Nick counted through the wad of hundred-dollar bills, then stowed it away in his inner pocket. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” he said, shaking Blake’s hand.
“And you, sir.”
“The hour’s late. I think I’ll be riding back with Jimmy in the helicopter.”
Until then Jimmy Claus had stood at the fringe of the group, barely acknowledging Blake and Silke. But now, as Nick turned to leave, his right hand came out of his jacket holding a Berretta 9mm Luger. “I’m not quite ready to leave yet,” he said. “Kick that rifle over this way, Velvet.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Hamish Blake stormed. “Who is this man?”
“Nobody you know,” Claus told him. “Just a poor guy who spent six years in jail because of Judge Norbert Blake!” He spat out the name. “This is what you call restitution time!”
Nick remembered where he’d found Claus. “You gave me the name of the airport,” he told Blake.
“My uncle had friends there.” He faced Jimmy Claus, unmindful of the gun. “If you work there, it’s because Judge Blake got you the job after prison. You’ve had all the restitution you’ve got coming!”
“Not all. I went to prison while Judge Blake went to this big country estate. Don’t you think we all knew what sort of a judge he was? The ones with money to slip him got off. The poor ones, like me, got six years.”
“That’s not true!” Silke Blake shouted. “My grandfather wasn’t like that!”
“Maybe he wasn’t to you, but he sure was to me! I came up for sentencing for stealing an airplane. It was a second offense, so he slapped me with ten years. I was lucky to get out in six. The same morning a stock broker who’d swindled people out of more than a million bucks was sentenced. Your good Judge Blake gave him three years suspended.”
“Are you accusing him of taking bribes?” Nick asked quietly.
“Damn right I am! Big bribes, too! Everyone in stir knew about Judge Blake.”
Silke tried to lunge at him then and Nick had to restrain her. He had no doubt that Claus would use the Berretta if necessary. The whole assignment was turning into a nightmare, and he had only himself to blame for having hired Claus in the first place.
When Silke had calmed down, Hamish Blake asked, “So what do you want?”
“In prison we heard the judge was putting away a nice nest egg for himself. I often thought about latching onto some of it for myself, especially after he died, but until yesterday I never saw a way to do it.”
“There’s no way to do it now,” Nick assured him.
“I think there is. I didn’t fly that copter for the sport of it, you know. Statues don’t get moved in the middle of the night. You were stealing that stone eagle, and I think the reason is because it’s full of the old judge’s loot.”
“There’s nothing in the eagle,” Hamish Blake said with a sigh.
“Then you won’t mind me breaking it open to see.”
“No! You can’t touch it!”
Jimmy Claus twisted his lips in a sneer. “You all just stay right where you are.” He picked up the rifle and backed through the terrace door, heading down to the statue.
“Stop him!” Hamish Blake pleaded with Nick. “My God, stop him! He’s going to smash the statue!”
“So you lied to me — there is money in it!” Nick said.
“There’s no money, nothing. But if he smashes it—”
Nick went down the lawn after him. “Claus, wait a minute!”
“What is it? Stay back!”
“I’ve got almost twenty thousand in cash here in my pocket. Take it and leave these people alone.”
“I don’t steal from you, Velvet. You’re one like me. We stick together. I just want the judge’s money.”
He raised the rifle high over his head, about to bring it down on the stone beak of the eagle, but Hamish Blake stopped him with a shout. “Smash that and none of us will find the money!”
Jimmy Claus hesitated. “What do you mean?”
All at once it was clear to Nick. “He means it’s a treasure hunt, just like Silke used to have as a child. I should have guessed it when I learned Judge Blake was an admirer of Poe. It’s like The Gold-Bug, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Hamish admitted. “Something like that.”
“The stone eagle is necessary to find the treasure, and you didn’t realize it till after it had been given to the city. That’s why it was worth twenty thousand for you to have it back here in the rose garden, even just for a day.”
Claus put down the rifle and pulled the Luger from his belt. “All right, show me how the statue tells where the money is!”
“There’s no money!” Silke insisted, almost frantic now. “My grandfather did not take bribes!”
Hamish Blake ignored her latest outburst and drew a folded piece of paper from his inner pocket. It was too dark on the lawn to read it, so they moved back to the lighted terrace. There, looking over Blake’s shoulder, Nick read the neatly typed message:
For those who seek my treasure, let them dig where the shadow of the eagle’s beak falls. Dated this 24th day of June at two o’clock and signed by Judge Norbert Blake. There was a squiggle of a signature.
“Your uncle signed it?” Nick asked.
“Yes. That’s his signature. I found this in a box of his papers some months back. By that time the stone eagle was already gone.”
“It had to be that eagle? There’s no other eagle around?”
“That’s the only one. He must have assumed someone would read this before the statue was presented to the city.”
Even Silke was interested in the message. “But surely you could take a good guess as to where the shadow would fall,” she said.
Nick gazed out at the moonlit lawn. “I think you’ve taken many guesses, Hamish, but they haven’t been good ones, have they? All those rose gardens are places where you’ve dug. The roses were planted later to disguise all the recent digging.”
“That’s right,” Hamish admitted. “Last week I decided I really needed the statue back.”
“To see where the shadow would fall at two o’clock on the twenty-fourth of June,” Nick said, completing the thought for him.
Silke gave a low gasp. “That’s tomorrow!”
“Today,” Nick corrected. “It’s after midnight.”
Jimmy Claus motioned with the gun. “Everybody into the house. It looks as if we’re going to have a long wait.”
And so they waited. Hamish Blake was nervous at first, trying to talk it all away with words of bland explanation. “Of course I don’t believe any of the stories about Norbert taking bribes. I don’t expect to find a chest full of money or anything like that.”
“Then why did you pay Velvet the twenty grand to steal the statue?” Claus demanded, still keeping the gun at hand as he lounged by the kitchen table.
“Stop it, both of you!” Silke said. “I don’t want any more talk of this. It seems that we’re waiting, and so wait we will — if only to prove that my grandfather was an honest man.”
And wait they did. Shortly after dawn, Silke prepared breakfast, and by nine o’clock Jimmy Claus and Hamish Blake were talking about a split of whatever they found. Nick walked out to the terrace, rubbing the sleep from his tired eyes, and stared down at the great stone bird. The day was partly overcast, but there was enough sun to follow the eagle’s shadow across the rose garden.
At ten the phone rang. It was the Chief of Police, informing Hamish of the theft of his uncle’s statue. Did he know anything about it? Did he have any clue as to who might do such a thing? Hamish replied, no, certainly not.
“They’ll check on the helicopter,” Hamish said when he’d hung up. “They’ll see it out on the lawn, and then they’ll see the statue there, too.”