“Where did you get this?” Ackerman asked. His voice was level, but there was a quality to the stillness that followed that made Gerald stand a little straighter. Gerald explained. Ackerman listened without interruption, which was itself unusual; in Gerald’s experience, jewellers spoke constantly, filling silence with valuations and reassurances. Ackerman said nothing until Gerald had finished. Then he asked if he could take the pendant to the back. Gerald waited at the counter for nearly fifteen minutes. Through the half-open door, he could hear the faint tick of instruments being set down, the rustle of what might have been reference books. When Ackerman returned, he was carrying a jeweller’s loupe and a sheet of paper on which he had written nothing.
“The chain is eighteen-carat gold,” he said, “which isn’t particularly old or unusual. But the pendant is something different.” He set the loupe on the counter. “The metalwork on the border—those raised dots—that’s called granulation. A very specific technique. Some ancient artisans used it, and it was largely lost after the fall of Rome. It reappeared briefly in the early nineteenth century when there was a fashion for archaeological jewellery, largely driven by a Roman goldsmith named Castellani.” He paused. “But this doesn’t look like a Castellani reproduction. The granulation is too irregular. Done by hand, without modern tools.”
Gerald looked at the pendant. “How old is it?” he asked.
Ackerman considered his answer with visible care. “That,” he said, “is precisely what we may have to find out.”