Night Over Water - Ken Follett [72]
When people flee a country at the outbreak of war, they do not leave their valuables behind.
It was quite simple. Peasants drove their livestock before them as they ran from invading armies. Jews fled from the Nazis with gold coins sewn inside their coats. After 1917, Russian aristocrats such as Princess Lavinia arrived in all the capitals of Europe clutching their Fabergé eggs.
Lord Oxenford must have considered the possibility that he would never return. Moreover, the government had brought in exchange controls to prevent the British upper classes from transferring all their money abroad. The Oxenfords knew they might never again see what they left behind. It was certain they had brought whatever assets they could carry.
It was a little risky, of course, carrying a fortune in jewelry in your luggage. But what would be less risky? Mailing it? Sending it by courier? Leaving it behind, possibly to be confiscated by a vengeful government, looted by an invading army, or even “liberated” in a postwar revolution?
No. The Oxenfords would have their jewelry with them.
In particular, they would be carrying the Delhi Suite.
The very thought of it took his breath away.
The Delhi Suite was the centerpiece of Lady Oxenford’s famous collection of antique jewelry. Made of rubies and diamonds in gold settings, it consisted of a necklace with matching earrings and a bracelet. The rubies were Burmese, the most precious kind, and absolutely huge: they had been brought to England in the eighteenth century by the general Robert Clive, known as Clive of India, and set by the Crown Jewelers.
The Delhi Suite was said to be worth a quarter of a million pounds—more money than a man could ever spend.
And it was almost certainly on this plane.
No professional thief would steal on a ship or plane: the list of suspects was too short. Furthermore, Harry was impersonating an American, traveling on a false passport, jumping bail and sitting opposite a policeman. It would be madness to try to get his hands on the suite, and he felt shaky just at the thought of the risks involved.
On the other hand, he would never have another chance like this. And suddenly he needed those jewels the way a drowning man gasps for air.
He would not be able to sell the suite for a quarter of a million, of course. But he would get about a tenth of its value, say twenty-five thousand pounds, which was more than a hundred thousand dollars.
In either currency it was enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.
The thought of that much money made his mouth water—but the jewelry itself was irresistible. Harry had seen pictures of it. The graduated stones of the necklace were perfectly matched; the diamonds set off the rubies like teardrops on a baby’s cheek; and the smaller pieces, the earrings and the bracelet, were perfectly proportioned. The whole ensemble, on the neck and ears and wrist of a beautiful woman, would be utterly ravishing.
Harry knew he would never again be this close to such a master-piece. Never.
He had to steal it.
The risks were appalling—but then, he had always been lucky.
“I don’t believe you’re listening to me,” Margaret said.
Harry realized he had not been paying attention. He grinned and said: “I’m sorry. Something you said sent me into a daydream.”
“I know,” she said. “From the look on your face, you were dreaming about someone you love.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nancy Lenehan waited in a fever of impatience while Mervyn Lovesey’s pretty yellow airplane was readied for takeoff. He was giving last-minute instructions to the man in the tweed suit, who seemed to be the foreman of a factory he owned. Nancy gathered that he had union trouble and a strike was threatened.
When he had finished, he turned to Nancy and said: “I employ seventeen toolmakers and every one of them’s a ruddy individualist.”
“What do you make?” she asked.
“Fans,” he replied. He pointed