Captain Heinz Noonan, the “Bearded Holmes” of the Sandersonville Police Department, was being thrashed without mercy. No matter how he held his hands, the beating continued. Worse yet, it was the hands of a youngster, a ruthless individual with a vicious right swing. Again and again, the youth slammed the captain, attacking his unprotected flank. Noonan, up to his ears in years, could not stop the drubbing.

“Point, set, and match,” shrieked Otto.

“Thank God!” replied the Chief of Detectives, clearly pleased that the game was over. “I hear a glass of iced tea calling me.” Staggering more than walking, he made his way out of the tennis court and down the boardwalk to the Cabana Alcatraz,where he was sure he would be able to lick his psychological wounds in obscurity. Parenthood certainly had its moments – and this was not one of them.

The detective was just slipping into the comfort of a chaise longue in the shade of a yaupon tree in Southport when his solitude was corrupted by the most perfectly proportioned man he had ever seen. This man was a perfect medium, about 5’ 4” and dressed in a suit that cost more than Noonan made in a month. His hair was a perfect cut, and the polish of his shoes – which probably cost as much as Noonan was paying for this vacation – reflected the sun.

What was a man dressed like that doing at a resort like this? Apparently, he was going to get his chance to ask. One moment, the man on the boardwalk, and the next, he was pulling up a chaise longue and seating himself next to Noonan. This was not good news because Noonan was on vacation and the last thing he wanted was to share the indignity of being walloped by his son with anyone.

He was not to be so lucky.

“Kind of cleaned your clock, didn’t he?”

The man was talking to him.

Noonan didn’t figure he could ignore the comment, so he kind of mumbled something like “Yeah, well, you know, youth and all.”

Apparently, that was all that was needed to break the ice. The man stuck out his hand. “Yoseph Mikhailovna Yaknakova. Your secretary said I could find you here.”

“Did she now? I’ll have to discuss that with her when I get back.”

“She said you’d say that. She also said that you could solve my problem in a good hour, and Commissioner Lizzard said you could list the hour as comp time.”

“How pleasant.”

This was not going to be a red-letter day for Noonan.

“I cannot imagine what it’s like to have to work on vacation, but I’m afraid, I have an unusual problem that is, well, shall we say, time sensitive.”

“Comp time,” Noonan was beginning the slow simmer of a man who works under an incompetent bureaucrat.

“This is not exactly a matter of life or death, but it is diplomatically sensitive,” Yaknakova said as he dug a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Noonan. “I’m the curator of the Mikhailovna Museum.”

“Let me guess,” said Noonan as he looked at the Cyrillic on the card, “you’re Russian.”

The Russian smiled. “Was it my name or my card?”

Noonan laughed. “Your English is perfect.”

“It should be. I grew up in California. Grandson of émigrés.”

Noonan pointed at the card, “Your middle name is the same as that of the Museum, a coincidence?”

“Not at all. It’s a family Museum. That is, my family owns it.”

“But you’re American.”

“Yes. But as my father was quick to say, we have gone from royalty before the Russian Revolution to royalties after break-up of the Soviet Union. We’ve been in the oil business for decades. Suddenly, we’re wealthy again.”

“So you started a museum.”

“That’s right. And one of the items we want, for which we are going to court to get, is a unique pendant that was misappropriated.”

“Is that a word in the language of museums for ‘stolen?’” Noonan cut in.

“Close enough,” the Russian said. “Except we know where it is and who has it. Or at least who had it until yesterday afternoon, about three-fifteen.”

“That was when the pendant disappeared?”

“That’s right.”

“Exactly what was the object?”

Yaknakova reached into his suit and pulled out a photograph, which he handed to the detective. “It’s known as the Vermillion Amber Pendant of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and, somehow, it has disappeared.”

This caught the detective’s attention.

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, Sir. One moment the pendant was there, and the next it was gone.”

“How long was the gap between the two moments?”

“Seconds. Maybe ten.”

“Where was the pendant when it disappeared?”

“In a display case.”

“It disappeared from inside a display case?”

“Poof and gone.”

“Five seconds?”

“About that. I discussed the theft with the Southport Police, but they could not do anything because the owner has not reported the pendant stolen. No police report, no crime. So they transferred the problem to Homeland Security who contacted your Commissioner Lizard . . .”

“Lizzard. It has a double Z,” Noonan said, “but you’re not the first person to call him a lizard.”

“Well, he’s not here, so I’m sure he won’t mind.” The Russian smiled, “And after talking with him for five minutes, I think ‘lizard’ is a good description of the man. ‘Slippery’ would be another term.”

“I see he has made an impression.”

“I’m in the oil business. I see gentlemen” – he said the word as if it were a disease – “like Commissioner Lizzard every day. They are the ones who keep saying they’re honest which means you have to double-check the contract.”

“I won’t argue with you. I assume that ‘vermillion’ applies to the color of the amber.”

“Yes. Vermillion amber is quite rare. This particular piece of amber was about the size of a man’s thumb. It was – and I hope still is – displayed in a gold setting. The pendant itself has a rather colorful history. It was a wedding gift to Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg by the family of his first wife, Elizabeth Mikhailovna of Russia. She was the niece of Nicholas I of Russia.”

“You said ‘first wife,’” Noonan noted. “Was the pendant part of a divorce settlement?”

“Actually, there was no divorce. Mikhailovna, my great-grandmother’s sister, died in childbirth. In 1845. Adolphe married again about six years later. But, you are correct in your surmise that the pendant is part of a dispute.”

“Let me see if I can guess,” the detective mused. “Since the first wife died in childbirth and the second wife was not Russian, your family wants the pendant back.”

“Again, you are half right. It’s not the Russian government who wants the pendant back; it’s the Mikhailovna Museum in Moscow.”

“How aggressive has the Museum been?”

“Ahhh, I see you understand such things.”

“I understand things where money is a concern.”

“In a nutshell, the pendant was passed down to a maternal niece of the second wife of Adolphe. She received the vermillion pendant as a dowry – rather, her husband did. He died and she inherited the pendant which she passed to the father of a jeweler here in Southport who, until 3:15 yesterday afternoon, had it in his possession. Isn’t it odd that the pendant should disappear just days before I was to go to court to recover my family’s property?”

“Odd things like that do happen. But why would he steal it? You know American courts. Things could drag on for years. Besides, the point of having a pendant like that is to display it. If he steals it, he can’t display it.”

“Maybe. But if it is listed as missing, my court case is moot.”

“So what you want me to do is find the pendant?”

“I hear you are the best at solving impossible crimes.”

Noonan did a short harrumph. “Tell me about the pendant.”

“The pendant is a stand-alone item in the sense that it was not being displayed on a chain. It was just the pendant. Total weight is about the same as a small egg. It started the day in a jewelry store and was then transferred under armed guard to the Wilmington Jewelry Exposition, where it was placed in a display case.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday.”

“Under armed guard?”

“Yes. Under armed guard. The guards watched as the jeweler set the pendant on the silk batting inside the display case. He removed my hand, and the guards locked the case. They walked away, and when the jeweler looked back, the pendant was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone. As in poof, disappeared.”

“What about the guard?”

“There were two of them. But they had nothing to do with the theft. After security saw that the pendant was gone, both guards were searched. Head to foot. Even X-rayed their bodies in case one of them might have swallowed it.”

“Was the jeweler searched too?”

“You bet your bippy.”

“And X-rayed?”

“Just like the guards.”

“How about the display case? Was it searched as well?”

“Top to bottom. They even took it apart and X-rayed the pieces of wood. It was solid. No trap door. Security also checked the floorboards and the ceiling. Both were solid. No trap doors in either.”

“How about the top of the display case?”

“Solid Plexiglas. It is basically a cube with the bottom missing. It is raised, and the pendant is put beneath it. The display case covers it.”

“What about the locking mechanism?”

The Russian made a twisting motion with his hands. “The display case was locked by the guards after the Plexiglas was in place.”

“How about the security camera footage?”

“Now there’s a problem,” said the Russian. “There are security cameras, but they were not turned on. The Exposition won’t open for another two days, and the room where the pendant was placed doesn’t have any jewels on display yet. The pendant was the first item to be installed. The rest of the cases were empty.”

“Too bad,” said Noonan. “The security tape might have made a difference.” The Russian raised his hands as if to say ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda.’ Noonan thought for a moment. “Can I talk to the guards?”

“Sure. When would be convenient?”

The detective looked toward the court where his son was gesturing to him for another round of tennis torture. “Right now would be fine.”

* * *

            Noonan found the jewelry exposition room to be pretty much what he expected. It was basically the ballroom of a hotel with heavy security on all three exits. There were close to 40 display cases of various sizes set about the room, far enough apart so that patrons could wander where they wished. There were no patrons, so Noonan could wander about as he wished. Under the penetrating gaze of the four guards, Noonan looked over the dozen cases, top-to-bottom and side–to-side.

When he was finished, he asked to see the display case from which the pendant had disappeared. That display was in pieces in the stock room. It wasn’t any different than the other displays in the exposition hall. Like the other displays in the ballroom, the Plexiglas display case had a lock. Noonan rummaged through the pieces of the case and grunted.

            “I told you there wasn’t anything here.” The Russian shook his head sadly.

            “Where was the display placed?”

            “Let me show you.” The Russian led Noonan back into the exposition room. They crossed the hall until they were standing close to a wall next to one of the exits. “Right here,” he said as he pointed to a display case that also held a pendant. “The pendants are kept against the walls because there is only one angle of viewing. Rings and necklaces can be viewed from any angle so they’re strategically displayed in the center of the room,” he pointed to the dozen cases scattered across the expanse of the ballroom. “Pendants like this one can only be viewed from one angle.”

            “The missing pendant was displayed like this one?”

            The Russian nodded.

            Noonan advanced on the pendant and looked at it. It was nestled in a batting of yellow and blue silk on an incline. He ran his hands over the Plexiglas and then the mahogany stand. He examined the lock on the back of the display case. It was a basic lock, nothing unique about it.”

            “I notice that the lock is on the back of the display case, while on the other cases it’s in the front.”

            “Actually, there is no ‘front’ for the larger display cases. Since a patron can look at jewelry in the larger case from any side, there is no front in the sense of the term. But when it comes to an artifact like a pendant, the best way to see it is head-on. So it is placed on some kind of batting on an incline, like this one.” He pointed to the pendant lying at an angle on a silk handkerchief. “The lock is in the back for both security and aesthetic purposes.”

            Noonan ran his finger on the lock.

            The Russian looked over his shoulder. “Here are the guards. You’ll have to talk with them alone, I’m afraid. I have some things I need to do.” He took a step away and then stopped, “Oh, yes, by the way, I am meeting with the man who stole the gem, Harrison Donovan of Southport Jewelers and Antiques, LLC. I’ll be there at three, 24 full hours after he stole . . .”

            “I get the point,” said Noonan. “I’ll be there.”

 * * *

            For next half hour Noonan talked with the two guards who had been with the jeweler when they had placed the pendant into the case. Guards was not the proper term to use, Noonan discovered. Both had been trained by the firm that had been contracted to provide security, but they were making minimum wage. One was a part-time social work student and the other a police science intern.

            “I guess you could say we were stand-in guards,” said the intern. She was barely five feet tall but stood like a weightlifter. “We just happened to be here when the jeweler came in. I and Harry,” she pointed to the student, “were here and it was a low-level task so we did it.”

            “Were you the only two here?” asked Noonan.

            “No way,” said the student. “We’re here in force the whole time. It’s just that the jeweler, Harrison something . . .”

            “Donovan,” added the intern.

            “Right. Donovan showed up even before the security cameras were turned on. All he wanted to do was put a pendant in the display case. We walked him over to the display case, and Shirley unlocked the case.”

            Noonan looked at the intern, Shirley, “you actually saw him put the pendant in the display case?”

            “Yes. He showed me the pendant, and he put it in the case. Then I locked it shut.”

            Noonan looked at Harry. “Did you see the pendant actually inside the case?”

            “Well, no. I never did. I saw him show it to me, to us, and then he put his hand in the display case. He was still talking to me when I put the Plexiglas back on. We’re talking seconds here.”

            “But you didn’t actually see the pendant in the case?”

            “No. I saw it in his hand. That was the last time I saw it.” He paused for a moment. “But he had to have put it in the case because he didn’t have it on him when he left the room, after he had been searched. And we all went to the hospital together with the Southport Police to get X-rayed. We didn’t have the pendant, and he didn’t have the pendant, and I swear, I swear, I saw it in his hand. If he didn’t put it in the display case, where is it?”

            “Good question,” said Noonan. Then he turned back to Shirley. “Did you actually see the pendant in the display case after the Plexiglas was locked?”

            “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I am sure he had the pendant. I saw the pendant. He showed us the pendant. I saw him put the pendant in the display case. I cannot remember precisely when the last time was that I actually saw the pendant, but I believe it was after I locked the case.”

            “But you’re not sure?”

            “I’m sure he had the pendant with him when he came in. I’m sure he didn’t have the pendant when he left the building. He didn’t have it. We didn’t have it. I don’t know what happened to it, but it was gone.”

            Noonan thought for a moment and then asked, “Was there anything unusual about Donovan?”

            Shirley chuckled, “Have you ever seen Donovan?”

            “No.”

            “What she means,” said Harry, “is that he’s an unusual kind of guy. He’s about seven feet tall, has hands the size of baseball mitts, but is as skinny as a rail. He has kind-of-red hair that’s a bad haircut on a good day and limps. He coughs a lot and keeps a handkerchief to, well, you know, catch . . .”

            “Phlegm.”

            “Right. Phlegm. Spittle. He’s always coughing.”

            “So you’d seen him before he actually came to put the pendant in the display case?”

            “Oh, yeah,” said Shirley. “We all did. All the jewelers came to a meeting before the display cases were put in this room. So we could tell them about security. Then we, the guards, were assigned to talk to the jewelers individually about what was going to happen on the floor. So we talked with him at the meeting.”

            “Did he know you would be on duty the day he showed up?”

            “Well, yeah,” said Harry. “But it was not like we were alone, just the two of us, when he came in.”

            “Did you see him before he came in?”

            “I did,” said Harry. “He was in the coffee shop across from the ballroom. He was having coffee.”

            “Did he see you?” Noonan asked.

            “Oh, yeah. We even talked. Then, a little bit later, he came in. That’s when Shirley and I took him over to the display case.”

            “Did he know you were here?” Noonan asked Shirley.

            “Sure did. I talked to him in the coffee shop with Harry.”

            “Were there any other guards on duty then? I mean, guards that were not watching the door?”

            Shirley and Harry thought about that. Then Harry said, “Not really. It was before any jewels were out, and none were expected. I mean, jewelry wasn’t supposed to be coming in until about six.”

            “Why so late?”

            “I guess that jewelers want to show gems in their shops as late as possible. Don’t actually know,” said Harry. “All I do know is that Donovan came real early and asked the two of use to escort him to the display case.”

            “Was there anyone else here who could have done it?”

            “Not really. Or not officially. At that time, there were only about six guards. There are three doors with a guard on each door. Then there was Harry and I, and I think there was another guard, but I can’t remember.”

            “Yeah,” said Harry. “But the minute that pendant went missing, the whole world was here.”

* * *

There was one thing that Harry and Shirley had correct: Harrison Donovan of Southport Jewelers and Antiques, LLC was unusual. In fact, he was the skinniest man Noonan had ever seen. Not only that, the human skeleton was about seven feet tall, had hands the size of baseball mitts. He had a shock of carrot-colored hair, badly cut, and wore boots that would have made Frankenstein proud.

Noonan would have supposed that the osteological specimen would have preferred an oversized chair in his workroom but he was seated in a large leather swivel chair small enough for a man half his size when Noonan came in. He shook the detective’s hand, his mitt completely absorbing the detective’s hand when the two men shook.

“Under normal circumstances, I would not meet with you,” was the first thing that Donovan said. “But this is not a usual circumstance and, with luck, we will finish our conversation before that man” – that man said with boiling animosity – arrives.”

“By that man you mean, Yaknakova.”

“I do indeed. He has been the bane of my life for the past decade, the rock in my shoe that never goes away.”

“He says the pendant belongs to his family.”

“It did. 150 years ago. Then it was given away. To my wife’s family. But he can say anything he wants. That won’t make it true. He’s already lost in two courts. What he’s doing now is nothing more than harassment.”

“Well, before he gets here, tell me your side of the story.”

“I don’t have a side of the story. The pendant was given as part of a dowry to Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg by the family of his first wife, Elizabeth Mikhailovna of Russia. She was the niece of Nicholas I of Russia.”

“I know all that,” said Noonan. “My job isn’t to decide who gets the diamond. I’m only here to find the gem.”

“Then why are you talking to me? I don’t have it. I put it in the display case, and it disappeared. I didn’t make it disappear.”

 “Well, let’s see if we can put some flesh on the bones we have,” suggested Noonan. He rose from his chair in front of Donovan’s desk and casually looked around the room. Never having been in a jeweler’s office, he really didn’t know what to expect. To him, it looked just like every other office he had ever been in. He made that comment, and Donovan said, “All of what you call jewelry is the display room. That’s the front of the store. We don’t sell any jewelry back here. All we do here is paperwork and these days that’s done on this,” he tapped the laptop on his desk. “The business is a lot less glamorous than you might think. In addition to the insurance companies checking up on us, we’ve got the IRS and our own industry police. Every stone we deal with has a fingerprint, and woe to the wicked if we are caught with stones that are not on an inventory list.”

“I would have thought you could buy old jewelry,” Noonan said. “Doesn’t that come without paper?”

“We can buy anything we want. But if we are going to sell it, we have to register it. For instance, if you came in to sell a family heirloom, we’d buy it and then fingerprint the gem. The fingerprint goes into a database. That way we can be sure it wasn’t stolen.”

“If it was?”

“Then things get complicated. Technically, it would be stolen property, and we would have to return it to the owner.”

“So you’d take the loss?”

            “No, the insurance company would. But that rarely happens. Believe it not, most people are honest.”

            “That,” said Noonan, “has not been my experience. According to the police, you didn’t file a missing or stolen report. Can I ask why?”

            “Sure.”

            Noonan waited for a moment. “OK, why?”

            “Oh, you want me to tell you. I thought you were just stating a fact. Yes, I did not file a missing or stolen report. Why? First, the pendant has no value. Second, because it has no value it cannot be insured. Third, if I file a report, my insurance rates go up even though I cannot get any money for the item. Let me explain.”

            “Please do.”

            First, the Vermillion Amber Pendant has no value because there is nothing in it that is valuable. It has a few hundred dollars’ worth of gold, and even vermillion amber is not that rare. What makes the pendant unusual is its history and provenance. If the pendant were to be sold for its parts, it might go for a thousand dollars.”

            “But,” started Noonan.

            “Oh, there’s a lot more,” said Donovan. “I can’t sell the pendant because my wife would kill me if I did – it is an heirloom from her family – and even if I did, it would not fetch very much. It’s not like the Hope Diamond. It only has a value to very few people, and no one would buy a pendant that was the subject of a lawsuit – regardless of whether the suit had merit or not. Giving it away won’t benefit me at all. Because my wife’s parents were involved in a legal dispute that had nothing to do with the pendant, they were afraid they would lose everything they had. So they sold the pendant along with a lot of other stuff to my wife for a dollar. That would have kept it out of the hands of the creditors if they lost the court battle. Since, technically, she bought the heirloom for $1 she cannot donate it for a tax write-off. She bought it for a dollar and as far as the IRS is concerned, she can only claim a write-off for a dollar. If I fill out a police report and claim the loss of the pendant, all I can recover is a single dollar. And my insurance rates go up.

            So, in a long answer to your question, I did not file a police report because nothing of value was stolen. Legally and actuarially, the pendant is worth one lousy dollar. That’s why I didn’t fill out a police report.”

            Noonan nodded and then shook his head.

            “I know that doesn’t sound as though it makes sense, but it makes sense to my CPA, and she has my ear when it comes to cash.”

            Noonan kind of shook his head as if in sympathy and looked around the office. He did not see anything that would have indicated he was in anything other than a home office. It had a desk and a bank of file cabinets, several plush couches at the side of a room with a decanter and several glasses on a side table. There were three paintings, clearly by the same artist, on the wall and a brightly colored Persian rug on the floor.

            “Where did you get the rug?”

            “You like it,” the jeweler said proudly. “I got that in Turkey on a buying trip a dozen years ago. It’s supposed to be Persian, but there hasn’t been a Persia since Alexander the Great. I don’t go to Iran at all. Turkey is as close as I got.”

            “Do you buy stones in Turkey?”

            “Not the way you mean. I don’t walk into a bazaar and buy loose stones. I go to dealers and buy through them. I don’t touch the stones. Like I said, it’s all paperwork.”

            “I notice that all three paintings appear to be by the same person.”

            “My wife,” said Donovan. “She’s an amateur artist and so,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I occasionally buy what she paints.”

            Noonan smiled knowingly. “Just a few more questions. Was there any reason that you were in the coffee shop before you put the pendant into the display case?”

            “No reason in particular. I was waiting for the security guard to be in place. I could not get in before they were ready for me. When they were ready, I went in.”

            “Was there anything unusual about the room when you entered?”

            “Not really. It was empty. That is, there were no other pieces of jewelry in any of the other display cases. That’s the way I usually do shows. I want to be one of the first ones in. That way I don’t have to talk to the other jewelers.”

            “You don’t like other jewelers?”

            “Don’t have time for them. I want to get in, put my gems on display, and leave. I want to spend my time with people who want to buy jewelry, not those who want to talk about it.”

            “One thing puzzles me. Why would Yaknakova steal the pendant? As long as its stolen property he can’t display it. That kind of defeats the purpose of having it in a museum.”

            “Who knows?” Donovan was now animated. “His claim is that the pendant was not the property of Nicholas I to begin with. He says it belonged to his maternal grand aunt, the sister of the deceased, first wife of Adolphe. Even if it were true, he can’t prove it. Every scrap of provenance is gone. It went with the Russian Revolution. Even if there was a paper trail, it is more likely that the Russian Republic would claim the gem.”

            “Well,” said Noonan. “If you don’t have the gem and he doesn’t have the gem, what are the chances that the Russian Republic has it?”

            “All I know is that I don’t have it. I don’t know who does.”

            Noonan gave one last look around the room and then said, “I guess that’s all I have to ask.”

            “Good,” said Donovan, rising from behind his desk. “Maybe I won’t have to deal with that pesky Russian.”

            Noonan smiled and shook his hand. “I see you are better today.”

            “Better,” said Donovan with a puzzled look.

            “The security guards said you had a hacking cough the other day. Apparently, you’re cured.”

            “Allergies,” said the jeweler. “They come. They go. I’m not the man I used to be.”

            “None of us are,” said Noonan. He shook the man’s hand and left.

            Noonan was just exiting the building as Yaknakova was coming in. The Russian was in great rush and expressed shock that Noonan was leaving. He looked at his watch and said, “But you’ve only just come!”

            “And now I’m leaving. I got all of the information I need.”

            “You found the gem!” The Russian was alive with enthusiasm.

            “Yes and no. Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”

            “I’ll take any news that I can get.”

            “Well, the bad news is that the pendant will never be yours. Even if you were to win in court, the pendant will be beyond your reach.”

            “How is that possible?”

            “Well, if the pendant is not available for an examination by the court, there is no way to prove that the pendant is authentic. Until the pendant shows up, there is no case.”

            “But he had the pendant. We all know that.”

            “The police don’t, and they are the ones who have to do the investigating. Right now, all the police know is that a pendant is missing. Unless Donovan reports it as missing or stolen, there will not be an investigation. He is not going to report it as missing or stolen. No crime; no investigation.”

            “But it was stolen!”

            “I don’t know that. Neither do the police. A man can’t steal his own property he already owns. As long as Donovan does not report the pendant missing or stolen, there will be no police case.”

            “But the pendant was stolen from the exposition!”

            “No. It will only be considered stolen if Donovan reports it as stolen. If he does not report it as stolen, the hotel is not going to press the matter. Neither is any insurance company. If there has been no loss there has been no fraud.”

            “So you think he took it?”

            “I’m sure of it.”

            “How did he do it?”

            “Even if I told you it would not get the pendant back. This is just one of those cases where you lost. He has the pendant. It’s legally his until it suddenly shows up. Then you can start your legal case again. That’s not going to happen until Donovan and his wife die. They’ll keep the pendant as a family heirloom and will it away after their deaths. That gives their children a tax write-off and sticks some museum with the legal problem.”

            “So the pendant will never be mine?”

            “Not unless he wills it to the Mikhailovna Museum.”

            “I don’t see that happening.”

            “Actually,” Noonan said as he scuffed his shoes, “I do. If you made it clear to him that you would go after his children, you might get it in the end.”

            “That could be years.”

            “Better late than never.” Noonan started to walk past the Russian when the man put a hand on his arm.

            “How did he do it?”

            “Steal the pendant? It was easy. Simply a matter of misdirection. He waited in the coffee shop until he got the two security guards he wanted. One had to be short. That was Shirley. He showed the guards the pendant and then talked to them as they walked to the display case. He put the pendant into the display case on the incline. Shirley was so short she could not see over the top of the incline. She wasn’t looking at the gem anyway. She was looking at the lock on the back of the display case. Donovan put his hand in with the stone and then palmed it. He could have hidden a walrus in those hands with no one was the wiser.”

“Why didn’t the security guards see that there was no pendant in the display case?”

“They weren’t looking. They didn’t have to. They had done their job. And Donovan was talking to them.”

“But what did he do with the pendant?”

“He swallowed it. That was why he was coughing. It gave him the excuse to put his hand up to his mouth. It was his cover. He coughed and popped the pendant into his mouth. One swallow and it was gone.”

“But he was X-rayed. Along with the guards! The pendant didn’t show up!”

“That bothered me at first. I knew how he had stolen the pendant. I wasn’t sure how he thought he was going to get away with it.”

“How did he get away with it?”

“Once he had palmed the pendant, he only had one more task to perform. He had to be stopped before he left the exposition room. His scheme would only work if he was still in the room. If he made it out of the room, even for a split second, he would be a suspect. So he had to be stopped and searched inside the room. That’s why he turned around and said something like ‘Where’s the pendant?’ That’s when the security people went into high gear. They searched him and the guards and even X-rayed them to make sure the pendant had not been swallowed.”

“But you said he swallowed the pendant! Why didn’t it show up in the X-ray?”

“Because what he swallowed was a painted, sugar model of the pendant. It only had to look like the pendant for a second, just enough to convince the security guards he had the authentic pendant. They didn’t examine the pendant; they just looked at it. They assumed it was authentic. They saw it go into the display case and had no reason to believe that it was anything other than authentic.”

The Russian smiled, “Then when he swallowed the sugar pendant, it fell apart in his stomach.”

“Nothing for the X-ray to see.”

“So the pendant never even went into the exposition room?”

“Nope. He’s got it hidden somewhere. As long as he doesn’t report it as missing or stolen it’s his until he dies.”

“So, I’ve been snookered?”

“’Fraid so. I can’t make things right. I can only figure out what happened.” Noonan patted the Russian on the shoulder. “Looks like you lost this one, Yoseph. Better luck next time.”

Noonan was half-way down the block, headed for another glass of ice tea – but not another game of tennis with his ruthless son – when the Russian shouted after him, “How did you figure it out?”

“Paintings,” said Noonan without looking back. “Donovan’s wife is an accomplished artist. He had three of her paintings in his office. The detail was remarkable. That’s how I put it together.” Noonan then stopped and looked back at the Russian, “You might want to think about putting some of her artwork in your museum. Maybe one of the Vermillion Amber Pendant of Alphonse I. That might get you in good with the old man. Remember, he’s still got the goods.”

If the Russian swore, Noonan didn’t hear it. But then again, he didn’t speak Russian either.

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