He’s also my business partner. He kept his watch collection with me since his wife doesn’t allow him to buy watches and made me promise not to ever tell his wife about them. Not only because she doesn’t like it but also because she will definitely ask him to sell them and probably spend the money on clothes and traveling like she often does.
He lets me use the watches in the condition that I don’t cause any damage. But now that he passed away it doesn’t feel right any more.
His watch collection is worth about 200K$ in todays market. I think the lawful and ethical thing to do is to break the promise and tell his wife but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do since he made me promise not to tell her.
I’d love to see a male-female breakdown of the commenters for return/keep. Let’s reverse the situation and suppose the “wife” let her friend hold $200k in jewelry? All else being the same, would the sage advise change? Curiosity, nothing more. The reality is the watches belong to the rightful heir and as there is no will, that would be the spouse. And the post really sounds like a “made for ethics class supposition” anyway.