“Maybe they belonged to Pauline,” Ruth said.

“That’s what I wondered, actually,” Rebecca said.

“She referenced her sister having bad eyesight in my interview with her on two occasions, and one of those was recorded, in my second documented interview with her in September of 1999,” Ruth said, “with which I assume you have familiarized yourselves? She said her sister had been given eyeglasses because her vision had been ruined by working under deplorable conditions. She described Pauline’s vanity, her not wanting to wear the glasses where men would see her and find her less sexually desirable or marriageable.”

“That makes sense,” George said. “I think you’re right.”

“In your transcript that’s not quite the way Esther spins it, but I agree, these really could be Pauline’s. George and I were just reading through those today, before you got here,” Rebecca said. “But still, I also kind of wonder if they could be Sam’s.”

“Does the case indicate anything?” Ruth wondered.

“The case looks a lot newer than the glasses, and it comes from an optician in Long Beach, according to what it says inside the lid, so that’s probably not a useful clue at all,” said Rebecca.

“We have no evidence that Sam required eyeglasses, while we do know from the oral history record, as you just said, that Pauline had bad eyesight,” Ruth pointed out. “And these look like a woman’s style.”

“I don’t see how you can really tell, but okay, these are probably Pauline’s.” The three of them contemplated the eyeglasses that lay in the middle of the table.

“Why weren’t they broken?” Rebecca said, interrupting the thickening silence. “If she was wearing them to sew when the fire broke out. If she took them off, they wouldn’t be here now. They had to get out of the building somehow. Somebody carried them out at some point.”

“Maybe these were her spares,” Ruth offered.

“You think a working girl in that era could afford a second pair of eyeglasses?” Rebecca asked.

“No, I suppose a working woman probably couldn’t,” Ruth replied. “Maybe she wasn’t wearing them when she, you know, passed away. Maybe they survived the fall. It’s strange what fell intact from the World Trade Center, you know, my podiatrist told me that he knows someone in Jersey City, I believe he said it was his cousin, but I might be mistaken, who found a perfect tax return, not a mark on it, and this was for a well-known Wall Street figure. It was in a tree in his backyard, and he—”

Rebecca looked at George, who nodded. She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out Sam’s watch by the cord, fumbled for a moment with her bitten thumbnail to find the thin slot that allowed her to pry open the cover, and placed it, open, on the table. George picked up the eyeglasses and studied them.

“I think this is the treasure, Ruth.”

“What makes you think so?” Ruth asked with a little suspicion. “Why?”