was deliberately misleading and I felt bad about it. But Paul Gilder could have handed any of these men his rosewood box at any time over the years. If he’d chosen to keep it secret, it wasn’t my business to give him away. “There’s a lot of material, apparently, that hasn’t been translated.”
“And something you found says Major Ulrich had the Shanghai Moon?”
“No. The documents seem to say he was promised it. It’s not clear whether he ever got it.”
“Ulrich . . .” C. D. Zhang’s brows knit in thought. “He died not long after we arrived in Chongqing, I think. We were sent word. He was part of the escape plot?”
“Just that limited role, it seems, to keep Kai-rong safe while Mei-lin worked out the rest of the plan.”
“And you don’t know whether he actually got the gem,” he mused. “Although if he had . . . that would explain . . .”
“Explain what?”
C. D. Zhang kept his gaze on the nighttime photo. He spoke quietly. “As I told you, the rumor persisted that Rosalie Gilder always wore the Shanghai Moon at her throat. But when her body was laid out for burial, it wasn’t found. My cousin and my brother have always assumed it to have been stolen when she died. I never agreed. I’ve thought it must have been hidden in the gardens of the Chen villa—as we now see her other jewelry was. But if she and my stepmother gave it years before to Major Ulrich, that would explain why it wasn’t found.”
“Stolen when she died? Who by?”
“She died during a robbery near the end of the war. Li and Lao-li have always thought the robbers took the Shanghai Moon with them.”
“Do you know anything more about that? Rosalie’s death?”
He paused, then shook his head. “There was no law toward the war’s end. Money had no value, and life even less. Any object that could be traded for rice, fuel, or passage out of China was stolen and stolen again. We had been hungry so long we no longer felt hunger, just desperation and fear. It was a terrible time and drove many mad.”
Poor Rosalie, I thought, escaping the nightmare of Europe only to have to live through, and die in, times like that.
“But if you’ve come to ask if my stepmother ever said anything about Major Ulrich,” C. D. Zhang said, “I’m afraid she didn’t.”
“I admit I was hoping. Mr. Zhang, think back. Couldn’t there be anything, maybe something that didn’t make sense at the time?”
He smiled. “I suppose there may be. Not much made sense to me at that time. However, nothing my stepmother said stands out. But Ms. Chin, your documents. Is it possible they hold something? Something you haven’t recognized? Would you like me to look at them?”
“I don’t think there’s anything there. Mei-lin’s diary, for example, stops the day you left Shanghai. She gave it to Rosalie. Along with your brother.”
I watched his face as this sank in. “Her most precious things.”
“Yes.”
“All these years,” he said slowly, “I thought it was a quirk of fate that my brother was at Rosalie’s home when we fled and was left behind.”
“No. I think Mei-lin was afraid of what might happen.”
“What my father might do, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. And your other documents? They stop then, too?”
“No, some are from years later. But none seem to be able to tell us much about Major Ulrich.”
We sat in silence for a time, or as much silence as we could find between the traffic noise and the cooing pigeons. “Well, it does no good to brood, does it?” C. D. Zhang finally said. “Ms. Chin, I’m sorry your new discoveries seem to lead to a dead end.”
“Maybe not quite. There’s another incident I’m curious about. Do you know a man named Yaakov Corens?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“A jeweler who died many years ago. He had a shop in Shanghai when you were there. He made the Shanghai Moon.”
“He made it?” If this wasn’t news to C. D. Zhang, he’d missed his vocation as an actor. “Ms. Chin! That’s remarkable! This is also in your documents?”
“Yes. We were able to track Corens to New York and speak to his granddaughter. But this is the odd part. In 1967, someone reported to have been a, quote, Chinese gentleman visited Corens’s shop. They had tea together, and the gentleman asked Corens never to discuss the Shanghai Moon with anyone.” I watched him closely as I said this. His expression was one