The Amber Room Page 0,22

of hard stone with silver mounts. And an enameled Turkish market box adorned with a scene of the Golden Horn. All were created in the nineteenth century by the same master craftsman-his mark distinctively etched into the bottom-and looted from a private collection in Belgium during World War II.

They were thought lost, melted for their gold, stripped of their jewels, the fate of many precious objects. But one surfaced five years ago at a London auction house. She'd been there and bought it. Her employer, Ernst Loring, was fascinated by the intricate workmanship of antique snuffboxes and possessed an extensive collection. Some legitimate, bought on the open market, but most covertly acquired from possessors like Audrey Whiddon. The box bought at auction had generated an ensuing court battle with the heirs of the original owner. Loring's legal representatives finally won, but the fight was costly and public, her employer harboring no desire of a repeat. So the acquisition of the remaining three was delegated to her surreptitious acquiring.

Suzanne had found the second in Holland, the third in Finland, the fourth quite unexpectedly when Jeremy tried to peddle it at another auction house, unknown to his grandmother. The alert auctioneer had recognized the piece and, knowing that he couldn't sell it, profited when she paid him ten thousand pounds to learn its whereabouts. She possessed many such sources at auction houses all over the world, people who kept their eyes open for stolen treasure, things they couldn't legally handle but could sell all too easily.

She finished dressing and combed her hair.

Fooling Jeremy had been easy. Like always, her fashion-model features, saucer-round azure eyes, and trim body played well. All masked a mien of controlled calm and made her appear as something other than what she was, something not to be feared, something easy to master and contain. Men quickly felt comfortable with her, and she'd learned that beauty could be a far better weapon than bullets or blades. She tiptoed from the bedroom and down a wooden staircase, careful to minimize the squeaks. Dainty Elizabethan stencils decorated the towering walls. She'd once imagined living in a similar house with a husband and children. But that was before her father taught her the value of independence and the price of dedication. He'd also worked for Ernst Loring, dreaming one day of buying his own estate. But he never realized that ambition, dying in a plane crash eleven years ago. She'd been twenty-five years old, just out of college, yet Loring never hesitated, immediately allowing her to succeed her father. She'd learned her craft on the job and quickly discovered that she, like her father, instinctively possessed the ability to search, and she greatly enjoyed the chase.

She turned at the bottom of the stairs, slipped through the dining hall, and entered an oak-paneled piano room. The windows highlighting the adjacent grounds loomed dark, the white Jacobean ceiling muted. She approached the table and reached for the snuffbox.

Number four.

It was eighteen-carat gold, the hinged cover enameleden pleinwith an impregnation of Danaë by Jupiter in a shower of even more gold. She drew the tiny box close and gazed at the image of the plump Danaë. How had men once believed such obesity attractive? But apparently they had, since they found the need to fantasize that their gods desired such a butterball. She flipped the box over and traced her fingernail over the initials.

B.N.

Its craftsman.

She yanked a cloth from the pocket of her jeans. The case, less than four inches long,

easily dissolved into its crimson folds. She stuffed the bundle into her pocket and then crossed the ground floor to the den.

Growing up on the Loring estate came with obvious advantages. A fine home, the best tutors, access to art and culture. Loring made sure the Danzer family was well cared for. But the isolation of Castle Lou-kov deprived her of childhood friends. Her mother died when she was three, and her father traveled constantly. It was Loring who took the time with her, and books became her trusted companions. She read once that the Chinese symbolized books with the power to ward off evil spirits. And for her they did. Stories became her escape. Particularly English literature. Marlowe's tragedies on kings and potentates, the poetry of Dryden, Locke's essays, Chaucer's tales, Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

Earlier, when Jeremy had shown her around the ground floor, she'd noticed one particular book in the library. Casually, she'd slipped the leather volume from the shelf and found the expected