Lost and Found

On our recent trip to Hawaii, I was wearing my only real (except for my engagement ring) piece of jewelry, a gold chain with a diamond pendant that I have had for years. It looked a lot like the photo, but it was yellow gold and the diamond was smaller.

We had been putting my necklace, along with other things like cell phones and watches, in the room safe. One day when I came back to the room the maid had been there and our room had been cleaned. I went into the bathroom and on the counter, in the soap dish, I found the golden bale (the little part that holds the diamond). It was just the empty bale, no diamond and no chain. I couldn't imagine what had happened to the rest of the necklace.

We called housekeeping to ask the maid how she had found the empty bale. She came to the room and showed us where she found the bale, but had seen no sign of the diamond or the chain. We were stumped; what had happened to the necklace? I began searching every inch of the room, looking under everything and all along the edges of the carpet. Of course there was no sign of the necklace in the safe, where I thought I had left it.

While I was searching, there was a knock on the door. A very professional looking man introduced himself as the security manager. He asked me a lot of questions about where I kept the necklace and when I had last seen it. He wanted to see the box I kept the necklace in, and inspected the remaining contents of the safe. He was writing down everything I said on his notepad. He called the maid to join us in the room. She repeated what she had told us, how she found the empty bale laying on the floor. He had asked her to bring her vacuum and they proceeded to dump the contents out on the bathroom floor (It was a large bathroom). He went through the dust and dirt pretty thoroughly and found nothing unusual. They cleaned it up and left, saying they would be back.

The security officer, the maid, and an assistant manager came to the room next. They said they were going to take the vacuum outside and search the contents more thoroughly outside where the light was better. I stayed in the room and waited, still searching through everything. A while later, there was another knock on the door. It was the security officer. He had the loose diamond in his hand! They had finally found it inside the vacuum cleaner. Amazing! Of course I was relieved and very thankful. We finally decided the necklace had been dropped or had fallen onto the floor and was run over by the vacuum.

When we came home I had to have the diamond reset in the bale and buy a new chain. I am still amazed how they found the diamond in the vacuum cleaner. Wow. I was pretty lucky, I guess.