Jon Breen - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 57, No. 3. Whole No. 328, March 1971

Here is the 10th in the series about Nick Velvet, the contemporary Raffles. Nick Velvet, you will recall, is a thief with a unique “angle”: he steals only the bizarre, the baroque, end only if the object is valueless — never anything as mundane as jewels or cash .

Nick’s newest assignment is “out of this world. ” All we ask is that you read the title, and if you don’t immediately plunge into the story we’ll be surprised. Imagine — hired to steal a dinosaur’s tail! Absolutely no kidding! And as usual in Nick’s most recent adventures, he has to be a topnotch detective in order to be a topnotch thief ...

The affair of the Dinosaur’s Tail really began on the day of the Rockland County horse trials, when Nick Velvet met a man named Frader Kincaid. It was a gloomy October Sunday, with a definite threat of rain, and Nick had driven up because Gloria wanted to watch the jumpers.

“Nicky,” she had told him, “there’s nothing more exciting than watching those horses take the jumps with hardly a break in stride.”

Nick, who could think of several things more exciting to watch, had felt it was one of those rare occasions when he must humor Gloria, and so they’d made the trip to Rockland County. She proved to know more about horses than he’d imagined, readily explaining to his disinterested ear the features of a double oxer or of parallel bars.

“Isn’t it thrilling?” she asked at one point.

“I suppose so,” Nick replied. His eyes were following a tall, trimly built man on a chestnut mare. The man seemed to be one of the jump judges.

Presently there was some commotion across the field, and they could see that one of the horses had thrown its youthful rider at a water jump. The standby ambulance started toward the scene and the other riders were held at their starting point. The man on the chestnut mare watched for a time through his binoculars, then cantered over to Nick’s car.

“Looks like rain,” he said, smiling. “Enjoying the show?”

“We were until now.” Nick motioned across the field. “Is the rider badly hurt?”

“No, no! Just had the wind knocked out of her. It’s Lynn Peters, one of our new members. I’m afraid she’s not up to water jumps yet.” He seemed to remember that he hadn’t introduced himself. “I’m Frader Kincaid, master of the hunt here. You folks coming to the open house afterwards?”

“We’re not members,” Nick told him.

“Don’t worry about that — it’s open to all. The big house at the top of the hill. I’ll be looking for you.”

When Kincaid had ridden away, Gloria tugged on Nick’s sleeve. “I’d love to go for a little while, Nicky.”

He sighed and nodded, seeing there was no way out. “We’ll stop by.”

When Nick and Gloria arrived at the house on the hill two hours later, the party was already in full swing. A light rain had started to fall, but it hadn’t dampened any spirits. Middle-aged men and somewhat younger women in riding togs filled two large downstairs rooms, sipping cocktails while they chattered and giggled and generally relaxed. It was not Nick’s sort of gathering, but he knew Gloria would enjoy it.

“Glad you could make it,” Kincaid greeted them. It was obvious now that the house was his, and the party was his also. “Martinis all right?”

“Fine.”

He produced two with a smile and then hooked an arm around the waist of a passing girl. “This is Lynn Peters, who scared us all with her fall this afternoon. Feeling better, Lynn?”

She was young and sandy-haired, with cheeks flushed pink from drink or embarrassment. Her riding breeches and red corduroy vest fitted her well, and she was quick with a smile that included them all. “I’m fine now, Frader. My mount just didn’t like the looks of that water hole.”

Kincaid smiled benevolently, “Why don’t you girls talk it over while I show Mr. Velvet my den? I have a nice collection I’d like to show him.”

Nick followed the tall man through a door at the far end of the room, into a book-lined study that overlooked the valley where the horse trials had been held. “Beautiful country, even on a rainy day,” Kincaid commented.

Nick sipped his drink and asked, “How did you happen to know my name?”

“Oh, you noticed that? Once down at the Yacht Club someone pointed you out to me. I recognized you watching the jumps today and thought I might interest you in a business venture.”

“My business activities are strictly limited.”

Frader Kincaid moved around to the side of the desk, carefully resting his cocktail glass on a used envelope. “You’re a professional thief, Mr. Velvet, and that’s exactly the sort of venture I have in mind.”

Nick’s expression didn’t change. He simply said, “My fee is quite large — $20,000 — and I steal only objects of little or no value.”

“I understand all that.”

“What is the object you had in mind?”

Kincaid motioned toward the wall between the bookcases where an elaborate oil painting hung. It was an odd subject for a rich man’s wall — a prehistoric scene of two dinosaurs locked in deadly combat against a dank swampy landscape. “How much do you know of these things, Mr. Velvet?”

“Nothing I didn’t learn from the monster films when I was a kid.”

“I publish several lines of paperbound books, and this was the cover painting for a science-fiction novel. I liked the painting, even if the book lost money. Only one thing sells these days.” He grinned and chose a book at random from the case beside him. Nick needed only a glance at the bare-bosomed model and the sex-slang title to know the kind of book it was.

“You publish pornography?” he asked Kincaid.

“I publish what the people buy. One year it’s dinosaurs, the next it’s derrières. Makes not a particle of difference to me.”

Nick merely grunted. He was hardly in a position to comment on other men’s morals. “What is it you want stolen?”

Kincaid tapped the framed painting with his index finger. “This one is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the largest flesh-eating creature that ever existed. Its teeth alone were eight inches long, and its total length was something like fifty feet. The Brontosaurus was larger, of course, but it ate only herbs and plants.”

“You seem to know a great deal about them.”

“It’s a hobby of mine.” Kincaid smiled with satisfaction. “But to get to the point, Mr. Velvet. You are familiar with the Museum of Ancient History in upper Manhattan?”

“Of course.”

“They have a fine complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex there. I want you to steal its tail.”

Nick Velvet simply stared at him, letting the words sink in. He had received some strange assignments in his career, but never anything like stealing the tail from a museum’s dinosaur skeleton. “Not the whole thing? Just the tail?”

“Just the tail. The last few bones of the tail, to be exact.”

“All right. How soon do you need it?”

“Before the end of the week. I do believe it was fate that brought you here today, just when I needed you.” He walked a few steps to a small wall safe and returned with a packet of money. “This much in advance. The rest when you deliver the tail.”

They shook hands and Nick pocketed the money. Then he left the room in search of Gloria. When he found her she was looking unhappy. “I never thought you were coming back, Nicky!”

“Didn’t you enjoy your chat with Lynn Peters?”

“Not really. She doesn’t actually know too much about jumping.” Gloria put down her glass. “Maybe we should go now, Nicky. They really aren’t our sort of people.”