Tourists Are for Trapping

by Marian Babson

  I watched them idly as they kicked the small, glittering object back and forth between them. Then my brain abruptly meshed into gear again.

  Glittering?

  I dived for the chunk of plaster. Pandora gave a welcoming yowl as I joined the game, then a snarl of protest as I settled back on the sofa clutching her new toy. I was being a miserable spoilsport again.

  “What’s the matter?” Gerry asked, puzzled, but alerted by my sudden interest.

  I was chipping with my thumbnail at the plaster surrounding the glittering dot. Bright, multicoloured sparks shot from the depths of the plaster in the lamplight. Gerry whistled softly and moved closer, pulling out a penknife.

  “Here”—he took the chunk of plaster away from me—“we can use this. Don’t worry,” he added as I winced, “you can’t hurt that baby with a bit of steel.”

  He whittled away at the plaster with more enthusiasm than skill. Gradually, the shining stone emerged, slightly dulled by the bits of plaster still clinging to it, but identifiable.

  “Well, well!” Gerry held the gem, point still embedded in the chunk of plaster, out at arm’s length, admiring it. “They are using expensive materials in the National Health Service these days. No wonder rates keep going up.”

  “Oh, God,” I groaned, “an uncut diamond. It needed only this.”

  “Tut, tut,” Gerry clucked, “not uncut. Unset. It’s very nicely cut, indeed. Baguette cut, about half a carat, blue-white, and I’d say”—he twirled the plaster, watching the flashing sparks of light—“quite probably perfect.”

  “You’re the expert.” I accepted his correction. Gerry has been trailed past so many jewelry shop windows by hinting birds that he must know as much about it as anyone this side of Hatton Garden. As he has himself remarked, had he been born a century earlier, he could have worked up a nice sideline with Asprey’s by hiring out as an extra hitching post, he’s been immobilized outside their windows by twittering birds so often and for such long periods.

  “Hardly expert,” he demurred modestly, “but it stands to reason, doesn’t it? No use buying unset stones for investment unless they are perfect. I assume they are for investment?”

  “A nest egg,” I agreed, “against the days when alimony isn’t so easily come by, and the little bird in the nest grows old enough to fly away and manage her own money.”

  “And the bird is on the wing,” Gerry said cheerfully. “Ah, yes, diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

  “I thought that cast looked awfully lumpy,” I brooded. “No wonder she kept so quiet about her injury after the accident.”

  “That alone should have made us suspicious,” Gerry said. “Not the stoic type, our Paula. We should have known better. But they’re all a bit odd and unnatural—for tourists. Makes you wonder what some of the rest of them are hiding, doesn’t it?”

  I didn’t say a word; I carefully kept my expression blank, but we’d known each other for too many years.

  “Or does it?” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Doug, old boy, is there anything you ought to tell me?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I said. “It would make you an accessory after the fact. This way, just one of us could go to jail.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” he said. “Remember that great old legal maxim, ‘In the eyes of the law, ignorance is no excuse.’ They’ve got you coming and going. Besides, we might as well be cellmates, we’re used to each other, and you wouldn’t like some of the rough types they might toss you in with. You’ve lived too sheltered a life.”

  “I did until I went into PR.” But Gerry was right, as usual. I spent the next half hour catching him up with the situation. At the end, he was looking considerably shaken.

  “My, my”—he shook his head—“and they used to call them ‘innocents abroad.’ How times have changed.”

  Dawn was streaking the horizon outside the hotel window. I’m as fond of dawn as the next man—providing the next man is Gerry—but I felt I’d sat up and watched too many of them in the wrong company since Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd. had first set up in business. I thought wearily of the dreams we’d had when we started out—they included a staff to deal with the rough stuff, such as sitting up all night with clients, and an estate in the country, where the only time we’d greet the dawn would be with a champagne breakfast after a Hunt Club ball. In our youth and innocence, we reckoned we ought to reach those modest goals within a couple of years.

  “We just have to hold out a few hours longer.” I tried to cheer myself on, as much as Gerry. “They aren’t going to crack now—too much is at stake. They ought to skim through the police questioning like a hot knife through butter—they’ve had plenty of practise in Switzerland. All they have to do is get on that plane and they’re in the clear. Their only problem then is trying to live with their consciences. We can live with ours.”

  “You may be right,” Gerry said. “You probably are. But”—he tossed the diamond-studded chunk of plaster into the air and caught it deftly—“what price noninvolvement if they’re caught by Customs and Excise when they land on home territory? One question leads to another, you know. What would you consider a sporting wager on the probability of Paula’s keeping a stiff upper lip if she thought she could lighten her sentence by shopping her associates?”

  “I wouldn’t give that chunk of plaster without the diamond.”

  “Right,” Gerry said. He stood up and pocketed it. “In that case, it’s back to the jolly old drawing board, isn’t it? Shall we cut along and explain a few facts about International Commercial Courtesy to a certain lady?”

  Paula answered the door. Like us, she hadn’t bothered to try to sleep. I didn’t for a moment think it was because her conscience was bothering her. Her nerves might be going a bit wonky as the moment of facing U.S. Customs grew nearer, but her conscience was ironclad in the certainty that she was in the right. It’s the only way a smuggler can get away with it. Usually.

  “Come in.” She wasn’t overjoyed to see us, but she had no reason to suspect anything, either. “Sit down.” She swept an arm toward the two chairs. Unfortunately, it was the wrong arm. She realised this and shrugged.

  “I’m trying to exercise it a little. So’s it doesn’t get too stiff.” She had changed into a traveling suit, and a matching scarf was knotted into a sling around her neck in readiness. She slipped the cast into it. “I suppose I shouldn’t overdo.”

  Donna was lying in one of the twin beds. She wasn’t asleep, but she was pretending to be. If the alternative was a long conversation with Paula, I’d have done the same.

  “You might do better if you went without it entirely,” Gerry said. “The cast, I mean. In fact, I’d strongly recommend it.”

  “What do you mean?” She flared instantly. “Listen, you’re lucky I don’t sue. It was that lousy, unsafe, rickety-stepped joint your partner took us to that—”

  Gerry tossed the chunk of plaster to her. She stopped in midsentence, catching it automatically. The diamond gleamed wickedly under the overhead light.

  “So, okay.” She glared at us defiantly. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  Donna sat up in bed, aware that something had happened and no longer able to continue the pretense of sleep. Paula didn’t notice her.

  “Nothing,” Gerry answered for us both. “Because you aren’t going to be so silly. You’re going to take that cast off, chip the diamonds out of it, and declare them at Customs like a good little girl.”

  “And suppose I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll be liable for a heavy fine, the diamonds and any other little baubles you’ve tucked away will be confiscated, and you might even face a jail sentence—depending, of course, on your general attitude during the proceedings.”

  Donna was smiling broadly. It was the first time I had seen her look even remotely happy during her entire sojourn in this country. Fortunately, her mother didn’t turn around.

  “You said you weren’t going to do anythin
g.” Paula was as white as her homemade plaster cast

  “We don’t need to.” Gerry sighed deeply. “It was all done before you left the country of purchase, probably before you even left the shop.”

  “It was a diamond factory,” she said. “Near Amsterdam.”

  “There’s no difference, they’re all in the agreement.”

  “What agreement?” She didn’t want to believe, but Gerry’s attitude was forcing her to, however reluctantly.

  “Gentlemen’s, perhaps,” Gerry said. “All I know is that Continental jewelry shops automatically report all purchases over a certain modest amount to the Customs and Excise Department of the home country of any foreign purchaser. Then, if the purchaser doesn’t declare the goods—”

  “They wouldn’t do that!” But she was no longer so sure of her ground as she had been.

  “If they don’t,” Gerry said, “then one of the sales staff does. It makes a nice little supplementary income—I understand some of them are putting their children through very expensive schools on the bounty money.”

  “You mean our United States Customs Department listens to sneaks like that?”

  “I believe they actually encourage them,” Gerry said. “They give a reward of twenty-five percent of the value of the goods, up to a maximum of twenty thousand pounds. And of course, once the goods have been confiscated, you never get them back—not even after paying your fine. They’re kept and sold at auction at some later date.”

  “Why the dirty, rotten, lousy sons-of-bitches!”

  “Amen, amen,” Gerry said sadly. “You can’t trust anyone these days.”

  I dodged quickly as she made a sudden movement, but she had only hurled the chunk of plaster back at us. Gerry caught it deftly.

  “Temper, temper,” he said. “Don’t forget there’s a nice little diamond in that.” He tried to hand it back to her.

  “Keep it,” she said. “It will be one less I have to pay duty on.”

  “No, no, I couldn’t.” He tossed it to her with instinctive revulsion. “I’m superstitious. Diamonds are bad luck.”

  “You’re telling me,” she said bitterly. She tried to throw it back, but he moved away. I stepped in and caught it. We’d saved her a lot of money in fines, not to mention the attendant unpleasantness. We could call it our reward for information.

  “We’d better be getting along now,” Gerry said. “You have quite a busy time ahead of you—chipping all your baubles out of their impromptu setting.”

  “Yeah.” Paula sent him a look of pure hatred. Gerry flinched. He isn’t used to getting those kind of looks from women. Oh, well, you can’t win ’em all.

  Donna lay back and pulled the covers over her head. I could see the bedclothes shaking uncontrollably. It was nice that someone was amused.

  “Wait a minute,” Paula said to me as we reached the door. She crossed to the suitcase open on her bed and pulled out a slightly wilted notebook.

  “Here, give this back to the professor, would you?” She met my eyes and looked away. “I wasn’t going to keep it, anyway,” she said. “I’d have mailed it back to him later. But he had all that stuff in it about me spending so long shopping, and in the diamond factory and everything. If anyone had looked at it, going through customs, I thought—”

  I took it. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “And listen, you don’t have to tell him where you got it, do you? I mean, you can just say you found it, or something.”

  She probably didn’t deserve it, but I nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain it someway.”

  We were nearly out the door when she said, “Hey, listen.”

  I turned around.

  “Thanks” she said awkwardly.

  Chapter 16

  Gerry applied a bit of discreet bribery in the right quarters, and we got a pot of coffee and some sandwiches to take back to our suite. Penny was up and playing with Pandora when we got there.

  Pandora sprang forward to twine around my ankles, telling me how much she had missed me, and mentioning only in passing that she’d been growing decidedly peckish. Penny’s face brightened at the sight of sustenance, too.

  I took half a sandwich apart and started to put the side with the clinging salmon mayonnaise down for Pandora. The thick pile of the carpet gave me a sudden pang of conscience. Although Pandora was usually a very tidy eater, this could be the one time she wasn’t. There was nothing else around, so I put the exercise book down and set the open sandwich on top. Purring with satisfaction, Pandora crouched over it eagerly. If she slopped a bit, the professor would forgive her. What are a few grease spots between friends?

  Gerry was pouring coffee while I settled Pandora. The sofa would be overcrowded with three, so I stayed on the floor beside Pandora and helped myself to the other half of her sandwich. Gerry passed down a cup of coffee to me.

  There was a short silence while we all concentrated on food. Pandora finished first and prowled over to thrust her muzzle into my second sandwich, neatly abstracting the slice of ham. I took the hint and found another salmon sandwich for her.

  We were finishing the last of the coffee when I pulled the chunk of plaster out of my pocket to have another look at the loot. Even in the unsatisfactory mixed light of electricity and dawn, the gem sparkled with a light of its own.

  Gerry noticed it and shuddered abruptly. “Get rid of that thing! Diamonds are nothing but bad luck, I promise you. Once they know you’ve got them, someone’s always trying to get them away from you.”

  I knew what he meant, of course. He meant that none of his birds would ever give him a moment’s peace if they knew Perkins & Tate had a diamond lying around loose. For Gerry, that was bad luck enough.

  But other people would do a lot to get diamonds, too. How many did Paula have stashed away in that phony cast? Enough to make it worthwhile hijacking her? Had Carrie and her roommate discovered some plot to kidnap Paula and all the jewels she was amassing to bring back to the States illicitly? Was that why they had to be got rid of?

  I lapsed into a brief fantasy, starring Tony Christopher and Marie Manzetti as Mafia henchmen assigned to the task. It was hard going—they were too respectable. That was the trouble with the whole tour; everyone was so eminently respectable that it was difficult to realise what they’d been up to. They made one feel that such little lapses could happen to anyone. So, why not hijacking?

  As I thought about it, I realised it was the kind of idea you can only get in the cold, gray light of dawn. For one thing, kidnapping Paula would be like trying to kidnap Niagara Falls—how would you impose your will on such a force of nature? And what would you do with it if you got it? For another thing, it would be easier to let her take the jewels through U.S. Customs and steal them later. Even if Paula knew who had taken her jewelry, she couldn’t do anything about it—not if she had smuggled it into the States. She would still be liable for all the penalties if she admitted it. There wasn’t enough risk in the project for any would-be thief to commit murder over. If there were any such project at all.

  I was loathe to relinquish the idea completely. Such was the mesmeric effect of the jewel in my hand. Diamonds were so valuable … diamonds were forever … diamonds were a girl’s best—

  “Get rid of it!” Gerry urged. “We don’t need any more bad luck. We can get into trouble enough on our own.”

  He was right, I supposed. I began to realise that it might not be so easy to get rid of. They were funny about things like Customs duty in this country, too. Any reputable jeweler would ask questions—it wouldn’t be so easy to sell.

  Penny moved to set her coffee cup down on the sofa table behind her. I caught the sudden sharp intake of breath as she turned, and the telltale way her hand crept to her bruised ribs. In the brightening light, I could see that what I had taken to be a shadow on her chin was a blotchy purple bruise. She had put in a lot of overtime on this assignment, and collected nothing but aches and pains for it. There were bonuses and bonuses, and some things
girls tended to prize above money.

  “Here.” I tossed the diamond into her lap—carefully, so that she wouldn’t have to move to catch it. “Souvenir of a job well done.”

  Gerry nodded agreement. I knew that, like me, he was only thankful that she hadn’t a few scars for lasting souvenirs, as well.

  “Oh, Douglas!” She looked at me, her eyes outshone the diamond for a moment, then went misty. “Oh, Douglas!”

  “A present from Paula,” I disclaimed hastily, something in her attitude bringing on an acute attack of nervousness.

  Pandora paused in washing her face and looked across at Penny. Their eyes met, and an unreadable, completely female, feline message passed between them. Then Pandora went back to washing her face. It gave me the unreasonable feeling that something about my fate had irrevocably been decided, and I had no say in the matter whatever.

  “It’s all right,” Penny said, “I understand. Thank you, Douglas. And”—she turned her head cautiously— “thank you, Gerald.”

  It was Gerry’s turn to jump nervously at this point. It was the first time Penny had ever used our first names. Of course, after what she’d been through, she was entitled to. But it meant the former relationship had changed, was assuming a new and slightly different, unknown form. It had been silly of us to assume that it would remain static forever. As I’d noticed before, Penny was growing up. In fact, the kind of clients we’d been drawing recently were enough to age anyone rapidly. I was feeling a lot older myself.

  Pandora finished making herself what she considered presentable and leaped for my shoulder, settling down for a nap. Penny sat curled quietly in the corner of the sofa, gazing into the depths of her jewel, turning it to catch the light, a dreamy smile on her lips. Gerry had gone off into some dream of his own.

  It was too early to do anything, too late to go to bed. Soon Neil and the professor would be returning with their grim tidings. Then the police would take over. It would be a few hours before we knew whether we could unload Tour 79 at Heathrow, or whether we were stuck with them for an indefinitely longer period. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but sit around and wait.