In this real story a young man was besotted by a society girl enough to help steal a pricey engagement ring.
One parallel in my country would be the rich being stolen from by foreign maids whose deeds could hardly be proven. I will bring forward just one case. My mother has a good friend whom she met while studying hairdressing as young unmarried girls. This friend happened to choose a husband of high earning power. While her children were young, she used to have local maids. Once her eldest son was married, she has no choice but to rely on a series of Indonesian maids.
At this point I must point out that I personally know quite a few good and honest Indonesian maids of different religions who work for long periods of time for a few of my friends. While I could not vouch for the integrity of most Indon maids, I could only claim that I am illustrating how rotten one particular "apple" is.
To get back to my mum's friend, she has had a maid that worked for her family for seven years. During that period, they normally hired two maids: one for child care and the other to look after her husband who was wheel chair bound. It was only after the long standing good maid left to get married to a man in her village that they realized she had stolen from them.
There was an impending marriage in my mum's buddy's family, a niece was being married off from her house as the niece's parents are from 400 Km away. They looked for the family heirloom tea set that came from China. (It is customary for the bride and groom to serve tea to older relatives after a wedding.) That particular tea set was worth a good penny as collectors were still looking for it. They used to display that set in a locked cabinet in the sitting room. A guest with special knowledge in ancient porcelain advised them to stop displaying it. It was then placed on the highest shelve in the kitchen out of sight.
Her good maid was well trusted that she was allowed to keep watch for the family when everyone went on vacation. It never entered anyone's mind that she would steal from them. Well! That expensive tea set is no where to be found. As they searched high and low for it, their new maid mentioned about the "loss" to the next door maid who in turn told her mistress. This neighbor came with her chauffeur. Apparently there were a number of occasions when the supposedly good and trusted maid asked on behalf of her mistress for the next door chauffeur to mail a few packages to a relative in Penang. The maid would pay the chauffeur a little in excess of the postage as a small token of appreciation. Neither the neighbor nor the chauffeur suspected the packages were not from our good lady, the mistress. After all, she does have a cousin sister in Penang. This cousin sister hired a maid from the trusted maid's village. Since that cousin sister was bed ridden, her maid had a wide range of mobility. The trusted maid had seven long years to think of what she could steal and send away without being missed. She probably started with things of lesser value. By mailing it to the cousin sister's house, no one suspected anything. After all, she has never left the house on her own without being accompanied by at least someone from her employer's family. Once the item arrived in Penang, the other maid would repack it and mail it to the trusted maid's home. A bed ridden woman could not really be sure what her maid was up to.
Sad to say, the shock was not from monetary loss or even from sentimental reason of missing a family heirloom. They have treated the trusted maid like a member of their family. Every two years, they increased her salary. Whenever she returned home, they bought her and her family members gifts. When she left for the last time, they collected from the extended family to buy her a decent gold necklace as a marriage gift. It was betrayal that hurts the most.
Or you can look at it my husband's way: he said that some of the people in my country have too much money. They ended up buying all kinds of things that they could not use. There are too many assets in the house that are not properly locked up. According to him, if a smart and unscrupulous maid could systematically steal from them for seven long years and they did not find out until she was gone, they could well afford to lose those items graciously: consider they have given the maid a chance to right the imbalance of wealth distribution between my country and Indonesia! What do you think?
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