He climbed into his car in euphoria, started it, and listening to the engine promised himself that even before the new apartment, even before the maid, he would get himself a new car. One that would attract the attention of the girls who had refused to share his ten-year-old, battered, limping automobile...
In the dining room, for once Count Lindgren’s mind was not on the food. The overdone introductory omelette, François’ answer to tardy diners, barely was noticed. The soup, made a trifle bitter by unnecessary boiling, was consumed with equal lack of complaint. The chop, toughened by a purposeful long tenure in the pan, was merely dallied with. Count Lindgren had more important things on his mind.
Barely on the fringes of his mind, however, was the matter of Arne Nordberg, or any claim he might have to share in whatever the Schliemann collection would bring. Count Lindgren had killed in the Korean War. He had once killed in an unpublicized duel — a duel in which Wilten had acted as his second and had been in charge of seeing that the pistols were properly loaded, or at least one of them. In his youth Count Lindgren had volunteered as a mercenary in Africa just for the adventure. Count Lindgren would not have the slightest compunction about eliminating a person as distasteful as Arne Nordberg should the need arise, and Count Lindgren realized without the faintest regret that the need might very well arise. And even had Arne Nordberg not been distasteful, the count’s compunction would have been no less. Axel Lindgren and his desires came first; all else was secondary.
No, Nordberg would present no problem. Nor, for that matter, would disposing of the treasure. An auction, conducted between the top museums of the world, without, obviously, revealing his identity or anything else not necessary to the negotiations. With his contacts throughout the world, it should be no problem. It would take a bit of planning, of course, but it certainly could be done. Oh, the museums would all claim, as he would have done himself, that they couldn’t touch anything the slightest bit doubtful as to ownership, but they’d all manage to bid anyway, one way or another. And not only the ones brought in to bid, but others, advised of the auction by the undoubted publicity the affair would garner in the world press. Yes, it actually would be a lark, in addition, of course, to bringing his reduced finances from the pit in which they found themselves.
But all this was a bit premature. First, of course, there was the matter of getting the treasure transferred from the insecurity of bank safe-deposit boxes to the true security of Lindgren Castle’s vaults. After all, safe-deposit boxes could be opened with court orders. Robbers had been known to be able to open safe-deposit boxes not only in banks but in hotels, as well. No, the proper place for the treasure was at Lindgren Castle. After all, in the more than five hundred years since the castle had been built, its security had never been breached. And it carried in its halls and on its walls a fortune in art objects as great if not greater than the Schliemann gold, not to mention the plate and other valuables in its vaults. So what better place to insure the safety of the valuable collection? And he and the lout Nordberg were, after all, partners, were they not? With the mutual interest of seeing to the treasure’s safety until it could be properly and advantageously disposed of?
The count smiled coldly and reached for the trifle, heavily oversugared by an irked François...
IV
1979
Chapter Eleven
London — June
The Translation Conference Room of the new and impressive Gramercy Arms Hotel in Park Lane was slowly filling up. Ruth McVeigh, at the head of a long conference table that had been installed in place of the normal theater-seat arrangement, sat and watched her colleagues slowly file in and take the places assigned to them by their name cards. Many of those present were friends of hers, or at least acquaintances, but some new faces could be seen settling down, bringing out cigarette packets and placing them with matches beside the already-furnished pads and pencils, pulling ashtrays closer, or fiddling with the water glasses at each setting. Before each person was a small console furnished with a pair of earphones and five buttons for the five languages to be furnished in instant translation, if required.
Along the wall, as if in the position of observers, were faces she did not recognize. She assumed they were from the world press, men who had been unable to arrange space at the press tables, for the wall chairs were not furnished with translation consoles. Television cameras had been barred, and many of those along the wall were waiting patiently with notebooks on their knees, their breast pockets filled with sharpened pencils. One man, sitting along the wall in a relaxed manner, dressed more informally than most in a dark jacket over a white turtle-neck sweater, seemed faintly familiar to Ruth, although she was sure she had never met him. She was sure she would have remembered if they had. Without notebook or pencil, he appeared to only be a curious observer. Ruth leaned over to a colleague from the Cleveland Museum, the antiquities curator, Timothy Rubin, speaking in a low voice.
“Tim, don’t just turn around and stare, but that man along the wall, the one sitting next to that man with the stiff white hair, the one with the turtleneck sweater. He looks familiar. Do you know him? I expect he’s from some small museum—”
Tim Rubin managed to casually look around, as if checking the room, and then turned back, his expression one of complete innocence, although there was a wicked glint in his eye.
“As a matter of fact, I do know him,” he said, “but I wouldn’t bother with him if I were you. He comes, as you say, from an insignificant museum. I’m surprised they even let him in.” He turned away, as if he had answered the question fully.
Ruth shook her head. “Tim! Don’t be cute. Who is he?”
“He’s a nobody named Gregor Kovpak, from a nothing place called the Hermitage, or something like that, in Leningrad,” Rubin said with a wicked grin. “Or maybe it’s in Moscow. One of those small museums, as you guessed.”
Ruth’s eyes widened. Of course! She had seen Gregor Kovpak’s pictures in the journals often enough. And she not only had visited the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad several times, she knew it to be one of the finest and most prestigious in the world. She managed to look down the row of chairs as if merely checking to see how close they were to starting, but her look was for Gregor Kovpak. What was a man like Gregor Kovpak doing here? Was it possible that the Russians were behind the auction, after all? But that was ridiculous. If everyone there was behind the auction, it would be like Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. But whatever reason had brought the eminent Russian archaeologist, Ruth McVeigh was suddenly glad he was here. She told herself it was because it would give her a chance to meet the famous Dr. Kovpak at last. She became aware that Tim Rubin was speaking to her, and looked around.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?”
“I was merely answering you.”
“Answering me?” Ruth looked at him, surprised. “I didn’t ask anything.”
“Yes, you did. You may have thought you just thought it, but you said it. You said, ‘He’s very good looking, isn’t he?’ And I said that I usually don’t notice those things in men,” Tim said dryly. “Now, if you want my opinion of that lovely from the Museo di Antichità in Turin, I’ll be glad to go into details. However, for your information, I might mention that Kovpak is a widower. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s not interested in any further entangling alliances, as I understand it.”