Ruth found herself drawn into the discussion despite herself. “But what about the Allied Commission on recovered art objects?”
Gregor waved that argument away as having no importance. He leaned across the table and Ruth decided he was, after all, quite serious.
“The country that was the most influential in establishing that so-called commission,” he said evenly, “was the United States of America, a country, I might mention, that did not have one city bombed, or one museum looted, or one institution robbed. No one dropped bombs on the Metropolitan, or the Smithsonian.” He shrugged. “It was quite easy for the Americans to decide that, since there was no chance of their participating in any spoils of war, nobody else should. Of course, the United States didn’t feel that way when there was a chance of their participating in war spoils. They didn’t feel that way after the Mexican War, when they annexed a big chunk of a neighboring country. And they didn’t feel that way after the Spanish-American War, when they took over Puerto Rico—”
Ruth decided that was enough. Gregor was beginning to sound impassioned. “Look,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to touch Gregor’s hand. “I don’t want to see a pleasant evening spoiled by a political argument. Let’s change the subject.” She withdrew her hand.
Gregor suddenly smiled. “I agree.” He was happy he had been stopped before he had added that the Americans didn’t feel that way about the Schliemann treasure, which they had in their possession, at least until recently, according to Ulanov. That would have been impolitic. “What would you like to talk about?”
It was skirting the topic they had just dropped, but Ruth was curious. “You said just now that the Russians found the treasure in a bunker in Berlin. But before, you said that the treasure wasn’t in Russia and never had been...”
“That’s right,” Gregor said, and shook his head ruefully. “We had it in our hands, and then we lost it. It was stolen, taken from us with forged papers. Forged shipping instructions, on May 22, 1945.” He looked at Ruth, his eyes twinkling. “On the other hand, if we hadn’t lost it, I suppose I wouldn’t be here now. With you.”
Ruth McVeigh had no intention of getting off on that subject. It would be more dangerous than politics. Besides, she was intrigued by his statement. “Are you serious? About losing the treasure, I mean,” she added quickly.
“Very serious. I had the story quite recently from someone who is in a position to know. It’s ridiculous but, unfortunately, true. The treasure was supposedly shipped back to Russia, but the shipping instructions were false, forged. The crate was marked as captured medical equipment, to be delivered to some major on his furnishing proper identification. The crate got as far as Bad Freienwalde, a small town not very far from Berlin, and then” — he shrugged — “it just disappeared.”
Ruth McVeigh frowned. It was a fascinating story, if true, and there was no doubt from Gregor’s tone and mien, that at least he believed it to be true. Besides, it made sense. It could explain the auction. If the treasure was in private hands, and had been in private hands all those years, and not in the hands of the Russian government, then an auction could be explained. It was like a mystery story, and Ruth had always enjoyed those.
“But didn’t your people make any effort to locate it? To recover it? They didn’t simply let it go at that, did they?”
“Of course not,” Gregor said, and then waited as their meal was being served. The wine he had ordered came to the table properly chilled, and he was handed a bit in his glass for approval. At his nod the waiter filled their glasses and discreetly disappeared.
Kovpak began eating and then looked around. He suddenly remembered they were supposedly being followed by some nameless unknown. He also recalled that they were eating at this particular restaurant at the insistence of Major Ulanov, although he could see no reason for that insistence. The restaurant was now more fully attended, but there were still a few empty tables in their vicinity, and nobody seemed in the slightest to be interested in them. Mostly they were couples, intent upon their own affairs. The only single person was a man seated well out of earshot, and besides, he was engrossed in a book he was reading. For a moment Kovpak wondered if perhaps Ulanov had merely been joking — if, perhaps, he had recommended the restaurant simply because it was a good one. Certainly the food was all one could ask. Or, perhaps, he had misunderstood Ulanov and had come to the wrong restaurant, and the unknown newspaper personage, as well as Ulanov, were someplace else quite different, watching some perfectly innocent couple, or even watching each other, as if anyone cared. Gregor Kovpak put the entire matter of restaurants and spies from his mind as being quite unimportant, and returned to the subject they had been discussing.
“There was an investigation of sorts at the time, as I understand it,” he said quietly, “but nobody found the treasure, or any trace of it. Admittedly the investigators didn’t spend as much time on it as they possibly should, but you have to remember they weren’t archaeologists, or museum curators or directors, and it was right after the war with the search on for war criminals, and they weren’t going to spend too much time on looking for a treasure they hadn’t even known about a few weeks earlier. So they didn’t waste too much time on it. But they did figure that a man named Petterssen, a Swedish national, was the one who forged the documents it took to get his hands on the treasure. He also fit the description of one of the two men who removed the crate from the train it was on. But after that” — he raised his shoulders expressively — “nothing.”
Ruth McVeigh paused in her eating, her food momentarily forgotten. “That’s all the investigation? Into the disappearance of the Schliemann treasure?”
“As I said, they weren’t collectors. They were people from Security with a thousand things more important — at least to their minds — on their hands.”
“But,” Ruth said, the detective in her aroused, “if one of the men was Swedish, couldn’t they possibly have taken the treasure to Sweden? Or wouldn’t that be subtle enough for investigators?”
“They could have gone anywhere,” Gregor said simply. “They put the treasure, in a crate, in the trunk of a car and simply drove off. The car had been waiting for them. And where they went, nobody knows. What kind of car? An official-looking car, which meant nothing then and means less today. A large black car. Period.” He drank some wine, thinking. He could scarcely tell Ruth that the car most likely was the car of some American general, or that the treasure undoubtedly had ended up in America, in the hands of the OSS. It would cheat her of romance. He began eating again, speaking across the table. “Yes, I suppose they could have gone north, but both the Danish and Swedish police looked for Petterssen a long time without luck. We told them he was wanted for war crimes, not for stealing the treasure, of course.”
“Why not?”
Gregor looked a trifle abashed. “Because countries do not like to admit that they’ve been duped, taken in by forged papers,” he said, and smiled. “It’s supposed to be bad for their image.”
“And they don’t mind people knowing now?”
Gregor shrugged humorously and stared down at his wine glass.
“I’m telling you in confidence. Besides, this auction proves rather conclusively that we do not have the treasure. Believe me,” he said, looking up, “if we had had the Schliemann collection at the Hermitage all these years, we would have put it on exhibition long ago. And argued at great lengths with anyone who came up with any ridiculous reasons for taking it from us, such as we heard this afternoon! Besides,” he added, smiling broadly, “can you picture any curator, any director of any museum in the world, who would allow a treasure as valuable and as unique as the Schliemann collection, to be diminished by the pieces this person — whoever he is — sent out as proof of the fact that he actually had the genuine treasure? I certainly would not have let loose of a single button. Would you?”