Thefts of Nick Velvet

by Edward D. Hoch

  It wasn’t.

  After ten minutes of grappling he knew the magnet wouldn’t work. Not by itself. He pulled it carefully up and added a glob of sticky adhesive, then lowered it very much like a boy fishing coins up through a grating with chewing gum. This time he felt the contact almost immediately. A quick flash of his light told him that the mouse was hooked.

  A few moments later, when he’d pulled it up to the glass skylight, he carefully cut a slightly larger hole, snipping the wire mesh in two places. Reaching through with his fingers, he turned the mouse and eased it out by its head. The hole was still only about two inches in diameter.

  He smiled as he held it in his hand. Then he turned the key in its underside and watched the little wheels spin. The mechanical mouse was his. He’d earned Jason Orchid’s $20,000.

  The theft had taken place on Sunday evening, and by Monday afternoon the English-language papers had the story on page one. Cat Burglar Steals Mouse! one headlined, and Nick chuckled. They’d found the hole almost immediately, and deduced the rest of it. Since the mouse had already been used in some scenes, it was essential to obtain an identical one before filming could be resumed—and this particular type was not sold in France. A substitute would have to be flown from New York. The co-producer, Archer, had phoned his partner Fleming in Manhattan to get one on the earliest plane. The article concluded with a detailed rundown on the recent financial reverses of Fleming-Archer Productions.

  Nick read it all and then wound up the little mouse and let it run in circles on the coffee table. He relaxed in his hotel room all day, waiting for word from Orchid.

  By evening nothing had happened. He began to wonder if anything would. Why pay him $20,000 to steal a toy mouse that Orchid didn’t even want? But the answer now seemed obvious to Nick. Orchid simply wanted to delay the production, adding to the producers’ financial woes. Mary Karls had told him of Orchid’s enmity, his threat to kill both Fleming and Archer.

  When the mouse ran down for the hundredth time after midnight, Nick put it away and went to bed. He’d give Orchid till tomorrow noon to show up. Then he was checking out, mouse and all, and heading home.

  He slept well, as he always did when he was traveling, and in the morning he paused only to look out at the early morning mists off the Seine. Then he packed his small suitcase and prepared to depart. There was no need to wait even until noon. The feel of the whole job was somehow wrong.

  And there was no point in taking the mechanical mouse with him. He glanced around the hotel room for a likely hiding place, and finally settled on a convenient space in the back of the television cabinet, where it wouldn’t be found until the next time the set was repaired.

  He picked up his bag, stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him, and faced two slender young men with badges already in their hands.

  “Monsieur Velvet? Paris police. Please accompany us for questioning.”

  At one time it had been the Sûreté. Now it was simply Paris Police Headquarters, an aging but imposing building that seemed constantly in a flux of activity. Nick Velvet sat on a straight-backed wooden chair and answered uncertain questions with vague answers. It was not his first encounter with the police, and he knew at once that they were unsure of themselves.

  “The mouse,” one of them said. “Where is it?”

  “I know of no mouse.”

  “We have a copy of a letter, sent to us anonymously. In it a man named Orchid hired you to steal the toy mouse.”

  “Then you only have to prove I really did take it. You haven’t found it yet, have you?”

  The Inspector, an utterly patient man named Philippe, sighed and got to his feet. “We have not found the mouse,” he admitted. “Come with me. We will drive out to Cintfilm and see if they wish to press charges. I cannot tie up my entire department over a crime so petty as this—a five-franc toy!”

  And so Nick traveled once more to the sprawling sound stage on the city’s outskirts. This time he entered through the door and confronted a milling group of confused people. He recognized Carol Young at once, despite the white peasant girl’s costume she wore and the change in her hair styling. Mary Karls was nowhere in sight, and he was at least thankful for that.

  “Is this the man, Inspector?” someone asked, stepping forward. He was a tall man with ash-gray hair, whom Nick hadn’t seen in the Saturday night group.

  The Inspector nodded. “This is Nick Velvet, Monsieur Archer.”

  The producer nodded and turned to Nick. “That nut Orchid paid you to steal the mouse, didn’t he?”

  “I’ve never met anyone by that name,” Nick answered truthfully.

  The director, Fitzwright, joined the group. “If we’re going to keep to any sort of schedule, I have to get those cameras rolling.”

  Mary Karls had followed the director from an inner office, and she gave a little gasp when she recognized Nick. She seemed about to speak, but then thought better of it and turned to Archer. “We’re ready for the mouse scene, if it’s arrived.”

  The producer nodded and went into his office. “It was just delivered. Fleming must have gotten it on the first plane.” He returned in a minute with a small slim package not yet unwrapped.

  “I’ll take it,” Mary said.

  “Wait.” Archer still had the package in his hand. “Fitz, let’s have Carol open it and get a picture for the papers. It’ll make great publicity. After all, it’s her mouse in the film.”

  The director called to somebody and in a few moments a camera was produced. They’d all but forgotten Nick’s presence, and he could have walked away without being missed. But instead he was staring at the little package, at the neat row of air-mail stamps and the label addressed to Archer. There was something …

  “How’s this?” Carol Young asked, posing prettily as she began to tear off the wrapper.

  “Great,” Archer said. “Snap it while I make a phone call.”

  “Then we get to work,” Fitzwright reminded them.

  Inspector Philippe cleared his throat. “I wish to know whether you will press charges against Monsieur Velvet.”

  Carol Young ripped away the last of the paper and started to open the box. Then Nick Velvet moved, more on instinct than anything else. He threw himself at the girl, knocking the little box from her hand and sending it sliding across the studio floor.

  Already the Inspector was reaching for his gun, and Carol Young had started to scream. Archer turned in the office doorway and started back.”

  “Don’t anybody touch it,” Nick said. “There just might be a bomb in it.”

  Some time later Inspector Philippe faced them with a sad and drawn face. “You were quite correct, Monsieur Velvet. The little box contained a bomb which would have exploded two seconds after the lid was opened. Now you can tell us how you knew that.”

  Nick relaxed against the wall with a cigarette. “It was only a guess. I noticed there was no customs declaration on the package—only the label and stamps. Even if it could have reached here so quickly, it would have had to pass through customs. If the package did not come from Mr. Fleming in New York, it was at least a good possibility that it came from the mysterious Jason Orchid, whom I understand threatened to kill Fleming and Archer. A bomb was my first guess, and it was correct.”

  “It could have killed Carol!” Archer gasped.

  The Inspector stepped forward. “I fear, Monsieur Velvet, that you are now an accessory to an attempted murder.”

  Nick smiled slightly. “I believe you’d have a difficult time proving that, even if Mr. Archer wanted to press charges.”

  “What’s that mean?” the producer asked.

  “Could I speak to you alone?”

  Archer looked annoyed, then waved Inspector Philippe and the others from the room. “What’s on your mind, Velvet?” he asked after the door was closed.

  “I’ll make it fast, Mr. Archer. Someone sent the Paris police a copy of Orchid’s letter to me. Obviously that someone must have been the s
ender of the letter, and just as obviously it wouldn’t have been Orchid. Wherever he is, Jason Orchid has been made the fall guy for this whole business.”

  “What?”

  “The fall guy. He couldn’t possibly have planned it all. He couldn’t have known, for instance, that you’d ask Fleming to send you another toy mouse by air mail. It would have been much more logical to postpone those scenes till you got back to Hollywood to shoot the rest of the interiors. No, only you—and possibly Fleming—knew what action you’d take when the mouse was stolen.”

  “You mean I tried to kill myself?”

  “Not at all. You tried to kill Miss Carol Young.”

  “That’s, insane!”

  “Is it? A rising young actress, yes, but not yet famous enough to pay her own way. You’d naturally have a big insurance policy on her for the period of the filming—say, a cool million dollars. Carol Young dead—or even badly injured—would be worth more to you at this stage of her career than even the finished picture. And one million dollars would pull Fleming-Archer Productions out of its current financial difficulties.”

  “Can you prove any of this?”

  “A dozen people saw you hand her the box and then walk quickly away when she started to open it. To make a phone call. To whom, Mr. Archer? To your New York partner, or wasn’t he in on it? Of course you made the bomb at this end, so you’re the one who’ll take the rap.”

  Archer pressed both hands against the desk top and stared down at them. “What do you intend to do?”

  Nick Velvet smiled. “I intend to sell the toy mouse back to you for $20,000.”

  “Why, that’s—”

  “Now, now, no ugly words, Mr. Archer. Besides, it’s the only choice you have. And if I hear of any injury to Miss Young before you finish the picture—even a splinter in her finger—you won’t even have that choice.”

  That evening at the airport, as they were announcing his flight, Nick Velvet suddenly remembered the perfume he’d promised Gloria. He chose the most expensive bottle in the airport shop, and then bought two because he could afford it.

  The Theft of the Meager Beavers

  THE MAN WAS SLIM and dark and Latin, and his name was Jorge Asignar. He sat across the table from Nick Velvet, studying him through narrow, uncertain eyes.

  “I understand that you steal things,” he said, speaking with a pronounced accent.

  “Some things,” Nick admitted. “Unusual things.” He’d been at home with Gloria, relaxing with a cold beer, when the call had come from Asignar. He disliked the man immediately, but personal feelings never entered into his professional activities. “What do you want stolen?”

  Jorge Asignar smiled, showing a line of gold-capped teeth. “A baseball team.”

  “A baseball team?” In his business nothing ever surprised Nick Velvet. “Any special one?”

  The Latin shrugged. “I leave the choice to you. Your fee, I believe, is $20,000?”

  “That’s correct, under ordinary circumstances. But for especially difficult or dangerous assignments I charge thirty thousand. With something this size I believe the larger fee would be justified.”

  Asignar waved an indifferent hand. “Agreeable. Half the money now and the balance on delivery.”

  “Fine.”

  “Then the choice of a team and all other arrangements are yours. It must be a major league professional team, and it must be delivered intact to my country within the next two weeks.”

  Nick glanced at the calendar in his wallet. Two weeks would give him till August 16th. “And what is your country?”

  “The island Republic of Jabali. Not far beyond Cuba, in the Caribbean.”

  “I see,” Nick said slowly. “And might I ask, what the Republic of Jabali wants with an American baseball team?”

  Asignar curled his lips in a sort of smile, showing again the gold-capped teeth. “Our president, General Tras, is a great baseball fan. In past years your teams occasionally played exhibition games in Jabali, but there have been none in several years. General Tras has personally trained and equipped a Jabali national team, but they have no one to play.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Nick said. “You want me to steal an entire baseball team and transport it to Jabali just so your president can have competition for his private team?”

  Asignar bristled a bit. “You are well paid to perform a service, Mr. Velvet. I had understood from some satisfied customers that you never questioned the peculiarity of an assignment.”

  “And I don’t. But do you realize what this theft might do to relations between Jabali and the United States? There was a time when it would have brought a boatload of Marines to your shore. Even now you could hardly escape without denouncement in Congress and possibly some sort of economic sanctions.”

  “As soon as the team is in our hands we plan to issue a statement that the theft is merely temporary. We will return the team safely after one game with our Jabali team. We could hardly expect to hold the American players indefinitely.”

  “You’re still in for a lot of trouble from Washington,” Nick warned. But then, having said it, he accepted Asignar’s half fee—in cash.

  “What are you doing, Nick?” Gloria asked later that evening. They were sitting in the back-yard patio, after dinner, as he pondered the evening paper.

  “Checking the baseball standings.”

  “I never knew you were interested, except at World Series time.”

  “I’ll be away on another trip,” he told her. “Just wanted to see what games I’ll miss.”

  Nick had already decided that the theft of the baseball team must not be allowed to interfere with the pennant races in the two leagues. But this early in August most of the teams were still in contention. He did some quick figuring and found that only one team was definitely out of it—the hapless Beavers. Though Nick followed the sport only occasionally he was—like nearly everyone else in the country—well aware of the Beavers’ plight. They had replaced the old Brooklyn Dodgers and then the New York Mets as the butt of comedians’ jokes, and after losing 14 straight games earlier in the season the sports sections had dubbed them the “Meager Beavers.”

  All right, Nick decided. Since the choice was his to make, it would be the Beavers. Perhaps with the Beavers to play against, General Tras might even be victorious with his own team, and that would certainly please him.

  Next Nick checked the schedules of the Beavers at home and on the road for the next two weeks. They flew to New York for a weekend series with the Mets on Thursday. Then, on Monday, they flew on to Atlanta to play the Braves before returning home. Nick checked the standings again and confirmed that the Braves were also far down in the National League. A postponed or canceled game would not affect their standing, either.

  Then that’s what it would be—the Beavers on next Monday—a full, week ahead of Asignar’s deadline.

  Pop Hastin had been manager of the Beavers for as long as anyone—even the sportswriters—could remember. He’d come up with the team from Triple-A baseball when the National League expanded, and it was only a high personal regard for Pop that had kept the Beavers from ridicule this long.

  He was a gray, bristly man in his early sixties, and his reputation for eating umpires alive had got him thrown out of many ball games. The fans and the sportswriters loved it, of course, as they loved everything Pop did. They’d turned against his Meager Beavers only with the greatest reluctance.

  “You’re a writer?” Pop asked, eyeing Nick with open suspicion. They’d met in the dressing room at Shea Stadium, just after the Mets defeated the Beavers by a score of 9 to 1.

  “That’s right,” Nick confirmed, passing over a card. “With Sports Weekly. We want to do an article on your team.”

  Pop Hastin grunted, rolling the plug of chewing tobacco to his other cheek. “More Meager Beaver stuff?”

  “Nothing like that. My editors want an in-depth article with a sympathetic slant, to balance some of the other stuff.”
/>   “How long will it take? We’re flying to Atlanta in the morning.”

  Nick hesitated, then said, “I was going to suggest that I might fly down with you. That way we could talk at leisure and I’d get to meet some of your key players.”

  Hastin snorted. “This year the Beavers got no key players. We haven’t gotten more than four runs in any game all summer.”

  “Still, there’s Karowitz at first base—”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty good.”

  “And that rookie shortstop, Nesbitt.”

  “The kid, yeah.” Pop Hastin shifted the tobacco again. “Well, I guess you could fly down with us. There’s plenty of room these days. Not many of your sportswriters come along any more.”

  Nick Velvet smiled. “I’ll meet you at the airport in the morning, then.”

  The chartered jet which flew the Beavers between cities on the National League circuit was piloted by a young man named Farnsworth. He stood by the ramp with a pretty, long-legged stewardess welcoming the players aboard, smiling and joking with them about the previous day’s game.

  Nick Velvet, walking beside Pop Hastin, boarded the plane with a friendly nod toward the pilot and stewardess. It was a clear August morning, perfect for flying, and the players seemed in a good mood considering their recent losses. There were nineteen of them making the trip, plus Pop and the coaches. A publicity man—a slight harried individual named Roswell—was also along, as were the trainer, batboy, and a few others.

  “Sometimes we have a planeload,” Hastin explained, settling comfortably into his seat and strapping himself down. “But this isn’t much of a trip and a few of the regulars aren’t making it. We have a couple of injured players back home, and some of the front-office people stayed in New York for a league meeting.”

  Roswell, the publicity man, dropped into the seat across the aisle, eyeing Nick with open suspicion. It had not been an easy season for him. “What sort of an article did you say you were writing?” he asked.

  Pop Hastin interrupted, trying to avoid trouble. “All the equipment on board, Ros?”

  “Sure it is. That’s not my job, anyway.” He turned his attention back to Nick. “We’ve had a pretty bad press the last few months—all this Meager Beaver stuff. If you’re going to write something like that, forget it.”