Hotel Vendome

Heloise was still talking about her when she and Ernesta went down to the laundry with a rolling basket full of towels from the tenth floor. As Ernesta handed over the basket, Heloise noticed something sparkle in the heap of towels, and she reached in and grabbed it just before Ernesta dumped it into the big bin. Much to everyone’s surprise, Heloise held up a diamond bracelet in her hand. It shimmered enticingly and looked very expensive. It was about an inch wide and was solid diamonds all the way around.

“Wow!” Heloise exclaimed as everyone stared at what she’d found.

“You’d better call security,” the head operator of the laundry told Ernesta, and she nodded and reached for the phone, but Heloise shook her head, still holding the bracelet.

“I think we should call my father.” It looked like a very fancy bracelet, even to her, and Ernesta didn’t disagree. She wanted to get it into the right hands as quickly as possible. Someone was going to be reporting it as lost or stolen very soon. Guests often misplaced their valuables, and the maids were always the first to be accused. Ernesta wanted none of that. Heloise dialed her father’s office, and Jennifer answered, and when she heard the story, she told them to come up. So far no one had called.

Hugues was in his office, signing some papers at his desk, when Ernesta and Heloise appeared, and his daughter held out the bracelet, and his eyes grew wide.

“Where did you find that?”

“In the towels,” Heloise said as she handed it across the desk to him, and he took a closer look at it. There was no question, it was real, and a valuable piece.

“I’ll put it in the safe. Someone should be calling about it very soon.” He smiled at Ernesta then and thanked her for her honesty, and she looked at Heloise.

“I didn’t find it, sir. Your daughter did. She pulled it right out of the towels. I didn’t even see it.”

“I’m glad she did,” he said, and handed it to Jennifer to put in the safe. “Let’s see what happens,” he said quietly, and much to everyone’s surprise, no one called for two days. He had gone down the list of all the guests on the tenth floor, but none of them had reported the bracelet missing, and he had to wait for someone to call so it didn’t wind up in the wrong hands. He wondered by then if it had been a visitor to the room and not a guest.

Then finally Eva Adams called, the movie star with the large entourage. And unlike most celebrities, she didn’t report the bracelet stolen, she said that she had lost a bracelet somewhere in the last two days, and didn’t know if it was in the street or at the hotel, and she wanted to let Hugues know in case someone found it. He said that a bracelet had been found and offered to come to her suite. He asked her to describe it, and it was clearly the one Heloise had found in the towels from her floor. He brought it to her room immediately, and she was thrilled. He didn’t ask but guessed that it was worth half a million dollars or more. Maybe a million. The diamonds were large and the bracelet wide, it was a major piece of jewelry to lose, although he suspected it was probably insured. And she was ecstatic to get it back.

“Where did you find it?” she asked him as she put it back on her wrist with a look of gratitude and relief. He smiled, conscious of Eva’s beauty. He had a weakness for women who looked like her, and for actresses and models in general, which had been his downfall once before.

“My daughter saw it in the towels in the laundry room. We knew it was from someone on this floor, but we had to wait for your call.”

“I had no idea where I’d lost it. I called everyplace I’ve been in the last two days. I didn’t want to accuse anyone of taking it. I was pretty sure it must have fallen off my arm. What can I do for your daughter?” she asked, assuming that she was older than she was. She didn’t make the connection with the little girl in braces who had come in with the maids two days before and asked if she could pet the Chihuahuas. She had assumed she was the maid’s daughter, maybe following her mom at work over the holiday weekend. Eva hadn’t paid much attention to her, although Heloise’s impression was that she had been very nice. “I’d like to give her a reward,” Eva Adams said immediately.

“That won’t be necessary,” Hugues said, smiling at her. “She’s eight years old, and I wouldn’t let her accept a reward. She was with one of the maids, if you’d like to give her something. But my daughter enjoys wandering around the hotel, she just likes meeting the guests and ‘helping’ me out.” He laughed. He looked extremely handsome as he did, and Eva flirted with him a little. It was an occupational style for both of them and meant nothing.

Eva went to the desk in the room and signaled to her assistant, who rapidly brought her a checkbook. Eva sat down and wrote out a thousand-dollar check to cash for Ernesta, and handed it to Hugues. He accepted it gratefully for the maid.

“What’s your daughter’s name?” she asked him with interest.