“A gemologist will need to look at it. There are always fakes floating around, usually cobbled together from old pieces so the whole thing feels authentic. Ah!” Patel finally finds what she’s looking for and pulls out a pair of tweezers. She picks up one end of the necklace’s gold tassels. “This could be a crude repair here, or it could be a clue that this is an attempt to pass off a fake.” She’s pointing to the rewoven spot in the cording that her expert eye had spotted instantly. There is no accusation in her voice, just matter-of-fact professionalism. “A condition report, a gemological grading report . . .” She’s dragging the necklace into better light, not looking at Nell while she keeps talking. “Provenance issues for sure, since it’s all so mysterious. Do you have any idea how your family got this?”
“Inherited.”
“I mean before.”
“Ambrose Quincy did one of those grand tours in the twenties. Brought back stuff for everyone,” Nell says, thinking of her father’s comments, thinking of the blackbuck head in the front hall.
“So it could have been stolen, or sold, or stolen and then sold. You wouldn’t have the bill of sale, would you? A customs declaration form?”
Nell’s blood rises with defensiveness. Is there a family in history that could find such slips of paper? Have them on hand for immediate inspection a hundred years after the fact? She supposes a clan of robotic bureaucrats could. “My family’s had it for coming up on a century,” Nell starts to explain, but at Patel’s patiently inquiring face, Nell amends, “No.”
“Perhaps you should look for one,” Patel says distractedly as she flips over the necklace and examines the enameled back. “Exquisite meenakari,” she says, gesturing with the tweezers. “Has me leaning toward authentic. It looks well intact, perhaps suspiciously so, which cuts both ways. Sometimes, in older pieces, the enamel chips. The meenakari was never documented, I’m guessing, since it’s been missing so long, which is a pity because then we could cross-reference and know for sure.” She turns the monitor back toward her, clicking the keyboard, presumably looking for a picture of the back to verify.
Patel using “we” makes Nell feel reassured. “You just said things went missing,” Nell says, still mulling over provenance issues.
“Yes,” she says looking up, “but not things like the Moon of Nizam. It’s said the Moon was the favorite jewel of Shah Jahan.” She opens her desk drawer again, rooting through pencils and Post-it pads. “Why can’t I find anything today? That’s craftsmanship. That’s five hundred years. Here it is.” She brings out a mini black camera.
The words Shah Jahan echo around in Nell’s brain like diamond dust. “So Ambrose could have bought it from someone who stole it.”
“Mrs. Quincy,” Patel says, looking up from taking a picture of the necklace. She has not asked for permission, but she might be one of those better-to-ask-forgiveness-than-permission types.
“It’s Ms., and please call me Nell.”
“Nell,” she says, her voice softening and her eyes twinkling in a deft smile, meant to reassure. “I don’t mean to be impugning your ancestors.” She says this with a slight singsong on the gerund, losing that clipped Britishness. “But if this is the Moon of Nizam, and I’m not saying it is . . .” She clicks off a few more pictures. “It’s highly doubtful that it was procured through legitimate means.”
“It was sitting in my great-aunt’s house in a whiskey sack.” Nell laughs, trying to get Patel to join, but she only smiles slightly.
Nell’s sure now she’s made the wrong choice in bringing it here. She should have asked Emerson to get Vlad to look at it, or taken it to Christie’s for an appraisal. Even Antiques Roadshow would have been better.
“Yes, well, you have some options,” Patel says, back to very British now. “The first one, and I would encourage this, is that you allow the piece to come into the museum on consideration.”
Nell nods, trying to keep a bland face.
“This object is potentially an artifact of significant cultural history, and as such deserves to be thoroughly researched by an institution like ours. And if you’d allow it to come here, I’d have the registrar insure it, then we’d sign a conservation service order to examine it to determine the materials. We’d run tests.”
At Nell’s face, she says, “Noninvasive, of course. I’d do the research personally, and I’m sure I don’t need to emphasize the significant international contacts and resources I have at my disposal based on my connection with the museum. It would probably make sense to interview a few members of your family as well.”
“What?” Nell asks. “Why?” she says before she can stop herself.
Patel slows, aware she’s tripped some wire. “That’s a fairly typical procedure in a case like this. It can help with provenance, but also with historical placement of the piece, dating, all sorts of things.”
At Nell’s pause, she continues. “In the absence of bringing it to the museum under consideration, I hate to suggest it, but you should probably hire counsel.”
“Bringing it to the museum?” Nell asks.
Patel turns back to the jewel, examining it again. “On loan, of course, but ultimately, if this is what I think it is, for acquisition.”
It’s barely Nell’s and now the museum wants it. Is she supposed to hand it over? Will they buy it? Is it even real? Patel is cool and calm, but Nell’s started to sweat. Nell half expects Patel to sweep the thing up and lock it in her desk drawer.
“This is all my opinion and an educated guess, Nell. You’re free to get another one,” Patel says in the tone of someone absolutely certain of her facts. “I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you that there might be some thorny legal issues.” She turns and points down at the necklace. “If it comes up for auction, the Indian government could try to enjoin you from selling it and pursue a right of replevin. Then again, they might do nothing. These things are never clear-cut. And then there’s the Mahj.”
“I’m sorry?”
Patel clicks around on the keyboard again and then turns the monitor back toward Nell to show her photos of a handsome and clearly inebriated young Indian man appearing to stumble out of a London nightclub, arm in arm with Prince Harry.
“I take it you don’t read People magazine. The twelfth maharaja of Baroda is young, bit of a playboy, and runs in Prince Harry’s circle. Called the Mahj. His family would be the family that it went missing from.”
“Would he have a claim?”
“Who knows?” Patel says in a quick way that sounds like she knows. “But sapphire jewelry of the time frame is rare. Indians, especially the Mughals, considered sapphires bad luck. My grandmother was appalled by this.” She wafts her engagement ring, a petite duo of Kate Middleton’s. “She was adamant that I sleep with it under my pillow for two nights and if nothing bad happened and there were no bad dreams, then I was okay.” They both smile. “Of course I was keeping it no matter what, but that didn’t stop me from doing what she said.” Nell nods. “Luckily, no bad dreams. But maybe that’s why they put the Moon in the Navaratna setting.”
Nell digs out her phone and opens the notes application. “The nine-stone setting,” Patel leans forward, toward Nell’s phone as if she’s dictating. “It’s supposed to symbolize the moon, the planets, the sun, things like that, supposed to bring good luck.” She gestures toward the inlaid stones with her tweezers. “Maybe they thought it would counteract the sapphire.”