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“Oh, those?” Huuygens lit a cigarette and flicked the match from the window almost absently. He nodded. “Well, of course, much as I wanted to destroy Senhor Enrique Echavarria, I hated to see that fabulous collection of miniatures destroyed. So, in my hotel room that morning...” He paused suddenly, and then stared at Jimmy’s profile in wonder. “Good heavens! Do you realize it was only this morning? It seems like days ago.”

“The miniatures,” Jimmy repeated stubbornly.

Kek leaned back again. “Amazing! It’s fantastic how the mind can be fooled on the question of time. I shouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a method here that might be used to confound our dear friends in customs—”

“The miniatures!” Jimmy insisted.

“Ah, yes. Well, this morning, then, I carefully prepared a package the size and shape that the miniatures would occupy when I later wrapped them in the library vault; the contents were nothing more than stationery from the hotel. And I carried it in my inside jacket pocket, between the lining and my passport. Admittedly, Hans’s search was only perfunctory, but in any event he wasn’t interested in the feel of paper; he was looking for weapons. And when I later packed the miniatures, I made sure that even the transparent tape I used was placed in the same position on the package as they were on the false one in my pocket.”

Jimmy nodded slowly as the pieces fell in place in his mind. “And when the servant went out to get a better pair of pliers, you simply exchanged the two packages and slipped the miniatures into your jacket pocket.”

Kek nodded, as if pleased by the other’s intelligence, and tossed his cigarette out of the car window. “Exactly.”

Jimmy frowned as he further considered the facts. “But what did you do with them? The miniatures, I mean? After all, the search you went through in customs...”

Kek smiled at him gently. “I told you in Lisbon that you were doing me a favor by picking up my ticket. Of course I had to lure you to the sun deck where I would be alone when you so kindly returned to the lower level for the tickets...”

He reached into the back seat of the car and picked up the Graphic Super Speed camera. His smile became slightly rueful.

“I’m afraid your film pack had to be dropped in a rubbish bin; it would have been difficult to explain at customs. I hope it contained nothing more interesting than the pictures you usually take.”

He took the camera from the case and retrieved a small packet from the film-pack throat. He tapped it reflectively a moment, and then with a sigh slipped it into his pocket. The camera was returned to its case and replaced on the back seat.

They were in the Avenue de Neuilly, approaching the Bois de Boulogne. Jimmy cut through traffic, preparing to make the turn at the Porte Maillot; he stared through the windshield with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that you planned this thing so carefully, in such detail, and then simply had the miraculous good fortune to run into me accidentally at Portela airport to get your miniatures out of Lisbon?” His eyes swung from the road to Kek’s face; there was a moment’s silence as he studied the sardonic look on the other’s face, the slanted eyebrows, the steady gray eyes. He returned his attention to the traffic. His voice was bitter.

“I’m really not very bright, am I? Enrique Echavarria’s real name was Wilhelm Gruber. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Kek said softly.

The car swung to the curb before the apartment building. The two men sat in silence for several moments, each with his own thoughts; the engine of the little Volkswagen throbbed gently, waiting to be off once again. At last Jimmy nodded.

“Yes,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “It’s quite a story. Wilhelm Gruber dead — blown up in a car registered to an unknown Spaniard... I think it can be reported without involving you in any way. I may turn out to be a hero to my editor, of course, but that can’t be helped.” A sudden thought came to him; he looked up, grinning cheerfully. “By the way, someday I’d like to meet that sexy-voiced decoy you used to get me down to Lisbon.” His eyes remained steady on Huuygens’s face. “I have a feeling there might be quite a story in her. And you.”

Kek glanced out the car window, up toward his apartment. A light shone from behind his balcony, friendly and inviting. He got down from the car, closing the door behind him, smiling at the man behind the wheel. He suddenly felt a release from the tensions of the past week, a soothing sensation of calmness, of sanity, of coming safely to a welcome haven after a storm-tossed trip.

“Someday you might be right,” he said, and turned toward the apartment with a growing feeling of anticipation that surprised even himself...