“The gun wasn’t necessary,” Nick said, climbing out of the car to greet them.
“I thought it might be,” Vincent Surman replied. “I had you tailed from the hospital. You’re a thief, Velvet. I’ve done some checking on you. Roger hired you to steal something from me, didn’t he?”
“Look around for yourself. Is anything missing?”
“Come along—we’ll look.”
With the two gunmen staying close, Nick had little choice. He followed Vincent and Simone around to the storeroom door. “This is where I found him the first time,” she told her husband, and sneezing suddenly, she pulled the fur coat more tightly around her.
“He was back here when we found him too,” the gunman confirmed.
Vincent unlocked the storeroom door.
The walls stared back at them blankly. Vincent Surman inspected the place where the paint had been scraped, but found nothing else. He stepped outside and walked around, his eyes scanning the back of the house. “What are you after, Velvet?”
“What is there to take? The room’s empty.”
“Perhaps he’s after something in the kitchen,” Simone suggested.
Vincent ignored her suggestion, reluctant to leave the rear of the house. Finally, after another pause, he said to Nick, “All right. We’ll look through the rest of the house.”
An hour later, after they’d convinced themselves that nothing was missing, and after the gunmen had thoroughly searched Nick and his car, Vincent was convinced that nothing had been taken. “What’s the paint for?” he asked Nick.
“My boat.”
The dark-haired importer sighed and turned away. “Roger is a madman. You must realize that. He’d like nothing better than to break up my marriage to Simone by accusing me of some crime. Altamont was hired to prove I was hijacking Roger’s trucks and selling the goods through my import business. He hoped Simone would quarrel with me about it and then leave me.”
Nick motioned toward the gunmen. “These two goons could pass for hijackers any day.” One man started for him, but Vincent barked an order. Simone’s eyes widened, as if she were seeing her husband’s employees for the first time.
“You don’t need to hold them back,” Nick said.
This time the nearer man sprang at him and Nick’s fist connected with his jaw. The second man had his gun out again, but before he could bring it up Simone grabbed his arm.
“Simone!” Vincent shouted. “Stay out of this!”
She turned on her husband, her eyes flashing. “I never knew you used hoods, Vincent! Maybe Roger knows what he’s talking about! Maybe you really are trying to ruin him by hijacking his trucks.”
“Shut up!”
Nick backed away, his eyes still on the two hoods. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said. “You two can fight it out.”
Nobody tried to stop him. As he swung his car around the others in the driveway he could see Vincent Surman still arguing with his wife.
The next morning Roger Surman was sitting, up in bed, just finishing a meager breakfast, when Nick entered the hospital room. He glanced at the paper bag Nick was carrying and then at his face. “I’m certainly glad to see you, Velvet. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you what I wanted stolen.”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Nick said with a grin. “After a couple of false starts I figured it out.”
“You mean you got it?”
“Yes, I’ve got it. I had a few run-ins with your brother and his wife along the way, but I got the job done last night.”
“How did you know? How could you know?”
“I talked to your detective, Altamont, and learned about the hijackings. Once I started thinking about it—the country place, the driveway leading to the storeroom—my reasoning must have followed yours quite closely. Vincent’s hired hijackers were bringing the loot there and leaving it in the storeroom for transfer to his own importing company trucks.”
The fat man moved uncomfortably under his blanket. “Exactly. I tried to tell Simone, but she demanded proof.”
“I think she’s got it now. And I think you have too. It wasn’t easy finding something to steal in an empty room—something that would be worth $20,000 to you. First, I considered the room itself, but you would have needed heavy equipment for that—and you told me you’d hoped to accomplish the theft yourself. That led me to your car, and I found the paint can in your trunk. Next, I almost stole the paint off the walls for you, until I ruled that out too. Finally, I remembered about the last shipment that was hijacked a few weeks ago. It consisted of bundles of valuable tobacco leaves, and certainly such a shipment would leave traces of its presence. Yesterday, out at the house, Simone walked into the storeroom and sneezed. Then I remembered something else I’d seen in your car.”
Roger Surman nodded. “The little hand vacuum cleaner. I was going to use it if I got past the alarms.”
Nick Velvet nodded and opened the paper bag he was still carrying. “I used it last night—to steal the dust from the floor of that empty room.”
The Theft of the Crystal Crown
NICK VELVET WAS A thief, but the mere fact of his profession did little to explain him. He was a man first of all who liked the quiet life, the beer on the front porch with Gloria at his side and a sort of eternal summer evening in the air. Perhaps he’d been born a generation too late, unfit for the bustle of the Sixties. Perhaps that was why he took a special interest in the crystal crown affair.
“We understand you will steal anything,” the man with the monocle said. His name was Vonderberg, and he too was of another generation.
“Anything but money,” Nick Velvet replied. “My price is twenty thousand dollars, plus expenses. Thirty thousand for especially dangerous jobs.”
“This is not dangerous, but my people are prepared to pay you thirty thousand.”
“Nice of you,” Nick Velvet agreed.
“Are you familiar with the country of New Ionia? We are a very old and very small island in the Mediterranean, between the southern tips of Italy and Greece. We are a constitutional monarchy, with a ruling family that is centuries old and very, very tired.”
Velvet decided that very was Vonderberg’s favorite word.
“What is it you want stolen?” Velvet asked. His clients didn’t get billed for conference time, and he liked to keep it short.
“There is a crown, a very old relic of the days when the kingdom of New Ionia had little use for written constitutions. It is made of glass—a crystal crown that is displayed to the people once a year at the grand masked ball.”
“Valuable?”
The monocled man shrugged. “Inferior workmanship, like much of New Ionia. It might bring a few hundred dollars somewhere. But its value as a symbol is utterly incalculable. We are a very old people, as I have said. We believe in the nature of symbols. A pretender to the throne, armed with the crystal crown, would have half the country behind him. They believe it is destined always to go with the true ruler, somewhat like King Arthur’s sword in that stone.”
Nick Velvet grunted. “I never thought much of fairy tales. So you want the crown stolen. What’s so tough about that?”
“The king’s personal guard is on hand during the masked ball. If a thief could somehow get into the ballroom, he certainly could never get out alive, especially not while carrying a fragile glass crown.”
Nick Velvet smiled. “There’s always a way. When is the blasted ball?”
“Next Monday evening, six days from now.”
“It’s a nice time of year for a Mediterranean vacation,” Nick Velvet decided.
New Ionia was a tiny spot of land fifty miles long and half as wide, stretched beneath the Roman sun as if awaiting a long-delayed visit from some far-off gods. It was May on New Ionia, and it might have been a season unique in the world. When Nick Velvet first stepped off the little ferry from Corfu, he looked up at the smooth blue of the sky and decided that surely it could never be dotted by clouds. New Ionia was a place u
nique, and perhaps the gods would never come because they were already here.
The city of New Ionia stretched along the southern coast of the island. It was a fair-sized place by any standards, with thirty thousand residents and one building five stories high. But while strolling through streets too narrow and shops too old, Nick Velvet wondered why anyone would really want to be king of it. New Ionia was a great place to visit, but he’d hate to rule it.
The monocled Vonderberg had instructed him to contact a Miss Vera Smith-Blue, since his first and most important task was gaining admittance to the annual ball.
Nick Velvet found Miss Smith-Blue in a little gabled office of what must have corresponded to an American Chamber of Commerce.
She was younger than he’d expected, and might even have been pretty without the glasses and severe hair style.
“My name is Velvet,” he admitted quite openly. “I’m something of a writer, and I’m most interested in your annual ball.”
“Oh?” She gave him a smile she must have reserved for visiting foreign writers. “Is this your first journey to New Ionia?”
“The first of many, I hope. It’s a beautiful island. But you must be British. Aren’t you?”
“By birth, but this is my home now. I firmly believe this to be the tourist haven of tomorrow. Each summer attracts more and more visitors. Soon we will be as popular and exclusive as Corfu. We only need a king or a cinema star to summer here.”
She’d taken off her glasses, and Nick Velvet ran appreciative eyes over the smooth lines of her face and figure. She wore a sort of tunic dress, pulled just a bit too tightly over firm breasts.
“About the ball, Miss Smith-Blue. What could you tell me?”
“Well, it’s the social event of the year on New Ionia. Upwards of a thousand people attend. It’s held in the grand ballroom of the summer palace, which is the only palace any more. Everyone’s in costume, of course, and the crown is displayed.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about this crown.” Nick Velvet settled back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “What can you tell me about it?” he asked.
“Here’s a pamphlet that tells the entire history. But if you want it briefly, it dates back to a Greek-Italian family who lived on the island in the seventeenth century. They had a Venetian glassblower form the crown, and presented it to the royal family. Of course it couldn’t be worn, but it was displayed once a year at the ball. It’s symbolic, I suppose. The people almost worship it. During the war, the Nazi invaders confiscated it as a sign of their authority, and as long as they held it, the people obeyed them. It was a most amazing thing.”
“Would it be possible for me to see the ballroom?”
“Sure. Why not?” She gathered a bunch of keys from one of her desk drawers.
The summer palace stood behind a high stone wall just on the outskirts of the city. At a quick glance it might have seemed something left over from a Hollywood movie of the Thirties, but as they left Miss Smith-Blue’s car and approached the gate, he could see the little touches of modern living. The iron gates swung open electrically at a touch from the uniformed guard, and Velvet was quickly aware of the waiting spotlights on the turreted roof.
“Who lives here?” he asked the girl.
“We are ruled by Prince Baudlay. He is abroad much of the time, but this is his home when he is here.”
“Will he be at the ball?”
“Of course.”
She led him through a maze of passages and into a final great room that reminded him of a mammoth high school gymnasium. There were even rows of seats along one side, for resting between dances. The place was oddly plain, but already workmen were appearing with ladders and hammers.
“So this is it.”
She smiled at the flatness of his tone. “You won’t even recognize it by next Monday.”
Nick Velvet took out a cigarette. “I heard someone speak of a king, but you only mentioned Prince Baudlay.”
She brushed a hand through the texture of her hair, loosening it a bit. “King Felix is the prince’s father. He is an old man, and very ill. No one ever sees him any more. He is confined to a hospital in Athens.”
“I see.” Velvet had walked up to the little stage that overlooked the empty dance floor, and now he stood upon it, visualizing the room as it would look with a thousand costumed revelers crowded into it. “And I suppose the crown is up here.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Do they guard it well?”
“Who’d want to steal it” She seemed truly puzzled by the idea.
“I hear the Germans did once, during the war.” Velvet smiled down at her. “That’s what you told me, anyway.”
“That was different. So many things were different, during the war.”
“You could hardly be old enough to remember.”
“I was a child in London,” she said, breaking the contact with his eyes. “During the blitz.”
Nick Velvet jumped down from the platform. “Could you get me an invitation to the ball?”
“You really want to come?”
“I’d like to see it; for my article on New Ionia.”
“Just where is this article going to appear?”
“One of the big American travel magazines. It’ll be great publicity.”
She smiled then. “You may escort me if you’d like. I have two tickets.”
“It would be an honor,” Nick Velvet said, returning her smile.
On Sunday evening, Nick Velvet met with Vonderberg at a little waterfront cafe near the place where the Corfu ferry docked twice a day. For some reason, the monocled man seemed much more at home here than he had during their first meeting in New York. It shouldn’t have been strange, but it was. Perhaps until now, Nick Velvet had not really believed him to be a part of the tourist business and the aging monarch and the rest of this strange little island.
“Are you ready?” Vonderberg asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Where shall I meet you?”
He considered the question carefully. “The last ferry leaves at ten for Corfu. That wouldn’t give you enough time, would it?”
Nick Velvet shook his head. “It’ll be almost ten when we arrive at the ball.”
“All right, then. I can’t risk being on the island when the robbery takes place. I’ll come over on the Tuesday noon boat from Corfu, and I’ll remain on the ferry. They can’t touch me there. You bring the crown on board for me.”
Nick Velvet smiled. “You mean I have to keep it till Tuesday noon?”
“That’s what you’re being paid for.”
“Just who is paying me?”
Vonderberg grunted. “That doesn’t matter. Let’s just say the next king of New Ionia. I’ll be waiting for you Tuesday noon with the money.”
“All right.”
Nick Velvet left him and walked back to the hotel. The island kingdom was still the vacation paradise he’d first seen, but now, after a few days, some of the gloss was wearing off. He noticed a beggar in a doorway, and perhaps a prostitute beneath a rundown bar’s neon glow. New Ionia was only the world, and he wondered why anyone would want to be its king.
Nick Velvet spent the early hours of the following evening preparing his costume, and when he called for Vera Smith-Blue in a rented car he was wearing the bright baggy overalls of a circus clown. It covered him from wrists and neck to ankles, and he’d taken some time carefully painting his face into a grotesquely grinning contour of clownish delight.
Vera Smith-Blue gasped as she opened the door, then relaxed into a smile. “That’s very realistic, Mr. Velvet. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“Thanks. I figured I should go all out.”
Vera herself was wearing a somewhat standard ballet costume, which allowed her to show off the firmness of her well-shaped legs while remaining reasonably decent. On her face she wore a tiny domino mask that did nothing to conceal her identity.
“I’m almost ready,” she told him. “Come in.�
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“You have dancer’s legs,” he commented admiringly.
“I went in for ballet a bit at school. But that was a long time ago.” She fluffed out her brief skirt as she spoke. Then she ran a comb through her hair and sprinkled a bit of sparkling stuff in it. “There! Shall we be going now? They always expect me to be among the first arrivals. I have certain duties.”
When they reached the summer palace it was a blaze of lights, a different world from the empty shell he remembered from his first visit. The walls and the gate were patrolled by uniformed royal guards, and colored footmen opened doors as each car rolled up to discharge its passengers.
The hilarity of the evening was already beginning as each arriving group added to the melange of knights and angels, warriors and wantons. Nick Velvet saw a near-naked nymph in the grip of a bearded pirate, but for the most part the females were modestly costumed, perhaps in deference to the presence of Prince Baudlay.
The prince himself made his appearance shortly before ten, interrupting the dancing and drinking with a heralding blast of trumpets. He wore a princely sort of jerkin, which for all Nick Velvet knew might have been his daily costume in the kingdom of New Ionia. He took his place on a sort of raised throne, and almost immediately four attendants appeared carrying the glass domed case which housed the crystal crown.
There was a murmur soft as a whisper as the crown appeared, and then near silence. Nick Velvet and Vera Smith-Blue were near the platform, so he had a good view of it—a coronet of glassy spikes resting on a velvet pillow. It looked as if it would break at the slightest touch.
“Do they have an unmasking at midnight?” Nick Velvet asked, spinning Vera off into the intricacies of a Mediterranean folk dance. “Like in the fairy tales?”
“Of course!”
“I think the whole thing is a publicity gimmick,” he said. “New Ionia can’t be for real.”
“Does it matter?” she whispered, so close that he felt her smudge his makeup.
Just after eleven, when they were seated with a group of Vera’s friends, Nick Velvet excused himself and went off to the men’s room. He knew he had to be fast. He was allowing himself only five minutes for the entire operation.
Thefts of Nick Velvet Page 13