Family Jewels

40

Paul Eckstein woke on his fourth day in Paris and stared at the ceiling. He had not heard a word from Randol Cohn-Blume.

“How long has it been?” his wife asked. They were waiting for breakfast.

“Four days.”

“Is he usually this slow?”

“I think he’s dragging it out in the hope of more money.”

“How much did you offer him?”

“I didn’t make an offer. I’m waiting for him to tell me what he wants.”

The doorbell rang, and Paul shouted, “Entrez!”

The waiter came in, knowing by now where to put the table. He left them to it.

“Well,” she said, “I’m certainly enjoying our visit, but you’re not.”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re wound too tight to enjoy yourself.”

“Nonsense.” The phone rang, and he levitated about a foot.

“Perfectly relaxed, eh?”

Paul took a deep breath. “Hello?”

“Paul, it is Randol.”

“Good morning, Randol.”

“I hope I am not calling too early.”

“No, we’re just having breakfast.”

“Can we meet in an hour?”

“Can you make it two hours? We’re slow starters.” He didn’t want to seem too anxious.

“All right, an hour and a half, then.” He gave Paul an address in the Rue St.-Honoré. “It’s just a doorway — we’ll meet outside.”

“All right, an hour and a half.” Paul hung up.

“Feeling better now?” his wife asked.

“A little. I mean, if he didn’t have anything, he’d have told me so on the phone.”

“It’s Valentino for me, today, then Saint Laurent.”

Paul got out of a taxi and found Randol waiting beside a door in a blank wall.

“Ah, there you are.” Randol produced a key, unlocked the door, and they went inside, where Randol locked it behind him. He handed Paul a small, heavy flashlight. “We don’t want to turn on any lights down here. It would set off the alarm system.”

“Are we breaking and entering?” Paul asked, trying his flashlight. It was extremely powerful, in spite of its small size.

“In a manner of speaking,” Randol replied. “Follow me.” He started down a winding staircase that went on longer than Paul had expected. At the bottom, Randol followed a hallway until he came to a door, which he unlocked with another key, then locked behind them. “There,” he said, playing his light along a wall before them. It was covered with steel shelving, cabinets, and file drawers.

“Where?” Paul asked.

“That is for us to find out. We will start at opposite ends and work toward the center. Your French is good enough to read this stuff, isn’t it?”

“As long as it’s typed. I have trouble reading the handwriting of Frenchmen.”

“If it is in longhand, you will find it very neat and correct. How do you say... boilerplate?”

“That’s not the word, but I know what you mean.” Paul went to his end and turned on his light. “What are we looking for?”

“The name Blume, and the years 1899 and 1946. If you find those, let me know.”

Nearly four hours later, Paul’s back hurt, he was painfully hungry, and he had covered only about a third of the distance to the middle of the wall. Then he read a tab saying: Blume, 1894. “Randol, I think I may have something here.”

Randol joined him and looked at the file. “Excellent,” he said. “Let’s both keep going here.” The two men pawed through the files, some of them thick, until they came to 1899. “Ah,” Randol said, “success.”

There were more than a dozen files labeled with that year, and one of them read Bloch-Bauer. It was a thick accordion file. Randol took it to a steel table in the center of the room and unwound the cord sealing it.

Paul’s heart was thudding against his rib cage. He watched as Randol examined each page, then came to a folded sheet of heavier paper. “Oh, yes,” he said, unfolding the sheet to its full size, about one foot by two and a half. On the sheet, finely rendered in India ink, were four drawings of the choker, each from a different angle, with each stone delineated, and the rubies colored in. On the lower right-hand corner of the sheet was the signature François Blume, mai 1899.

“I believe the expression is ‘pay dirt,’” Randol said.

“I believe you are right. Are there photographs of the finished piece?”

“Not in this file,” Randol said. He returned to the file drawer and brought out another file of a different, heavier paper. He opened it and withdrew a packet of soft paper, which, when opened, had four compartments. Randol removed a pair of white cotton gloves from a pocket, put them on, then withdrew from the file a glass negative of about eight by ten inches. He played the light over the sheet, then removed and examined four more negatives. “Each is of the necklace from the angles depicted in the drawing,” he said, “except for this one.” The final negative was a photograph of the inside of the necklace.

Paul pointed at some small lettering and shone his light on it. “Can you make out what this says?”

Randol produced a loupe and held it gently against the glass. “It says, ‘Bijoux Blume 1899.’”

Paul sucked in a breath. “Can we get copies of these?” he asked.

Randol gave a short laugh. “Why don’t we just steal them?”