"Ann Maxwell - Risk Unlimited 01 - The Ruby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

„Thanks,“ Laurel said to the driver. „I’m sure there’s a packing list inside.“
„If not, give me a call.“
„Mmm,“ was all Laurel said.
With a final impersonal smile, she went into her house and shouldered the front door shut behind her. She glanced
again at the package.
Nothing had changed. It was still a standard express shipping label with no return address.
Suddenly the package’s weight triggered a memory: her mother’s funeral urn filled with cremated remains. A ripple
of gooseflesh went down Laurel’s arms at the thought.
Quickly she walked to what had once been the main room of the cottage and now was her studio. She had been
working on a large, elegant brooch of bent gold wire for a client’s wife. Actually, Laurel suspected it was for the
client’s mistress. It was just one more of her reasons not to put up with a man. You couldn’t trust them even when
their work kept them close to home.
Laurel cleared away the bending jig to make room for the unexpected package. Casually she severed the shipping
tape with a wickedly curved knife she used for cutting paper templates. As she peeled away layers of reinforced
cardboard and bubble paper, a wooden box slowly appeared.
It was no ordinary shipping container.
„What in the world?“
The box was a work of art. Heavily lacquered, unmarked, the box had been created from a pale blond wood whose
grain was finer than any furniture Laurel had ever seen.
 „Can it be birch?“ she muttered. „Lord, it’s nearly as fine as ivory. It reminds me of something I saw once. Was it in
a museum?“
The memory eluded her.
She looked closely at the box’s construction. The corners were mitered and reinforced. Though the box had a seam
along the longer axis , the position of the latch told her that the box was meant to stand on end.
After setting the box upright, Laurel undid the small brass latch. The front half of the box divided and swung open
like the doors of a well-made cabinet.
„My… God.“
Laurel blinked, shook her head, and blinked again.
A jeweled egg winked back at her.
Even though Laurel was stunned, she couldn’t help smil-ing with involuntary pleasure at the object’s sheer
beauty. It was nested in pale, creamy satin that set off the intense scarlet of the egg’s lacquer work. A net of
gemstone-studded gold flowed over the egg in a pattern subtly enhanced by the shape of the egg itself.
The objet d’art was almost the size of an ostrich egg, yet it was so exquisitely made that Laurel had a hard time
believing it was real. Wonderingly she touched the egg with her fingertip, as she had the beach agate. Like the agate,
the egg was a cool, solid reality.
For a time Laurel simply stared in awe at the unexpected piece of art. Then reason took over, prodding her to look
critically at the box. She found no sign of shoddy construction. Nor did she find any maker’s mark.
Bending over the box, she inhaled deeply. There was no faint savor of wood or glue to tell Laurel that the box had
been recently made in a nameless Third World sweatshop. In fact, the more closely she inspected the box, the more
clear it became that the box was the result of a long tradition of craftsmanship which was as exacting as that of the egg
itself.
And like the egg, the box did its job admirably.
Laurel knew her first feelings of surprise and pleasure at the egg’s beauty were exactly what the artist had
intended. As a designer, she had learned that a good piece of decorative art was more than a handful of expen-sive
metals and flashing gems. A good objet d’art should make viewers catch their breath and then smile with pleasure.
The egg was a spectacularly successful piece, as close to flawless on first sight as anything Laurel had ever
encountered. She wondered how many people had reacted to this egg in the way she had, and how many years it had
been hidden away in a collector’s – or a Soviet commissar’s – private collection.
„But it can’t be what I think it is,“ Laurel whispered. „He never made one like this.“
Laurel bent down to see what she could of the egg without touching it. The gold scrollwork was finely wrought. If