The three men strolled down the hall and into an empty courtroom.
They sat down. The hearing into Orloff’s affairs would reconvene in half an hour.
“Orloff’s death,” James said, “was the direct result of his own greed and suspicion. Orloff was injured in that crash, but he was a strong and fearless man. He’d absorbed a number of bullets, once, and survived to win a medal. So he put the safety of his strongbox first, and his own welfare second. When he crawled out of that wrecked car and saw that Prentiss was dead, Orloff decided to hide his strongbox then and there. He wasn’t about to let any stranger he might meet in the next few hours know about that strongbox — especially policemen who might turn up at any time to investigate the accident. And even if he persuaded someone, as he ultimately persuaded Ira Wilson, to drive him to the sanitarium in Bonaparte, he feared he might become unconscious during the ride, and the strongbox might be stolen. He was also afraid of being hospitalized in that sanitarium, perhaps anesthetized for hours or days at a time, with the strongbox lying around for anyone to pick up.”
“As I understand it,” Powell said, “Orloff pried a hubcap off the rear wheel of the wrecked car and used that as a digging tool to bury the strongbox on the Wilson farm.”
“That’s right,” Bennett said. “Then, the strongbox taken care of, he finally gave some consideration to himself. He stumbled to Wilson’s house and bribed Wilson to drive him to Bonaparte, to the sanitarium, where he knew Bailey could arrange to keep his admittance a secret, since Bailey owned the place. But the delay in seeking medical attention, plus his exertions in burying his strongbox, proved fatal. According to the doctor at the sanitarium, who talked readily enough when Federal authorities questioned him, Orloff died less than twelve hours later.”
“He died,” James added, “without disclosing the spot where he’d buried the box. Orloff did tell Bailey it was somewhere on the farm, though, and ordered Bailey to buy the farm and get Wilson off the property — to forestall Wilson’s digging it up by accident. But Orloff had faith, to the end, that he’d recover from his injuries and dig up that strongbox himself.”
“So Bailey,” Bennett said, “posed as a man from Fort Smith and bought the farm. He also conceived the impersonation ‘red herring’ — the false Orloff — when the real Orloff died. He realized that unless another Orloff turned up somewhere, the authorities would start tracing Orloff’s movements from New York. They might learn about the accident in Arkansas, might start digging up the Wilson farm, too. Bailey conferred with Orloff’s secretary. Both knew about the actor, Herb Vann. Bailey paid the secretary to find Vann and arranged for him to assume Orloff’s identity in Rio for a few months. The villa in Rio had already been purchased, the secretary had Orloff’s passport so everything was set. All that was necessary was for Vann to show up in Rio, with the secretary at his elbow to guide him over the rough spots.”
“The purpose of the deception,” James said, “was to give Bailey enough time to buy the farm, get Wilson moved off, and start digging for the strongbox on his own. That’s how he was spending his time when Bennett showed up to investigate the accident — he was digging. It was a job he wanted to do alone. Like Orloff, he didn’t trust anyone to help him. Because the strongbox now meant an awful lot to E. G. Bailey — as much as it had meant to Lou Orloff, when Orloff was alive. The diamonds inside were only a minor consideration. The big thing was, if Bailey could find and destroy Orloff’s ledger, he could then transfer all that money from Orloff’s dummy accounts into dummy accounts of his own, without fear that the ledger would ever turn up to trap him — a neat little gain of more than six million dollars, and no taxes. No wonder he was willing to spend a little money to maintain Vann as the false Orloff.”
“As soon as we realized Gordon and Bailey were the same man,” Bennett added, “the whole pattern became clear. Why else would Bailey buy the Wilson farm and spend his time digging alone, except to uncover that strongbox? And if Orloff had buried the box and after five weeks hadn’t returned to dig it up himself, it almost certainly meant Orloff was unable to return, that he had probably died in the sanitarium.”
Powell smiled. “It was nice of Bailey to find the box so quickly, while you two and those Federal marshals were hiding nearby. Bailey might have spent weeks poking around before he uncovered it.”
“Well,” James grinned, “we sort of induced its quick discovery, Sam. We staked out the farm that morning because we knew Bailey was going to find the box. He’d been searching with a shovel before. But when I met him back in Bonaparte, as the president of the James Sales Company, I used a little creative salesmanship on Mr. E. G. Bailey. I even made a twelve-dollar profit on the deal, Ted’s expenses going to New Orleans and back for this item notwithstanding. I sold Bailey the very thing he needed most — a portable metal detector.”
Barry Perowne
The Raffles Bombshell
Another adventure of Mr. A. J. Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman and Cricketer... Raffles is the most famous Gentleman Burglar in the annals of English crime-writing — his name is perhaps better known around the world than even that of his French peer, Arsène Lupin, and no early American thief or con man — not Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford or The Gray Seal or Jimmy Valentine or Jeff Peters or The Phantom Crook or the Infallible Godahl — has reached the pinnacle of international fame to stand beside Raffles and Lupin. In this period piece about Raffles, faithful in every detail to its turn-of-the-century tone and background, the great A. J. adds an unusual crime (unusual for him) to his usual second-story work — and adds it with his customary style, which is an appealing kind of English élan.
It so happened that A. J. Raffles was batting when the open carriage with the four portly gentlemen in it entered Lord’s Cricket Ground.
A sibilance of whispers ran around the stands, gay with parasols, blazers, and boaters in the heat-shimmer, and from where I was sitting, on a bench on the pavilion terrace, I heard some woman behind me ask:
“Who are they?”
“The one with the beard and the white Homburg hat,” a man’s voice answered, “is the King.”
“Oh, how exciting! Who’s that sitting beside him?”
“That’s John L. Sullivan, the great prize-fighter.”
“Fancy the King going about with prize-fighters!”
“There’s only one John L. Sullivan, my dear,” the man said tolerantly. “He’s in London on a visit, and the King’s very taken with him. I expect he wants to show Mr. Sullivan something of our summer game. Americans don’t play it, you know.”
“How strange of them! Oh, look, there’s a different flag going up the flagstaff!”
The carriage, with its two tophatted coachmen on the box, and its two fine black horses arching their proud necks against the bearing-reins, was standing now just to the right of the pavilion terrace, in a good position to watch the game.
As the Royal Standard shimmered red-and-gold at the summit of the flagstaff, the crowd rose to its feet with a rustle, and the white-flannelled players in their various positions on the great circle of emerald turf faced the carriage and doffed their cricket caps.
The interruption was brief. King Edward VII was a great sportsman, his visit was informal, and with a genial gesture he intimated that play should be resumed.
“There seem to be a lot of policemen about, all of a sudden,” said the woman sitting behind me.
“When the King appears, the bobbies pop up everywhere,” explained her companion. “Oh, good shot! Well hit, sir!”