David Davies

“What about this American—this art collector, Mr. Leyland, who contacted Monsieur Rossi? Shouldn't we contact him as well?” I asked Peridot as we stepped away from the café into the early evening rush.

“My hunch,” Peridot replied, keeping an even pace, “is that tonight’s dinner will enlighten our situation enormously.”

I couldn’t fathom just how clear the murky trail that had dragged us across borders would soon become.

With the Arno murmuring to our left, our stroll took us past the amber glow of the shops on the Ponte Vecchio. We turned north, navigating the narrow cobblestone canyons toward the open space of Piazza Santa Trinita, dominated by the ancient granite spire of the Colonna della Giustizia—the Column of Justice.

As we neared the piazza, Peridot’s stride slowed. His eyes locked onto a small café table where a man sat alone, casually scrolling on his phone.

Peridot walked straight over, cleared his throat, and extended a hand. “Well, Mr. Davies. How have you been? It seems we’ve just missed each other several times over the past month. Adamas Bontemps, meet David Davies.”

My pupils must have dilated. I stood frozen for a beat, hand mechanically outstretched, struggling to reconcile the man before me with our quarry. He matched the intelligence precisely: medium build, broad-shouldered, a ruddy, clean-shaven face, and a well-worn tweed suit that seemed entirely unbothered by the Italian heat.

Davies looked up, his face breaking into a broad, disarming grin. In a melodic Welsh lilt, he said, “Peridot! My scholarly cousin. How on earth have you been?”

Cousin?

I stared between the two of them. The adversary we had chased halfway across the globe shared a bloodline with the man standing next to me.

“It seems you’ve been up to your usual mischief,” Peridot said mildly, taking an empty chair.

“Mischief? Perish the thought!” Davies pulled out two more wrought-iron chairs, gesturing for us to sit. “We call it good business, Adamas. A service to humanity.”

“Fooling clients into buying a ruse is a public service?” I countered.

“If they demand it,” Davies replied smoothly. “You would be astonished at the collectors who swoon over rare stones until they hear the price tag. Their vanity demands rarity, but their wallets demand a bargain. So, I provide assembled stones. Masterpieces of illusion. Fully disclosed, of course—to those who bother to ask. Most don't want the truth; they want the prestige. And my doublets deliver.”

With the practiced flick of two fingers, Davies produced a crisp parcel of folded stone paper from his vest pocket. He deftly opened the internal flaps, laying bare a cushion-cut blue sapphire that caught the setting Tuscan sun.

It was an uncanny twin to the stones we had tracked in India and Italy.

“Look at the crown,” Davies said, tapping the paper with an unpolished fingernail. “A razor-thin wafer of genuine natural corundum. Unaltered, low-relief mineral crystals intact, delicate two-phase inclusions, even textbook hexagonal growth zoning right under the table facet. Down below? Pure, pristine synthetic blue sapphire. A refractometer reads natural corundum; a casual loupe exam shows natural inclusions. The finest assembled sapphire doublet in Europe.”

“And the Ceylon sapphire stolen from the Paris boutique?” I asked, leaning in.

Davies waved a dismissive hand. “Sensationalist rot posted by some anonymous forum troll. You don’t actually read those gemstone gossip boards, do you, Adamas? Mere flyspecks on the window of the world. Swill for the unimaginative.”

“And your side trip to Jaipur?” Peridot asked, his calm demeanor masking the steel beneath his voice. “The duplicate lab report you forged to accompany it?”

Davies offered an unrepentant chuckle. “Ah, Jaipur. A lovely client simply wished for an identical twin to the Paris piece. As for the documentation—well, modern buyers are obsessed with laminated paperwork. Every physical optical property was completely accurate on that report. Why spoil a collector’s joy with vulgar footnotes about cement lines and assembled layers? It’s craftsmanship, cousin. Pure artistry.”

“Which explains why you donated one to the museum?” I asked.

Davies leaned back, steepling his fingers against the backdrop of the Justice column. “You both know the Black Prince’s Ruby in the British Imperial Crown. For centuries, the world bowed to it as a priceless ruby until modern testing revealed it was a red spinel. Did they toss it in the Thames? Did they strike Edward of Woodstock from the history books? Not a bit. Its beauty and its legend remained untouched. Reality is a matter of consensus.”

He folded the parcel paper with an audible snap.

“Natural Ceylon sapphires of that magnitude are vanishingly rare. Just as black opals are preserved in triplets, my doublets preserve natural rough and elevate it. When Ferdinando I de’ Medici founded the Opificio delle Pietre Dure here in 1588, it was to celebrate Florentine mosaics and lapidary art. My donation honors that exact tradition: stone marrying artistry for all eternity.”

A sharp chime sounded from Davies’ jacket pocket. He glanced at the screen, his grin returning.

Peridot checked his wristwatch. “Speaking of traditions, we are expected across the piazza. Mr. Richard Leyland is hosting dinner.”

Davies rose, dusting a crumb from his tweed trousers. “Capital! So am I. Apparently, there’s some tremendous confusion over a Peridot.”

Peridot didn't blink. “There usually is.”

We walked side by side toward the restaurant’s arched entryway. The maître d' bowed slightly, leading us through the dim mahogany dining room toward a private corner alcove.

As we approached, two men in tailored suits rose from the table.

. . . to be continued.