Empty Mansions

coming out of her shell,” Chris said. Her time in the new hospital “re-socialized Mrs. Clark. She became less of a recluse.” She even made a new friend, visiting a woman who was a patient down the hall. Chris said Huguette “enjoyed the traffic of humanity for the first time in fifty years.”
    Once a year, Huguette also allowed doctors and nurses from the floor to come into her room for little birthday parties for her.There was a little gathering for her one hundredth birthday on June 9, 2006. Attorney Bock was there, and accountant Kamsler, Chris Sattler, and Madame Pierre.
    Someone brought a SpongeBob SquarePants balloon. The hospital delivered a huge cake. As birthday presents, Huguette wrote out checks to her nurses. A week later, Huguette asked a nurse if she could put more air in the balloon.
THE PRICE OF PRIVACY

 
    H UGUETTE SEEMED TO FEAR one thing most of all: publicity. In this she favored her mother more than her father.
    The jewelry that W. A. Clark gave to Anna when he was courting her, when he married her, while they raised a family, all that jewelry was entrusted by their daughter Huguette to First National City Bank, where the family banked for more than fifty years.
    In the 1980s, a blue diamond and other pieces ofAnna’s jewelry disappeared from the securities department at Citibank, as it was now called, either lost or stolen. Citibank made just the right threat: The bank insisted that it couldn’t pay any more than $3 million without involving the insurer, Lloyd’s of London, where such a large loss might bring publicity. Huguette accepted in 1991 a $3 million settlement, much less than the jewelry’s appraised value.
    Then, in 1994, when Huguette was in the hospital, Citibank did it again. The rest of Anna’s jewelry was in a safe-deposit box, No. 883. The trust department at Citibank was paying the bill for the box, but an interoffice address changed, and the bill fell delinquent. Bank officers cut open the box and sold the contents as abandoned property to a liquidator at rock-bottom prices.
    Anna’s gold wedding band, gone. Her 2 gold lockets. Her tortoiseshell combs with 320 diamonds. Her Cartier 2-strand pearl necklace with the 7-carat diamond clasp. Her 3-strand cultured pearl and jade bead necklace with two 4-carat diamonds by Cartier. Her bracelet with 36 sapphires and 126 small diamonds. Her 5 small gold bracelets. Her Cartier diamond and rock crystal hairpin with 64 diamonds. Her 3-stone diamond ring. Her pearl ring. Her 18-carat-gold-mesh purse with 5 inset emeralds and the matching gold-mesh change purse. Her Cartier gold watch with 30 carats of diamonds. Her Cartier bracelet with 22 carats of diamonds. Her Cartier necklace with 60 carats of diamonds and 40 carats of emeralds. Her 20 gold safety pins. And 30 other pieces. All gone.
    The loss “has been devastating,” attorney Don Wallace wrote to Citibank, relating her “anxiety and pain.” This time Huguette didn’t know what to do. At first she wanted all her mother’s jewelry back. Citibank traced some pieces to a dealer in Europe, but they had been resold. The bank trotted out its successful threat again: Further efforts to hunt down the jewelry could bring public attention.
    So Huguette wouldn’t sue, wouldn’t risk having her name in the newspapers. Valuing her privacy more than money, she had no leverage. She relented, demanding $6 million while protesting that the jewelry was worth $10 million.
    The bank chairman, John S. Reed,wrote her a note of apology but agreed to pay no more than $3.5 million. She took it. Before making the payment, Citibank insisted that she produce a statement froman independent physician attesting to her mental competence so she couldn’t revoke the deal. After a few months, the bank accepted such a statement from her own physician, Dr. Singman.
    Similarly, Huguette and her attorneys took no action, and did not call the police, whensomeone stole nearly a quarter of a million dollars from her in November 1991, after she went into the hospital. Her bank reported that someone cashed a check from an old unused account, getting away with $230,000. Another check for $650,000 was refused. Her attorney, Wallace, didn’t call the police, but quietly closed the account.
    • • •
    Huguette’s gentle ballerina by Edgar Degas,
Dancer Making Points
, which she had bought with her mother in 1929, was stolen from her apartment wall in 1992 or 1993. Not wanting any publicity, she urged