Deadly Jewels Read Online Free PDF Page A

story?”
    â€œIt’s more than a story,” snapped Patricia. She took a second to compose herself, then said, carefully, “They really were here. That’s not a rumor. That’s true, and I’m going to prove it. But you’re right about there being a rumor. The rumor is that some of them stayed here, they were stolen and smuggled out through the sewers.”
    She paused. “The rumor is that there are still British crown jewels here in Montréal somewhere. And I believe that that’s true, too.”
    *   *   *
    It was a gamble, and no one knew that better than Winston Churchill himself. The nation was taking a gamble on him, and he was taking a world-shattering gamble with its future.
    â€œYou’re a bloody Cassandra,” his friend Frederick Lindemann told him. “Nobody wants to hear what you have to say, and you’re always right, which makes it all a damned sight worse.”
    â€œNot always,” Winston grunted. “Was wrong about the war in Spain—thought they knew what they were doing. Was wrong about the king’s abdication—still angry with him about it, in fact.”
    â€œYou’ve been right about Germany all along,” said Frederick. “And that’s what bloody counts.”
    Was it?
    He’d already started setting things in order. On the same day that Germany invaded Belgium and the Netherlands, he’d taken the prime minister’s seat in the House of Commons Chamber for the first time and ruthlessly woke Britain from her appeasement. On this, the darkest of nights, he hoped he wasn’t too late.
    The British Expeditionary Force, long considered the finest fighting machine in the world, was standing alongside the French army. But everyone knew how poorly trained and equipped the French were. Still, the BEF would take care of things; they always did. Who could have known what would happen?
    Now, he knew.
    His aide had woken him at 7:30 on May 15, five days after he became prime minister. “Urgent telephone for you, sir. Monsieur Reynaud, the French president.”
    Paul Reynaud was hysterical. “We are defeated!” he screamed. “We have lost! Tout est perdu! ”
    Winston put down the telephone, took a deep breath, and wrote his first letter to the president of the United States. There was simply no time to lose: France was about to fall, and Britain was clearly going to be next. The Americans had to enter the war. “We expect to be attacked here ourselves, both from the air and by parachute and airborne troops in the near future,” he wrote. “If necessary, we shall continue the war alone and are not afraid of that. But I trust you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.”
    â€œIt’s all about the Americans now,” he told his wife. “We’ve got to get them involved. They have to see that it’s the only course.”
    â€œIt may not be in time,” she said.
    â€œI know. I know that.”
    The next day, he put legislation before the House of Commons that The Daily Telegraph described as “the most sweeping constitutional measure ever placed,” giving the government full powers over both property and persons in Britain. Defending it before the war cabinet, he was able, somehow, to find the right words: “It had hitherto been thought that a seaborne invasion of this country was an enterprise which the Germans could not hope to launch with any prospect of success for some considerable time. I think the events of the past few days and the grim possibilities of the next must cause us to modify our views.”
    Days later, Boulogne fell, and Calais was under siege. The boys from the British Expeditionary Force were flooding the beach at Dunkirk, right up against the English Channel, and that had to be his first concern: getting them out. Getting them