Of course! Simple—as I knew it would have to be—and beautiful—as all truly great schemes are! It came to me so complete, it struck me so sharply, that I stopped dead in my tracks, and a lady behind me, pushing a pram, bumped into me; but after my ordeal with shopping carts that morning, I barely noticed it. She pushed past me, muttering darkly, but I paid no attention. My mind was racing, for immediately upon comprehending the scheme, I had also seen a way to improve upon it—or at least, to improve upon it as far as I, personally, was concerned. I must have stood in that spot for at least ten minutes, reviewing the entire thing in my mind, before I turned about and started back to the supermarket.
The line at the manager’s counter was, as were all the others, quite long, but I placed myself at its end and waited patiently, eyeing the girls at the other counters appreciatively until my turn came.
When at last I faced the manager, he looked up with a frown when he noted that I had no merchandise with me.
“Monsieur,” I said, “if I could speak with you a moment …”
He glared at me impatiently. “Solicitations are not allowed, and if you are selling anything, we do no purchasing here,” he said brusquely. “All that is handled at the central office. And now, if you will pardon me …”
I bent over and whispered something in his ear. His hand, which had already been reaching for a package from the next customer, froze. His eyes widened, then closed for several moments, then reopened. For a period of at least ten seconds, he said nothing; he merely stared at me with horror. And then, as I knew he would, he pushed down a small gate that directed the customer to go to a different line, and led me into his office.
Our conversation was short but quite pointed. When I walked out, I left behind me a disappointed man, it is true—but also a greatly relieved man. In a way, I felt sorry for him, because he had invented a truly great scheme, but unfortunately, in this life, one must always look out for oneself, and the failure of his plan was definitely necessary to the success of my own.
Well, as you can well believe, I returned to my cousin’s home at a much more spritely pace, let myself in and went directly to the library. As usual, on a Saturday afternoon, Stavros was seated at his desk going over his personal accounts. At my entrance, he looked up, and at the expression on my face—for I am no great dissembler—he jumped excitedly to his feet and hurried in my direction.
“Kek! You have discovered it!” he exclaimed. His tone was a neat blend of hope and disbelief.
“I have,” I said, as modestly as I could under the circumstances, and proceeded to pour myself a drink.
“Wonderful! Marvelous!” He was almost beside himself with joy. “One morning in the supermarket and you find what a dozen detectives were unable to locate in four months. Fantastic! And when I think of what they cost me …” He swallowed the balance of this thought as being economically unsuitable for expression. He stared at me almost proudly. “How did they work it?”
I did my best to look shocked. “That was not our bargain,” I said reprovingly. “I agreed—in return for ten thousand francs—to discover the scheme and put a stop to it. That was all you asked of me. I did not agree to disclose it.”
His face fell. “So!” he said heavily. “You did not really discover it! I should have known better! You are merely attempting …”
I held up my hand. “As a guest in your house,” I said, “permit me to prevent you from insulting me. I said I discovered the means by which you have systematically been swindled, and I have.” I walked over and seated myself on the corner of his desk, taking, of course, my drink with me. “Tell me,” I said, “how long will it take you and your auditors to determine that I am telling the truth? How long will it take your financial experts to discover that the losses have stopped?”
He frowned at me in great indecision. My cousin, despite his many good qualities, such as an unerring palate for brandy and a sharp eye for presentable housemaids, suffers from a suspicious nature. “I will have a good indication within a week,” he said slowly. “And in two weeks I can be absolutely certain.”
“Good!” I said heartily. “Then, giving you two weeks to acquire your absolute certainty, I shall expect your check for ten thousand francs. Fortunately,” I added aloofly, “I prevented you from saying anything that would require—in addition to the money—an apology.” And I started to rise
“Wait!” he said. He shook his head and began to pace back and forth. It was evident that he did not like the situation. He swallowed once or twice and finally came out with what was on his mind. “Why?” he enquired plaintively, “Why won’t you tell me the scheme?”
“I’ll tell you in two weeks,” I said
You’ll tell me the scheme in two weeks?” he asked. Hope had returned to his voice.
“No,” I said politely. “In two weeks, I’ll tell you why I won’t tell you.”
And with that I downed my drink and started for the door. It had occurred to me that I had missed lunch, and besides on a Saturday afternoon, I had become accustomed to a nap. I could almost feel his eyes burning through my back as I turned the handle of the door.
Kek Huuygens paused and smiled at me. “Of course,” he said apologetically, “now that I’ve explained everything, you can see the wonderful scheme, and my subsequent plan, so you can now understand why I was forced to ask for your promise of secrecy …”
“I see nothing of the sort!” I’m afraid my voice rose a bit. “I do not see the scheme, nor do I see your plan, nor do I understand the need for my silence! As a matter of fact.…”
He held up a hand to stop the flow of my language and looked at me almost with pity. “Well,” he said, “have another brandy and you soon will.” He called over the waiter, and then looked at me again and shrugged for my stupidity. “Prosit,” he said, holding up his glass.
Well (Huuygens continued, finally putting his glass to one side), the two weeks passed. Far too slowly for my liking, but pass they did. Each evening, Stavros would return from his office and I could tell from the look in his eyes that the figures were bearing out my promise that the losses would stop. But, being the stubborn man he is, he could not bring himself to admit that I was shortly due for a check. Once or twice, I could have sworn that he was on the verge of claiming that the losses had not stopped, but despite his cupidity, he was not downright stupid, and something must have told him this would not have worked for an instant.
In any event, two weeks from that Saturday, I went into the library and pulled a chair up to face him across his desk. “Well?” I asked quietly.
He sighed. “The losses have stopped,” he admitted, albeit with hesitancy. “I shall draw you a check in the amount agreed upon.” He stared at me. “And in return, you will tell me why you will not tell me …” He could not go on; it was evident that he was under a certain amount of stress.
“Certainly,” I said equably. “I will not describe the scheme to you because I have discovered—and stopped—a nefarious means of dishonesty which, were it ever bruited about, could lead to similar attempts by others in supermarkets. In your own chain of supermarkets, to be exact. Attempts, I might mention, that I guarantee would be equally successful. At great cost to you. And since you are no fool …”
Stavros stared at me with growing knowledge of what I was saying. “I am the worst kind of fool,” he said at last, bitterly. “I should have known better than to say one word to you about this. You, of all people!” He shoved the papers on the desk away from him with an angry motion, as if they somehow represented the dishonesty he was always so ardently combatting. His eyes came up. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well,” I said in a reasonable tone of voice, “I thought that ten thousand francs a week would be ample payment for seeing that the scheme is not repeated in any of the other stores.” I held up my hand. “This would be in addition to the reward which I have already earned.”
He clenched his teeth and glared at me. “This is blackmail!” he said t
ightly. “This is a crime!”
“A crime?” I asked innocently. “To prevent stealing? To see that you are not bankrupt through pilfering? Any other action on my part, it seems to me, could only be interpreted as being dishonest. And, to be frank, would lead you into disaster in short order.” I looked at him evenly across the desk. “Well?”
One thing about Stavros is that he knows when he is beaten. I could almost hear the wheels click in his head as he calculated my demands against his losses should they spread to the other stores.
“I assume,” he said in a voice drained of emotion, “that with this income, you will be able to move from my home into a place of your own?”
“I have spent the last two weeks locating a suitable apartment,” I assured him. “With this income, I can swing it.”
“Then allow me to help you by according with your wishes,” he said politely. “Of course, you know that I shall have to continue spending money on detectives.”
“I imagined you would,” I said coldly and got to my feet. “Otherwise, my demands would have been much higher.”
And that’s how we left it.
Kek Huuygens grinned at me across the table. “And so I live a comfortable life,” he said. His hand gestured idly, including his wardrobe and the sidewalk cafe in general. “And shall continue to—at least, until my cousin figures out how he was being swindled. Which is almost impossible, since it has been stopped and the evidence removed from the area of his investigation.”
“But I still don’t understand it,” I said in irritation, “How did the scheme work? What did you whisper into the ear of the manager of that store?”
“Have another brandy,” he said, and waited once again until we were served. I could barely contain my impatience, but Huuygens, in one of his moods, is not to be rushed. When our glasses were again full, he viewed me in quite another manner—seriously this time—and then nodded as if he had come to an important decision.
“I can trust you,” he said at last. “And it is too good a story to remain untold, although only by me”—his finger came up—“and not by you. What I said to the manager of the store was this: ‘You are the ninth counter.’”
I had started to raise my glass to my mouth, but I paused and set it down untouched. I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it again as Kek’s words came through to me in all their meaning. Kek nodded, happy that I had at last seen the light.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Stavros had told me there were eight girls checking out goods at these counters. But the manager had added a ninth counter which he handled himself. And which was completely beyond the control of my cousin’s vaunted auditors.” He grinned at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I admitted. “Truly beautiful.”
He raised his glass. “To beautiful schemes,” he said. And then added quietly, a glint in his eye, “And if I buy the next one, you will then owe me two.
The Collector
As a general rule I run into Kek Huuygens by pure accident, but this time, believe it or not, I actually knew where it might be possible to find him. It was not, of course, an address or anything that simple, but mutual friends had seen him in the casino in Monte Carlo and said he looked to be quite prosperous. Knowing Huuygens, I felt there was a good chance he might be on a winning streak and if he were, I was sure he’d still be there when I arrived. Kek is an old and valued friend, Polish by birth, Dutch by name, American by passport, and as international as one can get. He has often furnished me with some of my best copy—and even, at times, permitted me to publish it. While Huuygens’ normal activity is to confound the various customs services of the world—for a fee, of course—he is also quite a gambler. I had always wanted to do a column on the difference in gambling habits between a place like, say, Vegas, and a place where you don’t carry nickels around in a paper cup like, say, Monte Carlo. And the thought of an old friend to serve as both guide and source of expertise was a strong temptation. Besides, I owed myself a vacation and by far the best bait for a vacation on the Riviera is New York in winter.
My cab from the Nice airport arrived at the hotel about dusk. I checked in, changed to dinner clothes, and strolled over to the casino. Although it was just about the dinner hour, the place was quite crowded. As I walked from table to table through the various rooms, studying the taut faces of the players, I began to fear that perhaps Huuygens had moved on, for he is a restless soul, but then I spotted him standing behind a fat man playing roulette. I was surprised that he was not involved in the game. I placed myself directly behind him, cleared my throat loudly, and nudged him as if by accident, anticipating the startled look of amazement when he saw who had caused his discomfort, but when he turned there was only the slightest humorous quirking of an eyebrow to change his expression.
“Well, well,” he said, quite as if we had seen each other for dinner, rather than a year ago and across an ocean. “Come into the bar and have a drink.”
I followed him into the long, dark-paneled ornate room and sat across from him at the table he selected. We both ordered and I studied him. As our mutual friend had reported, Kek looked both prosperous and content.
“And what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking of a column on gambling,” I said. “I heard you were here and I was sure you could help.”
Kek shook his head; he tried to look sad but there was a twinkle in his eye. “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong man. I’ve given up on gambling; there’s too much of an element of risk in it.”
I frowned at him. “Then what on earth are you doing at the casino?”
“I’ve become a collector,” he said calmly, “and my reason for being here is merely to look for donors.”
“A collector?” I must have sounded puzzled. “But you’ve always been a collector. And what do you mean, to look for donors?”
Kek paused as our waiter placed our drinks before us, waited until we were alone once more, and raised his glass in a salute. I responded; we sipped our cognac and then Kek put his glass down.
“I’ve become a different type of collector,” he said. He saw the look on my face and laughed. “I suppose you won’t be satisfied until you have the complete story of my reformation. I may even permit you to print it. Some day.…”
To begin with (Huuygens said, twisting his brandy glass idly), as I say, I’ve become a different type of collector. I collect money. And—although this is not particularly germane to the point and you won’t know what I’m talking about for a while—I seldom like the type of people I collect from, and I have to put Ralph White and his wife Vera at the top of the list. They are the sort of Americans you run into over here; the ones with huge villas who will wine and dine you when you have all the funds you need to wine and dine yourself, but who wouldn’t permit you within a fork length of their kitchen door when you could really use a meal. Something like bankers, you might say.
In any event, this particular day I had been watching White play baccarat, and when he left the game rooms I followed him into the bar—we actually sat at this very table—and sat down across from him without being invited. I spoke to him quite frankly.
“Ralph,” I said, “I’ve been recruited to do some rather noble work, and this year, you know, I’m looking for a rather large contribution from you. It’s for an extremely worthwhile charity—”
He interrupted me brusquely. “You’re collecting for charity?” There was more than a touch of disbelief in his voice, but then he shrugged the matter off as being unimportant. “Well,” he went on, “it really makes no difference. You may or may not know it, but I’m stoney.” He tipped his head in the direction of the game rooms as if in explanation.
Well, of course I knew he was low in funds, if that isn’t an exaggeration of his true financial position. Little things, like the number in help and the cheaper wines served at their parties, were apparent. Actually, with the way he played cards, one has to wonder how he lasted a
s long as he did. However, I kept up the charade.
“Broke?” I asked, my own tone surpassing his in disbelief. “But what about that villa?”
“What about it?” he asked gloomily. “The rent’s paid on it for the season, but then.…” He allowed it to drift off into a tragic picture of himself and Vera, in rags, sleeping under a bridge.
“Oh, come!” I said. “What about those diamonds your wife drapes herself with! Or aren’t they real?”
“Oh, they’re real enough,” he said bitterly, and upended his drink. I had known, of course, they were real. He tapped the table for a refill, and added, “And Vera would part with them about as soon as she’d part with her right arm.”
“And when do you think she’ll part with her right arm?” I asked quietly. “When you two are forced to eat it?”
He looked at me with sudden suspicion. Ralph never was much of a trusting soul. “Just what are you getting at, Huuygens? Because if I know you, you’re getting at something.”
I shrugged. “All I’m trying to say,” I said, “is that despite the old proverb, there are still a few ways to eat your cake and still have it, if you know how.”
He stared. “Such as?”
“Such as paste,” I said bluntly. “You’d be amazed at how realistically they make some of these imitations these days.”
“And then what?” he said in his usual surly manner. “Sell the real ones? Vera would never do it, not in a million years, even if she had a dozen replicas and each one better than the original! And even if I could convince her—which I know damn well I couldn’t—you know what you get for stuff when you’re forced to sell? Nothing!”
Kek Huuygens, Smuggler Page 7