Unlucky in Law

The doorknob twisted. Wearing a striped cardigan over a white shirt, white hair rumpled as if he had been napping, Klaus poked his head in. “How did it go today?” he asked as if it weren’t almost midnight.

“Did you drive here?” Nina asked.

“Still playing baby-sitter.” Klaus sat down heavily opposite her. “I am a

“You didn’t seem well. I’m sorry.”

“Pizza?” He picked up the slice and ate hungrily. “Excellent. So. I hear you have implicated Mr. Gabriel Wyatt in the murder of Christina Zhukovsky.”

“Stefan never even went to Christina’s,” Nina said. “I think we’ll get an acquittal. Jaime still has a lot of cross-examining to do, but after he’s finished I think we should rest on the defense side and let the case go to the jury.”

“Very good. However.”

Nina felt her insides clench. Pizza or Pohlma

“Perhaps.”

“What? What, Klaus?”

“What happened to the egg?” Klaus said. “Constantin’s little blue egg? He seems to have been very proud of it. That is why I hauled my ancient body out of bed tonight, left my warm wife, and drove my car back here, even though I have no business driving. I want to look at the Zhukovsky probate file again.”

“The egg?” She didn’t ask, Are you crazy? So much craziness skulked around the fringes of this case, she couldn’t fight it anymore.

“May I have the file?”

Nina pulled it out of the stack.

Klaus pulled his chair up to the opposite side of the desk, bowed his head, and started looking through it. Bits of mozzarella clung to his white beard. “Here’s the inventory and appraisal for the estate,” he said. “Note the absence of an egg. Any egg, even a reproduction of a Fabergé egg.”

“Maybe Constantin sold it. Christina hadn’t seen it since she was a child.”

“He wouldn’t do that. It was his proof.”

“It proved he was the tsarevitch?”

“Yes. No need to get cranky, my dear.”

“You’ve been on the Net.”

“I twiddled my digits all afternoon. I went to the very same page you are on right now,” Klaus said.

“These people with their stories. There were doubts about the diagnosis. The tsarevitch escaped from Ekaterinburg with a friendly family to Vladivostok, then Japan. Or Vie

“Do you think I have lost my wits? Gone dotty?” His eyes were on her, rheumy to be sure but extremely sharp at the moment.

Nina decided the time had come for honesty. He deserved that from her. “I think you have trouble with your memory, and I wonder about your judgment,” she said.

“Then I’m wasting my time with you.” Klaus got up. “Good evening. I will see you in court in the morning.” The door closed.

He had taken the sheets from the probate file, and Nina was afraid she would never see them again. She got up quickly and looked out into the dark hall.

Klaus hadn’t left. He had skittered down the hall to Alan’s office. The door was closed, but she could hear drawers opening and closing, see light under Alan’s door.

The co

What a wicked old man! But what a good idea; unethical, but good. They could always put the papers back exactly as they had found them and never tell anybody.

Pushing the door open a crack, Nina crept down the hallway. Klaus had already made a mess: Alan would never leave papers on the floor.

Klaus bent down in the corner, pulling up the rug.

He had truly fallen off the deep end. Nina entered the room. His back was to her. Crouching on the floor, he pulled mightily at the corner of the heavy rug. He had moved Alan’s prized reproduction gilt Louis XIV client chair aside.

“Need help?”

Klaus reared up, falling backward. “Miss Reilly! Do not do that ever, ever again!”

“I just thought you might need assistance with your completely unethical prying through Alan’s files. What are you up to?”

Klaus had gone back to his tugging. “Come help me.”

Together they pried up the corner, folding back a three-foot square.

Installed in the floor, black, about a foot square, was a safe. “He uses it for sensitive files, original wills, probate items he hasn’t distributed yet, that sort of thing,” Klaus told Nina.

“You know the combination?”

He nodded. “I have the information in case something happened to Alan. Although I have never tested them before, I assume my numbers are correct. Do it for me, please, my dear. My knees ache.”

Nina bent down and, using the numbers Klaus gave her, heard a click. She pulled on the handle and the door opened.

“Let’s have a look,” Klaus said. “Open sesame.”

“But Alan…”

“Are you in or out?” Klaus challenged her. Nina almost laughed. “All right then,” he said.

Inside, one compartment held files, the other, a few wrapped packages. She pulled the files out. “Ferrari,” the top one was labeled in Alan’s neat hand. The next one said “Pickering Will.” Then “Chavez Estate,” “Monte Rosa Will,” “Matter of Egler,” “My Will.” Nina said, “Nothing,” leafing through the files.

“Let us check the rest.”

“We are so bad.”

“In for a pe

“I’ll do it.” She pulled out the boxes. They looked like valuable items from probates Alan was handling, just what they ought to be. She opened a box marked “Monte Rosa,” and found a mass of diamond and gold jewelry piled inside. Two other marked boxes contained jewelry and coins. She had been down the hall from a lot of money and hadn’t known it. Alan should have kept this stuff in a safe-deposit box at a bank, but apparently he liked to keep an eye on things. The floor safe was a safe, after all. There was no rule against it.

A smaller box caught her eye. Unlabeled, with an old red ribbon circling the long end, it was made of carved wood. She raised an eyebrow at Klaus, who nodded. They were both sitting on the rug like kids opening Christmas presents. Slipping off the ribbon, she opened the box. Inside, she found something wrapped in yellow silk. It glimmered blue in the light of Alan’s green banker’s lamp.

A jeweled egg. Sapphires, they had to be. Nina held it in her hand. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “It can’t be.”

“The tsarevitch egg,” Klaus said. He whistled.

About three inches tall, it was encrusted with precious stones and gold filigree. Nina opened it. Inside, a frame of diamond filigree surrounded a tiny painting.

“Holy Mary,” she said. “It’s him. The tsarevitch.”

The little boy in the picture smiled. He had sandy, almost reddish hair, and wore a sailor suit. The picture was only about an inch square.

She was holding history. Gently she set it down on its blue-and-gold stand.

“Alan was holding on to it. But for who?” Nina said at last.

“I believe I will call him,” Klaus said.

“It’s after midnight!”

“You don’t think this is important enough?” Holding on to the desk, Klaus pulled himself up, bent to and fro a few times to get the cricks out, then lowered himself into Alan’s leather chair and picked up the phone.

“We have violated your safe,” he said to Alan. No beating around the bush, his tone said; it’s late. “Yes, at the office. We found the egg.” He listened for a moment. “I understand. I will explain everything. But first you will tell me about the egg.” Another flood of indistinct words emanated from the phone. “Very well. We will be here.”