous crime concerning the same queen who was associated with the De Chagny necklace—Marie Antoinette. A lady-in-waiting had found a prostitute who looked amazingly like the queen, and together they hatched a scheme to gain a fabulous diamond necklace, by convincing a particular man the Queen desired him to buy it for her, and would repay him for it.
"I will relieve your perplexity." I told him. "I will investigate this for you—at no charge, just as you charged me nothing."
The jeweler started in surprise. "I—all I really wanted was advice. You don't have to do this."
"I want to. It will be good for me to get my hand in, so to speak. A test run. Can you spare this journal and this newspaper? It will get me started."
"Of course! Can you tell me what happens?"
"If I can." I promised. "Good day, sir. Nadir!"
The Daroga and I went out into the bright afternoon.
"Say nothing to me at present." I was curt with him. "I knew that life was getting to be entirely too serene. I was anticipating—what, I knew not, but this is it. This is certainly and definitely it. But I refuse to let it ruin my day. Now that I have funds, I have some more shopping to do."
He knew me well enough not to say anything when I was in that mood…
A/N: Thank you all so much for being so patient with me. I hope you're still reading.