Oliver Bleeck - Brass Go-Between

“That is ridiculous,” she said.

“Not ridiculous,” I said. “Not even farfetched. Your husband had an expensive habit. He had exhausted all funds — both yours and his and this was the only way that he could get more. A lot more. As director of the museum, you were in a position to introduce him, casually I assume, to Sackett, the guard. From there on he handled it all except that you were also in a position to tell him about that one door that wasn’t electrically sealed from the inside. The police say it was an inside job. Perhaps they just haven’t figured out how deeply inside it was.”

She stared at me and there was nothing but contempt and loathing in her gaze. I smiled at her, but it was a feeble smile. “It does hang together, you’ll have to admit.”

“You mentioned that you thought that you know who now has the shield,” Spencer said.

“I also said that I’d tell you, but not Mrs. Wingo. If she is an accomplice, and if I’m right about who has the shield, she could easily tip him off.”

“You don’t believe that she has it, do you?” Spencer said.

“Tucked away in the attic perhaps where she can admire it, even gloat over it, during long winter evenings.” He chuckled again for the second time that year.

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that.”

“Well, Mr. St. Ives, let’s get it over with. My dear, if you’ll excuse yourself.”

She rose and without looking at me or saying anything walked quickly to the door, opened it, and left. Spencer watched her leave. After the door closed he looked at me and this time his green eyes met mine for the first time and held.

“All right, St. Ives. Who?”

I took a deep breath, but it came out as a croak anyway. “You,” I said. “You’ve got the shield.”

At 4:36 that morning, alone in my hotel room, it had been a much better scene. Spencer had blanched, confounded by the inescapable logic of my accusation. A few drops of perspiration had formed on his upper lip. A tiny vein had started to throb in his temple. Afraid that his hands would develop a telltale tremor, he had thrust them deep into his pockets. Guilt had seeped from every pore and its odor lay heavy in the room. That was at 4:36 A.M. At 11:47 A.M. he did nothing of the kind. For a moment he looked a trifle disappointed, but politely managed to cover that up. His eyes moved away from mine, as if embarrassed. Not for him, but for me.

“I see,” he murmured, and then looked around the room as though he hoped to find something else to talk about, something that would help us both pretend that I wasn’t an utter fool.

It occurred to me then that I would have never made a good cop. There was something lacking. My concept of crime and punishment was skewed. Vengeance was not mine. I was cheerleader for the crooks and a cynic when it came to law and order. And finally, somewhere along the unimproved secondary road that was my life, I had discarded proper veneration for The Job at Hand, a veneration shared in common by all good crooks, cops, and, for that matter, county agents. As a go-between I was an economic grasshopper, a social cipher who in one breath had just accused a billion dollars of being a thief and was about to apologize in the next.

“It all works out,” I said lamely.

“Really,” Spencer said, not at all interested, gazing out the window at the Capitol and frowning slightly as if he thought it could use a new coat of paint.

“First,” the Relentless Inquisitor continued, “you were one of the few persons who knew that George Wingo was an addict. You also knew that he was desperate for money to feed his habit.”

“Mmm,” Spencer said, getting really interested now.

“Second,” I said, “you had enough money to feed it. I don’t know who suggested that he get the guard hooked. I don’t think it matters. At least not to me. But in Wingo you had your engineer and in Sackett your inside man. Through a man named Spellacy in New York Wingo found the thieves. And your go-between.

“Third motive,” I said.

This time Spencer smiled slightly. “Ah, yes, Mr. St. Ives. Motive. I did have one, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “I suddenly became totally captivated by the shield, by this crude, tawdry piece of brass. I had to possess it at all costs. It was an obsession. That seems to be in keeping with the rest of your rather fanciful ramblings.”

“No,” I said. “It was Eldorado.”

“Ah,” he said. “Eldorado.”

“Eldorado Oil and Gas. It’s one of your companies.”

“Yes.”

“Before the revolution in Jandola broke out it was negotiating for mineral rights. Oil. A lot of it and most of it is under what some call Komporeen. The Library of Congress was most helpful.”

“I see.”

“Now the real villain enters. Your villain anyway. It’s a Dutch-British combine. It was after the oil rights, too, and it offered the Jandolaean government a far better deal. You matched it. The combine topped your offer and the Jandolaeans sat back content to let you fight it out. In the midst of the negotiations, the revolution broke out and because the oil reserves or whatever you call them are in Komporeen, the negotiations for the rights came to a standstill. I am correct so far?”

“In a crude way,” Spencer said.

“For a while it looked as if the Jandolaeans would finish the fight in a week. But it dragged on. The Komporeeneans fought better than was expected. Some help started coming in dribbles from France and Germany. If the Komporeeneans could hold on another two months or so, they might even win independence. Or at least, with recognition from France and Germany, keep the fighting going for years, and if they did, then you would have to negotiate with their government. If they lost, you’d be back where you started, bidding against the Dutch-British combine. You needed an edge. And the shield was it. You knew its importance to both Komporeen and Jandola. You would arrange for its theft, and then at the appropriate time, use it as a bribe to secure the oil reserves from whoever won.”

“And how would I explain that it came into my possession?” Spencer asked.

“Simple,” I said. “You bought it from the thieves, using your own money.”

“I see,” Spencer said again, and stared out the window some more.

“I don’t think you had anything to do with the four deaths,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“They just got greedy and after the deal was set up, they followed it because they didn’t know what else to do. None of them was too imaginative. They stole the shield, dumped it into the back seat of a car, and it was whisked away to you. None of them knew that you were involved. No one but Wingo knew that.”

“But you think that you do?”

“I know you are.”

“And your next move?”

“I could do several things,” I said. “First of all, I could tell the cops. They might laugh at me at the beginning, but they’d check it out. It might take a while, but they’d get around to it and even if they never proved it, it would be a considerable nuisance to you. But that’s just one thing that I might do. The other would be to let the Jandolaean Embassy in on my speculations. That would really tear it for you. You could never use the shield as a bribe then. They’d know you’d stolen it — or had had it stolen.”

Spencer rose from his chair and crossed to the window. He stood there in his 1939 suit and his bowl haircut, a billion dollars on the hoof, and looked out at the Capitol. “How much do you want, St. Ives?” he said.

“Not how much, but what.”

“All right then. What?”

“The shield. I want it today.”