The Lace Map of Bruges – Part 3: The Vault

"The lace belongs to your aunt," Jules said. "She asked me to restore it."

"My aunt is very old and very confused," Ruben said. "Give me the lace. I'll make sure it's… looked after."

Jules said the lace was already in Antwerp, which was a lie. He had hidden it inside a christening gown on the drying rack behind Ruben's head.

Ruben looked at him for a long moment, then left.

Jules called Noor with shaking hands. She did not laugh this time.

"Bring it tomorrow," she said. "Early. I'll have the police and the building owner there."

The bricked-up room took two hours to open. Workers chipped away the old mortar while Jules, Noor and two police officers watched, the lace laid out on a table between them like a map.

Behind the bricks was a small steel safe, rusted shut.

Inside, in velvet trays, were the diamonds.

And on top, a letter from the founder's wife, written in 1963.

She had discovered that her husband's brother had planned the robbery. He had hidden the diamonds here, meaning to collect them later, and framed her husband for it. She had bricked up the room herself before he could return, and stitched its location into lace for her daughter, so that one day the truth would come out.

"The brother's name was Pieter Claes," Noor read aloud. He was Ruben's grandfather.

Ruben had known the story. He had come for the diamonds.

The police found him at his hotel that afternoon.

A week later, Jules returned the restored lace to Madame Claes. It was white again, every thread mended. She held it in her lap and cried, because her grandfather's name had finally been cleared.

When Jules came down the steps of her house, Noor was waiting by the canal, her black coat buttoned against the cold.

"I came to say thank you," she said. "And to ask how you knew. About the code."

"I look very slowly," Jules said. "Most people look fast."

She thought about that. Then she smiled, for the first time since he had met her.

"Teach me to look slowly," she said. "Over coffee?"

He slipped his rings back on, one by one, and offered her his arm.

Across the canal, the belfry began to count the hours.

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Next: The Voice of the Blue Door, a fado singer in Lisbon, an old iron key and a song that was never meant to be forgotten.