Gregor pushed his empty coffee cup away and reached for his brandy. There was a glint of humor in his eyes. “Is there a connection?”
“Well, it was choppy, wasn’t it? It’s usually probably a lot worse, isn’t it?”
“Actually,” Gregor said, “not that I know what you’re talking about, but the Baltic isn’t a particularly rough sea. Why?”
“Well, it gets rough at times, I’ll bet!” Ruth leaned toward him, conviction in every aspect of her expression. “Darling, do you want to know what happened to that fishing boat with the treasure on it?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“I will, indeed. It sank!” Ruth leaned back triumphantly.
“What?”
“Of course! That’s it!” Ruth could see it all. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before? It was so obvious! “That’s why the treasure hasn’t been seen or heard of all these years! Or Petterssen and the man with him! They’ve all been at the bottom of the sea!”
“And exactly who discovered the treasure in order to have this auction?” Gregor asked with gentle sarcasm. “After all, the Baltic is a pretty big sea. Was it brought up in the nets of some fisherman who happened to be an archaeology student on the side, or was some archaeologist in swimming and happened to stub his toes on it? And say to himself, ‘My, my! Look what I found! This ought to be worth fifteen million dollars if it’s worth a kopeck.’”
“Well,” Ruth said stubbornly, “it’s possible. At least it’s a theory, which is more than you’re offering. Maybe there was a big storm that night and the boat sank. That’s happened before, hasn’t it?”
“I’m sure it has.”
“Well, then! Or little boats get run down in storms by big ships sometimes, don’t they? And the big ship doesn’t even know about it half the time. They just go on. Nobody would be on deck in a bad storm, so nobody would see it happen.” She bolstered her argument. “It happened in Captains Courageous, and in a London book, the Sea Wolf.”
“And the screams of the poor sinking fishermen would be lost in the howling of the wind and the fury of the storm, and they would all go to the bottom carrying the Schliemann treasure in their arms.” Gregor grinned. “Ruth, you should be the one writing books, with that imagination.”
“Well, it could have happened,” Ruth said obstinately. “It would certainly explain where the treasure has been all these years, and I don’t hear anything from you that sounds any better.” She frowned. “Where could we find out about weather conditions and storms at sea and things like that, thirty-five years ago?”
Gregor smiled and shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Probably not here in Germany,” Ruth said, and frowned at her coffee. “Things must have been a mess here at the time with records destroyed and God knows what. Do you think they might have records of storms and wrecks and things like that anywhere else? In the States? Maybe Lloyds, in London! Or maybe even closer, in Denmark, possibly?”
“Possibly,” Gregor conceded. A trip to Denmark, while wasting further time as far as any information regarding the treasure was concerned, would be a great excuse to spend a few more days with Ruth, and he did not wish to think beyond that point. Day by day was the only way he could handle it, and Copenhagen was a lovely city, the perfect city for lovers. Possibly that was also in Ruth’s mind when she made the suggestion, although he was the first to admit he was never quite sure of what ideas were being generated in the active mind behind that lovely face. “There’s one thing, though,” he added in the interests of honesty. “I imagine it isn’t easy to get access to their records. Have you thought of that?”
Ruth smiled at him triumphantly, and he knew that she had, indeed, thought of that. She raised her brandy glass in a gesture of a toast, touched her glass to Gregor’s. They both drank. Ruth put her glass down.
“I know a man in Denmark,” she said, pleased with the way everything was working out, feeling that everything would always work out as long as she and Gregor were in love. “I knew him when I was at the Smithsonian in Washington and he was in the diplomatic corps. We’d run into each other at parties. He has all the influence anyone needs to get anything we want. He’s a count — Axel Lindgren.”
Major Serge Ulanov rolled over in bed and stared blankly at the drawn window shade a moment, trying to orient himself. Ah, yes. Rostock and the Warnow Hotel. And what on earth was he doing here, wet-nursing a pair of starry-eyed love birds? He yawned and sat up, swinging his feet to the floor, padding over to raise the shade and peer up at the sky, blinking at the brightness. Another nice day. At least the weather had made sense on this job if nothing else did. And he had noticed posters across the street when they had pulled into the hotel entrance the night before — or, rather, early that morning — that indicated there was a circus in town. Well, if the love birds would sit still for a day or so, maybe he could discover what they were up to — what was so comical about the Warnemünde docks — and get to see the circus as well.
He lit his usual morning cigarette, walked to the dresser, yawning, and consulted his watch there. Almost noon. Well, he had had a decent night’s rest for a change, and apparently the love birds did as well, since there had been no indication from Sergeant Wolper or the colonel that their car had been taken from the garage. He washed his face in cold water to waken himself a bit more quickly, and then began to dress. He was just putting on his shoes when the telephone rang; he reached over to it and raised it.
“Yes?”
“Major? Colonel Müeller here. Did you have a good night’s rest?”
“Fine, thank you. What about Kovpak and the girl?”
“They’re still here. We’ve kept an eye on their car.” Colonel Müeller hesitated a moment. As far as he had been able to tell, the case seemed to involve nothing more important than an errant husband, or an errant wife, or both. Still, of course, important state secrets were often involved in these sex cases. “Is there anything more you’d like to tell me about the nature of this affair, Major?”
“If you wish,” Ulanov said pleasantly, and looked at his watch again. “I’ll come down and meet you in the lobby. We’ll have something to eat and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
Colonel Müeller frowned. “But what if Kovpak walks into the restaurant and recognizes you?”
“Then I’ll simply ask him what he thinks he’s up to,” Ulanov said cheerfully. He had been coming to the conclusion for a long time that he had been playing it a bit more cozily than the case warranted, although there was still the fact that the CIA man, Newkirk, had considered the matter important enough to follow them all to Germany. For a moment Ulanov wondered how many days or weeks it would take Newkirk to get out of the mess in Berlin. Then with a smile he returned his attention to the colonel. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He put out his cigarette and finished dressing.
An odd security case, Colonel Müeller thought as he hung up, asking a suspect what he thinks he’s up to. He shrugged and left his room, taking the elevator to the ground floor, waiting for Ulanov. As he did so he glanced into the ground-floor restaurant. Neither Kovpak nor the girl were there, although his driver could be seen wolfing down food, indicating that Sergeant Wolper was now doing duty in the garage. At least that part was being handled properly, the colonel thought with satisfaction, and looked up as Ulanov came from the elevator. The colonel began to lead the way to the restaurant, but Ulanov stopped him.
“One minute. They haven’t come down yet?”