e9c12ac8d703d9a536f23183edf8b22c

Max, more laidback and assuming the attitude of an elder statesman, said,“Is this the diamond nobody knows the origin of?”

“Yep. They call it the Pink Lady.”

She started up her engine, and soon was tootling along the road into town.

“Why do they call it that, Odelia?” asked Dooley.

“Well, mainly because it’s pink, I guess,” she said, “and also because it looks exactly like a famous diamond called the Pink Lady.”

It had actually been Dolores Peltz, the police station dispatcher, who thought she recognized the gem when Dan had published a picture on the Gazette website. This particular diamond had been set in an engagement ring, offered by Sheikh Bab El Ehr, ruler of Khemed, to his betrothed on the occasion of their marriage. The gem had gone missing thirty-something years ago, never to be found.

“Did the Pink Lady belong to a real pink lady?” asked Dooley.

“I doubt it, Dooley. Besides, chances that this diamond is the actual Pink Lady are very slim.”

“So it could bea pink lady, but notthe Pink Lady?”

“Exactly,” she said with a smile as she parked her car in front of Gems World, the jeweler on whose shoulders now rested the responsibility of finding out where this diamond came from.

3

Thormond Linoski, owner and proprietor of Gems World (‘A World of Gems at Your Fingertips’), was a smallish man, with a ring of frizzy hair crowning a large dome, which was attached to a reedy frame. He looked as if he’d been carrying the weight of the world on his narrow shoulders for far too many years, and the slightly bewildered look in his eyes confirmed this view. When we walked in, he plastered a thin-lipped but pleasant smile on his careworn face, and greeted us with the kind of professional warmth and friendliness your small shopkeeper learns to master over a long and checkered career.

“Hello there,” he said the moment he recognized our human, and there was a slight diminution of warmth as he eyed her expectantly. Instinctively the man knew that Odelia hadn’t come to the shop to sample his wares, or spend lavishly on a gem, and his next words confirmed this. “You’re here for that diamond, I presume? Has your uncle found the owner yet?” A flicker of hope shone in his pale blue eyes , but when Odelia shook her head, the flicker was replaced by a look of annoyance. “I was really hoping to get quick service from our local police department, Miss Poole.”

“Mrs. Poole,” I corrected the man from my position on the floor. Not that he seemed to notice. He directed a disinterested glance in my direction, then up at Odelia again.

“I don’t feel entirely safe keeping that precious stone in my shop, you know. It’s been one person after another who wants to take a look at it. The sooner you find the owner the better.”

“Maybe you should close up the shop for now?” Odelia suggested, her voice laced with concern. That’s my human for you: always concerned with the wellbeing of her fellow man, even when that fellow man doesn’t show her the courtesy to remember that she’s recently plighted her troth to another fellow man, and is now Mrs. Poole and no longer Miss Poole. Though of course one could argue that she’s actually Mrs. Kingsley, but then Odelia had grown attached to the name her parents christened her with—she has, after all, been carrying that name for the past twenty-four years. One would get attached to something in less time, wouldn’t you agree?

“Close my shop? I can’t close my shop. I have a living to make, you know.” He sighed as he drew a hand across his brow. “Though if that stone really is the famous Pink Lady, maybe I should close my doors for now. And upgrade my security system. I’m really not equipped to deal with the kind of attention a stone of that notoriety will no doubt garner.”

“Do you think it’s the actual Pink Lady?”

Mr. Linoski wavered.“It certainly looks like the genuine article. It has all the hallmarks—it even has very faint markings where you can see it was set.”

“Set in a ring, you mean?”

The jeweler nodded.“Do you want to take a look?”

Odelia’s face lit up with excitement. “Oh, can I?”

“Only because it’s you,” said Thormond, who looked old enough to have dandled Odelia on his knee when she was little. He disappeared through a small door, only to return promptly, carrying a small red velvet box in his hands. He was holding it reverently, as one would hold the hand of the Queen, when granted the rare privilege of an audience with that formidable lady. “Here she is,” he said in hushed tones, betraying his reverence. He placed the box on the glass counter and opened it. Odelia bent over the item, and from her quick intake of breath I imagined this Pink Lady was a realsight to behold.

Odelia gestured to me and Dooley and asked,“Can I…”

The jeweler’s face took on a stern expression, not unlike the wandmaker in the Harry Potter stories if a pimple-faced wizard had wandered into his store and declared that he didn’t like the wand he bought and could he exchange it for one with more bells and whistles.