Trojan Gold

“He mentioned you. He didn’t explain, though; he had just spotted Perlmutter and was all excited about him. Then he—well, he passed out.”

“Wake him.”

“No use. He’s out for the next six hours, I’ve seen it before. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

“Bloody hell,” John muttered. “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like any of it. How about you? Any luck?”

“Only in a negative sense. Look here.” He put his glass down. The back of the shop was dark; when he pulled the chain of a hanging bulb, I saw that the pieces of the Schrank had been neatly arranged in something like the original order—the back against the wall, the two side pieces next to them, and, in between, a pile of rougher boards that were obviously the shelves. John picked up the topmost of these; it was a solid slab of hardwood three-quarters of an inch thick, unadorned and unfinished. He turned it to the light. The marks were clearly visible—slightly indented, faintly stained.

“Something stood on that shelf for years, probably decades,” he said. “Something heavy and rectangular —”

“The treasure chest?” I said dubiously. “Boy, talk about jumping to conclusions—”

“I know it was a chest.” John put the shelf down and indicated a smaller pile of scraps, off to one side. “Here are the pieces of it. The dimensions fit the marks on the shelf. Now observe—there is nothing up my sleeve….” He carried the scraps to the workbench and laid them out. “Bottom, sides, top. It’s oak, hardened with age. Even Freddy must have had a spot of bother chopping it up. Threads caught on splinters within indicate it was once lined with wool, possibly a piece of blanket.” I opened my mouth to object; John raised a minatory finger. “Wait. The best is yet to come.” From his breast pocket he took a small plasticized envelope, the kind jewelers use, and waved it. Sparks flared and danced. I snatched it from him.

“Gold!”

John resumed his pose on the edge of the bench, his foot swinging. “Gold. A grand total of five minuscule grains caught on splinters, or on the wool threads. No, don’t open it, they’re so light they’ll simply float away. There’s not enough to test, but from the color and the texture it appears to be virtually pure—twenty-four carat.”

“No wonder they smashed the Schrank,” I murmured. “It was there—my God, it was there all the time, while I sat listening to Brahms with Hoffman. Less than five feet away from me….”

The small envelope swayed in my fingers; the gold twinkled like tiny stars. John took it from me and replaced it in his pocket.

“That would appear to be the case,” he said coolly. “Friedl knew where it was kept; when she went looking for it, after Hoffman’s—shall we stretch a point and say ‘accident’—she found he had removed it. Hell hath no fury, et cetera; she may have been angry enough to kick the chest to bits with her own dainty foot.”

“I can’t believe he would be so casual about it! Right there in his living room—”

“Oh, that’s comprehensible. He’d want it close at hand, where he could look at it and gloat over it.”

“Well, that’s very interesting, but I can’t see that it gets us anywhere. Friedl may not know where he hid it —”

“Friedl does not know. Jest all you like, but my theory is the only one that fits the facts.”

“We don’t know where it is either.”

“How about your elongated gentleman friend from Chicago?”

I tried to raise one eyebrow. Though I have practiced for hours in front of a mirror, the feat is still beyond me; both eyebrows slipped up. “If I didn’t know better, I would suspect your harping on Tony’s height betrays jealousy of a taller and better man. I’m convinced Tony is innocent, but he is no longer unwitting. Friedl got to him and spilled part of the beans. I’m going to tell him the rest.”

Instead of objecting, John nodded. “You may as well. I do not share your blind faith in the lad, but if I’m right and you are wrong, he knows anyway. If you are right and I’m wrong, it’s too late to remove him from the line of fire; the bad boys have seen him with you and they will assume he’s a coconspirator.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I thought we had decided the attack on me and Schmidt was a single aberration.”

John raised one eyebrow, without visible effort. “We hope that’s what it was. If they are waiting for us to come up with a solution, we may all die of old age here in Bad Steinbach. I am completely without inspiration.”

“Me too.”

The glum silence that followed was broken by another outburst from the parlor. Even with two heavy doors in between, it sounded like a large child having a large temper tantrum. John flinched. “I can’t stand much more of this.”

“Maybe she wants out,” I suggested.

“I know she wants out. As soon as I let her out, she wants in again. I have spent the afternoon letting her in and letting her out.” John’s voice cracked. “I can’t let the creature sit outside the door howling, for fear the neighbors will hear and come to investigate.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when the great John Smythe was cowed by a cat.”

“It isn’t the damned cat, it’s general frustration. We aren’t making any progress and I see no hope of our ever doing so. At what point do we call the whole thing off?”

“We?” I repeated. “You’re a free agent, John. You can—and will—walk away whenever you choose. The only thing that puzzles me is why you signed on in the first place.”

He turned slightly, to place his glass on the workbench. The fine hairs outlining his chin and jaw sparked like the shining scraps of Helen’s gold. He started toward me. I waited till he was leaning forward before I slid ungracefully out of the chair and out of his reach. He lost his balance and sprawled awkwardly across the chair.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“I didn’t intend to.” He sat up, but he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for me a second time. “What’s got into you?”

“Common sense, maybe,” I suggested. “John, you make love very nicely. I don’t know anyone who does it better—”

“And your experience, I presume, is extensive.”

“Ooooh, how rude,” I said. “That was unworthy of you, sir. As I was saying, I’m willing to play games of that sort with you whenever it suits me, but don’t insult my intelligence by implying that our relationship means any more to you than—than that. If you did care about me, you wouldn’t disappear into thin air the way you did and left me worrying—I mean—”

The hard, angry line of his lips relaxed, and I realized, too damned late as usual, that I had left myself wide open. That repulsive heroine of mine was affecting my speech patterns, if not my brain.

John stood up. “Darling!” he bleated. “I didn’t know you cared.”

I had one hand raised to smack his grinning face, before I realized that he had presented his cheek in gallant expectation of just that response. “Oops,” he said in his normal voice. “Wait a sec—not that one.” He turned the other cheek, the one that the cat had not scratched.

I let my hand fall. “Never mind,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation allowed.

“Don’t go,” John pleaded, as I made a wide berth around him on my way to the door. “It’s been a frightfully dull day, and these little exchanges are so enlivening. We could insult one another a bit longer and then retire —”

“I’ll have to take a rain check. Schmidt will be at my door at around six A.M., and if I’m not there, he’ll have the whole police force of Bad Steinbach out looking for me.” Then I remembered my cooling stove, and added, “Unless you’d like to come back with me.”

“Hmm,” said John, scratching his chin and eyeing me doubtfully.

“Oh, well, forget it. You’d probably make me do it anyway.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind.” I opened the door to the parlor. Clara burst out and made a beeline for John. “Sic ’em, killer,” I said.