Isaac Asimov - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 64, No. 1. Whole No. 368, July 1974

“It’s more than just an eagle. It’s a symbol of everything my grandfather stood for — of law and justice and our great nation. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to that eagle.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Suppose you and I have a drink across the street at the High Court. You’re old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be twenty-five next week.”

“That’s sure old enough. Come on.”

She ordered a gin and tonic and settled into the booth opposite him as if they were old friends. “I feel as if I picked you up,” she said, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Nick agreed. “And I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Silke Blake.”

“Silk?”

“With an e on the end. Goes good with Velvet, doesn’t it?”

“So you know me.”

“Yes. My uncle hired you, didn’t he?”

“I can’t comment on that.”

“I understand you steal things — unusual things. Did he hire you to steal that eagle?”

“I told you I couldn’t comment.” He sipped his drink. “But suppose it were true. Why do you think he’d want a thing like that stolen?”

“I can’t imagine, unless it’s to discredit my grandfather in some way.”

“From what you’ve told me, that would be hard to do.”

“It certainly would. He was a fine man.”

“Tell me a little about him as a person. I guess I know enough of his legal career.”

“Well, I suppose that big house and the eagle tell you something about him. When I was young — younger — we used to call it the House of Usher, after Poe’s story. Grandfather was a great admirer of everything Poe wrote.”

Nick gazed across the street at the stone eagle, almost expecting it to take flight with a cry of “Nevermore.” He listened while Silke Blake recounted the usual childhood memories of idyllic summers and midnight swimming and moonlight treasure hunts. It might have been a feminine version of Huck Finn, and he could only conclude that was the way things were in the rural midwest.

“It sounds like a wonderful childhood,” he conceded, remembering his own grim youth on the pavements of lower Manhattan. “But it doesn’t really tell me much about your grandfather.”

She tossed her long silken hair, and he wondered if her name or the hair had come first. “All you need to know is that I loved him very much — and I won’t let anyone harm the memory of his name.” She finished her drink and stood up to leave..

“Don’t you have time for another?” he asked.

“One is sociable, two is friendly, and three is intimate, Mr. Velvet. We haven’t reached the friendly stage yet.”

“I’ll try again,” he promised.

Nick spent much of Saturday arranging for the helicopter with which he hoped to lift Judge Blake’s legal eagle from its base and transport it back to its proper perch. A phone call to Hamish yielded the information that there was a helicopter rental firm at a private airport outside of town, a company with which the judge himself had been friendly during his lifetime.

But once he’d rented the copter, Nick faced a new problem. He could fly the thing himself if necessary, but it would be tricky at night. And someone was needed on the ground to secure the cable around the statue.

It was not the first time Nick had been forced to hire an assistant. Once, while stealing the water from a swimming pool, he’d hired the entire Fire Department at $100 for each man on the pretense of filming a television movie. But as a general rule he liked to use as few hired hands as possible, being careful to keep them in the dark as to his true purpose.

He found the man he needed at the airport where he rented the copter. Jimmy Claus was his name, and money was his only game. “You want me to fly it?” he asked. “And for that you’ll pay five hundred bucks?”

Nick nodded, studying the slim long-haired man in his soiled T-shirt and jeans. “That’s it. But it won’t be easy. We have to move a statue from the city to a new suburban location, and because of traffic problems the move must be accomplished at night.”

“Which night?”

“I was thinking of tomorrow.”

“Sunday?”

Nick shrugged. “Fewer people around downtown. Less chance of accidents.”

“Where’ll you be?”

“On the ground guiding you and attaching the cable to the statue.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to use a truck?” Claus asked, growing a little suspicious.

“Too much danger of damaging the statue. With a helicopter we can lift it straight off with not even a scratch.”

The long-haired man squinted into the sun and thought about the $500. “Okay, no problem. Let’s take her up for a spin first, though, so I can look over the area by daylight. I don’t want to go crashing into any of them buildings.”

On Sunday morning Claus and Nick took the copter up and flew north to their goal. The city’s downtown was nearly deserted, and for a wild moment Nick considered the possibility of hooking the cable around the statue and flying off with it now. But he hadn’t scouted the Blake country estate yet, and to be seen flying haphazardly around town with a ton-and-a-half eagle hanging from a cable would surely bring police to investigate.

So they flew out to the suburbs empty-handed, dipping to tree-top height until Nick spotted the estate of the late Norbert Blake. When he’d verified the address and the description given him by Hamish, he tapped Jimmy Claus on the shoulder and said, “Set her down there, on that lawn.”

“This is the place?”

“Yeah.” When they had landed, Nick added, “Stay here. I have to see the man.”

Hamish Blake had appeared in the doorway to the terrace, holding a tall drink in one hand. He strolled down across the neatly trimmed lawn to intercept Nick. “What’s the meaning of this — landing that thing on the lawn!”

“Tonight, after midnight, we’ll be coming back. With a delivery.”

Hamish Blake grunted. “And the entire countryside will know how it was done.”

“You’re going to have it sitting in your back yard anyway, so it won’t be any big secret.” Nick gestured toward the house, where he could see an empty pedestal standing in the rose garden. “That where it goes?”

“Yes. Facing out, away from the house.”

“How will we find it in the dark?”

“There’s a spotlight up there under the roof. It lights up this whole area. I can turn it on whatever time you say.”

“Midnight tonight.”

Blake nodded. “Fine.”

“Will anyone else be here?”

“Just myself. I don’t want my wife involved in this. As soon as you return the eagle to its perch, the money is yours.”

“The police will find it.”

“I only need it for a day. Then they can have it back if they want it. But I’m relying on you to cover your tracks well enough so they don’t follow you out here immediately. You know about the television monitor?”

“The what?”

“The city is testing a half dozen television cameras in various downtown locations as a crime deterrent. One of them is on a light pole across the street from the courthouse and it monitors that whole area.”

“I must be getting old,” Nick admitted. “I never noticed it.”

“Any problem?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll see you at midnight.”

“Or shortly after. I have to wait till the streets are deserted.”

“I understand.”

They shook hands and Nick walked back to the helicopter.

Sunday night was cool and overcast after an early evening rain. By midnight, after a movie house down the block had disgorged a dozen or so paying customers, the area around the old courthouse was quiet and empty of traffic. Nick observed it from a doorway across the street, paying special attention to the small television monitor he now saw mounted on a light pole some twelve feet off the ground. Occasionally the camera would be moved in an arc by remote control, but mostly it stayed in one position. Whoever was monitoring the sets at police headquarters did so in a most haphazard manner. Nick figured he might have about five minutes before they realized something was amiss.