“Caught mine, certainly.”
“In which newspaper?”
I hadn’t really expected him to fall for it. He chuckled. “That would be telling. So what’s the scam, love?”
I told him.
The story sounded even more tenuous and fantastic than I had realized. John didn’t sneer or snicker, but he wasn’t enthusiastic either. Lips pursed, he shook his head. “Is that all you’ve got? It’s a picturesque scenario, my dear, but…”
“I can show you the photograph,” I said. “If the jewels are copies, they are damned good ones.”
“No need,” John said abstractedly. “You’re the expert; I accept your conclusions.”
I was absurdly flattered by the compliment; he didn’t hand them out freely. Then he added, looking at me from under those curly long lashes, “Did you by chance wonder whether I sent you the photo?”
I shrugged. “Your name does leap to mind whenever the question of art forgery arises.”
“Thank you,” John said sincerely. His brow clouded; he then said in a wistful voice, “I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it. It could be the quintessential swindle of all time. Do you know what happened in Berlin on the night of May first, 1945?”
“Yes,” I said shortly. I don’t neglect essential research, even if it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. “At least I know the outlines. Some of the most prized objects from the Berlin museums, including the Trojan gold, were in a bomb shelter in the Tiergarten bunker. It was a fortress—massive concrete walls, antiaircraft batteries bristling from walls and roof—”
“Containing troop quarters, a hospital, and an air-raid shelter for fifteen thousand people,” John said. “Because of its strong fortifications and its location, in the grounds of the zoo in central Berlin, it was one of the last places to be taken. In fact, it wasn’t taken; the commandant surrendered after the general order had gone out at midnight on the first of May. The Russians entered the bunker several hours later—before dawn.”
“So it was still dark,” I said. “Raining, too—”
“Rain was the least of it.” John lit another cigarette. “The city was a scene from the inferno—church spires burning like giant candles, Russian tanks rumbling along Unter den Linden and the Wilhelmstrasse, screaming mobs fighting their way through the flaming, rubble-strewn streets. There was a heavy artillery bombardment, and hand-to-hand fighting, throughout the zoo and park area. The commandant of the Tiergarten bunker told his men that those who wanted to try breaking out before the surrender could do so.”
“So people were going in and out—”
“Mostly in,” John said. “What you must realize is that the Russians were not a homogeneous group. The first ones to reach Berlin were highly disciplined shock troops; the terrified inhabitants, expecting the worst, were surprised and relieved when they were treated with relative decency. The second wave was something else again—a motley medley of illiterate tribesmen from the steppes—Karelians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Mongols, you name it—who could barely speak Russian and who had never seen a light bulb or a W.C.”
“I know that. And I don’t want to hear—”
John went on as if I had not spoken, his voice, as cool and dispassionate as that of a lecturer. “There were thirty thousand people crammed into the shelter in the bunker—twice the number it had been designed to hold. There were patients in the hospital, nurses, doctors, guards. The commandant handed over the keys; the Russians went in. Then, to coin a phrase, all hell broke loose. Patients were shot in their beds, nurses—” He broke off at my involuntary gesture of protest and a bleak smile touched his lips. “War is hell, as they say. While all this was going on, the Russian troops reached the third level, where the museum treasures were stored.
“What happened then is anybody’s guess. The Soviets never turned over the museum pieces to the joint commission on missing and stolen art. Some of them have resurfaced since, but it is conceivable that the gold of Troy is still thriftily stored away in a Kremlin vault. It may have been lost or destroyed during the journey east. A group of those untutored laddies from the steppes may have smashed it to fragments in the boyish exuberance of victory. They wouldn’t have realized its value—”
“There is another possibility,” I said. “Someone may have got to it before the Russians did. Someone who did know its value. In all that pandemonium, he could have smuggled it out of the building and out of the city. It didn’t bulk that large. Schliemann bundled the whole lot into his wife’s shawl when he removed it from the excavation.”
“Anything is possible,” John said. He thought for a second and then added, “Almost anything. See here, Vicky, there are a number of points about that scenario of yours that make my hackles rise. Why was the photograph sent to you? Why didn’t the sender give you more information? Your advertisement was a wee bit misleading, you know. Black Michael and Rupert of Hentzau may not be hiding in the woodshed, but something nasty is; the bloodstain you described didn’t come from a cut finger. If the sender is still alive, why hasn’t he communicated with you?”
“He could have had an accident.”
“Tripped on a cobblestone and cut himself on a beer tin,” said John in his most disagreeable voice. “And some kindly passerby found the envelope and posted it?”
“You’re contradicting yourself,” I said. “First you tell me there’s no evidence and then you imply—”
“That the only evidence is bloody,” John said poetically. “Either way, I don’t like it.”
“Then you’re not interested?”
“No.”
The flat finality of his refusal caught me unawares. I stared at him, disconcerted and surprised; he shifted uneasily and turned away. “Give it up, Vicky. You’re wasting your time.”
“Just tell me one thing. Are there any rumors in the art underworld about the Trojan gold?”
“I have severed my connections with that ambiance,” John said primly. “I am leading a life of quiet, honest—”
“Sure you are. That’s why you’re in disguise—why you keep looking nervously in rearview mirrors, why you are so astonishingly well informed about the Battle of Berlin and the architecture of the Tiergarten bunker.”
“Oooh, what an evil, suspicious mind you have,” John murmured. “I know a lot about a lot of things, my dear.”
“Military history is not your specialty. Would you care to swear on something sacred to you—your own precious hide for example—that your interest in the gold of Troy has not been recently reawakened by some of those rumors I mentioned?”
“You cut me to the quick.” John pressed his hand against his presumably aching heart and gave me a soulful look. “In order to dispel your suspicions and restore that perfect amity that should mark our relationship, I will make a clean breast of it. I owe the information to my dear old dad.”
The statement surprised me so that I forgot, momentarily, that he hadn’t denied the allegation. One tended to think of John as self-engendered, like Minerva from Jove’s headache.
He went on blandly, “You’d remember every grisly detail, too, if you had heard them as often as I did. The Battle of Berlin was the old boy’s favorite topic of conversation when he got to reminiscing about the good old days in general and his own heroism in particular. He’d rave on for hours about how Churchill tried to convince the Allies to drive through to Berlin, and how bloody Eisenhower held back. He had studied the subject intensively, and I was the only one who’d listen to him. Or rather, who could be coerced into listening. I was young and frail and helpless—”
“And abused and whatever,” I agreed. “Is that why you became a pacifist?”
“Because of Papa’s ghoulish war stories?” John grinned. “I wouldn’t call myself a pacifist. It’s impossible to convince some people of the error of their ways without hitting them as often and as hard as one possibly can. I’m simply opposed to people hitting me.”