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K eep calm and carry on.

This is what I tell myself as I rush down the stairs with Angela by my side.

“Trust me!” I say. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

We run through the lobby, past hordes of guests, and when we arrive at the tearoom, I tell the officers at the threshold, “Let no one in unless I say so.”

“And you are?”

“Molly the Maid!” I bark.

I rush up the stage stairs and squat down, looking for something. “There,” I say. “That’s it!”

“What’s ‘it’?” Angela asks, struggling to catch up.

“The vacuum outlet. It leads to the greenroom. Now be quiet,” I say as I fish off the cover.

The moment I do, we hear two voices, clear as day—it’s the Bees, conversing in the greenroom next door.

Angela’s eyes go wide. She pulls out her phone to record. Then we both lie on the stage, ears to the boards.

“But why steal an egg we were about to sell?” Brown asks, his voice pure disbelief.

“I did it for you,” says Beagle.

“You’re not making any sense,” says Brown.

“The Fabergé belonged to my grandfather, Baron Beagle.”

“The egg we just auctioned for thirteen million?” Brown asks, incredulous.

“Yes,” says Beagle. “Years ago, he told me about a prototype that was stolen from him. He never said it was a Fabergé. And he never said who stole it. But when he got sick a couple of years ago, he confessed the thief’s name—a man named Braun.”

Angela and I stay stock-still. Someone shifts on the unseen sofa in the other room.

“Wait. My grandfather?” Brown says.

“He was an art thief, Bax,” says Beagle. “Granddad told me he was renowned for it even though he was never caught. He worked in tandem with his son.”

“You mean my father, Algernon Braun? So the rumors are true,” says Brown.

“I’m afraid so. But the baron adored you. He didn’t want the sins of your grandfather to ruin us, so he kept the connection quiet. Plus, there was no egg. It hadn’t been seen in decades.”

“But then it reappeared,” says Brown.

“On our show, no less. And the second I laid eyes on it, I knew we had a problem—our reputation was at stake. If someone came forward and knew your grandfather was an art thief, we’d be ruined, our business up in smoke, our TV careers canceled.”

“So you stole the egg?” Brown asks.

“Let’s just say I know some unsavory fellows with experience in making valuables disappear. I was about to sell the thing on the black market so it would never see the light of day.”

“The note in the vacuum canister,” says Brown. “Did you put it there? Did you threaten the maid?”

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” says Beagle. “I just wanted everyone to stop looking for it.”

We hear footsteps. One of the men has stood from the couch. We can hear him pacing the room. “But why return the egg, Tom? What were you thinking?” Brown asks in disbelief.

“As I was settling my grandfather’s papers, I came across an old bill of sale. Here. Look.”

The crumple of paper, the groan of the sofa as Brown sits back down. “But this is for a piece of jewelry,” Brown says.

“Look closer,” Beagle replies.

“Gold trellis and a cabriolet base, ten rubies, twenty rose-cut diamonds, emeralds in quatrefoils. My god,” says Brown.

“There’s no finders keepers law that trumps this. My grandfather bought the egg fair and square. Look at the letterhead and the signature,” says Beagle.

“The House of Fabergé,” says Brown. “So you returned the egg when you found this bill of sale?”

“Yes, Bax. I did. And the egg is ours by right. This paper is proof. It doesn’t matter if your grandfather stole the egg because my grandfather was its last legal owner. And I’ve got the paper trail to prove it.”

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Brown asks. “Why let the maid auction it off?”

“The sale price, Bax. We just set its base worth without any provenance. If we lie low for a bit, then produce this bill of sale in a year or so, the price will skyrocket. We’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams.”

“An artful deception,” says Bax.

“I’m glad you agree,” Beagle replies.

“But how could you?” asks Brown, his tone sharp and accusatory. “For my whole life, I’ve been running from my family’s dirty dealings. I’ve always wanted to be different from them, to earn my way, to keep things clean. And now you do this?”

“No one ever has to know,” says Beagle. “We can buy the villa in France. We can get a yacht in Saint-Tropez just like the one your mother had when you were a kid.”

“You’re just like them—my father and my grandfather. You’re a thief.”

“Please, all I want is for us to—”

Just then, Stark enters the tearoom. Angela and I pull away from our listening hole on the stage floor as Stark puts a finger to her lips. She saunters over, places the vacuum cover back on the port.

“You’ll never believe what we just heard,” I whisper.

“Oh, I’ll believe it,” says Stark. “Speedy and I watched what you were doing in here. Brilliant. He got a battery backup mic working in the greenroom. We heard everything, but we couldn’t record it.”

“I’ve got your back,” says Angela as she holds up her phone. “Voice memo.”

“I can’t quite fathom it,” I say. “One good egg, one bad.”

“Two Bees, one sting,” says Angela. “It hurts to hear what Beagle did.”

“It really does,” says Stark.

“What now?” I ask.

“Well,” says Stark, “would either of you be interested in watching a detective make a celebrity arrest?”