He paused as their drinks came. Ruth McVeigh had been listening to the argument with a slight frown on her face, wondering if Gregor Kovpak was serious, or if he was pulling her leg. They picked up their drinks and sipped. Kovpak put his glass down and went on.
“I said there were two arguments for my country to claim the treasure. The second, of course, is that the treasure was recovered by the Russians in a bunker in Berlin. That much is true. And on the basis of that find—a spoils of war—the treasure also properly belongs to Russia.”
Ruth found herself drawn into the discussion despite herself. “But what about the Allied Commission on recovered art objects?”
Gregor waved that argument away as having no importance. He leaned across the table and Ruth decided he was, after all, quite serious.
“The country that was the most influential in establishing that so-called commission,” he said evenly, “was the United States of America, a country, I might mention, that did not have one city bombed, or one museum looted, or one institution robbed. No one dropped bombs on the Metropolitan, or the Smithsonian.” He shrugged. “It was quite easy for the Americans to decide that, since there was no chance of their participating in any spoils of war, nobody else should. Of course, the United States didn’t feel that way when there was a chance of their participating in war spoils. They didn’t feel that way after the Mexican War, when they annexed a big chunk of a neighboring country. And they didn’t feel that way after the Spanish-American War, when they took over Puerto Rico—”
Ruth decided that was enough. Gregor was beginning to sound impassioned. “Look,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to touch Gregor’s hand. “I don’t want to see a pleasant evening spoiled by a political argument. Let’s change the subject.” She withdrew her hand.
Gregor suddenly smiled. “I agree.” He was happy he had been stopped before he had added that the Americans didn’t feel that way about the Schliemann treasure, which they had in their possession, at least until recently, according to Ulanov. That would have been impolitic. “What would you like to talk about?”
It was skirting the topic they had just dropped, but Ruth was curious. “You said just now that the Russians found the treasure in a bunker in Berlin. But before, you said that the treasure wasn’t in Russia and never had been …”
“That’s right,” Gregor said, and shook his head ruefully. “We had it in our hands, and then we lost it. It was stolen, taken from us with forged papers. Forged shipping instructions, on May 22, 1945.” He looked at Ruth, his eyes twinkling. “On the other hand, if we hadn’t lost it, I suppose I wouldn’t be here now. With you.”
Ruth McVeigh had no intention of getting off on that subject. It would be more dangerous than politics. Besides, she was intrigued by his statement. “Are you serious? About losing the treasure, I mean,” she added quickly.
“Very serious. I had the story quite recently from someone who is in a position to know. It’s ridiculous but, unfortunately, true. The treasure was supposedly shipped back to Russia, but the shipping instructions were false, forged. The crate was marked as captured medical equipment, to be delivered to some major on his furnishing proper identification. The crate got as far as Bad Freienwalde, a small town not very far from Berlin, and then”—he shrugged—“it just disappeared.”
Ruth McVeigh frowned. It was a fascinating story, if true, and there was no doubt from Gregor’s tone and mien, that at least he believed it to be true. Besides, it made sense. It could explain the auction. If the treasure was in private hands, and had been in private hands all those years, and not in the hands of the Russian government, then an auction could be explained. It was like a mystery story, and Ruth had always enjoyed those.
“But didn’t your people make any effort to locate it? To recover it? They didn’t simply let it go at that, did they?”
“Of course not,” Gregor said, and then waited as their meal was being served. The wine he had ordered came to the table properly chilled, and he was handed a bit in his glass for approval. At his nod the waiter filled their glasses and discreetly disappeared.
Kovpak began eating and then looked around. He suddenly remembered they were supposedly being followed by some nameless unknown. He also recalled that they were eating at this particular restaurant at the insistence of Major Ulanov, although he could see no reason for that insistence. The restaurant was now more fully attended, but there were still a few empty tables in their vicinity, and nobody seemed in the slightest to be interested in them. Mostly they were couples, intent upon their own affairs. The only single person was a man seated well out of earshot, and besides, he was engrossed in a book he was reading. For a moment Kovpak wondered if perhaps Ulanov had merely been joking—if, perhaps, he had recommended the restaurant simply because it was a good one. Certainly the food was all one could ask. Or, perhaps, he had misunderstood Ulanov and had come to the wrong restaurant, and the unknown newspaper personage, as well as Ulanov, were someplace else quite different, watching some perfectly innocent couple, or even watching each other, as if anyone cared. Gregor Kovpak put the entire matter of restaurants and spies from his mind as being quite unimportant, and returned to the subject they had been discussing.
“There was an investigation of sorts at the time, as I understand it,” he said quietly, “but nobody found the treasure, or any trace of it. Admittedly the investigators didn’t spend as much time on it as they possibly should, but you have to remember they weren’t archaeologists, or museum curators or directors, and it was right after the war with the search on for war criminals, and they weren’t going to spend too much time on looking for a treasure they hadn’t even known about a few weeks earlier. So they didn’t waste too much time on it. But they did figure that a man named Petterssen, a Swedish national, was the one who forged the documents it took to get his hands on the treasure. He also fit the description of one of the two men who removed the crate from the train it was on. But after that”—he raised his shoulders expressively—“nothing.”
Ruth McVeigh paused in her eating, her food momentarily forgotten. “That’s all the investigation? Into the disappearance of the Schliemann treasure?”
“As I said, they weren’t collectors. They were people from Security with a thousand things more important—at least to their minds—on their hands.”
“But,” Ruth said, the detective in her aroused, “if one of the men was Swedish, couldn’t they possibly have taken the treasure to Sweden? Or wouldn’t that be subtle enough for investigators?”
“They could have gone anywhere,” Gregor said simply. “They put the treasure, in a crate, in the trunk of a car and simply drove off. The car had been waiting for them. And where they went, nobody knows. What kind of car? An official-looking car, which meant nothing then and means less today. A large black car. Period.” He drank some wine, thinking. He could scarcely tell Ruth that the car most likely was the car of some American general, or that the treasure undoubtedly had ended up in America, in the hands of the OSS. It would cheat her of romance. He began eating again, speaking across the table. “Yes, I suppose they could have gone north, but both the Danish and Swedish police looked for Petterssen a long time without luck. We told them he was wanted for war crimes, not for stealing the treasure, of course.”
“Why not?”
Gregor looked a trifle abashed. “Because countries do not like to admit that they’ve been duped, taken in by forged papers,” he said, and smiled. “It’s supposed to be bad for their image.”
“And they don’t mind people knowing now?”
Gregor shrugged humorously and stared down at his wine glass.
“I’m telling you in confidence. Besides, this auction proves rather conclusively that we do not have the treasure. Believe me,” he said, looking up, “if we had had the Schliemann collection at the Hermitage all these years, we would have put it on exhibition long ago. And argued at great lengths with anyone who came up with any ridiculous reasons for taking
it from us, such as we heard this afternoon! Besides,” he added, smiling broadly, “can you picture any curator, any director of any museum in the world, who would allow a treasure as valuable and as unique as the Schliemann collection, to be diminished by the pieces this person—whoever he is—sent out as proof of the fact that he actually had the genuine treasure? I certainly would not have let loose of a single button. Would you?”
Ruth laughed. “Never in the world.”
“Case closed,” Gregor said with juridical solemnity, and went back to eating. They finished their meal in silence, each with their own thoughts, but in contentment, satisfied they had established a certain rapport, but with each secretly regretting that, in truth, their lives were worlds apart, and that in all likelihood they would never see each other again, once the conference was ended …
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The properly attired waiter looking properly bored and carrying his tray in a properly gloved hand at the proper height with its whiskey bottle and glasses properly balanced, walked in the unhurried pace of floor waiters the world over down the principal corridor of the eleventh floor of the Gramercy Arms Hotel, to pause before the door of Room 1123. Had there been any observer it would simply have appeared that the waiter’s other properly gloved hand had politely tapped on the door and then rested there a moment, as if awaiting permission to enter. The rapping, of course, was a pantomime. The glove held against the door actually contained a tiny microphone that was connected by a thin wire running up the waiter’s sleeve and past his starched wing collar to a small amplifier mounted behind his right ear and made invisible by his stylishly long hair. Had the door opened for any reason—the room’s occupant leaving for dinner, or going to the lobby for cigarettes or a journal—the tray also contained a bar bill made out to the occupant of 1133, and a brief apology for the inexcusable error would have handled the situation. Of course the man in Room 1123 would be suspicious of anything out of the ordinary, such as Room Service at the Gramercy Arms making such a mistake, but there was really nothing the occupant of Room 1123 could do about it. Russians! the waiter thought with disdain. Fortunately, the occupant did not appear, so the waiter was able to pursue his assignment in peace.
Satisfied with what he heard—the sound of a man moving about, the rattle of a newspaper, the creaking of a bed as someone sat on it, which was quite distinct from the creaking of a bed when someone laid down upon it to rest, or rose from it, or any of the other things that people did that caused beds to creak—the waiter turned, looking about him innocuously, pleased that he was still without observers. For a moment he wondered that no radio or television had been turned on in the room, but he then reflected that this was undoubtedly because the occupant probably did not understand English. Satisfied with the logic of this deduction the waiter then returned to the floor-waiter’s pantry, prepared to watch the door of Room 1123 from his position at the end of the long hall until he would repeat his charade with the whiskey bottle and glasses fifteen minutes hence, and at every fifteen minute interval until the occupant went to sleep, or left the room, or until the waiter received a call from James Newkirk advising him his task was complete for the evening.
Occasionally, as he watched, the floor waiter from the tenth floor, doing double duty but pleased to do so for the tip he had earned, and to be of service to the Yard—for this was his impression—would come by with a tray of something for one of the eleventh-floor rooms, giving him a wink as he passed, but at no time was anything delivered to Room 1123. And fifteen minutes later, as our waiter was about to begin his journey once again, he paused. An elderly gentleman with a dark raincoat over his dinner jacket, his gray mustache a trifle mussed, his top hat awry, a silly look on his flushed face, and more than a touch of lipstick on one corner of his mouth, had come out of a side corridor, had staggered to the lift and, eventually, into it. The waiter sighed in envy as he waited for the drunk to disappear. Then, dismissing the lecherous thoughts the man’s lipsticked face had inspired, he walked down the corridor and raised his microphone once again to the door. This time he heard the creak of a bed as someone rose from it—the waiter promised himself that one day he would do a monograph on creaks—followed a short time later by the flushing of a toilet, then a rather extended but distinctly boorish belch, and the return to the bed and the newspaper. Uncouth! the waiter thought, wrinkling his nose, and walked sedately back to the pantry.
He was a young agent, and therefore had no idea he had been listening to a tape loop. It was two hours of the finest sound effects Major Serge Ulanov had been able to conceive for any curious ear …
In the lobby the elderly drunk found himself a comfortable chair that by chance happened to face the lounge and sank into it gratefully; the lipstick had been removed in the elevator under the amused glance of the young and attractive girl who ran the lift. It was evident the old gentleman was tired, for he leaned back and seemed to close his eyes, as if taking a brief rest before continuing his evening. Through his half-slitted eyelids he saw Gregor Kovpak emerge from the lounge with Ruth McVeigh at his side—and with what the watcher was sure were stars in his eyes—and escort the girl through the lobby in the direction of the street. A moment later the elderly gentleman was not greatly surprised to see James Newkirk, a thin book under his arm, turn from his contemplation of the activities-announcement board and casually move in the same direction. With a sigh the elderly man heaved himself a bit unsteadily to his feet and tottered toward the night air, obviously in need of it.
Ahead he could see Newkirk just turning into Curzon Street, but the elderly gentleman did not make the mistake of following him. Instead, he continued along Park Lane, now walking quite a bit more steadily as well as more rapidly, and turned into Pitt’s Head Mews. From here he entered Shepherd Street, coming at last into Shepherd Market. A pause in a darkened store front allowed the top hat to be removed, collapsed, and tucked into his waistband. A simple cap, taken from a pocket and donned, together with a scarf that wrapped around the throat and concealed the dress shirt and black tie, completely changed the man’s appearance. Now, with his gray mustache bristling, he appeared simply to be an elderly pensioner in midtown to see how his betters lived. The truth was that while Major Ulanov often decried the use of disguise in his profession, he secretly enjoyed nothing quite as much as putting on false beards or mustaches, or pretending the effects of drunkenness—a difficult act for him, since his capacity was legendary.
He moved easily through Shepherd Market, deserted at that late hour, and eventually found himself in the passage that fronted on Curzon Street, across the narrow pavement from the restaurant to which he had directed Gregor Kovpak. He had selected the restaurant for the reason that it was easily observed from the shadows in which he found himself, and also because the low curtains of the establishment permitted a view of the interior and the occupants there. To enjoy the same anonymity in watching Newkirk and attempting to discover what he was up to would have been impossible in the crowded dining room of the Gramercy Arms. Never having eaten in the restaurant, though, he only hoped the food was decent, since he had no inclination to hear complaints when Gregor eventually returned to their rooms.
Through the window of the restaurant the major could see Gregor and Ruth McVeigh sitting in a booth, sipping their drinks, and apparently discussing something of interest to them both. The Schliemann treasure, Ulanov sincerely hoped, and not, as he feared, their personal problems. As he watched he saw Newkirk come out of the gloom where he obviously had been waiting, saw the reporter pause at the restaurant entrance to glance back along the deserted Curzon Street, making sure he had not been followed, and then open the restaurant door and enter. Ulanov smiled slightly as he saw the waiter offer Newkirk a table quite close to Kovpak’s booth, but his smile turned to a frown as he saw Newkirk shake his head, say something and gesture, after which the waiter led the reporter to a table across the room and quite out of earshot of the two in the booth. Newkirk seated himself in a
chair that placed him at right angles to the other two, spoke to the waiter, obviously ordering something, and immediately fell to reading his book. Ulanov shook his head. Was it possible that Newkirk was eating in this restaurant purely by coincidence? Or that he had followed the others in the hope that they would lead him to a decent eating place? The thought was so ridiculous that Ulanov was forced to smile. It certainly did not explain Newkirk’s waiting so long for the others to enter before following them.
There was the sound of footsteps on the pavement, the loud leather-against-concrete heel sounds marching along in steady cadence that announced the approach of a London bobby long before the blue uniform and shaped helmet could be seen. Ulanov turned and began reading the bulletin announcements posted before the window of a shuttered tobacconist, not really noting the offers of used cars in excellent condition, or clean rooms for rent by the hour, day, or week, or of photographic models with their own studios for camera buffs (no cameras needed). The even cadence of the footsteps changed as their owner paused not far from him to rattle a doorknob. They then continued evenly, crossing Curzon Street to the north side and continuing along in the direction of Lansdowne Row.
Ulanov watched the stiff back of the policeman a moment and then returned his attention to the restaurant. Newkirk was now eating his meal, a glass of wine at his elbow, not paying the slightest attention to Gregor Kovpak or Ruth McVeigh. He would pause in his eating every now and then to sip his wine or to turn a page, but otherwise his attention was on his food and his book. Suddenly Ulanov smiled. He walked back into the shadows of Shepherd Market until he located a telephone booth illuminated by a dim bulb. He dialed, listened to the phone ring followed by the rapid bip-bip-bip, and dropped his coin; after identifying himself to the person who answered, he gave his instructions and hung up. This chore accomplished he smiled once again, because he was now almost through working for the day. He replaced the cap with the top hat, tucked the scarf into a pocket, and once again the elderly gentleman—although far less under the influence—he marched back to Park Lane and up that avenue, past the Playboy Club, past the Dorchester, to the Gramercy Arms.
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