The Thefts of Nick Velvet

Edward D. Hoch

For Marge and Ed Blodgett

Contents

Introduction

The Theft of the Clouded Tiger

The Theft from the Onyx Pool

The Theft of the Toy Mouse

The Theft of the Meager Beavers

The Theft of the Silver Lake Serpent

The Theft of the Seven Ravens

The Theft of the Mafia Cat

The Theft from the Empty Room

The Theft of the Crystal Crown

The Theft of the Circus Poster

The Theft of Nick Velvet

The Theft of the General’s Trash

The Theft of the Bermuda Penny

Bibliography

Introduction

NOW THAT I’VE WRITTEN thirty-four short stories about an unusual thief named Nick Velvet, perhaps it’s time I said a few words about Nick’s origins, and about how the original concept of a series character can undergo radical changes with the passage of time. There seems no better opportunity than this fine edition of Nick’s best adventures, published by The Mysterious Press.

The first Nick Velvet story, “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger,” was written late in 1965 and published in the September 1966 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Two events, one personal and one literary, probably led to the series. During 1965 I’d published the first three stories of my Rand series (about a British cipher expert) in the pages of EQMM, and I was anxious to follow it up with a second series character created especially for that magazine. On a broader literary front, 1965 marked the peak of James Bond’s popularity. The final Ian Fleming novel and the most financially successful of the Bond films (Thunderball) were both released that year.

As originally conceived, Nick Velvet was to have been my answer to James Bond—a modern, sophisticated thief who used all the latest gadgets to pull off unlikely robberies. A few of the gadgets slipped in—like the tranquilizer gun in that first story—but the character quickly developed into something else. Unlike Bond’s cheerful girl-chasing, Nick remained faithful to Gloria, the woman with whom he lives. And after the first story, in which he dispatched the villains with the aid of a tiger, Nick rarely killed anyone.

In fact, as the objects to be stolen became more bizarre (the water from a swimming pool, a toy mouse, a baseball team, a sea serpent), I often viewed the stories as being wildly humorous. Sometimes their first drafts tended to reflect this humor in extreme amounts, and I have my editor Fred Dannay (Ellery Queen) to thank for keeping it within reasonable bounds.

A good deal of Nick’s background was to spring from my initial choice of his name. I liked the sound of “Nick Velvet” and it seemed a likely name for a series character—especially a smooth thief. But to get around a certain artificiality I explained that he’d shortened his name from something longer “that sounded like a cheese.” So his original name was Nicholas Velvetta, and he’d become an Italian-American without any conscious design on my part. Since I wanted him to be a product of New York, I chose the Greenwich Village area as his birthplace, in an era when “the Italian-American population still dominated the section against the encroachment of the bohemians.”

Nick is by nature something of a loner and even Gloria Merchant, the woman with whom he lives, has only a vague notion of his profession. In the early stories she believed him to be an industrial consultant who is away from home frequently to inspect proposed plant sites. Recently she has come to the conclusion that he performs some sort of secret government work.

In the introduction to The Spy and the Thief (Davis Publications, 1971), which collected some of the stories about Rand and Nick Velvet, I gave Nick’s birth date as March 24, 1932. This would make him forty-five years old as I write these words, and I don’t expect he’ll ever age much beyond that. Spies and policemen can grow old in style, actually improving their performance, but it’s hard to imagine an aging Nick Velvet.

I imagine Nick as ruggedly handsome, with black hair, brown eyes and slightly Italian features; a well built man just over six feet tall. Nick’s father was active in local politics, but Nick himself was a high school dropout who joined the army at eighteen and saw action at Korea’s Chongchon River (while his creator was sorting library books at Fort Slocum, N.Y.)

After the war Nick took night courses to complete his high school education, while working at a marina in Westchester County. He developed a lifelong love of boating, one of his few spare-time pleasures. Gloria, the only one who calls him Nicky, shares his love of boating. They live in a small city on Long Island Sound, close to the water, in an unpretentious house with a front porch where Nick can sometimes be found drinking a beer. The house is in an older section of the city, but there’s a relatively new electronics plant at the end of the street.

Nick rarely hires anyone to help with his thefts, preferring to keep the standard $20,000 fee for himself. Especially dangerous assignments sometimes bring $30,000, but despite inflation Nick’s prices have remained the same for twelve years. Though he sometimes poses as a reporter or writer, he generally uses his own name. Only recently has his reputation become widely known in criminal circles. Because of his Italian-American background, he has been hired more than once by various factions of the Mafia.

Though many of Nick’s adventures take place in the New York area, he has also operated in Texas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Washington, and Miami, and gone outside the country to Canada, London, Paris, Venice, Switzerland, and the Caribbean, among other places.

Since the major market for my Nick Velvet stories has always been Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, perhaps it’s not too surprising that Nick should follow in the footsteps of the great Arsène Lupin in becoming something of a thief-detective. In the later stories especially, he is often called upon to solve a mystery in order to accomplish his mission or clear himself. In one story, “The Theft from the Empty Room,” he had to solve a mystery in order to know what to steal!

Of course since the very beginning there has always been an element of mystery connected with Nick’s adventures. Since he steals only valueless objects—never money or jewels or the like—the reader (and Nick) generally wonders how such a thing as a dinosaur’s tailbone or a circus poster or a cheap cuckoo clock could possibly be worth $20,000. In the end both Nick and the reader find out, the theft is successful, and Nick often brings a criminal to justice as well. It is mystery and crime and detection all rolled into one.

Almost from the beginning Nick Velvet has been the most popular (and most financially successful) of all my series characters. All but three of the first thirty-four stories appeared originally in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and many were also published in the British short-story magazine Argosy before it ceased publication early in 1974. Two stories appeared originally in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and one appeared only in the British Argosy. Its appearance in this volume marks its first American publication. (It was purchased for publication in this country by the Diners Club magazine Signature, but when that magazine stopped using fiction all rights to the story were returned to me.)

There has been frequent television interest expressed in the Nick Velvet series, and options have been taken on the stories from time to time. The problem in the United States seems to be that Nick is, after all, a thief who goes unpunished for his crimes. Television producers have pointed out to me that, by way of contrast, the Robert Wagner character in the 1967 TV series It Takes a Thief was actually in the employ of the U.S. government, which made everything all right.

Happily, French television does not worry about the moral question in Nick’s adventures. Five of the Nick Velvet stories were filmed in the south of France and shown on French TV during 1976, and others may follow. On the other side of the world, a collection of Nick Velvet stories was issued in January 1976 by the Japanese publisher Hayakawa, under the title Enter the Thief. And individual stories in the series have been widely reprinted in England, Norway, Sweden, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Denmark, Italy, Australia, Brazil and Japan. In this country two Velvet stories have been reprinted in Best Detective Stories of the Year.

The reader will find a complete bibliography of the Nick Velvet stories at the back of this book. But for those anxious to get to the stories themselves, I’ve kept you too long already.

A final word of thanks to Fred Dannay. He not only published most of these stories but also encouraged their writing, suggested revisions when necessary, and even inspired a few of the plots. Without him, and without EQMM, there would have been no Nick Velvet.

Edward D. Hoch

The Theft of the Clouded Tiger

MOSTLY HE JUST LIKED TO SIT on the front steps with a beer, watching the homebound workers from the electronics plant down the block, pleased that he wasn’t one of them. Sometimes, after supper, Gloria would join him on the steps to see the neighborhood fathers playing ball with their boys in the lot across the street, then watch them stroll down to the corner grocery for a forgotten loaf of bread or pack of smokes. It was a peaceful, settled neighborhood—that was why he liked it. No curious neighbors, no snooping.

“Nicky?”

“Huh?” He glanced up at Gloria, perched on the porch railing, swinging her long legs in graceful rhythm. She was a great girl, but she always wanted to talk.

“Nicky, what do you do when you go away?”

“Travel, like I told you. These companies hire me to pick new plant sites. There’s a lot of money in it.” He sipped his beer from the punctured can, wishing she’d quiet down for once and let him breathe in the evening air.

“When will they send you out again, Nicky?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think some day we’ll be able to get married and settle down?”

He’d often considered marrying Gloria. Sometimes he could even imagine himself spending the rest of his life on this little street, walking up to the corner for beer in the evening. He could imagine it, but not for too long. “Some day,” he said, because that was the answer to everything.

It was later, almost ten o’clock, when the telephone rang. She brushed his hand from her thigh and rose in the darkness to answer it. “For you,” she called out.

He took the telephone and heard an unfamiliar voice ask, “Is this Nick Velvet?”

“Yes.”

“We’d like to talk to you about a job.”

“Tonight?”

“If you can come over. Foster Hotel, Room 229.”

Nick smiled at the telephone. “I don’t meet people in hotel rooms. They’re only for sleeping and making love.”

“All right, where?”

“The park across from the hotel. By the fountain.”

“In the dark?” the voice asked, uncertain.

“I do my best work in the dark. Eleven o’clock—and come alone.”

“How will I know you?”

Nick smiled again. “I’ll know you,” he said and hung up. He always knew them. They always looked the same.

Gloria came in off the porch. “Who was it, Nicky?”

“A job. Be back around midnight.”

He picked up his jacket on the way out the door. Sometimes the nights were cool.

Nick Velvet was a product of New York’s Greenwich Village, in an era when the Italian-American population still dominated the section against the encroachment of the bohemians. He’d shortened his name from an original version that sounded like a cheese, and gone off to the wars with a good many other high school dropouts.

Somehow, over the years, his life’s work had begun to take shape, and now—nearing 40—he was an acknowledged expert. They phoned him now, and made trips to see him, because for certain jobs he had no equal in the world.

Nick Velvet was a thief. Of a special sort.

He never stole money as such, and never stole on his own. Rather, he stole on assignment, taking the things that were too big or too dangerous or too unusual for other thieves. He’d stolen from museums, from corporations, from governments. He’d stolen a statue of the Roman god Mercury from the top of a post office building, and a stained glass window from a museum of medieval art. Once he’d even stolen a complete baseball team, including manager, coaches, and equipment.

It wasn’t so much that he liked the work, or had planned it as a career. But when it happened he had voiced no complaints. The fees were substantial, and he worked only four or five times a year, for no more than a week or so at a time. He saw a good deal of the world, and he met some highly interesting people.

Harry Smith was not one of the most interesting.

He stood in the shadows by the fountain, looking for all the world like a gangster of the prohibition era waiting for the boat from Canada. Nick didn’t like his looks, and when he said his name was Smith, Nick didn’t like his name, either.

“A man in Chicago recommended you, Velvet,” Smith said, clipping off the words like an electric typewriter.

“Could be. What do you want?”

“Do we have to talk here? I have a hotel room.”

Nick Velvet smiled. “Hotel rooms can be bugged too easily. I don’t like tape recordings of my business deals.”

Harry Smith shrugged. “Hell, these days they can bug you anywhere. They could be aiming one of them long-range things at us right now.”

“That’s why we’re standing by the fountain. It’s quite effective for covering up conversations. Now get to the point.”

Harry Smith stepped into the circle of light cast by a tree-shrouded lamp overhead. He was a bulky man, built like a small gorilla, and both cheeks were pockmarked. “We want you to steal something,” he said.

“I assumed as much. My price is high.”

“How high?”

“Twenty thousand and up, depending on the job.”

Harry Smith took a step backward into the shadows. “We want you to steal a tiger from a zoo.”

Nick had learned a long time ago to control his reactions. He simply nodded and said, “Tell me about it.”

“It’s in the city—the Glen Park Zoo. Something called a ‘clouded’ tiger. Supposed to be rare.”

“How rare?”

The man shrugged, and Nick was somehow reminded of a gorilla again. “A Middle Eastern prince with a private zoo is willing to pay well for the beast. We can afford your twenty thousand.”

“Thirty for animals,” Nick told him. “There is more danger involved.”

“I’ll have to ask the others.”

“Do that. You know where to reach me.”

“Wait!” Harry Smith grabbed Nick’s shoulder. “We want to do this thing in three days—on Monday morning. We should decide tonight.”

“I’d have to look the zoo over first.”

“You’d have tomorrow and Sunday for that.”

“Thirty thousand?”

The man hesitated a moment longer. “All right. Five in advance.”

They shook hands on it, and Nick Velvet went back to Gloria’s to pack his bag. The night was hesitant with the beginnings of an overcast, and above his head the stars were gradually going out.

There were three of them—Harry Smith, and a tall slim Englishman named Cormick, and a youngish blonde girl who answered to Jeanie. The girl seemed to be with Cormick, and it was obvious that the Englishman was the brains of the operation. He ordered Harry Smith around in the flat monotone so often used for servants.

“I’ll need to look the place over,” Nick told them again.

Cormick shrugged his lean shoulders. “Look all you want.”

“Why does it have to be Monday morning?”

“You’re not paid to ask questions, Mr. Velvet.”

They’d left the hotel room and were sitting now in a little house trailer hooked on behind a new black convertible. The car and trailer, like the girl, belonged to Cormick.

“Tell me something about the tiger,” Nick said, sipping a glass of warm Scotch.

Cormick might have been lecturing a class in Zoology I. “Though the ordinary tiger is quite common in zoos, there are a number of rare specimens that are highly valued. The great heavy-coated Siberian tiger is an extremely rare zoo specimen, as is the albino tiger, and the blue-gray tiger known to parts of China. But the so-called ‘clouded’ tiger—a strangely mottled beast long thought to be legendary—is perhaps the rarest of all. This specimen was captured near the Sino-Indian border a few years ago and donated to the Glen Park Zoo. It may be the only one in captivity, and our prince will pay dearly for it.”

“I’ll need some equipment.”

The Englishman nodded. “We have a small closed pickup truck, and Jeanie can be your driver. The job is to get the tiger out of its cage and into the truck, and then to get the truck away from the zoo.”

Nick lit a cigarette. “Is the zoo guarded?”

Cormick nodded. “They’ve got a squad of private patrolmen, mainly to keep the teenagers in line. I understand they had some trouble last year with the animals being annoyed.”

“Protecting the animals from the people.” Nick chuckled for the first time and began to relax. The old feeling of success was beginning to course through his veins. He never liked them to seem too easy. Then, as if he’d just thought of it, he said, “I’d better take Jeanie with me in the morning. A man alone at the zoo might look suspicious.”

Cormick hesitated only a moment before indicating his approval with a wave of his hand. “If you wish. It might be a good idea, since she’ll be with you Monday.”

“Where will you two be?” Nick asked.

“Here in the trailer, waiting for you. We have a plane waiting to fly the beast to Canada and then on to the Middle East.”

“You’ll have trouble getting a tiger out of the country,” Nick said. “How are you planning to do it?”

Cormick merely smiled. “Do I ask you how you plan to steal him in the first place?”

Nick took out another cigarette. “I’m glad you don’t. At this point I have no idea how I’m going to do it.”

Saturday morning was breezy, with high white clouds that glided swiftly across the sun in irregular formation. Nick helped Jeanie from her car and guided her around a puddle left over from an early morning shower. It was a day for the zoo, and even this early the parking lot was beginning to fill.

Nick dropped two quarters in the turnstile and they passed through. “I can remember when city zoos were free,” he commented.

“They still are, in smaller cities. Here they have to pay for guards.” She motioned toward a uniformed man standing near the polar bears. There was a revolver on his hip, and he wore the square silver badge of a local security service.

“Do they need to carry those guns?”

Jeanie shrugged. “Probably not loaded.”

“We’ll assume they are. Where’s this clouded tiger?”

“Down this way. Let’s stop in the monkey house first, in case the guard is watching.”

She was a smart girl, with brains that even showed through the blonde hair and the long-legged fullness of her body. He liked being with her, even at the zoo. Even in the monkey house.

After a time they drifted toward the big cats, while Nick carefully observed the zoo’s routine—a truckful of dirt coming through a service gate in the fence, a keeper hosing down the concrete near the seals, an aging vendor inflating balloons from a tank of gas. Something back near the front gate caught Nick’s eye and he asked, “What’s the armored car for?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Picking up yesterday’s haul of quarters.”

“Quarters are money.”

“Forget it. On a good weekend they’re lucky to get two or three thousand dollars. We’re after big game.”

He paused in front of the cage they sought. “It’s big, all right.”

The clouded tiger was a massive, mocking beast with mottled fur unlike anything Nick had ever seen. The animal paced its cage with a vibrant stride that seemed to shout its superiority, even over the lion and the more orthodox tiger in the adjoining cages. It was not a beast to meet on a dark night near the Sino-Indian border; it was not even a beast to meet on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the zoo.

“I don’t like him.” Jeanie shuddered. “He looks as if he could pounce right through those bars.”

“Maybe he could. My job is to get him through, somehow.”

“Cormick is crazy! Who ever heard of stealing a tiger from a zoo?”

Nick smiled. “I’ve stolen stranger things—ten tons of slot machines, once.” But his eyes were busy. The cages all had connecting gates, but the ones on either side of the clouded tiger were heavily bolted. A door in the rear wall led into the beast’s den, and the only other exit was a small gate at the front of the cage, for feeding and cleaning purposes. He studied the padlocked chain on the gate and decided it would present no problem.

“Seen enough, Nick?” she asked him finally.

“I guess so.”

They strolled down by the camels and then stood for a time watching a shaggy old bison who almost seemed to realize it was one of the last. The animal depressed Nick, and he was glad to get back to the car.

Cormick was pouring drinks when they returned to the trailer. He smiled and held out a glass for Nick. “I thought you might have the tiger with you.”

“I thought you wanted it on Monday.”

Harry Smith settled into a chair. “That’s right—Monday morning at a quarter to ten.”

“Why such close timing?”

The Englishman sipped his drink. “We’ve made arrangements for the plane at that time. Can you get the tiger then?”

“It would be easier at night,” Nick said.

“Not with those guards around. You’d never get by the front entrance. At least in the daytime you can walk right up to the cage without attracting attention.”

Nick leaned against the wall, eyeing Jeanie’s long legs as she settled into a chair. “Sometimes it isn’t all bad, attracting attention. Now tell me your plans for after I get the tiger.”

“Jeanie will be driving the pickup truck,” Cormick said. “She’ll follow your orders until you’re away from the zoo, then she’ll drive you to the meeting place. We’ll pay you the rest of the money there and take over the truck. It’s our job to get the animal on the plane for Canada.”

“Will that truck hold the tiger?”

“Steel sheeting with a few air holes. It will hold him.”

Nick Velvet nodded. “I have to pick up a few things. Be back before dark.”

He borrowed Jeanie’s car and drove to the city—to a laboratory supply house that happened to be open on a Saturday afternoon. There he’ purchased an ugly-looking pellet gun that fired tranquilizing darts. Just in case the tiger got nasty about its kidnaping …

On Sunday afternoon Nick went back to the zoo with Jeanie because he wanted to study the keepers’ uniforms. And, incidentally, because he wanted to study Jeanie. “How did you meet Cormick?” he asked as they strolled near the reptile house.

“How do those things ever happen? I was a dancer in a little off-Broadway musical, with dreams of doing my own choreography some day. He said he’d help—invest some money.”

“Did he?”

“After this job, he says. It’s always after just one more job. But he’s not a bad guy. He keeps Harry in his place.”

“How long have the three of you been together?”

“About a year. Harry had a girl for a while, but she took off. He used to beat her, and she didn’t like it.”

“How did Cormick hear about me?”

She turned to smile at him. “You’re famous in certain circles, Nick Velvet. But I never thought you’d be so handsome.”

Nick was no matinee idol and he knew it. He stopped looking at her legs and started to worry. “Let’s go back,” he suggested.

On the way out he stopped at the balloon vendor’s stand and purchased two balloons, a blue one and a red one. The blue one he gave to Jeanie, but he released the red one and watched its progress as it rose with the slight breeze. He watched it for quite a long time, and then they left.

Monday dawned rainy, and Nick cursed his luck. He was about to suggest a postponement, but by eight o’clock the sky was beginning to brighten and the rain had settled into a drizzle.

They met for a final conference in the trailer and Cormick shook his hand.

“Good luck, Nick. The rest of the money will be waiting for you.”

“Can’t you tell me where you’ll be?”

“Jeanie knows. We’ll see you this afternoon.”

Nick dressed quickly in a close approximation of the work clothes worn by the keepers. Then he followed Jeanie in the truck while she parked her car at a suburban shopping center.

“All right, boss,” she said, getting behind the wheel of the truck. “What are my orders?”

“The service gate will be open. We’ll drive in there and then I’ll leave you. From there you can see the tiger’s cage, and as soon as I reach it you start driving toward it, slowly. You’ll have to turn the truck around and back up to the railing outside the cage. That’ll be the tricky part.”

“What will the guards be doing all this time?”

He told her.

“You’re quite a guy, Nick Velvet. Will it work?”

“If it doesn’t, I’ll have a lapful of clouded tiger.”

“Should we buy another balloon, just to make sure?”

He studied the sky for a moment, watching the progress of fluffy white clouds. “No, the wind direction is about the same as yesterday.” He checked the bulges in his various pockets, and decided the two of them were ready.

As Jeanie drove the truck slowly through the service gate, a uniformed zoo patrolman turned toward them curiously and started walking in their direction. Nick left the truck and hurried forward.

“You working here?” the patrolman called out.

“Cleaning the tiger cage.”

“Huh?” The patrolman kept coming, looking puzzled.

“Somebody threw a bottle in there during the night. Broken glass.” Nick hoped that the real keepers hadn’t already found the glass and removed it. He’d had to hurl the bottle over the fence from a distance of fifty feet, but his throwing arm was still good. It had dropped into the right cage and smashed in one corner of the clouded tiger’s domain.

The patrolman turned and stared at the broken glass and the pacing tiger. “Damn fool, whoever did that! I’ll make out a report.”

“The night man reported it.”

“Huh? All right.” He started to turn away as Nick jumped over the outer railing in front of the cage. Then, as an afterthought, the patrolman asked, “You got an identification card? I don’t remember you.”

“Wait till I finish this,” Nick told him. “I need both hands.” He shielded the padlock with his body and snapped the chain with a quick pressure of powerful wire cutters.

“What …?”

But now the cage door was beginning to rise, and Nick hoped that Jeanie was getting the truck into position. “Stand clear, officer. We don’t want an accident.”

“You going to clean the cage with those wire cutters, wise guy? Who the hell are you?”

Nick brought the heavy cutters up quickly, catching the guard on the temple. He gasped and started to go down, as Nick’s other hand pulled something else from his pocket.

Jeanie arrived with the truck, and was backing, it into position. Somebody shouted and Nick turned to see a keeper running toward them. Far off, near the gate, another guard had turned in their direction.

Nick paused only an instant to gauge the wind direction again, then hurled two smoke bombs at the oncoming figures.

“Nick!”

“Hurry! We’ve only got a minute!” He pulled a plank from the truck and laid it across the railing to the cage door. Then he tossed another smoke bomb into the cage and pulled the door open all the way.

The tiger, momentarily terrified, turned toward its den, then changed its mind and bolted out of the cage, up the plank, and into the waiting truck.

“Done!” Nick yelled, yanking out the plank and slamming shut the steel door of the pickup truck. “Let’s get out!”

One of the guards had made it through the smokescreen and was pawing at his holster when they heard the shots.

“Those came from the main gate,” Nick said, scrambling onto the seat next to the girl. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer, but thumped hard on the accelerator, shooting the truck forward through the service gate. He’d been prepared to smash through, but the gate was still open. Behind them a patrolman fired one wild shot and then they were away.

“This truck won’t be safe for long,” Jeanie said.

Nick glanced out the side window as the truck roared past the zoo entrance. The armored car was there, standing at the main gate with its door open. Two uniformed men were stretched out on the pavement near it.

“Never mind the truck,” Nick growled. “What about that?”

“What?”

“You know damn well what! Your friends have played me for a prize patsy!”

She spun the steering wheel like an expert, cutting off suddenly onto a side road. It was dusty and bumpy, and almost at once the tiger started to growl.

“You’re getting paid,” she told him. “Stop complaining.”

“Cormick didn’t want the tiger at all! You didn’t even care if I got it. The whole thing was just a diversion while Cormick and Smith knocked off the armored car.”

“I didn’t know there’d be any shooting,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road.

“If the guards caught me you’d have left me there. Did you do all this for a few thousand dollars in quarters?”

She snorted in disdain. “Use your head, Nick. The armored car stops at branch banks on its Monday morning run. With any luck we’ve got close to a million bucks!”

“They waited inside the zoo, jumped the armored car men, and took their keys. Both armored car men came into the zoo?”

“They always did,” she told him. “They figured it was a safe stop, like a church. All we had to do was distract the zoo guards somehow. That’s where you came in.”

“And I also make a good fall guy for the cops to chase.”

“I’m sorry, Nick.” Behind them the tiger roared again.

“I’ll bet you are! You just came along to keep me on schedule.”

“That’s about it. I’m leaving you with the truck and this damned tiger and taking my car.”

“Where are you meeting them?”

“Sorry, Nick. You’re not making the trip.”

He reached past her leg and switched off the ignition. The truck shuddered and rolled to a stop on the narrow dirt road. “Tell me,” he ordered.

Jeanie yanked open the door on her side and began to run as soon as she hit the dirt. He sprang after her, and she turned quickly, her hand coming out of her shoulder bag.

“I can take care of myself, Nick,” she said, swinging a tiny pistol toward his stomach.

“You crazy fool!” His own hand had moved almost as fast—to the pellet gun he carried in a bulky side pocket. He dropped to his knees and squeezed the trigger, putting a tranquilizer dart into the wrist of her gun hand a split second before she fired.

Nick left-her sleeping in a field and drove the truck to the shopping center where she’d left the car. Already the news of the robbery was on the radio, and he listened with a kind of foggy indifference.

“Two armored car guards were slain this morning in a daring holdup at the Glen Park Zoo. The zoo’s patrolmen, distracted by the theft of a tiger from its cage, were unable to assist the armored car personnel. The two masked gunmen escaped with an estimated seven hundred thousand dollars, while another man and a girl were stealing the tiger. The missing beast—a rare clouded variety—is described as being extremely dangerous.”

Nick switched off the radio as he turned into the shopping center, then changed his mind and turned up some loud music. The tiger was beginning to growl again. Nick wondered if there might really be a prince willing to pay $30,000 for the animal.

He found a road map in the glove compartment of Jeanie’s car, and studied it carefully. Four circles had been drawn with pencil. He frowned and thought about it. Cormick and Smith wouldn’t be near the zoo, or the airport, or the last place he’d seen the trailer. That left only one logical circle, and he decided to chance it.

“Say, mister,” somebody called as he went back to the truck, “you got an animal in there?”

He smiled at the man. “My dog. He’s a big fellow.”

“Sounds like it.”

Nick was still smiling as he wheeled the truck onto the highway. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the tranquilizer gun again.

There was a trailer camp where the circle had been drawn on the map, but Cormick and Smith were not there. Nick parked the truck in some nearby woods and waited. It was almost dark before they pulled in, near the edge of the camp. Nick smiled for the first time in hours.

When it was dark he slowly backed the truck against the side of the trailer and got out. “What in hell’s that growling?” he heard Harry Smith ask from inside. Nick unlocked the back of the truck.

It was Cormick who opened the trailer door, pistol in hand. “Who’s there? That you, Jeanie?”

“One tiger, as ordered, Cormick.”

“Velvet!”

“Hungry and mean, but in good condition.” Nick opened the back door of the truck.

The tiger leaped for the lighted trailer and made it to Cormick in a single bound. Behind him, Harry Smith started to scream.

Afterward, Nick used the tranquilizer gun on the tiger and then scooped up the loot of the holdup. He pushed through a gathering crowd of frightened spectators and drove away as the first police car was coming down the road …

Nick Velvet stopped at the corner grocery for a six-pack of cold beer. He walked slowly, enjoying the feel of the warm evening, until he came in sight of the house and saw Gloria waiting for him on the porch. Then he smiled and started walking faster.

“Hello, Nicky,” she said. “Home to stay?”

“For a while,” he answered, and opened a couple of beers.

The Theft from the Onyx Pool

“YOU STEAL THINGS, DON’T you?”

Nick Velvet regarded her with a slight smile. “Only the hearts of beautiful maidens.”

“No, seriously. I can pay.”

“Seriously. What do you want stolen?”

“The water from a swimming pool.”

He continued smiling at her, but a portion of his mind wished he were back on the front porch with Gloria and a cold beer. The habits of the very rich had never been for him. “I could always pull the plug,” he suggested, still smiling.

The girl, whose name was Asher Dumont, ground out her cigarette with a gesture of angry irritation. “Look, Mr. Velvet, I didn’t arrange to have you invited here so we could trade small talk. I happen to know that you steal unusual things, unique things, and that your fee is $20,000. Correct?”

“All right,” he told her, playing along. “I don’t know exactly how you came upon that information in your circle, but I’ll admit it’s reasonably accurate, Miss Dumont.”

“Then will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Steal the water from Samuel Fitzpatrick’s pool?”

Nick Velvet had been approached by many people during his career, and as his peculiar reputation had grown, he’d been hired to steal many curious things. He’d once stolen a tiger from a zoo, and a stained-glass window from a museum. His fee for such odd thefts was a flat $20,000, with an extra $10,000 for especially hazardous tasks. He never stole money, or the obvious valuables that other thieves went after. He dealt only in the unusual, often in the bizarre—but in his field he was the best in the business.

“That’s a peculiar assignment even for me,” he told the girl. She was blonde, with shoulder-length straight hair in the tradition of girl folksingers. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see her back in his old Greenwich Village neighborhood, but somehow she seemed out of place sipping cocktails at a society reception in Westchester. It was only her dress, a gleaming satin sheath, that belonged at the party—not the girl.

“I understood that you specialize in the peculiar.”

“I do. When do you want it done, and where is the place?”

She sipped her cocktail and glanced around to make certain they weren’t overheard. “Samuel Fitzpatrick has an estate twenty miles from here, in Connecticut. I’ll find an excuse to take you over there. After that you’re on your own. Only one stipulation—it must be done before next weekend’s holiday. Before the Fourth of July.”

“I suggested pulling the plug. That would be the easiest way. It would save you twenty thousand.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Velvet—I want the water from that pool. I want you to steal the water, all of it, and deliver it to me.”

“Is this some sort of wild bet?” he asked. He could imagine nothing else.

Asher Dumont stretched her long tanned legs under the table and drew in on her cigarette. “I understood that you were a businessman. The reason shouldn’t be important to you.”

“It’s not. I was only being inquisitive.”

“Can you come with me to the Fitzpatrick estate in the morning?”

“By the way, who is this Samuel Fitzpatrick? The name is vaguely familiar.”

“He’s a writer and producer of mysteries. Two hits on Broadway and he’s had a very successful series on television. Remember The Dear Slayer?”

“I don’t follow the theater as closely as I should,” Nick admitted, “but I’ve heard of Fitzpatrick. That’s all I need to know about him. It gives me a talking point.”

“Then I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Velvet?”

“Since it’s business, Miss Dumont, I usually receive a $5,000 retainer in advance, and the balance when I complete the assignment.”

She didn’t blink, “Very well, I’ll have it for you.” Nick left her at the table and threaded his way through the reception crowd. In the outer hall he found a phone booth and dialed Gloria’s number.

“Hi, how’re things?”

“Great, Nicky. You coming home?”

“I’ll be a while. Maybe a week. We’re checking out some new plant sites in Connecticut.”

“Oh, Nicky! You’ll be away over the Fourth!”

“Maybe not. I’ll try to be home by then. Maybe we can have a picnic or something.”

He knew that would satisfy her, and after a few more words he hung up. Often on summer nights, sitting on the porch with Gloria, he’d be tempted to give it all up and take a job as a salesman or a bookkeeper. But always there was the odd invitation from somebody like Asher Dumont to get him back to work. The money was good, and he liked his “specialty.” He was a thief, and he knew he’d never change.

Asher Dumont picked him up in a little white sports car that seemed hardly big enough for her lanky frame and long legs. The top was down, and her long blonde hair spun out behind her like a banner as she wheeled the car onto the parkway and headed for Connecticut.

“You didn’t tell me to dress casually,” he said, commenting on her shorts and blouse.

“Sam would be suspicious right away if he ever saw me in a dress.” She steered the car around a truck and shot the speed up to seventy. “There’s a check for $5,000 in my purse. Take it out.”

“A check?”

“Go on, I’m not trying to get evidence against you. I don’t carry that much around in cash.”

“I’ll have to cash this before I finish the job.”

“Sure. Right now, though, tell me what kind of cover story you’ll use with Fitzpatrick. I’m introducing you as someone interested in his plays.”

“Better fill me in on the sort of thing he likes to produce.”

As she talked he had the distinct impression she was merely a rich girl indulging in a game. His business associates were more often shady gang figures or nervous diplomats, the people who could afford to hire Nick Velvet. He didn’t know if he liked it, but she was nice to look at and besides, he’d never been commissioned to steal the water from a swimming pool.

Samuel Fitzpatrick’s estate was actually a generous-sized house with a double garage, situated at the edge of a gently rolling field of scrub brush and young trees. Nick looked out across the low stone walls and open fields and wondered if people still went fox hunting in country like this.

Asher didn’t bother with the doorbell, but took Nick around the back to a flagstone patio which led to a fenced-in swimming pool. A middle-aged man with thinning hair and a tanned, weathered face opened the gate to meet them. “Well, Asher! You’re more lovely every day.”

“Thanks, Sam,” she said, bestowing a quick kiss on his cheek. “This is the man I told you about on the phone—Nick Velvet.”

“Velvet?” Fitzpatrick extended his freckled hand. “Glad to meet you.”

He led them through the wooden gate to the pool. It was a medium-sized one as such things went, with a shallow end for wading and a deep end with a springy diving board. There was a woman in the pool, swimming with a powerful breast stroke, but Nick couldn’t see her face at the moment.

“Nice place you have here,” Nick observed.

“I like privacy. Nearest neighbor’s more than a mile down the road.”

“This is quite a pool.” Nick had been drawn to the edge, noticing the way the smooth edge glistened in layers of multiple colors. It was like marble or quartz, but cut through to show the layers of black and white, with sometimes just a hint of red or brown. “What’s this edge made of?”

“Onyx. My first big play on Broadway was The Onyx Ring. The pool is one of my few luxuries.”

Nick was beginning to understand. With the water out of the pool something might be done to remove these onyx layers from the edge. He wondered if Asher Dumont had a poor boy friend lurking somewhere offstage.

The woman climbed out of the water, feeling for an oversized bath towel. Her figure was still good, but Nick knew she’d never see forty again. Asher made the introductions. “Nick, this is Sam’s wife, Lydia. This is a friend, Nick Velvet, Lydia.”

The woman squinted and groped on the poolside table for her glasses. “I’m blind without them,” she explained. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Velvet. Lovely weather, isn’t it?”

“Certainly is,” Nick agreed, sinking into the red-and-green chair that Fitzpatrick had indicated. He was studying the rear of the house, and the street beyond where no traffic seemed to pass. An idea was beginning to shape itself in his mind.

“Let me get drinks for us,” Lydia Fitzpatrick offered, blinking from behind her thick glasses.

“Fine idea,” her husband said. Then, “Now, what did you want to see me about, Mr. Velvet?”

“I admired your plays,” Nick said, playing with the plastic webbing of his chair. “Especially The Dear Slayer. Quite a tricky ending,”

Fitzpatrick leaned back in his own chair and stroked his thinning hair. “That’s what you need for Broadway, a trick ending.”

“I have a plot that might interest you,” Nick told him. “It’s never been done before.”

“You’re a writer?”

“No, that’s why Asher suggested I come to you.”

The producer smiled slightly, as if he’d heard it all before. Lydia returned with drinks and settled to the ground at her husband’s side. “I get a lot of people with ideas,” Fitzpatrick said. “Usually I don’t even like to listen to them. But I’ll make an exception since you’re a friend of Asher’s. This girl is like a daughter to me.” He reached out to take her hand and she smiled as if on cue.

Nick sipped his drink. “Well, it’s a locked-room sort of thing.”

“Locked rooms are a bit old-fashioned for Broadway.”

“Not this one!” Nick hoped he was conveying the proper enthusiasm. “Listen. A man is murdered in a completely locked room. The doors and windows are all sealed and there’s no secret passage.”

“A locked room is difficult to bring off on the stage, when one whole wall is always open to the audience. But go on—how’s it done?”

Nick leaned back and grinned. “There’s a type of laser beam that can pass through a transparent surface without damaging it. The killer fires the beam through the closed and sealed window, murders the man inside, and yet the room remains completely locked.”

Fitzpatrick nodded in admiration. “Not bad. Not bad at all, but I think it would go better in print than on the stage. If I were still doing the television series I might give it a try—I’ve always liked wild things like that, the wilder the better.”

Nick stood up and strolled slowly along the edge of the pool as he talked, and once he managed to slip in a question on the pool’s depth, directed to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. The slanting bottom made it difficult to figure exactly, but he thought the pool probably held close to 19,000 gallons of water. A big job for any thief. He knew it would take days to empty it by ordinary means.

It was nearly four when they finally left the Fitzpatricks, with Nick shaking hands and promising to keep Sam informed of his progress with the idea. Then he was back in the sports car with Asher, racing through the quiet countryside.

“What do you think?” she asked. He glanced down at her bare knees and thought of a reply, but then decided to stick to business. “It can be done,” he told her.

“By the weekend?”

“By the weekend. I just have to check on one piece of equipment and find a few people to help me. Do you need all the water?”

She thought about that. “Not every drop, naturally, but most of it. Enough to empty the pool.”

“I’m interested in why you want it, why it’s so valuable to you.”

“You’re getting $20,000,” she reminded him. “For that much you can stay curious.”

“I have a couple of ideas,” he went on. “Once the pool is empty, perhaps those onyx slabs could be pried up and stolen.”

She glanced at him sideways. “You really think I’m a criminal, don’t you? Those slabs aren’t even real onyx—just a good imitation.”

“You can’t want the water for itself. It must be the emptiness of the pool that you really want.”

“I hired you to be a thief, not a detective.”

“Sometimes the logic demanded by the two professions isn’t that different,” he told her. “What’s your connection with Fitzpatrick and his wife, anyway?”

“You mean the bit about my being a daughter to him? I suppose it’s true in a way. His first wife was Mary Dumont, my aunt. I spent most of my childhood with them, and they really did treat me like a daughter. My parents both died early, but there was a great deal of money in both branches of the family. I think, really, that Sam resented my aunt’s money. Anyway, a month or so after his first play was a hit, he asserted his independence one night and Aunt Mary left him. That was ten years ago, and nobody’s seen her since—though she occasionally sends me money through a lawyer in California.”

“Fitzpatrick divorced her?”

The girl nodded. “On the grounds of desertion. He married Lydia three years ago.”

“You resent Lydia, don’t you?”

“Because she took my aunt’s place? Oh, I suppose so.”

Nick Velvet was thinking of Lydia Fitzpatrick’s poor eyesight, and her swimming habits. Would she come running out to dive into the pool one morning and find only the hard concrete bottom waiting for her? Or did such things only happen in comic strips?

“One thing,” he said. “Of course, Fitzpatrick’s going to know the water’s being taken. There’s no way of stealing 19,000 gallons of water without his knowing about it.”

“I want him to know,” she told Nick. “As long as it’s before the holiday weekend.” She steered the sports car like an expert, maneuvering it through the beginnings of the rush-hour traffic. “I still can’t imagine how you’re going to do it, though. If he knows you’re taking it, how are you going to have the time to empty the entire pool?”

“Leave that to me,” Nick said with a smile. “That’s what you’re paying me for.”

Friday afternoon was calm and clear, with a musty heaviness about the air that hinted at a change in weather before the long weekend really got under way. Sam Fitzpatrick and his wife were at the pool—she was sunning herself while he was typing a reply to a letter in the morning’s mail.

It was midafternoon when he first smelled the smoke, and glanced over the fence at the nearby field. “Lydia! There’s a grass fire here! Come look!”

“Hadn’t we better call the Fire Department, Sam?” The fire already had a good start, spreading in a sort of ring that reached from the distant woods almost to Fitzpatrick’s line.

“Damn! I suppose I’d better.” But then they heard the rising wail of the schoolhouse siren, and the answering call from the firehouse. The volunteers were on their way.

Within ten minutes the flaming field had been converged on by two pumpers and a pair of auxiliary water trucks. There were no hydrants out this far, and the volunteers had to bring their own water supply. Fitzpatrick knew most of the volunteer firemen by name, but this day a stranger in rubber coat and leather helmet came running up to the fence.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

“Yes. That’s quite a blaze you’ve got there.”

“Sure is.” The stranger turned up his collar and glanced over Fitzpatrick’s shoulder. “We need more water than our trucks can supply. Could we throw a hose into your swimming pool and pump out the water?”

“What? Say, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Better hurry,” the fireman warned him. “A shift in the wind could endanger your house.”

“Well … all right, I suppose so.”

In a moment the heavy canvas hose was over the fence, splashing into the deep end of the pool. The fireman gave a signal to the nearest pumper and they started to drain Sam Fitzpatrick’s water. Off in the distance two firemen played a smaller hose on the leading edge of the fire.

The familiar-looking fireman was everywhere, directing activities, shouting orders. After a half hour, when the pool was already half empty, one of the auxiliary water trucks pulled out through the high grass to get a refill at the town tank.

Finally, when another truckload of water and the remainder of the pool’s supply had been used up, the fire began to retreat and die. Sam Fitzpatrick watched it with relief, and he called out to the familiar-looking fireman, “You fellows want a drink?”

“No time now, sir. Thanks anyway.”

“What about my pool?”

“The trucks will be out tomorrow to refill it. Thanks for your help.”

Fitzpatrick watched them pull away and then walked over to stare into the empty swimming pool. At the deepest end a few inches of water remained, but otherwise there was only the damp concrete below.

He started to light a cigarette, then stopped suddenly with the lighted match in midair. He’d just remembered where he had seen the fireman before.

Asher Dumont was waiting in her sports car a few miles down the road. Nick hopped off one of the pumpers and tossed his helmet and rubber coat onto the seat. Then he ran over to the car. “Where do you want it? Nineteen thousand gallons of Sam Fitzpatrick’s swimming-pool water, as ordered.”

“You’re mad,” she said with a laugh. “I never thought you’d be able to do it.”

“I’ve had harder assignments than this.”

“But I still don’t understand. The firemen—”

“While we were pumping out his pool with a big hose and filling up one of the auxiliary water trucks, we were fighting the fire with a small hose from the other truck. With the high grass he couldn’t see which hoses went where. And when the first truck was full, we took it out and brought in another empty one. Each of the pumpers has a 1,000-gallon tank of its own, so we had plenty of water without using the water from the pool.”

“But these are the real firemen and their trucks!”

Nick nodded. “I gave them $100 each and told them we wanted to shoot a film for television. They know Fitzpatrick’s in the business, so they believed it.”

“Where were your cameras, Mr. Television Producer?” she asked with an impish grin.

“I told them this was the dress rehearsal. People will believe a lot for $100.” He opened the door and slid in beside her. “How about my money now?”

“Just one more thing,” she said, suddenly serious.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to come back to Sam’s house with me and tell him exactly what you did.”

“Now we’re getting to the root of it, aren’t we?”

“Maybe.” She gunned the motor into life.

“We’re going there now?”

“Tomorrow, when the weekend’s started. Then you’ll get your money. It’s worth every cent of it.”

“What about the water?”

“There’s a dry creek behind my place. We can dam it up and keep it there.”

He shook his head. “You’re a wonderful girl.”

“Wait till tomorrow, buddy.”

He could wait. There was a question forming itself in his mind, and he would have to ask her when the time came. But for now he could wait.

The following morning Lydia Fitzpatrick led them out to the pool. Asher wore a pale summer dress with a full skirt, and seemed somehow overdressed to Nick after her brief costumes of the past days. There was something else different about her too—the spark was gone from her eyes, replaced by something cold and hard.

“Asher! How are you?” Sam Fitzpatrick asked, rising from his deck chair to meet them.

“I’m fine, Sam.” Quietly, tight-lipped.

“And you’ve brought Mr. Velvet again!” The words rang not quite true to Nick’s ears.

A garden hose was hanging over the side of the swimming pool, feeding a trickle of water into the puddle at the bottom. “We can’t get any pressure out of this thing,” Lydia explained. “It’ll take us a week to fill it again. The firemen needed the water yesterday—”

Fitzpatrick had resumed his seat, but Asher remained standing. “I know,” she said. “Tell them, Nick.”

“I don’t think you have to tell me anything,” Fitzpatrick said. “I finally recognized Mr. Velvet in his fireman’s suit-but not in time to keep him from taking my water. And I suppose you set the fire yourself?”

Nick nodded. “I was paid $20,000 by this young lady to steal the water from your pool.”

“Twenty …! Asher, have you gone completely mad?”

“The money came from my family. I think they would have wanted it spent this way!”

“But why?”

“I’ve taken samples from that water—a hundred samples already, with more to come. They’re all being analyzed, Sam.”

“Analyzed?”

“There’s chlorine in your pool water. Apparently you’re not familiar with the effects of chlorine on calcified cement. There’ll be traces of calcium in that water, Sam, especially after ten years.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do, Sam. I’ll be back on Tuesday with the results of the analyses.”

Nick hesitated a moment, then followed her out, leaving Fitzpatrick and his wife staring after them.

Back in the car, heading away from the house, Nick Velvet leaned back in the seat. “I had a question to ask you last night. I’ll ask it now. Was Fitzpatrick installing his pool the night your aunt disappeared?”

She drove for a long time without answering, bathing in a morning sun already high in the sky. “How did you know?” she asked finally.

“He built the pool in honor of his first hit play, and you told me your aunt vanished a month or so after it opened. It seems logical that the two events came at about the same time.”

She nodded. “The divorce papers were never served on Aunt Mary. That’s what first made me suspicious. Last winter I hired a private detective to check on this lawyer who’s been sending me the money in my aunt’s name. He reported that the money was actually coming from Sam. That’s when I really became suspicious that something had happened to her ten years ago.”

“And you remembered the pool.”

“I remembered. I was only fourteen at the time, but I remembered that last day with my aunt. We’d watched them pouring the concrete for the bottom of the pool. Aunt Mary said it wouldn’t be hard till morning.” She was staring straight ahead at the road.

Nick Velvet lit a cigarette. “There’s no such thing as a chlorine effect on calcified cement. You made that up, and you wasted your twenty thousand.”

“I didn’t waste the twenty thousand. It had to be a big lie if he was to believe it at all. He’d have laughed in my face if I took a single test-tube sample from the pool. But he’s written this sort of thing, remember—wild, way-out stuff, real campy. I know him—this is just bizarre enough for him to believe. The calcium from her bones, being drawn out of the cement bottom …”

“What do you do now?”

“Wait.”

They didn’t have long to wait. She came to Nick’s hotel room the following morning with his check.

“You’re up early,” he said. It was the Fourth of July, and outside someone was setting off illegal fireworks.

“Lydia phoned me. He killed himself during the night. Out by the pool.”

Nick Velvet turned away. “I’d hate to be your enemy.”

“It had to be done.”

“Just one thing,” he said. “Why did it have to be over the long weekend?”

“He was a writer, remember?” She was staring out the window at something far away. “I didn’t want him calling the library or some science editor in New York to check on my chlorine-on-cement effect. This way he couldn’t find out till Tuesday, and I knew he wouldn’t last that long.”

Nick thought about Gloria, back home on the porch, and remembered that he’d promised to be there for the Fourth. It was time to be going.

The Theft of the Toy Mouse

“I’M GOING TO PARIS,” Nick Velvet told Gloria one evening, as they sat on the porch drinking beer and listening to the vague rumblings of distant summer thunder.

“Oh, Nicky! When?”

“The end of the week. I’ve been commissioned by a big film processor to find a good plant location for them in northern France. Chances are I’ll be over there about a week.”

“Nicky, do you think I could go with you? I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve never been anywhere!”

He could almost see her features in the nervous glow of her cigarette—her eyes wide, and anxious as a child’s. “You know I couldn’t take you along, Gloria. But I’ll be back. I always come back, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“And I’ll bring you something. A bottle of French perfume.”

“Will you, Nicky?”

“Sure,” he promised. The thunder was nearer, but it didn’t bother him. He was already thinking about the job in Paris.

This time the assignment had come to him through the mail, along with a certified check for $20,000. The letter was from a man who called himself J. Orchid, and that was the name signed on the check. “Please consider the enclosed certified check as total payment for the theft of one toy mouse, as described herein, which is at present being used as a prop in the filming of an American motion picture, Any Losers?, on a sound stage in Paris, France. Once the theft has been accomplished, not later than Monday, August 1st, you should remain in your room at the Empire Hotel in Paris until contacted about disposition of the mouse.”

That was all of it, except for a picture of the thing clipped from a toy catalogue. It showed a little wind-up metal mouse, about four inches long, that apparently ran around in circles. It was made in Japan, and sold for 98 cents in this country. Nick looked at the $20,000 check again. Twenty thousand dollars for a 98-cent toy mouse! The check seemed genuine enough. He wasn’t in the habit of doing business through the mail, but it seemed he could make an exception in this case.

It seemed he would have to, for there was no return address for Mr. J. Orchid. The letter had come to the box number Nick used for his business activities, and he could only suppose that the address had been passed on by one of his satisfied customers. The money could not be returned, and Nick would never keep it without fulfilling the assignment. Besides, he’d stolen stranger things than a toy mouse in his time—things like a live tiger from a city zoo in broad daylight, and all the water from a swimming pool. He was a specialist in the theft of the unusual. For $20,000 he would steal anything unusual—even a 98-cent mechanical mouse.

Nick Velvet flew to Paris on Friday morning, trading a New York heat wave for the splendid breezes of Paris in July. The city already was surrendering itself to the traditional month-long siesta that was August. The streets were relatively uncrowded, and signs were already appearing in shop windows and office doorways announcing the annual holiday period. Frenchmen would head south, for the most part, leaving the city in the grip of tourists and the coming heat.

But for Nick it was good to be back, good to watch the barges along the Seine and wander through the Left Bank bars where summer never came. By Saturday morning he knew all about the American film company that was in Paris shooting Any Losers? The picture was a Fleming-Archer Production, directed by a young Canadian named Lee Fitzwright, and starring Carol Young—a new starlet in the midst of a typical Hollywood press buildup. But the name that most interested Nick Velvet among the film’s credits was that of Mary Karls, who was in charge of props.

On Saturday evening Nick arranged to meet Mary Karls at a restaurant in Montmartre where she was dining with some of the cast. She was a woman in her late thirties, only a few years younger than Nick himself, but there was still about her a lingering aura of past glamor.

“Are you in the film they’re shooting?” he asked, when he caught her alone at the bar.

She turned on him with a questioning smile. “No. What makes you ask that?”

He smiled and lit her cigarette. “I recognized Carol Young in your party.”

“Oh, yes. She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?” Mary Karls settled down beside him, and he wasn’t surprised. She’d had just enough to drink to be interested, and interesting. “She’s worth a million dollars to Fleming-Archer Productions, and some day she may be one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.”

“You work with her?”

The woman nodded. “Prop girl, I guess you’d call me. A thankless task, but I get screen credit, at least. I was a script girl at Paramount once.”

“You must have been on the screen.”

She smiled at him through the cigarette smoke. “Once, when I was twenty-two. It was one of the last big Hollywood musicals—a picture called Bright Waves Tomorrow. I thought it was the beginning of a glorious career. My part on screen lasted exactly thirty-five seconds.”

He ordered her a drink and introduced himself belatedly. “Nick Velvet’s my name. I do industrial development work. Picking plant sites, mostly.”

“Pleased to meet you, Nick.” She glanced down at the drink. “But I’m a very frank girl. I don’t want you to think you’re buying any more than the drink.”

He smiled. “And some conversation. I’m just a lonely American in Paris, but my intentions are honorable.”

“Good. Then we understand each other.” The rest of her party was leaving, and she went over to say a few words to them. Carol Young, looking like a beautiful blonde child, glanced in Nick’s direction, then quickly away when she saw that he was watching her. She seemed to be with an older man whom Nick guessed was the film’s director, Lee Fitzwright.

After they had departed, Mary Karls returned to the bar stool next to him. “They’re off to another bar. I might as well stay here. I want to get home early anyway.”

“Home?”

“The hotel. You know. I have to start work at six-thirty.”

“How’s the picture coming?”

“Good. It’s beginning to take shape.”

“I don’t even know what it’s about,” Nick said.

“Remember Lili? About fifteen years ago? It’s the same sort of thing. Lonely little girl growing up in Paris, with no friends and no playthings except a toy mouse that runs in circles when it’s wound up. Our director thinks it’s a symbol of modern life.”

“Carol Young is the lonely little girl?”

“She’s sixteen at the start, but she blossoms. You know Hollywood. She gets involved with some of the jet-set gambling crowd.”

“And she plays with a toy mouse?”

Mary Karls nodded.

“Where are you shooting?” He tried to sound casual.

“A big sound stage just outside of town. We rented it from Cintfilm. Of course we’re doing the usual Eiffel Tower exteriors, and some other spots around Paris. In three weeks we go back to Hollywood to finish the interiors.”

“Do you have a room where you keep the props?”

“On the sound stage? Sure. I have to lock everything up at night, although they have a watchman and a burglar alarm. Nothing worth stealing anyway. It’s a great place to shoot, though. Skylights all across the ceiling. Lots of natural light. Though sometimes we have to cover them over when the weather isn’t right for the scene we’re doing. All the dressing rooms and supply rooms are just little cubicles with walls and no ceiling. We had to put a canvas over Carol’s room because she was afraid some reporters would get up on the roof and take a picture of her through the skylight.”

“I’d like to come out and see it sometime.”

“Our producer, Mr. Archer, is dead against visitors to the set. Otherwise I’d invite you. He’s behind schedule already, and he’s afraid of any sort of delay.”

Nick sipped his drink. “How about another? These taste pretty good.”

“Sorry. My hotel is calling to me. It’s been fun, though, just talking to someone besides that crowd all the time.” She eyed him suspiciously. “I just had a thought. You’re not a reporter, are you?”

“Heavens, no! Do I look like one?”

“Well, no,” she admitted.

“Do you know a fellow named J. Orchid? Connected with the movie business.”

“Jason! You know Jason Orchid?”

“I’ve just heard the name.”

“My God, he threatened to kill Mr. Fleming and Mr. Archer, our producers. He claims he wrote the original screenplay for Any Losers? and they stole it from him. He’s a real nut.”

“Is he in Paris?”

“I hope not!” She gathered up her cigarettes and purse. “But I really have to be going now, Mr. Velvet. Thank you for the drink, and the conversation.”

“Thank you, Miss Karls.” He walked her to the door and saw that she got a taxi back to her hotel. Then he strolled for a time along the river, thinking about the toy mouse that ran around in circles.

The Cintfilm sound stage which had been leased by Fleming-Archer Productions was a great gray hulk of a building, and Nick Velvet quickly confirmed that it had both burglar alarm and resident watchman. He could not reach the watchman without tripping the alarm, and he could not tamper with the alarm system without first disposing of the watchman. It was a simple but foolproof setup.

Nick made it to the roof with little effort and looked down through the wired-glass skylight at a mass of darkened interior. He had no idea which was the room he sought, or where the mechanical mouse might be inside that room. He had pressed Mary Karls as far as he could without exciting her suspicions. Now he turned his attention to the skylight. In addition to a wire mesh inside the glass, each pane was equipped with a silvered border connected to the alarm system. And none of the sections of the skylight opened. There’d be no entry this way. But at least he might learn where he was headed.

Working quickly with a diamond-tipped glass cutter, he lifted a one-inch circle from the glass, careful not to disturb the wire mesh or the alarm tape. Then he took a small ball bearing from his pocket and let it drop through the hole, holding his breath until it hit, bounced, and clattered along the floor. Carefully he slid back to the edge of the skylight and waited. Almost instantly the place was flooded with light and the watchman came to investigate the noise of the bearing.

It had rolled off somewhere out of sight, and the tiny hole did not show in the mesh window. The watchman walked back and forth, puzzled, while Nick quickly mapped the floor area in his mind. The sound stage, about forty feet below, camera booms reaching almost to the skylight, microphones, banks of powerful lights, a retractable canvas to cover the skylight, and the row of little walled cubicles that served as dressing rooms. He spotted the covered one that would be Carol Young’s room, then let his eyes wander over the rest. Costumes, hairdresser, makeup—a layout quite primitive by the usual Hollywood standards.

Then he saw it, a room cluttered with odd pieces of furniture, lamps, pictures. Set decorations, in the trade term—or simply props. Surely the toy mouse would be there. Somewhere near, because they would probably be using it on Monday.

But he couldn’t see it, even with the aid of the miniature monocular that was part of his equipment.

Nowhere.

And the watchman was already walking back toward the light switch, ready to plunge the place into its slumbering darkness.

Nick watched the scene go suddenly black beneath him with a feeling of utter frustration. The mouse must be in a box, under something else, impossible to spot from above.

And yet there was no way for him to gain entrance to the building. A frontal assault, and damn the alarms, would have brought the police before he’d have time to locate his objective.

He slid off the roof and hit the ground feet first, with knees bent. All right, now what?

His frown turned slowly to a smile as he saw the warm glow of a public telephone booth halfway down the block.

In a moment he’d found Cintfilm and dialed the number. The voice of the watchman, gruff and sleepy, answered in English. “This is Lee Fitzwright,” Nick said, muffling his words. “I want you to check something for me. Unlock the prop room and make certain the toy mouse is there.”

“What?” the man mumbled. “I don’t know no mouse. I guard the place.”

“In the prop room. It’s the end room on the right. The mouse is a little metal thing about four inches long. Take it out of its box and leave it on the table. I want to be certain it’s there. Come back and tell me.”

“I can’t do that. I’m not supposed to touch things.”

“It’s very important to me. I’ll make it worth your while tomorrow.”

A hesitation. “I don’t know.”

“Did anything strange happen there tonight? Any noise?”

“Yes, there was something.”

“Go and check, then! I must know!”

A sigh. “All right. Hold on.”

But Nick was already sprinting from the phone booth back to where his rope still dangled from the roof. Above him he saw the glow from the lights as it hit the sky. Then he was in position again, in time to see the watchman unlocking the prop-room door. The watchman puttered around a bit, looking here and there, until finally he opened a small box and revealed the mouse. After studying it for a moment he put it back in its box, but left the lid off. All right, Nick breathed; good enough.

The watchman went back to the dead telephone, leaving the lights on. Finally he came back, shaking his head, and locked the prop-room door. He turned out the lights, and the place was in darkness again.

Now Nick worked swiftly. He edged out over the skylight until he was above the prop room. It was difficult to be certain in the dark, and he had to risk a quick flash of his flashlight to make sure. Yes, the mouse was directly under him, about forty feet below.

Another tiny circle of glass came carefully out, then a small but powerful magnet dropped through at the end of a vinyl fishing line. The line was safe—unbreakable and almost invisible, even if the watchman returned. He only prayed the mouse was made of a ferrous metal.

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 sender 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.”

“No, nothing like that,” Nick reassured them. “I’m planning something that will put the Beavers on the front pages of every paper in the country and make people forget you’re in last place in the National League.”

The jet had risen smoothly from the runway and was climbing into the clear blue sky. Pop Hastin relaxed. “We’re on our way,” he said. “Now just how do you propose to give us all this publicity? Through Sports Weekly?”

“Partly,” Nick answered vaguely. “Suppose you introduce me to a few of the players.”

They went forward in the plane and Pop spoke to the team’s muscular first baseman. “Stan Karowitz, this is Mr. Nicholas, a writer with Sports Weekly. He’s going to give us a good article.”

Nick dropped into the seat next to Karowitz and started asking the Beavers’ star some routine questions, taking notes as he talked. “Do you think the Beavers are coming out of their slump, Stan?”

“It’s a little late in the year now,” Karowitz replied, “but we think our rookies might make a strong foundation for next season.”

Nick had been watching the stewardess walk past them to the cockpit and unlock the door with a key that dangled from her waist. She was carrying a tray with two steaming cups of coffee. “Pardon me,” he interrupted Karowitz.

He moved quickly down the aisle behind the girl, catching the door before she could close it. The flight was still young, but he might not get another chance this good. He pushed past her, shoved the copilot aside, and pointed a pistol at the pilot’s head.

Farnsworth, the pilot, turned as the stewardess gasped. He started to rise, then thought better of it. “Where to?” he asked in a resigned tone. “Havana?”

“No,” Nick told him. “The island of Jabali.”

“We may not have enough fuel for that.”

Nick kept the pistol steady. “Well, let’s give it a try anyway, shall we?”

Hours later, as the jet settled down on the runway at Jabali Airport, Nick Velvet breathed a sigh of relief. The fuel had indeed been low, and he wondered what he would have done if they’d run dry over the Caribbean. Or if the pilot and copilot had put up a fight. He’d never killed an innocent person during any of his assignments, and he wouldn’t have started now. More likely he would have knocked them out and tried to bring the big plane in himself—though he’d never piloted anything larger than army transports during a brief period of the Korean war.

When he stepped out of the cockpit he faced Pop Hastin, the manager’s face flushed with fury. “Why did you bring us here?” Hastin demanded.

“Calm down,” Nick told him. “You’re in no danger.” He motioned with his gun for Pop and the players to leave the plane.

Roswell pushed his way through the crush. “You had no intention of writing any article! It was all a lie to hijack this plane!”

“It wasn’t entirely a lie,” Nick pointed out. “You’ll get plenty of publicity out of this.”

“Publicity?” Pop Hastin looked out the window at the welcome signs. “You mean somebody wanted to kidnap the Beavers?”

Nick Velvet smiled. “That’s right. Welcome to Jabali.”

The President of Jabali, General Tras, was waiting to greet them with his eight cabinet ministers. He was an imposing man in his full military uniform, smiling broadly yet giving an unmistakable picture of power. There were armed bodyguards on both sides of him, and his gloved fists were clenched with expectation.

“We had your radio message, Señor Velvet. You have truly fulfilled your mission! Let us proceed to the National Hall, where I can more formally greet my guests.”

Jorge Asignar stepped forward, wearing the purple sash of a cabinet minister. “I have the balance of your money,” he told Nick. “The President is very pleased.”

“What are you? Secretary of Kidnaping?”

“Minister of Information,” Asignar replied with a thin smile. Then, motioning toward the plane, he questioned, “Who are all these people?”

“Baseball teams aren’t just nine men and a rack of bats. Not these days. They need a trainer, batboy, and press agent. They need pitching and batting coaches. They need—”

Stan Karowitz came barreling over, looking for a fight. “What is this, anyway? Are we prisoners here?”

Nick tried to calm him. “Their president likes baseball. You’ll be home in a few days.”

“A few days!”

But already the armed guards were moving in, steering everyone toward a big waiting bus. There was no opportunity for argument. Nick rode to the National Hall in the black, limousine of General Tras, sitting in the back seat between the President and Asignar. On the front fenders fluttered the flag of Jabali—a field of red with a wild boar’s head in the center, enclosed by a black triangle with three seashells along each of the triangle’s sides.

“Jabali,” Nick observed. “The wild boar?”

“At one time they overran our little island,” General Tras remarked. “Now they are confined to the zoos and a few game preserves back in the hills.”

Here and there along the highway were people to cheer and wave as the big presidential car went by. When the marble-faced auditorium came into view, the crowds grew thicker.

“This was really Jorge’s idea,” the President said, patting Asignar approvingly on the knee. “I had been training our own team for some years as a hobby, but it all meant nothing without real competition.”

“I hope you’re prepared to risk the wrath of my government,” Nick commented dryly.

Tras dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “The Beavers will be safely returned after a single game with the Jabali team. No one will go to war over it.”

The auditorium was about half full when they entered. Asignar motioned Nick to a seat on the side, saying, “General Tras and the cabinet ministers always sit in row J. You can follow the proceedings from here.”

“Fine,” Nick agreed. He’d been sitting only a few moments when a strikingly beautiful girl with long black hair slipped into place next to him.

“You’re Nick Velvet?” she asked quietly.

Her English was perfect, which was his first surprise. And she knew his name. “That’s right. And you are—?”

“Maria Tras.”

“The President’s—”

She laughed lightly at his hesitation. “Daughter.”

“Are you a baseball fan too?” Up on the stage Asignar was beginning to speak. Nick’s slight knowledge of Spanish indicated he was introducing the President.

“Not like my father,” the girl was saying in answer to his question. “In fact, I was against this whole scheme. I was at Columbia for four years and I know how seriously you Americans take your baseball.”

“That’s what I tried to tell Asignar.”

“That man!” She made a face.

“What does your father want? Just a game?”

“That’s all. It was wise of you to steal the Beavers. At least it’ll be something of an even match.”

General Tras mounted the stage and held up his hand for silence. Surprisingly, Pop Hastin was at his side. Tras spoke a few words in Spanish and then switched quickly to English. “I want now to welcome a fine and famous American baseball manager, the pride of the National League—our guest, Pop Hastin of the Beavers!”

Even Pop seemed taken aback by the applause with which the introduction was greeted. If he’d planned to denounce the kidnaping from the stage he must have had second thoughts. He cleared his throat, grinned weakly, and said, “I can’t approve of being brought here against our will, but I am pleased at the reception we’ve received. We look forward to meeting the Jabali team on the field.”

The audience cheered and General Tras smiled. Off to one side of the stage the shortstop Mike Nesbitt and some other players seemed far from pleased at the turn of events, but there was little they could do. General Tras resumed his speech. The big game would take place in two days’ time, on Wednesday. The teams would have Tuesday to practice.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Maria Tras told Nick as they left the building.

“I’m surprised that Pop Hastin gave in so easily.”

“Now that it’s done, the game should be an exciting one.” She glanced sideways at Nick. “Will you be staying for it?”

“I have no reason to. Asignar paid me the rest of my fee. But it might be wise to stay down here for a few days. Even though my true identity isn’t known I’m sure the authorities back in the States will be watching for me.”

“I wish you would stay.”

“Thanks.”

“And I hope you can dine with us at the presidential palace tonight. My father is inviting Pop Hastin and all the others.”

“I don’t know if I dare face him,” Nick told her. But there was something odd about the whole business, something that bothered him. He knew he’d be there.

The presidential palace was as regal as Nick had expected—a great white building that must have dated from the early years of the century. In certain rooms there had been obvious attempts to copy the decor of the White House in Washington, but the venture had been ruined by a tasteless plushness more, in keeping with kings than presidents.

“Our country was founded in 1899 by the great revolutionary leader Palidez,” General Tras explained as he led them on a brief tour. “He wrote our constitution and built this house. Nueve—that was the word he lived by. This is called the Casa Nueve, a fitting name.”

Nick nodded. “The New House,” he translated, “for a new country.”

Maria shot him an odd glance and started to say something, but then Asignar joined them with Pop Hastin and Roswell, the publicity man. “Shall we go in to dinner?” the Minister of Information suggested.

Roswell was seated next to Nick, and as they sat down the publicity man said, “We might make something out of this yet, no thanks to you.”

“Oh?”

“Pop thinks it’s a great publicity break for the team, and he’s right, of course. Every magazine in the country will want our story when we get back.”

Later, after a meal of wild boar more fitted to a medieval monarch than a Caribbean president, Nick had an opportunity for a private word with Pop Hastin. “I’m glad you realize the publicity value in all this,” he said.

Pop reached for some chewing tobacco. “I was upset at first, but now I’m beginning to like the idea. All season long I’ve listened to sports commentators chuckle about the Meager Beavers, and at my age that wasn’t easy to take. But now we’ve been kidnaped by you and brought down here to play the Jabali team. You didn’t kidnap the Yankees or Cards or Pirates—you kidnaped the Beavers!”

“Well, yes,” Nick admitted. He wasn’t about to mention that he’d picked the Beavers simply because they were last in the league standing.

“Coming out to the practice tomorrow?” Pop asked.

“I’ll be there.”

By morning the news of the stolen Beavers had made headlines around the world. The storm was particularly heavy in Washington, as Nick had feared, but Pop’s statement to the American Ambassador that they were well-treated and anxious to play the game had done much to cool the tense situation.

At the stadium for the practice session Pop Hastin had a further statement for reporters. “We are here as guests of the President and we consider it an honor to be so chosen. We’ll be returning home after the exhibition game tomorrow.” In answer to persistent questions he added, “We are not being held against our wills or mistreated in any way.”

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he settled onto a bench to watch the practice. At least Pop’s statement should take some of the pressure off him. He glanced up to see Tras and his daughter coming over to join him. The President was obviously excited, like a small boy on a Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The General watched intently as Stan Karowitz took batting practice and actually cheered when the tall first baseman hit a line drive to the farthest corner of left field.

“Do you think your team can take them?” Nick asked.

“The Beavers are very good. It will be a real event for my people and I do not really care which team is victorious. But of course I will be cheering for Jabali.” He watched the pitchers for a time and then added, “Jorge has suggested a patriotic pageant before the game tomorrow. Our independence day is in a few weeks—on September 9th—and he thinks an early celebration is in order. He’s to speak to both teams about taking part.”

Nick grunted and lit a cigarette. A few minutes later, when General Tras went down on the field to speak with his own brightly uniformed team, Maria moved next to Nick. “Something’s troubling you,” she observed.

“I’m running low on American cigarettes.”

“Something besides that. I’ve known you only a day, but I can see the worried look in your eyes.”

“It’s just this whole setup,” he admitted. “I could understand one man, an absolute ruler, getting the crazy idea to steal a baseball team and bring it here, overriding the objections of his advisers. But this is different. Your father told me it was Asignar’s idea. And yet Asignar apparently isn’t even a baseball fan. At least he’s nowhere in sight today.”

“You worry needlessly,” she assured him. “After all, the Beavers are happy with their new fame. My father is happy. You should be happy with the money you were paid. Why look for trouble?”

“Because I brought them here. If anything happens, I’ll feel responsible.”

That night Nick dined with Maria at Jabali’s most expensive restaurant. On the way home he noticed an anti-Tras slogan chalked in Spanish on the side of a building. Maria seemed to miss seeing it, and he did not call it to her attention.

Nick had arranged to escort Maria to the baseball game the following day, since her father would be busy on the field during the opening ceremonies of the pageant. When he called for her at the presidential palace just after noon, he still carried the pistol he’d used to hijack the plane. He wondered why he hadn’t left it in his room, yet knew somehow that it belonged with him, even at a baseball game.

“There’s already a lot of traffic,” he told Maria. “I didn’t know there were so many people on the island.”

“It is a great day for them.”

“Few foreigners, though.”

“My father does not encourage them. He has the airport watched. Even the number of newsmen is limited.”

“So I noticed.” They were walking through the downstairs rooms toward the door when Nick paused to examine the large oil painting over a massive stone fireplace. It was of a handsome bearded man in military uniform. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“Palidez, our liberator. Father mentioned him at dinner the other night. Founder of our country, author of our constitution, builder of this house—”

Nick studied the painting more closely. “He’s missing a finger.”

“Lost in the Revolution. It became a sort of symbol. He died in 1920, rich and famous—and loved by his people.”

One of the servants had turned on the radio and they could hear the sounds of the stadium ceremonies. “They’re starting without us,” Nick said. “We’d better hurry.”

“I’m ready.”

He led her out to the official car, where a dark-skinned driver waited by the open door. “Too bad all your servants can’t come.”

“Most of them went, but the house requires so much work—you can imagine, with nine rooms on each floor.”

Nick froze with his hand on the car door. “My Spanish is rusty,” he said, hardly breathing. “Your father said this place is called the Casa Nueve—”

Maria chuckled. “I started to correct you the other night. New House would be Casa Nuevo. The presidential palace is called Casa Nueve, which means—”

“Nine House! Nine rooms on each floor! And nine was the word Palidez lived by!” From the car radio came the sounds of the pageant ceremonies, the rolling of drums, the blowing of bugles. “Come on! We’ve got to get there fast!”

“But why?”

“Don’t ask questions. What I need are answers and you can give them to me.” The car pulled away from the palace grounds and headed toward the stadium. “Jorge Asignar is up to something and it’s no good.”

“Asignar? I don’t understand.”

Nick Velvet leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, trying to see it all. “The thing was Asignar’s idea from the start. At the airport Monday he was surprised to see nineteen players with manager and coaches and all. He didn’t need them. He only needed nine men—a baseball team. Nine men who could enter the country without attracting your father’s suspicions, without being noticed by his airport guards.”

“Nine men—”

“Don’t you see, Maria? This whole country is built on the mystical number nine. There are nines every where—the President and eight cabinet ministers—nine in all. Nine sea-shells on your national flag. And the cabinet always sits in row J at the auditorium—the ninth row, since theaters hardly ever have a row I. The country was liberated in 1899, on September 9—the ninth day of the ninth month. And nine-fingered Palidez did it all. He wrote the constitution and built the palace, Nine House, with its nine rooms on each floor.”

“I know all that,” she said.

“Then tell me what else there is. Something in the constitution that Palidez wrote. Something that Jorge Asignar needs nine men for.”

“Nine men—” And suddenly her hand flew to her mouth. “My God, the firing squad!”

It was then that the driver pulled over to the curb and turned to face them with a pistol in his hand.

Nick Velvet fired a single shot through the back of the seat, hoping his aim was good. It was—the driver crumpled sideways without a sound.

“Help shove him over,” Nick told Maria. “I’ll drive.”

“He’s one of Asignar’s people,” she gasped.

“He was. I’m glad I still had the gun with me. Which way should I go?”

“Straight ahead—you can see it from here, over on the left.” As he drove she kept talking. “Palidez’s constitution states that the President of Jabali can be removed from office and sentenced to death by a secret panel of judges in a time of national crisis. But the actual execution of a President can only be carried out by a nine-man firing squad. To insure that the firing squad itself is impartial, none of the men can be citizens of Jabali.”

“So Asignar brought the Beavers in to be public executioners. He’s planning to take over the country, but he wants it all nice and legal. He doesn’t want the citizens upset.”

“But how can he get the Beavers to shoot my father?”

“However it is, I’ve got to stop it. I agreed to steal a baseball team, not to provide a firing squad. Asignar suggested the pre-game pageant. He must be planning it for then.”

The voice on the radio droned on in Spanish. Nick missed many words, but he got the general idea. Both teams were lined up on the field, facing the President who was standing on a raised platform. The teams carried rifles, symbolic of Jabali’s revolution, but they would soon exchange them for bats, symbolic of today’s peaceful life.

“Faster!” Maria urged. “They have guns, and father is now down on the field.”

Nick swung into the stadium driveway, saw a policeman signaling him away, and brushed the man aside like a fly. Then he headed the car toward the metal gates that blocked the entrance to the field. “Keep your head down,” he warned Maria.

The car hit the gates with a force that cracked the windshield and crushed in the radiator, but they were through. The Beavers, nine of them, were facing General Tras, aiming their rifles in the air in some sort of salute. Nick drove the crippled car forward in a final burst of speed that almost bowled the players over.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled to Nesbitt, the shortstop. “It’s a trick!”

There was shouting from the stands, and Nick saw soldiers running onto the field. “They’re only blanks,” Karowitz protested. “Asignar told us to fire over the President’s head as part of the pageant.”

Nick grabbed one of the rifles and ejected a blank cartridge. “Then he’s somewhere with a high-powered rifle. He couldn’t expect you fellows to really execute the President, but he wanted it to look that way.”

General Tras was running over now, his face ashen. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“Asignar is planning to kill you and make it look like an execution. Once you’re dead, no one would know the difference. The judges who condemned you in secret must be part of Asignar’s plot.”

There was the crack of a rifle, from far off, and Tras stumbled to the ground. The bullet had hit the fleshy part of his thigh. “He’s on the roof, over there!” Nick shouted. He grabbed one of the rifles and then remembered they held blanks. A soldier had reached them, his rifle pointed, and Nick grabbed the soldier’s rifle as a second shot sounded from the roof.

“Everybody down!” he shouted. The second shot, fired in haste, had missed. Now Jorge Asignar was up and running along the edge of the roof. Nick fired two quick shots, then took an extra few seconds to squeeze off the third round at the running figure.

Asignar went off the edge of the roof, falling without a sound, and hit the top of the Beavers’ third-base dugout.

“There are men faithful to me,” General Tras said as they bandaged his leg. “We will round up the rest of the plotters.”

“With Asignar dead they’ll be off and running,” Nick told him. They were still in the center of the field, surrounded by players and soldiers.

“How can I thank you?” Maria Tras asked Nick.

“There must be a way.”

From the dugout Pop Hastin had finally fought his way through the mob. “What is all this shooting?” he demanded. “Let’s get that body out of here and play ball!”

The Theft of the Silver Lake Serpent

NICK VELVET WAS A thief, a highly paid specialist in a crowded field. Often, between the paid assignments that brought him as much as thirty thousand dollars each, he liked to relax on the front porch with Gloria and think of things as they might have been. He sometimes felt that life would have been just as pleasing and not half so complicated if he worked at the electronics plant down the block and spent his evenings watching television with a beer at his side.

But then men like Earl Crowder came along to change his mind. Crowder was a middle-aged businessman running to overweight, who gazed at Nick through his thick glasses and never smiled.

“You steal things,” he said, but of course he already knew that.

“Some things. Unusual things.” Nick lit a cigarette. “Nothing of great value, like money or jewels.”

“Could you steal a sea serpent?” Crowder asked, still unsmiling.

“I never, tried,” Nick admitted. “I don’t think I could steal it unless it really existed.”

Earl Crowder sighed and settled back in the chair. They were in his hotel room in midtown Manhattan, on a sunny day in early June, and the world of sea serpents seemed far away.

“It exists,” he said, “in some form or another. I own a resort up in northern New England—it’s called Crowder’s Cover—and we’re coming into our busy season now. We’re on Golden Lake, near the Canadian border. A great swimming and boating place during the summer, and good hunting territory in the fall.”

“And you have a sea serpent?”

“No! That’s just the trouble! The serpent or whatever it is resides in Silver Lake, about twenty miles away. And that’s where all the tourists go now! I’m being ruined by that guy and his serpent!”

Nick Velvet frowned through the cigarette smoke, decided the man was serious after all, and asked, “What guy?”

“His name is Larry Pike, and he’s the manager of the Silver Lake Hotel. It started last season, and from the looks of things it’s going to be worse this year. First it was just some fishermen out in a boat one night—or early in the morning. People just thought they had been drinking. But then others saw it too. One lady even got a picture of it, kind of blurred and off in the distance.”

“A sea serpent?”

“Or a damned good imitation! When I first heard about it I was sorta happy. I figured it would hurt Pike’s business—after all, who wants to swim in a lake with a sea serpent? But it didn’t work like that, not at all! Seems it’s just a small serpent, and the people are flocking to Silver Lake in hopes of seeing it.”

Nick vaguely remembered seeing something in the papers about it the previous year, but it had vanished into the depths of his memory along with the reports of flying saucers and poltergeists. As a rule he didn’t believe in things like sea serpents, even small ones, but for thirty thousand dollars he could bring himself to believe in almost anything.

“This was last year?” he asked.

Crowder nodded. “Late in the season. But it’s starting again this year too. I heard last week that a couple saw the thing, swimming across the lake one night when the moon was bright.”

“Perhaps there is no serpent. Perhaps he only pays a few people to see it.”

“There’s something out there, all right. Pike was once an animal trainer with a circus. He …”

“You’re surely not suggesting he has a trained sea serpent!”

“I don’t know what he has! Maybe it’s a submarine of some kind. Whatever it is, I want it.”

“I charge thirty thousand for high-risk assignments.”

“It’s worth it, to be rid of that damned thing. Or to have it in Golden Lake instead.”

“You’ll have it,” Nick promised him. “If it exists.”

The mountains of northern New England were strange to Nick Velvet. The area of Silver and Golden Lakes was completely unknown to him, and somehow unlike his memories of the Catskills. Perhaps it was only that he’d been young in those days.

Driving up along dusty dirt roads, he saw the signs of winter pointing the way to nearby ski resorts, disregarding the high June sun that filtered through the trees to speckle the earth with shadows. He wondered if he should take a look at Earl Crowder’s place on Golden Lake, then decided against it and took the left fork direct to his destination on Silver Lake.

Larry Pike’s resort was low and rambling, a hodgepodge of buildings and random additions that must have collected over the years until now they stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile along the lakefront. Though the season was still young, there were a number of boats already in the water, and everywhere there was the odor of fresh paint and the look of annual rejuvenation.

Nick parked his car near the main building and stopped the first pretty girl he saw. “Could you direct me to Larry Pike’s office?”

She was blonde and tanned, wearing a sleeveless pullover above white shorts. “I’m his secretary,” she answered. “I’ll take you there.” And as he followed her up the steps, she asked, “Could I say who’s calling?”

“My name’s Velvet. I’m a writer.”

“You’ve come about the serpent?”

“That’s right,” he admitted.

“It’s really put us on the map! This should be the biggest summer in our history.”

She ushered him into a little office behind the registration desk, where a youngish man with thinning hair and the beginning of a belly was just putting down the telephone. “A visitor, Miss Martin?” he asked, not looking directly at Nick.

“Another writer, about the serpent.”

“Well. Well, we’re always pleased to show you fellows around. I’m Larry Pike. I gather you’ve met my secretary.” He got up from the desk to shake Nick’s hand. “What magazine are you with? A big one?”

“You might say I’m a freelance,” Nick told him. “But I think your sea serpent is certainly worth a good deal of money. I’d like to hear all about it.”

“Certainly, Mr.—?”

“Velvet.”

“Velvet. Odd.”

“It’s in the nature of a pen name,” Nick said.

Pike smiled. “I understand about you authors. Judy, would you bring us some coffee?”

Nick noticed that the blonde secretary had been returned to a first name basis quite quickly. He decided he’d been accepted by Larry Pike. “Just how many people have seen your serpent, or monster, or whatever you call it, Mr. Pike?” he asked.

The youngish man smiled. “What is it, Judy?” he called to the outer office. “Maybe a dozen or so?”

“About that,” she answered.

“Have either of you ever seen it?” Nick asked.

“No, but there’s a woman here now who was only a few feet away from it last September. She can give you quite a vivid description.”

“Any idea what it might be?” Nick asked.

Larry Pike shrugged. “Who knows? It’s making money for me—that’s all I know.”

“There’s been some hint that the thing is a hoax.”

“Talk to Mrs. Foster and the others who’ve seen it. There’s a man who lives across the lake—he was the first to see it while he was out fishing. Talk to him, too. I think their descriptions will convince you it’s no fake. We even have a few pictures, but they’re not too good because it never comes to the surface in broad daylight.” He reached nervously for a cigarette from the half-empty pack at his elbow. “It’s that Crowder over on Golden Lake! He’s the one who keeps yelling fake, because he’s afraid of losing a little business!”

“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Foster if I could,” Nick said firmly.

The blonde secretary, Judy, offered to take him, and with a few further words to Pike he left the office and followed her to one of the freshly painted cottages down by the water. He had to admit it was a pleasant place, with a gentle breeze just rippling the surface of the lake. He could almost imagine himself settling down here with Gloria.

“This is Mrs. Foster,” Judy said, introducing him to a stout motherly woman who was playing bridge with three other ladies on the porch of her cottage. “Mrs. Foster, Mr. Velvet here wants to hear all about our sea serpent.”

“Indeed I do,” Nick said, smiling to put the woman at ease.

He needn’t have worried. It seemed that the monster was her favorite subject, and she launched into it with gusto, addressing herself as much to her bridge partners as to Nick, though they had obviously heard the story many times before. “Well, it was just at twilight, and I was out there on the dock. It was September, remember, when most of the summer people had gone back home. Mr. Seeley across the lake had already reported seeing the thing while he was fishing one morning, and I had to admit I was sort of looking.”

She paused dramatically and Nick prodded her. “Yes?”

“Well, I saw it! Way out in the middle of the lake, just swimming along. A head and two—well, like coils. You know the way sea serpents always look in pictures! I’m an old lady, but I’ve still some spirit left. I took the little motor boat and went out there after it. I didn’t believe in such things, you see.”

“How near did you get?”

“Oh, maybe twenty or thirty feet. It wasn’t big—I’d say its head was only a few feet long—but it was enough to scare the devil out of me. All green, with seaweed clinging to the head here and there, and these two coils or spines or lumps breaking the water about a foot or two behind the head. It had a fairly long neck, but the water here isn’t clear so I couldn’t see if it had a body or legs or if it was truly a serpent.”

“What happened then?”

“I must admit that good sense got the better of me. It turned in my direction and I high-tailed it for shore. The last I saw of the thing, it was making for the opposite shore, near Mr. Seeley’s cottage.”

“And it was alive? It wasn’t a fake of any sort?”

“Mr. Velvet, believe me—it was alive.”

Strangely enough, Nick did believe her.

He drove around the lake to the little cluster of private cottages where Judy had told him that Mr. Seeley lived. The ruddy-faced man was waiting for him on the porch, and Nick knew that Judy had called to warn of his coming. It might mean something—it probably meant nothing.

“I’ve come about the lake’s serpent,” Nick said after he’d introduced himself. “I understand you were one of the first to see it.”

“I’ve seen it, young man,” he said, stuffing his mouth with a great wad of tobacco. It was the first time in fifteen years that anyone had called Nick young. “Seen it twice, once last Labor Day and again just a few weeks ago. Great thing, with a flapping tail and red eyes. Came up on me while I was fishing, almost overturned the boat.”

“Oh? I just spoke to a woman who was a bit more subdued in her description.”

“People see what they want to. It was all green and slimy, and probably fifty feet long if you stretched it out.”

“You’re a fisherman, Mr. Seeley?”

“Yep, and lots of people say it was just another one of my tall tales. But they’ll sing a different tune when I catch the damned thing and tow it in on the back of my boat!”

“Just how do you propose to do that?”

“Look here.” He led Nick around to the side of the cottage and displayed a large heavy-duty net of the type used by ocean-going trawlers. “This’ll stop anything in Silver Lake. I’ve been taking it out in the boat with me mornings and evenings, when the thing’s most likely to surface.”

Nick nodded in admiration, already thinking that the heavy net might very well fit in with his own plans. He was by nature a makeshift sort of thief, and often the contingencies of the moment contributed to the methods he used. One did not go after a sea serpent with guns or trickery.

He stayed with Seeley for another half-hour, listening to more tales of the lake as it used to be, of the big ones that had just managed to get away, of broken lines and shattered dreams. Perhaps all these little lakes and summer resorts had someone like Seeley to talk of past glories. But they all didn’t have sea serpents, and he was ready to believe Seeley on that one.

Nick had taken a room for a few nights at Larry Pike’s Silver Lake Hotel. He was convinced that at least one look at the monster was essential before he made the final plans for the theft, and he was just as convinced that the monster would turn up during his stay. Pike would see to that.

He was settling down in his room just after ten o’clock when he found he was out of cigarettes. Reluctantly he went downstairs to the desk to purchase some, then decided to phone Gloria at home. She knew nothing of the true nature of his work. For her, he was a consultant on plant sites for new industry, a job that could take him anywhere in the world on short notice. She never questioned the deception, but then Gloria questioned very little of their life together.

He finished the brief phone call and went back up to the room, pausing with his hand on the doorknob as some sixth sense warned him. Someone was inside. He pushed open the door slowly, saw a motion across the room at his suitcase, and flipped on the lights, ready to move quickly.

It was Judy Martin, still in her pullover and white shorts, crouched before his overnight bag. She turned, startled, a frightened gazelle trapped by the lion.

“Good evening,” he said, relaxing a bit. “Find what you’re looking for?”

She stood up straight, with a measure of dignity, brushing the tumbling hair from her eyes. “I want to know who you are, Mr. Velvet,” she admitted frankly. “Who sent you here?”

“I told you I was a writer.”

“But you’re not! We had dozens of writers and reporters here last fall, and all through the winter. You didn’t ask any of the right questions. You never even mentioned the Loch Ness Monster!”

“Silver Lake isn’t Loch Ness.”

“And you’re no writer. You were sent here by that terrible Earl Crowder, weren’t you? He’s been trying to ruin us for years!”

“Miss Martin, I have …”

His sentence was interrupted by a shout from downstairs. “The serpent!” someone was yelling. “It’s out there!”

Nick grabbed for his jacket. “Come on!”

Downstairs, about a dozen people were clustered around the dock, pointing out into the night where a full moon had turned the water’s surface into the shimmering silver that gave the lake its name.

“See it?” Mrs. Foster shouted excitedly. “Out there near the center!”

Nick looked, and saw a head breaking the surface. A head, and something else behind. The thing, whatever it was; seemed to be swimming toward the far shore, toward Seeley’s cottage.

“I’m going after it,” Nick told the girl. He was looking around for Pike, but the owner of the place was nowhere in sight.

It was perhaps a mile from shore to the center of the lake, and Nick steered the outboard carefully, trying for an arc that would intersect the monster’s route somewhere before it reached the shore. Mrs. Foster and Judy had both tried to join him, but he’d kept them out, wanting to make the trip alone. He had to find the place where the serpent slept, its home somewhere along that shore. He didn’t doubt for a moment that the thing lived at least part of its existence on dry land. In this northern climate, a body of water the size of Silver Lake would be frozen during much of the winter. The creature obviously needed air to breathe, and thus could not remain on the bottom of the lake during the long, freezing winter.

No, it had spent the winter somewhere else, which was why Nick had his suspicions of Larry Pike.

He’d closed the gap a bit between himself and the monster, and now at a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile he could make out the greenish head and neck of the beast, swimming along on a rigid course. For a moment Nick thought it might be actually pulled along from the shore, but then at the sound of his motor it shifted direction slightly, bearing away from him. He had a glimpse of the stubby snout, the small, gasping mouth, the fins or coils that broke the water behind it. And then for an instant there was something about it that seemed oddly familiar. It was as if he were not on the water at all, but somewhere else, watching—what?

The image, so close to his grasping, vanished with the full moon as night clouds moved quickly across the sky. He cursed his luck and turned the boat in the direction he’d seen the serpent take, but already it was too late. He’d lost sight of the thing. He headed for shore at the nearest point, beaching the boat on a deserted point among half-seen bushes and trees.

It was then that he heard someone scream.

He hurried toward the sound, but it was a full ten minutes before he found old Mr. Seeley, lying in a heap along a rocky stretch of shoreline. The side of his head had been crushed by a blow of some sort. He was dead.

After that, it was as if the plague had descended upon Silver Lake. The sheriff’s deputies came, and the state police, and a grand phalanx of reporters and cameramen. Already one of the Boston newspapers was headlining it the SEA SERPENT MURDER, and anyone in the Northeast who hadn’t yet heard about the monster was finding out quickly enough. Nick had known it would be like this from the moment he stumbled on the body, and he had even considered hiding it, but he knew now that the monster would not appear again immediately, whatever he did.

After the police had questioned him, he checked out of the Silver Lake Hotel and drove the twenty miles to Golden Lake and Crowder’s Cove. The police just might decide to check up on him, and Nick knew better than anyone that his background wouldn’t stand checking. He’d be safe at Crowder’s place for a few days, he hoped, until the storm about the killing blew over.

On the morning after his arrival, Earl Crowder regarded him over breakfast with a mixture of admiration and uncertainty. He waited until Nick had taken a forkful of scrambled eggs and then asked, “Did you kill that guy?”

“Of course not,” Nick replied.

“I’m not paying for no murder!”

“And you didn’t get any murder. Not from me, at least.”

“You’re giving up on the serpent?”

“Of course not. You’ll have it here. If you really want it now.”

It was a bit later in the morning when a dusty station wagon pulled up outside and Judy Martin hopped out, closely followed by Larry Pike himself. Crowder came off the porch to greet them, his expression a bit uncertain.

“How are things with your monster, Larry?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Pike shuffled his feet and glared, but Judy was in no mood to keep silent. “I’m happy to see Mr. Velvet here,” she started. “It just confirms what I’ve thought all along! You couldn’t stand the competition from Larry’s place, so you arranged a murder.”

“Don’t be silly,” Crowder mumbled.

“You figured if it looked like the monster killed somebody, the place wouldn’t be a tourist attraction any more! But you’re wrong—we’ve been busy all day taking reservations. We just wanted you to know we’re wise to your little schemes with Mr. Velvet.”

Nick glanced over at Larry Pike. “Do you have anything to say about all this?”

“I … no.”

“Go on,” Crowder told them. “Get out of here, both of you! You just came over to make trouble.”

Pike hesitated and then turned away, taking Judy by the arm. It seemed obvious that the journey to Golden Lake had been her idea, but now she backed off too, uncertain of how to press the attack.

After they’d gone, Nick followed Crowder into the resort’s little bar. He felt as if he could use a drink. He stared across at the older man and said, “You know, you might have killed Seeley just the way she said, thinking it would ruin his business.”

“Do you think that?”

Nick shook his head. “There’d be no point to it, after you’d hired me—at least, not till you saw what sort of job I did. Besides, I saw the wound on Seeley’s head. It reminded me of a friend of mine who was killed once. He was a jockey, and his mount threw him.”

“What?”

“Just thinking out loud,” Nick said. “Do you have a truck I could borrow? Some sort of closed van, if you have one.”

“I have one. What do you want it for?”

Nick Velvet smiled. “Tonight I’m going to steal the Silver Lake serpent.”

He knew where to look now, because the creature would have come ashore at the point where Seeley’s body was found. It would be a closed cottage or barn of some sort, not far from that point. He found it within twenty minutes—a boarded-up garage next to an empty cottage. The police would never have noticed it. Perhaps he would never have noticed it, either, if he hadn’t seen the tracks in the loose dirt.

Nick used one of his special tools on the lock, and stepped into the garage. Outside it was twilight, and the interior of the building was like pitch. He held his breath, remembering Seeley’s crushed skull. It seemed in that instant he could feel the hot breath of the creature on his face. He knew what the garage would contain—electric heaters for the winter, of course, and a spray gun of some sort for the green paint. He lit his flashlight and let the beam climb along the walls.

“Good evening, Mr. Velvet,” Larry Pike said from the doorway. “I see you’ve stumbled upon our secret.”

“I have a gun, Pike,” Nick warned him.

“What do you want?”

“I’m taking this thing with me. The Silver Lake serpent is all finished.”

“I doubt that. Crowder paid you, didn’t he?”

“What does it matter? You’re hardly in a position to call the police. Not when this thing killed a man.”

“It was an accident,” Larry Pike said.

“I know. What about the girl?”

“She’s out of it. She doesn’t know a thing.” But then, his eyes accustomed to the light, Pike saw the tool and flashlight in Nick’s hands, saw that there was no gun. He leaped forward, knocking Nick to one side, and suddenly there was an unfamiliar noise above them and Nick knew that death was very close—as close as it had been to old Seeley.

He rolled free, his fingers grasping for a weapon, and found the spray gun for the green paint. He squeezed the trigger and saw the spray hit Pike’s jaw and neck. “The next is in the eyes,” he warned. “Move back.”

“All right. You’ve made your point.”

“Now help me get this thing outside,” Nick ordered. “Into the truck.”

Larry Pike nodded.

“All right. I’m better rid of it, I suppose. But tell me how you knew.”

“A lot of things—mostly remembering that you were once an animal trainer with a circus. And seeing Seeley’s head, looking as if it had been trampled by hooves. And of course seeing the thing itself. You should have stuck to animal training, Pike.”

“How do you mean?”

“It must have taken a lot of patience to teach a camel to swim across this lake.”

It was after midnight when he got Earl Crowder out of bed and led him down to the truck.

“It’s inside,” Nick told him. “I’ll take the rest of my thirty thousand now.”

“A camel?” Crowder asked, unbelieving. “Painted green?”

“Painted green. The funny thing was that it looked exactly like a camel, but Pike was relying on the psychology of what people think they see—what they expect or don’t expect to see. Old Seeley exaggerated what he saw, and Mrs. Foster didn’t really realize what she saw. No one expected to see a green camel swimming across a lake, so no one did see that. Instead they saw simply a long neck and a small head and two humps breaking the surface of the water. That was Larry Pike’s sea serpent.”

“Fantastic,” Crowder said, staring up at the placid animal in the van.

“Of course a camel is an ungulate like horses and deer and sheep, so it wasn’t impossible for an animal trainer like Pike to teach it to swim the same route across the lake. In fact, a number of recorded sea serpent sightings have mentioned the fact that sea serpents look something like camels. One in 1934 off Cherbourg, France, was said to have a neck like that of a camel’s. And sightings in 1910, 1925 and 1928 were described as having the head and neck of a camel. One viewer even spoke of the sea serpent’s traditional coils as humps, like a camel’s. I found these things in Heuvelman’s book, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, and I suppose some similar account might have given Pike the whole idea in the first place. It was a great idea until poor Seeley saw the thing coming ashore and tried to grab it. He fell beneath the camel’s hooves and was trampled to death.”

“What am I going to do with a camel?” Earl Crowder asked.

“That’s your problem,” Nick told him. “But I wouldn’t advise another sea serpent. Perhaps you can scrub off the paint and give camel rides to the kids.”

On the way back in the morning, Nick was tempted to swing by Silver Lake and see Judy Martin once more. But he decided against it. He’d had enough excitement for one week, and besides, Gloria would be waiting for him.

The Theft of the Seven Ravens

BECAUSE OF THE EARLY-MORNING fog, Nick Velvet’s flight to London was an hour late in landing, so it was after ten when he reached his hotel in Mayfair. A message was waiting at the desk, giving the address of a little pub a few blocks away where the man he’d come to see would be waiting. Nick unpacked his bag and took the time to shower and shave. Then he was out into the bright May sunshine.

The Red Crosse Knight was a neat and busy pub that faced the vast greenery of Hyde Park. When Nick entered he saw at once the man he was to meet—a stout balding Englishman reading the green-covered Michelin guide that was his identification. His name was Harry Haskins and he rose to greet Nick with a friendly handshake.

“Good of you to come over like this, Velvet,” he said, speaking briskly but keeping his voice low. “As soon as I heard about you I knew you were the perfect man for the job.”

Nick glanced down at the guidebook, which covered the Perigord region of France. “Thinking of taking a trip?”

“My wife and I often drive through Europe in the summer. The villages of France are especially picturesque. Have you ever been there?”

“I was in Paris once, a few years back, but not really long enough to enjoy it.”

Haskins glanced about, making certain their conversation would not be overheard in the noonday din. “We understand you’re a professional thief, Mr. Velvet.”

“Of sorts.” Nick was indeed a professional thief, but he stole only what other thieves avoided—the improbable, the valueless, the bizarre. If someone was willing to pay his fee, no task was too far-fetched. And he knew Harry Haskins had not summoned him across the Atlantic without knowing this.

“It’s a very confidential matter, really. On Wednesday morning—day after tomorrow—the Queen will receive a state visit from the President of the newly independent nation of Gola. As a goodwill gesture the President of Gola plans to present the Queen with seven ravens in a cage.”

“I see.” The waiter arrived with two mugs of warm beer.

“The ravens have an important symbolism in Gola, and since we’ve always kept a few of the birds at the Tower of London it seemed an appropriate gift.”

Nick Velvet nodded. He never questioned the motives of his clients, and the assignment seemed straightforward enough. “You want me to steal the seven ravens before they’re presented to the Queen.”

Haskins’ eyes widened. “Not at all, Velvet. You completely misunderstand. We’ll pay you to see that they aren’t stolen.”

Nick took a long swallow of warm beer and wondered about the next flight back to New York. “You’re the one who seems to have misunderstood, Mr. Haskins. I’m no sort of detective or police guard. I charge a flat fee—about eight thousand pounds in your money—and for that amount I’ll steal almost anything. But I don’t catch thieves or prevent robberies.”

“I thought this might be a special case, since it involves the British government.”

“Then get a British citizen to guard the ravens. Why bring an American over for it—and a thief at that?”

Harry Haskins leaned back in his chair, a slightly pained expression on his face. “Your reputation is the finest, Velvet. And for internal security reasons we’d rather have a non-Britisher in the role. We don’t want someone protecting the ravens who can be interviewed by the press the next day. Once your assignment is over you’ll go back across the ocean and the whole thing will quickly die down.”

Haskins’ reasoning did not fully convince Nick, but Haskins’ next action did. He slipped a piece of paper from his pocket and passed it across the table. It was a check for ten thousand pounds. “That’s more than my usual fee,” Nick commented.

“I know. But it’s all yours if the seven ravens are delivered to the Queen on Wednesday morning. You’ll note that the check is dated Wednesday. The funds will not be available until after the presentation ceremony.”

Nick Velvet thought about it. He was never one to refuse money, and to be paid for not stealing something was, in a sense, much easier than to be paid for stealing it. Perhaps, just this once—His hand closed over the check and he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Haskins nodded. “I’m sure I can count on you.”

In the afternoon Nick took the Underground to Regents’ Park and strolled along Broad Walk to the zoo. It was a clear day, warmer than usual for a London May, and he felt a bit carefree. With the check already in his pocket very little needed to be done. Perhaps a bit of shopping for Gloria, and some sightseeing, and by Wednesday night he’d be flying home.

He did feel, however, that a visit to the zoo might be in order since he was hardly able to distinguish between a raven and a crow. After some minutes of standing before a large domed cage full of big black birds he sought out a friendly keeper.

“Ravens and crows? Well, they’re both members of the same family, but ravens are larger, and they differ in many ways. Ravens have a wedge-shaped tail, while a crow’s tail is shorter and more gently rounded. They sound different, too, and ravens are more aggressive. Their nests are larger, and they lay more eggs. And of course there’s a great deal of superstition attached to ravens.”

Nick watched the birds circle in brief flight inside the cage. He didn’t realize at first that the keeper had moved out of earshot to attend to his chores. He asked, without looking around, “What sort of superstition?”

A girl’s voice answered him. “In Grimm’s fairy tales the seven ravens were seven enchanted brothers.”

He turned, startled, and faced a slim blonde girl with pale blue eyes, an upturned nose, and long slender legs. She was the best-looking thing he’d seen in London so far. “Were you speaking to me?”

“I just said—”

He grinned. “You know a great deal about ravens. And fairy tales.”

“You’re American, aren’t you?”

“Guilty. But you’re not British.”

“Irish, actually. My name is Pat McGowan.”

She paused, waiting, so he told her, “Mine’s Nick Velvet. I’m over here for a few days on business.”

“Do you like London?”

“The people one meets are certainly friendly enough.”

She blushed. “I have a confession to make, Mr. Velvet.”

“Let me guess. You followed me here.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you—?”

Nick smiled at her astonishment. “You mentioned seven ravens, and I don’t believe in coincidences. Who are you, really?”

“Just who I said I am. But you’re right. I did follow you here.”

He stared into her pale blue eyes. “Why would you do a thing like that?”

“You steal things, don’t you?”

“Not from pretty Irish girls, I don’t.”

“I represent people with money, Mr. Velvet. They’re willing to pay. We tried to contact you in America, but we learned you were already en route here.”

Nick was beginning to see it clearly. “Don’t tell me that you want me to steal the seven ravens before they’re presented to the Queen on Wednesday morning.”

“You amaze me! Now how did you know that?”

“I do have a certain reputation in such matters, and since you’d already referred to the ravens and said you tried to contact me in America, it seemed a likely guess.” It also explained why Harry Haskins had been so eager to hire Nick to prevent the theft of the ravens. It wasn’t that he wanted a non-Britisher who could be out of reach of the press. Rather, it was simply that Haskins had discovered Pat McGowan’s plan to hire Nick and had got to him first with a larger bid.

“Then you are agreeable?” the girl asked him.

“My price is high.”

“We know your price, and Mr. Stavanger is prepared to meet it.” The dedicated intensity of her face reminded him of a girl he’d known in his youth. She’d worn spangled tights and twirled a flaming baton at political rallies in lower Manhattan, and afterward she had discussed the world’s problems with Nick over pitchers of cold beer.

“Who is Mr. Stavanger?” he asked. “What group do you represent?”

“The group is anti-British and that’s all I care about. I fought the British in the streets of Belfast last summer and I’ll fight them here in London this summer!”

“All right. When do I meet Stavanger?”

“You don’t. There’s no need to. Our money is good, believe me.” She dipped into her purse and came up with a handful of crumpled ten-pound notes. “Here’s a hundred quid, just to prove we mean business. Steal those ravens by Wednesday morning and deliver them to me, and I’ll give you the rest of the money.”

He hesitated only a moment. Then he took the crumpled bills and slipped them into his pocket. He looked up at the ravens in their cage, then back at the girl. “Miss McGowan, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

There was a certain difficulty about being hired and paid by both sides, and Nick only began to realize it that night as he strolled through Piccadilly with the theater-bound crowds. Either he stole the ravens or he did not steal them, and whichever happened, one side would refuse to pay him. He’d not been able to resist Haskins’ offer, and likewise the money offered by the girl had tempted him. If only there was a way to collect payment from both sides …

In the morning he thought he had a plan, so he phoned Haskins at the number he’d been given. After the usual channeling through governmental secretaries he heard the Englishman’s voice on the other end. Nick talked quickly, outlining part of what he had in mind.

But Haskins was immediately critical. “You want to substitute crows for the Gola ravens? I’m certain the Ambassador from Gola would never agree to that.”

“Could I talk to him?”

Haskins hesitated, pondering the request, and finally agreed. “All right. His name is Anson Gibellion. You can find him at their Embassy on South Audley Street. I’ll ring him up and say you’re coming.”

Though it was only a few blocks from the impressive American Embassy building in Grosvenor Square, the Embassy of the tiny nation of Gola was drab and crowded—a narrow, bleak-fronted building that Nick almost passed unnoticed. A desk had been set up just inside the door, and a moon-faced little man behind it inspected Nick uncertainly before he announced his arrival on the intercom. After a wait of five minutes Nick was directed to the office of the Ambassador.

Anson Gibellion was a large man whose face reflected a European heritage. He greeted Nick with a nod and a handshake. “Haskins told me you’d come by, Mr. Velvet. He explained your position in this matter.”

Nick nodded. “Then you know it’s about the ravens. I’ve been employed to prevent their theft before the formal presentation, and my suggestion was that they be protected by substituting crows, and then bringing in the ravens later.”

Anson Gibellion seemed truly shocked. “But the birds must be ravens! Otherwise the gift has no meaning! You see, the seven ravens represent the seven stages of our nation’s history—our early independence, our colonial days under Spain, France, England, Belgium, and Portugal, and finally our present independence. The raven is a sacred bird in Gola, worshipped by our people and appearing on our national flag. A story is told of the first raven that came in the night to lay an egg in the home of our aged leader. He used the egg to restore the blackness to his silvery hair, and then went forth like a raven to do battle with Gola’s foes.” He smiled apologetically. “Of course that was long ago. The ancient Greeks also believed that a raven’s egg would restore the blackness of the hair.”

Nick nodded. “The sleek blackness of a raven’s feathers.”

“The lustrous blackness,” Gibellion corrected Nick. “The ebony bird, as your writer Edgar Allan Poe called him. Follow me, please, Mr. Velvet.”

He led the way down a short hall to a little room at the end. There, occupying the entire surface of a table, was a large gilded cage made of fine wire. It housed seven great flapping birds, black as night, yet with a radiance that paradoxically seemed to contain all the colors of the rainbow.

“You tell me these birds can be replaced with mere crows, Mr. Velvet? Impossible!”

Nick stared at the ravens, taking in their rare beauty. They seemed even larger—and more alive—than those he’d seen at the London zoo. “All right,” he agreed at last. “It was just an idea. But tell me why you and Haskins suspect an attempt to steal the birds.”

“Frankly, the British government is more concerned than we are. That man Haskins has been haunting me ever since the ravens arrived in London. The theft of the ravens would accomplish very little.”

“It would embarrass your government, wouldn’t it?”

“Only temporarily.” He smiled slightly. “It could cost me my position here, of course, but our President would have new birds brought in within a day’s time.”

As if to accentuate the remark, one of the ravens gave a high-pitched cry and flapped its wings. Nick eyed the bird reflectively, then excused himself and left.

By Tuesday afternoon he’d decided to try it the other way around. If Anson Gibellion would not allow him to substitute crows for ravens, perhaps he could still convince Pat McGowan and the mysterious Mr. Stavanger that such a substitution had taken place. He took a cab to Harrods department store and reached the pet shop on an upper floor just before closing time. He talked for a few moments with a pretty clerk in a green smock, and then left with a list of other London pet shops that kept evening hours.

After dinner he placed a call to Harry Haskins. The government man wasn’t at his office, but the operator put Nick through to his home. When Haskins finally came on the phone Nick asked, “What do you know about a man named Stavanger?”

Haskins sighed into the phone. “To tell you the truth, Velvet, he’s the reason I hired you. Stavanger is a revolutionary, and something of a mystery man. He may be trying to foment a revolt in Gola. In any event, we received a tip that his group would try to hire you to steal the ravens. That’s when I decided to get to you first.”

“I see,” Nick said. He’d suspected as much.

“Will you be at the Palace for the ceremony tomorrow morning?”

“Ill be there,” Nick promised.

“Good, good! I’ll meet you at the visitors’ gate.”

Nick hung up and took out the list of pet shops.

The morning was warm but misty, with a reminder of nighttime fog still lingering near the river. Nick reached the visitors’ gate at Buckingham Palace a full hour before the ceremonies were scheduled to begin, but already the long black limousines were beginning to arrive with the dignitaries of the day.

Haskins was waiting for him, and they walked quickly past the uniformed guards and across the courtyard to the arched entranceway of the Palace itself.

“You’re sure nothing will go wrong?” he asked Nick.

“The ravens are perfectly safe. You don’t have a worry.”

“These official ceremonies always make me nervous. Perhaps the job is giving me an ulcer.”

They passed through an outer sitting room and presently found themselves in a large high-ceilinged waiting room full of Victorian furniture and elaborately hung tapestries. Looking at the room, Nick remarked, “The royal family has probably lived here for centuries.”

“Not really,” Haskins told him. “Only since 1837. Before that it was the home of the Duke of Buckingham. There are more than six hundred rooms in—”

He was interrupted by the arrival of Anson Gibellion, accompanied by two men carrying the covered raven cage. “Good morning, gentlemen,” the Ambassador said, extending his hand to each of them in turn. “The President of Gola will arrive in fifteen minutes for the presentation. All is in order.” He turned to smooth over the thin satin drape that hung over the cage.

“It seems as if you’ve earned your money, Velvet,” Haskins was saying. He’d barely finished the words when there was a shattering of glass from the far side of the room. They turned, startled, toward the tall window that overlooked the Palace courtyard.

A large truck had backed into it, breaking the glass, and even as the guards came running, the high-ceilinged waiting room was suddenly filled with a confusion of darting blackness. The truck had released scores—perhaps hundreds—of flying, chirping, swooping birds into the room.

Nick stepped back and simply stared. There were blackbirds and crows and ravens and martins and grackles, and in that moment of supreme confusion they had only one thing in common. They were all black, all of varying intensities of night. Within minutes the waiting room was swarming with guards and detectives and servants, all trying to recapture the birds or at least drive them outside. It was a fantastic, mind-bending sight, like something out of Kafka, and Nick could only stand in one corner and let the vision of it almost hypnotize him.

Finally, when the room had been cleared of all but the most persistent birds, Anson Gibellion remembered the ravens in their covered cage. He lifted one edge of the satin drape and peered inside, then shouted. “Velvet! Haskins! Come here! My ravens are gone!”

Nick looked past him into the large square cage. It was indeed empty.

During the next hour Nick found himself being questioned by a variety of Scotland Yard and government investigators, and there were moments when he imagined himself wasting away in a British prison for the rest of his days. The driver of the truck that had broken the window and released the birds was arrested as he tried to escape from the Palace courtyard on foot, but he proved to be a dim-witted foreigner who could barely speak English. He told of being hired and instructed the previous night by a bearded stranger, and furnished with a Gola Embassy pass to get him through the gate.

As the Scotland Yard people took him away for further questioning, Nick heard one detective on the phone, ordering checks of London pet shops for recent purchasers of black birds. Nick began to realize that the case was being treated with all the importance of a multiple murder. Only a few inexpensive birds had been stolen, but they’d been stolen from Buckingham Palace.

Presently Harry Haskins reappeared, looking grim from his own bout of having been questioned. He sat down next to Nick and said, “Well, I’ve got you off the hook, Velvet, but it took some doing. It seems Scotland Yard has a complete dossier on you, dating from the time you stole a toy mouse from a film studio in Paris. They were convinced this was your job, too, until I explained that you’d actually been hired to protect the birds.”

“I wasn’t too successful at that,” Nick admitted.

Anson Gibellion joined them then, his round face a weary web of wrinkles. “I am undone,” he told them sadly. “The President of my country is outraged that such a thing could happen under my very eyes. I am being recalled to Gola in disgrace.”

“I still can’t understand how it was accomplished,” Haskins said. “Were the ravens simply released to fly away with the others?”

Nick nodded. “Seven extra black birds weren’t even noticed in that mob scene.”

“But someone had to open the cage,” Haskins insisted. “Of course.”

“But who?”

Nick shrugged. “Perhaps someone who entered from outside in the confusion.”

“It sounds so simple,” the Englishman said.

“It seems simple because it worked,” Nick assured him. “But a great deal of careful planning must have gone into it.”

Anson Gibellion gave Nick a curious look. “You talk as if you know how it was planned.”

“It’s a business with me,” Nick told him. “I can admire another man’s work.”

He stood up, anxious to be out of there before more questioners arrived on the scene. “Where are you going?” Haskins asked.

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Needless to say, Velvet, you failed to earn your ten thousand pounds.”

“Needless to say.”

The girl was waiting for Nick at the place they’d agreed on, the bandstand near the zoo in Regent’s Park. She wore a trim yellow raincoat as protection against the overcast skies, and her face was even more glowing than he remembered. “Hello,” he said, coming up to her with a grin; he was dangling a large package from one hand.

“You’re late. I didn’t think you were coming.” But he could see she was pleased by his arrival.

“Your British police are quite tenacious.”

“Please! They’re not my British police.” She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, but there were only two elderly ladies chatting on a bench some distance away. “Did you get them, Nick? The ravens?”

He set the package on the grass and untied the string. Pulling away the paper he revealed a small square birdcage. “Seven ravens, as ordered.”

She stared at the black birds in their crowded quarters and listened to their complaining cries. “I heard about it on the news,” she told him. “It must have been quite a sight!”

“It was fun,” Nick agreed.

“But once you released the ravens into that blizzard of birds, how did you ever sort them out again and recapture them?”

“That’s a trade secret,” he told her. “Do you have my money?”

“Mr. Stavanger has it.”

“You mean I’ll finally get to meet him?”

She smiled and shook her pretty head. “He’s waiting in a car. I’ll take the birds to him.” He knelt on the grass to cover the cage and retie the string.

“Just what sort of man is Stavanger?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I like to know who I’ve been working for. And why.”

She sighed and picked up the packaged birdcage. “Stavanger is a revolutionary. Specifically, he is attempting to overthrow the government of Gola as a step toward establishing the country as a haven for other revolutionaries. He has built quite an extensive underground force in Gola, all ready to follow his lead.”

“And how did you get involved with him?”

“I told you—he’s a revolutionary like myself. He’s anti-British, like myself. We have that much in common.”

She led him along Broad Walk to Chester Road, where a closed black limousine stood waiting. “Is that Stavanger?” Nick asked.

“Yes. Please remain here while I take the birds to him. I’ll return with your money.”

“Can I be sure of that?”

“I’ll, be in plain sight all the time. I won’t even get in the car. Now just you wait here.”

He did as he was told and watched her cross the street to the waiting car. She opened a rear door and placed the packaged birdcage inside. The back windows were covered, so Nick could see only the uniformed driver. He suspected it might be a rented car and wondered if there was really anyone in the back seat at all. Perhaps Pat McGowan was merely a clever actress.

After a few moments of seemingly earnest conversation she closed the door and walked back across the street to his side. The limousine pulled slowly away from the curb. “Here’s your money,” she told him, holding out a bulging brown envelope. “Mr. Stavanger was surprised that you were successful.”

“I’ll bet.” Nick ripped open the envelope and riffled the corners of the ten-pound notes.

“Where will you go now, Nick? Back to America?”

He nodded, finishing his quick count of the money. “Why do you ask?”

“We could use you here, to fight for the Irish.”

“Sorry. I never get involved in political disputes.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you again, nevertheless.”

He smiled down at her eager eyes. “I hope so,” he told her, and they parted.

Anson Gibellion was working at his desk when Nick entered through the window, dropped silently to the thick carpeting, and closed the window behind him. The Ambassador turned, startled, and demanded, “How did you get in here, Velvet?”

Nick smiled and moved around the desk to a comfortable leather chair. “Your building is quite old and I’m something of a thief, remember?”

“Did you steal those birds? Did you cause all that trouble at the Palace?”

Nick shook his head. “No. As a matter of fact, I’ve come for my money. Harry Haskins offered me ten thousand pounds if I could prevent the ravens from being stolen.”

“What?” Gibellion didn’t seem to understand. “But you didn’t prevent it! The ravens were stolen!”

“On the contrary, Mr. Gibellion, the ravens were not stolen. When you brought the cage to the Palace today, the cage was empty. That business with all the birds was clever misdirection—but misdirection from a robbery that was not taking place.”

“You must be crazy!”

“Am I? The cage was covered for the presentation, and neither Haskins nor I actually saw those birds this morning. We were supposed to assume they were in the cage because you said so. I’d been visiting pet shops myself last night and had encountered an astonishing shortage of all kinds of black birds. When I discovered that someone had been buying them up, I wasn’t really too surprised to see the truck release them into the Palace—though I must admit it made quite a spectacle. I simply stood in a corner and watched—both the birds and that covered cage of yours. No one went near that cage, Gibellion. And yet later you claimed the birds were gone. The only possibility is that they were never in the cage in the first place.”

“But you are the thief, Velvet—not me!”

Nick shook his head. “Not this time. No one could seriously have suspected me of the crime, because I’d never been to the Palace before. I had no knowledge of which room we’d be in, so I could hardly have paid the dim-witted driver to back his truck into the correct window, could I? No, the driver was hired by someone who knew the Palace routine. It could have been Haskins, but when I determined the cage was empty all along, I knew it had to be you.”

“And so?”

“And so I want my money. No theft took place, so you owe me ten thousand pounds.”

“Your deal was with Haskins,” the Ambassador reminded him.

“But I’m collecting from you.”

Gibellion shook his head. “You’ve already collected your fee, Velvet. You were paid by the anti-Gola forces to steal the birds, and you collected from them this afternoon.”

Nick frowned at him across the desk. “I gather you’ve been talking with Stavanger.”

Gibellion shook his head. “You fail to fully comprehend the intricacy of the situation.” His hand came up from under the desk and it was holding a nickel-plated revolver pointed at Nick’s chest. “You see, I am Stavanger.”

Nick leaned back in the chair, keeping his voice casual. “That’s fine. Then I get paid twice by the same man.”

“Your payment is right here,” the Ambassador said, and the gun edged up a trifle. “You are a thief, Mr. Velvet. You have already robbed me of one payment—for seven false ravens you obviously obtained from a pet shop. I could hardly admit to the girl that I knew the birds were fakes, and so I had to pay for them.”

“Finding those birds last night was a harder job than stealing them,” Nick said. “I had to drive all the way to Greenwich to find a pet shop you hadn’t emptied for your little trick this morning. I’ll admit I was beginning to wonder about the identity of the man in the false beard who was buying black birds.”

“The birds were purchased over a period of several weeks. I have been planning this for some time.” The gun edged up another fraction.

“Before you shoot me, Gibellion, you could at least explain why you did it.”

“Why? There were two reasons, really. One was simply to embarrass the President of Gola on his visit here. But much more important, I wanted to discredit myself and force my recall back home. As Stavanger I have built up a complex underground system in Gola, an army of faithful revolutionaries waiting to follow me. But I am the only man who can lead them, and here I am in London, chained to an Ambassador’s desk. By allowing the theft to take place I incurred the President’s anger and will be sent home in disgrace—which is exactly what I wanted! It is far more effective and less suspicious than if I merely resigned. I will be back in Gola next week, ready to lead the revolution.”

Nick saw the Ambassador’s finger whiten on the trigger, and he tensed for a leap. Then suddenly the window through which he’d entered opened again, and the room was alive with birds. Gibellion jerked back in his chair as a bird darted in front of his eyes and circled toward the ceiling.

Nick waited no longer. He dove across the desk, knocking the gun away and pinning the Ambassador in his chair.

Pat McGowan entered through the window, wearing black slacks and a sweater, and looking that moment even more beautiful than Nick remembered. “The same bird trick,” he said with admiration.

She grinned and took a little bow. “Stavanger’s driver told me he didn’t even want the birds. He left them in the limousine this afternoon. I brought them here to sell them back to Gibellion—anything for a little extra money—and overheard your conversation just now. I was as surprised as you to learn that Stavanger and Gibellion were the same man. I’d never seen the Ambassador before, not even in pictures.”

“I have to thank you for saving my life,” Nick told her. The birds were still swooping around the room, enjoying their, freedom.

“I decided your life was worth saving,” she said.

Releasing his grip on Gibellion, Nick reminded him, “I believe you were about to pay me my fee. Ten thousand pounds.”

The Ambassador sputtered and struggled to his feet. Nick stood by his side as he removed the money from a wall safe. Behind him, Pat McGowan was trying to coax the birds back into their cage. “You’ve been paid twice for nothing,” Gibellion complained. “You didn’t steal the birds, and you didn’t prevent their theft.”

“But you now have fourteen ravens—these seven and your original seven. The extra birds should be worth the extra fee.” Nick grinned and pocketed the money without counting it. Then he took the girl’s hand and they left quickly by the window, before the Ambassador could retrieve his revolver.

“It looks as if I’m no longer working for Stavanger,” Pat remarked as they reached the next block.

“Just as well. Somehow I don’t think he really had much interest in your Irish matters.” He hailed a passing cab. “Let’s go somewhere for a quiet drink. I’ve already missed my plane.”

“What will happen to him now, Nick? To Gibellion, I mean.”

“Who knows? Maybe his brand of revolution is good for Gola. Maybe by next year he’ll be visiting the Queen himself, and she’ll get her seven ravens after all.”

The Theft of the Mafia Cat

NICK VELVET HAD ALWAYS harbored a soft spot for Paul Matalena, ever since they’d been kids together on the same block in the Italian section of Greenwich Village. He still vividly remembered the Saturday afternoon when a gang fight had broken out on Bleecker Street, and Paul had yanked him out of the path of a speeding police car with about one inch to spare. He liked to think that Paul had saved his life that day, and so, being something of a sentimentalist, Nick responded quickly to his old friend’s call for help.

He met Paul in the most unlikely of places—the Shakespeare garden in Central Park, where someone many years ago had planned a floral gathering which was to include every species of flower mentioned in the works of the Bard. If the plan had never come to full blossom it still produced a colorful setting, a backdrop for literary discussion.

“‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,’” Paul quoted as they strolled among the flowers and shrubs. “‘And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.’”

Nick, who could hardly be called a Shakespeare scholar, had come prepared. “‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’” he countered.

“You’ve gotten educated since we were kids, Nick.”

“I’m still pretty much the same. What can I do for you, Paul?”

“They tell me you’re in business for yourself these days. Stealing things.”

“Certain things. Those of no great value. You might call it a hobby.”

“Hell, Nick, they say you’re the best in the business. I been hearing about you for years now. At first I couldn’t believe it was the same guy.”

Nick shrugged. “Everyone has to earn a living somehow.”

“But how did you ever get started in it?”

The beginning was something Nick rarely thought about, and it was something he’d never told another person. Now, strolling among the flowers with his boyhood friend, he said, “It was a woman, of course. She talked me into helping her with a robbery. We were going to break into the Institute for Medieval Studies over in New Jersey and steal some art treasures. I got a truck and helped her remove a stained-glass window so we could get into the building. While I was inside she drove off with the window. That was all she’d been after in the first place. It was worth something like $50,000 to collectors.”

Paul Matalena gave a low whistle. “And you never got any of it?”

Nick smiled at the memory. “Not a cent. The girl was later arrested, and the window recovered, so perhaps it’s just as well. But that got me thinking about the kind of objects people steal. I discovered there are things of little or no value that can be worth a great deal to certain people at certain times. By avoiding the usual cash and jewelry and paintings I’m able to concentrate on the odd, the unusual, the valueless.”

“They say you get $20,000 a job, and $30,000 for an especially dangerous one.”

Nick nodded. “My price has been the same for years. No inflation here.”

“Would you do a job for me, Nick?”

“I’d have to charge you the usual rate, Paul.”

“I understand. I wasn’t asking for anything free.”

“Some say you’re a big man in the Mafia these days. Is that true?”

Matalena shot him a sideways glance. “Sure, it’s true. I’m right up with the top boys. But we don’t usually talk about it.”

“Why not? I’m an Italian-American just like you, Paul, and I think it’s wrong to act as if organized crime doesn’t exist. What we should do is admit it, and then go on to stress the accomplishments of other Italian-Americans—men like Fiorello LaGuardia, John Volpe, and John Pastore in government, Joe DiMaggio in sports, and Gian Carlo Menotti in the arts.”

“I stay out of policy matters, Nick. I’ve got me a nice laundry business that covers restaurants and private hospitals. Brings me in a nice fat income, all legit. In the beginning I had to lean on some of the customers, but when they found out I was Mafia they signed up fast. And no trouble with competition.”

“You must be doing well if you can afford my price. What do you want stolen?”

“A cat.”

“No problem. I once stole a tiger from a zoo.”

“This cat might be tougher. It’s Mike Pirrone’s pet.”

Nick whistled softly. Pirrone was a big man in the Syndicate—one of the biggest still under 50. He lived in a country mansion on the shore of a small New Jersey lake. Not many people visited Mike Pirrone. Not many people wanted to.

“The cat is on the grounds of his home?”

Matalena nodded. “You can’t miss it. A big striped tabby named Sparkle. Pirrone is always being photographed with it. This is from a magazine.”

He showed Nick a picture of Mike Pirrone standing with an older, white-haired man identified as his lawyer. The Mafia don was holding the big tabby in his arms, almost like a child. Nick grunted and put the picture in his pocket. “First time I ever saw Pirrone smiling.”

“He loves that cat. He takes it with him everywhere.”

“And you want to kidnap it and hold it for ransom?”

Matalena chuckled. “Nick, Nick, these wild ideas of yours! You haven’t changed since schooldays.”

“All right. It’s not my concern, as long as your money’s good.”

“This much on account,” Matalena said, slipping an envelope to Nick. “I need results by the weekend.”

They strolled a bit longer among the flowers, talking of old times, then parted. Nick caught a taxi and headed downtown.

Mike Pirrone’s mansion was a sprawling ranch located on a hill overlooking Stag Lake in northern New Jersey. It was a bit north of Stag Pond, in an area of the state that boasted towns with names like Sparta and Athens and Greece. It was fishing country, and the man at the gas station told Nick, “Good yellow perch in these lakes.”

“Might try a little,” Nick admitted. “Got my fishing gear in back. How’s Stag Lake?”

“Mostly private. If you come ashore at the wrong spot it could mean trouble.”

Nick thanked him and drove on, turning off the main road to follow a rutted lane that ran along the edge of the Pirrone estate. The entire place was surrounded by a wall topped by three strands of electrified wire. As he passed the locked gates and peered inside, he saw the large sprawling house on its hill about two hundred feet back. The lake lay at the end of the road, and a chain-link fence ran from the end of the wall into the water. Mike Pirrone was taking no chances on uninvited guests.

Nick was studying the layout when a girl’s voice spoke from very close behind him. “Thinking of doing some fishing?”

He turned and saw a willowy blonde in white shorts and a colorful print blouse standing by the back of his car. He hadn’t heard her approach and he wondered how long she’d been watching him. “I might try for some yellow perch. I hear they’re biting.”

“It’s mostly private property around here,” she said. Her face was hard and tanned, with features that might have been Scandinavian and certainly weren’t Italian.

“I noticed the wall. Who lives there—Howard Hughes?”

“A man named Mike Pirrone. You probably never heard of him.”

“What business is he in?”

“Management.”

“It must be profitable.”

“It is.”

“You know him?”

She smiled at Nick and said, “I’m his wife.”

After his unexpected encounter with Mrs. Pirrone, Nick knew there was no chance for a direct approach to the house. He rented a boat in mid-afternoon and set off down the lake, trolling gently along the shoreline. No one was more surprised than Nick when he hooked a large fish almost at once. It could have been a yellow perch, but he wasn’t sure. Fishing was not his sport.

The boat drifted down to a point opposite the Pirrone estate, and Nick checked the shoreline for guards. No one was visible, but through his binoculars he could see a group of wire cages near the main house. Since the cat Sparkle could be expected to sleep indoors, the cages seemed to indicate dogs—probably watchdogs that prowled the grounds after dark.

Working quickly, Nick filled his jacket pockets with fishhooks, lengths of nylon leader, and a folded and perforated plastic bag. A few other items were already carefully hidden on his person, but the binoculars and fishing pole would have to be abandoned. He used a small hand drill to bore a tiny hole in the bottom of the boat, then watched while the water began to seep in. He half stood up in the boat, giving an image of alarm to anyone who might have been watching, then threw the drill overboard and quickly headed the boat toward shore. In five minutes he was beached on the Pirrone estate; the boat was half full of water.

For a few minutes he stood by it as if pondering his next move. Then he looked up toward the house on the hill and started off for it, carrying his fish. Almost at once he heard the barking of dogs and suddenly two large German shepherds were racing toward him across the expanse of lawn. Nick broke into a run, heading for the nearest tree, but as the dogs seemed about to overtake him they stopped dead in their tracks.

Nick leaned against the tree, panting, and watched a white-haired man walking across the lawn toward him. It was the man in the picture—Pirrone’s lawyer—and he held a shiny silver dog whistle in one hand.

“They’re well trained,” Nick said by way of greeting.

“That they are. You could be a dead man now, if I hadn’t blown this whistle.”

“My boat,” Nick said, gesturing helplessly toward the water. “It sprang a leak. I wonder if I could use your phone?”

The man was well dressed, in the sporty style of the town and country gentleman. He eyed Nick up and down, then nodded. “There’s a phone in the gardener’s shed.”

Nick had hoped to make it into the house, but he had no choice. As the lawyer led the way, Nick held up his fish and said, “They’re really biting today.”

The man grunted and said nothing more. He led Nick to a small shack where tools and fertilizer were stored and pointed to the telephone on the wall. Nick put down his fish and dialed information, seeking the number of a taxi company. He’d just got the operator when the fish by his foot gave a sudden lurch. He looked down to see a large striped tabby cat pulling at it with a furry paw.

“Sparkle,” Nick whispered. “Here, Sparkle.”

The cat lifted its head in response to the name. It seemed to be awaiting some further conversation. Nick bent to stroke it under the chin and saw the legs of a man in striped slacks and golf shoes. His eyes traveled upward to a broad firm chest and the familiar beetle-browed face above. It was Mike Pirrone, and he wasn’t smiling. In his hand he held a snub-nosed revolver pointed at Nick’s face.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Mr. Velvet?”

The house was fit for a don, or possibly a king, with a huge beamed living room that looked out over the lake. The furniture was expensive and tasteful, and Pirrone’s blonde wife fitted the setting perfectly. She was much younger than her husband, but seeing them together one quickly forgot the difference in ages. Pirrone was approaching 50 gracefully, with a hint of youth that occasionally broke through the dignified menace of his stony face.

“He’s the fisherman I told you about,” Mrs. Pirrone said as they entered. Her eyes darted from Nick to her husband.

“Yes,” Pirrone said softly. “It seems he was washed up on our shore, and I recognized him. His name is Nick Velvet.”

“The famous thief?”

“None other.”

Nick smiled. He still held the fish at the end of a line in one hand. “You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

“We met. A long time ago at a political dinner. I never forget a face, Velvet. It costs money to forget faces. Sometimes it costs lives. I’m Mike Pirrone, as you certainly know. This is my wife, Frieda, and my lawyer, Harry Beaman.”

The white-haired man nodded in acknowledgment and Nick said deliberately, “I thought he was your dog trainer.”

Mike Pirrone laughed softly and Beaman flushed. “He does have a way with the dogs,” Pirrone said. “He’s trained them well. But they only guard the place. I’m a cat fancier myself.” As if to illustrate he bent and cupped his arms. Sparkle took a running leap and landed in them. “This cat goes everywhere I go.”

“Beautiful animal,” Nick murmured.

Pirrone continued to stroke the cat for a few moments, then put it down. “All right, Velvet,” he said briskly. “What do you want here?”

“Merely to use the phone. My boat sprang a leak.”

“You’re no fisherman,” Pirrone said, pronouncing the words like a final judgment.

“Here’s my fish,” Nick countered, holding it up; but the don was unimpressed.

“You scouted my place and you managed to get inside. What for?”

“Even a thief needs a vacation now and then.”

“You don’t take vacations, Velvet. I investigated you quite closely a few years back, when I almost hired you for a job. I know your habits and I know where you live. Who hired you, and why?”

“I didn’t even know this was your place till I met your wife this morning.”

“I heard you call my cat by name, out in the shed.”

Nick hesitated. Mike Pirrone was no fool. “Everybody knows Sparkle. You’re always photographed with him.”

“Her. Sparkle is a her.”

Harry Beaman cleared his throat. “What do you plan to do with him, Mike? If you try to hold him against his will it could be a serious legal matter. So far you’ve been within your rights to treat him as a trespasser, but that could change.”

Pirrone threw up his hands. “Lawyers! Things were simple in the old days—right, Velvet?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

A maid appeared with cocktails and Pirrone waved his hand. “You’re a guest here, Velvet. You arrived in time for the cocktail hour.” He took a glass himself and went off to an adjoining study to make some phone calls. Nick wondered what Pirrone had in mind for him.

Frieda Pirrone rose from the sofa and came to sit by him. “You should have told me you wanted to meet my husband. I could have arranged it much more easily. Are you really a thief?”

“I steal women’s hearts, among other things.”

Her eyes met his for just an instant. “It would take a brave man—or an idiot—to steal anything from Mike Pirrone.”

“I’m neither of those.” He watched Sparkle move slowly across the carpet, stalking some imaginary prey.

“Just what sort of thief are you?”

“Sometimes I’m a cat burglar.”

“Really? You mean one of those who climbs across rooftops?”

Before he could answer, Pirrone returned and handed his lawyer a sheaf of papers. “Business can be a bore at times, Velvet. I’m being a poor host.”

“Perfectly all right. Your drinks are very good.”

The dark-browed don nodded. “My chauffeur will be driving Harry to the train shortly. You’re free to leave with them.”

“Thank you.”

“But one word of advice. If anything turns up missing from this house—now or later—I’ll know just where to look. I’ll send somebody for you, Velvet, and it’ll be just like the old days. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good! Whoever paid you, tell them the deal is off.”

Nick nodded. He needed to be careful now. There would be no other chance to enter the Pirrone domain. Whatever the risk, he had to take Sparkle out of the house with him. He glanced at his watch. It was just after five. “Could I use your bathroom?”

Mike Pirrone nodded. “Go ahead. The maid will show you.” Then, as Nick started to follow her, the don called out, “Taking your fish with you? Now I’ve seen everything!”

The maid waved him into a large tiled bathroom and departed. Nick checked his watch again. He had perhaps three minutes before they would grow suspicious. Quickly he crossed to the door and opened it. As he’d hoped, Sparkle had followed the trail of the fish and was hovering in the hall. With a bit of coaxing Nick had her in hand. He only hoped Pirrone wouldn’t come looking for her right away.

Close up, Sparkle was a handsome feline, uniquely spotted and with a curious expression all her own. Perhaps that was why Pirrone liked her—because she was one of a kind. Nick held her firmly and injected a quick-acting sleeping drug. Sparkle gave one massive yawn and curled up on the floor. Then, working fast, he wrapped the disposable syringe in a tissue and put it in his pocket. He lifted Sparkle’s limp body and slipped it into the perforated plastic bag.

Carrying the cat in one hand, Nick opened the bathroom door again and glanced down the hall toward the living room. No one was in sight. He crossed the hall quickly, entering a spare bedroom which he hoped was the room he sought. From the road he’d observed the telephone line running up the hill to the house and he thought it reached the wall just outside this room. Opening the window he saw that he’d been correct. The phone wire was just above his head, about a foot beyond the window.

He removed two fishhooks from his pocket and attached one to each end of a length of nylon leader. Reaching up he looped the fishing leader over the telephone wire and left it dangling there while he lifted the plastic-bagged cat. The fishhooks snagged two of the perforations in the bag and held it dangling beneath the telephone wire.

Nick tested it for weight, drew a deep prayerful breath, then gave the bag a shove. It began to slide slowly down the phone line, across the wide side yard, and finally over the wall to the telephone pole by the road. Near the pole the bag came to a stop, but by carefully tugging on his end of the wire Nick was able to propel it over the last few feet.

He sighed and closed the window. The whole operation had taken him four minutes—one minute more than he’d planned. He went back to the living room, still carrying his fish, and saw at once that Pirrone and Frieda and the lawyer were waiting for him. A large man in a chauffeur’s uniform stood by the door.

Mike Pirrone smiled slightly and brought out the snub-nosed revolver once more. “I hope you’ll excuse the precaution, Velvet, but we don’t want you leaving with anything that doesn’t belong to you. Search him, Felix.”

Nick raised his arms and the chauffeur ran quick firm hands over his body. After a few seconds he yanked one hand away; it was bleeding. “Damn! What’s he got in there?”

“Fishhooks,” Nick answered with the trace of a smile. “I should have warned you.”

Felix cursed and finished the search. “He’s clean, Mr. Pirrone.”

“All right.” The don put away his gun. “You can go now, Velvet.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, and started to follow the chauffeur and Beaman to the car.

He was halfway down the front walk when he heard Pirrone ask his wife, “Where’s Sparkle?”

Nick kept walking steadily, glancing across the wall at the distant telephone pole and its hanging, plastic bag. “I think she went outside,” Frieda answered.

Suddenly Pirrone called, “Velvet! Hold it!”

Nick froze. The chauffeur, Felix, had turned toward the don, waiting for instructions. “What is it?” he asked as Pirrone came down the walk.

“That fish—let me have it. You could have hidden something small inside it. And if you didn’t it’ll make a nice supper for Sparkle.”

Nick handed it over with feigned reluctance, then climbed into the car with Beaman. On the drive into town the white-haired lawyer tried to smooth things over. “You have to understand Mike. He’s a real gentleman, with a heart of gold, but he lives in constant fear of rivals trying to take over what he’s spent his life building.”

“I assumed he had something to fear when I saw the gun,” Nick said, nodding.

Beaman went on, “Frieda doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like anything connected with his old life, but Mike has to be careful.”

“Of course.”

Beaman dropped him at the marina and went on to the station. Shortly after dark Nick drove back to the Pirrone estate, climbed the telephone pole outside the wall, and removed the perforated plastic bag from the overhead wire. The cat was still sleeping peacefully. From inside the wall Nick could hear one of the servants calling for Sparkle.

Paul Matalena was overjoyed. “Nick, I never thought you could do it!” He stroked the cat on his lap and listened to it purr. “How in hell did you manage it?”

“I have my methods, Paul.”

“Here’s the rest of your money. And my thanks.”

“You realize that Sparkle is a unique cat. She’s been photographed with Pirrone a hundred times, and could hardly be mistaken for anyone else’s pet. When people see it they’ll know it’s Pirrone’s.”

“That’s exactly the idea, Nick.”

“If you’re planning to hold Sparkle for ransom you’re playing with dynamite.”

“It’s nothing like that. In fact, I only want the cat for a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Then you can have her back. If Pirrone recovers his pet within a day, the whole thing shouldn’t upset him too much.”

“You mean you only want Sparkle for one day?”

“That’s right, Nick.” Matalena went to the phone and started making calls. The hour was late, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Sparkle watched for a time, then ran over to Nick and rubbed against his leg. Suddenly, listening to Paul’s words on the telephone, Nick knew why his old schoolmate was willing to pay $20,000 to have Sparkle for one day. He looked at Paul Matalena and chuckled.

“What’s so funny, Nick?”

“Paul, you always were something of a phony, even back in school.”

“What?”

Nick got to his feet and headed for the door. “Good luck to you.”

The following evening, as Nick sat on his front porch drinking a beer, Gloria called to him. “Telephone for you, Nicky.”

He went in, setting down his beer on the table near the phone. She grabbed it up at once and wiped away the damp ring. Grinning, he said, “You’re acting more like a wife every day.”

The voice on the phone was soft and feminine. “Nick Velvet?”

“Yes.”

“This is Frieda Pirrone. My husband is on his way to kill you. He thinks that somehow you stole Sparkle.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“I don’t want him to go back to killing, back to the way it used to be.”

“Neither do I,” Nick said. He hung up and turned to Gloria.

“Trouble, Nicky?”

“Just a little business problem.” He bit his lip and pondered. “Look, Gloria, I’ve got a man coming over to see me. Why don’t you go to a movie or something?”

“That was no man on the phone, Nicky.”

“Come on,” he grinned. “Ask no questions and I’ll buy you that little foreign sports car you’ve been wanting.”

“Will you, Nicky? You really mean it?”

“Sure I mean it.”

When she’d gone he turned out all the lights in the house and sat down to wait. Just before ten o’clock a big black limousine pulled up and parked across the street. Nick had always considered his home to be forbidden territory, away from the dangers of his career; but this time it was different. Two men left the car and crossed the street to his house. One was the chauffeur, Felix. The other was a burly hood Nick didn’t recognize. Mike Pirrone would be waiting in the car.

As they reached the porch Nick opened the door. Felix’s hand dived into his pocket and the hood grabbed Nick, who didn’t resist when they forced him back into the house. “I want to see Pirrone,” Nick said.

“You’ll see him.” While the hood pinioned Nick, Felix went to the door and signaled across the street. Mike Pirrone left the car and came slowly up the walk, studying the house and the tree-lined street.

“Nice little place you have here, Velvet.”

“Good to see you again so soon.”

“Did you think you wouldn’t?” He stepped close to Nick. “Did you think I’d let you get away with Sparkle?”

“No. Not really.”

“Where is she?”

“Right here—I’ll get her.”

“No tricks.” Pirrone had drawn his gun again, and this time he looked as if he meant to use it.

“No tricks,” Nick agreed. He stepped into the kitchen with Felix at his side and called, “Sparkle!”

The big striped tabby came running at the sound of her name, rubbed briefly against Nick’s leg, then bounded into Pirrone’s waiting arms. He put away the gun and stroked her fur while he carefully examined her.

“All right,” he said quietly. “Sparkle is all right, so I’ll let you live. But Felix and Vic here are going to teach you a little lesson about stealing from me.”

“Wait!” Nick said, holding up his hand. “Can’t we talk this over?”

“There’s no need for talk. You were warned, Velvet.”

“At least let me tell you a story first. It’s about the man who hired me to steal Sparkle.”

“Tell me. We’ll want to pay him a visit, too.”

Nick started to talk fast. “You might almost call this a detective story in reverse. Instead of discovering a guilty person, I found one who’s innocent.”

“What are you talking about, Velvet?” Pirrone’s patience was wearing thin.

“The man who hired me, who shall be nameless, runs a highly profitable business in New York City. He was able to establish the business, and maintain it profitably for years, mainly by convincing both his customers and his competitors that he is an important member of the Mafia.”

Mike Pirrone frowned. “You mean he isn’t one?”

“Exactly,” Nick said. “He is not a member of the Mafia, never has been. He’s a simple hard-working guy who took advantage of his Italian name and the fact that many people are willing to believe that any Italian in business must be in the Mob. By fostering the idea that he had important Syndicate connections, he got a lot of business from people who were afraid to go elsewhere.

“But recently some of his customers began to have doubts. The word started circulating that he wasn’t a big Mafia man at all. Faced with the loss of his best customers he decided to call a meeting to keep them in line. Ideally, he would have liked someone like Mike Pirrone with him at the meeting. But since he didn’t even know Mike Pirrone he settled for the next best thing—Mike Pirrone’s cat.”

“What?” Pirrone’s mouth hung open. “You mean he had the cat stolen so he could con people into thinking he was a friend of mine?”

Nick Velvet smiled. “That’s right. It was worth my fee of $20,000 to keep his customers in line. He showed up at the meeting today with Sparkle in his arms. Naturally, in an audience like that, all of them knew the cat by sight—and they knew that Mike Pirrone couldn’t be far away. It convinced them.”

“Didn’t he think I’d hear about something like that?”

“Possibly. But by that time you’d have Sparkle back safe and sound, and you’d probably be reluctant to admit the theft to anyone.”

“Tell me this guy’s name.”

“So you can beat him up or kill him? Where’s your sense of humor? You have Sparkle back and the man has his customers back. No one’s been harmed, and there’s a certain humor in the situation. At a time when the Mafia is taking great pains to deny its existence, here is someone cashing in on the false story that he belongs to the Mafia. In fact, it was his open talking about it that made me suspicious in the first place. The real dons don’t brag about it.”

Felix shifted position. “What should I do, Mr. Pirrone?”

Pirrone studied Nick for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Let him go, Felix. You’ve got one hell of a nerve, Velvet—you and the guy who hired you.” He started out of the house, but then paused by the door. “How did you do it? How did you get Sparkle out of my house?”

“Sorry. That’s a trade secret. But I’ll give you a tip about something else.”

“What sort of tip?”

“Your watchdogs have been well trained by Harry Beaman.”

Pirrone shrugged. “He likes them, I guess.”

“He called them off me, and he could call them off his friends, too, if they happened to come visiting you late some night.”

“I trust Harry,” Pirrone said quickly, but his eyes were thoughtful.

“Think it over. You might live a few years longer.”

Pirrone took a step forward and shook Nick’s hand. “You’ve got a brain, Velvet. I could use someone like you in the organization.”

Nick smiled and shook his head. “Organizations aren’t for me. But remember me if you ever need anything stolen. Something odd or unusual”—Nick grinned—“or valueless.”

The Theft from the Empty Room

NICK VELVET SAT STIFFLY on the straight-backed hospital chair, facing the man in the bed opposite him. He had to admit that Roger Surman looked sick, with sunken cheeks and eyes, and a sallow complexion that gave him the appearance of a beached and blotchy whale. He was a huge man who had trouble getting around even in the best of condition. Now, laid low with a serious liver complaint, Nick wondered if he’d ever be able to leave the bed.

“They’re going to cut through this blubber in the morning,” he told Nick. “I’ve got a bet with the doctor that they don’t have a scalpel long enough to even reach my liver.” He chuckled to himself and then seemed about to drift into sleep.

“You wanted to see me,” Nick said hastily, trying to focus the sick man’s attention.

“That’s right. Wanted to see you. Always told you if I needed a job done I’d call on you.” He tried to lift his head. “Is the nurse around?”

“No. We’re alone.”

“Good. Now, you charge twenty thousand—that right?”

Nick nodded. “But only for unusual thefts. No money, jewels, art treasures—nothing like that.”

“Believe me, this is nothing like that. I’d guess it’s one of the most unusual jobs you’ve ever had.”

“What do you want stolen?” Nick asked as the man’s head bobbed again.

“First let me tell you where it is. You know my brother Vincent?”

“The importer? I’ve heard of him.”

“It’s at his country home. The place is closed now for the winter, so you won’t have any trouble with guards or guests. There are a few window alarms, but nothing fancy.”

“You want, me to steal something from your brother?”

“Exactly. You’ll find it in a storeroom around the back of the house. It adjoins the kitchen, but has its own outside door. Steal what you find in the storeroom and I’ll pay you twenty thousand.”

“Seems simple enough,” Nick said. “Just what will I find there?”

The sick eyes seemed to twinkle for an instant. “Something only you could steal for me, Velvet. I was out there myself a few days ago, but the burglar alarms were too much for me. With all this fat to cart around, and feeling as bad as I did, I couldn’t get in. I knew I had to hire a professional, so I thought of you at once. What I want you to steal is—”

The nurse bustled in and interrupted him. “Now, now, Mr. Surman, we mustn’t tire ourselves! The operation is at seven in the morning.” She turned to Nick. “You must go now.”

“Velvet,” Roger Surman called. “Wait. Here’s a picture of the rear of the house. It’s this doorway, at the end of the driveway. Look it over and then I’ll tell you—”

Nick slipped the photo into his pocket. The nurse was firmly urging him out and there was no chance for further conversation without being overheard. Nick sighed and left the room. The assignment sounded easy enough, although he didn’t yet know what he’d been hired to steal.

In the morning Nick drove out to the country home of Vincent Surman. It was a gloomy November day—more a day for a funeral than an operation—and he wondered how Surman was progressing in surgery. Nick had known him off and on for ten years, mainly through the yacht club where Nick and Gloria often sailed in the summer months. Surman was wealthy, fat, and lonely. His wife had long ago divorced him and gone off to the West Indies with a slim handsome Jamaican, leaving Surman with little in life except his trucking business and his passion for food and drink.

Surman’s brother, Vincent, was the glamorous member of the family, maintaining a twelve-room city house in addition to the country home. His wife Simone was the answer to every bachelor’s dream, and his importing business provided enough income to keep her constantly one of New York’s best-dressed women. In every way Vincent was the celebrity success, while Roger was the plodding fat boy grown old and lonely. Still, Roger’s trucking business could not be dismissed lightly—not when his blue-and-white trucks could be seen on nearly every expressway.

Nick parked just off the highway and walked up the long curving driveway to Vincent Surman’s country home. The place seemed closed and deserted, as Roger had said, but when Nick neared it he could see the wired windows and doors. The alarm system appeared to be functioning, though it wouldn’t stop him for long.

Following Roger’s directions and referring to the marked photograph, he walked along the driveway to where it ended at the rear of the house. There, next to the kitchen door, was the storeroom door that Surman had indicated. Both the door and the single window were locked, but at the moment Nick was mainly anxious to see what the room contained—what he’d been hired to steal for $20,000.

He looked in the window and saw a room about 20 feet long and 14 feet wide, with an inside door leading to the kitchen.

The room, with its painted red walls and white ceiling and wooden floor, was empty. Completely empty.

There was nothing in it for Nick Velvet to steal.

Nick drove to a pay telephone a mile down the road and phoned the hospital. They could tell him only that Roger Surman was in the recovery room following his operation and certainly could not talk to anyone or receive visitors for the rest of the day.

Nick sighed and hung up. He stood for a moment biting his lower lip, then walked back to the car. For the present there was no talking to Surman for a clue to the puzzle. Nick would have to work it out himself.

He drove back to the country home and parked. As he saw it, there were only two possibilities: either the object to be stolen had been removed since Roger saw it a few days earlier, or it was still there. If it had been removed, Nick must locate it. If it was still in the room, there was only one place it could be—on the same wall as the single window and therefore out of his line of vision from the outside.

Working carefully, Nick managed to bypass the alarm system and open the storeroom door. He stood just inside, letting his eyes glide across every inch of the room’s walls and floor and ceiling. The wall with the window was as blank as the others. There were not even any nail holes to indicate that a picture might have once hung there.

And as Nick’s eyes traveled across the room he realized something else: nothing, and no one, had been in this room for at least several weeks—a layer of dust covered the floor from wall to wall, and the dust was undisturbed. Not a mark, not a footprint. Nothing.

And yet Surman had told Nick he was there only a few days ago, trying to enter the room and steal something he knew to be in it—something he obviously was able to see through the window.

But what was it?

“Please raise your hands,” a voice said suddenly from behind him. “I have a gun.”

Nick turned slowly in the doorway, raising his hands above his head. He faced a short dark-haired girl in riding costume and boots, who held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at his stomach. He cursed himself for not having heard her approach. “Put that thing away,” he said harshly, indignation in his voice. “I’m no thief.”

But the shotgun stayed where it was. “You could have fooled me,” she drawled, her voice reflecting a mixture of southern and eastern origins. “Suppose you identify yourself.”

“I’m a real-estate salesman. Nicholas Realty—here’s my card.”

“Careful with the hands!”

“But I told you—I’m not a thief.”

She sighed and lowered the shotgun. “All right, but no tricks.”

He handed her one of the business cards he carried for just such emergencies. “Are you the owner of this property, Miss?”

She tucked the card into the waistband of her riding pants. “It’s Mrs., and my husband is the owner. I’m Simone Surman.”

He allowed himself to relax a bit as she stowed the shotgun in the crook of her arm, pointed away from him. “Of course! I should have recognized you from the pictures in the paper. You’re always on the best-dressed list.”

“We’re talking about you, Mr. Nicholas, not me. I find you here by an open door that should be locked, and you tell me you’re a realtor. Do they always carry lock picks these days?”

He chuckled, turning on his best salesman’s charms. “Hardly, Mrs. Surman. A client expressed interest in your place, so I drove out to look it over. I found the door open, just like this, but you can see I only took a step inside.”

“That’s still trespassing.”

“Then I apologize. If I’d known you were in the neighborhood I certainly would have contacted you first. My understanding was that the house had been closed down for the winter.”

“That’s correct. I was riding by, on my way to the stables, and saw your car on the highway. I decided to investigate.”

“You always carry a shotgun?”

“It was in the car—part of my husband’s hunting equipment.”

“You handle it well.”

“I can use it.” She gestured toward the house. “As long as you’re here, would you like to see the inside?”

“Very much. I gather this room is for storage?”

She glanced in at the empty room. “Yes. It hasn’t been used in some time. I wonder why the door was open and unlocked.” She looked at the alarm wires, but didn’t seem to realize they’d been tampered with. “Come around to the front.”

The house was indeed something to see, fully furnished and in a Colonial style that included a huge brick oven in the kitchen. Nick took it all in, making appropriate real-estate comments, and they finally ended up back at the door to the storeroom.

“What used to be in here?” Nick asked. “Odd that it’s empty when the rest of the house is so completely furnished.”

“Oh, wood for the kitchen stove, supplies, things like that. I told you it hadn’t been used in some time.”

Nick nodded and made a note on his pad. “Am I to understand that the house would be for sale, if the price was right?”

“I’m sure Vincent wouldn’t consider anything under a hundred thousand. There’s a great deal of land that goes with the house.”

They talked some more, and Simone Surman walked Nick back to his car. He promised to call her husband with an offer in a few days. As he drove away he could see her watching him. He had no doubt that she believed his story, but he also knew she’d have the alarm repaired by the following day.

The news at the hospital was not good. Roger Surman had suffered post-operative complications, and it might be days before he was allowed visitors. Nick left the place in a state of mild depression, with visions of his fee blowing away like an autumn leaf.

He had never before been confronted with just such a problem. Hired to steal something unnamed from a room that proved to be completely empty, he had no way of getting back to his client for further information. If he waited till Roger was out of danger and able to talk again, he would probably jeopardize the entire job, because Vincent Surman and his wife would grow increasingly suspicious when no real estate offer was forthcoming during the next few days.

Perhaps, Nick decided, he should visit Roger Surman’s home. He might find some clue there as to what the fat man wanted him to steal. He drove out along the river for several miles, until he reached a small but obviously expensive ranch home where Roger had lived alone for the past several years.

Starting with the garage, he easily opened the lock with his tool kit. The car inside was a late-model limousine with only a few thousand miles on it. Nick looked it over and then went to work on the trunk compartment. There was always the possibility, however remote, that Roger had succeeded in his own theft attempt, but for some reason had not told Nick the truth. But the trunk yielded only a spare tire, a jack, a half-empty sack of fertilizer, and a can of red paint. The spotless interior of the car held a week-old copy of The New York Times, a little hand vacuum cleaner for the upholstery, and an electronic device whose button, when pressed, opened or closed the automatic garage door. Unless Nick was willing to believe that the fertilizer had been the object of the theft, there was nothing in the car to help him.

He tried the house next, entering through the inside garage door, and found a neat kitchen with a study beyond. It was obvious that Roger Surman employed a housekeeper to clean the place—no bachelor on his own would have kept it so spotless. He went quickly through the papers in the desk but found nothing of value. A financial report on Surman Travelers showed that it had been a bad year for the trucking company. There were a number of insured losses, and Nick wondered if Roger might be getting back some of his lost income through false claims.

He dug further, seeking some mention of Roger’s brother, some hint of what the empty room might have contained. There were a few letters, a dinner invitation from Simone Surman, and finally a recent bill from a private detective agency in New York City. After another hour of searching, Nick concluded that the private detective was his only lead.

He drove down to Manhattan early the next morning, parking in one of the ramps off Sixth Avenue. The Altamont Agency was not Nick’s idea of a typical private eye’s office, with its sleek girl secretaries, chrome-trimmed desks, and wide tinted windows overlooking Rockefeller Center. But Felix Altamont fitted the setting. He was a slick, smooth-talking little man who met Nick in a cork-lined conference room because a client was waiting in his office.

“You must realize I’m a busy man, Mr. Velvet. I can only give you a few moments. Is it about a case?”

“It is. I believe you did some work for Roger Surman.”

Altamont nodded his balding head.

“What sort of work was it?”

The detective leaned back in his chair. “You know I can’t discuss a client’s case, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick glanced around at the expensive trappings. “Could you at least tell me what sort of cases you take? Divorce work doesn’t pay for this kind of layout.”

“Quite correct. As a matter of fact, we do not accept divorce cases. The Altamont Agency deals exclusively in industrial crimes—embezzlement, hijacking, industrial espionage, that sort of thing.”

Nick nodded. “Then the investigation you conducted for Roger Surman was in one of those fields.”

Felix Altamont looked pained. “I’m not free to answer that, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick cleared his throat, ready for his final bluff. “It so happens that I’m in Roger Surman’s employ myself. He hired me to try and clamp a lid on his large insurance losses. The company’s threatening to cancel his policy.”

“Then you know about the hijackings. Why come to me with your questions?”

“Certainly I know about the hijacking of Surman trucks, but with my employer in the hospital I thought you could fill me in on the details.”

“Surman’s hospitalized?”

“He’s recovering from a liver operation. Now let’s stop sparring and get down to business. What was hijacked from his trucks?”

Altamont resisted a few moments longer, then sighed and answered the question. “Various things. A shipment of machine tools one month, a load of textiles the next. The most recent hijacking was a consignment of tobacco leaves three weeks ago.”

“In the south?”

“No, up here. Shade-grown tobacco from Connecticut. No crop in the nation brings as high a price per acre. Very valuable stuff for hijackers.”

Nick nodded. “Why did you drop the investigation?”

“Who said I dropped it?”

“If you’d been successful, Surman wouldn’t need me.”

The private detective was silent for a moment, then said, “I told you we don’t touch divorce cases.”

Nick frowned, then brightened immediately. “His sister-in-law, Simone.”

“Exactly. Roger Surman seems intent on pinning the hijackings on his brother, apparently for the sole purpose of causing a divorce. He’s a lonely man, Mr. Velvet. He’ll give you nothing but trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Nick said. “Thanks for the information.”

When Nick arrived at the hospital late that afternoon he was intercepted by a brawny thick-haired man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Roger Surman.

“You’re Velvet, aren’t you?” the man challenged.

“Correct. And you must be Vincent Surman.”

“I am. You’re working for my brother.”

“News travels fast.”

“You were at my country house yesterday, snooping around. My wife caught you at it. This morning you were in New York, talking to that detective my brother hired.”

“So Altamont’s on your side now.”

“Everyone’s on my side if I pay them enough. I retain the Altamont Agency to do periodic security checks for my importing company. Naturally he phoned me after you left his office. His description of you matched the one Simone had already given me.”

“I hope it was flattering.”

“I’m not joking, Velvet. My brother is a sick man, mentally as well as physically. Anything you undertake in his behalf could well land you in jail.”

“That’s true,” Nick agreed with a smile.

“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

“My work for him is just about finished. As soon as he’s well enough to have visitors I’ll be collecting my fee.”

“And just what was your work?”

“It’s a confidential matter.”

Vincent Surman tightened his lips, studying Nick. “Very well,” he said, and walked on to the door,

Nick watched him head for the hospital parking lot. Then he went up to the information desk and asked for the doctor in charge of Roger Surman’s case. The, doctor, a bustling young man whose white coat trailed behind him, appeared ten minutes later, and his news was encouraging.

“Mr. Surman had a good night. He’s past the worst of it now. I think you’ll be able to see him for a few minutes tomorrow.”

Nick left the hospital and went back to his car. It was working out just fine now—the money was as good as in the bank. He drove out the country road to Vincent Surman’s place, and this time he took the car into the driveway, around back, and out of sight from the road.

Working quickly and quietly, Nick bypassed the alarm and opened the storeroom door once more. This time he knew what he was after. On his way to the hospital he’d stopped to pick up the can of red paint from the trunk of Roger’s car. He had it with him now, as he stepped across the threshold into the empty room. He stood for a moment staring at the red walls, and then got to work.

It had occurred to him during the drive back from New York that there might be a connection between the can of red paint in Roger Surman’s trunk and the red walls of the empty room. Roger had driven the car to the country house a few days before his operation to attempt the robbery himself. If the paint on the walls had been Roger’s target—the paint itself—he could have replaced stolen paint with fresh red paint from the can.

Nick had stolen strange things in his time, and taking the paint from the walls of a room struck him as only a little unusual. The paint could cover any number of valuable things. He’d read once of a room that had been papered with hundred-dollar bills from a bank holdup, then carefully covered over with wallpaper. Perhaps something like that had been done here, and then a final layer of red paint applied.

He got to work carefully scraping the paint, anxious to see what was underneath; but almost at once he was disappointed. There was no wallpaper under the paint—nothing but plaster showed through.

He paused to consider, then turned to the paint can he’d brought along. Prying off the lid, he saw his mistake at once. The red in the can was much brighter than the red on the walls—it was an entirely different shade. He inspected the can more closely and saw that it was marine paint—obviously destined for Roger Surman’s boat. Its presence in Roger’s trunk had been merely an annoying coincidence.

Before Nick had time to curse his bad luck he heard a car on the driveway. He left the room, closing the door behind him, and had almost reached his own car when two men appeared around the corner of the house. The nearer of the two held a snub-nosed revolver pointed at Nick’s chest.

“Hold it right there, mister! You’re coming with us.”

Nick sighed and raised his hands. He could tell by their hard icy eyes that they couldn’t be talked out of it as easily as Simone Surman had been. “All right,” he said. “Where to?”

“Into our car. Vincent Surman has a few more questions for you.”

Prodded by the gun, Nick offered no resistance. He climbed into the back seat with one of the men beside him, but the car continued to sit there. Presently the second man returned from the house. “He’s on his way over. Says to keep him here.”

They waited another twenty minutes in silence, until at last Surman’s car turned into the driveway. Simone was with him, bundled in a fur coat against the chill of the autumn afternoon.

“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 unique, 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.”

“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.

Before the door had fully closed behind him, he was unzipping the clown’s costume and stepping out of it. Beneath it, he wore a tight-fitting devil’s suit in vivid red, complete with a tail that had fitted down the pants-leg of the clown outfit. From a pouch secured under his left arm he withdrew a rubber devil’s mask that fitted over his entire head, red gloves and a small pistol.

He slipped the mask over his head, careful to smudge the clown makeup no more than necessary. Then he slid a silencer onto the gun barrel. He didn’t really need it, but it made the small weapon seem bulkier. He opened the window and stuffed the clown suit into the waste basket next to it. The whole operation had taken just under two minutes.

Then he was out of the room and up the stairs. He came out near the raised platform and was onto it before anyone even noticed. Prince Baudlay turned in his seat to smile, and Nick Velvet brought the gun up from his thigh.

“Stay right there,” he said.

A woman nearby screamed, but no one else seemed to notice. He swung the pistol against the protective glass bell and felt it crack. Another blow and it shattered perfectly around the crystal crown.

Prince Baudlay was out of his chair now, hurling himself at Nick Velvet. He grabbed onto a red-clad leg and the tail, but Velvet brushed him away with a glancing blow from the barrel of the gun. The others had seen it now, and a growing wave of panic swept backward through the throng of dancers. Somebody pushed a button, and the wail of a siren added to the screams.

But Nick Velvet had the crown in his hand. He dove for a window, hoping it was the right one. Someone grabbed again at his costume, and he felt the tail rip away. But he was free and through the window. He hit the ground on the run, still clutching the glass crown in his left hand.

There was just one guard, too near to outrun. Nick Velvet shot him in the fleshy part of the leg.

Then he was around the corner and back through the basement window of the men’s room. This was the dangerous part, and if there had been someone else in there, he would have had to use the gun again. But he’d guessed correctly that the screams from the upper floor had brought everyone running. In an instant he had the clown suit out of the basket and was zipping it up.

The mask and gun and gloves went into the tank of one of the toilets, with the crystal crown placed gently within the protective rubber devil’s face. He closed the window, touched up his makeup, and headed upstairs. His body could now pass a hand frisking, and he doubted if the police would have reason to go about unzipping costumes. He glanced at his watch—six minutes and twenty seconds. A bit longer than he’d planned, but he was satisfied.

In the ballroom all was bedlam, and no one had noticed his absence. He told Vera he’d been almost back to her when the thief appeared, and she had no reason to doubt him. Women were still fainting from the near-panic of the crush, and from outside came the chatter of occasional gunfire. Nick Velvet smiled and hugged Vera protectively.

Almost immediately, the island kingdom had become a fortress. American-made jeeps crisscrossed the highways, with grim-faced men seated at the ready behind fifty-caliber machine guns. Nick Velvet dropped Vera Smith-Blue at her place, and then drove to his own room to change into his street clothes. There was still the problem of transporting the crown from the summer palace to the Corfu ferry, and he was beginning to think it would not be an easy job.

He waited till daybreak to drive back to the palace, wanting the crown in his possession no longer than necessary. The police and government guards still seemed at a complete loss to explain the vanished thief, but their search had not yet turned inward toward the palace itself.

The man in the devil suit had been seen to leave, had actually wounded a guard, so there was no reason to suspect that he had returned. Two innocent guests in devil costumes had been questioned through the night, but finally released. Both had been in plain sight of witnesses during the holdup.

Continuing his pose as a reporter and writer, Nick Velvet talked to several of the guards and inspected the ballroom once more. One guard accompanied him at all times, but it was not difficult to stop in the men’s room on the way out. He left the mask and gun and gloves where they were, but the crystal crown went out on his head, resting lightly beneath the soft felt of his hat.

At five minutes to noon, Nick Velvet stood on the dock watching the ferry from Corfu drift slowly but accurately into its slip. He still felt the weight of the crown beneath his hat, but now the tension was gone. In a few more minutes the thing would be delivered and he would be out of New Ionia for good. He’d decided that princes and masked balls and fairy tales were not for him.

“Stop him!” somebody shouted. He turned and saw two army trucks pulling up at the end of the dock. Soldiers, and police—and Vera Smith-Blue was with them!

Nick Velvet watched the ferry drawing closer. Ten feet, nine, eight. He could wait only a second longer. Gripping the crown and his hat, he ran a few paces and launched himself at the narrowing gap. He made the ramp of the ferry boat with a foot to spare, and kept going. People stared and someone shouted, but he didn’t look back.

“Velvet!” It was Vonderberg, waiting in the shadow of a stairway.

“All right,” Nick told him. “Here it is.”

“And you’ve brought the entire New Ionian army with you!”

“You said we’d be safe on the boat,” Nick Velvet said.

The girl and the police had paused at the ramp, and there was much conversation taking place. Finally the ferry’s captain waved his arms in despair, and the pursuers came aboard.

“That one,” Vera said, pointing. “His name is Nick Velvet. And the one with the monocle is Vonderberg.”

“You are on Greek territory,” Vonderberg said, holding the crown Nick had given him.

“We have Greek officials with us,” Vera Smith-Blue said firmly. “This is no longer a New Ionian matter. Our king was assassinated in an Athens hospital this morning. Two Communist agents have been arrested.”

It was then that Vonderberg moved, when he realized that the ferry was no haven for him after all. He put down the crown and stepped back, revealing a gun as if by magic.

“Stay there, all of you!” he shouted.

“You can’t kill us all,” a uniformed guard said, moving closer.

“No, but Miss Smith-Blue will get my first bullet.”

There were a number of things Nick Velvet could have done. He considered three of them in the instant before he acted.

Then he scooped up the crystal crown and hurled it at Vonderberg’s face.

The monocled man fired as the crown shattered against him, but his shot was wild. Two officers brought their guns up before he could aim again, and Vonderberg toppled backward as the bullets staggered him like unseen fists.

“That one too!” an officer shouted, pointing his gun at Nick Velvet.

Velvet smiled and put up his hands. “Miss Smith-Blue, I just saved your life. Won’t you return the favor?”

She walked up to him, waving away the guns. Someone had gone to tend to Vonderberg, but his blood was spreading too fast over the ferry’s deck.

“Yes,” she answered, “I’ll save your life—so you can rot in a New Ionian jail for the next twenty years.”

“I don’t think so.” He dropped his voice so only she could hear. “You’re going to get me out of this, lady, or I’ll tell them all it was you who paid to have the crown stolen. And you must know very well I can prove it, too.”

Vera Smith-Blue’s face had gone white with his words, and that was all the assurance he needed that his guess was correct. He led her a bit away from the watching men, and offered her a cigarette.

“Did Vonderberg tell you?” she asked.

“I could say that he did, but it was really most a guess. You knew where to find me this morning, and you knew I was the thief. You also knew Vonderberg’s name. That got me to thinking just now. I remembered thinking the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and I was right. You thought it would be a great idea, didn’t you? The theft of a crystal crown during a masked ball at the New Ionian summer palace. It would have made every paper in the world, and would have brought tourists flocking, just to see what this place was all about.”

“It still will bring them flocking,” she said.

“I suppose it will. I thought you were awfully cooperative about showing me the palace, and getting me an invitation. Of course that’s why Vonderberg told me to contact you, so you could help ease the way for me. Was the prince in on it, too?”

“Of course not! It was all my idea. I own property here. The island means something to me.”

“But you made the mistake of hiring a Communist named Vonderberg to arrange matters. He had other ideas. New Ionia would make a nice Red base off Greece, and if King Felix were assassinated when the crown was stolen, a real pretender to the throne could appear after all.”

“I never thought he’d do a thing like that. I had no idea he was in with the Reds! But when I heard of the assassination this morning, I realized what a fool I’d been, playing into their hands.”

She met his eyes. “I thought you were one, too.”

“No,” he answered. “Only a simple thief.”

“What do you want, to keep silent?”

“My freedom. And the money Vonderberg promised me. I imagine it’s in his pocket.”

“And if I say no? Would anyone believe you now that Vonderberg’s dead?”

“I think so. You showed no emotion just now when the crown was smashed. You say that Prince Baudlay knew nothing of the plot, but I’ll bet if someone examined that glass they’d find it of recent make. You wouldn’t take a chance on the real crown being damaged in the robbery. You’d have arranged for the substitution of a false one. So somebody in the palace knew about it.”

“You guess very well, Nick Velvet.”

“It helps me stay alive. I’m no detective, only a good guesser when I have to be.”

She turned away, sighed, and then turned back.

“Take this ferry back to Corfu,” she told him finally. “I’ll see that you aren’t bothered.”

“And the money?”

“You devil.”

“Exactly,” he said, and waited while she got the envelope from the dead man’s pocket.

“Come back some time. As a tourist.”

Nick Velvet smiled at her and turned away, looking off across the sea toward Corfu. “I don’t think I could afford the rates.”

The Theft of the Circus Poster

NICK VELVET HAD BEEN home for weeks, in a state of brooding inactivity, when the summons came. It was from a man in Brooklyn whom Nick had once helped, and his voice was raspingly familiar on the phone.

“It’s for a friend of mine in Miami,” the man told him. “If you can fly down there tonight he’ll meet you at the airport.”

Nick hesitated only a moment. “I’ll be there. What’s his name?”

“He’ll be using the name of Mason.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“He’ll recognize you.”

Nick went upstairs to the fancy yellow bedroom and began to pack. After a while Gloria came in with two cans of beer. “You’re not going away again, Nicky?”

“I have to look over some new plant sites in Florida. Should be back by the end of the week.”

She leaned against the door frame, her long hair tumbling over the softness of her face. “I was hoping we could go sailing now that the weather’s warm.”

“We’ll go as soon as I get back,” he promised. “I won’t be long, really. I have to make some money for us, don’t I?”

“Sure, Nicky. Send me a postcard, will you? Something pretty, with an orange grove on it.”

He kissed her lightly on the lips and went downstairs with his suitcase.

The flight down the Atlantic coast was smooth and uneventful, and the skyline of Miami was much as he remembered it from his last visit during the 1972 political conventions. That time he’d stolen something for the staff of an unsuccessful presidential candidate, and he liked to think his action may have altered the course of the convention.

This trip started out in a much more prosaic manner. He was met at the airport by a beefy-cheeked man in a rumpled summer suit who ushered him into a waiting car. “Mr. Mason is sorry he couldn’t meet you in person,” the man said.

“Are we going to his home?”

“A hotel room. He conducts all his business in hotel rooms.”

“I see.”

The man, who said his name was Jimmy, spoke little until they reached their destination, a third-rate hotel north of the city and near the Hialeah racetrack. “Room 26,” Jimmy said. “I’ll wait out here for you.”

Nick found the door to Room 26 slightly ajar and pushed it open. He was utterly unprepared for the sight that greeted him—a man in garish clown’s makeup and wearing an old tuxedo sat in a chair facing the door.

“You’re Nick Velvet? Come in, come in!” The voice was obviously disguised.

“Mr. Mason?” Nick asked, stepping forward uncertainly. He could see nothing of the man’s face beneath the heavy layers of makeup. The skin was dead-white, with big red lips, red spots on each cheek, and a red rubber ball for a nose.

“Mason is the name I use. You’ll forgive the clown makeup, but I find it necessary at times to conceal my appearance and identity. I was told by a friend in Brooklyn that you’re an expert thief who specializes in the unusual.”

“I steal anything without value—never money or jewels. My fee is $20,000—in cash.” Nick’s eyes roamed the hotel room, searching for some clue to the man’s identity. All he saw was a briefcase pushed half under the bed. He thought the initials on it were JKS.

“Could you steal a circus poster?” the clown asked.

“Certainly.”

“It’s part of a collection owned by a retired old clown named Herbie Benson. He lives near Miami. I’ll give you the address.”

“Why is it worth so much to you? Is the poster a collector’s item?”

“Be curious on someone else’s time, Velvet.” The harsh words seemed, somehow incongruous with the grinning clown’s face. “Here’s a down payment, along with Herbie Benson’s address and a description of the poster I want. How long will it take you?”

“Seems fairly simple,” Nick replied. “This is Monday. Let’s say Thursday night, or sooner. I’ll come here with the poster.”

“Fine.”

Nick shook the man’s gloved hand and left the room. Jimmy, the driver, was lounging by his car, and Nick gave him the address of a moderately priced hotel on Biscayne Bay. Heading downtown, he opened the envelope and counted ten hundred-dollar bills inside. Then he put Benson’s address in his wallet and read over the description of the circus poster he’d been hired to steal:

Great National Circus Poster of the 1916 season, with five acrobats at top, rhinoceros and clowns at bottom.

Nick put it back in the envelope with the money. At the hotel entrance he thanked Jimmy for the ride and checked into a room overlooking the bay. There were hotel postcards in the drawer, and he mailed one to Gloria.

The town of Snake Creek was north of Miami, along a canal that ran inland from North Miami Beach to the edge of the Everglades. It was a rural area, barely touched by the spreading suburbs of the city proper, and as Nick drove his rented car down the main street he might have been in any part of the South, far removed from the luxury hotels of Miami Beach.

Herbie Benson seemed much like the other retired residents of Snake Creek, and at first glance there seemed nothing about his sagging face and dull eyes to suggest a former circus clown. He lived in a small white house with peeling paint and steps worn to the bare wood by the passage of feet. He was a little man, aging like his house, and his weak eyes focused on Nick with difficulty.

“Do I know you?” he asked, standing at the front door behind the protection of the screen, a few strands of thin white hair drifting over his forehead.

“My name is Nicholas. I understand you were once a circus clown.”

The old eyes sparkled for an instant behind their thick glasses. “That was long ago. Nobody’s interested in old clowns any more.”

“I’m interested,” Nick said. “May I come in?”

“You’re not going to rob me, are you? Person can’t be too careful these days.”

Nick chuckled. “Do I look like a thief?”

The man studied him. “No, I guess not.” He unlatched the screen door. “Come on in.”

The little house was surprisingly cool after the warmth of the street. Furnished in a worn drabness that seemed to reflect the years of Herbie Benson’s life, it was still a place for pleasant relaxing.

Nick suddenly realized they were not alone in the house. There was a noise from the kitchen and a young tawny-haired woman appeared carrying a glass of fruit juice. “This is my granddaughter, Judy,” the old man said, wiping his old-fashioned spectacles with a soiled handkerchief.

Nick nodded and introduced himself. “Nicholas is my name. I have an interest in circus lore, mainly as a hobby. I couldn’t pass through town without stopping to see Mr. Benson.”

“He lives here alone,” she answered bluntly. “He shouldn’t be opening his door to strangers.” He guessed her age at about 23, and she wore the cool unsmiling expression one saw on so many other young faces these days.

“Now, Judy,” the old man started to protest.

“It’s true, Grandpa! What do you know about this man? If I weren’t here he could hit you over the head and steal everything in sight!”

“He looks honest, Judy.”

“I can assure you—” Nick began, but she waved him into silence. Her long tawny hair swirled as she turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Don’t mind her,” Herbie Benson said. “She just grows tired of all the circus talk sometimes.”

Nick sat down, feeling more welcome. “This is a nice little town you have.”

“I like it. Close to Miami, and not too far from Winter Haven and Sarasota, where a lot of circus people spend the winter.”

“You still see your old circus friends?”

“I see the ones that are left. I joined the circus back during the First World War, when I shoulda been in school.” His old eyes clouded for an instant. “Most of the people I knew are dead now.”

“You were a clown that long ago?”

“No, no, not at first. Believe it or not, Mr. Nicholas, my first circus job was carrying water for the elephants, just like in all the old stories. But I was a clown before I was twenty, and I stayed a clown for nearly forty years, till my first heart attack. I was there. I saw it all. I started with the Great National Circus in their final years, and then switched to Barnum and Bailey.”

Judy Benson came back carrying another glass of fruit juice. “This is for you,” she told Nick. Then she sat down, still unsmiling.

“Thank you. Your grandfather was just telling me about his early circus days.”

She eyed Nick in silence and Herbie Benson continued, “I think those early days with Great National were the best of all. They had a really big spread, with acrobats and lions and even a Wild West show. Come in here, I’ll show you some of their posters.”

“Grandpa,” Judy cautioned, but the old man was already on his feet, leading Nick into the next room.

It had been a dining room at one time, but when Nick passed through the swinging door he saw that it was now given over completely to the memories and trophies of a lifetime. There were garish circus posters and framed programs dating back more than 50 years, along with dozens of photographs of a sad-faced clown with groups of children or greeting some celebrity or simply alone in a circus ring. A cluster of limp balloons bearing the words Herbie the Clown hung over a picture of two clowns inscribed Herbie and Willie.

But it was one of the circus posters that interested Nick. Yellowed with age and curling at the edges, there could be no doubt this was the poster he’d been hired to steal. Five stiff-bodied acrobats at the top flew through the air with awkward grace, with the one in the foreground sporting a Teddy Roosevelt mustache that made him seem the twin of the one high on a trapeze in the background. A slim banner beneath them read: The Flying Fantini Brothers.

In the lower portion of the poster a faded purple rhinoceros glowered out from a swampy setting of trees and ferns. “I never saw a purple rhino,” Nick said, recalling the famous verse by Gelett Burgess about a purple cow.

“These posters are real Americana,” the old man told him. “I’ve been offered a thousand dollars for my whole collection intact, but of course I would never sell.”

“How much would an individual poster be worth?”

“Alone? Not much—next to nothing, unless you came across some kind of a crank collector. They reprint these things too much nowadays. Who’d want to pay good money for an original when he could buy a reproduction at the local bookstore for a dollar or two?”

“You’ve got something there,” Nick admitted. He pointed to the 1916 poster. “This must have been early in your career.”

“The year before I joined Great National,” he answered with a trace of pride.

“You must have known a lot of clowns in your day.”

“All the big ones. Willie was a special friend.”

“Ever know one named Mason?” If a man wore clown makeup, it seemed logical to Nick that he might be a former clown.

“What circus was he with?”

“I don’t know. I could have the name wrong.” His eyes strayed back to the purple rhino and the clowns and the five acrobats. “You know, there’s something peculiar about that poster, but I don’t know what.”

“They’re funny-looking by today’s art standards, I guess, but I love every one of them.”

They chatted a while longer and then Nick rose to leave. Stealing the poster seemed so simple that he wondered why the mysterious Mr. Mason hadn’t simply hired the first crook he could find and pay him $50 to do the job. Herbie walked him to the porch and they shook hands. “You’ve brightened my day,” the former clown said. “I always like to talk circus. Come back sometime and I’ll put on my clown makeup for you.”

“I’ll do that,” Nick said, and waved goodbye.

He was just starting the car when Judy Benson came running out of the house. “Mr. Nicholas, could you give me a ride down to the store? I have to do some shopping for my grandfather.”

“Sure. Climb in.”

“Nice car you have.”

Nick nodded.

“You don’t talk like a southerner. Are you from this area?”

He pulled slowly away from the curb, aware that her sudden friendliness was in sharp contrast to her earlier coolness. “No, I’m from up north. Just driving through.”

“But this is a rented car, rented here in Florida. You’re not just driving through at all.” Her voice was suddenly accusing.

“I happen to live in New York and I don’t own a car. I flew down here and rented this one.”

She didn’t reply immediately but stared straight ahead. Finally she said, “My grandfather is a sick old man, Mr. Nicholas. His heart is very bad. If anyone were to swindle or steal his possessions, the shock would kill him.”

“Why do you tell me this?”

“Because another man came to see him only a week ago. He wanted to buy one of my grandfather’s posters, and then he just tried to steal it. Luckily I arrived in time and threatened to call the police unless the man left. After that I made Grandpa promise never to let anyone in the house unless I was there.”

“And you think I’m connected with this other man? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. He had fat cheeks and wore a rumpled suit.”

Nick recognized the description of Mason’s driver, Jimmy. So the man in the clown makeup had made a previous attempt to get the poster. Still, why had he felt it necessary to hire Nick?

“I don’t know the man,” Nick said.

“All right, Mr. Nicholas. I hope you’re telling the truth, because there’s an unpleasant surprise waiting for the next person who tries to rob my grandfather.”

He ignored the threat in her words and said, “Tell me one thing. Why was this man so anxious to buy or steal the poster, when your grandfather is so sure it’s valueless?”

She turned her deep brown eyes toward him. “I haven’t the least idea, Mr. Nicholas.”

Nick knew he could do nothing further that day, so he returned to his Miami hotel and spent the early evening on the beach, watching the yachts cruising over the blue waters of Biscayne Bay. At sunset he went in for a swim, and when he returned to the damp sand he found Jimmy, the man in the rumpled suit, awaiting him.

“So you been to see old Herbie?”

“Yes,” Nick said warily.

Jimmy smiled a lopsided sort of smile. “Mason thought you’d be better than me. He thought you could get the poster after I failed. But he was wrong, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t tried yet.”

The smile broadened. “He said you were pretty good. A unique thief-detective, he called you.”

“Anyone could climb through his window and steal that poster.”

“Yeah? You think so? You met the granddaughter yet?”

“I’ve met her.”

“She tell you what she does for a living?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“She’s with the circus, same as her grandfather used to be.”

“As a clown?” Nick asked, unbelieving.

Jimmy shook his head. “She has a sideshow act with a little circus that tours around Florida. She’s a snake charmer.”

“A snake—”

“That’s right, wise guy. Every night she puts her grandfather to bed and lets loose a sackful of rattlesnakes in that house. Still think you can just climb through the window and steal that poster?”

Nick Velvet drove to the hotel where he’d met Mason the previous evening. There were some things to be straightened out, among them his fee. For wrestling rattlesnakes Nick charged more.

As he went down the hall toward Mason’s room he saw a tall graying man with his hand on the knob. The man turned suddenly as Nick approached and asked, “Are you looking for Mr. Mason, too?”

“I am.”

“He’s not here. I’ve been knocking and no one answers.”

Nick tried the door. It was locked. “You a friend of his?”

“I’m a lawyer.” The man flipped a card from his inside pocket and Nick read:

Haskin Kimbell

Jeans, Kimbell & Sachs

Miami, Florida

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Nicholas.”

“Are you in Mr. Mason’s employ?”

“In a way, yes.”

The lawyer pursed his lips, hesitating. “Would you be the man he hired to get the circus poster?”

“Yes,” Nick admitted. “But I have to speak to him about our arrangement. A complication has come up.”

The tall lawyer glanced around. “Let’s go somewhere and talk. The downstairs bar, perhaps.”

The bar had a scattering of late-evening drinkers, but Nick and the lawyer easily found a booth where they could not be overheard. When the drinks arrived, Haskin Kimbell dropped the small talk and said, “Let’s get down to business, Mr. Nicholas.”

“What sort of business?”

“Do you have the poster?”

“I told you, there’s a complication.”

“It’s urgent that we obtain it.”

“We?”

Haskin Kimbell sighed. “I represent the sole surviving heir to the Fantini oil fortune.”

“Fantini?” Nick remembered the name on the poster—The Flying Fantini Brothers.

“They were acrobats in their younger days, traveling with the circus. But after one of them was crippled in a fall they left the circus and went into the oil business, drilling wildcat wells. It was in the early nineteen-twenties, a good time for wildcatters. They struck it rich and over the years built up a considerable fortune. The last of the brothers—so everyone thought at the time—died a year ago at the age of seventy-three. He left no family, no heirs, and an estate estimated at ten million dollars.”

“Is there a will?”

“There is, but it was drawn a decade earlier while his brothers were still alive. It left his entire estate to the brothers or brother who survived him. If none survived, the estate went to various charities.”

“And you say no brother survived?”

The lawyer sipped his drink. “So it was believed at the time. Now a man has appeared who claims to be the last surviving brother. His name is Anthony Fantini, and he is my client.”

“He must have offered you some proof.”

“Proof of events sixty or seventy years ago can be hard to produce. The brothers were born in Italy and came here in the early years of this century. The birth records in their Italian village were destroyed during World War Two, and no one alive today remembers the family. Unfortunately, the records of the Great National circus have also been lost over the years. In simple truth we don’t know with certainty just how many Fantini brothers there were. Four can be accounted for, but my client claims he is the fifth brother. If that is true he is entitled to the estate.”

“He must have something to support his claim.”

“A great deal. He knows everything about the family’s early life. The one thing we’re lacking is convincing evidence there were five Flying Fantini Brothers instead of four.”

“The circus poster!”

“Exactly. The number of Ringling Brothers, for example, can easily be certified as five because a group portrait of them appeared on early Ringling posters. Likewise, that Great National poster can prove there were five Fantini brothers. Shortly after I took the surviving Fantini’s case, this man named Mason approached me with an offer. He claimed to know of this old circus poster which would prove there were five Fantinis. He offered to deliver it for what might be called a finder’s fee.”

“How big a fee?”

“Six figures. Recently he told me he’d hired you to get the poster. I came here tonight to see if he had it yet.”

“My agreement is for delivery by Thursday or before.”

“Then you can get it? You know where it is?”

“I’ve seen it,” Nick admitted. “But tell me about Mason. What does he look like?”

The lawyer seemed puzzled. “Haven’t you met him?”

“Not in the flesh.”

“He looks fairly ordinary. Middle-aged, gray hair. Nothing unusual.”

Nick decided not to mention the clown makeup. “All right. I’ll have the poster by Thursday morning. You can meet me in Mason’s hotel room if you wish.”

“Fine.”

“One last thing. You mentioned a fall that crippled one of the Fantinis. Surely there must be newspaper accounts of it. Even if the circus records are lost, the papers would tell you if there were four or five brothers.”

Kimbell shook his head. “I’ve been over all that—everything. There were some brief newspaper accounts, but none mentioned the number of brothers. I even checked back issues of trade papers like Variety and Billboard, but they only added to the confusion. It seems when the brothers first started out, there were only three because the others were still too young. I’ve found mention of three Fantinis and four Fantinis, but nothing about my client—the fifth and youngest of them. He was only with Great National that one season, so that poster is the only proof in existence.”

“There were only boys in the family? No surviving sisters?”

“All boys. Born a year or two apart just before the turn of the century. My client was seventeen when he joined the act, and of course he’s well into his seventies now.”

“So you really need the poster.”

“I really need it.”

“I’ll get it,” Nick promised.

He spent most of the next day in his hotel room experimenting with a variety of grease paints and makeup kits. Finally, around dinnertime, he gazed into the mirror and was satisfied. He washed off the makeup and ate a quick dinner alone. Then, as the long evening shadows began to fall across the bay, he put the materials he’d need in a paper bag and carried them down to his rented car. Less than an hour later he was back in Snake Creek.

Herbie Benson’s house was dark except for a single light in an upstairs bedroom. Nick parked down the street and worked quickly to apply his makeup. It was more difficult in the car than it had been in his hotel room, but after a half-hour’s work he was satisfied. As a final touch he stuck on the round rubber nose and then walked quickly down the street to the house.

He rang the doorbell twice before Herbie appeared at an upstairs window. “I can’t come down!” he shouted. “Go away, whoever you are!”

Nick stepped into the glow from a street light. “Herbie! Don’t you remember me?”

“Who is it?”

“Herbie, I used to work with you years ago. Don’t you remember Willie?”

“Willie? Is that you, Willie?”

Nick had remembered the clown on the photograph with Herbie and had tried to duplicate his makeup. With Herbie’s age and poor eyesight in Nick’s favor, he thought he could bring it off. “Come down and open the door, Herbie. I have to talk to you.”

“I can’t come down. She’s turned the snakes loose.”

“Then I’ll come up.”

Nick boosted himself onto the porch railing and from there to the drainpipe and the porch roof. In a few moments he was at the old man’s window. Herbie squinted, reached for his thick glasses and put them on. “You look different. You sure you’re Willie?”

“Who else would come to see you with a clown outfit on?” Nick climbed quickly through the window. “Remember the old days? The good times we had?”

“You’re not Willie.” The voice was firm. “You’re too young.”

“I’m Willie’s son. He sent me to you. He needs something from you, Herbie, and he needs it pretty bad.”

“What’s that?”

“One of your circus posters, Herbie.”

The old man let out his breath. “I couldn’t! That’s what the snakes are for! She said that guy tried to steal my collection. She leaves the snakes every night and comes back to pick them up in the morning.”

“But you could get through the snakes, couldn’t you, Herbie?”

“Oh, sure. But Judy would be awfully upset.”

“Even if you did it for an old friend?”

“Well …” He hesitated, and Nick saw him eye the clown makeup with something like nostalgia. “You did a nice job of putting that on, but the mouth’s too crooked.”

“Think you could fix it?”

“Sure. I’ll show you how. Us clowns gotta stick together.”

He sat Nick down on a straight-backed chair and got out a couple of jars of grease paint. After a few minutes of work he was satisfied. “There now, that’s lots better! You look like a real clown now.”

“About the poster—”

“Sure, your dad can have it—I got plenty of them. Which one does Willie want?”

“The Great National, from 1916.”

“Yeah. That’s the one the other fellow wanted, too. Kind of a popular poster, isn’t it? Come on down with me.”

“But the snakes—”

“They won’t hurt you.”

Nick followed him gingerly down the stairs, watching and listening. As he crossed the dark living room behind the old man he heard a warning rattle and his hand went for the little pistol under his arm.

“I said not to worry,” Herbie insisted. “They’re carnival snakes. The poison sacs have been removed. Think she’s dumb enough to work with the real thing?”

Nick relaxed, realizing it was true. “They certainly do their job, keeping prowlers away.” By the glow of the street light he saw a diamondback rattler slowly uncoil and slither away under a table.

Old Herbie removed the 1916 Great National poster from the wall and started to roll it up. “Say hello to your dad for me.”

“Can I pay you for it?”

“It’s not worth anything alone. Take it—a gift from a fellow clown. It was your father who helped me put together most of this collection.”

“Did you know these fellows—the Fantini brothers?”

“No, they left the circus just about the time I joined.”

“But you probably heard some talk about them. Wasn’t one of them crippled in a fall?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Staring at the poster, Nick asked Herbie one more question—but he was already sure what the answer would be.

In the morning he dressed quickly and retrieved the poster from its hiding place in the closet. He was just opening the door of his room when Judy Benson stepped off the elevator.

“Not so fast, Mr. Nicholas. Back inside!”

He was about to ignore her command when he saw the .22 automatic come out of her purse. “What is this?”

“Back inside,” she repeated.

“How did you find me?”

“I checked the license of your rented car and found it was assigned to the rental agency at this hotel. Then I just asked at the desk for Mr. Nicholas’ room.”

“What do you want? And what’s the gun for?”

“I came for the poster you stole from my grandfather.”

“He gave it to me. Didn’t he tell you?”

“You tricked him, claiming to be the son of an old circus friend. He’s an old man, Mr. Nicholas, and very gullible. Someone came to him in clown makeup, so he believed what he was told. But now you’re dealing with me, and I have a gun.”

“Are you really a snake charmer?” Nick asked. “You don’t look like one.”

“I’ve been around carnivals all my life, and I know a con man when I see one. My snakes may have failed to stop you, but I won’t!” She raised the gun in a threatening gesture.

“All right. But you should know what you’re getting into.”

“Meaning?”

“This poster is part of a swindle to obtain a ten-million-dollar inheritance. Let me show you.” He started to unroll the poster.

“No tricks now!”

“No tricks.” He held up the poster for her to see. “Notice the illustration of the acrobats. The Flying Fantini Brothers. There are five of them, and this poster will be the main item of proof to establish one Anthony Fantini as the rightful claimant to the Fantini oil fortune. But do you notice anything peculiar about these acrobats?”

Before she could answer there was a knock on the door. Judy Benson slipped the gun into her oversized purse as Nick opened the door a crack. The door was shoved back into his face as the beefy-cheeked Jimmy forced his way in. He wore the same rumpled suit, but now he carried a heavy automatic in his hand. The lawyer Haskin Kimbell was right behind him.

“Come in,” Nick said, hiding his surprise and rubbing his cheek where the door had hit him. “It’s good to see you both again, and especially to see that you’ve decided to skip the clown makeup this time, Mr. Kimbell.”

“We came for the poster,” Kimbell said. “When Jimmy saw the girl come up here, he thought you were double-crossing us.”

“Not a chance. The poster is all yours, as soon as I collect the rest of my fee.” He was careful not to look at Judy Benson.

“All right,” Kimbell agreed, but the gun was steady in Jimmy’s beefy hand. Then, almost as an afterthought, the lawyer asked, “How’d you know I was Mason?”

“When I went to his hotel room Tuesday night I caught you as you were leaving. You pretended to be knocking on the door, looking for Mason yourself, but you didn’t fool me. Mason had a briefcase in his room with the initials JKS on it. They weren’t the initials of a person, but of your law firm—Jeans, Kimbell and Sachs. But your clown makeup did give me the idea of how to steal the poster from Herbie, so I have to thank you for that.”

“I’m taking back that poster,” Judy Benson said suddenly, her hand reappearing with the gun. “You’re all a bunch of crooks!”

Jimmy swung around quickly and hit her arm, sending her pistol flying across the room. The familiar smile was on his face as he pushed her onto the bed. “Stay there or you’ll get hurt.”

Haskin Kimbell looked distressed. “Give me the poster, Velvet.”

“I was about to show Miss Benson something peculiar about it,” Nick said. He didn’t like to see girls pushed around, and just then he wasn’t feeling too kindly toward Kimbell and his goon. “In fact, there’s been something peculiar about this whole business.”

“What’s that?” the lawyer asked.

“Three questions: Why did you go to the trouble of creating a mythical middleman in clown makeup rather than simply hire me yourself to get the poster? Why have it stolen in the first place when you could have asked Herbie Benson to lend it to you for the court hearing? And finally, why not simply have Herbie testify as to the number of Fantini brothers?”

“All right, why?”

“Because this poster is deceiving. Because there never was a fifth Fantini. Because your claimant to the fortune is an impostor, carefully coached by you, Kimbell. I asked Herbie last night how many brothers there were and he told me four—as I knew he would. The records you found listed three or four brothers—but never five. Only this poster showed five brothers, and that’s why you couldn’t have Herbie in court where someone could ask him about it. You had to steal the poster, and you created Mason to do it so that if the truth came out you’d be in the clear.”

“You mean the poster is a fake?” Judy asked from the bed.

“No, it’s real enough. But in the style of many such posters it duplicated performers to give the impression of a great number. Notice the Teddy Roosevelt mustache on this man in the foreground and the man up here. The two men look alike, yet there were no Fantini twins—you told me yourself they were born one or two years apart, Kimbell. These two look alike because they’re the same man, shown in two different poses, once alone and once with his brothers.”

“Could he prove the existence of a fifth brother merely with this poster as evidence?” Judy asked.

“Maybe, maybe not. But for ten million dollars it was worth a try. Right, Kimbell?”

“It’s still worth a try,” the lawyer said. “But now we have to get rid of you two. Jimmy—”

“There’s another gun in my purse,” Judy shouted to Nick.

At first her words baffled him. The oversized purse was on the floor almost at Jimmy’s feet. There was no way Nick could reach it first.

“Hold it!” Jimmy said, leveling his gun at Nick. He kicked over the purse, spilling its contents across the floor, and bent to inspect a drawstring pouch. “It’s a snake!” he yelled, his voice close to a high-pitched scream.

That was when Nick moved.

Later, when he was alone with Judy, Nick said, “You really are a snake charmer.”

“That was just a little ground snake, but it scared him enough for you to get hold of his gun.”

“And the rest of my fee from Kimbell.” He handed her the poster. “You can take this back to your grandfather now. I think Kimbell’s decided to forget all about his scheme.”

“What kind of thief does that make you, returning the loot?”

“A good thief,” he said. “Don’t you think I should get a reward?”

“I think so,” she agreed with a grin. “Have you ever been kissed by a snake charmer?”

The Theft of Nick Velvet

“IT’S FOR YOU, NICKY,” Gloria yelled from the telephone, and Nick Velvet put down the beer he’d been savoring. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in late winter, when the snow had retreated to little lumps beneath the shady bushes and a certain freshness was already apparent in the air. It was a time of year that Nick especially liked, and he was sorry to have his reverie broken.

“Yes?” he spoke into the phone, after taking it from Gloria’s hand.

“Nick Velvet?” The voice was deep and a bit harsh, but that didn’t surprise him. He’d been hearing that sort of voice on telephones for years.

“Speaking.”

“You do jobs. You steal things.” A statement, not a question.

“I never discuss my business on the telephone. I could meet you somewhere tomorrow.”

“It has to be tonight.”

“Very well, tonight.”

“I’ll be in the parking lot at the Cross-Country Mall. Eight o’clock.”

“How will I know your car?”

“The place is empty on a Sunday night. We’ll find each other.”

“Could I have your name?”

The voice hesitated, then replied. “Solar. Max Solar. Didn’t you receive my letter?”

“No,” Nick answered. “Your letter about what?”

“I’ll see you at eight.”

The line went dead and Nick hung up the phone. He’d heard the name Max Solar before, or seen it in the newspapers, but he couldn’t remember in what context.

“Who was that, Nicky?” Gloria appeared in the doorway, holding a beer.

“A land developer. He wants to see me tonight.”

“On Sunday?”

Nick nodded. “He needs my opinion on some land he’s buying near here. I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour.” The excuses and evasions came easily to Nick’s lips, and sometimes he half suspected that Gloria knew them for what they were. Certainly she rarely questioned his sudden absences, even for days at a time.

He left the house a little after 7:30 and drove the five miles to the Cross-County Mall in less than fifteen minutes. There was little traffic and when he reached the Mall ahead of schedule he was surprised to see a single car already parked there, near the drive-in bank. He drove up beside it and parked. A man in the front seat nodded and motioned to him.

Nick left his car and opened the door of the other vehicle. “You’re early,” the man said.

“Better than late. Are you Max Solar?”

“Yes. Get in.”

Nick slid into the front seat and closed the door. The man next to him was bulky in a tweed topcoat, and he seemed nervous.

“What do you want stolen?” Nick asked. “I don’t touch money or jewelry or anything of value, and my fee is—”

He never finished. There was a movement behind him, in the back seat, and something hit him across the side of the head. That was the last Nick knew for some time.

When he opened his eyes he realized he was lying on a bed somewhere. The ceiling was crisscrossed with cracks and there was a cobweb visible in one corner. He thought about that, knowing Gloria’s trim housekeeping would never allow such a thing, and realized he was not at home. His head ached and his body was uncomfortably stretched. He tried to turn over and discovered that his left wrist was handcuffed to a brass bedstead.

Not the police.

But who, then? And why?

He tried to focus his mind. It seemed to be morning, with light seeping through the blind over the window. But morning of which day? Monday?

A door opened somewhere and he heard footsteps crossing the floor. A face appeared over him, a familiar face. The man in the car.

“Where am I?” Nick mumbled through a furry mouth. “What am I doing here?”

The man leaned closer to the bed. “You are here because I have stolen you.” The idea seemed to amuse him and he chuckled.

“Why?” The room was beginning to swim before Nick’s eyes.

“Don’t try to talk. We have no intention of harming you. Just lie still and relax.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“A mild sedative. Just something to keep you under control.”

Nick tried to speak again, but the words would not come. He closed his eyes and slept.

When he awakened it was night again, or nearly so. A shaded lamp glowed dimly in one corner of the room. “Are you awake?” a girl’s voice asked, in response to his movement.

Nick lifted his head and saw a young brunette dressed in a dark turtleneck sweater and jeans. He ran his tongue over dry lips and finally found his voice. “I guess so. Who are you?”

“You can call me Terry. I’m supposed to be watching you, but it’s more fun if you’re awake. I didn’t give you the last injection of sedative because I want someone to talk to.”

“Thanks a lot,” Nick said, trying to work the cobwebs from his throat. “What day is it?”

“Only Monday. You haven’t even been here twenty-four hours yet.” She came over and sat by the bed. “Hungry?”

He realized suddenly that he was. “Starving. I guess you haven’t fed me.”

“I’ll get you some juice and a doughnut.”

“Where’s the other one—the man?”

“Away somewhere,” she answered vaguely. She left the room and reappeared soon carrying a glass of orange juice and a bag of doughnuts. “Afraid that’s the best I can do.”

“How about unlocking me?”

“No. I don’t have the key. You can eat with your other hand.”

The juice tasted good going down, and even the soggy doughnuts were welcome. “Why did you kidnap me?” he asked Terry. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Don’t know.” She retreated from the room, perhaps deciding she’d talked too much already.

Nick finished three doughnuts and then lay back on the bed. He’d been lured to that parking lot and kidnaped for some reason, and he couldn’t believe the motive was anything as simple as ransom. The man on the telephone had identified himself as Max Solar, and asked if Nick had received his letter. Since kidnapers rarely gave their right names to victims, it was likely the man was not Max Solar.

“Terry,” he shouted. “Terry, come here!”

She appeared at the doorway, hands on hips. “What is it?”

“Come talk. I feel like talking.”

“What about?”

“Max Solar. The man who brought me here.”

She giggled a bit, and her face glowed with youth. “He’s not Max Solar. He was just kidding you. Do you really think someone as wealthy as Max Solar would go around kidnaping people?”

“Then what is his name?”

“I can’t tell you. He wouldn’t like it.”

“How’d you get involved with him?”

“I can’t talk any more about it.”

Nick sighed. “I thought you wanted someone to talk to.”

“Sure, but I wanted to talk about you.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “What about me?”

“You’re Nick Velvet. You’re famous.”

“Only in certain circles.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the opening of a door. Terry scurried from the room and Nick lay back and closed his eyes. After a moment he heard Terry return with the man.

“What in hell is this bag of doughnuts doing on the bed?” a male voice demanded. “He’s conscious, isn’t he? And you’ve been feeding him!”

“He was hungry, Sam.”

There was the splat of palm hitting cheek, and Terry let out a cry. Nick opened his eyes. “Suppose you try that on me, Sam.”

The man from the car, still looking bulky even without his tweed topcoat, turned toward the bed. “You’re in no position to make like a knight in shining armor, Velvet.”

Nick sat up as best he could with his handcuffed wrist. “Look, I’ve been slugged on the head, kidnaped, drugged, and handcuffed to this bed. Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?”

“Shut him up,” Sam ordered Terry, but she made no move to reply.

“You kidnaped me to keep me from seeing the real Max Solar, right?” Nick was guessing, but it had to be a reasonably good guess. The man named Sam turned on the girl once more.

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, Sam, honest! I didn’t tell him a thing!”

The bulky man grunted. “All right, Velvet, it’s true. I don’t mind telling you, since you’ve guessed it already. Max Solar wrote you on Friday to arrange an appointment for this week. He wanted to hire you to steal something.”

“And you kidnaped me to prevent it?”

The man named Sam nodded. He pulled up a straight-backed wooden chair and sat down by the bed. “Do you know who Max Solar is?”

“I’ve heard the name.” Nick tried to sit up straighter, but the handcuff prevented him. “How about unlocking this thing?”

“Not a chance.”

“All right,” Nick sighed. “Tell me about Max Solar.”

“He’s a conglomerate. He owns a number of companies manufacturing everything from office machines to toothpaste. Last year while I was in his employ I invented a computer program that saved thousands of man-hours each year in bookkeeping and inventory control on his export and overseas operations. The courts have ruled that such computer programming cannot be patented, and I was at the mercy of Max Solar. He simply fired me and kept my program. For the past year I’ve dreamed of ways to get my revenge, and on Friday Terry supplied me with the perfect weapon.”

Nick listened to the voice drone on, wondering where it was all leading. The man did not seem the type to resort to kidnaping, yet there was a hardness in his eyes that hinted at a steely determination.

“I’m a secretary at Solar Industries,” Terry explained. “My office is right next to Max Solar’s, and often I help his secretary when my boss is away.”

Sam nodded. “Solar dictated a letter to Nick Velvet, asking for a meeting today. Terry brought me a copy, with a suggestion for avenging myself on Solar.”

“You knew who I was?” Nick asked the girl.

“I had a boyfriend once who told me about you—how you steal valueless things for people.”

Sam nodded. “I figured up in the suburbs you probably wouldn’t get Solar’s letter till Monday—not the way mail deliveries are these days—but just to be safe I used his name when I phoned yesterday. See, I had to kidnap you and hold you prisoner till after the ship sails.”

“Ship?”

“Solar was hiring you to steal something from a freighter that sails from New York harbor in two days.”

“It must be something important.”

“It is, but only to Max Solar. It would be worthless to anyone else.”

Nick thought about it. “That’s not quite correct,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You can avenge yourself on Solar by holding me prisoner, or you can hire me to steal this object and then sell it back to Solar.”

“Why should I hire you? I have you already!”

“You have me physically, but you don’t have my services.”

“He makes sense,” Terry said. “I hadn’t thought about that angle. If Nick steals the thing, you can sell it to Solar for enough to cover Nick’s fee plus a lot more. You’d be getting back the money Solar cheated you out of.”

Sam pondered the implications. “How do we know you wouldn’t go to the police as soon as you’re free?”

“I have as little dealing with the police as possible,” Nick said. “For obvious reasons.”

Sam was still uncertain. “We’ve got you now. In forty-eight hours Max Solar will be in big trouble. Why let you go and take a chance on ruining our whole plan?”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll be in big trouble too. Kidnaping is a far more serious crime than blackmail. Unlock these handcuffs now and hire me. I won’t press charges against you. I steal the thing, collect my fee, and you sell it back to Solar for a lot more. Everybody’s happy.”

Sam turned to Terry. When she nodded approval he said, “All right. Unlock him.”

As soon as the handcuff came free of his wrist Nick said, “My fee in this case will be thirty thousand dollars. I always charge more for dangerous assignments.”

“There’s nothing dangerous about it.”

“It’s dangerous when I get hit on the head and drugged.”

“That was Terry. She was hiding in the back seat of the car with a croquet mallet.”

“You knocked me out with a croquet mallet?”

Terry nodded. “We were going to use a monkey wrench, but we thought it might hurt.”

“Thanks a lot.” Nick was rubbing the circulation back into his wrist. “Now what is it Max Solar was going to hire me to steal?”

“A ship’s manifest,” Terry told him. “But we’re not sure which ship. We only know it sails in two days.”

“What’s so valuable about a ship’s manifest?”

They exchanged glances. “The less you know the better,” Sam said.

“Don’t I even get to know your names?”

“You know too much already. Steal the manifest and meet us back here tomorrow night.”

“How do I find the ship?”

“A South African named Herbert Jarvis is in town arranging for the shipment. He’d know which ship it is.” Terry looked uneasy as she spoke. “I could go through the files at the office, but that might arouse suspicion. They might think it odd I took today off anyway.”

“Shipment of what?” Nick asked.

“Typewriters,” she said, and he knew she was lying.

“All right. But there must be several more copies of this ship’s manifest around.”

“The copy on the ship is the only one that matters,” Sam said. “Get it, and we’ll meet you here tomorrow night at seven.”

“What about my car?”

“It’s in the garage,” Terry said. “We didn’t want to leave it at the Mall.”

Nick nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow with the manifest. Have my fee ready.”

The house where he’d been held prisoner was in the northern part of the city, near Van Cortlandt Park. It took Nick nearly an hour to drive home from there, and another hour to comfort a distraught Gloria who’d been about to phone the police.

“You know my business takes me away suddenly at times,” he said, glancing casually through the mail until he found Solar’s letter.

“But you’ve always told me, Nicky! I didn’t hear from you and all I could imagine was you were hit over the head and robbed!”

“Sorry I worried you.” He kissed her gently. “Is it too late to get something to eat?”

In the morning he checked the sailing times of the next day’s ships in The New York Times. There were only two possibilities—the Fairfax and the Florina—but neither one was bound for South Africa. With so little time to spare, he couldn’t afford to pick the wrong one, and trying to find Herbert Jarvis at an unknown New York hotel might be a hopeless task.

There was only one sure way to find the right ship—to ask Max Solar. He knew that Sam and Terry wouldn’t approve, but he had no better choice.

Solar Industries occupied most of a modern twelve-story building not far from the house where he’d been held prisoner. He took the elevator to the top floor and waited in a plush reception room while the girl announced his arrival to Max Solar. Presently a cool young woman appeared to escort him.

“I’m Mr. Solar’s secretary,” she said. “Please come this way.”

In Max Solar’s office two men were seated at a wide desk, silhouetted against the wide windows that looked south toward Manhattan. There was no doubt which one was Solar. He was tall and white-haired, and sat behind his desk in total command, like the pilot of an aircraft or a rancher on his horse. He did not rise as Nick entered, but said simply, “So you’re Velvet. About time you got here.”

“I was tied up earlier.”

Solar waited until his secretary left, then said, “I understand you steal things for a fee of twenty thousand dollars.”

“Certain things. Nothing of value.”

“I know that.”

“What do you want stolen?”

“A ship’s manifest, for the S.S. Florina. She sails tomorrow from New York harbor, so that doesn’t give you much time.”

“Time is no problem. What’s so valuable about the manifest?”

“A mistake was made on it by an inexperienced clerk. All other copies were recovered and corrected in time, but the ship’s copy got through somehow. I imagine it’s locked in the purser’s safe right now. I was told you could do the job. I want this corrected manifest left in its place.”

“No problem,” Nick said, accepting the lengthy form.

“You’re very sure of yourself,” the second man said. It was the first he’d spoken since Nick entered. He was small and middle-aged, with just a trace of British accent.

Solar waved a hand at him. “This is Herbert Jarvis from South Africa. He’s the consignee for the Florina cargo. Two hundred and twelve cases of typewriters and adding machines.”

“I see,” Nick said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You want some money in advance? Say ten percent—two thousand?” Solar asked, opening his desk drawer.

“Fine. And don’t worry about the time. I’ll have the manifest before the ship sails.”

“Here’s my check,” Jarvis said, passing it across the desk to Solar. “Drawn on the National Bank of Capetown. I assure you it’s good. This is payment in full for the cargo.”

“That’s the way I like to do business,” Solar told him, slipping the check into a drawer.

As Nick started to leave, Herbert Jarvis rose from his chair. “My business here is finished. If you’re driving into Manhattan, Mr. Velvet, could I ride with you and save calling a taxi?”

“Sure. Come on.” Downstairs he asked, “Your first trip here?”

“Oh, no. I’ve been here before. Quite a city you have.”

“We like it.” He turned the car onto the Major Deegan Expressway.

“You live in the city yourself?”

Nick shook his head. “No, near Long Island Sound.”

“Are you a boating enthusiast?”

“When I have time. It relaxes me.”

Jarvis lit a cigar. “We all need to relax. I’m a painter myself. I’ve a lovely studio with a fine north light.”

“In Capetown?”

“Yes. But it’s just a sideline, of course. One can hardly make a living at it.” He exhaled some smoke. “I act as a middleman in buying and selling overseas. This is my first dealing with Max Solar, but he seems a decent sort.”

“The Florina isn’t bound for South Africa.”

Jarvis shook his head. “The cargo will be removed in the Azores. It’s safer that way.”

“For the typewriters?”

“And for me.”

After a time Nick said, “I’ll have to drop you in midtown. Okay?”

“Certainly. I’m at the Wilson Hotel on Seventh Avenue.”

“I need to purchase some supplies,” Nick said. He’d just decided how he was going to steal the ship’s manifest.

The Florina was berthed at pier 40, a massive, bustling place that jutted into the Hudson River near West Houston Street. Nick reached it in midafternoon and went quickly through the gates to the gangplank. The ship was showing the rust of age typical of vessels that plied the waterways in the service of the highest bidder.

The purser was much like his ship, with soiled uniform and needing a shave. He studied the credentials Nick presented and said, “This is a bit irregular.”

“We believe export licenses may be lacking for some of your cargo. It’s essential that I inspect your copy of the manifest.”

The purser hesitated another moment, then said, “Very well.” He walked to the safe in one corner of his office and opened it. In a moment he produced the lengthy manifest.

Nick saw at once the reason for Max Solar’s concern. On the ship’s copy the line about typewriters and adding machines read: 212 cases 8 mm Mauser semi-automatic rifles. He was willing to bet that Solar Industries was not a licensed arms dealer.

“It seems in order,” Nick told the purser, “but I’ll need a copy of it.” He opened the fat attaché case he carried and revealed a portable copying machine. “Can I plug this in?”

“Over here.”

Nick inserted the manifest with a light-sensitive copying sheet into the rollers of the machine. In a moment the document reappeared. “There you are,” he said, returning it to the purser. “Sorry I had to trouble you.”

“No trouble.” He glanced briefly at the manifest and returned it to the safe.

Nick closed the attaché case, shook the man’s hand, and departed. The theft was as simple as that.

Later that night, at seven o’clock, Nick rang the doorbell of the little house where he’d been held prisoner. At first no one came to admit him, though he could see a light burning in the back bedroom. Then at last Terry appeared, her face pale and distraught.

“I’ve got it,” Nick said. She stepped aside silently and allowed him to enter.

Sam came out of the back bedroom. “Well, Velvet! Right on time.”

“Here’s the manifest.” Nick produced the document from the attaché case he still carried. “The only remaining original copy, showing that Solar Industries is exporting two hundred and twelve cases of semi-automatic rifles to Africa.”

Sam took the document and glanced at it. For some reason the triumph didn’t seem to excite him. “How did you get it?”

“A simple trick. This afternoon I purchased this portable copying machine from a friend who sometimes makes special gadgets for me. I inserted the original manifest between the rollers, but the substitute came out the other slot. It works much like those trick shop devices, where a blank piece of paper is inserted between rollers and a dollar bill comes out. The purser’s copy of the manifest was rolled up and remained in the machine. The substitute copy that I’d inserted in the machine earlier came out the slot. He glanced at it briefly, but since only one line was different he never realized a switch had been made.”

“Where did you get this substitute manifest?” Sam wanted to know.

“From Max Solar. I also got an advance for stealing the thing, which I’ll return to him. I’m working for you, not Solar. And I imagine he’ll pay plenty for that manifest. The clerk who typed it up must have assumed he had an export license for the guns. But without a license it would mean big trouble for Solar Industries if this manifest was inspected by port authorities.”

Sam nodded glumly. “He’s been selling arms illegally for years, mostly to countries in Africa and Latin America. But this was my first chance to prove it.”

“I’ll have my fee now,” Nick said. “Thirty thousand.”

“I haven’t got it.”

Nick simply stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I haven’t got it. There is no fee. No money, no nothing.” He shrugged and started to turn away.

Nick grabbed him by the collar. “If you won’t pay for it, Max Solar will!”

“No, he won’t,” Terry said, speaking for the first time since Nick’s arrival. “Look here.”

Nick followed her into the back bedroom. On the rumpled bed where Nick had been held prisoner, the body of Max Solar lay sprawled and bloody. There was no doubt Solar was dead.

“How did it happen?” Nick asked. “What’s he doing here?”

“I called him,” Sam said. “We needed the thirty thousand to pay your fee. The only way we could get it was from Solar. So I told him we’d have the manifest here at seven o’clock. I left the front door unlocked and told him to bring $80,000. I figured $30,000 for you and the rest for us.”

“What happened?”

“Terry arrived about twenty minutes ago and found him dead. It looks like he’s been stabbed.”

“You’re trying to tell me you didn’t kill him?”

“Of course not!” Sam said, a trace of indignation creeping into his voice. “Do I look like a murderer?”

“No, but then you don’t look like a kidnaper either. You had the best reason in the world for wanting him dead.”

“His money would have been enough revenge for me.”

“Was it on him?”

“No,” Terry answered. “We looked. Either he didn’t bring it or the killer got it first.”

“What am I supposed to do with this manifest?” Nick asked bleakly.

“It’s no good to me now. I can’t get revenge on a dead man.”

“That’s your problem. You still owe me thirty thousand.”

Sam held his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness. “We don’t have the money! What should I do? Give you the mortgage on this house that’s falling apart? Be thankful you got something out of Max Solar before he died.”

Ignoring Nick, Terry asked, “What are we going to do with the body, Sam?”

“Do? Call the police! What else is there to do?”

“Won’t they think we did it?”

“Maybe they’ll be right,” Nick said. “Maybe you killed him, Terry, to have the money for yourself. Or maybe Sam killed him and then sneaked out to let you find the body.”

Both of them were quick to deny the accusations, and in truth Nick cared less about the circumstances of Max Solar’s death than he did about the balance of his fee, and he saw no way of collecting it at the moment.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll leave you two to figure out your next move. You know where to reach me if you come up with the money. Meanwhile, I’m keeping this manifest.”

He drove south, toward Manhattan, and though the night was turning chilly he left his window open. The fresh air felt good against his face and it helped him to sort out his thoughts. There was only one other person who’d have the least interest in paying money for the manifest, and that was Herbert Jarvis.

He headed for the Wilson Hotel.

Jarvis was in his room packing when Nick knocked on the door. “Well,” he said, a bit startled. “Velvet, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Can I come in?”

“I have to catch a plane. I’m packing.”

“So I see,” Nick said. He shut the door behind him.

“If you’ll make it brief, I really am quite busy.”

“I’ll bet you are. I’ll make it brief enough. I want thirty thousand dollars.”

“Thirty …! For what?”

“This copy of the ship’s manifest for the S.S. Florina. The only copy that shows it’s carrying a cargo of rifles.”

“The business with the manifest is between you and Solar. He hired you.”

“Various people hired me, but you’re the only one I can collect from. Max Solar is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Stabbed to death in a house uptown. Within the past few hours.”

Jarvis sat down on the bed. “That’s a terrible thing.”

Nick shrugged. “I assume he knew the sort of men he was dealing with.”

“What’s that mean?” Jarvis asked, growing nervous.

“Who do you think killed him?” Nick countered.

“That computer programmer, Sam, I suppose. That’s his house uptown.”

“How do you know it’s Sam’s house? How do you know about Sam?”

“Solar was going to meet him. He told me on the telephone.”

It all fell into place for Nick. “What did he tell you?”

“That Sam wanted money for the manifest. That you were working for Sam.”

“Why did he tell you about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s take a guess. Could it have been because the check you gave him was no good? A man with Solar’s world-wide contacts could have discovered quickly that there was no money in South Africa to cover your check. In fact, you’re not even from South Africa, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me you’re an artist, and since you volunteered the information I assume it’s true. But you said you have a studio in Capetown with a fine north light. Artists like north light because it’s truer, because the sun is never in the northern sky. But of course this is only true in the northern hemisphere. An artist in Capetown or Buenos Aires or Melbourne would want a studio with a good south light. Your studio, Jarvis, isn’t in Capetown at all. It would have to be somewhere well north of the equator.

“And if you lied about being from South Africa, I figured the check drawn on a South African bank is probably phony too. You reasoned that once the arms shipment was safely out to sea there was no way Solar could blow the whistle without implicating himself. But when he learned your check was valueless, he phoned you and probably told you to meet him at Sam’s house with the money or he’d have the cases of guns taken off the ship.”

“You’re saying I killed him?”

“Yes.”

“You are one smart man, Velvet.”

“Smart enough for a two-bit gunrunner.”

Jarvis’ right hand moved faster than Nick’s eyes could follow. The knife was up his sleeve, and it missed Nick’s throat by inches as it thudded into the wall. “Too bad,” Nick said. “With a gun you get a second chance.” And he dove for the man.

He remembered the address of Sam’s house and got the phone number from a friend with the company. Sam answered on the first ring, sounding nervous, and Nick asked, “How’s it going?”

“Velvet? Where are you? The police are here.”

“Good,” Nick said, knowing a detective would be listening in. “You did the right thing calling them. I don’t know why I’m getting you off the hook, but tell them Solar’s killer is in Room 334 at the Wilson Hotel on Seventh Avenue.”

“You found him?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “But he didn’t have any money either.”

The Theft of the General’s Trash

“NICKY,” GLORIA SAID ONE evening, looking up from her beer, “you never take me anywhere.”

Nick Velvet, relaxing in the back yard as he soaked up the mild April weather, asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“Well, you’re always traveling someplace—Paris, London, Florida, California, Las Vegas. And never with me.”

“I take you sailing on the Sound.”

“But that’s in the summer. I want to go somewhere now, Nicky.”

He sighed and put down his glass. Perhaps she was right. He had been neglecting her. “Where can we go in April?”

She thought about it for a moment. “How about Washington to see the cherry blossoms? We haven’t been back there since we first met.”

It was true. He’d taken Gloria to Washington for a weekend ten years ago, when they were just getting to know one another. It had been a busy ten years for Nick, but for Gloria the time had brought only a monotonous sameness centered around their house and boat. “Sure,” he said, making a quick decision. “Let’s fly down for a week. We’ve got nothing to keep us here.”

They arrived in Washington on a sunny Monday morning, rented a car at the airport, and drove downtown to one of the newer hotels. Nick guided Gloria to the registration desk through a lobby bristling with diplomats and businessmen. They registered as Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Velvet, as they had ten years before, and were given a room on the seventh floor.

“The city has changed, Nicky,” Gloria said as she stood by the window overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Some,” he admitted. “But the country has also changed in the last ten years.”

“Let’s go look at the cherry blossoms.”

He still felt good with Gloria walking at his side. She had retained the vigor that first attracted him to her, and a decade’s time had actually improved the loveliness of her face. He always felt a touch of pride when others turned to look at her as they strolled by.

It was a good day, a reminder of how it had been when they first met. But when they returned to the hotel he was surprised to find a message awaiting him, giving only a phone number to call. “Who knows you’re here, Nicky?” Gloria asked. “We didn’t tell anyone we were coming.”

“I’ll see who it is.”

While Gloria stepped into the bathroom he sat on the edge of the bed and dialed the number he’d been given. The phone at the other end rang twice and was answered by a gruff-voiced man. “Yes?”

“I was given this number to call.”

“Would you be Nick Velvet?”

“That’s correct.”

The voice relaxed into friendliness. “I’m Sam Simon, the columnist. This is my private line. I have to see you.”

“How did you know I was in Washington?”

“My staff checks all hotel arrivals. It’s often good for an item.”

“I’m no item,” Nick said. “I’m on vacation.”

“This is business. I want to hire you.”

“For what?”

Sam Simon sighed. “I don’t think it’s wise to be more specific. Not on a telephone. Let’s just say it’s your specialty. You’re a famous guy in some circles, you know.”

Nick glanced up at Gloria as she re-entered the room. “All right, I’ll meet you.”

“My office, tomorrow morning at ten. I’m on Virginia Avenue. I’ll give you the number.”

Nick jotted it down and hung up to face Gloria.

“What was all that, Nicky?”

“Some business. A man who heard I’d checked in offered me a job.”

“Nicky, we’re here on vacation!”

“I know. But it just involves running over to Maryland to look at a new plant site. Maybe I could do it in the morning and be back in a few hours. You could take one of those bus tours that stops at the White House and the F.B.I.”

“Without you?”

“Then wait for me. It’s just tomorrow morning, and I won’t be long. I promise.”

Sam Simon was a little man with a balding head and sharp, deep-set blue eyes. Nick had read his column on Washington politics occasionally in the New York papers, and had often seen his name mentioned in other news dispatches. Some called him a second Jack Anderson in his ability to ferret out leaks in government departments. He stopped at nothing in what he printed. “It’s investigative journalism,” he once told a critic. “Hell, if it won the Pulitzer Prize for Anderson it can do the same for me!”

Now he sat behind a desk cluttered with newspapers and books and the latest wire-service dispatches, flanked on his right by a handsome young assistant with long hair and a bushy mustache. “Glad to meet you, Velvet,” Sam Simon said abruptly. “Good of you to come. This here’s Ronnie Arden, my legman and Number One writer. On days when I’m too lazy to do a column, he takes over for me.”

“Glad to meet you both,” Nick acknowledged. “But as I told you on the phone I’m here on vacation.”

“We want a job done,” Sam Simon said, ignoring Nick’s resistance. “Your kind of job.”

“What kind is that?”

Ronnie Arden answered. “You’re a thief, Velvet. Let’s quit playing games. You’re, a thief and we want something stolen.”

Nick smiled: “I only steal things of no value. I couldn’t take government documents or anything like that.”

“Would a bag of garbage be valueless enough for you?” Arden asked.

Nick turned to look at Simon. “Is that it? A bag of garbage?”

“Yes.”

“I charge twenty thousand dollars. For that kind of money you could buy a truck and collect it yourself.”

“There are—well, complications,” the columnist admitted.

Nick wasn’t surprised. In his business there were always complications. “The garbage is at the Bureau of Engraving?”

“No, no! It’s real refuse, of value to no one.”

“No one but you.”

Sam Simon smiled. “No one but me. Tell him about it, Ronnie.”

The mustached man cleared his throat, as if about to deliver a lecture. “The refuse is that of General Norman Spangler, the President’s adviser on foreign affairs.”

“Military secrets are out of my line.”

“No military secrets. I’m sure he has a paper shredder at his office for those. This would be at his home—the apartment where he and his wife live alone. He’s on the fourth floor of the Potomac Arms, just a few blocks from Watergate.”

It was almost two years since the Watergate scandal first burst on the Washington scene. Careers had been destroyed, men had been imprisoned, some of the highest officials of the government had resigned and been replaced. “I don’t want any part of another Watergate,” Nick said. “My business doesn’t lend itself to testifying before Senate committees.”

“This isn’t another Watergate,” Ronnie Arden said. “You can take our word for it.”

“Where does the general dispose of his trash?”

“That’s the problem. That’s why we need you. Every morning he waits for the mail to arrive. It comes early, around nine, because the building has it picked up at the post office. Spangler checks his mail, leaves his apartment a few minutes later, then drops his daily bag of garbage down the incinerator chute. Then he gets his car and drives to the White House, arriving at his desk by nine thirty.”

“Incinerator chute,” Nick mused. “I see.”

“Naturally he can’t know his garbage is being stolen, so you can’t hold him up or take it by force.”

“Which day do you want it?”

“We don’t know exactly. Let’s say every day for a week, starting tomorrow.”

“That might cost you more than twenty thousand. It would mean more than one theft.”

Arden glanced at his boss. “Can we go a little higher?”

“We can go higher if you deliver what we need, Velvet. Twenty should buy us the first two days, at least.”

“Agreed.” They shook hands and Nick started for the door. Then, as a final thought, he turned and asked, “How is security at the Potomac Arms? I’m sure you’ve checked it out.”

“No problem once you get by the doorman. And that shouldn’t be difficult for you.”

Nick nodded and left.

The problem was with Gloria.

He’d never had her along on a job before, and the idea of sneaking off for two mornings and leaving her alone was something he hadn’t reckoned with.

“Where are you off to now?” she asked the following morning as he tried to dress in the darkened hotel room without awakening her.

“More business. I’ll be back before ten.”

“Nicky, this is supposed to be our vacation!”

“I know. But if I can make a little money at the same time, I should take advantage of it.”

She turned over and buried her head in the pillow. He sighed and finished dressing.

It was not yet eight o’clock when he reached the Potomac Arms, a white T-shaped apartment building near the river. He’d scouted it the previous day, making note of the service entrance at the side. He’d already decided there was little chance of getting by the doorman more than once, and tenants’ keys were needed for the other entrances.

He’d made certain purchases the previous day and hidden them from Gloria in the trunk compartment of their rented car. There was a pair of white pants with a jacket to match, such as milkmen usually wore. He changed into these in the car and brought out the wire milkman’s basket he’d also purchased. He filled this with a dozen cartons of milk he’d picked up on the way over. From past experience he knew that only milkmen and newsboys could gain admittance to these luxury apartment buildings, and he was too old to pass as a newsboy.

He entered through the service entrance, carrying his milk, and immediately came to a locked inner door with a buzzer. He pressed it and waited till the building superintendent made his appearance. “What’s this?”

“Milkman,” Nick said.

“Where’s Eddie?”

“I’m helping him out, learning the route. He’ll be along, too.”

The superintendent grunted and let him pass. Nick covered the first floor quickly, leaving cartons of milk at random doors. The incinerator room was at the center of the building where the wings joined in their T shape. He entered the oversized closet and found a small door set in the wall. It opened directly into the chute. He stuck his head in, hoping no one would choose that moment to drop something from above. The chute was metal, with curved sides, and he could smell the fire below.

He went up on the third floor, checking that incinerator room to make certain it was the same. Then he set to work. The time was 8:30.

Nick was downstairs at nine when General Norman Spangler descended in the elevator to pick up the morning mail. Though he wore civilian clothes, his slim boyish good looks and stiff military bearing were long familiar to television viewers. Like other generals who functioned as White House aides, Spangler was retired from active duty. He’d joined the staff as one of the Secretary of State’s assistants and had managed to stay on during the upheavals of the past year.

He smiled at Nick as he passed him in the hall, carrying a handful of mail back into the elevator. Nick took the next elevator to the third floor, checked the incinerator room once more, then used the fire stairs to climb to the next floor. He had taped the third-floor door so he could return that way.

On the fourth floor he opened the fire door just wide enough to see the door to Spangler’s apartment down the hall. He had only a few moments to wait. The general emerged carrying a brown paper bag of trash. He paused at the door to kiss a pretty dark-haired woman who seemed twenty years his junior. “I’ll be late tonight, dear,” he said. “Don’t wait dinner.”

“So what’s new?” She closed the door after him.

Nick let the door close silently and ran down the steps to the floor below. He made it to the incinerator room with just seconds to spare, closing the hall door so no light would shine into the chute in case Spangler looked down before dropping his bundle. He heard the incinerator door open on the floor above, waited an instant, then shoved the wire milk basket into the chute, effectively blocking it a second before the general’s trash dropped. The paper bag landed on the basket.

Nick held his breath, waiting to hear any sound from the floor above. But the general had more important tasks to do than listen to his garbage hit bottom. The chute door was already closed and he was on his way. Nick gingerly pulled in his prize and set it on the floor of the incinerator room.

There was no time to waste now. He stripped off his white coat and wrapped it around the bag. Carried just right, it looked like a laundry bag. He might have been a tenant going downstairs with his wash, and even the white pants didn’t look that odd. The cartons of milk had already been left at doorways. The wire carrying basket he left behind a stack of old newspapers in the third-floor incinerator room. With luck it would be there the following day. If not, it was no great loss. He couldn’t risk the milkman ruse two days running anyhow. Besides, maybe what Sam Simon wanted so badly would turn up in the first batch.

It didn’t.

Simon and Ronnie Arden carefully spread out each bit of the general’s trash on an office work table, but they were openly disappointed. Two empty beer cans, an empty wine bottle, some frozen food cartons, envelopes, crumpled shopping lists, junk mail—the usual daily accumulation of modern living.

“All right,” Simon said, reflecting his disappointment. “We couldn’t really expect to score the first day. But it would have been nice.”

“You want me to do the same thing tomorrow?”

“The same thing. Let’s hope for better luck.”

“If you’d tell me what you want, maybe I could get it from his apartment.”

“No.”

“All right,” Nick said with a sigh. “But if nothing turns up tomorrow, we’ll have to talk about more money.”

That afternoon he took Gloria down the Potomac to Mount Vernon and they basked in the spring warmth as they strolled across the great lawn to the house where Washington had lived.

“Nicky,” she asked, “what are you thinking?”

He didn’t really know how to answer the question. “Maybe just about how much simpler things were in George Washington’s day.”

“Things were much simpler just two years ago.”

“I know. We live in fast times. Not changing so much as fast, like a rocket headed toward a brick wall.”

She took his hand. “Nicky?”

“What?”

“I want you to know I know. About you.” She tried a little smile. “I guess I’ve known for years.”

“How?” That was all he could manage to say.

“Oh, a lot of little” things, I guess. All the trips you’ve taken, and the time you had to get me out of the house because someone was coming to kill you. And the time you were kidnaped for a couple of days. Your explanations don’t fool me any more, Nicky. Not after ten years.”

“I’m glad you know.”

“Will you be going out again in the morning?”

“Yes. For a little while.”

She squeezed his hand. “Nicky, be careful.”

That evening he took her to the most expensive restaurant he could find, and they talked no more of Nick’s work.

The following morning Nick approached the locked side entrance to the Potomac Arms with key in hand. He waited only a minute before a middle-aged lawyer type came out the door swinging his attaché case. The man smiled at him and held the door open. Nick raised his key in salute and walked in. The key was to his hotel room, and he dropped it back in his pocket.

The wire basket was gone, picked up with the rubbish, but Nick didn’t really need it. The easiest way was still the best. He watched General Spangler open his apartment door, kiss his young wife goodbye, and walk down the hall with the bag of trash. Nick retreated to the third-floor incinerator room, opened the door to the chute, and stuck his arms in. Seconds later the bag fell into them. As simple as that.

This day Sam Simon was alone in his office when Nick arrived. “Ronnie’s off on assignment,” the little columnist explained. “These are busy days on the Washington scene. Let’s see what we’ve got today.”

The assortment was much like the previous day’s haul. Two more beer cans, a milk carton, assorted wrappers and scraps of paper, a few dead flowers, some leftover food in a clear plastic bag, a crumpled letter from a distant relative, envelopes, soggy paper towels.

“Nothing here,” Simon remarked gloomily.

“Those apartments all have disposal units in the sink. Maybe he ground it up.”

“No, not this.”

Nick sighed. “It’ll cost you an extra ten thousand for another day. The risks keep increasing.”

“That’s a lot of money.” Sam Simon scratched his head. “You’re into me pretty deep already.”

“Isn’t it worth it?”

“I guess so, for one more day.”

“Want to tell me what we’re looking for?”

“When we find it. If we find it.”

“It’s the mail, isn’t it? Something he gets in the mail.” To Nick there seemed no other reason why he simply couldn’t enter the general’s apartment and steal whatever it was Simon wanted. “Or rather, something you’re expecting him to get in the mail.”

“You’re smart,” Simon conceded.

“But if it’s that valuable he wouldn’t just throw it away.”

“He’d throw away the envelope. That’s what we need.”

“I see.”

“Since you’ve guessed that much, Velvet, I may as well tell you the rest. It was Ronnie’s work, really, that uncovered as much as we already have. Remember Carter Malone?”

“Who doesn’t?” Carter Malone had been one of the figures in the Watergate investigation, a man who jumped bail and deserted his family rather than face the prospect of prison. He’d been missing for six months, despite an intensive search by police and press.

“You probably know that a few people have hinted from time to time of White House involvement in his disappearance. I think I’m on the verge of proving it.”

“The President?”

“No, not the President, but the one closest to him—General Norman Spangler. Ronnie’s information is that Spangler is in direct contact with the missing man. In fact, Malone writes him every week or so. Naturally the letters can’t go to the White House, so they’re addressed to the general’s apartment. That’s one reason he waits for the mail each morning before going to work. The letter goes into his pocket, and the envelope goes into the garbage bag which he personally drops into the incinerator.”

“The mood this town is in, that information would finish Spangler at the White House. The President would have to fire him.”

“Better men have already gone down.”

“All right,” Nick said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Gloria rolled over in the bed, feeling the sudden movement as he slid out. “What time is it, Nicky?”

“A little before seven.”

“Not again this morning!”

“Maybe I’ll wind it up today. Then we can take that tour of the White House.”

“I hope so.”

He went back to the Potomac Arms, using the same key ruse that had worked so well the previous morning. General Spangler, a man of military habit, picked up his mail exactly at nine and repeated his routine of the first two days. Nick was waiting with outstretched arms to catch the trash bag as it dropped down the chute.

He was just pulling it in when the door of the incinerator room opened. “Oh!” a woman said, startled by his presence.

“I—” Nick straightened, holding the bag of garbage. “The chute seems to be clogged. We’d better call downstairs.”

“Clogged?” She was studying his face uncertainly. “Perhaps we can poke it with a broom.”

“It’s too far down. Let the super worry about it.”

“Who are—” He was already pushing past her. “Do you live on this floor?”

“Down the other end,” he mumbled.

“Which apartment?”

He ignored her and kept walking. He knew if she investigated the chute for herself she’d see it was clear. As soon as he was out of sight he took the fire stairs at the other end of the building, then went out the side door to his car. It had been a close call. He didn’t think he could risk it another day.

But when Sam Simon went through the morning’s garbage bag he shook his head sadly. “Nothing here. Not a thing.”

Nick pointed to one crumpled envelope, with a California address in the corner. “How about this one?”

“From his brother.”

“Shall we give it up?” Nick asked, turning to Ronnie Arden.

Ronnie twisted at his mustache. “We can’t—not with thirty grand invested in you already.”

“Ronnie’s right, Velvet. We have to keep on now, for the rest of the week.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. Spangler’s schedule will be different.”

Simon shook his head. “He’s been working Saturdays lately when the President’s in town. He’ll leave at the usual time.”

“All right,” Nick agreed. “Another five thousand.”

“Give us a break, Velvet. We’ve paid you and you haven’t delivered yet.”

“I’ve delivered three bags of garbage, which is exactly what you ordered. But I’ll give you a break. Let me try one more day and see what I get. If I strike out, it’s free. If I come up with the envelope, you pay me another five thousand.”

“Fair enough,” Sam Simon agreed, and they shook hands on it.

On Saturday morning Nick encountered trouble from the beginning. He’d had no trouble pausing at the door, his own key in hand, to wait for someone hurrying out to work. But this day everyone was staying in or sleeping longer. The first one out might well be General Spangler himself, and then it would be too late. Then he remembered the mail pickup and went around to the front of the apartment.

At about ten minutes to nine a car pulled up and a young man yanked two mail sacks from the front seat. “Need a hand with those?” Nick asked.

“Thanks, I’ve got them.”

Nick hurried to open the unlocked front door before the uniformed doorman had a chance. Then, smiling a friendly greeting at the doorman, Nick calmly walked in beside the youth with the mail.

When the sorting began, Nick took the elevator to the third floor. And encountered more trouble.

The woman from the previous morning was standing in front of the incinerator-room door, chatting with a neighbor. If she saw Nick, she’d surely question his presence again.

He pushed the elevator button and descended to the floor below.

The incinerator room there was identical with the ones above, but it presented a problem to Nick. He was now two floors below the general. He could not watch him leave his apartment, because there would not be enough time to run down two flights of stairs. Also, the dropped bag of trash would hit his waiting arms with much greater force, and an especially heavy bag might even escape his grip or split open. But he’d have to gamble on General Spangler sticking to his routine, gamble on holding on to the bag as it slid down the chute.

At ten minutes after nine he heard one of the upper doors open onto the chute. He braced himself and quickly plunged his arms into the darkness. Almost at once the bag landed safely in his arms. He drew the bag in, hardly breathing. Of course it might have, been someone else’s trash, not the general’s, but the paper bag looked the same and that gave him hope. He suspected many tenants used plastic garbage bags these days. He opened it enough to make sure, saw some empty envelopes on top, addressed to Spangler, relaxed, and headed for the stairs.

Once in Simon’s office, the columnist and his assistant pounced on a coffee-stained envelope. “This is it,” the little man said. Nick glanced at the return address. It was a post-office box number in Towers, Delaware.

“I know the place,” Arden said. “It’s a small town on the shore of Delaware Bay. We can be there in ninety minutes.”

“Good luck,” Nick said, rising to leave. “Do you want to pay me the balance now?”

“You’d better come along,” the columnist said. “Till we check this out. If Carter Malone is there, you’ll get the money.”

Nick didn’t argue. His curiosity had got the better of him. “May I use your phone?” he asked, and then dialed the number of the hotel to tell Gloria he’d be delayed.

They went in Ronnie Arden’s car, taking the highway across the bay near Annapolis, then continuing east until they reached the coast. Arden’s estimate of time had been correct. It was ten minutes after noon when they pulled up a block away from the tiny post office building in Towers.

“I’ll park back here,” Ronnie said, “in case he shows up for his mail.” But when no one came he decided finally, “I’d better go check on who rented that box.”

Simon agreed. “Flash your press card with a ten-dollar bill under it. I’ve found it does wonders.”

They sat in silence while Arden went down the street to the post office. Finally Nick said, “Nice little town. But why would Malone stay this close to Washington? If I’d jumped bail I’d get as far away as possible.”

“He still has contacts in Washington—General Spangler for one. And maybe he figures the police won’t look for him quite so close to home. He’s probably disguised himself, anyway.”

Nick decided to drop a small bombshell. “General Spangler certainly has reason to mistrust his wife, doesn’t he?”

Sam Simon’s mouth fell open, “What do you mean?”

“You and Ronnie knew that was the right envelope even before you examined it. How? Obviously, because it was coffee-stained. She’s the only one who could have spilled the coffee on it to tip you off.”

“Getting smart again, Velvet?”

“Smart? Not really. It’s obvious Ronnie must have learned about the letters from Malone and the general’s routine from his wife. And just as obvious that Spangler doesn’t trust the lady, or he wouldn’t wait for the mail every day and empty the rubbish himself before she can see the return address on the envelope.”

Ronnie Arden came out of the post office and headed back to the car. He slid into the driver’s seat and said, “That was easy. The box is rented to a Charles Martin of 122 Bayside Lane.”

“Same initials,” Simon snorted. “He’s not an experienced fugitive.”

Bayside Lane was a narrow winding street that hugged the shore of Delaware Bay. Its houses were mostly small-cottage types, just old enough to be showing signs of wear and neglect. Number 122 was like the others, with peeling paint on the clapboards and shingles missing on the roof.

“It’s a rented car,” Arden said, checking the compact in the carport. Sam Simon nodded and rang the bell.

When the second ring brought no answer, Nick moved around to the side door, in the carport. It was unlocked, as he’d expected it would be. “This way,” he called to the others.

They found the sole occupant of the little cottage slumped in a chair in front of a desk with a portable typewriter open on it. He’d been shot once in the right temple, and a small automatic pistol lay on the carpet near his right hand. In the typewriter was a sheet of paper with the words: I’m tired of running.

The dead man wore a recent growth of beard, but there was no doubt as to his identity. “It’s Carter Malone, all right,” Sam Simon said. “No doubt about it.”

“Who would have thought he’d have the guts to kill himself?” Arden mused, half to himself.

Simon was looking around frantically. “Isn’t there a phone in this place? This is the biggest story of my life!”

“The phone’s over by the window,” Nick informed him.

Simon bounded toward it.

“But maybe we’d better talk a bit before you call anyone.”

“Talk? About what? Your money?” Simon snorted. “Pay him his money, Ronnie.”

“It’s not the money. It’s something else.”

“What else?” Sam Simon asked.

“Post offices close at noon on Saturday.”

“Huh?”

“The post office was closed when Ronnie went to it.”

“If it was closed, how in hell could he have gotten this address?”

“Exactly,” Nick said, looking at Ronnie Arden.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Simon said. “Let’s sit down and talk this over.”

“I think we’d better,” Nick agreed.

But Ronnie Arden remained on his feet. “Are you going to listen to him, Sam? You’ve got the hottest story of the year right in your lap. Carter Malone, linked to General Spangler, a suicide!”

“Sit down,” Nick ordered. “The corpse can wait a few more minutes.”

Ronnie Arden grudgingly obeyed. “Do you believe this guy, Sam?”

“He’d better believe me,” Nick said. “Because the question immediately comes to mind—once you found the post office closed, Ronnie, why did you lie about it? Why was it so important to get us out here today—so important that you couldn’t simply tell us the post office was closed and we could come back Monday? No, it had to be today, with the side door left conveniently unlocked. You knew he was dead, Ronnie, and that raises the question whether it’s really a suicide.”

“It’s a suicide,” Arden insisted.

“I think you’ll have to prove it.”

“You’d better tell me what you know,” the columnist said. “Tell me, Ronnie.” His voice was deceptively soft.

“He shot himself last night. Mrs. Spangler was with him when it happened.”

“I see. And she called you.”

“She called me, yes! How do you think I’ve been getting this information from her? I guess she thought it was great fun to be cheating on her husband with two men—one a fugitive and the other a reporter who was looking for him.”

Sam Simon stirred on the edge of his chair. “Ronnie, there’s no way I can break this story without implicating you.”

“Why not? Tell the police you got a tip he was here. You don’t have to say where the tip came from.”

“In a case like this I’d have to go further than that, Ronnie. Suicide or not, the papers would be hinting at murder.”

Ronnie Arden glanced at Nick and said, “Then let’s close up the house and go away. Nobody knows we were here except Velvet, and he’s not likely to talk.”

“What about Mrs. Spangler?”

“She’s not about to say anything. Before he killed himself, Malone told her he’d written the general that final letter, hinting at a suicide. But he didn’t confess to an affair with Mrs. Spangler. If she admitted knowing about the suicide, she’d have to tell her husband everything—not only about Malone but about me as well.”

“At least we know why Malone still stayed close to Washington,” Nick observed. “Mrs. Spangler had to remain there and he wanted to be close to her.”

“How do we know Mrs. Spangler didn’t kill him?” Sam Simon asked, gesturing at the body.

“She had no reason to! After her affair with me began, she told me about Malone’s letters to her husband. She knew it was only a matter of time before we found him and he went off to prison. He was no danger to her.”

“Why didn’t she simply give you his address? Why this whole business of our stealing the envelope?”

Ronnie Arden dropped his eyes. “She didn’t want me to know of her affair with him. She didn’t tell me till last night, when she phoned me in a panic. I wanted us to break the suicide story, so I had to pretend I got the address from the post office.”

Sam Simon rose to his feet. “There’s no reason why this should all come out. I’ll cover for you, Ronnie. Your affair with Spangler’s wife could only ruin your usefulness to me, if the word got out, and you’re too good a man to lose.”

But Nick said, “The coverups keep on, don’t they? Just like Watergate.”

“This isn’t the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? This may be suicide or it may be murder, but the truth’s not going to come out unless all the facts do, unless everyone tells the truth, unless Spangler reveals that letter he got from Malone this morning.”

Sam Simon gazed out across the bay. After a moment he said, “Yes, you’re right.”

“You’re going to tell everything?” Arden asked in a panic. “I’ve got a family—”

“Everything,” Sam Simon said, and there was more than a trace of sadness in his voice. “Velvet is right. No coverup this time.”

Nick left them there waiting for the police. He walked into the center of town and caught a bus back to Washington. He had only one regret about the whole affair—he had collected his last $5,000 before leaving, but he’d never got to meet Mrs. Spangler.

Gloria was up early the next morning and was scanning the Sunday paper as they ate breakfast in their room. “Did you see all this, Nicky? About Malone killing himself, and General Spangler’s wife, and this columnist fellow?”

“I saw it all.”

“Washington is an exciting place to visit. There’s always something going on.”

“There certainly was this week,” he agreed.

“Did you get your job done, Nicky?”

“All finished. We can spend the whole day together.”

“I’m glad. I was worried about you.” She smiled across the table. “It’s dangerous being a spy, isn’t it?”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. She would never change, and that was why he loved her. “Well, I’m something like a spy, but not exactly. These government assignments—”

The Theft of the Bermuda Penny

“NICKY?”

Nick Velvet had been far away in some private dream world when Gloria’s voice summoned him back. He put down his beer and asked, “What is it?”

“Nicky, how can a person vanish from the back seat of a car that’s traveling sixty miles an hour on an expressway?”

“He can’t,” Nick answered, picking up the beer again.

“But it’s right here in the paper, Nicky! People along the New York State Thruway report picking up a young longhaired hitchhiker dressed all in white. He gets into the back seat, fastens his seat belt, and talks to the people about God. Then, suddenly they look around and he’s gone! And the seat belt is still fastened!”

Nick grunted, only half hearing her. “If I was a detective I could solve it.”

“Don’t you get any cases like that in your government work, Nicky?”

“Not often.” Gloria’s mistaken impression of his government service helped cover his awkward absences, so he did nothing to correct it.

“What about—?” she began, but the telephone interrupted her.

It was for Nick, and he took it in the little den out of Gloria’s hearing. The voice was that of a man for whom he’d worked on two prior occasions. “Velvet? I have someone with an urgent assignment. Can you handle it?”

“If it’s in my line.”

“It is. The client is a young woman. Her father was a dear friend of mine. Could you meet her at the marina, where you keep your boat?”

It was a good place for a meeting. On a summer’s weekend one or two more people would attract no attention. “How soon?”

“One hour?”

“Make it two,” Nick said.

As he’d expected, the Saturday sailors were lounging on the grass in their trunks and bikinis, sipping beers or gin-and-tonics. No one noticed him as he worked around his cabin cruiser. He’d been there less than half an hour when a young woman in white slacks and a blue shirt approached him. “Nice boat,” she said.

“I like it.”

“You’re Nick Velvet?” She could have been past thirty, but her face and mane of blonde hair made her look younger.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Jeanne Kraft, I want to hire you.”

He glanced around to make certain no one could hear. “You know I never steal money or anything of value.”

She hesitated. “This is money, but—”

“Then I can’t do it.”

“—it’s only a penny. A Bermuda penny, to be exact.”

She took one from the pocket of her slacks and handed it to him. The penny had the identical size and copper color of an American cent, with a likeness of Queen Elizabeth on the obverse together with the words BERMUDA and ELIZABETH II. The reverse had some sort of pig with a curly tail, and the words ONE CENT with the date 1971. A deep gouge ran across the pig’s back, as if the coin had been scratched with a knife.

“What’s the pig for?” Nick asked.

“Early Bermuda coins—the first coins struck in North America—were called hog money because of the wild hog shown on them. I think it’s been a tradition on Bermuda coins ever since.”

“Is this some sort of rare coin that’s worth a fortune?”

“Not at all. It’s worth one cent in Bermuda and the same here, where it can be passed as an American penny.”

“And you want me to steal one just like this?”

“That’s right. The same date and the same sort of scratch on it.”

“Who from?”

“A man named Alfred Cazar. He’s in New York now, at the Waldorf. But he’ll be leaving in a couple of days to drive upstate.”

“Where upstate?”

“Saratoga Springs, for the August racing season.” She reached out her hand and took back the penny. “A man named Blaze will be with him. He’s a sort of hired traveling companion.”

“You know my minimum fee is twenty thousand dollars?”

“Yes. I have a down payment here.” She passed him an envelope. “You’ll get the rest when you deliver the duplicate of this penny.”

“Where can I contact you?”

“I’ll be in Saratoga too, at the Grand Union Motel.”

Nick smiled. “Then I’ll see you there, Miss Kraft.”

Making contact with Alfred Cazar proved to be the easiest part of it. Nick simply phoned his suite at the Waldorf and asked for an appointment, representing himself as a magazine writer doing an article on the Saratoga racing season. Because he might have to show his driver’s license later, he used his real name.

When he reached the room, a spry little man in his sixties met him at the door. “I’m Cazar. You must be Velvet.”

“That’s right.” Nick followed him inside, passing the remains of a room-service breakfast for two. He wondered if there was a girl in the next room, but then he remembered the male companion Jeanne had mentioned.

“Don’t know how you happened to pick me,” Cazar said as he finished knotting his necktie. “But it’s true—I’ve been goin’ up to Saratoga every August for the past twenty-four years. Used to be a lot different in the old days, of course. You’d get these big-money men and really high rollers from all over the country—bigwigs, Vegas stickmen, nomad hustlers—all comin’ to Saratoga for August.”

“But not any more?” Nick said.

“Not any more. The town’s pretty much had it. Hell, in New York State you got off-track bettin’ now. Who wants to go all the way to Saratoga for the action?”

Nick made a few notes. “Then why do you still go, Mr. Cazar?”

The little man grinned. “The springs are good for my arthritis. I bathe in them every mornin’ then go to the track in the afternoon. At my age it helps the body and the wallet both.”

From the beginning Nick’s only problem in stealing the Bermuda penny was in locating it. He doubted if the little man carried it on him—not if it had value to someone—and searching this suite of rooms for an object that small could be a near-impossible task. He had to get the man away from here, where the possessions to be searched would be limited to the clothes on his back and a suitcase. “I’d like to go with you to Saratoga,” he suggested now.

“Go with me? I’ll be driving up, in a rented car.”

“I could do part of the driving for you,” Nick offered. “To properly research my article I really should spend as much time with you as possible.”

“I have someone to do the driving,” Alfred Cazar said. He raised his voice and called, “Hugo, come in here for a moment!”

A bulky man who looked like an ex-prizefighter appeared in the doorway. Apparently he’d been listening from the next room and Nick didn’t doubt for a moment that he carried a gun under the jacket of his summer suit. “You want me, boss?”

“Hugo Blaze—Nick Velvet, a magazine writer. He’s doing a story on the season at Saratoga. Wants to drive up there with us.”

The newcomer shook Nick’s hand with a powerful grip. “Pleased to meet you.”

Close up, Nick was forced to revise his first impression. Hugo Blaze’s rough features were partly the result of pock-marks that made him look more sinister than he normally would. But his eyes were friendly, and Nick decided maybe he wasn’t carrying a gun under his jacket after all.

“Are you a gambling man?” Cazar asked Nick.

“At times,” Nick admitted. “But not so it interferes with my work.”

“The drive to Saratoga Springs, along the Thruway and the Northway, can be a boring one. You can come along if you’ll join me in a little wagering along the way.”

“Fair enough,” Nick agreed.

Cazar motioned to Blaze. “Hugo, bring along some of those sugar cubes from the breakfast table. We may want to picnic along the way.”

The drive up to Albany, in the air-conditioned comfort of the closed car, was quickly enlivened by Cazar’s betting games. “Now, Velvet,” he said from the back seat, “Call out any two-digit number.”

“Sixty-three,” Nick responded.

“Sixty-three. Fine! I’ll bet you twenty dollars even money that none of the first fifty cars to pass us will have a sixty-three as the last two digits of its license plate.”

It was difficult to see the plates on cars across the dividing mall, but they were going slowly enough so that fifty cars had passed them in the left lane during the first half hour. Cazar won his bet, and Nick passed a twenty-dollar bill to him in the back seat.

Hugo Blaze, sitting behind the wheel, smirked and said, “Never bet against the boss.”

Cazar patted Nick on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s stop at the next service area for lunch and I’ll give you a chance to win it back.”

The service area, about halfway to Albany, was nearly empty when they drove in. Blaze brought out a plastic cloth and spread it over one of the wooden picnic tables while Nick and Alfred Cazar went in to buy coffee and sandwiches. “You can drive the rest of the way to Albany if you want,” Cazar suggested. “Then Hugo will take over from Albany to Saratoga.”

“Fine.”

The little man eyed him speculatively. “You know, Velvet, you don’t seem like a writer. A guy I know told me once about a thief named Velvet. You wouldn’t be him, would you?”

Nick merely grinned. “You seem to be doing the stealing, the way you got that twenty off me.”

“I’ll give you a chance to win it back.” They’d reached the picnic table by the side of the parking lot where Hugo Blaze waited. “Hugo, have you got those sugar cubes?”

Blaze dug into his pocket and took out a handful of wrapped sugar cubes from the hotel. He unwrapped two of them and placed them on the tablecloth. “What’s that for?” Nick asked.

Alfred Cazar smiled. “Picnics always attract flies. You choose one sugar cube and I’ll take the other. I’ll bet twenty, even money, that a fly lands on my cube first.”

“You’ll bet on anything, won’t you?” Nick said, but he took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet.

“Which cube?”

“The one on the right.”

Cazar nodded. “Then I’ll move mine over here and we’ll see what happens.”

While they ate their sandwiches they kept an eye on the twin cubes of sugar, resting about a foot apart. Presently a fly appeared, attracted by the food, and swooped low over the table. But it flew off without landing on the sugar. A second fly came by, hesitated a moment, and then settled on top of Cazar’s cube.

“You win,” Nick said, handing him the money.

“Let’s try it again. I’ll give you the other cube this time, just to prove it’s honest. Another twenty?”

Nick showed his depleted wallet. “I can’t afford it.”

“Hell, I thought you were a gamblin’ man!”

“How about if we play for the change in our pockets?” Nick suggested. He emptied out his own pocket, placing a quarter, four dimes, a nickel, and eight pennies on the table.

“Seventy-eight cents? You want me to gamble for seventy-eight cents?”

“Sure. Give me a break—you’ve won forty bucks from me already!”

Cazar produced a little zippered purse which he emptied on the table. “Seventy-one cents. It’s the best I can do. Hugo, you got seven cents?”

The bulky Blaze flipped a dime onto the pile. But Alfred Cazar had another thought. He reached into a pocket of his wallet and extracted another penny. “My lucky coin—I’ll bet that, too.”

Nick could hardly believe it would be this easy. There, before his eyes, was the Bermuda penny he’d been hired to steal. Even the scratch was the same as on Jeanne Kraft’s coin. “That’s just a penny,” he said, hoping his voice was under control.

“A very special one, Velvet. But let’s get on with this. Your cube is on the left this time, and I’ll move mine down to the other end of the table just so the flies can make a clear choice.”

Nick held his breath and waited. Maybe, just maybe—

A fly came close, almost landed on his cube, then darted away toward the far end of the table. After a moment’s inspection it came to rest on Cazar’s sugar.

“Another win!” the little gambler chortled. “You don’t bet against Alfred Cazar!”

“It certainly wasn’t my idea,” Nick agreed.

“We’d better get back on the road,” Blaze suggested. “We want to make Saratoga before evening.”

While Cazar and Blaze went off to the men’s room, Nick drove the car up to the gas pump and had the tank filled. They were an odd pair, and he wondered if Blaze might be more than an employee. At times the two men seemed more like partners—gentle grifters plying their trade on the road to Saratoga Springs.

Presently he saw them returning to the car. Blaze got in front next to him and explained the automatic shift. He heard Cazar buckle his seat belt in back, then shut the door. “Come on, you two, let’s go!”

Nick pulled onto the Thruway, taking it easy until he got the feel of the unfamiliar vehicle. “It’s straight ahead about seventy-five miles to Albany,” Blaze advised him.

“Thanks.” Nick stepped up the speed to the legal 55, then gradually worked it to 60.

“How about another license-plate bet?” Cazar’s voice asked.

“I’m broke.”

“I thought I saw a ten in that wallet.”

“I need something for Saratoga. Hell, you’ll win more off me than I’ll get paid for this article.”

Blaze lit a cigarette and smoked in silence, but his boss wasn’t to be shut up. “Come on, Velvet, put up that ten!”

“No, thanks.”

Nick lapsed into silence and Cazar did, too. After a few more miles he glanced in the rear-view mirror but he couldn’t see the little man. “Don’t mind him,” Blaze said softly. “If you won’t bet with him he’ll probably doze off for a bit.”

“You been working for him long?” Nick asked, making conversation.

“A year or so. He’s a good boss. It’s easy work.”

They passed two cars and had a clear highway ahead. Before Nick realized it, his speed had slipped past 65, on the way to 70. That was when he heard the siren and glanced in the mirror. “Damn! State Police.”

Blaze cursed and put out his cigarette. “Take the ticket. Mr. Cazar will pay it.”

As the trooper strolled up and asked for his license, Nick glanced into the back seat for Cazar. “Where is he?” he asked Blaze. “Is he on the floor?”

Blaze peered over the seat back. “He’s not there. He’s gone! His seat belt is still fastened, but he’s gone!”

“What is all this?” the trooper asked.

“We lost a passenger,” Nick said. He got out on his side and yanked open the rear door. It was true. Alfred Cazar had vanished.

“You mean you forgot him somewhere?”

“He was in the car,” Blaze insisted, looking blank.

“I saw him get in,” Nick agreed. “We were talking to him!”

Nick bit his lip. His mind had a vision of the Bermuda penny—and his $20,000 fee—flying away from him. “I know! He’s a small man, and some cars have back seats that have access to the trunk compartment. That’s where he’s got to be!”

He unlocked the trunk, but it was empty except for a spare tire and a jack. Blaze was on his knees, peering beneath the car, and Nick joined him.

There was no trace of Alfred Cazar.

“Maybe he jumped out when we stopped,” Blaze said. “But we didn’t hear the door open.”

The trooper shook his head. “Nobody jumped out when you stopped. Now let’s quit the kidding around. I don’t care how many people vanished from the back seat—you’re still gettin’ a ticket for speeding!”

As the trooper wrote the ticket, Nick was forced to admit Cazar had vanished into thin air, from the back seat of a closed car going nearly 70 miles an hour.

For eleven months of the year Saratoga Springs had a quiet village atmosphere befitting its population of less than 20,000 people. Even the one-time fame of its waters and mud baths had declined in recent years, leaving it with the perpetual gloom of an off-season spa. Only in August, during the racing days, was there still a flash of the old glory. It wasn’t quite like the early days, when the racing season brought the country’s biggest mobsters to the spa for wide-open gambling. But enough remained on this fine August afternoon to give Nick a feeling of what once had been.

He dropped Hugo Blaze at the old Gideon Putnam Hotel and then drove on in search of a room for himself. It was difficult to find one without a reservation, but just then a room for the night was the least of his worries.

A few horse trailers were parked along Union Avenue, shaded by stately elms, and he discovered to his surprise that the racetrack was quite near the center of town. He might want to visit the track later, but right now he was more interested in seeing Jeanne Kraft. He parked in the lot next to the Grand Union Motel and went inside to find her.

She wasn’t in her room, but he located her in the hotel coffee shop, munching on a tuna-fish sandwich. “I’m glad you got here,” she said as he slipped into the booth. “Any trouble?”

“Depends what you mean by trouble. Alfred Cazar has disappeared and taken the Bermuda penny with him.”

“You mean he’s run off?”

“I mean he’s disappeared.” He told her everything that had happened. “This guy Blaze is at the Gideon Putnam Hotel, hoping he’ll get some word from Cazar. I’m supposed to see him there later.”

“It was a trick of some sort,” Jeanne Kraft said. “Cazar used to do some night-club magic, along with being a mimic and impressionist. He showed you the penny to watch your reaction. When you were interested, he must have guessed I hired you. He disappeared to keep you from stealing the penny.”

“But how? And where do I find him now?”

“That’s what I’m paying you $20,000 for.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t blame yourself entirely. He’s a clever man.”

“My only chance of finding him now is to learn what this is all about—what makes his Bermuda penny so valuable. Isn’t it about time you told me?”

“I—” She hesitated, glancing around nervously. “All right, I suppose I have to tell you. It started some years back, in Bermuda. My father, Jesse Kraft, was one of the wealthiest men in Hamilton. My mother was dead and I was the only child, so I was naturally very close to him. His one weakness was poker. He’d meet once a week for a high-stakes game with a half-dozen other wealthy men and whoever happened to be visiting the island. Sometimes these Friday night games would go on till Sunday morning.”

“Did he usually win or lose?”

“Mostly win. But one night there was a really big game with over a hundred thousand dollars on the table. My father was in it, and Alfred Cazar, and a Canadian named Brian Chetwind. They kept raising each other until everyone was forced to drop out. Then, when my father and Cazar raised Chetwind more cash than he had on him, the Canadian said he’d have to use IOU’s. Anyway, to make the story brief, by the end of the evening my father and Cazar were each in possession of a Bermuda penny on which the Canadian had scratched his mark with a knife. And each of these pennies was an IOU for $60,000.”

“Why a penny? Why not a traditional IOU?”

“The pennies were still new in 1971. Bermuda had only adopted a dollar-decimal currency a year earlier. Then too, Chetwind was an important Canadian businessman who couldn’t risk having his name signed to an ordinary IOU. Naturally the marked pennies had no legal standing as collectable debts, but then neither would regular IOU’s.”

“Why hasn’t the money been collected from Chetwind before this?”

“My father and Cazar met him here at Saratoga in August of ’71, but he persuaded them to let the gambling debt ride. He promised they could double their money through investments he’d make in Canadian mines. Since they had none of their own money to lose, they agreed. This August full payment is to be made. Each of the two shares is now worth something like $130,000.”

“A goodly sum,” Nick admitted. “But where’s your father?”

“Some months back, when the full value of their shares became known, my father was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Miami Beach. I’m convinced he was murdered by Alfred Cazar.”

“For the penny?”

“For the penny. Chetwind knows both men were inveterate gamblers. If Cazar produced both pennies, with the story that he’d won my father’s in a poker game, Chetwind would accept it without question.”

“But you have the penny,” Nick said. “You showed it to me.”

“My father had it hidden where Cazar couldn’t find it. But the very fact that both my father’s body and his home were searched told me that Cazar was behind the crime. If I can’t bring him to justice any other way, I’ll at least turn the tables on him—by stealing his Bermuda penny.”

“I don’t kill people,” Nick warned her.

“I didn’t ask you to kill him. I asked you to steal the penny.”

“He might not surrender it while he lives. He’s already proven to be a very clever customer.”

Jeanne Kraft eyed Nick with something close to disdain. “Those things he pulled on you were tricks and nothing more. If you fell for them, you deserved to lose your money.”

“What do you mean ‘tricks’?”

“The license-plate bet. It’s not a 50-50 proposition at all. You can find the mathematics of it in any good book on gambling. Try Scarne’s Complete Guide to Gambling and it’ll also tell you how he worked the sugar-cube stunt.”

“You mean that was a trick, too?”

She nodded. “Sometime before the bet the two sugar cubes were doctored. A drop of insecticide was placed on one side of each cube. To start with, both of these sides were facing up. Then, after you chose your cube, he turned his over while positioning it. The flies were kept away from your cube, but landed on his.”

“I’ll be damned,” Nick said.

“It’s so simple when you know how.”

“But what about his vanishing trick in the car? Any ideas about that?”

Jeanne Kraft shook her head. “I’ve never heard that one done before.”

But Nick had. He’d heard about it quite recently, in fact. Gloria had read something in the newspaper about it.

“I have to find a phone,” he said.

“What about the penny?”

“When are you meeting Chetwind?”

“Tomorrow morning at the racing museum. Ten o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

Nick took a room for himself at the Holiday Inn and phoned home to Gloria. “Nicky, what’s happened?” she asked, alarmed to be hearing from him. He wasn’t in the habit of calling while away.

“Nothing. I’m okay. I just need some information. Remember that newspaper article you read about the hitchhiker vanishing from the back seat of a car?”

“Yes?”

“Get it and read it to me, will you?”

She left the phone and returned after a few minutes. The newspaper article was just as she’d first reported it—a bizarre account of a white-clad hippie hitchhiker who vanished from the back seats of autos after speaking of religion and judgment. The source for the story was given as a Professor Trout, folklorist at State University in Albany.

“Thanks, Gloria. That’s what I wanted.”

“Will you be home soon?”

“Maybe by tomorrow night, the way things are going.”

“Be careful.”

“I always am.”

He hung up and put through a call to the State University. Professor Trout was not on campus during the summer, but he managed to obtain a home phone number. With one more call he had the man on the wire.

“I know,” Trout said, speaking briskly. “It’s the damned article. The phone’s been ringing here all week. I suppose you have a disappearance to report too.”

“In a way,” Nick admitted. “But I have a couple of questions to ask you first. The paper says you’re a folklorist.”

“That’s right.”

“Meaning you don’t really believe any of these happenings?”

“Not exactly,” Trout answered carefully. “Folklore is often based on distorted truths.”

“I just want an answer, Professor. Are these reports about vanishing hitchhikers to be believed?”

“Oh, yes, as far as they go. You have to realize that the original reports came from young people—kids pretty well into the drug culture.”

“Oh? Does that explain how he disappeared?”

“I think so. These kids often drive when they’re high on something—just as adults do, unfortunately. Since many hallucinogens give one a distorted time-sense, it’s quite likely a driver picked up a hitchhiker, talked with him, dropped him off somewhere without realizing or remembering it, and then really believed he simply vanished from the car. Once a story like that gets started, you always receive accounts of people with similar experiences.”

“That’s the only explanation you’ve come up with?” Nick asked, unable to conceal his disappointment. He knew he hadn’t been high on anything when Alfred Cazar vanished.

“What other possibility is there?”

“None, I suppose,” Nick answered with a sigh. “Thank you, Professor.”

Though it was late afternoon, Nick walked a mile east on Lincoln Avenue to the Saratoga Race Course. The day’s races were just finishing as he reached the gate, and he stood aside to watch the faces of the people as they exited. Happy, sad, glowing, disgruntled—their faces told their day’s fortunes. He watched one man empty his pockets of losing tickets and walk on, while another immediately pounced on them to search for an overlooked winner.

He’d come in hopes of catching a glimpse of a reincarnated Alfred Cazar, but the little man was nowhere visible in the crowd. Finally, as the departing throng thinned, he gave up and headed back to the red-brick Gideon Putnam Hotel to see Hugo Blaze.

The bulky man was in his room, and when he let Nick in he motioned him to a chair. “I’m on the phone,” he explained. “Won’t be a minute.”

Nick heard him talking to New York, apparently reporting to someone on the disappearance of Alfred Cazar. When he hung up, Nick asked, “Any word of him back there?”

“Not a thing. He seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

Blaze shrugged. “Why not? My salary is paid for another two weeks, and my job was to accompany him up here. I can only assume he’ll turn up.”

Nick nodded. “Let’s get something to eat.”

All the while they were dining in the elegant and spacious room downstairs, Nick’s thoughts were somewhere else. Cazar had the Bermuda penny, and Cazar had disappeared. There was no way to steal it unless he could find the man, and that seemed impossible.

“Saratoga has changed a great deal these past years,” Blaze was saying. “The gambling casino is now a museum, and most of the big old hotels are gone. They even issue health warnings about the mineral water.”

“There must be someplace you can find a decent poker game,” Nick suggested.

“Oh, sure. You interested?”

“I might be.” Nick was remembering the Canadian, Brian Chetwind, and his liking for poker. If he planned to meet Jeanne in the morning at the racing museum, the odds were he was already in town. And he might well be found at a high-stakes game.

So after dinner they took the rented car and drove up North Broadway to a rambling white guest house on the edge of town. “This place was here at the turn of the century,” Hugo Blaze explained. “And there was gambling here then.”

He led Nick inside, through sitting rooms still lush with opulence of another era. Finally, in the rear, they passed through a double door into a large game room. Here seven men sat around a green-topped poker table moving their stacks of chips in and out of play like the money moguls they probably were. Nick noticed a craps table at one side of the room too, but for the moment all the action was on poker.

Nick studied the faces of the men at the table, trying to decide if one might be the Canadian. He listened to the names they called each other, but there seemed to be no Brian at the table. “This the only game around?” Nick asked Blaze.

“It’s the best game around. There’s usually one in the back room at the Orange Dollar, too.”

“Let’s try that.”

The Orange Dollar was an old-fashioned roadhouse a bit farther along North Broadway. The back-room poker game was noisier and more crowded here, and Nick knew at once he’d found the right place. “Raise you, Chetwind,” one of the players was saying as he entered, addressing a tall man who sat with his back to the door.

“You going to stay around here?” Blaze asked Nick.

“I think so, for a while.”

“I’m going off to the track. Rather lose my money on a horse than a deck of cards, any day.”

“Racing at night?”

“They’ve got a harness track that operates at night. I told you this was a swinging place.”

After Hugo Blaze left, Nick remained watching the poker game. One busted player offered his chair, but Nick shook his head. He hadn’t come to gamble, only to speak to Brian Chetwind.

After about an hour the Canadian cashed in his chips and rose from the chair with a wide stretch of his arms. “Enough for now. I’ll see you birds tomorrow.”

He sauntered over to a little bar at one end of the room and Nick joined him there. “You’re Brian Chetwind, aren’t you?”

The Canadian was tall and handsome, with gray hair fashionably styled across his forehead. He looked like money. “That’s me. Do I know you?”

“Nick Velvet’s the name. I’m doing some work for an acquaintance of yours—Jeanne Kraft.”

The tall Canadian nodded. “Lovely young lady. Terrible thing about her father.”

“I understand you’re meeting her tomorrow.”

“That’s correct. We have a business deal to close.”

“And Alfred Cazar?”

“Cazar? You know him, too?”

“Yes,” Nick admitted. “I drove up here with him from New York.”

“Glad he’s here. I’ve been looking for him.”

“I’ll be frank, Mr. Chetwind. I know something of your dealings with Cazar and the late Jesse Kraft. I know about the two Bermuda pennies.”

“I see. And what is your interest?”

“I’m looking after Miss Kraft’s interests. It’s important that I know if Cazar has contacted you today.”

“I told you I’d been looking for him, didn’t I?” Chetwind was growing impatient. “If you’re some sort of strongarm man hired by Miss Kraft, you can be assured that I intend to pay my debts.”

“Nothing like that,” Nick said. “She’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Chetwind.”

He left the Canadian and went outside. Hugo Blaze had taken the car, and it was necessary to hire a taxi to drive him to the Grand Union Motel where Jeanne was staying. During the ride he couldn’t help considering a possibility which hadn’t occurred to Jesse Kraft’s daughter. There was someone besides Alfred Cazar with a motive for killing Kraft and stealing his Bermuda penny.

Brian Chetwind would have the strongest motive in the world—if he wasn’t able to pay off his debts.

Nick hadn’t really expected Jeanne Kraft to sit in her room all night, but it was frustrating nonetheless when she failed to answer his knock. There were too many places where she might be—the harness track, the concert, the summer theater, or even one of the mineral baths.

He was about to walk away when he heard a sound, very low, from the other side of her door. “Jeanne? Are you in there?” he called.

The low sound was repeated, and now he recognized it as a moan. He tried the door but it was locked. “Jeanne!”

“… help me …” she said from the other side of the door, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Can you reach the knob to open the door?”

There was a few moments’ pause, then the door opened. Jeanne Kraft was sagging against the wall, holding her head. “He was waiting for me, Nick. He hit me.”

“Who hit you?”

“I didn’t see him, but it must have been—” Her eyes caught sight of the purse on the floor, its contents scattered across the rug. She dropped to her knees and pawed through the purse, then gasped out, “Cazar! He stole my Bermuda penny!”

“You’re sure it’s gone?”

“Of course I’m sure! I had it hidden inside the lining here.”

“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

Her face was a picture of dejection. “So now he’s got both pennies.”

“Or neither.”

“What?”

“Have you considered the possibility that Chetwind might have killed your father, made Cazar disappear from that car, and assaulted you—all to keep from paying his gambling debts?”

“But he’s a wealthy man!”

“Is he? I was with him tonight. He left a poker game quite early, and it wasn’t the biggest game in town.”

“I still think it was Cazar. If only you could find him!”

“To know where he is I have to know how he pulled that vanishing act,” Nick said. “Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it ever since it happened. Funny thing—it’s almost as if the wrong man disappeared. If it had been Hugo Blaze who vanished instead of Cazar, I’d know how it was done.”

But she wasn’t listening. She sat looking at her purse and shaking her head. “What will I do now, Nick?”

“Meet Chetwind as planned tomorrow morning, just as if you still had the penny. In. fact, I think we’ll both go meet him.”

The town awoke slowly, perhaps with a hangover from the night before, and Nick and Jeanne had the coffee shop almost to themselves for breakfast. “What happens at the museum?” he asked. “It would seem a pretty public place for a meeting.”

“At ten each morning they show films of the previous day’s races. I’m to meet Chetwind there, but we’ll probably go elsewhere for the actual exchange.” Then, remembering, she added, “Of course, I no longer have anything to exchange.”

“Let me worry about that. If Cazar has both pennies, he’ll show up for the meeting, too. If he doesn’t have them, that puts the finger on Chetwind.”

“And you’ll get them back for me? Both of them?”

“Both of them,” he assured her. “And it won’t cost you anything extra. Two for the price of one.”

By ten o’clock there was a fair crowd at the National Museum of Racing, across Union Avenue from the track itself. Nick let Jeanne walk ahead of him and enter the darkened area where films of the previous day’s races would be shown. He stayed near a display case, looking over past racing trophies while he kept an eye on the main entrance.

He’d only been watching a few moments when Brian Chetwind hurried through the doors, heading straight for the film without a glance to his right or left. A minute later Hugo Blaze strode in.

Nick hesitated only an instant. The whole caper had been one big gamble from the beginning, with license plates, sugar cubes, horses, and cards. Now it was time for him to gamble. “Blaze!” he called softly. “Over here.”

Hugo Blaze paused, hesitated, then walked over to the display case where Nick stood. “What’s up?”

“In here,” Nick said, motioning toward the men’s room door. “It’s important.”

Hugo Blaze stepped inside, looking puzzled, and Nick followed him. A moment later Nick came out alone and headed across the lobby toward the film showing. Jeanne Kraft was just emerging with Chetwind.

“Nick, what can I do? He’s ready to pay off, but he needs the coins!”

“Wait here a moment,” Nick told the Canadian. Then he steered Jeanne back across the lobby to the men’s room door.

“In there?”

Nick nodded. “I want you to meet Mr. Hugo Blaze.”

He opened the door wide enough so she could see the unconscious man sprawled on the tile floor. “But—but, Nick, that’s not Blaze! That’s Alfred Cazar!”

Nick Velvet smiled. “I just won a bet with myself. And here, young lady, are your two Bermuda pennies.”

Nick and Jeanne left Saratoga by car later that day. For them the season was over. “Look!” she exclaimed, holding up for Nick the thick packets of bonds that Brian Chetwind had given her. “They’re worth more than a quarter of a million on today’s market!”

“He’s an honest man.”

She nodded agreement. “That’s more than I can say about Cazar. But how did you know he was Blaze? And how did they work that disappearance from the car?”

“When I first met the older man in his hotel room at the Waldorf, he simply said he was Cazar and I believed him. But right from the start I felt there was something funny. Blaze kept calling him ‘boss,’ overdoing the supposed relationship.

“The fake Cazar showed me the Bermuda penny for two reasons—to see if I was interested, and to fool me as to its location. When I revealed my interest, they knew I’d been hired by you, and they used a clever dodge like the old shell game. The fake Cazar simply slipped the penny to the real Cazar and then the fake Cazar disappeared. I couldn’t steal it if I thought it had vanished along with him. The penny was only inches away from me all the time, yet it was safer than in a bank vault.”

“But how did the fake Cazar disappear?”

“They’d just given me the job of driving a strange car. I saw them come back and heard the fake Cazar in the rear seat. Fastening his seat belt. Then he slammed the door.” That should have told me something. It’s far more natural to close the door before you fasten the belt. But back-seat belts aren’t connected to any buzzer system, and I simply assumed he was still in the car.

“Meanwhile, the real Cazar—or Blaze—was distracting my attention by explaining the car’s automatic shift. I started up, with Cazar’s voice talking to me from the back seat, and drove away. In reality my back-seat passenger was left behind, probably crouched behind a gas pump. His work was done, and he probably got a cab or hitched a ride back to New York.”

“But the voice!”

“You told me yourself that Cazar had been a night-club entertainer—a mimic and impressionist. I suspect he knew a little ventriloquism, too. While he sat in the front seat calmly smoking a cigarette, he was imitating the absent man’s voice in such a way that it appeared to come from the rear. I couldn’t see him in my rearview mirror, but I certainly believed he was there.

“I suppose the article in the newspaper the other day about the vanishing hitchhiker gave them the idea for the stunt. Its main purpose was to send me off after a phantom Cazar while the Bermuda penny made a safe trip to Saratoga Springs.”

“But what put you onto Blaze—or Cazar—this morning?”

“Remember, I told you last night the wrong man had disappeared. I was considering the possibility I’d been duped by a ventriloquist and mimic. Cazar fitted the bill, but he was the one who vanished. I couldn’t believe both men in the car had that talent.

“But then I remembered how quickly Blaze left me last night when we stopped by a poker game where Chetwind was playing. He couldn’t risk the Canadian seeing him and calling him by his real name. This morning Blaze showed up when I was expecting Cazar, and I took a gamble. I slugged him in the men’s room and went through his pockets. He had both Bermuda pennies, ready to hand over to Chetwind.”

“Will he come after me now?”

“I doubt it. He’s a gambler and he knows when he’s beaten. Besides, he won’t want the police digging into your father’s death. If he does give you any trouble, have him arrested for assaulting you in your room last night.”

“How can I ever thank you?”

Nick had an answer. “You can start by paying me the balance of my fee. Then we’ll go on from there.”

THE END

Bibliography

(FIRST AMERICAN AND FIRST British magazine publications are given, as well as all American book and anthology appearances. EQMM is Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Argosy is the British short-story magazine, not the American publication of the same name. The Spy and the Thief is a 1971 paperback issued by Davis Publications, Inc.)

1. The Theft of the Clouded Tiger, EQMM 9/66; Argosy 11/68; Best Detective Stories of the Year, ed. Anthony Boucher, Dutton, 1967; The Spy and the Thief.

2. The Theft from the Onyx Pool, EQMM 6/67; Argosy 12/68; The Spy and the Thief.

3. The Theft of the Toy Mouse, EQMM 6/68; Argosy 1/69.

4. The Theft of the Brazen Letters, EQMM 11/68; Argosy 2/69; Crime Without Murder, ed. Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Scribners, 1970; The Spy and the Thief.

5. The Theft of the Wicked Tickets, EQMM 9/69; Argosy 2/70; The Spy and the Thief.

6. The Theft of the Sacred Music, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine 9/69 as “Dead Man’s Song”; Argosy 12/69.

7. The Theft of the Meager Beavers, EQMM 12/69.

8. The Theft of the Laughing Lions, EQMM 2/70; Argosy 6/70; Ellery Queen’s Headliners, ed. Ellery Queen, World, 1971; The Spy and the Thief.

9. The Theft of the Silver Lake Serpent, Argosy 1/70.

10. The Theft of the Coco Loot; EQMM 9/70; Argosy 1-2/71 as “Theft of the Convict’s Calendar”; Best Detective Stories of the Year, ed. Allen J. Hubin, Dutton, 1971; The Spy and the Thief.

11. The Theft of the Blue Horse, EQMM 11/70; Argosy 3/71; The Spy and the Thief.

12. The Theft of the Dinosaur’s Tail, EQMM 3/71; Argosy 8/71; Ellery Queen’s Magicians of Mystery, ed. Ellery Queen, Dial, 1976.

13. The Theft of the Satin Jury, EQMM 6/71; Argosy 2/73; Ellery Queen’s Champions of Mystery, ed. Ellery Queen, Dial, 1977.

14. The Theft of the Leather Coffin, EQMM 11/71; Argosy 7/72.

15. The Theft of the Seven Ravens, EQMM 1/72.

16. The Theft of the Mafia Cat, EQMM 5/72; Argosy 8/72.

17. The Theft from the Empty Room, EQMM 9/72; Ellery Queen’s Crookbook, ed. Ellery Queen, Random House, 1974; Masterpieces of Mystery (Vol. 6), ed. Ellery Queen, Meredith, 1977.

18. The Theft of the Foggy Film, EQMM 11/72; Argosy 5/73.

19. The Theft of the Crystal-Crown, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, 1/73.

20. The Theft of the Circus Poster, EQMM 5/73.

21. The Theft of the Cuckoo Clock, EQMM 9/73.

22. The Theft of Nick Velvet, EQMM 2/74.

23. The theft of the General’s Trash, EQMM 5/74.

24. The Theft of the Legal Eagle, EQMM 7/74.

25. The Theft of the Bermuda Penny, EQMM 6/75.

26. The Theft of the Venetian Window, EQMM 11/75; Ellery Queen’s Searches and Seizures, ed. Ellery Queen, Dial, 1977.

27. The Theft of the Admiral’s Snow, EQMM 4/76.

28. The Theft of the Wooden Egg, EQMM 7/76.

29. The Theft of the Sherlockian Slipper, EQMM 2/77.

30. The Theft of Nothing at All, EQMM 5/77.

31. The Theft of the Child’s Drawing, EQMM 10/77.

32. The Theft of the Family Portrait, EQMM 3/78.

33. The Theft of the Turquoise Telephone, EQMM 8/78.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications for permission to reprint the stories listed:

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger” (September 1966), “The Theft from the Onyx Pool” (June 1967), “The Theft of the Toy Mouse” (June 1968), “The Theft of the Meager Beavers” (December 1969), “The Theft of the Seven Ravens” (January 1972), “The Theft of the Mafia Cat” (May 1972), “The Theft from the Empty Room” (September 1972), “The Theft of the Circus Poster” (May 1973), “The Theft of Nick Velvet” (February 1974), “The Theft of the General’s Trash” (May 1974) and “The Theft of the Bermuda Penny” (June 1975).

Argosy for “The Theft of the Silver Lake Serpent (January 1970).

Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine for “The Theft of the Crystal Crown” (January 1973).

Copyright © 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, by Edward D. Hoch. New material copyright © 1978 by The Mysterious Press.

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

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