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

Thinking about it, Nick turned his car north and headed toward Kincaid’s big house on the hill. He wanted another chat with the man before he undertook the theft of the dinosaur’s tail.

When he reached it in mid-afternoon the big house was quiet. It was possible that Kincaid was in the city, but the elaborate study had indicated he did much of his work at home.

Nick was in luck. Kincaid himself answered the door on the second ring. “Well, Mr. Velvet! Don’t tell me you’re bringing the tail to me already!”

“No, not quite.”

“Well, come in for a drink, anyway. I was just dictating some business correspondence on my machine, but I always welcome a little break. This big place gets lonely.”

“That was quite a party last evening. We enjoyed it.”

“My pleasure! Who would have thought that fate would bring you to me at the very moment I needed your services?” He led Nick into the study and opened a well-stocked liquor cabinet. “Is Scotch satisfactory?”

“Fine.”

“What brings you here? Are there any complications?”

“Somewhat. The number of guards at the museum has been increased considerably since a recent string of thefts.”

“That should present no problem to a man of your skill, Mr. Velvet.”

“It doesn’t, really.” He accepted the drink and took a sip. It was good Scotch. Expensive. “But as you know, I never steal things of value, like cash or jewelry. Nor do I allow myself to be used as a decoy for such thefts.”

Kincaid smiled indulgently. “But, Mr. Velvet, by the very nature of your chosen calling you invite people to take advantage of you. After all, what truly valueless object would be worth your fee of $20,000, even to an eccentric like myself?”

“Then you admit you haven’t told me the whole truth?”

“What other explanation could there be?”

“Some jewels have already been stolen from that museum, and more are on exhibit now. You could be using me only to provide access or diversion while your own gang carries out the real theft.”

“Gang, gang! Mr. Velvet, I’m a businessman, a publisher. I don’t have any gang!”

“Then why do you really want the dinosaur’s tail?”

Kincaid sighed and put down his drink. “Come with me, Mr. Velvet. I’m going to show you something very few people have ever seen.”

Nick followed him across the study to a small door that might have led to a closet. Surprisingly, it opened to reveal a narrow staircase to the basement. In that moment, descending toward the unknown, Nick’s first thought was of a velvet-lined chamber where Kincaid might act out the orgies of his pornographic books. Then he remembered a story he’d real as a boy — about a man who bred giant ants, and he wondered if some living creature from the distant past might be awaiting him in Frader Kincaid’s basement.

The first thing he saw as Kincaid snapped on the lights did nothing to relieve his mind. Nick had paused only inches from the gaping jaws of a dinosaur’s skull. He jerked back quickly and looked around. The entire basement workroom was filled with bones — skulls, ribs, shinbones, jawbones. They hung from the ceiling and they littered the rows of shelves that circled the room.

“What in hell is this?” Nick asked.

Frader Kincaid smiled at his reaction. “My hobby, my avocation. I told you last evening of my great interest in prehistoric creatures. Here I find a way to enjoy that interest and even make a little money out of it.” He took down one of the jawbones and handed it to Nick. “This particular one is carved from wood and, as you see, highly polished. But I have others of molded plastic and even of bone. Bones made out of bone!”

“You make these? But what for?”

“I sell them to museums. A complete skeleton of a prehistoric reptile or mammal is very hard to come by. Many museums, especially the smaller ones, often possess only a few bones from a Mammoth or a Brontosaurus. They want to reconstruct a complete skeleton, and the only way to do it is to use a number of artificial bones. That’s where I come in.”

“Amazing,” was all Nick could say.

“I can furnish a single bone or a dozen. Generally I go right to the museum and work on the skeleton myself, fitting the missing bones in place. They close off the room for a time, and I do my work.”

“Are there many New York museums that do this sort of thing?”

“All of them use reproductions in one form or another. I suppose the largest must be the giant blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History. Many people viewing it believe that it’s stuffed, but actually it’s a complete reproduction, carefully formed in every detail. I don’t work on anything that complex, though. I stick to bones.”

“And you need the tail of the Tyrannosaurus to serve as a model?”

“Of course! I must have it, and soon.”

Nick Velvet sighed and avoided the gaping jaws. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll steal it for you.”

“I’d be most grateful,” Kincaid said with a smile, and led the way upstairs.

Nick spent Tuesday morning checking out one more point, just to ease his mind. The Egyptian jewelry on display at the museum had little market value. It was not to be compared with the Pliny diamond and other stolen pieces. Nick now felt certain that he’d been wrong in suspecting another jewel robbery.

When the museum closed its doors at six o’clock, Nick was still inside. He’d already decided that the theft must take place after hours, despite the alarm system and the dogs. The daytime guards in all the rooms were obstacles he could not safely overcome. A quick test had shown him that they were quite professional and not the sort to be diverted by firecrackers or an escaped mouse. Besides, Nick estimated he would need at least two or three minutes to cut through the wires that held the tail bones in place. So it had to be at night.

When the guard in the Egyptian Room turned away for an instant at the sound of the closing buzzer, Nick had simply stepped into one of the large upright sarcophagi against one wall and pulled the lid almost shut. The guard passed once, glancing around, but apparently assumed that Nick had left by the other exit. He flicked off the light switch and Nick was alone in his own dark tomb. The sarcophagus was far from comfortable, being a bit shorter than Nick’s six feet, but he knew he would have to remain inside for at least an hour.

Through the crack in the lid he watched the dusky remains of daylight filter through the overhead skylight until the Egyptian Room settled into total darkness. Then at last it was night, and he slipped from his cramped hiding place to move silently through the darkened halls. It was easy to spot the electric eye alarms in each doorway, and just as easy to avoid them by bending very low. They would have trapped only the most amateur of thieves. He entered the Etruscan Wing and crossed the marble floor toward the Hall of Great Reptiles. So far, all was well.

Then he froze, hearing a guard’s voice far off, echoing through the lonely building. It was answered by the barking of a dog. Nick listened and moved a bit faster.

Avoiding the electric eye at the entrance to the Hall of Great Reptiles, he made his way toward the enormous white skeleton in the center of the room. He took a moment to shine his narrow-beam flashlight at the walls, but there was nothing except the tall dusty display cases filled with fossils and petrified footprints from ages ago. He wondered why he’d done that and then realized there was something wrong. It was — what? — a feeling that he was not alone here?

He tensed his body, but no sound came. Then he allowed the flashlight to return to its target on the dinosaur’s bony tail. He went under the rope and clamped the flashlight to his left wrist, leaving both, hands free. As he had assumed, the individual bones were strongly wired together, but a few quick snips with his wire cutters should free them.