Deadly Jewels Read online

  “If it doesn’t sound too odd, he’s the man with whom I was hoping to spend the afternoon,” I said. “The Gray Line tour director. You really have no idea what it’s about?”

  “As to that,” Richard said cheerfully, “we may be pleasantly surprised.”

  * * *

  There was a little man in the little room, and he was worried.

  “They got here from London all right,” he said to Faith Spencer, his assistant, for the fourth or fifth time.

  London to Scotland. That alone seemed enough of a miracle.

  She shivered. “I don’t even like to think about it.” She was twisting her hands. “I can’t believe there’s not some other way. Some other place. What happens if they never come back?”

  He looked at her sharply. “It’s hardly up to us to question it. London knows what they’re doing. The Prime Minister—”

  “You really believe this comes from the Prime Minister?” She started shuffling papers on her desk, lining up the edges of the piles so that they were perfectly even.

  He said, “It’s not up to us to question who it came from.”

  “You know what it means. It means they think we’re about to be invaded.”

  “It means nothing of the sort,” he said, irritable because he agreed with her.

  The crates were sitting under guard in the next room; that knowledge alone was enough to induce a heart attack. The king himself had dismantled the jewels, and had hidden them in hatboxes, much to the delight of his two daughters, Elizabeth Alexandra and Margaret Rose; the royal princesses had helped with the packing, and Princess Margaret had even left a saucy note attached to one of them. Her Royal Highness was known for her cheekiness, and Faith had thought it best to discreetly remove the paper.

  “Is it true,” she asked, “that they’re not even insured?”

  He looked at her sharply. “For heaven’s sake, Faith. Who would insure them? For what amount? How do you insure the embodiment of eight hundred years of monarchy?”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” Faith liked things clear. She liked everything organized and official and aboveboard. She liked her work accompanied by regular correspondence and excellent filing and predictable outcomes.

  This project was none of those things.

  The crates had come to Greenoch under heavy—but very discreet—security, and even now the HMS Emerald was sitting in the harbor, waiting for them to be added to its cargo.

  The Emerald, Faith knew, had already started ferrying valuables across the Atlantic: back in September it had headed up a convoy from Plymouth to Halifax with gold—the first installment, as it were. Two million pounds sterling in gold. The mind boggled.

  And now? Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as prime minister, and he gave the convoys a name: Operation Fish. He’d used the War Powers Act to confiscate securities ledged with the Bank of England and was sending them, along with the gold bullion, to pay for munitions.

  Britain was isolated and embattled and the convoys were its lifeline.

  The Royal Navy knew only that there was additional freight being added, and sailors had been instructed to dress in tropical whites; there was a lot of guessing among the men as to why, and what their destination might be. The gold bullion that HMS Emerald was taking across the Atlantic to safety in Canada had already been loaded, openly enough; no one in Greenoch had any feelings about gold bullion one way or the other, and they had to pay for the convoys somehow.

  But the crown jewels? That was something else altogether.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jean-Luc was lying in wait for me.

  Chantal, our administrative assistant, lurked nervously in the corridor outside the office, looking, as always, as if she’d chosen her outfit somewhat randomly from a vintage-clothing shop, and not a great one at that. For all I knew, perhaps she had. “He is here,” she said in a low voice.

  “Who is here? And why are we whispering?”

  She lowered her voice still more. “Monsieur le maire. He is waiting for you.”

  “Yes, I know, Richard already told me,” I said briskly. “I just need to drop off—”

  “Non,” she interrupted. “Tu n’comprends pas. He is here. In your office.”

  Well. That was a first. Whatever this was, it had to be serious. I wouldn’t even have suspected that Jean-Luc knew where my office was located.

  Not only was my boss in there, he was pacing like a harried hamster. The comparison was apt: he had plump cheeks that looked like pouches, coupled with a tendency to sniff the air. Trying to home in on possible illicit monetary sources, no doubt. “Madame LeDuc,” he said as I opened the door. “What has kept you?”

  I walked past him to put my purse on my desk. Standing behind it gave me high ground in terms of authority, something Jean-Luc never voluntarily gave up. I wondered why he’d been willing to do it this time. “I was working out of the office,” I said.

  “So I understand. That is the trouble. You’re letting the biggest PR coup this city has ever experienced slip through your fingers!”

  Did I mention his tendency to lapse into hyperbole? I should have. I assumed a serious expression. “What coup is that, monsieur?”

  He wasn’t going to give it away that easily. He pulled out one of my conference chairs and sat down, adjusting his ever-perfect suit coat and tie as he did. A well-dressed hamster, my boss. “I have called a meeting,” he said importantly.

  That was nothing new: the mayor liked meetings. Preferably long ones at upscale restaurants, with the city footing the bill. I didn’t get invited to those very often. Mine were more of the let’s-see-what-Martine-has-done-wrong-this-time variety, held in his office or at a convenient corridor for maximum spectator attention. “I see,” I said cautiously.

  “In one hour,” he added, looking at his Rolex by way of illustration and urgency.

  “And can you tell me what it is about, monsieur?” I was starting to feel testy with his drama. For this I gave up my afternoon with François and the Gray Line?

  “Madame, all that you need to know is this. You must be there. Monsieur Rousseau must be there. And you must be prepared to launch a campaign that will bring the eyes of the world to Montréal!” Well, you can see how he got elected. Who isn’t up for a little overstatement served fresh with their morning café and croissants? “I came here myself,” he added importantly, “to be sure that you understand, and to see that you are on time.”

  That was a little unfair. I’m always on time. In fact, I’m usually the first to arrive for any appointment or meeting. Courtesy, one would think; yet actually it’s because I like to be able to pick my geography. There’s nothing worse than coming late to an awkward encounter and finding oneself sitting in the least comfortable seat. And with Jean-Luc, most encounters tend toward the awkward.

  “I’ll be there, monsieur,” I said levelly.

  “Bon.” He tapped his knees and lifted himself out of the seat, acting for all the world as though we’d just made an important decision. “My office. Four o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said again; but I said it to his back.

  Chantal was hovering in my doorway in the wake of his departure. Jean-Luc always made her nervous. One of his predecessors had once sacked the entire secretarial and administrative staff at City Hall, and she remembered that. Of course the strikes and marches that followed hadn’t been to his advantage. “Are we in trouble?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “Something’s going on,” I said slowly. “I don’t know what to think. Where’s Richard?” Richard Rousseau was my deputy and always seemed to have his finger firmly on the pulse of City Hall. If anyone knew what this was about, it would be him. And if he didn’t know …

  “In his office, I think,” said Chantal. “Shall I tell him to come in?”

  “Would you?”

  I turned and looked out the window behind my desk while I was waiting. If I hadn’t wanted this job for the substance, I’d have wanted it for
the view: City Hall sits on a rise in the Old City, and my window takes in the esplanade and the river, an ever-changing panorama of action. I could even see the cruise ship that the geriatric tour goers had debarked from, and I could imagine François’s tour continuing: “These are silos and grain elevators: the island is manmade, using rock that was excavated from the Métro and the Underground City. They call this the Canal Lachine, does anyone know why? It is because when the French arrived here, they thought it was China, eh?”

  Or something to that effect.

  Behind me, Richard cleared his throat. Dressed impeccably—he was always dressed impeccably, always looked like he just stepped out of a magazine spread, elegant and at ease, even during that bad time last year when his new girlfriend was murdered and he was briefly on the list of suspects—and bemused. “Monsieur Boulanger is in good spirits,” he said cautiously.

  “So it would seem.”

  “It makes one nervous,” Richard said.

  “It does indeed,” I agreed. “You don’t know anything about this magnificent PR coup we’re about to be orchestrating, I assume?”

  He shook his head, sitting down in the chair that Jean-Luc had vacated and crossing one elegant leg over the other, flicking an imaginary bit of lint off his trousers. I swear this man should be gay. “I hear it’s good news, for once.” He smiled. “That makes for a change, anyway, doesn’t it?”

  “Boulanger’s not exactly about change,” I reminded him. Jean-Luc wanted everything exactly the same all the time, so that he wouldn’t take the fall if any innovation failed. Change was bad; status quo was good.

  Richard shrugged elegantly. “Perhaps he is now.”

  * * *

  Richard and I were on time, but that turned out to be meaningless: everyone else was already there. Maybe the mayor had things he wanted to talk about with them before I came into the room.

  “Ah, Madame LeDuc,” Jean-Luc said as we entered. “Kind of you to join us.” He was speaking English, and that underlined my earlier conclusion that this was indeed something different and, for once, positive: monsieur le maire doesn’t do anger in English. If he were going to list failures, the numbering system he used would be French.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, taking in the table and the people sitting around it.

  “It is nothing. Thank you for coming,” the mayor said, gesturing a welcoming hand. Richard and I slipped into the only two vacant seats at the conference table. Richard was looking amused; he’d tell the story, later, and everyone would laugh.

  Still, the fact that Jean-Luc was in a good mood had to be appreciated.

  I looked around the room to see what—or who—had inspired this generosity of spirit. Three men, one woman, and I only knew one of them, Dr. Pierre LaTour, curator of Montréal’s Pointe-àCallière archaeological museum. When one considers that my job really involves knowing people, a lot of people, knowing only one of them? That alone was strange.

  “You know monsieur le docteur LaTour, of course,” said the mayor, and Pierre and I nodded to each other. “This is Mademoiselle Patricia Mason.” Her name—which he managed to mangle—made it clear why we were all speaking English.

  She smiled. “Hello.” The other two men were, apparently, not to be introduced.

  The mayor cleared his throat. “We have wonderful news,” he informed me.

  Okay. I settled my face into an I’m-waiting-to-hear-wonderful-news expression and shot another look at Richard. He gave a very Gallic shrug in response.

  Patricia Mason was about ten years younger and about ten pounds heavier than I was, with neat black hair in a bob and glasses that kept sliding down on her nose; she used her left index finger to keep pushing them up.

  “It’s for my doctorate,” she explained now, her voice earnest, her eyes eager behind the thick lenses. “I’ve been doing research in London and Scotland and here in Montréal for my dissertation, and the mayor thought that you might be interested in it. In what I’ve been studying, and what I think I’m about to find—um—what I’m going to confirm.”

  “I see.” I was noncommittal, my interest level ratcheting down a notch. Doctoral research may be—must be, I suppose—intensely exciting for those involved in it, but my experience has been that long dissertation titles and pages of footnotes have little to do with anything related to public relations.

  Museums, yes. My office? Not so much.

  Patricia was undaunted by my lack of enthusiasm. “As you probably know, in Europe, World War Two displaced a lot of valuable items—art, jewelry, that sort of thing.”

  “Wasn’t most of it stolen by the—er—Germans?” I asked. Like everyone else since the book and its subject had been made into a George Clooney movie, I knew about the Monuments Men.

  She nodded. “Of course, but that’s normal. Well, normal, no. I mean normal in terms of war. That’s what occupying forces do, they steal stuff.” She brushed it away with her hand, an annoying gnat of an idea. “But what’s known, also, is that the United Kingdom was looking at what would happen if the British Isles were occupied, and so, very early on, they conducted a massive shipping effort, sending a lot of their treasures abroad.”

  “Gold,” said the mayor, nodding. I could almost see it reflected in his eyes. He managed to restrain himself from licking his lips.

  “Gold,” Patricia agreed. “A whole lot of gold. Gold that they needed to pay for war expenses. Gold to pay for the American and Canadian convoys that were supplying Great Britain. The island would have starved, otherwise.” The glasses had slipped a little and she pushed them up again. “It went on for months, this shipping stuff to North America in payment. It was called Operation Fish—yeah, I know, but it really was called that, I’m not making this up. It was the largest movement of wealth in history.” She looked around the room, her face positively glowing. “The treasure ships,” she said softly.

  Jean-Luc’s eyes were predatory. “Treasure ships,” he repeated.

  “The first shipment,” said Patricia, “was sent to Canada in 1939 on a British cruiser called the HMS Emerald—I’m not making that up, either—which docked at Halifax.”

  “Interesting,” I said. I still had no idea where this was going, but I could suddenly see it clearly, what she was describing: rain sluicing down on the ships plowing through the North Atlantic waves, the holds filled with gold. Gold to pay for food and supplies. Gold to pay for the life of a besieged country.

  She caught my eye and smiled. “Bear with me, Ms. LeDuc,” she said. “It really is interesting, and the story gets better.” A deep breath. “So, anyway, the gold was transferred off the cruiser in Halifax. There was a train waiting, and the next day it arrived here in Montréal. The gold spent the war in a specially designed underground vault three stories under the Sun-Life Building on Metcalfe Street. No one knew: it was all very hush-hush.”

  It was tickling something in my mind; I’d heard about that already. The combination of gold and Sun-Life (which, in the normal Montréal custom of using both French and English when possible, was called the Edifice Sun-Life Building) sounded familiar.

  Or maybe it just felt that way because of the voraciousness of insurance companies.

  Patricia shifted in her chair, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Something else that no one knew, but that’s been circulating as rumors in the war-history community, was that the British crown jewels were on that first ship, on the HMS Emerald, as well.”

  Okay. That was it. Not exactly stop-the-presses earthshaking news, since François of the Gray Line tours had already announced it as fact—and offhandedly at that—just that very morning. And I’d heard the rumor before, somewhere, sometime, I was pretty sure. Rumors came and went. But proof? I looked at Patricia Mason, doctoral student, and found her wavelength with a click. If there were proof positive, then we could work with that. I could see the press releases already, the headlines: MONTRÉAL PLAYS VITAL ROLE IN WORLD WAR TWO. MONTRÉAL SAVES THE ENGLISH CROWN. Even as a hi
storic event, it was good PR.

  Who was I kidding? It was great PR. I exchanged glances with Richard and he was nodding. “The crown jewels definitely spent the war in the basement of the Sun-Life Building,” I repeated. “You have proof.”

  She nodded, then qualified her agreement. “I have a line on proving it,” she said. “I’m at McGill, and so I have some resources, stuff that’s open to scholars. Archives. Memories. And, of course, Doctor LaTour.”

  Pierre LaTour caught the metaphoric ball from her and cleared his throat. “Mademoiselle Mason is interested in what we’re doing with the museum expansion in terms of the access that might be available as we’re opening up some of the disused underground tunnels,” he said.

  Ah. I parsed his rather flowery language into museum expansion and tunnels. That, I knew about. The museum, which was primarily archaeological in focus, was engaged in a multimillion-dollar expansion slated to be finished in a few years—timed not coincidentally with the city’s 375th anniversary. My office was already hard at work planning events in conjunction with the tourist board. There were milestones in the meantime, including excavating and opening up St. Ann’s Market, the site of Canada’s 1832 parliament.

  But the largest and most ambitious part of the work was the underground network that would be made available for the museum complex via the collector sewer that was all that remained, now, of the Little Saint-Pierre River.

  Montréal isn’t exactly a stranger to the underground. Its own underground or interior city, dreamed of in the urban-loving 1930s and gradually coming into being in the decades after the war, is one of the world’s largest, offering food, shopping, transportation, and entertainment to a city that gets more snow every winter than does Moscow.

  What the museum was doing, however, had nothing to do with shopping for high fashion or the occasional bite of fast food.

  The Iroquois—the First-Nations tribe that called this area Hochelaga and lived here until Samuel de Champlain claimed it for France—no doubt used the Saint Pierre River. In 1611 Champlain wrote about the river, the wild strawberries and other fruit and nut trees that grew along its banks.