“The Nazis seized them. Most can’t be traced. My work involves trying to recover the ones that can-paintings, antiques. In this case, though, that’s not what I’m after. As Rosalie predicted, Paul turned out to be not much of a correspondent. But he was good with his hands. He’d built hidden compartments into the suitcases, where they concealed their mother’s jewelry.”

Joel raised his eyebrows. “That’s why she says the suitcases are intact.”

“Yes. She was telling her mother they’d held on to the jewelry. Earning a living in Shanghai was hard for the refugees, and these were teenagers. The jewelry was their safety net.”

“What happened to them? Rosalie and Paul?”

“That’s actually unclear. After the end of the war they can’t be traced. You can imagine what chaos those times were. Record-keeping wasn’t anyone’s priority. Now, as I’m sure you know, Shanghai ’s in the middle of a building boom.”

I nodded. That was something I did know.

“A month ago, excavation for a tower in what had been the International Settlement, in a place called Jiangming Street, unearthed a carved box containing five pieces of jewelry. I was able to identify it as Rosalie Gilder’s.” Reaching into her briefcase again, she handed us photographs of a necklace, two rings, and two bracelets. “I represent the grandchildren of Horst Peretz, Rosalie and Paul’s uncle. He’d sent his daughter to live in Switzerland in 1935. She survived the war. My clients are her sons.

“The Chinese government considers anything found on their soil Chinese cultural patrimony, not to be removed from the country without permission. In this case, because the jewelry is so clearly European in origin, I was able to persuade them to negotiate. I went to Shanghai, and things were going smoothly until a few days ago, when the jewelry, and a midlevel official from the Shanghai Ministry of Culture, disappeared.”

“The official ran off with the jewelry?”