Donovans - Pearl Cove Part 36

He looked at his watch, sighed, and knew it wasn't going to be a short visit. Silently he followed Hannah down the first row of cabinets and display cases. They pa.s.sed in front of a wall with photographs of the most famous pearls in history, from Western queens to Eastern potentates, all of whom were draped with huge, priceless ropes of natural pearls. There was a photo of the Hope pearl, a monster white baroque weighing in at eighteen hundred grams. There was a nod to Elizabeth Taylor's La Peregrina, bought for her by her lover and two-time husband, Richard Burton.

La Peregrina was a huge five-hundred-year-old pearl that had been owned by royalty. It was rumored to have been eaten by one of Taylor's lap dogs; the pearl had emerged from the canine digestive tract a shadow of its former sizable, l.u.s.trous self. The picture on the Linskys' wall was taken before the incident. Afterward, there probably hadn't been much left to photograph.

"Sad, sad story," Fred said, materializing at Hannah's elbow. "Pity she didn't feed him one of her whacking great diamonds. It would have emerged unscathed. Calcium carbonate is susceptible even to mild acids such as sweat, much less to the horrific acids in a mammalian gut."

"I heard it was only well chewed, not swallowed," Becky said.

"Either way, a legendary pearl was lost. I can't imagine anyone feeding pearls to a pet."

"I doubt that she fed La Peregrina to the dog." Archer looked at his wrist.w.a.tch and added, "It probably scarfed the pearl off a bedside table."

"Barbara Hutton fed Marie Antoinette's pearls to a goose," Becky said.

"What?" Hannah said in disbelief.

"She heard that it was the best way to add l.u.s.ter to pearls."

"Good G.o.d." Hannah shook her head, appalled that anything so unique and valuable could have such an ignominious end. "So much history and beauty reduced to dog and goose droppings."

"Look at it this way," Archer said. "When Rome burned, the cream of the Persian pearls for the last millennium went up in smoke."

"Stop," she said. "I don't want to think about it."

"Then think about this." He gestured to a prayer rug whose elegant geometric designs were outlined in pearls. "A devout, and devoutly wealthy, Muslim said his prayers on this five times a day."

"Elegant and beautiful," Hannah said. "But it would be like kneeling on frozen peas."

Archer gave a crack of laughter. His hands reached to touch her, just for a few seconds, but he turned the automatic motion into one of looking at his watch.

"It's still there," Becky said tartly. "Is the buckle loose? You keep checking as though you expected your watch to be gone."

"Guilty," he said. "Hannah and I are on a tight schedule."

"Young people. Always rushing from one place to another. Never enough time to appreciate the place where they are."

"There isn't enough time on earth to appreciate your pearls," Archer said.

"Ha. Your collection "

"Is just beginning," Archer cut in firmly.

"I still say that if you would trade that South Seas gold paragon for our "

"Quit tormenting the boy, Becky," Fred interrupted. He tugged at the string tie he wore. His white shirt was so worn it gleamed like silk at the collar and elbows, but it was clean as a pearl. "He doesn't want to let go of that beauty, and I don't blame him. Instead of badgering him, let's show him the new stuff. I want his advice on one of the lots."

"I'm flattered," Archer said.

"You should be," Fred retorted. "I'm old, but I'm not a fool. I know my eyes aren't what they used to be, even with magnifying lenses. The boy we hired to color-sort isn't as good as he thinks he is. He sure as h.e.l.l isn't as good as you are."

"Oh, all right," Becky grumbled. "We'll go to the sorting room."

Hannah didn't wait for a second invitation. She headed straight for the room that opened off the rows of display cases.

In some ways, walking through the wide door was like corning home. In one important way it wasn't: Len wasn't sitting in the corner, staring at her with eyes that weren't quite sane.

Nor was there the chatter and laughter of the Chinese workers who had slowly replaced the j.a.panese employees in Pearl Cove.

"What are you a.s.sembling here?" Archer asked. He gestured to a sorting table where three groups of pearls were lined up on three different trays. The trays had channels of different sizes to hold the pearls in parallel, horizontal rows from top to bottom. Each tray held a separate color of South Seas pearls: black, gold, white. A nearby table held more pearls of each color, each in a separate tray. Small shipping boxes were stacked in the center. Each contained more pearls.

"That's the beginnings of a necklace, part of a parure for an old client." Fred sighed. "Or it will be if we ever get enough of the right pearls. Makes my eyes hurt just to think about it."

"How many do you need?"

"Fifty of each. Minimum. A hundred would be better. Spherical is preferred. The client can afford it and we have our eye on another acquisition for our museum." Archer smiled in silent sympathy.

Hannah went to the table, looked at the pearls that were being sorted, and glanced over at the nearby table. "Is your first sort for color?"

"Yes," Becky said. "Since several pieces of jewelry are involved, color is more important than size variations. l.u.s.ter is a very, very close second. So is shape."

"May I?" Hannah asked. Becky looked at Archer.

"I'm told she's one of the best," he said simply. "Go ahead," Becky said, gesturing.

Absently Hannah nodded. She was already focused entirely on the pearls. Switching on the overhead light, she began with the silver-white pearls. The gradations of color were both subtle and profound, enough for a roomful of philosophers to argue over. Yet she saw the differences as clearly as other people saw the gap between yellow, orange, and red.

Humming softly, enjoying the cool, silky weight of the pearls and the feeling of solving a fascinating puzzle, she sorted the gems. Like a Chinese merchant working an abacus, her fingers flew over the rows of pearls. Unlike an abacus, the pearls were free to jump up or down in the parallel rows.

When the sleeves of the jacket draped over her shoulders kept getting in the way, Archer removed it. She didn't even pause in her work. In fact, he doubted if she even noticed what he had done. She was wholly caught in the spell of the pearls and the challenge of matching them one by one.

When she was finished, she stepped back. Only seven of the hundred pearls had survived the sort. She had placed them side by side on the top row of the tray. The rest were lined up on the rows below in order of diminishing acceptability of the color match.

"My G.o.d," Fred said, staring.

"Incredible," Becky agreed. She stepped forward and bent over the tray. "You're very good, dear."

"The pearls in the next row are an acceptable match," Hannah said, "particularly if you're looking for a bracelet or a brooch to go with the necklace. But I sorted first for the necklace, because that's always the most difficult." Rather wistfully she looked at the table where other pearls waited to be sorted.

"Go ahead," Archer said quietly. "I don't think the Linskys will mind."

"Mind?" Becky laughed in disbelief. "You've accomplished more in a few minutes than any of us have in hours."

"You had already done the initial sort on that lot," Hannah pointed out.

"Don't bother to be modest," Becky retorted. "I'll bet you could have done the first sort buck naked and standing on your head."

"I've never tried it that way." Hannah smiled as she added, "Standing on my head, that is."

Fred laughed and his brown eyes glinted with a wicked male light.

Archer swallowed hard. The thought of watching her naked in a room full of pearls made heat settle heavily in the pit of his stomach. The smooth texture of her skin would rival that of the pearls. The flush of pa.s.sion would be more beautiful than any pearly l.u.s.ter... and her sleek heat would be a delicious contrast to the cool heaviness of pearls.

"But it's too cold to work naked here," she added, "so I'll do it the hard way."

She turned to the next table, where groups of pearls were spread out flat. With amazing speed she moved pearls around in the first group, following clues only she could see. Very quickly she divided the group into two piles. The first she simply pushed aside and didn't look at again.

"Do you have more trays or should I use the one on the other table?" she asked without looking away from the pearls. "We have more," Becky said. "Coming up," Fred said.

Nodding vaguely, Hannah moved on to another unsorted pile. When the trays appeared at her elbow, she put them to use without a word. The only sound in the room was her soft humming. The tunes were a mixture of Australian folk songs and the hymns she had been raised with. Though the speed of the music varied, her concentration didn't.

Archer watched every move she made. He was fascinated by her skill, her quickness, her agile fingers. He considered himself a good pearl sorter, but she was better. Much better. Even in Mikimoto's huge sorting rooms, he had never seen anyone work with her speed and precision. No wonder Len had demanded that she match the Black Trinity for him.

Rows of pearls formed with dazzling speed on the sorting trays. Once the gems were lined up, the subtle color variations that separated one line from the next became more obvious. Sometimes it was simply a matter of surface perfection. Most often the differences lay in the orient, beyond man's ability to touch or change. Orient was the soul of the pearl, the mystery of it, and the primal magic; the G.o.d seed that mankind had worshiped for thousands of years.

Hannah looked at the finished trays, stepped back, swapped several pearls among the trays, and brooded over the result. One tray held only twelve pearls. Each one had the same silver-white, moon-G.o.ddess sheen. She turned back to the first tray she had sorted, picked up the seven gems from the top row, and mixed them in with the twelve other pearls. The match was perfect. Archer's skin p.r.i.c.kled in primal response to the gift Hannah took for granted. It was one thing to color-match while looking at the pearls; it was quite another to have a visual memory so precise that you could match new pearls to remembered ones without ever comparing them except in your mind.

If he had any doubts about her statement that she would recognize individual pearls from the Black Trinity no matter where she found them, he had no doubts now.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it," Fred said in a hushed voice. "She never even looked back at the first group."

"Dear, any time you want a job, come to us," Becky said. "We'd pay twice the going rate three times for someone with your skill."

Hannah made an absent sound. Her attention was on the unopened boxes of pearls. "I love matching them. It's like an endless, beautiful puzzle. The only thing I enjoy as much is carving wood, but all my tools are in Broome."

"Well, in that case," Becky said, heading for the unopened boxes, "why don't we dive into a few more of these lots?"

Archer started to object, but decided not to. The haunted look was gone from Hannah's eyes. For now she wasn't thinking of Len and death and the Black Trinity. If sorting pearls gave her that much pleasure, then the rest of the world could just stay on hold for a while longer.

"Wait," Fred said. "Do you remember all pearl colors that well, or just white?"

"My husband and I farmed South Seas pearls," Hannah said. "We had every color."

"Then maybe you can settle an argument my wife and I have been having. That's why we asked Archer to come here. I bought some pearls I think are abalone, even though they're big and round. She says they're from cultured salt.w.a.ter oysters."

"I don't know if I could tell the difference," Hannah said. "I've only worked with salt.w.a.ter oyster pearls."

"I might be able to," Archer said. "Let's see what you have."

Fred went to an electronic wall safe, entered the combination on a number pad whose keys were capped with mother-of-pearl, and pulled out a velvet jeweler's case.

"If they're abalone," he said, walking back to Hannah and Archer, "then they're basically museum goods. The chance of finding enough for commercial use would be slim, because abalone pearls are nearly always baroque."

"But if they're cultured oyster pearls," Becky said, "there are more where they came from."

"These are too colorful to come from oysters," Fred objected as he opened the case.

Rainbows swirled and smoldered beneath clear black ice. The pearls were perhaps fourteen millimeters, spherical, and had superb orient.

"Oyster," Hannah said huskily. "Cultured. Australian."

"But " Fred began.

"She's right," Archer said flatly. "If you cut one of them open, you'd find a bead of American pigtoe mussel. In fact, Hannah could have seeded the oyster that produced that pearl herself."

"Told you," Becky said. "If you would ever listen to me, you wouldn't have to bother other people with your problems."

Fred shot her a look. She smiled serenely.

"May I look at the pearls more closely?" Hannah asked.

Grumbling at having lost an argument to his wife, Fred handed the box to Hannah. Silently she turned toward better light and studied the pearls. After a time she carefully closed the box and gave it back to Fred.

"Hannah?" Archer asked softly.

She shook her head. However beautiful the pearls were, however valuable, they weren't from the Black Trinity. "A different group."

"Where can I get more of these?" Fred asked.

"Wherever you got those," Archer said before Hannah could answer.

"He said these were all he had."

"Who was he?" Archer asked.

Fred hesitated, then sighed. "They're stolen, aren't they." It wasn't really a question.

"Yes," Hannah said simply.

"From you?"

"Yes. And from Archer. We're partners in an Australian periculture operation."

Fred looked at Archer, who nodded.

"You've been sitting on pearls like this all these years and never told me?" Fred demanded, angry and more than a little hurt.

"My partner's husband was sitting on them," Archer said. "I saw one about seven years ago, then never saw another until last week. Who sold them to you?"

Fred opened the box and stared at the pearls, frowning. He wasn't happy about any of it, especially the knowledge that he had bought stolen goods from a longstanding source. He snapped the box closed. "Teddy Yamagata."

Twenty-two.