They drove for several moments in silence. Then Wilten said, “Will it make any great difference if Nordberg lied or not? What importance is it where the treasure came from? You have it. And it’s genuine, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s genuine enough,” Lindgren said. “But if Nordberg lied to me, there is a good possibility that that woman”—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate he meant Ruth McVeigh, who had just left the car—“may have a good idea of how to trace it to Nordberg.”
“But the trail will stop there, won’t it?”
“Maybe,” Lindgren said, not happy about the prospects, “or maybe not. In any event, I don’t believe in taking chances, you know that. You will be driving them tomorrow. You are to pick them both up at nine in the morning. I expect you to keep your ears open. If, by any chance at all, they get a lead that might bring them to Nordberg, and therefore be dangerous to me, I expect you will know what to do.” He turned to look at Wilten’s expressionless profile. “Do you know what I mean?”
Wilten’s frozen expression loosened enough for a faint smile. “I know what you mean”—and he added, now that the decision had been made by his superior—“sir.”
RINGSTED—July
From the height of the small balcony that jutted from the wall of Lindgren Castle, Count Lindgren watched with no expression as Professor Nordberg’s car came rattling up the long drive. Five o’clock; the professor was on time for his appointment. The count watched the professor park the car and get out, immediately going to the trunk and taking from it a large bundle. Wilten appeared at once, offering help with the bulky package, but the professor could be seen shaking his head, and a moment later he had stumped from view into the castle, carrying the bundle protectively in his short arms.
Count Lindgren walked back into his den and sat down, coldly calculating. The sense of anticipation, the slight feeling of tenseness that always preceded a major act of violence on the part of the count, whether it might be the taking of a woman against her will, the facing of an adversary in a duel, rigged or not, the preparation for battle in war, was present. But Axel Lindgren knew from experience that the tenseness would disappear as soon as the deed was in motion.
There was a diffident rap on the door. Count Lindgren came to his feet and walked over, opening it. Nordberg stood there, puffing from his climb up the broad winding stairs with his burden, but smiling as always to know he was in the presence of his benefactor, his good friend, Count Axel Lindgren and that he knew he was welcome. The professor carefully placed the bundle down on a chair and took out a handkerchief, wiping his forehead and then his face.
“I truly appreciate this, Count Lindgren—”
“Axel,” Lindgren corrected him almost mechanically and placed an arm about the professor’s shoulders in seemingly friendly fashion, squeezing lightly. The thought came to him that it was somewhat like checking the body fat of an animal before slaughtering it. Still, under that fat the arms were thin, and there was not the slightest chance that the professor might struggle free of his fate. The count released the beaming professor and bent to the bundle. “Shall we see what we have here?”
“Oh, certainly.” Professor Nordberg hastened to help. The bundle was opened almost reverently, the full treasure exposed as a jumbled pile of dullish yellow. “It’s all there,” Nordberg said, staring down almost hypnotically. He wet his thick lips. Everything he had always wanted in life was represented by these rather unattractive bits and pieces of amateurishly fabricated metal, twisted and formed centuries and centuries ago, just to be able this day to make him rich, rich beyond anything he could ever have imagined. He watched the count check the material and then rewrap the bundle and stow it carefully in a large drawer of a cabinet against one wall. For the purpose of maintaining the general atmosphere of security, the count took a key from his pocket and locked the drawer. He tucked the key back into his pocket and patted it as if to demonstrate that everything was under control. Nordberg smiled a bit tremulously and then—as Count Lindgren had been sure he would—looked toward the balcony. “May I—?”
“Of course.”
Count Lindgren watched the professor move to the balcony, to expend some of his excessive emotion on the beauty of the view. How beautifully the professor has been choreographed, Count Lindgren thought dispassionately as he reached for the brandy and two balloon glasses. Had we rehearsed this scene a dozen times he could not have taken his part better. Well, let’s see if he can act out the rest of this poor comedy with equal artistry …
He carefully filled the balloon glasses far beyond the tiny line etched in the crystal to indicate what someone considered a proper portion, and came to his feet. The professor was staring across the trees toward the village of Ringsted, entranced, unmindful of anything but the beauty of the scene and his unbelievable relationship with the castle and with the count, a relationship that had been unthinkable such a short time before.
All feeling of tenseness, even of reality, had now left Count Lindgren, replaced with calm inexorability. He was the executioner approaching the victim with no personalities involved, an actor in a drama whose lines he could no more change than could the man he intended to kill. The count did not even feel his normal distaste for the professor at the moment. He stepped noiselessly to the balcony and raised both glasses, prepared to call out to the professor and to stumble at the same time, decanting the burning liquid into those wide inane eyes and then to quickly push the tortured disabled man over the low parapet.
He opened his mouth to call out, and then froze!
There was a loud bang on the door of his study, and then the door was rudely flung open. Lindgren swung about, the brandy in the two glasses swaying dangerously. François stood there, glowering, his assistant’s ear pinched painfully between two of the chef’s fingers.
“This cretin! This idiot!” the infuriated chef was saying, “He must go at once! Cumin in the vichyssoise! I shall not tolerate it! Yesterday it was paprika in the lobster bisque! Always experimenting!” He released the culprit and wiped his fingers on his mess jacket, as if to cleanse them. “You must send this one away at once, sir! Or I shall not be responsible for your meals!”
Lindgren fought down the wave of blind unreasoning fury that had swept him at the interruption. The damage was done. The professor had come back into the study as a result of the clamor and had taken one of the glasses from the count’s hand in passing. Count Lindgren walked to his desk as if in a trance and pressed a button. Wilten appeared in moments, his eyes taking in the tableau, understanding it. He took François’ arm gently.
“I’ll take care of the matter, sir,” he said to Lindgren and led the chef from the room. François, his anger expended, followed along docilely, followed at a safe distance by his assistant.
“And I’ll have to go, too, Axel,” Nordberg said, and emptied his glass, setting it down. “Tomorrow is graduation and tonight is rehearsal of the convocation procession.” He moved to the door, and then tilted his head in the direction of the cabinet containing the treasure. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said sincerely, and left, closing the door softly behind him.
Count Lindgren sank into a chair. He took a deep breath and swirled the brandy in his glass as he stared at the closed door. He felt let down, deprived. It had been so close! Still, there would be other opportunities as far as Professor Arne Nordberg was concerned. Where the opportunities might be far more limited was in the case of Ruth McVeigh and Gregor Kovpak. If they should appear to be even close to becoming a threat, any opportunities at all would have to be exploited, at any cost. It was something he would have to discuss in great detail with Wilten that very evening …
CHAPTER TWENTY
DENMARK—July
With the glass between them closed, and with Wilten sitting rigidly in the driver’s seat, Ruth and Gregor were being driven south from Copenhagen along the coast highway. They had skirted the Køge Bugt and had passed the small corner of the Fakse Bugt that p
ermitted a view of the sea below through stands of trees; now they were approaching Vordingbord. Ruth, studying Gregor’s profile across the width of the back seat, frowned slightly. She loved the profile. In fact, she loved the entire face with its strong planes framed by that tangle of dark hair. What she did not care for was the expression at the moment.
“Darling,” she said quietly, “I honestly do not understand you. We predict a boat was sunk somewhere between Warnemünde and Denmark, and we find a boat that was sunk on the day we said it was sunk, at the place we said it was sunk. And instead of being happy about it, you look as if you were being driven to a funeral.”
Gregor sighed. “My dear Ruth,” he said dryly, “I was born and raised in Leningrad, which is on the Gulf of Finland, which is an arm of the Baltic Sea. In school they drummed a lot of geography into our heads, and a lot of it dealt with the body of water we were connected to. For your information, the Baltic Sea is over a thousand miles long, has an average width of well over a hundred miles, and has an area of more than 160,000 square miles. It is twenty-five percent larger than all of Italy; it is five times the size of Ireland—”
“Very informative,” Ruth said. “So?”
“So the chances that one sunken boat in all that vast expanse is your boat, simply because you want it to be, strikes me as being—well, ridiculous.”
“So it’s ridiculous. What would you rather be doing today?” She saw the sudden gleam in his eye, the quirk of his lips, and laughed. “Besides that?” Her laughter faded. She became serious. “Gregor, why don’t you want this to be the boat? My boat, if you put it that way?”
Kovpak hesitated before answering. “Because,” he said at last, “I don’t believe there is a boat. And when this is proven to be just a boat that some smuggler was using to bring explosives, or gunpowder, into Denmark—or, what is far more likely, isn’t proven to be anything—then we’ll be at the end of the road.” He looked across the car somberly a moment, “Then what excuse will we have for—well, for not saying good-bye and going home?”
Ruth leaned over, touching his cheek tenderly, and then sat back again. “We promised not to discuss that,” she said quietly. “When it happens, it will happen. In the meantime, it’s pointless to think about it.”
Gregor shrugged. “If you feel that way about it.”
“I feel very much that way about it. I don’t see any other way to feel about it,” Ruth said, and looked out the window. They had passed Nykøbing and were nearing Gedser, with an arm of the sea visible to their right beyond the railroad tracks that paralleled the highway. The land here was flat, farms running down to the edge of the waters, fields separated by hedges rather than by trees, tiny docks at the end of each bit of land, and the farmhouses were small and gaunt, built of stone, with sharply sloping roofs. Ruth turned to Gregor. “This is more what I thought Warnemünde would be like, instead of those big cranes and warehouses and all that concrete.” She pointed. From the slight rise on which they found themselves a dock and sails could be seen in the distance. She nodded positively. “This is where we finish this business.”
Which, Gregor thought a bit sadly, is what I’m afraid of.
Ruth leaned forward, sliding the glass divider open. “Wilten—”
“Miss?”
“That dock. I want to stop there.”
“Yes, miss.”
The car pulled into the town proper, past the small shops and the narrow spired church, past the large ferry slip where the train ferry from Germany landed, and turned to take a small road running in the direction of the dock they had seen, past the slight rise where the lighthouse stood. The road ran along several farms and then curved toward the dock. Sailing boats were scattered about the small harbor, white chalk marks against the slate gray of the water, each trailing a dinghy or two like piglets suckling a sow. Men were visible on the dock, repairing nets or just smoking and talking. As they approached and Wilten began to slow down at the entrance to the pier, Ruth could see that while none of them appeared to have chin whiskers, and none was wearing a sou’wester, the scene was remarkably reminiscent of the Winslow Homer scene she had pictured in Warnemünde. Maybe it’s an omen, she thought hopefully, and turned to Gregor as Wilten brought the car to a halt and hurried around to open the door for her. “You stay here. I’ll do the talking.”
Gregor smiled faintly. “My pleasure.”
A thought came to Ruth as she got down. She looked at Wilten. “Do you suppose that any of them speak English?”
“Oh, yes, miss. Almost everyone in Denmark speaks English except possibly the very old folks. It’s taught in school, and school is compulsory, miss.”
“Good!” Ruth said, and marched off toward the nearest group.
The men looked up at sight of the beautiful lady, and then one by one they came to their feet, wiping their hands on their trousers, wondering at the unexpected visit. The oldest, who seemed to have been elected spokesman for any unforeseen events, stepped forward a bit, frowning uncertainly. Beautiful ladies seldom visited the Gedser dock. “Miss? Is there something—?”
Ruth took a deep breath and got right to the point, looking from man to man as she spoke. “There was a ship sunk very near here, off the Gedser light,” she said. “It was a long time ago, I realize. It was in 1945—May 1945. It was a small boat, probably a fishing boat. Do any of you recall anything like that?”
“1945?” The spokesman frowned and shook his head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, miss. That was a long time ago. I was in the Royal Navy at the time, stationed off Iceland.” He looked around. “I don’t believe any of us was around in 1945.”
Ruth looked at the others. One by one they shook their heads.
“I was working in factory,” one said. “In Herning. Defense industry—”
“I was army—”
“I was fishing, but off Sylt—”
“I was just a lad in 1945. Living in Korsør, going to school—”
Ruth sighed. “Let me ask you this. Would there be anyone around who might remember a ship sinking off the lighthouse in 1945? May 1945?”
The men looked at each other. The oldest shook his head slowly. “That was over thirty-five years ago, miss. Gedser wasn’t much of a place in those days; not much of a place now, to tell the truth. Not much reason for anyone to be here.”
“Then or now—” someone added bitterly.
The elderly man disregarded this. “How was she sunk, miss?”
“She exploded.”
“In May 1945? That was just after the war,” the man said thoughtfully. “Lots of ships sunk during the war between here and Germany. Lots of them exploded, too. We scuttled some ourselves, in the navy—” He studied her. “Why are you asking, miss? You a reporter for a newspaper?”
It was as good an excuse for asking questions as any. “A magazine,” she said with a smile, and went back to her questioning. “Does anyone remember anyone trawling around here, say in the past four or five months, and bringing up a crate, or a box, or a case of some sort?”
“From that sunk ship, miss?”
“We think so.”
The men looked at each other and then, seemingly with one accord, shook their heads. “Near the light, that would be? Nobody trawls there, miss. Lose their nets if they did. Bottom’s a jumble of rocks, sharp as knives.”
Ruth was running out of questions, getting a bit desperate. “Or diving, say, four or five months ago?”
“Four, five months ago?” The men grinned. “Nobody dives in water around here, miss. Oh, a little in summer, some of the younger fellows, but certainly not in winter. Water’s like ice.”
“Lots of times water is ice—”
“Man would be crazy—!”
“Except,” one man suddenly said, thinking about it, “that Knud Christensen. You took him out, didn’t you, Jens?”
Jens Krag nodded. He stepped forward, happy to be in the limelight, even though he considered the entire discussion to be foolish. �
�Man was diving for his brother’s body,” he said quietly. “Tried to talk him out of it, but couldn’t. His only two brothers went down in a storm off the light. Never found Niels or any sign to this day, but Gustave, the youngest, was tangled in ropes. Knud, he went down for Gustave’s body, not for any crate or box. Brought Gustave up, too.” He said it with a touch of pride for the man’s tenacity and endurance.
“Anyway, Knud Christensen ain’t a man. He’s a bear. A polar bear.”
“He’s a loony, diving in water that cold,” someone else said. “Lucky he came up himself.”
“Anyway, it wasn’t in 1945 that the Christensen boat went down,” Krag added, as if to put an end to the matter. “It was January this year, end of January.” His voice became philosophical. “Knud hasn’t been the same since his brothers died. Farm’s going to hell.”
“He should have married—”
“Who’d marry him? Sits like a log and just stares half the time. Drinks more than he should. More than he can afford, too. Going to lose the farm he doesn’t wake up—”
“Don’t think he cares. Anyway, going to starve first, one of these days—”
“This Knud Christensen,” Ruth said suddenly. “Where does he live? I’d like to talk to him—for my article.” Although, she added to herself with honesty, he doesn’t sound like the man who could possibly have brought up the treasure, not if he’s on the verge of starvation. Still, he might have seen something when he was bringing up his brother’s body—
Jens Krag pointed. “You must have passed it on your way here. It’s back the way you came, by the light. Name’s on the mailbox.”
“Only he don’t get no mail,” someone said, and sounded sad about it.
“Thank you. Thank you all.” Ruth gave them a brilliant smile that each man felt more than repaid him for the effort, and walked back to the car, climbing in. Gregor looked at her.
“Well?”
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