Kek Huuygens, Smuggler

  Huuygens paused in his tale and eyed me curiously. He had removed his dark glasses, and his deep-set gray eyes contained a light of speculation.

  “You jumped when I mentioned that name,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “You positively jumped!”

  I refused to be led from the main stream of a story I suddenly realized could be extremely important. I cleared my throat and spoke, trying to sound noncommittal. “Go on with what you were saying.”

  He studied me a moment and then grinned in sudden conviction. It was like the old Huuygens again. Ever since the plane had lifted from the runway, he had been more relaxed, and now he appeared almost carefree.

  “Ah!” His grin widened. “I think I understand! As I recall, chasing the elusive Herr Gruber was one of your obsessions—or, at least, the obsession of your editor. And was probably—no, I should say certainly—the reason you were in Lisbon.” He continued to regard me with a twinkle in his eye. “Well, bear with me. Who knows? Possibly some part of the story I am telling you will enable you to file a cable to New York with fewer of your usual evasions.”

  He seemed suddenly to realize that our glasses were empty. He rang for the steward, waited until we had again been served and then leaned back, twisting the stem of his glass idly between his fingers, putting his interrupted thoughts in order.

  You may wonder (Huuygens continued at last, and his smile had disappeared as if it had never been, and his voice had returned to its somber inflection) how I was able to recognize Wilhelm Gruber so instantly, when he obviously had no conception that we have ever seen each other before. Or that I probably hated him as much or more than I have ever hated a man. Certainly, he had grown older; after all, more than twenty years had passed since Poland. And he had also changed his appearance. The Hitler mustache I remembered had been shaven off, and some surgeon at one time or another had used his instruments for the purpose of making that Aryan face less suspect. It would almost make one laugh, if it did not make one want to cry, because now he sported quite a Hebraic nose, almost the image of the nose he had once held up as the only proof necessary to merit extinction.

  But, in any event, I recognized him. Instantly. When one sees, from hiding, his entire family—father, mother and younger sister—dragged from their house and slaughtered in the street on the orders of one man; when one later watches, through strands of barbed wire, that same man daily strutting up and down, demonstrating the unspoken threat of his authority by the savage, rhythmic beating of his whip against the polish of his high boots; when one has lived daily with that arrogant voice proclaiming the wave of the future in terms of hatred and torture, in a tone holding more joy than intimidation—well, one does not forget that man. Believe me. Nor have I ever forgotten Wilhelm Gruber!

  But still, there I was, holding his damp palm and pumping it enthusiastically, attempting wildly to recover my equilibrium. Fortunately, he wearied of the exercise and released me. Turning away, he began to stride up and down before me as he formulated his thoughts into words he felt would be most enticing to a man of my profession. At last, he paused, facing me.

  “M’sieu Huuygens,” he began, “I shall not waste your time. I have checked on you quite thoroughly, and I am convinced that you are the man I need for—ah, for the solution to my problem. You see, some years ago I—well, I was fortunate enough to inherit certain paintings which, until now, I have been able to keep simply for my pleasure.” He spread his fat hands. “Now, unfortunately, conditions have changed and I am forced to sell them.”

  How he ever expected anyone to believe the ridiculous fiction of his being Spanish with that guttural accent, Heaven alone knew! But I listened quietly enough, even though my mind was whirling along at breakneck speed. He looked at me with the air of a man about to tell a stranger a naughty story, but uncertain of its reception. Then he continued.

  “However, m’sieu, my problem is that in this country, it is most difficult to find a proper customer. But in France, I have certain old friends who could lead me to certain dealers willing to pay a decent price. My particular problem …”

  “Your problem is to get them to France,” I said evenly, although I was feeling anything but calm, “without being disturbed by customs. And my specialty is arranging just such accommodations.”

  He smiled widely. “Exactly!”

  “Then,” I said, “let me see these paintings. To judge their size, and from that, the size of the problem.”

  He nodded profoundly, as if I had confirmed his first estimate of my brilliance, and led me to a small door set in the side wall of the room, across from the windows. It required a combination of two keys to open. He flicked on the light, stepped aside, and I entered.

  What the room had been before, I do not know—possibly a serving pantry of some sort—but now it was a vault. The walls had been lined with steel, as well as the ceiling. I was sure that under the carpet on which I was standing, the floor was also steel. One small vent, located at the juncture of one wall and the ceiling, provided fresh air, from where I do not know. And hung on almost every square inch of the walls were framed paintings.

  “You are the first man other than Hans and myself ever to see this room,” Gruber said almost proudly. “We did the work here ourselves.”

  He followed me as I walked from painting to painting. There was plenty of space in which to study the collection—except my mind was elsewhere, seething. I do not believe I have ever been so confused in my life. It was not until he had spoken to me again—several times, probably (and what he said I still don’t know) that I forced myself to bring my thoughts to bear on the paintings themselves. And once again, it was only by the greatest effort that I prevented myself from betraying my feelings. Had the same situation developed with any other client, my first reaction would have been to laugh, because even the most cursory perusal demonstrated that nine-tenths of the paintings were poor copies made by obviously second-rate students, and the other tenth, while possibly original, were the work of artists—if that is not too flattering a word—who would have been better advised to restrain their efforts to the exterior of houses.

  But although the pitiful daubs I faced were a sure indication of Gruber’s complete ignorance, I could not see how this fact could be of any use to me, and it was therefore with a completely unemotional face that I withdrew a collapsing rule, measured the largest of the monstrosities, closed my eyes a moment to remember the measurements and then turned to face him once again.

  “These are all?”

  “No,” he said, and turned to a table that was centered in the room. He slid open a drawer and brought out a small envelope. “There are also these.”

  He spread the contents of the envelope before me. From where I stood, they appeared at first like postal cards. It was not until I came closer that I realized their full import. And when I did, I’m afraid that, despite my intentions, my mouth fell open. Fortunately, Gruber was also studying the small pictures and did not notice. I bent over them again, but there was no doubt at all in my mind. For the first time in over twenty years, I was looking at the famous Hochmann Collection of miniatures.

  I do not know if you are familiar with this precious collection. It had been the pride of the Warsaw Art Museum in those happier days before the war. As a student, I had gone there to admire it many times, and I knew it well. The Hochmann family had collected these, and in 1922, when the last Count Hochmann went to make whatever excuses he thought God would accept, his will directed that the collection be left to the Warsaw Art Museum and exhibited there under his family name. Two weeks after Poland capitulated to the Nazis, the collection disappeared and, despite the offer of a huge reward, had never been seen since. Until now …

  This collection of miniature paintings was unique. Many artists of history at one time or another delighted in demonstrating their extreme control of their media by producing miniatures—paintings complete in all detail, with all color and warmth, all richness and depth, yet on a scale so small that
in many cases the full beauty of the work could not be realized without the aid of a glass. Miniature painting goes back as far as the time of the Romans and was highly developed in the Orient at an early date. Before the sixteenth century, Persian, Indian and Turkish artists were producing delicate, stylized miniatures; in fact, many artists bred cats, since only the throat hairs of two-month-old kittens were considered fine enough for their brushes.

  Hans Holbein the Younger was probably the first important representative of the art in Europe, and he was shortly followed by Clouet in France, and then by Hilliard and Isaac in England, and eventually even by artists in the then new United States of America—people such as Watson and Peale, and of course, Malbone, who was quite exceptional. Actually, it was an art form that continued up until the time of Ross, who had the extreme misfortune of seeing his ability superseded by the advent of photography. Ah, well, progress! Why must we always suffer from it?

  But you must forgive me for having gone off on a tangent; you have to see miniatures to truly appreciate the effect they can have on you. However, as I was saying, the Hochmann Collection was most unusual. To begin with, miniatures were generally portraits, but the Hochmann Collection was limited to landscapes, which were rarely painted in miniature form in those days. Second, although the standard surface for miniatures at that time varied from ivory to metal to—although I cannot imagine how they did it—stretched chicken-skin, the Hochmann examples were limited to parchment. And finally, while the Persians even called a painting as large as a book page a miniature, the Hochmann Collection had no painting larger than two by four inches. There are, of course, many fine collections of these paintings in the world today—in New York and London, and, of course, in the Louvre—but I have still always favored the Hochmann Collection.… But I have really digressed again, and I apologize. In any event, there I was, staring at it almost unbelievingly.

  I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to keep a straight face. Gruber was watching me.

  “Well?” he asked a bit impatiently. “What do you think?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not an art expert, m’sieu,” I said at last, raising my shoulders. “Their value …”

  “I don’t mean that,” he said with more than a touch of irritability, obviously caused by anxiety. “I realize that art is not your field. I mean, now that you’ve seen what I wish transported to France, can you handle the assignment?

  I looked at him with dignity. “I’m sure you do not wish to insult me, m’sieu,” I said. “Of course, I can handle it. It will require several days of preparation, but I can see no insurmountable problem.”

  “Good,” he said, and smiled in a faintly malicious manner. “One thing, however. In making your plans, I should suggest that you take one further fact into account: you must arrange the details so that at no time are the paintings out of my sight.”

  I stared at him. “But …

  “No excuses, please.” His voice was suddenly hard; he should have had the surgeon change his vocal chords as well as his nose. “That is an absolutely essential condition. I will not say that I distrust you, but there is far too much at stake here for me to take the slightest chance.”

  I nodded, as if I could see his point, and then raised my head. “You realize, of course, m’sieu, that you are making the problem more complicated and difficult?”

  He smiled sardonically. “But not impossible, I’m sure. Certainly not for the famous Kek Huuygens, and certainly not for the extremely large fee he will be paid.”

  “No,” I admitted after a dignified pause.

  “Fine! I was positive you could manage it.” And he led me from the room.

  In the hallway, Gruber held out his hand. “And when shall I see you again?”

  I thought. “In two or three days,” I finally said. “I shall have to study the problem and then make the necessary arrangements.”

  “Until two or three days, then,” he said, and disappeared back into the library.

  His servant showed me to the gate, unlocked it and waited until my taxi came.

  Well, back at the hotel, I fell into a chair, closed my eyes and gave the matter the full power of my concentration. To merely report Gruber or turn him in—and to the Portuguese authorities, at that—was patently ridiculous. In the first place, with the political philosophy that obtains in the charming land we have just left, or at least with many of their officials, it is doubtful that Gruber would remain uninformed long enough to face extradition. And at least, now I knew where he was. And even if, by some miracle, he was arrested and returned to Germany for trial, what sentence would he face? Five years? Out in three years with good behavior? Twelve months each for my father, my mother and my sister? I shook my head and concentrated harder.

  Ideas, as you know, come to me with considerable ease, but this time I was far more exigent with their content. I threw out at least the first ten that occurred to me, and when at long last one finally came along that offered some feasibility, I did not, as I usually do, smile brightly at my own genius, but went over it again and again, scowling, checking every little detail in my mind for some flaw, changing this minute move and adding that one, trying to remember small things about the house and the driveway—like whether the big gate swung inward or outward; like the distance from the gate to the nearest side-road that cut away from the street.

  All these points I reviewed and checked again and again until the tiniest detail was clear in my mind. It sounds both easy and fast as I recount it now, but I actually spent the balance of the day on it, had no alcohol with my dinner in order to maintain the clarity of my mind and worked on the plan far into the night. It was not until I knew each piece was locked securely in place that I finally went to bed.

  The following day was a busy one. To begin with, I stopped at a stationer’s shop and bought a pad of large, red-edged gummed labels, all blank, and a small bottle of marking ink and a fine brush. I took the labels to a small job-printing house in the neighborhood and had them printed to my direction. And then, almost as an afterthought, I asked the man to print me some business cards. The legend I produced for him to copy indicated that I was a man named Enrique Echavarria and that I enjoyed the position of Director General of a large bank in Madrid. (I think I called the bank Banco Internacional Econòmica; if there isn’t a bank with that name, there should be.) The printer, a young man with far more important matters on his mind, gave no particular thought to the request, but hand-set the type and went to work.

  My next stop was at an automobile rental agency. The business cards I had just had printed worked their magic—and I like to think my distinguished appearance did no harm—and I left the required deposit and drove away in a carefully selected sedan of demonstrated power and with a trunk of the size I calculated I would need for my scheme. Once away from the agency, I pulled to the curb, opened the trunk and measured it exactly. It would have excited unnecessary curiosity had I done it at the agency. Fortunately, it was sufficiently large for my needs.

  There were still many things to do, and I got right to them. A hardware store nearby furnished me with a hammer, a small packet of nails and one of those plastic airplane bags in which to convey all of my other purchases. I also bought a large square pad of tissue paper. My last chore of the morning was to locate a small carpentry shop and order a packing case of the dimensions I carried in my head. I made a rapid calculation and indicated the depth I wanted, plus the fact that one side would eventually act as a cover and that I would nail it shut once it had been packed. We hovered over sketches until I was sure the man knew what I wanted. He calculated a cost, promised delivery for the following afternoon, and I left a deposit and went on my way.

  By this time, it was well past the luncheon hour, even by Lisbon’s rather liberal standards, but I had no appetite for food. So I got in the car and started looking up some old friends of mine from the days I spent in the Resistance. Fortunately, I have made a point of maintaining old contacts—which explains why
you and I are still friends—and now it really paid dividends. This part of the scheme, in which I had anticipated the greatest difficulty, actually presented no problem at all. Of course, you must remember the type of people these friends were. They were not, let us say, the types you would invite to help you count your cash, but for my purpose, they were ideal. So, as I say, this part of the scheme presented no problem—except that after furnishing me with my requirements, they all insisted on having a drink with me. By this time, I did not mind. With the majority of the steps in the plan accomplished, I felt I could relax.

  I came back to the hotel that night feeling in an almost gay mood. There was a note in my box requesting me to call a certain number, so I took the creaky elevator to my floor, went to my room and did so. A moment after I had introduced myself to Gruber’s servant, the voice of the monster himself came on the line. He sounded a bit nervous.

  “Well? How are your plans going?”

  “Excellently,” I replied with complete honesty.

  “And you will be here when?”

  “The day after tomorrow,” I said. “About ten in the morning. I’ll bring all the necessary packing materials with me to box the—ah, the merchandise. And it shouldn’t take more than an hour or so. You should be packed,” I added, “for a sea voyage. We’re due on board at noon.”

  “And which dock do we sail from?”

  “I’ll give you the details at the proper time,” I said a bit curtly.

  “Fair enough,” he said in an infinitely more satisfied tone, and rang off. I grinned at the telephone for a moment and then went downstairs to have dinner.

  The following morning, I began what was probably the most important part of the entire scheme. This consisted of driving slowly about the city’s suburbs, staring down one alley after another. I particularly avoided the center of the city since the concentration of police there was greater, and I certainly didn’t want any involvement with them. And also because the place I was looking for had to be a reasonable distance from Gruber’s house, but still had to fulfill the conditions of being a dead-end street with a walled garden, either at the end or near the end. Or if not a walled garden, something very similar. A street, in short, where I could abandon the car once I was done with it.