It was the sort of tale that everyone loved to hear, though no one believed it.

If Gisela had fled to the west dispossessed and penniless, why hadn’t she cashed in the stones to reestablish herself? They were a family heirloom, Gisela had explained. And of course, they were enchanted; they had saved her from poverty and despair and even death. She couldn’t just sell them as she might ordinary gems.

Everything changed the night she tearfully reported to the police she’d been robbed and described her ten corundum stones in detail, estimating their value into the millions of francs and admitting she had no photographs, no insurance, no proof she had ever seen the Jupiter Stones, much less owned them.

Why didn’t she? The understandably skeptical police had asked what everyone but Gisela considered a reasonable question. She was insulted. Did the police doubt her word?

They did. So did all her friends and virtually everyone in France.

The gossips supplied their own answers. If the stones were in Gisela’s possession-through whatever means-they would have been too valuable for her to afford to keep in any open, honest way. Insurance costs alone would have been phenomenal. She must have come to her senses, capitalized on Le Chat’s prowling about the Côte d’ Azur, and hocked them, saving face by reporting them stolen. In which case, good for her.

But that scenario was far-fetched.

Far more likely she’d made up the stones altogether and had an ulterior motive for claiming she was Le Chat’s latest victim. A craving for attention? For notoriety? Had Gisela, too, yearned for romance and adventure?

Gisela, however, stuck to her story: the Jupiter Stones were hers, Le Chat had stolen them and she wanted him caught and her gems returned to her.