“Oh, well, I don’t know that, do I?” Her eyes sparkled. “But I have reason to think that he-Wong Pan is his name; this is his picture-arrived in New York two days ago.” She handed us photos of a round-faced man.

“Is the jewelry very valuable?” I asked.

“By jewelry standards, no. Each piece is probably worth between twenty and forty thousand dollars. But for a Chinese bureaucrat, you can see the temptation. To my clients, of course, it’s priceless.

“So now you can see why I need you both. Under most circumstances, if I were trying to sell antique jewelry in New York, I’d head to the Diamond District.” She nodded at Joel. New York ’s Diamond District on Forty-seventh Street is almost exclusively the province of Orthodox Jews.

“Except maybe if you were Chinese.” I began to catch on.

“Exactly. Then I might try Canal Street, even though I understand antiques aren’t Canal Street ’s specialty.”

“No, those shops deal mostly in new pieces. Still…”

“Yes, exactly. So I’d like you to show these photographs around and see if anything’s turned up.”

Joel studied the photos. “And if it has?”

“If you find someone who’s bought any, let them know I’m in New York and interested in recovering it. Between us, the family’s prepared to buy the jewelry back, to save years of headaches. You might stress I’m not the long arm of Chinese law.”

“What if we get a lead on the bureaucrat? Wong Pan?”

“If he still has the jewelry, I’ll be willing to deal with him. I’m not crazy about someone profiting from a stunt like this, but my charge is the assets. Now”- Alice sat back-“I have to tell you, I have another, more personal reason for my interest in this case. I was born in Shanghai. In those years.”

Joel did the gallant thing. “How can that be? Someone as young as you?”

“You’re a very sweet liar. My parents were American missionaries. We spent two and a half years in a Japanese internment camp after Pearl Harbor. Of course I was very young-then.” She smiled. “Most of my memories are from the camp, not Shanghai itself, and they’re not particularly pleasant. Still, when this case came along, it did seem like something I’d want to see through. As if somehow it might, a tiny bit, redeem that experience. I’m not sure that makes any sense.”