“How’d you know I was into the go-between thing, Eddie?”
He smiled. “I’d heard it around.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I said.
“Okay. Remember that pearl necklace you handled a couple of years ago back in Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that was a friend of mine, I suppose you could say. Or at least an acquaintance. He worked the states for a couple of years. When the insurance company called you in on the pearls, he was a little suspicious, so he checked you out. You’ve got an impressive reputation, my friend thinks. So when the thieves asked us about you, Ned told them to talk to this friend of mine. He must have given you a glowing report. He also told me that we should get in touch with you through your Mr. Greene, so I did.”
“All right,” I said. “When was it stolen?”
“Five days ago,” Uncle Bert said.
“From where?”
“From here.”
“A safe?”
“No. No, not a safe, but a damn stout room, it is.”
“Wired?”
“Course it is. Electric eyes and all that. The best. But it didn’t bother them none.”
“They’re pros, they are,” Ned Nitry said.
“Is that what the police think?” I said.
“No police, Phil,” Eddie Apex said in a flat tone.
“No police,” I said, making it a statement rather than a question.
“No,” Uncle Norbert said. “No police.”
I leaned back in my chair and looked at them. “You said that the man who owns the sword is your client. I may not be going about this in the right way, but I’m going to have to ask you just what the hell kind of business are you in?”
It was Ned Nitry who decided to answer my question, after using an almost imperceptible glance to check it out with his brother. “We specialize in fine works of art,” he said. “We sell them on consignment for a modest fee.”
“So does Sotheby’s,” I said, “but they advertise in The Times.”
“So they do,” Uncle Norbert said. “We’re more discreet.”
“I bet you are,” I said. “I bet you’re so discreet that the Inland Revenue people don’t even know you exist.”
Ned Nitry smiled slightly. “I think you’re getting the picture, Mr. St. Ives. I think you are indeed. It’s a terrible tax burden that the average man must bear up under these days, especially here in England.”
“Suppose I had a Thomas Eakins painting,” I said.
“You’d be a fortunate man,” Ned Nitry said. “Most fortunate.”
“Uh-huh. But suppose I was a little short of cash and I wanted to sell it. Of course, I’d have it insured since it was an Eakins.”
“I’d hope so, lad, I’d certainly hope so,” Ned Nitry said.
“And suppose I wanted to evade paying taxes on the proceeds of the sale. In the states there’s a fine line between tax avoidance and tax evasion.”
“Is there now?” Uncle Norbert said.
“Tax avoidance is legal; tax evasion isn’t.”
“Well, I’d say that’s wise, wouldn’t you, Ned?”
“Absolutely.”
“And suppose I came to you with this problem of mine?”
“Well, sir, I think we could be of some assistance,” Ned Nitry said. “I do indeed think we could.”
“You want to tell me how?”
“Well, I don’t think we need go into the details,” he said.
“If you don’t go into the details, I catch the plane back tonight.”
“It’s like that, is it?”
“It’s like that.”
“Tell him, for God’s sake, Ned,” Eddie Apex said. “He’s not stupid.”
Ned Nitry nodded a couple of times. “Well, lad, if you had an Eakins like you say, and you were hard pressed for a bit of cash, and you wanted to sell it discreet like, well, here’s what we could do for you. First of all, there’s the insurance company to bother about. You’ve got to keep them happy. They’re a gossipy lot and if you just canceled your policy, well, they’d want to know why. And if you kept on paying the premiums on a painting that you’d sold on the sly, so to speak, well, they have those investigators of theirs, you know. But suppose you had a fair likeness of the painting that you wanted to sell?”
“Like the one that’s hanging above the mantel in the red room?”
“Like that exactly, sir.”
“That’s better than a fair likeness,” I said. “That’s perfect.”
Ned Nitry nodded judiciously this time. “It’s good enough to satisfy any insurance company I know of.”
“And most museums,” Eddie Apex said.
“I think you’re getting the idea now, aren’t you, Mr. St. Ives?” Ceil Apex said.
“I think so,” I said.
“Don’t you think Dad and Uncle Norbert are terribly wicked?
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Terribly.” I looked at Uncle Norbert. “Okay. We’ve got a phony painting in place to satisfy the insurance company. What next?”
“Well, next is finding you a discreet buyer who’ll pay a fair price. That’s next.”
“And you can do this?”
“We can.”
“A cash deal?”
“Of course. And in a Swiss bank, too, if you’d like — or Panama or Beirut, whatever’s your pleasure.”
“And you charge a commission?”
“A fair commission.”
“How much?”
“Thirty percent.”
“That’s a little more than fair, isn’t it?”
“We have terrible expenses, lad,” Uncle Norbert said. “We have to spirit the painting out of the country usually and get it into another one. We have to commission the fair likeness and, well, you know what dealing with artists is like. They’re a bad lot mostly. Drink too much. Get temperamental.”
“But they don’t talk?”
“We get them in a little too deep to talk. We get them in a little too deep and make them a little too fat. They don’t talk.”
“Whoever did that Eakins in there is a genius,” I said.
“At copying, he is. He’s that. But he can’t paint an apple on his own without making it look like an orange.”
“Let’s get back to the sword. You’re not going to duplicate that, are you?”
Ned Nitry shook his head. “No need. And nobody even knows it exists except us and our client.”
“And the thieves.”
“Them, too.”
“How’d they find out about it?”
“That’s something we’d like to know,” Ned Nitry said.
“Any ideas?”
“None.”
“Had you already started negotiations for its sale?”
“Only the most delicate kind. A hint or two dropped in the right ear, you might say.”
“Whose ear?”
“A representative of the French government.”
“You’re going to sell it in France?”
“It’s a national treasure, lad. It’s the Sword of St. Louis and no mistake. Suppose your original Declaration of Independence had been lost for a couple of hundred years and suddenly turned up — in 1976, say — d’you think your government wouldn’t spend a few dollars, no questions asked, to get it back?”
“My government?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m not too sure. If it were the original Bill of Rights, you might not get a dime.”
“Well, the French are a bit more practical.”
“So I’ve heard.” I looked at my watch. “How much are you asking for it?”
“Three million pounds,” Uncle Norbert said.
“Jesus.”
“They didn’t blink an eye.”
“But they will,” Ned Nitry said. “Those Frenchies like to haggle.”
“How much will you come down?” I said.
“Not more’n fifty thousand quid. We might’ve come down a bit more but this hundred thousand ransom’s going to eat into everybody’s pocket.”