Page 134 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“I didn’t go within twenty feet of that necklace and I can prove it. But you…” I glance at my fingernails. “You’ve been hiding the fact there’s a fake on the museum floor ever since you quietly commissioned your own off-books authentication.”

His pupils dilate a fraction and I can tell he’s panicking now.

“All those people paying good money to visit the museum don’t even know they’re looking at a forgery. And the funniest part is that you’re too paranoid and cowardly to alert your superiors.”

He swallows hard and I know I’ve got him. I take out my phone again, letting Zoe’s altered footage light up the screen.

“Here’s the deal. You hand me the diary and the letters, and this footage never sees daylight. Gone. Like it never existed.”

“This is blackmail,” Dennis says.

“Funny word, coming from you. You didn’t call it blackmail when you were cutting a deal with the Kanes.”

He narrows his eyes at me. Calculating. But he’s trapped. There’s no scenario where he can talk his way out of this one.

He drags a hand down his face. “Fine.” He says it like it costs him a rib. “But I need to know that footage is gone for good. Not sitting on some hard drive somewhere waiting to resurface. And I want the real necklace back on that pedestal before the board notices it’s missing.”

“The footage disappears. You have my word on that.”

“And the necklace.”

“The necklace, I don’t control.” Not entirely a lie either. “I don’t know who lifted the necklace, but whoever did, can return it just as easily as they took it. Without getting caught. I might know someone who can get in touch.”

That person is me. I can get in touch. The Jackdaw is watching how I work the angle. What I might do with this leverage.

DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WILL.

That sounds lovely, thank you very much. I have a feeling that I’ve made myself a new friend. One that leaves playing cards with birds drawn on them. I suppose everybody needs a hobby.

Dennis gets up and crosses to a painting I’d bet good money he picked up at a yard sale because he doesn’t have an ounce of taste. He swings it aside, and works a combination.

The safe door swings open. Inside sits a flat archival case, sealed tight enough that when he cracks it, I hear the little hiss of air that’s been locked in there.

He lifts the lid.

Inside the case is a leather-bound diary, the cover gone soft and dark with age. He lifts it out slowly and gingerly, and sets it on the desk between us.

“Read it,” I say. “The Lincoln letter. Out loud.”

His hands aren’t steady when he lifts the top page. He clears his throat twice before anything comes out, and when it does, his voice shakes on every third word.

My Dearest Eleanor,

Pau, France

the 12th day of March, 1877

In these last quiet seasons of exile, I have come to think that certain beauties in this world are not meant to console, but to remind. The necklace Her Majesty pressed upon me so many years ago, one widow’s offering to another, in the black spring after Mr. Lincoln was taken from me, was once a solace. Now it burns against my breast as a memory of all that cannot be undone.

You have been to me a steadfast friend when friendship was scarce and dearly bought. In my son’s prudence I find only cold accounting; in your company, the gentler arithmetic of mercy. I will not leave this jewel to family hands that would weigh it in dollars, nor to statesmen who would mount it behind glass and call it legacy.

Know then, Eleanor, that I give this necklace to you. Not to hold for me, not to mind until I ask for it back. It is yours now, as surely as if I had placed it in your hands myself and said so aloud. I can think of no one else I would trust with something that has cost me so much to carry.

Wear it if it pleases you, or don’t. Only let it be worn for love, the way I have never once been permitted to wear my own grief. That is all I ask of it, and all I ask of you.

With the affection of one who has learned that beauty is not madness,

— Mary Lincoln