On the opposite side of the desk and now facing him was a small, rotund man with close-cropped hair, a stubbly beard, heavy flaccid jowls, darting piercing eyes and smelling generally unclean. What’s more, he was German and had made a nuisance of himself by banging loudly on the main entrance doors long before the house was officially open. The caretaker had had to summon a clerk who had summoned his deputy who, in turn, had hired a trap to deliver a message inviting him to come into the house at his convenience which was subordinate speak for as soon as possible. With barely concealed displeasure the auctioneer demanded what was so important as to require his early presence at the house.
‘I have something special to show you,’ said the jeweller.
‘It will have to be something exceptional to impress me,’ replied the auctioneer, almost sneering.
‘You will be impressed when you see what I’ve got to show you,’ replied the jeweller, not showing the slightest deference to sartorial style, rank, or, indeed, standard of cleanliness. Taking the cabochon from the secret pocket in his breeches, he removed it from the grubby handkerchief in which it had been wrapped and placed it precisely on the pristine green leather of the desktop.
‘So,’ said the auctioneer haughtily, his hands clasped as if he were about to make a steeple with his index fingers, ‘what is this?’
‘Something you have probably never seen before I’ll bet,’ said the jeweller evenly without being deflected by the intended sneer.
The auctioneer continued to stare at the cabochon. Finally he slid open the top right-hand drawer of the desk and removed the white cotton gloves. Standing by the window he slowly rotated the red jewel and observed the changes in the stone as sunlight fell on its surface.
‘And what is it you want?’ demanded the auctioneer, realising as he uttered the words that it was now no longer a question of what the jeweller wanted, it was also about what the auctioneer wanted.
‘I want it auctioned here in this house and I want you to send for all the leading cutters and designers in the Square Mile to come to a viewing ahead of the auction,’ he answered without a trace of hesitation.
‘And what makes you think they will be interested?’
‘If you choose to insult me again I shall take it to another house. This is not the only specialist jewellery house in Antwerp!’
The auctioneer mentally kicked himself for his prejudiced remark. This short, smelly, round man was as sharp as his darting eyes and needed to be approached in a less condescending way. He would change tack.
‘Moreover it is clear to me that you have already appreciated that this stone is very special,’ continued the jeweller. ‘A piece like this comes available to the industry maybe only once in several centuries.’
‘I would have to get experts in to confirm that it is not a fake.’
‘Then summon them immediately,’ said the jeweller, sitting very solidly in the chair as if he had no intention of moving. ‘And by the way,’ he added, ‘any attempt to swindle me by claiming that it is not a natural stone or by substituting a fake in its place will prove futile as I have taken the precaution of keeping the two slithers of stone that I cut from the smaller end. If you look very, very carefully you will see that each sliver fits perfectly like a shoulder on a torso. You could never achieve that fit with a fake as the surface I cut is not flat, it is curved, it is toric.’
The beckoned experts spoke in low Flemish voices around the auctioneer’s desk. Two were from rival houses while the third was the in-house specialist. Their opinions were unanimous. None had seen a stone of such quality before. It would command a price of hundreds of thousands of Belgian francs. Without doubt, they concurred with knowing nods and subtle hand gestures, the buyer would receive a lucrative commission from a nobleman: a Hapsburg perhaps, or a Romanov, or a Battenberg. Or maybe it would be a new-world industrial baron such as a Guggenheim, or a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller. Such a commission would generate great riches for all involved: the auctioneer, the buyer, the cutter, the polisher, the jewellery designer, the seller. Oh yes, here was an unquestionable opportunity for great riches.
‘Do you own this stone legally?’ enquired the auctioneer.
‘I bought it and paid the price in full,’ rejoined the jeweller, pulling the bill of sale from a pocket and proffering it to the auctioneer for scrutiny.
‘And what terms are you now seeking?’ continued the auctioneer.
‘Payment by gold coinage today, all coins to be of the 1890 issue of the Swiss twenty-francs coin of 0.2 ounces of fine gold,’ replied the jeweller, not the least fazed by the four sets of eyes riveted into his. ‘No Belgian francs, neither banknotes nor coinage. Transaction to be completed today, delays will increase the price.’
The auctioneer did not demur. The new Swiss twenty-francs gold coin was now the gold standard for transactions in the Square Mile and gold was king.
The number of gold coins was agreed, perhaps a touch too easily had the jeweller reflected on it, but he had a safe passage plan to implement and didn’t perceive any danger.
There was no handshake between the jeweller and the auctioneer after the transaction had been completed. A bill of sale and the requisite number of gold coins were pushed across the desk towards the jeweller at the same time that he impelled the cabochon towards the auctioneer. He had demanded five minutes alone in an antechamber before leaving the building in which time he planned to carefully stow the gold coins in the secret pockets of his waistcoat. While his outer attire was grubby and of dubious quality his waistcoat was spotlessly clean and of a rich and sturdy material and when unbuttoned revealed a silk lining in which tiny, secret pockets had been created with artful sewing, forming an array of three rows of four on each side of the front opening. Long ago his wife had insisted that he needed a safe and prudent method to transport the small diamonds that he usually dealt in between customer and workshop and vice versa and they had both agreed, his wife very much with tongue in cheek, that nobody would ever guess that the small, messily dressed rotund man was worth hitting over the head because he looked as if he would have nothing worth stealing. Each little square compartment was reinforced with double stitching along its sides and had a fold of silk at its bottom to double the thickness, something his wife had said was necessary to prevent the sharp facets of a diamond slicing through thin material. When he had placed several coins into each compartment he buttoned up the waistcoat, wrapped his outer coat tightly about him and left the building.
He flagged down a horse-drawn omnibus not far from the building’s entrance. Its destination was the busy central station, still a wooden structure in those days but with a regular daily service to Brussels and irregular services to a variety of local destinations. He had no doubt that he had been watched mounting the omnibus and that one of the auction house’s thugs would be waiting for him at the station. There would be no good outcome for him at the station. He had to avoid it. Sticking to his plan like glue he jumped from the omnibus’s open running board a few streets away from the auction house. From here we would walk quickly towards a point on the bank of the river Schelde where he had pre-arranged to be met by the ferryman who had brought him into Antwerp from the river’s estuary on his journey from Kiel to Belgium. The gold was heavy and the distance to the river bank longer than he had envisaged. He walked as quickly as he could, knowing that time was of the essence for his own safety. He was sweating profusely. Every step became more difficult. Concentration on finding his way to the river bank via the narrow and sinuous streets with tall buildings which allowed little view of the landscape beyond became stressful. He had a searing pain in his upper left arm. With relief he finally arrived at the river bank and hailed the ferryman. As he made to clamber aboard, the searing pain entered his chest and he collapsed, tumbling from the gangplank into the murky waters of the river. The weight of the gold in his waistcoat pulled him face down and
he slipped under the ferry’s keel. His body did not re-emerge. The ferryman had been paid half his fee in advance with the promise of the second half on completion of his task. He wasn’t going to hang around here to be accused of murder. He set his small sail and was soon away on the ebbing tide.
For all his airs and graces the auctioneer was little better than a refined bruiser. His house now had the wonderful gemstone but the price paid was based on recovery of the gold in full, the thug at the station having been told to retrieve the gold from the jeweller, dead or alive, but preferably dead. His mood of annoyance was plain for all to see when he learned that the thug had lost his quarry. The same knife that had been intended to slit the throat of the jeweller from ear to ear would now be used on the thug by a hired killer. There was no safety in numbers in the Square Mile. It was still dog eat dog even amongst its own people.
The cutter, his associate and the designer spent a long time at their workbench examining the cabochon. In an attempt to maximise the sale price the auctioneer had allowed private viewings in their own premises to three distinguished, expert cutters who he believed had both the skill to cut the virgin stone into something brilliant and a network of ultra-rich customers to bid against one another and thereby pay through the nose for the right to own it. By the end of the viewing the cutter and his associates had sketched a design and formulated a cutting strategy to achieve the blueprint with minimal waste of material. After the viewing, with the stone’s characteristics fresh in their minds, they set down on paper a detailed account of how they would transform the stone into a necklace and earrings. Four lozenge-shaped pieces of approximately three and a half centimetres length and a centimetre in diameter would be cut starting from the larger, rounder end. Two pieces, echoing the same lozenge shape and approximately one and three quarter centimetres long with a girth consistent with this length, would be cut starting from the smaller end. All six stones would hang vertically with their lower ends being left as smooth, soft curves. In contrast the body of each stone would be a mass of tiny facets each at a different angle to its adjacent neighbours thus ensuring continuous flashes of radiance from each individual stone. The four necklace stones would be strung from a seven-centimetre plain bar of pure gold by four short but exquisite gold chains so that each had the opportunity to rotate somewhat, enabling the observer to note the smouldering fluorescence from deep within. The pattern of the four short chains, interlocking heart shapes, would be echoed in the neck chain but would be of a larger scale and in its own right it would be of spectacular glamour and value. The necklace patterns would be repeated for the earrings. When they were satisfied with their work they submitted their bid and an artist commissioned to produce a representation of their ideas.
The Hapsburg dynasty became formally extinct in the eighteenth century when the senior branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain and the junior branch on the death of the male line in 1740. But with the dynastic resolve, tenacity and chameleon instincts that had permitted them to rule large chunks of Western Europe from the eleventh century onwards they rose again in the mid-nineteenth century as the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine which was later referred to simply as the House of Hapsburg. They still had power. They still had lineage. They still owned land. They had vast wealth. And they wanted the necklace and earrings. The bid was won. The virgin stone was cut. The Ruby Reds were born and would soon adorn a Hapsburg.
The Austrian general’s adjutant took his place standing behind his master in the railway carriage in the siding in Compiègne. It was a solemn and degrading event as the Allies sought to humiliate the axis forces when they surrendered unconditionally in November 1918. The adjutant’s plans had been made some weeks previous and as he stood to attention during the endless signing ceremony the details of his escape plan flowed through his mind. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was no more, his position of authority in their army was at an end, his land and estates would be seized or at best split up and divided amongst the proletariat who would be quick to show their resentment for his class and the bellicose views he espoused which had led them into their current parlous state. And there was the real threat of being tried for war crimes for the unnecessary killing of civilians and the cruel treatment of prisoners. There was nothing left for him in his homeland. Escape with his family was his only option. But escape came at a price. His only portable asset was the Ruby Reds. Payment by promissory notes of bank or deeds of land had been met with derision and only cash in US dollars or Swiss francs would be accepted. During the fifteen years or so since he had commissioned a prominent cutter of gemstones in Antwerp to create the Ruby Reds for his future bride, they had been dazzling the Viennese upper classes at soirees and balls. They were now worth a mint and he had negotiated hard for the getaway.
His close family, comprising wife, son, two teenage daughters, widowed mother, parents-in-law and maiden sister, had already started their escape, travelling by road, horse-drawn cart, or on foot to Bregenz on the Swiss border where a small ferry boat that in peaceful times plied between the small towns and villages along the picturesque banks of the Lake of Constance would, by night, ferry them secretly along the southern shore landing them short of the town of Rorschach. They would have to clamber onto Swiss soil while dodging its border patrol and wait there for the adjutant.
His own flight would be as long but more dangerous. Under guard from Compiègne to their billet in a first-class hotel outside Paris, the German high command had secured a few hours’ grace to deal with matters appertaining to the disbandment and dispersal of their armies before putting themselves under the power of their victors. Removing his tunic festooned with badges and gold braid, he made his way quickly down a set of stairs used only by the staff to ground level and slowly pushed open the heavy door which gave onto a loading bay where a laundry van was parked. Without delay the adjutant stepped into the van amongst the laundry baskets, closed the door and the van drove off. Taking its normal route into an industrial arrondissement of Paris the van stopped momentarily outside the Gare d’Austerlitz and the adjutant, now dressed in the clothes of an ordinary office worker which had been secreted inside the van, stepped out and the van drove off. Together with the man who was waiting for him at the station they travelled first to Dijon, changed to a regional train to Besançon, and finally boarded the train to La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Swiss border town. Corrupt officials on both sides of the border waved through the office worker and with a ticket in his pocket for the fast train to Basle and sufficient money to purchase his onward one to the other side of Switzerland he sat back content. He would soon be in German-speaking territory and as long as he adapted his accent somewhat he would not attract attention.
Reunited with his family and using the false identification papers purporting to show a Swiss family from Zürich, they began their trek to South America, first journeying overland to Oporto, then under steam in a merchant vessel to Recife followed by numerous local ferries down the Brazilian coast to Buenos Aires. Six months’ accommodation in a villa on the outskirts of the Argentine capital had been secured as part of the plan. The final chapter was to hand over to the business man who had given them the keys to the villa, the second tranche of the Ruby Reds, two necklace stones and one earring stone, the first instalment having already been paid to the former French “patriot” who had organised the European part of the escape. All three men knew that the value of the Ruby Reds lay in their entirety, a single stone or even five holding only a fraction of the value of all six together and thus there was no temptation for treachery along the way. The South American would make his way to Paris with his half of the Ruby Reds and together with the French patriot they would present them for auction and divide the proceeds.
When the Ruby Reds came to auction they were purchased by a member of the British aristocracy. From his estate in the heart of rural England the earl, representing the seventh generation of his family to profit from their ancestor’s exploits on the
battlefield of Sedgemoor in the late seventeenth century when James II’s forces defeated those of the Duke of Monmouth ending the Monmouth Rebellion, made a promise to his unfaithful wife that if she denounced her lover and swore to forsake sexual pleasures outside marriage then he would buy the Ruby Reds for her to wear at gala dinners in the Grand Hall of their stately home. It was a bargain she would not keep but the indolent and weak earl was desperate to hide his wife’s affair with the estate manager and he wasted a vast sum of the family’s fortune, built up by previous earls with greater wisdom and guile than him, on trying to buy his wife’s future fidelity. With just one child, a son, the succession was assured. The young Marquis had received an education more in line with the modern world. He had the wit to realise that the Great War would herald an enormous change in the relationship between nobility and proletariat so that as the working classes became richer and stronger so the status of the nobility would fade away. Subservience would be a thing of the past and money would talk louder than titles. He could not get his father to realise that they were living on borrowed time and that efficient management and expansion of the estate’s resources was necessary if they were to keep their heads above water. His father the earl continued to lead a life of excesses, not accepting the changed order and paying no heed to his son’s warnings. By the time of his death in 1950 the estate had been turning in losses for several years. With death duties to pay the Marquis, now the eighth earl was obliged to sell the Ruby Reds for the best price he could get. A specialist auction house in Paris was the venue of a much publicised sale.
When the rank and file soldiers returned home from the Great War they were changed men. They had fought for their country for four long and bitter years and seen at first hand the horrors of the battlefields with the wounded and dead strewn across the landscape. They would not tolerate a return of the status quo to gentry and workers. The days of doffing their caps to the British upper class was past. One young soldier, brought up in the East End of London, having had his fill of the officer class, was impatient to start a new life and looked to the new world for inspiration. With his wife and infant daughter they boarded a ship in Liverpool in 1919 and sailed to New York as immigrants. With no language barrier, save an accent enjoyed by some but barely understood by other English-speaking Americans, the former soldier found work straightaway on construction sites in Manhattan doing menial tasks and heavy lifting. Having taken his country’s shilling and joined up almost directly from school at the age of sixteen in 1914 after lying about his age, he wasn’t trained for any career path. He was impressed with the classless New World order where accent and background was no bar to advancement. Working on construction sites by day and training at evening classes by night he learned the skills required to progress to gang foreman, and when his employer won contracts in the ever expanding cities of California he was one of the first to volunteer to work on the west coast.
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