“He was my brother,” Anna explained. “Or should I say, my half-brother. He was older than me and, as my mother often said, was a lot like our father. A charmer, especially with the ladies, but a drunk, always getting into fights and very difficult to get along with, especially if you had to live with him. He had a crazy obsession to get back something he believed belonged to our family.”
“What was it?” Garnet asked, stepping closer.
“Some jewels. Sapphires and diamonds or something.” Anna waved a disinterested hand. “It is a long story that goes back to our family in Russia.”
“Russia?” Garnet said.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened behind her gold-rimmed frames. “Do tell us.”
Anna sighed. “As I said, it is a long story. I can’t even say how much of it is true, since it was Serge who told me most of it. It all began with my father’s sister,” she said, sitting down on a chair next to the bed. The colour had drained from her freckled face and her wrinkles had suddenly become more pronounced. “She was engaged to be married to an aristocrat in Russia. But a few days before the wedding was to take place, she took off with a man who worked for a local jeweller. Together, they stole some jewels that belonged to my family and fled the country. My grandfather, the Count Mikhail Ivanov, and my father, Aleksei, vowed to get the jewels back, as they were said to be more valuable than anyone could ever know, but sadly, they never saw them again. My grandfather was killed in Russia in 1917, at the time of the Revolution, and my father had no choice but to flee the country with Serge, who was seven years old at the time. Serge, or Sergei, as we used to sometimes call him, had lost his mother five years before.
Anna folded her hands in her lap. “When they arrived in France, my father changed his name to sound more French — from Aleksei Ivanov to Alexandre St. Jean. He met my mother and they married. I was born the following year. Soon after, we immigrated to Canada and settled in Montreal. Unfortunately, it did not go well, as my father did not like to work, especially to work hard. I don’t remember much about him but I do remember that he had a temper, especially when he drank, and he moaned to my mother that, if he only had the jewels that were rightfully his, how much better off we all would be. My father’s health declined and he passed away in 1925.”
Anna paused, staring straight ahead, as though the years were rushing up to meet her. Garnet waited with the others for her to continue, and soon realized she was holding her breath.
“My mother found a job as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Montreal. She worked there by day and as a seamstress at home in the evenings, so we had enough money to get by. Serge quit school and worked at odd jobs, but he spent almost everything he earned on himself, especially on drink. He had a very bad temper and I didn’t like it when he was home. Neither did my mother. He was almost eighteen when my mother ordered him to leave, and thankfully he did. We lived the next few years in peace, poor as we were, especially during the Depression, when my mother lost her job as housekeeper. But we got by together, doing whatever work we could find and sharing an apartment above a store with another family.”
“Did you ever see Serge again?” Garnet asked.
Anna nodded. “Once. It was the winter of 1939. He had come back for a visit, and was in a particularly good mood, even though I could smell the whisky on his breath. He said that he knew where the jewels were, and that if I helped him, they would be ours, and we would be rich. ’Oh yes,’ I said to him and laughed to his face. ’We will be rich. And how will we get these precious jewels? Steal them?’ It was too preposterous to even consider. But he looked at me and I knew that he was quite serious. He waved his finger at me and said, ’Don’t you laugh. Don’t you know that whoever possesses those stones will receive divine favour? They will bring us the success that is rightfully ours and that we deserve. It’s not stealing if they are ours to begin with. Are you in or not?’
“But I never trusted Serge. And I didn’t believe in fairy tales. He thought that I was still a naive child — someone he could use for his scheming and who would help him with his plans. I imagine, with the people he associated with, he couldn’t trust his cohorts either. I said no.”
“So what did he do?” Garnet asked.
“It was strange. He seemed unnaturally calm. I remember stepping away from him, afraid that he might strike me, but he didn’t. He said to me, ’You will regret this. When I find those jewels they will be all mine. And you will have nothing.’ Then he left.”
“That was it?” Dan said.
Anna nodded again. “Later that year, the war broke out. I heard nothing about Serge again until 1952 when there was a knock at my door. The police came to ask me some questions. My mother had already died by then, and I was married with a son and a daughter. They told me that Serge had died during a police chase when he lost control of his car. And they told me what Serge had done during those years. For some reason, he had joined the war in Europe and fought in France.” Anna snorted. “Why he would join, I will never know. It seemed so unlike him, risking his life for his new country. He never did anything for anyone but himself.”
She tugged at a lock of her pinkish hair. “They said he came back to Canada with an English wife and that they had a child. However, they had recently divorced and I was his only next of kin besides them. Knowing Serge, though, it was no great surprise to hear his marriage didn’t last.”
Garnet looked over at Elizabeth and then back to Anna. The realization of something strange was setting in. “I think I might know why he joined the war.”
Anna raised her eyebrows.
“You do?” Elizabeth asked, appearing equally baffled. Garnet pulled the pieces of the puzzle together as she spoke, their stories connected like the intricate weave of a spider’s web.
“Your husband, Albert Tate, was a descendant of the count. So was Serge St. Jean, my grandfather, and you, Anna,” Garnet said, turning to her. “The detective my mother hired said that Serge St. Jean was a suspect in other crimes. He died during a police chase after a break-in. We all have similar stories. Don’t you see? He was the one who murdered Albert’s grandfather when he tried to get the jewels the first time. And why would he join the war? Likely to disappear for a while. Maybe he thought he’d get caught and figured his best bet was to get out and give things time to settle.”
Elizabeth nodded. “He wouldn’t have known he’d be gone so long.”
Garnet went on. “Right. And after the war, he married my grandmother, thinking her family had money, and lived with them in England until he realized they didn’t have anything.”
“Sounds like something Serge would do,” Anna agreed.
“Oh, so when he came back to Canada, that’s when he tried again to get the jewels,” said Elizabeth.
“Yeah, but I think he had to find out where to look, first. My mother was born in Canada in 1950. The break-in and car chase didn’t happen for another two years. He probably had to investigate names and maybe even guess to make a connection to your house.”
Anna appeared confused. “I don’t understand.”
Elizabeth and Garnet took turns to explain their accounts to Anna — the story of Marie and Johann and the rest of Albert’s family and what Garnet’s mother had learned about Serge St. Jean.
When they had finished, Garnet walked over to Anna and stood in front of her. “My mother’s search for her father is over. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to meet his sister, but I think now that she might.”
Anna reached out, taking Garnet’s hands into her own slightly trembling ones, and smiled. “Family has always been important to me. My children and grandchildren have given me the greatest joy in my life. It’s a shame they must all live so far away. My son was transferred to Alberta last summer, my daughter’s in the States, and my grandchildren are away at university. But family or not, until now, I had no desire to ever meet anyone who had anything to do with Serge. He was a greedy and selfish scoundrel and I chose to simply forget about him. Now that I have met you, though, I think that I would very much like to meet your mother.”
Anna reached for a pen and pad of paper on the bedside table behind her. She wrote something down, tore off the paper, and handed it to Garnet. “Here is my phone number and address. Please tell her to call me.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Garnet looked at Anna and said, “There’s just one more thing I’d like to know. What did Serge look like?”
Anna’s eyes held Garnet’s a long moment before she spoke. “His hair was like flames, but his eyes were cold.”
Garnet nodded. “Well, I’d better be going.” She turned. “Exams start next week and I have to do review.” Avoiding Dan, she walked back to Elizabeth and noticed how tired her friend looked. It had been an exciting day. Garnet patted her arm. “I’ll come back tomorrow, Elizabeth. I think I’ll bring the cross.”
“That would be wonderful. I do want to see it. I’m more certain than ever those jewels are somewhere in that house and that the cross will lead us to them. Maybe if I see it, I’ll understand.”
“I tried to find a Bible verse on it,” Garnet said, “but I couldn’t find one.”
“Then there must be another clue, something that’s been missed. The cross is the way to the jewels,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Albert said so.”