"Piaget," he said. "What time do you have, Bernard?"

"Twelve oh seven."

"Mr. Piaget agrees with you to the minute." I wasn't surprised; I'd wound and set the watch when I took it from the safe. "You'll excuse me for a moment? I just want to look at a recent catalog. And won't you help yourselves to some of those pastries? I have eclairs, I have Sacher torte, I have Schwarzwälder kuchen. Have something sweet, both of you. I'll be with you in a moment."

I broke down and took an eclair. Carolyn selected a wedge of seven-layer cake with enough chocolate between the layers to make an entire high school class break out. I filled two mugs with coffee and two small snifters with tawny Armagnac that was older than we were. Abel came back, visibly pleased to see us eating, and announced that the retail price of the watch was $4,950. That was a little higher than I'd thought.

"I can pay fifteen hundred," he said. "Because I can turn it over so quickly and easily. Satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory."

"That's twenty-five hundred so far. You said three items, Bernard? The first two are nice merchandise, but I hope they don't represent too great an investment of time and effort on your part. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to keep them? Ears can be pierced readily enough, and painlessly, I'm told. And wouldn't the watch grace your wrist, Carolyn?"

"I'd have to keep taking it off every time I washed a dog."

"I hadn't thought of that." He grinned widely. "What I should do," he said, "is put aside both of these articles and make you a present of them when the two of you get married. I'd have to find something suitable for you as well, Bernard, though wedding presents are really for the bride, don't you think? What about it, Carolyn? Shall I put these away?"

"You'd have a long wait, Abel. We're just good friends."