Winston's Diamonds

Chapter 2: Glimpses into the Past

Burke townhouse. Wednesday, October 8, 2008.

"Now pay attention," Mozzie said with a flourish of his chopsticks.

An unnecessary request. Mozzie had texted Peter, along with Neal and Sara, during their bus ride home with instructions to stop for Chinese takeout and then meet him at the townhouse. When Peter checked, El confirmed that she liked the idea of an evening off from cooking.

Danny joined them in his high chair for the informal meal. After they'd polished off the dumpling appetizers, Mozzie stood up to retrieve a manila folder from the sideboard. He held up a copy of an old photo depicting a man with gray hair and a beard. "This is Isaak Mosconi. He immigrated to the States from Italy and was a professor at Columbia from 1919 to his death in 1929. He taught Italian and Russian at Columbia. The archives have little additional information about him except that he claimed his mother was a Russian Jew. Mosconi didn't marry and fortunately for us has no known descendants."

"Why should we be happy about that?" Sara asked.

"Because Danny and I invented a biography that is undoubtedly much more sensational than what his real one would have been." Mozzie beamed at his co-conspirator, and the toddler gurgled back at him. Danny had El's eyes, but a sense of humor that sometimes seemed uncannily like Mozzie's.

"Isaak Mosconi was an eccentric, a true Renaissance man who dabbled in many endeavors—cryptography, abstruse mathematics, art, puzzles—"

"In other words, he's much like you," Neal interjected.

Mozzie nodded complacently. "That's given me rare insights into his personality."

"How much of this is true?" El asked.

"What is truth?" Mozzie mused, gazing up at the ceiling.

"Which parts did you invent?" Peter said forcefully. "Remember we're all on the same crew."

"Oh, very well. After painstaking research, I'm pleased to report that Mosconi is a blank slate except for the bits about teaching at Columbia, his immigration from Italy, and his date of death. In other words, he's a storyteller's dream. Danny and I decided that he changed his surname before he immigrated. You see, Mosconi was actually Russian, not Italian, a plausible scenario since his mother was Russian. Danny and I also decided that he is Jacob Winston's younger brother, making him Harry Winston's uncle."

Peter controlled his groan. When Mozzie started blending fact with fiction, separating the two often became a frustrating challenge.

"Yes!" Sara exclaimed happily. She'd probably grown so used to Mozzie's tall tales, that she easily skipped down the yellow-brick road with him. "Harry Winston's parents immigrated from Russia. Jacob could certainly have had a younger brother. Perhaps there will be information about Mosconi in the Winston vault."

Neal smiled at her. "I'd say the odds are astronomically in our favor."

"The brothers had a falling out in Russia," El suggested. "Perhaps some personal scandal. That's when Isaak changed his name. It explains why Jacob never discussed him with Harry."

Neal turned to look out the French doors leading onto the patio with a faraway look in his eyes. "Like Jacob, Isaak was a jeweler in Imperial Russia. But Isaak was the more skilled of the pair. He worked for Carl Fabergé on the imperial eggs and remained employed at the imperial workshops till he was swept up in the revolution."

"Diamonds and Fabergé eggs?" El exclaimed. "Oh my, the Red Diamonds may need to branch out."

"Perhaps eventually," Mozzie said. "But currently they have their eyes on the Mosconi Diamond."