I lit my pipe. “You were talking about jewels.”
“That’s correct,” he said, but went on as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “It was standard operating procedure to confiscate any and all possessions of concentration camp prisoners, up to and including the gold from their teeth after they had been gassed. This property, in theory, became the property of the German Reich, but the facts did not always follow theory. Goering, for example, looted Europe to augment his private art collection. Minor guards would take wrist watches for themselves, a bracelet for a wife or mistress. Franz Wallstein followed along these lines. He seemed to have an interest in precious stones. If a prisoner managed to retain possession of valuable jewelry until he reached Wallstein’s camp, the jewels generally wound up in Wallstein’s foot-locker.”
He stood up, paused for breath. “Things went smoothly for Wallstein,” he went on. “They did not go smoothly for Nazi Germany. The war moved to an end. Wallstein was at once a hunted man, no longer a trusted servant of a secure government. He was not pursued as avidly as Bormann or Eichmann or Himmler himself. But he was on the wanted lists, as they say. His wife was pregnant at the time and must have seemed like excess baggage to him. He left her in Germany, bundled up his jewels and fled the country.
“He went first to Mexico. The political climate there soon turned out to be less than ideal and within several months it was time for him to make his move again. This time he picked a nation where he felt he would be more welcome. He chose Argentina.”
I shook out my pipe, glanced briefly at Maddy. She was listening closely. So was I, but I wished he would get to the point already. Bannister and the briefcase were more important to me than a crooked Nazi and stolen jewels.
“Argentina was a natural home for him,” Armin went on. “It is certain that he found countrymen there. German is supposed to be the second language of Buenos Aires. Wallstein made himself comfortable, bought an attractive house in a fashionable suburb and married a local girl without bothering to divorce the wife he’d left in Germany. He changed his name to Heinz Linder and opened an importing concern in Buenos Aires. Strong rumor has it that he engaged in smuggling of one sort or another, probably of narcotics. But this remains to be proved. Q.E.D. Whatever his actual means of support, Wallstein-Linder added to his collection of jewels. They reposed in a wall safe on the second floor of his home.”
“And somebody hit the safe?”
He sighed. “Not exactly, Mr. London. The situation is a bit more complex than that. Wallstein was not entirely forgotten. A group of Israeli agents similar to the ones who caught Eichmann were looking for former SS men, Wallstein among them. Two agents followed his trail to Mexico City and lost him there. A few years later they extended the trail to Buenos Aires.”
The bell went off again, louder this time. “I remember now,” I said. “About a year ago. He was found dead in Argentina and identified as Wallstein. There was a short article in the Times.”
Armin was nodding, smiling. “The same man,” he said. “There wasn’t much of a story at the time. The Israelis didn’t bother to drag him off for a trial as they did with Eichmann. Franz Wallstein was not that important. They only wished to even the score with him: they tracked him down, broke into his home, shot him dead and left him to rot. The news value was small. The Argentine officials denied that he was Wallstein, not wanting to be accused of harboring a fugitive. The Israelis leaked the story but it still got little publicity.”
“They shot him and took the jewels?”
“No, of course not. They were assassins, not thieves. They did their work and left him there. But the small amount of publicity attendant upon the killing was enough to attract the attention of that sort of professional criminal who specializes in precious stones. A ring of Canadian jewel thieves flew down to Buenos Aires and stole the jewels. I don’t know the precise details of the crime but it was done well, it seems. They broke into Wallstein’s home, tied up his widow, tied up her maid, cracked the safe, grabbed up the jewels and took the first plane out of the country. As I heard it, they were in and out of Argentina in less than twenty-four hours. That may be an exaggeration. At any rate, they worked quickly and left no traces.”
“Any insurance?”
He chuckled. “On stolen jewels? Hardly. He was just a small-scale importer with not too much money — on the surface. He couldn’t attract attention by insuring his collection. It was too great a risk.”
I nodded. “Go on,” I said.
He shook a cigarette from his pack again and rolled it around some more between his fingers. This time he put it to his lips and lighted it. He drew in smoke.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to change the subject.”
“But you didn’t, Mr. London.”
“No?”
“Not at all. The fact that the jewels were not insured is really most relevant. Do you know much about jewel thieves?”
I didn’t know a hell of a lot. “They’re supposed to be an elite criminal class,” I said. “They steal jewels and sell them to a fence. That’s about all I know.”
“They’re elite,” he said. “The rest is inaccurate.”
He smiled when my eyebrows went up. “For a good group of jewel thieves, a fence is a last resort. Their first contact is with the insurance company.”
I didn’t get it.
“Let us suppose that a collection of gems is insured for half a million dollars, Mr. London. Once the theft is a fait accompli the company is legally obligated to pay out the face value of the policy to the policyholder. Now let’s suppose further that an agent for the thieves approaches an agent of the insurance company and offers to sell the jewels back for, say, two hundred thousand dollars. The company invariably pays. It’s a clear saving to them of three hundred thousand. And a top thief always prefers to deal with an insurance company, you see. He gets a better price and runs less risk of a double cross.”
“Why?”
“Because the company has to preserve its good name in criminal circles. I’m not joking, Mr. London. It sounds ludicrous at first but it follows the laws of logic. Perhaps, insurance companies only encourage criminal behavior by this practice. They don’t seem to care. The figures on their own balance sheets are of greater concern to them.”
“That’s... that’s unfair!”
That was Maddy talking and we both turned to look at her. Armin grinned at her. He said: “Unfair? To whom, my dear? Not to the policyholder, certainly — he gets his — possibly — irreplaceable jewelry returned. And not to the insurance company, which saves money. And not to the thieves, unfair to whom?”
‘To the public—”
“Oh, but the public gains, too,” Armin told her. “Any loss the company sustains is passed on to the public in the form of higher premiums, therefore, it’s to the public’s advantage for the company to save money.”
“But—”
She stopped after the one word and looked around vacantly. She was very unhappy. She’s slick and smooth and big-city, but she was lost now. I rescued her.
“Okay,” I said. “The jewels weren’t insured and the Canadians had troubles.”
“Correct,” he said. “They had troubles. They flew from Buenos Aires to New York, then from New York to Toronto. That was their base of operations. They cached the spoils and took up residence, for a time, in some hotels on Yonge Street.”