Аврам Дэвидсон - Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

“He took it home with him every evening, after I had brought it back — but it is in the nature of a certain type to derive a thrill from imperiling what they value most. So, with me to trust, Mejjid could enjoy every day the sensation of the reckless gambler whose fortune trembles on the turn of a card, and his overwhelming joy when he is dealt another ace to his pair of aces; although, with me to trust, he could be sure that he risked nothing. I hope I make myself clear?”

“Yes. So I suppose you had a copy made, and—”

“No, dear lady!” said Hadad sharply — while the commentator in his head said: That is just the sort of thing you would have done, you exceedingly horrible woman! “I said ‘My honor was involved.’ Even if it had not been, Mejjid would not have been fooled by a substitute.”

“I’d just have walked off with it instead of giving it back,” said Mrs. Gourock.

Hadad was shocked. “That, sweet lady, is not Hadad’s way. I will tell you what I did. Every day or so, you see, I bought the bedspread at Mejjid’s auction. I was one of those shills that get the unmistakable bargains, you understand. Mejjid had provided me with a checkbook of the Jersey Provincial bank. The check I signed was, of course, worthless — I signed myself M. Mehrabi, sometimes, or T. F. Hafiz, or Aram Aramian — any name but mine.

“So came the fatal afternoon when I bid for the Mektoub bedspread for the last time. The auctioneer introduced it as a ‘rare piece of Persian tapestry, in perfect condition, dating back to the year 1580 A.D.’

“The auctioneer flogged that crowd and yipped at them like a cowboy rounding up cattle. ‘Twenty-five, twenty-five, who’ll say forty? — Thirty, thirty-five, forty! — Forty, forty, do I hear fifty? — Fifty-five, fifty-five, sixty! — Seventy, seventy, who said eighty? — Eighty, ninety, ninety, and five, ninety-five, one hundred, one hundred’ — ‘Two hundred,’ I said, and someone cried ‘—and fifty!’ Two hundred and fifty,’ cried the auctioneer, ‘who says two seventy-five? — Three, I hear three, three, three! — And twenty-five, three twenty-five, three twenty-five, three fifty!’

“He became very brisk then, talked very fast, Three fifty, three fifty — going, going — gone to the gentleman over there for three hundred and fifty dollars! — and if you can find a tapestry to equal that on Fifth Avenue for $3,000 I’ll eat my hat!... Right now let’s see that pair of antique brass candle-sticks...’

“I took the tapestry with trembling hands, for if the bidding, by some chance, had gone $50 higher, my plan would have come to nothing — although the virtue of this same plan was that it could wait another day, or week, or month, if need be. I wrote my check on the Jersey Provincial bank, but this time I signed it with my own name — Mansur Hadad. Then I carried the tapestry away, while the crowd gave its slightly stimulated interest to the next lot.

“I went to my room, and waited. As I expected, Mejjid rang me somewhat later, and shouted, ‘Why weren’t you here at six?’ I replied, ‘Because I preferred not to be there at six.’ ‘I’m coming over,’ he said. So he did. He asked for his Mektoub bedspread. I told him, ‘It’s mine.’ Something in my manner must have alarmed him, for he became sweet as honey. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I understand — you’re playing a little joke on poor old Mejjid. You want a raise, and this is your funny little way of asking for it. He-he-he! Eh?’

“I said to him, ‘Mejjid, you son of a dog, you brother of seventeen vile sisters — I cannot properly tell you what I called him, and in any case it loses in the translation — you have seen the last of the Mektoub. Go away, before I beat you about the head with a stick. The transaction is complete. The Mektoub bedspread is mine.’

“He said, ‘I don’t think you understand American law, little fellow. You have stolen my property and swindled me, and I can send you to prison for a number of years.’

“Feigning innocence, I said, ‘The other checks were not good, because I signed them with false names. But this one is good, because I signed it with my own.’

“ ‘Give me the Mektoub, and well forget this folly,’ he said. ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You have broken the law, but I will forgive you.’

“ ‘The only law I have broken,’ I said, ‘is the law that prohibits the keeping of pigs in houses. Go!’

“He said, ‘I suppose, in your ignorance, you imagine that I fear a scandal. Ha! I have connections, you little crook, connections — I am wired in, if you understand the phrase.’

“ ‘I do not,’ I said. ‘Unless you refer to the fencing farmers use in America to restrain beasts.’

“ ‘I’ll have you in jail tonight,’ he shouted, and ran out. Sure enough, in a very short time he returned with a policeman in uniform and another in plainclothes, and had me arrested on a charge of swindling him by passing a worthless check.

“He begged to the last for the Mektoub bedspread. ‘Give it to me, and all’s forgotten and forgiven,’ he cried piteously, until the detective whispered something about compounding a felony.

“I said, ‘It is where you’ll never find it.’ As a matter of fact, Mejjid was standing on it, for I had laid it under the cheap hooked rug that was on the floor of my little room. So I went to jail—”

Mrs. Gourock cried, “No! For how long?”

Hadad replied, “For exactly sixteen hours. Mejjid, you see, was so perfectly certain that this last check, like all the others, was so much stage money, he acted impulsively.

“He did not know that I had opened an account in my right name at the Jersey Provincial bank and, by starving myself and living like a worm, had saved $380. That check was good. I had legitimately bought the Mektoub bedspread. It was mine! At all events, it was not Mejjid’s. Then I sued him for false arrest.

“He settled out of court for $10,000. Tour account is paid, O perverter of innocence,’ I told him. And with this money, I went into business on my own, dealing in nothing but goods of the most superlative and unquestionable quality and value, adhering always to the honest truth thereafter, so that my brief career as accomplice to Mejjid is behind me — finished — a dream. Mejjid himself, though apparently hale and hearty, suddenly became decrepit, a vegetable, and I married his widow. Now I have told you everything.”

“Tell me,” said Mrs. Gourock, “is there really any truth in that Mektoub bedspread story? I mean, about making its owner like...?”

Hadad shrugged. “That is not for me to say.”

“Why not? It’s yours, isn’t it? And why do you keep it in a frame?”

“Dear lady,” said Hadad, “youth needs no enchantments — youth is its own magic. I have had my moments. Now I keep the Mektoub bedspread in a glazed frame, because it might be more than my life is worth to take it out.”

“Why?”

“Madam, I am afraid of it — I have a weak heart. Now, concerning this rug for your husband’s study...”

“Eh? Oh, that. You choose one,” said Mrs. Gourock.

“I have a very rich old Bokhara — the perfect thing for leather-bound books, lamplight, and contemplation — that I can let you have for $3,500.”

“Yes, I suppose so. All right, I’ll have that. Wrap it up,” said Mrs. Gourock, “but do you know, I’m interested in curios. Antiques with a history. You know?”

“Alas, I deal only in carpets and tapestries,” said Hadad.

“How much would you want for that Mektoub bedspread?”

“What? I beg your pardon! Its intrinsic value — about $15,000 — aside, it has other significances, my good lady,” said Hadad, with something like indignation, his hands on his heart.