Deadly Jewels by Jeannette de Beauvoir

know the idiom. Your English is better than my grandmother’s.”
    â€œEveryone’s English is better than your grandmother’s.”
    â€œ Alors ?”
    â€œWell, it’s a bit of a long story, but essentially the Brits sent a lot of stuff here at the beginning of the war. They sent the country’s gold reserve, and everyone’s securities, too, private securities they’d confiscated. It wasn’t just to keep them safe: they were payments, agreed between the governments to pay for convoys sent from Canada and the States to supply the British.” I hesitated. “Believe it or not, it was something they called Operation Fish.”
    â€œAppropriate,” my husband commented. “What about the crown jewels? Were they part of this fish thing?”
    â€œThey came with the second shipment,” I said, picking my notes off the coffee table. “Complete secrecy, of course, they even had the crew put on tropical white uniforms to confuse any lurking German spies into thinking they were heading south—well, there were U-boats all over the North Atlantic. The Emerald survived a bad storm and docked in Halifax; the gold and jewels went on from there by train to Montréal.”
    â€œIt would make a good movie,” Ivan said. He runs the casino; he always has an instinct and eye out for entertainment.
    â€œIt did,” I said tartly. “Something called The Bullion Boys , produced in the nineties by the BBC, has Liverpool dockworkers plotting to steal the gold before the Emerald sails.”
    He nodded approvingly. “Good premise.”
    â€œWhy do I feel you’re not taking any of this very seriously?”
    Ivan sighed, stood, stretched, took his apple core into the kitchen, came back. “It’s all fascinating, Martine, but I don’t see the connection to Montréal’s public relations in the twenty-first century.” He headed up the open staircase that leads to our bedroom on the second level of the loft. “I’m going to change my clothes.” For reasons best known to him, Ivan stays in his elegant work suits during dinner. It’s a little like having a date, albeit one in which I have to still do the cleanup.
    â€œThere is a connection!” I yelled after him. “We saved their jewels for them!”
    â€œNot exactly hot off the presses, that news.” His voice was muffled; I imagined he was pulling a sweater over his face.
    â€œBut proof of it would be,” I said. “And there may be more. In fact, there may be a lot more. This researcher—she’s been hinting around at it, giving me bits and pieces, I think she’s being cagey because I work for Jean-Luc. I don’t think she trusts the government that much—”
    â€œAmazing that anybody could feel that way,” my husband interrupted drily, coming back into the room in a sweater and sweatpants.
    â€œSarcasm will get you nowhere,” I told him. “She’s feeling us out. Well, me, anyway. I got her away from Jean-Luc as quickly as I could.”
    â€œHe isn’t one to inspire confidence,” Ivan agreed.
    â€œAnd I do think there’s a mystery here, Ivan. I think that maybe something happened back in 1939, and now we need to find out what it was. I think that—”
    Ivan sat down on the coffee table, right across from me, his knees touching mine. “No,” he said.
    â€œYou haven’t even heard—”
    â€œI’ve heard enough,” he said. “Remember, I’ve heard that from you before. Something about the past having repercussions on the present. And the last time you got involved in anything mysterious, you came way too close to getting killed.” He put a hand on my knee. “I’ve gotten used to you, see,” he said easily. “Don’t want to have to break in a new model.”
    He was right: I had, in fact, come perilously close to getting myself