“No!” she snapped. “It’s more mine than anybody’s, and I’m going to get it, no matter what you say!”
Simon was strolling back towards the sofa again, tapping the bulging sealed envelope against the palm of one hand, and then suddenly he turned and took a threatening step towards her.
“You may get a quick trip through that window after all if you don’t mind your manners,” he said ferociously.
She gave a terrified squeak and jumped back towards the door. But she turned again at bay, clinging to the handle.
“You come one step closer and I’ll start screaming. I bet Edval’s still got a man outside. And you know whose word they’ll take when I start talking.”
The Saint dissolved into helpless laughter.
“We really should take this act on the road,” he chortled. “However, to play it straight for a minute, let’s pretend that we each have the other over a barrel, which is not a state of affairs conducive to progress in any direction. Shall we declare a truce and get on with our nefarious huddle?”
She relaxed a little but did not step forward at once.
“You’re not getting me anywhere near that window,” she insisted defensively.
“And I’m not letting you anywhere near this table or any other flingable furniture,” he told her. “Maybe well have to meet from now on in a padded cell.”
He righted the table with the toe of his shoe and stripped open the envelope. It yielded a thick wad of papers. Unfolding them, he saw that there were six sheets, each almost identical to the others, but each addressed — in German — to a different bank. The names of the different cities in which the banks were located first caught his eye: Lisbon, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Madrid, Zurich, Johannesburg. Then something else attracted his attention: the sum of money held in each bank to which the letters of credit in his hand pertained. The amounts were expressed in various currencies, but quick mental calculation reduced each of them to approximately the same astonishing sum.
The Saint was accustomed to cash in large figures, having a useful quantity of it stashed away in his own accounts, so the fact that he blinked, looked in amazement at Vicky, and then stared reverently down again at the papers was a high tribute to the grandeur of their contents.
“Do you know what we’ve got here?” he said.
“Letters of credit,” Vicky replied, still a little coldly. “My father’s letter told me that, but he never saw them and didn’t know how much they were worth.”
“They are worth,” Simon said, “ten million dollars each.”
“Ten... million... dollars?”
To render typographically the awesome quality Vicky gave to each of her next words would require a surface tile size of the north face of the Eiger and the labor of a few hundred sign painters working all summer with no time off.
“Yes,” Simon confirmed simply.
“Each?” she squealed.
“Yes.”
She forgot all about the possibility of an enforced exit through the window and rushed to his side, gaping at the documents over his shoulder.
“How many are there?”
“Six,” he answered. “Six worth ten million bucks each, no questions asked, to anyone who fills in his name and signature and takes it to the bank it’s addressed to.”
Vicky absorbed the information in silence for a while, and then sighed in a masterpiece of inadequacy: “My goodness!”
“Mine too,” said the Saint. “Virtue is about to be rewarded once more, it seems, thanks to pluck, perseverance, and all the other old-fashioned nobilities — not to mention greed and your father.”
He shuffled the letters about on the table, arranging and re-arranging them in random geometrical patterns, while he continued to digest the full flavor of the prize with ripening rapture. Seldom in the history of buccaneering could any pirate have doodled with such precious playthings: never had he himself held so much concentrated capital in his hands all at once.
And besides the pure crass opulence of the booty, there were its artistic implications to enjoy: the inspiration which had hit upon such a supremely simple method of caching a Golconda so that anyone who knew the secret could claim it without revealing any past names or identifications, the ingenuity which had devised such an improbable safe deposit for the claim checks, even the macabre humour which had selected for the ultimate depository a miniature casket bearing such a name as Josef Meier. And to top that, the fact that the evil men who had put away such an insurance policy for their own uncertain future had never survived to cash it, whereas one of their victims had been able to ensure that it was at least not lost for ever.
Vicky Kinian said: “My father was risking his life for his country as a soldier, and I know he wouldn’t have betrayed it for any amount of money. But this must have seemed like something quite apart from winning the war. Whoever got this money, so long as it wasn’t the Nazis, it wouldn’t have hurt our side. Somehow, he found out about it and had a chance to leave it to me instead of getting it turned over to the Government. I honestly can’t blame him for being tempted.”
“You shouldn’t blame me either, then,” Simon averred.
She looked worried.
“Any more than I should blame you,” he concluded.
She seemed a little relieved.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I propose to keep one of these for my services — and please don’t embarrass both of us by telling me you can’t spare it.”
He separated the Johannesburg letter from the stack and handed the other five sheets to Vicky. Her face was white and her fingers trembled so much that the papers rustled loudly. She sank down on the sofa, gazed uncomprehendingly at the typed text of the documentary forms, and hugged them close against her body.
She looked up at Simon, hardly able to speak.
“So you think I’m entitled to this money?”
The Saint had already tucked his personal dividend into his pocket.
“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “But unfortunately I’m not the one who’ll decide whether to let you keep it. One can assume that the happy Aryans who stashed it away got it by some unsavory or illegitimate means, but where did they embezzle it or which individuals did they rob? That could keep an army of lawyers busy for another twenty years.” He sat down in a chair facing her, rested his elbows on the arms, and folded his hands underneath his chin as he considered the problem. “Remember, I’m in on this hunt because some lads in the Pentagon asked me to solve the mystery of your father and report what I could find out. If Washington releases the information, there are going to be more claimants for this dough than bees in a clover patch.”
Vicky was beginning to look more defiant than worried.
“I don’t see how any of them could prove they’ve any right to it!” she said. “How could anybody else have found it?”
“I doubt that anybody could, but both of us would be far beyond caring by the time the legal weasels finish gnawing the bones.”
“So you mean I’ve got a choice between being a sort of thief and being broke for the rest of my life,” Vicky said sulkily. “Assuming you give me any choice at all. I notice you’ve already got your share safely tucked away. I’m the only one who’ll be sitting around waiting for my reward for the next eighty years.”
Simon picked up the remaining five letters of credit and spread them like playing cards in his hands.
“Well, just in case the authorities aren’t properly grateful, I guess it’s only fair that you should have a little something to tide you over while they embroider the red tape.” He selected the letter addressed to the Zurich bank and passed it to her. “There. Sweets for the sweet. We can say there were only four letters — which, as anybody can plainly see, there are.”