To Catch A Thief

Keeping this precious Fabergé egg had been a mistake, Jane thought . . .

WE don’t have a choice, Jane. You will have to sell it,” the Grand Duchess Natacha Volsova said gravely.

She produced a small velvet bag from beneath swathes of skirt fabric and numerous shawls.

The servants had long since fled, leaving only Jane Keeble, her young English companion.

The house, not far from Petrograd, was freezing, and her hands trembled as she withdrew the bag’s precious contents – an ornate Fabergé egg.

“Your grace, you can’t! Not the Grand Duke’s last gift.”

“Fyodor remains here, my dear girl.” Natacha touched her heart. “That is just a thing with monetary value, and our love was truly priceless.”

She smiled sadly. “Besides, he would never let sentiment interfere with survival. To escape the Bolsheviks, we need money.

“Unfortunately, I spent the remainder of what I had paying off the servants,” she added.

Everyone except me, Jane thought, who hadn’t been paid in several months, while supporting them both from her dwindling savings.

“Here,” the older woman said, proffering the egg.

Reluctantly, Jane took the gold and enamelled creation, marvelling at the ingenuity of Russia’s premier craftsman – Karl Fabergé.

“But how should I sell it?” Jane asked.

Natacha patted her shoulder affectionately.

“Go to the village of Russoff and find a man called Andreovich. He’s bought things before. You can trust him.

“Take what he offers, but say the egg was looted.”

“That would make me a thief!” Jane looked appalled.

“I know, but otherwise people will talk,” the Grand Duchess replied. “Think. As it is, who even remembers us, out here in the wilds?

“Yet arriving with this and no reason for having it could provoke all manner of awkward questions,” she continued. “After all, how else would you have such a valuable ornament unless you were an aristocrat?

“They’re not the most popular figures at the moment,” the Grand Duchess added, laughing mirthlessly. “It would be taken from you in an instant and, with the current mood of the country, who knows what the peasantry would do afterwards?”

She shuddered. “Then not only would we be left penniless, but we might not even escape with our lives!”

Jane nodded, reluctantly taking the egg and placing it in the pocket of her skirt, before going to her bedroom to change.

Not that there was much left of it.

They’d burned most of the furniture to keep warm, Jane thought sourly, sitting heavily on the bed.

As she did so, the egg slid from her pocket and on to the floor.

Horrified, Jane glanced down.

The precious ornament was in four pieces, with a second egg rolling forlornly beside it!

Carefully she retrieved them, running her fingers along the intricate filigree framework.

The egg wasn’t broken after all; it was supposed to open.

How strange . . . The Grand Duchess hadn’t mentioned that.

Perhaps the old lady

didn’t know.

Curiously, she studied the egg, marvelling at the workmanship.

Recalling the scenes in the city of angry peasants pleading for bread, she shuddered.

Little wonder they were furious, when rich people could afford to spend money on fripperies, while they were starving.

Not that she was in the same class as the Grand Duchess, obviously.

Jane was an ordinary, if well-educated girl, who, her parents having perished in a boating accident, had suddenly found herself rootless, homeless and needing live-in work.

Eventually she’d become a general factotum to a minor British diplomat’s wife, accompanying the couple to Imperial Russia.

Later, she’d met Grand Duchess Natacha, something of an eccentric, at a diplomatic reception.

With war looming, her employer had naturally returned home, but she chose to remain, becoming companion to the Grand Duchess.

Neither could have predicted the 1917 Revolution.

Now penniless and with most of her possessions sold, Jane was regretting her rash decision.

Momentarily, she regarded the second egg again before accidentally pressing the base.

A series of whirs and clicks revealed, like a set of Russian nesting dolls, a third egg, no bigger than a quail’s.

It was set with one large diamond, surrounded by emeralds, amethysts and citrines, she guessed.

Who would miss it, she wondered, assessing the egg’s weight in her hand before scrutinising it in the dim light.

Even the Grand Duchess seemed unaware of the extra treasure’s existence.

Suddenly Jane thought of the money she was owed and the privations suffered since the Revolution.

In a moment of uncharacteristic madness, she wrapped the smallest egg in a handkerchief, concealing it in one of her too-large boots.

While safe, it would be undetectable – even to her.

Then she placed the second egg in the first, hoping nobody would be any the wiser.

Five years had passed. Jane watched as a woman enveloped in furs drifted past, trailing an expensive scent.

She reminded her of the Grand Duchess.

Having secured funds, the Grand Duchess used her diplomatic contacts to organise the right visas, then passage to Finland.

They would have travelled across Europe, absorbed into the diaspora of refugees from war and revolution, hopefully to France and finally Britain. Ironically, it was not to be. The Grand Duchesss, weakened by months of hunger, cold and stress, had succumbed to pneumonia on the journey.

Jane had managed to return home, staying with an old school friend and taking casual work.

Then she secured employment with Marshall and Snelling, a large London department store.

But in the years since her Russian adventure, she had never forgotten her mistress – or, for that matter, the remaining egg.

Tidying the plethora of scent bottles, jars and lipsticks, Jane shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Keeping it had been foolish, but she told herself that was the nature of revolution. People changed, doing things that were otherwise quite unlikely.

“Excuse me! Do you have ‘Pavlova Paris’ by Payot?” a young woman asked, stirring Jane from her reverie.

And so began another day, ensuring wealthy ladies were fashionably perfumed and painted.

“Miss Keeble,” Edith Ardent, the departmental supervisor, whispered to Jane. “Your industriousness today is commendable. But I insist you keep your private life exactly that!”

“I’m sorry?” Puzzled, Jane frowned.

“There.” Edith nodded towards a tall man opposite. “He’s been mooning after you for over an hour. If you must meet your beau here, kindly refrain from doing so during business hours.”

“I don’t know him,” Jane tried to say.

But Miss Ardent had disappeared and, when Jane looked across again, so had the man.

Who was he and why show interest in her?

After her shift, Jane donned her hat, adjusting it in the mottled staff-room mirror.

She sighed.

All this worry because a young man had paid her attention when he was probably just too shy to buy something.

But she couldn’t help being concerned . . .

It was late on Saturday evening.

Jane had participated in an after-hours stock-take.

She hadn’t seen anything more of the young man.

The other girls’ gentle teasing had subsided until he had been dismissed as simply a nervous customer.

Yet Jane couldn’t help feeling uneasy, sensing danger in every shadow, especially as she had to walk home from the bus stop alone.

Surreptitiously glancing around with each few steps she took, her heart racing, Jane was glad to have reached her cosy basement flat unscathed.

Relieved, she fitted her key to the lock.

“Not so fast!” a masculine voice breathed in a cultured Russian accent.

Jane screamed before being silenced by a strong hand clamped firmly over her mouth, and another pinning her arms to her sides.

“Do you promise not to scream again?” the man whispered.

Eyes frantic, Jane nodded and he removed his hand.

“What do you want with me?” she asked in hushed tones, recognising the man from the shop earlier.

“Where is the egg?” he asked.

“What egg?”

“Don’t play games,” he warned her. “You were a known associate of Natacha Volsova. She had it and you stole it.”

“Are you all right, miss?” a male voice suddenly called from above.

“He’s attacking me!” Jane quickly screamed.

Suddenly the Russian man let go, pushing past Jane and making his escape along the barely lit street.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t give you any more trouble,” the other man said. “My name’s Arthur Masefield and, well, I’ve been trailing you – both of you.”

“Why? I don’t even know him – or you for that matter!” Jane exclaimed, making her way up to street level.

He showed Jane his warrant card.

“A detective inspector,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“I doubt it, but I do need to speak with you.” He proffered his calling card. “See me tomorrow. It’s important. I’ll explain then.”

The detective smiled, doffing his hat.

He waited until she had safely opened her door.

“Goodnight,” he added. “See you tomorrow at nine o’clock sharp.”

Now what, Jane thought, wishing for the millionth time that she hadn’t set eyes on that wretched egg.

“Well, Miss Keeble,” Arthur Masefield said the next day, “you’ve led us a merry dance these past few years.

“We were concerned for your safety, but also,” he

added, studying her face, “the whereabouts of a Fabergé egg.”

“Is that what the Russian wanted, too?” Jane asked. “Who was he?”

“You see, that man has been on your tail for quite some time,” Arthur replied.

“But who is he?” she pressed on.

“Prince Ivan Bershinski,” the detective revealed, “and before you ask, he’s entirely what he claims to be.

“But like many émigrés, he is pursuing a career. He’s an international jewel thief.”

“How? I mean, surely he didn’t have to steal anything?” Jane asked. “Wasn’t he rich enough?”

“You would think, but Prince Bershinski had quite a gambling problem.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What does this have to do with me?”

“You worked for Grand Duchess Natacha Volsova, only she wasn’t what she seemed, either,” Arthur explained.

“She was every inch a lady!”

“But not always a duchess,” Arthur clarified. “She had something of a past.

“Significantly, before and after marrying, she was a ‘fence’, trading stolen property and working in aristocratic circles.”

Jane gasped as he continued.

“The Grand Duke’s blue-blooded associates shared his gambling habit, and debts, too, unfortunately.

“That was bad enough, but the prospect of scandal was worse.

“So the Grand Duchess dealt in the discreet disposal of family treasures for them.”

“You mean the egg?” Jane asked quietly, twisting the grey leather gloves she held.

“Yes,” Arthur confirmed. “But surely, if the prince lost it through gambling . . .” She shrugged.

“The fact is he didn’t,” the detective said. “According to sources, the Grand Duke was a notorious cheat.

“He and the Grand Duchess were working as a pair to relieve friends of their jewels.

“Unfortunately, they picked the wrong person. Never kid a kidder, isn’t that what they say?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jane replied sniffily.

“Oh, but you do,” he countered. “Later, having retrieved the egg, Prince Bershinski found its most valuable feature missing, so, after the war, he pursued it all over Europe – leading us to you.”

“So?” Jane pressed on. “Now don’t be like that. I’m sure you had good reason to take it.”

Arthur produced a familiar handkerchief from his pocket, unfolding it to reveal the egg.

“I’m afraid that a discreet search of your flat proved you did.

“Those boots really were hideous, and far too big for you – rather obvious, really.”

“All right, I did,” Jane confessed, “but I didn’t steal it.

“The Grand Duchess gave me it to sell, although I was told to say it was looted to avoid arousing suspicion.

“She hadn’t paid me in months and I’d used most of my savings to feed us.

“I thought if we sold the entire egg there would be nothing for emergencies.”

“I believe you.” Arthur nodded. “But I need your help, otherwise I, and particularly my colleagues, might revise that opinion.”

“Very well,” she replied resignedly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Ah, Miss Keeble,” he began, “it takes a thief to catch a thief, if you see what I mean.

“This is the plan .

A week later, as the inspector had predicted, the prince contacted Jane again.

This time, she had arranged a rendezvous with him in the Rotunda Café, a discreet eatery in a park near her flat.

“Ah, we meet properly at last,” the prince greeted her. “The thief who took my egg.

“Where is it?” he asked in terse Russian.

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to speak English,” Jane replied quietly.

“Indeed,” he said, sipping his drink. “I want my egg back.”

“Don’t you mean the Grand Duchess’s egg?” she asked. “Well, I’m afraid you can’t.

“I sold it to buy food and our passages out of that chaos.”

“Russia was never chaotic,” he retorted, “at least not before the Revolution.

“I have the other two pieces of the egg. Now, give it to me,” he demanded, stretching his hand towards her elegantly.

From the corner of her eye she saw the signal from the inspector and, beyond, movement in the nearby bushes.

His men were readying themselves.

“Prove it,” she returned. “Prove what?” he asked. “That you have the rest of the egg,” she added. “I mean, how do I know this isn’t just a ruse?

“After all, many people profess to be émigrés before claiming treasures.

“What if you’re doing the same?” she finished.

He paused momentarily, then removed a familiar velvet bag from his coat.

Inside were the remains of the Fabergé egg.

Discreetly watching the inspector, Jane took the handkerchief out of her pocket, carefully opening it.

Bershinski’s face spoke volumes as he snatched the tiny jewelled egg, before pushing his chair back, preparing to flee.

“I think not!” the inspector cried.

He had burst through the door, grabbing the prince’s hand and wrestling the egg from him.

“What’s going on?” Jane exclaimed, looking confused. “You asked me to give the prince the egg. I did what I was told.”

“Exactly, Miss Keeble,” Arthur replied, “and in doing so, you helped us to arrest a notorious jewel thief.

“Indeed, who better than a genuine prince to relieve Russian, and indeed international, aristocracy of their jewels?

“You see. The egg actually belonged to the Imperial Russian family.”

“The Romanovs!” she exclaimed.

“Precisely,” Arthur confirmed, “and now we have it back, the egg can be restored to its rightful owners – their remaining descendants.”

“What about Andreovich?” Jane asked.

“Ah, yes, the buyer?” he replied. “He, too, escaped Russia and was offering certain items for sale.

“That’s how we know what happened.

“He was very helpful, but not as much as you,” the inspector added. “Incidentally, Miss Keeble, there is a substantial reward, I believe.”

“So it really was a nest egg.” She smiled.

As the belligerent prince was led away by the police, the inspector lingered.

“I would have assisted you for nothing,” Jane admitted. “I don’t like dishonesty or secrets.

“That egg was the bane of my life.”

“I know.” Arthur smiled gently with undeniable tenderness in his eyes.

“Perhaps I can tempt you, darling?” Arthur teased Jane outside the shop one evening after work.

Having courted for several months, they had a dinner date.

She glanced at Marshall and Snelling’s Easter window.

“Absolutely not!” She laughed. “No more decorated eggs for me, thank you very much!”