Highbinders

by Ross Thomas

  “Everything all right, sir?” old Tom asked.

  “It had better be,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  GENTLEMAN JACK BROOKS WAS working the door at the Belgravia mansion that housed the Brothers Nitry and when I asked him what had happened to the Portuguese maids, he said, “Gave them the afternoon off, sir, seeing that it’s a private family affair. They’re all waiting for you in the red room.”

  He was right when he had said that they were all there. Eddie Apex was standing in front of the fireplace, gazing up at the fake Eakins. His wife, Ceil, was seated in one corner of the room, about as far away as she could get from Robin Styles who, elegant as ever, sat in a chair in the opposite corner looking relaxed to the point of languidness.

  The Nitry brothers, Ned and Norbert, stood in the center of the red room about three feet apart. There was nothing relaxed about them. The jungle was peeking through their Belgravia facades and they both looked ready to pounce.

  The man who stood between them didn’t look too calm either. He was nervously picking at the crumbs in a plate that appeared to have once held a slice of cake. He was concentrating on getting every last crumb, using his fingers to do so. He was Julian Christenberry, Ph.D., M.A., F.S.A., sage of Ashworth Road, and eminent authority on old swords worth a million pounds or so. He still looked as hungry as ever, but he stopped chewing when he saw the pink-wrapped bundle in my arms.

  “You got it, lad!” Ned Nitry said, his voice cracking from excitement or greed or both.

  “I got it,” I said.

  “Put it over here,” he said, indicating a long, polished oak table. “Put it over here and let the doctor have a look. You’ve met the doctor, haven’t you?”

  “We’ve met,” I said. “How are you, Doctor Christenberry?”

  “Mmm,” he said, which I interpreted to mean that he was just fine.

  I walked over to the table and put the bundle down. I drew back the pink baby blanket and listened to the sigh that ran through the room. They were all crowded about it now. Even old Tom and Gentleman Jack Brooks had tiptoed in and were standing a little to one side. The rest of them looked hungry, famished really, as if they couldn’t get enough of the sight of the sword.

  “That’s it, right enough,” Norbert Nitry said.

  “Move back so the doctor can have a look,” his brother said. “Everybody move back. You need more light, Doctor? Fetch another lamp, Jack.”

  Everybody moved back and old Jack brought over a floor lamp and plugged it in. It may have been Doctor Christenberry’s finest hour and he played it for all it was worth, as if he knew he probably would never command an audience this large again and certainly never one so attentive.

  He bent over the sword without touching it until his nose was no more than three or four inches from the tip, which was about as sharp looking as an ordinary carving knife. His nose traveled up the sword until it reached the pommel where the uncut diamond as big as an egg was. Doctor Christenberry said “Mmm” again, which this time I interpreted to mean that, yes, this object on the table is indeed a sword.

  He straightened up and carefully turned the sword over so that he could see what was on the other side. Then his nose began its trip from tip to pommel again. After that he whipped out a tape measure and checked how long it was. Without being told to do so, Norbert Nitry produced a small scale, the accurate kind, the kind that uses polished weights, and Doctor Christenberry weighed the sword. He said “Mmmm” again, meaning this time, I thought, you can take away the scale, which Norbert Nitry did.

  Doctor Christenberry stared at the sword as it lay on the polished table. Nobody said anything. The old man reached into his pocket, took out a large hand magnifying glass, and made a careful, minute examination of the blade and then the hilt. When he got to the tiny NN that was scratched into the hilt he said “Mmm” again and let the Nitry brothers have a look. They looked and then grinned at each other.

  The old man put the magnifying glass back in his pocket and produced a jeweler’s glass. He screwed it into his right eye and made a careful examination of the two rubies that were stuck into both ends of the steel crosspiece. Then he went to work on the big, milky-looking diamond in the pommel. He examined the diamond for nearly five minutes, said “Mmmm” three times, and then unscrewed the jeweler’s glass from his eye and dropped it into his pocket. He turned to face his audience.

  “This, without doubt,” he said and paused, “is the Sword of St. Louis.”

  I think a faint cheer went up in the room from everyone but Doctor Christenberry and me. Norbert slapped his brother on the back. Eddie Apex embraced his wife. Robin Styles smiled and looked foolishly happy. Old Jack and old Tom did a couple of jig steps. I found myself thinking of Dickens at his stickiest, always toward the end, where good is rewarded and bad is punished, just as in real life.

  “Let’s have that bubbly now, Jack,” Ned Nitry said, beaming, and old Jack went out and came back in wheeling a drinks tray. Ned Nitry moved over to me and put his arm around my shoulder. “I want to thank you, lad, for a damn fine job of work. When would you like your money?”

  “You’ve already paid me twelve hundred and fifty pounds. That was the twelve and a half percent in advance that my attorney asked for.”

  “That’s right. We paid that. And the way I’m feeling now, there just might be a bonus on top of the rest.”

  “No bonus,” I said.

  Ned Nitry took his arm from around my shoulder. “No bonus?” he said.

  It was as good a time as any. I walked over to the table where the sword still lay. I picked it up by its hilt. It had a nice heft. They had all turned toward me—Eddie and his wife near the door where the drinks tray was; Robin Styles before the fireplace with Norbert Nitry; old Doctor Christenberry by the window, a big glass of sherry already in his hand, probably because it had more nutritive value than champagne; old Tom and Jack hovering around the drinks tray.

  With the sword in my right hand, I looked at Ned Nitry who was still standing next to me. “How much do you think this thing will really bring?” I said. “I mean cut out all the crap. What do you think the top price is?”

  “What is it, lad?” Ned Nitry said. “Is it a bit more money that you’re wanting?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want any more money. I just want to know what a realistic price for the thing is.”

  “Well, why not?” Ned Nitry said. “We’re all friends here. We’ll all share, even you, lad, if that’s what’s bothering you. With the way the market is now and inflation and all, why, it’ll fetch close to—three million quid.”

  Still holding the sword in my right hand, but letting the flat of its blade rest against my shoulder, I walked over to the fireplace where Robin Styles stood. “Did you hear that?” I said to him. “Three million pounds. Your cut will be two million. Tax free, or almost. It’ll take a long time to lose all that, even with your luck.”

  “You’re going to tip ’em off, the authorities, aren’t you, St. Ives?” Ned Nitry said. “All right. If it’s only a little blackmail, we don’t mind paying, do we?” He looked around the room. He got a nod from his brother. Nobody else nodded. Nobody else said anything.

  “I only get paid for what I do,” I said.

  “Well, you’ll get paid for fetching us the sword back. Do you want it now? Is that it? Get him his money, Bert.”

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “I didn’t earn it.”

  I was standing by the slate hearth of the fireplace. Slate is an attractive stone, not too hard, easily workable, and makes a right nice roof. I knelt and banged the pommel of the sword down on the slate as hard as I could. The diamond as big as an egg shattered just like a glass doorknob would shatter.

  Somebody gasped and then there was a silence. It lasted for five seconds or so while their brains worked, while they figured it all out, while they realized fully what had happened, and who should be blamed.

  Then the Nitry brothers, acting in con
cert without previous consultation, sprang at old Doctor Christenberry and started beating hell out of him.

  “You old son of a bitch!” Ned Nitry screamed. “You said it was real! You said it was the goods!” The old man sank to the floor and Norbert Nitry was aiming a kick at his stomach when I pushed him away.

  “Leave him alone,” I said. “He was bought the way you’d buy a watch. What did you expect? You were talking in millions and he was getting what, a few hundred pounds?”

  “It’s a fake,”Norbert Nitry said, turning from the old man. “It’s a goddamned fake.” He looked at me. “You could have switched it,” he said. “He could’ve switched it, couldn’t he, Eddie?” He turned to look for Eddie Apex, but Eddie wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Eddie?” Ned Nitry demanded. “Where’d Eddie go?”

  “He slipped out, sir,” old Tom said. “Just before Mr. St. Ives broke the sword. Miss Ceil went after him.”

  “Get me a drink, Tom,” Ned Nitry said. “Whisky. A large one.”

  “Make it two, Tom, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  With the drink in his hand, Ned Nitry stood in the middle of the room, glaring around, as if trying to decide whom he was going to beat up on next. Finally, he went over to the fireplace and picked up a bit of the smashed glass that had been posing as a diamond.

  He looked at it for a moment and then tossed it into the fireplace. I was still holding the sword and wordlessly he stretched out his hand for it. I handed it to him, hilt first. He knelt down and hammered a pea-sized ruby that was stuck into the end of the crosspiece onto the slate. The ruby broke; shattered, really, just like the diamond that had turned out to be glass.

  He looked at the sword and shook his head. Then he looked at me. “All faked?” he said.

  “All.”

  Ned Nitry shook his head again, looked around for someplace to put the sword, and then put it in the stand that held the fire tongs and the poker. He put it there idly, as if he never expected to see it again. He walked over to the window where old Doctor Christenberry still knelt on the rug, his head bowed. The old man was making an odd sound and I decided that he was crying again, or trying to, and couldn’t quite remember how.

  “Who put you up to it, dad?” Ned Nitry said. “Who bought you?”

  The old man raised his head. A couple of tears had made tracks down his face where he had forgotten to wash. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “It was just a voice. A voice over the telephone.”

  “A man’s voice?”

  “Yes, a man’s voice.”

  “What kind of accent, English, American, or what?”

  “There was no accent.”

  “He had to have one or the other.”

  “I couldn’t tell. I tried to, but I couldn’t.”

  “I couldn’t either,” I said. “It was probably the same guy who called me. I couldn’t tell what he was and I tried.”

  “How much did he pay you, dad?” Ned Nitry said. “How much did he pay you to lie to us?”

  “A thousand pounds. He sent it round by taxi in an envelope.”

  Ned Nitry turned to old Tom. “Get him out of here, Tom.”

  While Tom was ushering the old man out, Ned Nitry turned to me. “How did you know, goddamnit? How did you know it was faked?”

  “I didn’t know for sure,” I said. “I only suspected because I knew somebody who could have done it. In fact, he probably did.”

  Ned Nitry got interested. “Who? Who did the fake?”

  “A man called Curnutt, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. He was murdered.”

  “I read about him,” Bert Nitry said. “He was a locksmith, wasn’t he?”

  “Among other things.”

  “If you knew it was faked, why didn’t you tell us?” Bert said. “Why’d you pay out all that good money, if you knew it was a fake?”

  “I didn’t know. I only suspected. I didn’t really know until I banged it down on the slate. If it had been a real diamond, I’d have looked like a fool, but that’s all. The slate wouldn’t have hurt the diamond. And as I said, I’d’ve looked a little like a fool, but not as much like a fool as you would, if you tried to sell it. I figured that there was a fifty-fifty chance that it would be the real thing. The thieves wouldn’t deal with an expert—and besides, the only one you had could be bought. So I spent your money. I don’t think I made a mistake. I think I gambled and I lost.”

  “With our money,” Ned Nitry said.

  “That’s right. With your money. So I still have sort of an obligation.”

  “To do what?” Ned Nitry said.

  “To get your sword back. Or rather Styles’s sword. You’d like all that lovely money, wouldn’t you, Robin?”

  “You know damned well I would.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then you can come along and help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I HAD A HARD TIME breaking away from the Nitry brothers because they kept asking me questions for which I had only guesses as answers. Guesses or lies. So I kept telling them I didn’t know and that they should ask Eddie and no, I didn’t know where Eddie had gone off to sudden like that.

  When we finally escaped from the Nitry mansion, Robin Styles and I caught a taxi. I told the driver to take us to the Avis car rental garage off Park Lane.

  “What do you need a car for?” Styles said.

  “To carry the sword in,” I said.

  He didn’t seem too impressed with what I rented, a Volkswagen, but I had decided that what I needed was anonymous reliability rather than flash and speed. After I signed for the car, I told Robin Styles, “You drive.”

  He got behind the wheel, checked the brakes, fiddled with the seat adjustment, tested the clutch a couple of times, seemed to check what gauges there were, and we were off. He drove very well, but then he did everything very well, except gamble.

  “Where do you want to go?” he said.

  “A hardware store,” I said.

  “A what?”

  I had to think a moment to make the translation. “An ironmonger.”

  He knew of one on Edgware Road so we went there to make my purchases. I bought the largest screwdriver the shop had, a small handsaw, a pair of long-nosed pliers, and a monkey wrench, a request which had the shop assistant puzzled and me resorting to gestures until I remembered the English translation and asked for a spanner. It wasn’t all that bad though. I once had spent an entire afternoon trying to find a bottle of rubber cement. I never did find any, nor did I ever learn what the English call it. Elastic gum paste perhaps.

  I also bought a cloth bag to carry my new tools in and when we got back to the Volkswagen, I tossed it into the rear seat. “I’m going to walk back to the hotel,” I said to Styles. “I’d like you to stay out of sight for the rest of the day. Go take a drive in the country. Find a girl. But stay away from your usual spots. Why don’t you just consider yourself as being temporarily in my employ for the next twenty-four hours or so, if you can stand it. Working, I mean.”

  “It will take some adjustment,” Styles said.

  “Well, here’s fifty pounds to help it along. For expenses. I don’t expect an itemized accounting. When you get your three-million-pound sword back, you can buy me a small castle someplace. Maybe in the Cotswolds.”

  Styles took the fifty pounds and put them into his wallet. He looked at me, then at the bag of tools in back of the VW, and then back at me. “When do we do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Burgle whomever you have in mind.”

  “After midnight,” I said. “They tell me it’s always better after midnight.”

  “And you want me to pick you up?”

  I nodded. “At the stroke of twelve in front of the Hilton. I’ll be the man in the domino mask.”

  Styles shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Mmm,” I said and let him interpret that anyway he wan
ted to.

  There were no messages for me at the desk at the Hilton so I went on up to my room and said hello to Ceil Apex who was standing by the window admiring my view of Hyde Park.

  She turned slowly. “You don’t seem overly surprised.”

  “I was expecting either you or Eddie.”

  “And you got me.”

  “So I did. Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I would rather.”

  I fixed two whiskies with water from the bathroom tap and handed her one. I lifted my glass a little and said, “To the biggest scam of all.”

  “Eddie’s,” she said.

  “And yours.”

  “Yes. Mine too.”

  “Where’s Eddie?” I said. “Out trying to patch things up?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you’re here with a proposition.”

  “A proposal,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Do nothing. Do absolutely nothing for twenty-four hours and Eddie’ll have it worked out by then.”

  “You’ll have to do some convincing.”

  “How?”

  “Well, there’s your fair body, for instance, although that may be a sexist notion that’s gone out of style.”

  She looked at me coolly with those cat eyes of hers. “If you want it,” she said.

  “And then there’s money. That’s always in style.”

  “We haven’t any.”

  “None at all?”

  “We’ve been stony for nearly a year. Eddie sank everything into a couple of ventures that went sour, probably because they were legitimate and he was out of his depth. We’ve been living off Dad.”

  “And then the sword turned up.”

  “Yes. The sword turned up.”

  “What would Eddie’s share have been, if it had all gone the way it was supposed to have gone?”

  “Dad and Uncle Bert had agreed to give him the finder’s fee.”