‘I have a feeling the stone isn’t worthless,’ she murmured as he leaned forward, putting on the white cotton glove she’d seen him use before as he carefully picked it up.
‘Georgia, I’d very much like to know how you came to be in possession of this item.’
She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh that sounded too high-pitched to belong to her. Georgia glanced over her shoulder, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and not entirely sure why.
‘Well, two years ago I was summoned to a lawyer’s office,’ she began, deciding that she may as well tell this man the entire story, since he seemed so enthusiastic. ‘It transpired that my paternal grandmother was adopted, from a place for unwed mothers and unwanted babies called Hope’s House, here in London.’
‘I remember hearing about that place,’ he said. ‘I think there was something in the newspaper about the house being demolished and the proceeds of the sale being left to a charity?’
Georgia made a mental note to search for the article. ‘I only know what I discovered that day, unfortunately,’ she said. ‘But to cut a long story short, some of the women who gave birth there left something behind. In case their child was ever to come looking for them, I suppose.’
Thomas was listening to her every word, leaning forward as if eager to hear the rest of the story. ‘You’re telling me that this was what was left behind? For your paternal grandmother?’
Georgia nodded. ‘Yes. I was given a small wooden box with my grandmother’s name tied to it, and the stone was one of two things inside.’
‘You don’t happen to have this box with you, by chance?’ he asked, as he set the stone back down. ‘I would very much like to see it.’
Georgia reached into her bag and took it out, passing it to him and watching as he turned it over in his hands and eventually opened it.
‘May I?’ Thomas asked, his fingers hovering over the newspaper clipping.
‘Of course. I can’t read it, but?—’
‘Italian,’ he said, almost triumphantly. ‘This is a clipping from an Italian newspaper.’ He looked up, his eyes positively shining now. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s all quite extraordinary.’
‘Extraordinary?’ she repeated. Extraordinary because the paper was Italian? ‘I’m not entirely sure I follow.’
‘Ms Montano, it’s obvious that you have absolutely no idea just what you’re in possession of.’
She waited, eyebrows arched as he set the box down and picked up the stone again, holding it out towards her.
‘I believe that this stone is more than just valuable,’ he said, as he placed it in her palm. ‘If I’m right, I believe that you could be the custodian of the missing royal pink sapphire.’
‘Missing?’ she asked.Royal?
He gestured for her to stand and pointed to the glass box that had so entranced her the day before, his hand gently closing over her shoulder as they both looked through the window. ‘You’ve seen the pink tourmaline earrings we have displayed? You understand the history of them?’
‘They belonged to the Italian monarchy,’ she whispered, starting to realise what he was trying to tell her, her palm closing over the stone in her hand. ‘They were in the royal family for decades.’There was a tiara. That’s what the lady told me yesterday. There was a tiara made of sapphires that looked almost identical to the tourmalines.
‘One of the greatest mysteries in the world of rare and historically important jewellery is why the famous sapphiretiara, purchased by a private collector in the early 1950s, is missing one of its sapphires.’
‘You think,’ Georgia said as she slowly opened her palm, staring down at the pink stone as it winked to her beneath the bright lights, ‘that I am in possession of it?’
‘I don’t just think, Ms Montano,’ he said, ‘I am almost certain of it.’
She met his gaze, his as triumphant as hers was shocked. ‘What do I do with it then? If it belongs with the tiara, does that mean I could be holding stolen property? I?—’
‘There was a reason your grandmother was given this sapphire, and whatever that reason was, I would guess it had absolutely nothing to do with theft,’ he said. ‘But you are indeed the owner of something very rare, and with a value that it is almost impossible to ascertain. To the right collector…’
‘We’re talking in the thousands?’
He cleared his throat. ‘My dear, I’d say we’re in the realm of many, many tens of thousands.’
Georgia laughed. She couldn’t help it. She’d held something of great value for more than a year, and hadn’t even known it!
‘What do you suggest I do with it?’ she asked. ‘Is it something that should be auctioned, or—’Or what? Offered to a museum? Reunited with the tiara it was taken from?
‘While I was awaiting your return, I did some research, because I recalled information crossing my desk a few years ago.’
