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“Your ring!” Honey gasped suddenly and they were standing up and saying farewells to Belden Frayne Detective Agency’s newest client. Trixie’s eyes immediately went to the ring in question, and sure enough, there were empty prongs where Trixie was certain there had been a diamond earlier in their meeting.
Their client looked down, but didn’t seem overly concerned. “It’s alright,” she assured them.
Trixie and Honey both stared at her, dumbstruck. Then Honey started looking around the table and floor. Trixie blurted out, “How rich are you?”
Honey frowned at her less than diplomatic question, but didn’t comment. Trixie figured that meant it was a reasonable question, if impolite.
The woman laughed. “It’s not the diamond that’s missing. It’s a 3D printed plastic imitation. It’ll cost my son about 75 cents to reproduce it,” she assured them.
“It looked very real from across the room,” Honey confessed.
“The diamond that belongs to the ring is in my safety deposit box. The ring was stolen a long time ago, and the thieves removed the diamond from the setting. When police recovered it, the jeweler was able to reset the diamond, but it popped out twice more before the wedding, so I was always hesitant to wear it, but I love the ring, and my wedding band doesn’t really match my style anymore, so when my son got interested in 3D printing and offered to make a substitute gem that I wouldn’t be afraid of losing for my engagement ring, I jumped at the chance.”
“This ring… wasn’t stolen by a pair of thieves working high rise office buildings in New York City, was it?” Trixie asked. Just because the story sort of fit….
“Well, yes, actually. That was back when I worked in the financial sector. One of the thieves was Louie Something-or-other and the other was… oh, what was his name? It suited him, but it wasn’t polite to say so.”
“Dick the Dip,” Honey offered weakly. “Richard Blank.”
“Dick, yes that’s it! Why?”
“We were involved in the case,” Trixie said.
“You two? Surely, you’re much too young to have been working in the City way back then?”
“We weren’t,” Honey agreed. “Richard and his partner escaped the city but their car broke down on my father’s property, and they got into a fight that eventually resulted in their capture.”
“I see,” the woman said. “I really should be going.”
Once she was gone, Trixie and Honey looked at each other and dissolved into giggles. “Who would have thought?!”
“If we find the substitute, we’re having Di put it in a shadowbox or something and hanging it on the wall in our office,” Trixie declared, scanning the carpet around where the woman had been sitting.
