The Whenabouts of Burr

by Michael Kurland

  “Nate, what in hell are you talking about? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking!”

  “Practical jokes. College pranks. That’s what this seems like to me, some kind of prank. What else?”

  Ves shook his head. “The ‘what else’ I agree with,” he said. “I would like to figure out what else. I admit I’m not up on my college pranks, but is someone—student or no—going to commit an impossible crime merely as a joke?”

  “That’s the point! That’s the favorite kind. Like bricking over the end of a hall so that two rooms seem to disappear; or having a bulldozer suddenly appear in the third floor hall of the administration building; or making a four-ton bronze statue of the founder vanish from its pedestal in the middle of the night, leaving an equally massive nude couple in an—ah—embarrassing position in its place. That sort of thing.”

  “You did that?” Ves asked, the astonishment evident in his voice.

  “Youth,” Swift said apologetically.

  “I never thought you had enough imagination,” Ves said. “But how does this help us to locate the Constitution?”

  “I don’t know,” Nate admitted. “But I can’t think of anything else. I mean, look at it: someone broke into a constantly-guarded room, somehow without being seen, removed a document from a bronze, crystal-faced case—without, incidentally, disturbing the helium atmosphere—and replaced it with an identical document, of the same age, differing only in one signature. It’s—”

  “Same age?” Ves broke in to ask. “Same age? You mean, the phony, the replacement, is also two hundred and twenty—what?—six years old?”

  “I didn’t tell you? I guess not. Yeah. The paper is that old. Ink is the right composition and carbon-dates to the same age, plus or minus twenty percent. And the thing is written by hand, not photocopied; and, as best as our experts can tell, it’s not a forgery.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not a forgery?” Ves demanded. “What is it then, if it’s not a forgery? How can it be… Hello, Mrs. Montefugoni. Come in, come in.”

  “New pot of coffee,” Mrs. Montefugoni said, bearing the tray before her as proudly as her eight-year-old self had borne the statue of the sacred lamb on feast day in the procession through the narrow streets of her native village. “And tartes for the Commissioner. The cream-fill ones, like he likes.” She set the tray down on the coffee table and replaced the empty silver coffeepot with the full silver coffeepot. “And your mail,” she added, indicating a clutch of envelopes on one side of the tray.

  “Mail,” Romero repeated distractedly, picking up the envelopes and staring down at them. “Mail. Mrs. Montefugoni, why do you do this? I have asked you several times not to do this, but I can’t seem to convince you. It isn’t right, Mrs. Montefugoni. It is my mail, after all.” Swift looked at his friend intently, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Mrs. Montefugoni didn’t look embarrassed, ashamed, frightened, or hurt; merely stubborn. “I told you,” she said. “Many times. It is for my sister’s boy, Vincenti Gerabaldi. He is a collector. Only nine years old, you understand. And you get so many letters from foreign places—and you do not yourself collect . . .”

  Then Nate noticed that the upper right hand corners of three of the envelopes had been neatly cut off. “Stamps!” he said.

  “Si,” Mrs. Montefugoni said. “Si. He collect the stamps. And he is very serious, you know. He soak the stamps in some special thing to take them off the paper. And he does not paste them in the, you know, album. At first, when he first get the album, he pasted the stamps in over their pictures—you know they have these little pictures in the book, the album—with white paste. Then he find out he was wrong. Now he uses these tweezers and these little gummy things to stick them in the book. He is very serious.”

  “A collector!” Nate said, a gleam in his eye.

  “But couldn’t you wait until I open the letters, then rip the stamps off?” Ves complained.

  “That must be it!” Nate said, slapping the table.

  “What you mean, ‘rip’,” Mrs. Montefugoni demanded. “I cut neat with scissors. You rip open letter, destroy stamp.”

  Nate poured a fresh cup of coffee and leaned back, gloating. “Of course! Who else?”

  “They’re my letters,” Ves said, weakly fighting a rearguard action.

  “Document collector?” Nate wondered aloud. “Autograph collector?”

  “Stamp collector,” Ves explained. “A nine-year-old stamp collector. Mrs. Montefugoni, perhaps we could reach a compromise. Listen: I promise to open the envelopes carefully and save the stamps for your sister’s boy if you will only, please, bring me my mail in its pristine, uncut form.”

  “No, the Constitution, Ves. That must be it! A collector! A Goddam—excuse me, Mrs. Montefugoni—collector.”

  “No need to use the bad language,” Mrs. Montefugoni said, raising her head to a martyric angle. “You no want me to cut off stamps—ever so neat with snips like I do—then I not evermore cut them off. You rip off envelopes like you want. I find some substitute perversion for my sister’s boy Vincenti Gerabaldi.” She left the room with a full head of steam.

  “She’ll pout for days, now that she has an excuse,” Romero said. “I’ll end up having to raise her salary. Try to stay, if not pure of heart, at least clean of mouth in Mrs. Montefugoni’s presence, Nate. You’ll end up costing me money. A collector, hah?”

  “What else?”

  “That’s debatable logic.”

  “Nonsense, it’s the best logic in the world. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be true.’ Sherlock Holmes said that. Something like it, anyway.”

  “But you haven’t eliminated anything. All you’ve done is come up with a label for the thief, and a possible motive. Still nothing about how this impossible crime was accomplished.”

  “Well,” Swift insisted, “it gives us a direction in which to look, anyway, and that’s progress.”

  “What did you mean before, it’s not a forgery?” Romero asked. “How can the substitute be not a forgery—not be a—you know—I think I’ve been around Mrs. Montefugoni too long. Just because the paper and ink are roughly as old as the original Constitution should be, doesn’t mean that it’s not a forgery. We could have a careful, clever forger. Or, contrariwise, it could be an ancient forgery. That thing might have been sitting somewhere for two hundred years waiting for someone to pull this practical joke.”

  “The signatures are real, Ves. At least as far as our experts can tell.” Nate Swift spoke slowly and calmly, as though he were relaying quite ordinary information.

  “Identical with the ones on the original?”

  “No. As you know, no two real signatures are identical. There’s always a variance in the way anyone signs his name. Well, these are not identical with the original, but are in every case consistent with the way the man signed his name at that period of his life to a degree which, the experts assure us, no human could have duplicated so consistently.”

  “Even the Burr signature?”

  “Even. Isn’t it a hell of a thing? You know, if word of this gets out to the public, there’ll be rioting in the streets. Particularly in the universities. They haven’t had a good excuse to riot in the universities for the past ten years, and they’re getting restless for lack of exercise.”

  “Computers,” Romero said firmly.

  “Don’t be silly, Ves. Every time anything happens that you don’t like or disapprove of, you blame it on computers.”

  “Sure, look here: you say they say that no human could have duplicated the signatures. Nonetheless they were duplicated. By your logic, I have eliminated the impossible and computers are left.”

  “You haven’t eliminated anything,” Nate told him. “You’ve only added one to the list.”

  “List?”

  “Last night, before I wa
s authorized to come over here and get your help, we kicked the problem around and made up a list of possible solutions.”

  “We?”

  “Yes. You know: me, and the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures.”

  “Quite a kaffeeklatch,” Romero said. “What did you decide?”

  “I don’t think ‘decide’ is quite the right word,” Swift told him. “The Secretary of State thinks it’s Chinese submarines.”

  “Chinese…”

  “…Submarines. Yes.”

  “How—”

  “He never said. The Secretary of the Interior has decided that it’s the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. They’re the ones who possess the Secret Power.”

  “What secret power?”

  “They’ve never said. I suppose if they did, it wouldn’t be secret.”

  “Who does the President think did it?”

  “The Republicans.”

  “Of course. Any other theories?”

  “People from the far future, who came back to this time period to rescue the Constitution from an imminent disaster.”

  “Hm. You know, that one has merit. At least we don’t know that it’s impossible. Whose idea?”

  “The President’s twelve-year-old daughter, Emily.”

  “Well, at least we’ll soon know if it’s true.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We merely await the cataclysm. Meanwhile, as we wait, anything else?”

  “Nothing as useful as that batch.”

  “What about your immediate superior, Dr. Dutton?”

  “He tends to think it’s the Republicans, except that he allows for the possibility that it’s Democrats out to get him. He also mentioned the Vice President.”

  “The Vice President. The Vice…”

  “He pointed out that Aaron Burr was once Vice President. You must understand that Dr. Dunstan Dutton is a firm believer in the Great Cypher. He believes that no one can write a document without encrypting his name, address, political philosophy, and waist measurements into the text. He has already proven by cryptology that King Lear was written by Isaac Asimov and the Pentateuch was written by Avram Davidson. Dr. Dutton believes in simultaneous creation. Don’t ask me, because I don’t know.”

  “Nate, I fear we’ll have to leave the administration out of our planning. I don’t, somehow, feel that they’ll be of any great assistance.

  Swift put down his coffee cup and squared his shoulders. “Then it’s just you and I,” he said. “We two against the Unknown Enemy!”

  Ves Romero stared at him. “Nate,” he said, “sometimes you frighten me.”

  “Ah, Ves,” Nate said, staring at the wall sadly. “I am the last of the Romantics, and no one understands me any more. Like the dinosaurs, I have outlived my time. I’m a relic of a dead and distant past.”

  “I haven’t seen many dinosaurs around recently,” Ves said. “And besides, you’re only half my age. Maybe a few years more. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Also, I have no idea what you think you’re talking about What are you talking about?”

  “No matter,” Nate said. “No matter. Ah, Cyrano, I salute you!” He drew an imaginary sword and pressed it against his nose. Quietly, barely audibly, he began to hum the Marseillaise.

  Ves pulled a pad of paper toward himself and took a felt tip pen from his shirt pocket. “Let us,” he suggested, tapping the pen on the palm of his hand, “analyze the imponderables. Let us list the impossibilities, and see if we can get a clear idea of just what it is that we have to solve.”

  “Very well,” Nate said, pouring himself another cup of Mrs. Montefugoni’s special coffee, “list away. I love lists.”

  “First of all,” Ves began, “there’s the theft and replacement. Clearly impossible, as it was done without breaking the seals or violating the helium atmosphere.”

  “A good beginning,” Nate said.

  “Then there’s the document itself—the new document, that is. A forgery so good that the experts can’t tell, except for the self-evident fact that it has to be a forgery.”

  “Why?” Swift asked.

  “What?”

  “Why? Why does it have to be a forgery? What if it is a real document? Suppose there were two copies, and Aaron Burr signed the first. Then, for some reason, Alexander Hamilton signed the second and the first disappeared.”

  “Should be able to check that,” Ves said. “Let’s see…” He went over to his wall of books and browsed amid the history section, pulling out and leafing through a variety of books before settling on three to use. He went back and forth among them, making rapid notes. “Yup,” he said finally. “No doubt.”

  “What?”

  “During the Constitutional Convention, which took place in Philadelphia in May and June of 1787, Aaron Burr was a practicing attorney in New York City: Manhattan, to be precise. He had several cases that came to trial at that time. Philadelphia and New York are about ninety miles apart. That’s about two-three days by coach, I think. It would mean an absence of at least a week. Burr just wasn’t absent from New York for a week. Hamilton was the delegate from New York. Hamilton and Burr were, ah, not the best of friends, even then.”

  “Well,” Nate said stubbornly, “I still say that if our experts have found the replacement Constitution isn’t a forgery, then it isn’t a forgery.”

  “I’m familiar with the game of ‘our experts are better than your experts,’ ” Ves said. “As a practicing private detective, I’ve played it in court many times. But isn’t this more a case of ‘our experts’ versus the laws of logic?”

  Nate shook his head. “There are more things under Heaven and Earth, I’m afraid, Amerigo Vespucci, than are allowed for under your laws of logic.”

  Ves shrugged. “We’ll see. I think we’ll start with your idea.”

  “That’s fine,” Nate agreed. “What idea?”

  “The idea that, whatever was done, it was done by a collector. Let’s ask around and find out if anyone has expressed an interest in collecting the Constitution.”

  “You know, when you say it that way,” Nate said, “it sounds like a nutty thing to do.”

  “We’ll try it anyway,” Ves said. “You know, rare book dealers, autograph places, museums, galleries, auction houses, like that. Someone was interested enough in the Constitution to steal it; maybe he expressed that interest to someone who’ll remember.”

  “Sure,” Nate agreed. “We’ll go around asking dealers whether anyone’s made them an offer for the Constitution recently. You know—the one in Washington under glass.” Ves shrugged. “Worth a try.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  At the seventh place they tried, they struck gold: Brown, Lupoff & Gilden, est. 1868: Rare Books, Manuscripts, Autographs, Coins, Stamps, and Personal Items of the Great, Important, Famous, Notorious, or Noteworthy, Bought & Sold; Appraisals Free; No Estate Too Small.

  Mr. Gilden himself helped them. A small man, thin and nervous-looking, with a dark moustache borrowed from a miniature walrus. He was, he assured them from behind the small dealer’s table, the fourth of that name in the firm. “My father, his father, and his uncle. The firm was originally called merely ‘Brown’s’, you know. Of course, it was a coffee shop then. Lupoff and Gilden used to meet there every second Sunday and hold an informal rare book and document auction. Gradually, the auctions became more important than the coffee. It’s in memory of this tradition that we always keep a pot of coffee brewing for our customers.”

  “What a nice tradition,” Nate said. “I’d like some coffee.”

  “It’s fifty cents a cup,” Mr. Gilden told them.

  Ves pulled a dollar from his pocket. “My treat,” he said. “Could we get some information from you, Mr. Gilden?”

  “That’s wh
at I’m here for,” Gilden said. “One second!” He went off to a corner behind the long counter, and returned with three cups of coffee. “Now, what can I do for you? Cream or sugar?”

  “Cream.”

  “Black.”

  “Good, here.”

  “Mr. Gilden, what we’d like to know is: has anyone approached you—your firm—with any unusual requests recently?”

  “That’s my business, unusual requests,” Mr. Gilden told them. “A man wants a note from Dolly Madison to the White House butcher, and is willing to pay five hundred dollars: this isn’t an unusual request? Another man, he couldn’t care less about Dolly Madison, but a playbill autographed by Harry Lauder will drag a check of four figures out of his wallet. Usual? Collectors—big money collectors—go for the unique, the unusual. They’re all specialists.”

  “It’s a certain kind of specialist we’re looking for, Mr. Gilden,” Nate said. “Has anyone offered to buy anything from you that you, ah, shouldn’t be expected to have?”

  “Like a government document, for example?” Ves added.

  “I know what you mean,” Mr. Gilden said, his eyes wide. “Spies! Someone must be trying to pass secret information out of the country disguised as an autographed letter—or concealed in the binding of a first edition; I’ll bet that’s it!”

  “Not exactly, Mr. Gilden,” Swift said.

  “That’s good thinking, though,” Ves encouraged. “But we’re looking for someone who might be making really odd requests. Either buying or selling. Something you just wouldn’t expect them to have.”

  “I see what you mean,” Mr. Gilden said, shaking his head rhythmically up and down. “Yes. Wait here a minute, I have something to show you.” He trotted off toward the vault at the back of the showroom.

  “Aha!” Ves said. “What do you suppose?”

  “It couldn’t be—” Nate said. Then he shook his head a bit sadly. “No, I suppose not. That would be a bit much.”

  “I’m sure we’re not going to find the, ah, document itself, Nate,” Ves told him softly. “Some clue, some trace, some starting point; that’s the best we can hope for, and it should be enough for us.”