William Bankier: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 92, No. 3. Whole No. 547, September 1988

Nick took a chance and entered a small dress shop in the building next door. The woman clerk was surprised and a bit apprehensive at the sight of him. “Health inspector,” he explained, showing a badge and I.D. that he carried for such occasions. “We’ve had a report of a foul odor that seems to be coming from the back of your store.”

“What?” The young woman wrinkled her brow in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“All I know is what they tell me. Have you a back door to the shop?”

She seemed dubious. “The owner’s not here right now. I shouldn’t—”

“If there’s no odor, I’ll be finished in a minute,” he assured her.

“All right,” she decided. “Follow me.”

He noticed a nameplate on her blouse identifying her as Ms. Shepherd. Her green-and-white dress was casual but smart. They walked through the stock room and she opened a side door. Nick saw that it led onto the same narrow passageway he’d observed from the street. “See? There’s no odor.”

“Isn’t there a back door?”

“This is the only other door.”

Nick sniffed the air. “Well, I don’t detect any odor. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

A bell sounded inside the shop at the front. “I have a customer,” she said. She closed and bolted the door and escorted Nick back into the shop, where a middle-aged woman was glancing through a rack of dresses.

Out on the street, Nick walked away quickly without a glance at the Coronado consulate. Ms. Shepherd had provided him with everything he needed.

The dress shop closed promptly at six, a full hour before sundown, and Nick was waiting across the street when the Shepherd woman locked the front door and headed uptown. During his few minutes in the shop, he’d managed to check the lock on the front door and slice through a key wire on the alarm system. Now it took him only a moment to cross Madison Avenue and walk up to the door as if he belonged there. He had it unlocked in less than ten seconds and was inside without the alarm sounding. Passersby paid no attention. He walked through the shop to the side door, disconnected the alarm there, and opened it.

Once in the alley separating the two buildings, he walked to the rear. There had to be a reason for the alley and the most likely one was to provide access to the consulate kitchen for deliveries and rubbish removal. He found the door to the kitchen standing open behind an unlocked screen door. The cooks were busy with dinner preparation and only one bare-chested dishwasher noticed him. “Who are you?” the man asked in Spanish.

“Health inspector,” Nick answered, flashing his badge. “Put on a shirt or I’ll have to write you up for a violation.”

The man quickly reached for his shirt and Nick continued on his way. He passed through the kitchen and out the swinging doors that led to the dining area. A few people were seated at tables but none of them challenged him. Coming from the kitchen seemed to provide him with the necessary authority.

The interior of the consulate was decorated in bright colors, with murals depicting various events in Coronado’s history. One in the process of being repainted depicted three sailing ships at anchor in a small cove — Nick recognized it as the same scene repeated in a simplified form in the seal on the rainbow flag.

Nick spotted a white-haired man in a business suit descending the staircase with a folded flag in his hand. “Pardon me,” he said, approaching the man. “Are you Senor Montanya?”

The man frowned at him. “Jose Montanya returned to Coronado three months ago. I am Christopher Onza, the acting envoy.”

Nick silently cursed the outdated reference book he’d consulted. He dredged his mind for another name. “I’m sorry, I was mistaken. Leon Oeste, the First Secretary at the Washington embassy, sent me here to pick up the flag you’ve been flying from the consulate. He said you’ve been informed and would be expecting me.”

“I knew there was to be a change, but my instructions were merely to burn the old flag.”

“No, I’ve been sent to pick it up. Is that it in your hand?”

The man hesitated only an instant. “Yes, I just took it down. Do you wish to give me a receipt for it?”

“Certainly.” Nick took a notebook from his pocket and scrawled a few words, signing it with an alias and giving it to Onza. “Here you are. Good evening.” He tucked the flag under his arm and headed for the front door.

“You have to sign out,” the guard told him at the door.

Nick showed the badge one more time. “Health inspector. I came in through the kitchen.”

“I don’t care if you came down the chimney. You still have to sign out.”

Nick signed out.

That evening in a Times Square hotel room, he delivered the flag to Art Schraeder, who smiled as he accepted it. “That was good work, Velvet. Faster than I’d expected.” He unfolded the flag until it was fully revealed, spread across one of the twin beds. “It doesn’t seem as faded as it should be.”

“He told me that was the flag—” Nick began.

“Well, it isn’t! This flag is new — it’s never been flown anywhere!”

“Does it matter that much?” Nick asked lamely.

“Of course it matters! I hired you to steal a faded flag from the Coronado government, not one of these new ones.”

“It looks exactly the same to me — a rainbow background with the nation’s official seal in the center.”

“I need an old one,” Schraeder insisted. “Whoever gave you this tricked you.”

Nick had already realized that. The man on the stairs hadn’t been the easy mark he appeared to be. By now the flag Schraeder wanted was tucked safely away until morning. “I’ll have it for you tomorrow,” he assured Schraeder. He tried not to think of what else could go wrong. He especially tried not to think of Sandra Paris.

In the morning he was on upper Madison Avenue before dawn, standing in a doorway next to a homeless man who slept bundled inside a shabby overcoat. Precisely at seven, as the first rays of sun appeared over the East River, the man who had given Nick the wrong flag the previous day appeared at the third-floor window. He unwrapped the halyard from the pole and attached the flag to it, unfurling it as he raised it to the end of the pole.

The flag hung out over the sidewalk at what Nick estimated was an angle of about forty-five degrees. He watched as Christopher Onza finished, then left the doorway and prepared to go into action. During the night he’d arranged to hire a truck with a moveable boom with a bucket at the top, used by an outdoor-advertising firm to change its billboards. He saw it coming up the avenue and waved to the driver. He’d have the flag off the pole before anyone knew what had happened.

“All right,” Nick told the driver when the truck pulled up. “Take me up to that flag. When we’re close enough I’ll take over the controls in the bucket myself.”

The driver looked blank. “What flag are you talking about? I don’t see any flag.”

Nick had a sinking feeling as he turned his head and glanced up at the consulate window. The flagpole was empty, its halyard flapping gently in the breeze.

Across the street he noticed that the sleeping man was no longer in the doorway. Only the shabby overcoat remained. Its wearer had vanished as neatly as the flag.

Nick crossed the street and picked up the coat. A small white card fell free of it and he knew what it would say before he bent to pick it up.

Impossible things before breakfast.

“I’ve never seen you so upset, Nicky,” Gloria told him as she poured a second cup of coffee.

“Sandra Paris beat me twice in three days. She stole both of those flags from under my nose and I don’t even know how she did it. The only flag I managed to steal was the wrong one.”