"Now are you going to tell me?" All I had told Sabrina was that I was pretty sure the eggs were in the basement. Why I wanted to keep it a surprise, I'm not sure. Maybe I was just proud of my deduction and wanted to present the grand reveal. Who knows, but to give her credit, she played along. Although, if it wasn't there, I was going to look pretty foolish. But looking foolish in front of Sabrina didn't bother me.

"When we were down here before, what did we see?"

"Dust."

"Besides that." We reached the corner with the Simpson Gallery items. "What is out of place here?"

She looked at the labeled boxes—the two opened Paintings boxes, the Sculptures box, Records box and Christmas Decorations box. And then I saw the light go on in her head.

"Of course," she said, "Christmas decorations."

"You've just gone out of business and you are storing the items not picked up by people. What possible use would you have to save Christmas decorations? If Bruce felt it was safe enough to hide the painting there, why not the eggs? This Simpson guy must have been someone he knew—from his childhood, maybe?"

I reached in and pulled out the box. It was about two feet long, two feet deep, and two feet wide.

"Drumroll, please."

The tape had long since disintegrated, so I just opened the lid. Tinsel. Well, that was a little disheartening. I pulled away the tinsel to reveal Christmas ornaments—brightly painted bulbs of all shapes and sizes. Carefully, one by one we lifted them out of the box. At the very bottom were three items individually wrapped in paper. I looked over at Sabrina. I was having trouble breathing. No wonder, I was holding my breath.

I picked up the first one. It was heavy. Definitely not a Christmas bulb. I unwrapped it. A Faberge Egg! There was no doubt about it. It was gold, with an ornate design along the top and a ring of jewels around the middle. It sat in a small, square, jewel-encrusted base.

"Oh … my … God!" said Sabrina.

We opened the other two. Equally as ornate, but very different from each other. We knew we were in the presence of a great historic find—not to mention a fortune. Before we flew out, I had seen online that one of the eggs from the same collection had recently been found at a flea market and had sold for a reported thirty million dollars.

We just sat and stared at them. Finally, Sabrina said, "I wonder why Simpson didn't sell them."

"Two guesses. First, if he and Bruce were indeed friends, he probably felt a certain loyalty to him. Bruce may have also stressed the danger that came with the painting and the eggs. Second, it was the height of the depression. If you couldn't eat them, eggs were of little use. Who had the money to buy them? Especially, who would he know who could buy them?"