Hungry Chambermaid Bites Into an Apple and Cracks a Century-Old French Diamond Heist

In 1926, two amateur thieves leaned a ladder against the Château de Chantilly, climbed in, and walked off with the Grand Condé diamond plus 74 other jewels. The plan worked fine until they tried to sell any of it. The diamond was so famous that no buyer would touch it, and the thieves ended up stuck with a fortune they couldn’t spend.

Two months later, a Paris hotel chambermaid named Suzanne Schiltz grabbed an apple from a guest’s suitcase and bit down hard on something that was not a seed and not a stem. It was the stolen diamond, pink and glittering, worth about three million in 1920s dollars. She reportedly told the guest,“You have one with queer seeds in your case.”Just like that, the case was closed by a rumbling stomach.

Now the Musée Condé and Château de Chantilly are marking 100 years since the heist with a public display of the jewel from October 17th through January 3rd, its first public showing in a century. Gemologists are even building a scientific identity card for the stone so it can be identified even if someone cuts or reshapes it. Would you have turned that diamond in, or would you have needed a minute to think about it?