“Yes, indeed it is,” said Majendie, seizing it with joyous lack of ceremony. “Will you allow me one moment? I must reassure myself—”
Holding the case in one hand, he dipped with the other into a pocket inside his coat, and brought out a small key. He poked away a clot of snow which was blocked between the handle and the lock, inserted the key, and opened the case, revealing a watered silk sponge bag. He removed this. Underneath, bedded in cotton wool, lay a grey velvet egg-shaped box, some five inches long.
“Ah!” Majendie’s sigh of relief was long and deep. He laid back the sponge bag.
“Oh wait,” said Brett quickly, “don’t you think you’d better make sure?”
“My dear boy—here?”
“It’s as safe as anywhere.”
Majendie looked at him—one of his best hamster looks. He nodded briskly, and without a word dropped the sponge bag and thrust the dressing case into the arms of Beddoes. He lifted out the grey velvet box, unfastened a catch at its side, and opened it so that the hinged halves lay flat.
Cradled in the satin lining was an egg, white, icy, its surface starred and patterned like a window pane in a hard frost, with a diamond monogram glittering in the middle. Diamonds, close set in a band of gleaming metal, encircled the egg lengthways.
“Oh, Mr. Majendie!” breathed Stephanie.
“Yes, my dear—notice the exceptionally interesting effect achieved in the engraving and enamelling. Platinum mounts—and brilliant diamonds throughout, you’ll have observed, which is unusual. But I’ll open it.”
The egg, like the box, split lengthwise into halves on a hinge which was invisible from the outside. The shell on the left was hollow; its whiteness was studded with tiny stars, thin platinum points tapering from single diamonds. On a white velvet cushion in the right half lay a brooch, one large dazzling star, Arcturus of the first water, darting needle flashes as it quivered in Majendie’s hands under the torchlight.
No one spoke. Majendie, with another little nod, closed the egg, and the box, put back the sponge bag which Beddoes had retrieved, and closed the case.
“So that,” said Brett quietly, “is the Christmas Egg.”
