The appraiser, a man named Daniel Drew, was just completing his work when Tucker opened the door a crack in response to my knock. He gestured me wordlessly into his office. One look at his face told me the news wasn’t good.
“He’s written it all up. See for yourself.”
Sinking into his chair, the hotel owner pushed two sheets of paper across his desk. I’d managed to skim just a few lines before he summarized.
“Half the things in there are phony.”
I looked up. Tucker’s round face, which seemed designed for buoyant optimism, was drawn with despair.
Drew, in the midst of tucking an eye loupe into his pocket, glanced up.
“No more than a third of them,” he said gently. If that.”
“Either way, we’re still ruined—”
I held up my hand. Something was wrong. But possibly not what my client thought.
“First of all, has everyone with things in the safe been here for the past ten days?”
Tucker took the list back and hunched over it.
“Well, no....”
“Tell me, Mr. Drew, would it be unusual for a safe in a hotel like this one to have this many, uh, reproductions? In nice cases like the real thing?” I was on thin ice, but I didn’t see how so many pieces could have been switched in such a short space of time.
Tucker squirmed. He most likely hadn’t told the appraiser why he needed his services, or why with such immediacy. I figured Drew was smart enough to have guessed.
“Probably not.” Drew hesitated, couching his words in caution. “I’ve never been asked to inspect the entire contents of a safe before, other than for private estates. I can assure you it’s not uncommon for people who own expensive jewelry to have a very good copy made and seldom, if ever, wear the original. That would be particularly true when they traveled.
“And of course since the Crash, more than a few have sold a piece here or there to make ends meet, so to speak.” His mouth gave a wry twist. “As to nice velvet cases, they’re not that expensive. Cheap paste jewelry to use on stage is one thing, but a quality copy involves workmanship — not to mention the gold in the setting. You don’t want something like that scuffing around.”
I’d retrieved the list while he talked. A question mark by an entry on the second page caught my eye. Reading the name beside it, I did a double take.
“Why this question mark?” I pointed.
“Ah, yes.” He didn’t need to look. “I flatter myself that I have a very good eye, but that piece, a very old ruby necklace, I couldn’t be entirely certain about the three main stones. There’s a man in town who’s a master copier, and so skilled at spotting such work that he often knows where it was made. Sometimes even by whom. I’ve suggested Mr. Tucker ask his opinion on this one.”
When the dispirited Tucker walked him out a few minutes later, I finally had a good look at the list. Twenty-four jewelry cases, six of them containing fakes and one requiring a second appraisal.
One of the fakes, as well as the one with a question mark by it, belonged to the women with Count Szarenski. Another belonged to Lena Shields. Three belonged to a name I didn’t recognize; one to a likewise unknown guest. And there amidst the others snuggled Lily Clarke’s four jewelry cases. Every sparkle inside them was genuine, beckoning a would-be thief like a virgin in a burlesque show.
Tucker returned and slumped in his chair.
“Insurance would cover two of those pieces, maybe three,” he said after a minute. “But like I told you in the beginning, once word got out, we’d be ruined. And with so many phony, if something’s happened to them while they were in our safe—”
“Slow down.”
“If we had to make good on all of them.... The thing is, four months ago, when it was time to re-up the insurance, I reduced the amount. Frances... there were a lot of medical bills.”
He looked at me in appeal. He didn’t want her to know.
“You’ll still get paid,” he added quickly. “Everybody who works for us will. Don’t worry none there.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Now you gotta find out who’s behind this. Those other things you suggested — a guard or alarm — it’s too late for those, but if somebody’s stealing, maybe we could still get things back, track them down.”
“Joshua, I’m not going to tell you not to worry, but maybe you should worry less. Mr. Drew just told you owners themselves often get copies made.”
His bullheaded insistence on secrecy whittled down chances I could do what he wanted, or even prevent further losses, but I had to try. He was my client. So long as it wasn’t illegal, I did what a client wanted. Besides, somewhere along the line I’d started to like the little guy in his loud suits.
“Did Drew give you the name of that jeweler who’s an expert on copies?” I asked.
“Lagarde.” He took a slip of paper from his pocket. “Philip Lagarde. Has a place on First Street.”
He handed me the note so I could write down the particulars.
“Let me have a talk with him. See what I can learn about how long it takes to make something like that.”
When I got within a block of the address, however, I knew I wouldn’t be chatting with anyone there in the next few hours. Parked in front were two police cruisers and an unmarked car that belonged to the homicide boys.