She shook her head, thinking. “If they’re the Balaton jewels—although he insists they’re not—my father would want them for the same reasons I did: because they can’t possibly belong to you and your sister. They must have been stolen from Judith soon after the Christmas ball, and if Father knows something about it, he just doesn’t want it all coming out into the open. He’s a very private man, and he could have decided it wasn’t worth risking the publicity. And you’ve seen Giles. Father could have told him to make quiet inquiries, and he took it upon himself to break your leg.”

David didn’t correct her. “And Crockett?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he knows something, too—or did something that he now wants or needs to cover up.”

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew, but your guess is as good as mine.”

“How do you think the jewels got out of Hungary?”

“Father has a lot of friends. Maybe one of them brought them out.”

“But not him?”

“No. He would have told me.”

“But he didn’t give them to Judith?”

“He says no.” She was getting breathless. “He says he doesn’t know where Judith got the tiara and the choker she wore that night.”

“Judith?”

“It’s possible she was approached by whoever smuggled the jewels out of Hungary and, not realizing they actually belonged to my father, bought them and wore them that night—as a surprise. Then the thief could have stolen them back. He would have known she was wearing them.”

David thought of Barky: he was Hungarian, it seemed. Could he have stolen the Balaton jewels? Better that, he thought, than being KGB. Or was he both? KGB and a jewel thief? Hell. But why?

“Or Crockett could have purchased them from the thief and given them to Judith,” Sarah suggested, becoming exasperated. “The possibilities are endless. Even if I’m wrong and they’re not the Balaton jewels, Judith definitely wore them that night and they definitely haven’t been seen in public since.”

“Until Ashley hit the cover of You.”

“Right.”

“And now your father, my uncle, Crockett and God knows who else—” although I can make a few guesses, David thought guiltily “—are all either trying to get answers to what happened to the jewels thirty years ago or maybe even trying to cover up what happened. Interesting. And, as you say, the possibilities are endless.”

“Maybe tonight we can lay all this out for my father and see what he says.”

“Sounds good to me.”

But later that afternoon, Giles Smith showed up at the farm. He found Sarah and David in the kitchen, making applesauce on the cook stove. David would cut and core the apples at the kitchen table; Sarah would put them on the stove and strain them. They had one more peck to do before they left for New York.

“Hey, Giles.” David held up his paring knife. “Come back to check your handiwork?”

Giles shrugged his massive shoulders. “You weren’t very helpful.”