The Jerusalem Diamond Read Online Free

all work, came into Manhattan to pick him up in the second car, a three-year-old Chrysler. Lawrenson hated the city and drove too fast until northbound traffic had thinned and they were deep into Westchester County. The road onto which they finally turned dropped into an overpriced valley between hills elegant with old laurel and rhododendron. A gatehouse marked the entrance to the serpentine driveway, hidden from the road by a screening of tall oaks, sycamores and evergreens. Half the house had been built in the early 1700’s by a patroon of the West India Company; the other half was added more than a century later, but so skillfully that it was difficult to tell where one handsome Colonial section left off and the other began.
    â€œI won’t need you tonight, Sidney,” he said as he left the car.
    â€œYou … ah … certain, Mr. Hopeman?”
    Harry nodded. Lawrenson’s wife, Ruth, the Hopeman housekeeper, was a domineering woman and Harry long had suspected that Sidney had a less abrasive female friend somewhere nearby, probably in the village.
    â€œThen I’ll do some errands.”
    â€œEnjoy them.”
    He changed into jeans and sweater and then ate the dinner Ruth Lawrenson had prepared. When the Hopemans had separated, the dour housekeeper, who loved Della and only liked Harry, had made it clear for whom she and her husband would prefer to work. But Della had moved to a small apartment in the city and used a twice-a-week cleaning lady, and the Lawrensons had stayed, for which he—and Sidney, he thought with sudden amusement—had reason to be grateful.
    After dinner he went to the cluttered and comfortable workroom upstairs. In a corner, a lapidary table contained saws, files, a lapping machine and a collection of rock crystals and semi-precious stones in various stages of polishing. The rest of the room was more study than shop. A desk was heaped with annotated books and manuscript sheets,and shelves contained an unlikely combination of periodicals—
Biblical Archeology, Gems and Minerals, Oriens Antiquus
, the
Lapidary Journal
, the
Israel Exploration Society Record, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft Zeitschrift
…
    The night was going to be warm for spring. He threw the window wide to catch the river breeze and then he sat and began to work, completing the research for a paper: “Russian Royal Gems from Ivan’s Crown of Kazan to the Jeweled Breastplate of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.” Whenever he studied the period he especially appreciated living free in America in the twentieth century, hundreds of years after royal Slavic connoisseurs, who put jewels even on their slippers, had paid for their gem-encrusted throne with the blood and bones of millions. He read swiftly, making notes on three-by-five cards in careful if cramped handwriting, happy for the first time that day.
    Several hours later, a tapping.
    â€œIt’s the telephone,” Ruth Lawrenson said.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” She never disturbed his work.
    â€œWell, I don’t know. Someone named Akiva says it’s very important.”
    â€œAsk him to telephone tomorrow. My office.”
    â€œI already have. He insists it’s urgent.”
    Harry’s hello was crisp.
    â€œMr. Hopeman? I believe Mr. Saul Netscher has spoken of me.”
    The voice had an accent Harry ordinarily enjoyed, the sounds made by somebody who had learned English as a second language under the British. “Yes. Right now I’m busy, I’m afraid.”
    â€œI apologize, please believe me. But I must see you on a most important matter.”
    â€œIs it business, Mr. Akiva?”
    â€œIt is business, Mr. Hopeman.” He hesitated. “One might say it is far more than business.”
    â€œCome to my office in the morning.”
    â€œThat would be most unwise. Could we not meet elsewhere?” The voice paused. “It is urgent that I also have an opportunity to