Роберт Фиш - The Gold of Troy

Knud Christensen made no move to take the money. Ruth placed the small pile of notes on a table as Gregor also came to his feet. Gregor put his hand on the other man’s rigid shoulder and pressed lightly in comradeship. There was no response from the large man in the chair. He continued to stare sightlessly at the floor. Gregor addressed him, although he was not sure if the other man heard him or not.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. Christensen. You’ll get your monument, I assure you. And more.” He looked around the dingy room. “Enough to begin living like a man again.”

Christensen did not respond. He seemed to be stunned by everything that had been said, all that he had heard. He watched dully as the two people nodded their good-byes and walked from the room, closing the door behind them. He heard the car engine start and listened to the wheels churning in the gravel as the car swung about to leave. He stared at the door without actually seeing it, and took a deep breath.

Cheated...!

And not just him, but the entire Christensen family. They had been cheated of their granite memorial. Gustave had been cheated; Niels had been cheated; even his poor parents, hardworking and dead all these many years — they had all been cheated. They could have had their granite monument by this time, had they not all been cheated.

And after cheating him and his entire family, the man had presented him with an expensive bottle of scotch whiskey, of a quality so good that he had held it for an occasion...

He came to his feet, a lumbering, stumbling giant, and walked into the kitchen. He reached as high as he could to the top shelf of the cupboard, far to the rear, the place he had hidden the bottle to await a proper event to celebrate. His fingers fumbled blindly for a few moments and then found their target. He drew the bottle from its hiding place and carried it to the living room. He sat down and stared at it, and then looked at the two thousand kroner on the table that the lady had left.

A proper event? What was a proper event?

In the rear seat of the car, the glass divider once again closed after Wilten had been instructed to return them to Copenhagen and their hotel, Ruth and Gregor stared at each other in total disbelief while Wilten brought the car back to the main road and headed for the city. Gregor held up one of his hands; it was shaking.

“My God!” he said, almost as if in shock.

“I don’t believe it,” Ruth said, her voice tinged with awe.

“It isn’t possible!”

“But it’s true...”

“A farmer! Diving for his brother’s body! And finding—!” Gregor found it impossible to even voice the words, to comprehend the enormity of their discovery. They had found out what had happened to the Schliemann treasure, after all those years, after all the conjectures undoubtedly on the part of the Americans as well as Ulanov and the KGB! It was enough to make anyone’s head spin, let alone the head of a dedicated archaeologist and scientist.

“It was a game,” Ruth said in a dazed voice, almost as if speaking to herself. “A silly game. I never actually thought—”

“Neither did I,” Gregor said with wonder. “Who on earth could ever have thought—?”

Ruth reached over and took Gregor’s hand, squeezing it tightly and feeling him respond equally. She closed her eyes, inexplicably fighting back tears. And then opened them as the car slid to a halt before a pump in a gasoline station. Wilten leaned over, speaking to them through the speaking tube; his words echoed hollowly in the enclosed space. “Fuel...” He climbed down, gave instructions to the attendant to fill the tank and check under the hood, and then tilted his head toward the rear of the station, indicating that while the needs of the automobile were being attended to, he would attend to his own needs. He walked to the back. Beside the twin doors to the rest rooms there was a telephone booth. He squeezed his ample bulk into it, dropped a coin, and dialed.

Count Lindgren had been awaiting the call anxiously. He snatched the telephone up at the first ring. “Yes?”

“Wilten here—”

“Well?”

“First they stopped at the Gedser dock and the woman spoke to someone there. Then they had me drive them to a farmhouse nearby; the name of the man who lives there is Christensen, Knud Christensen. On the way there they said something about his diving for his brother’s body. Does the name Christensen mean anything to you?”

“No. Do you know what they talked to him about?”

“I don’t know, but they talked to him a long time. When they came out they seemed to be almost in shock. I kept the car’s intercommunication line open, even though the glass divider was closed. They kept saying things like, ‘It can’t be true, but it is,’ almost as if they had discovered something important.” He remembered something else. “The man, the Russian, said something about a farmer, diving for his brother’s body, and finding—”

“Finding what? Speak up!”

“He didn’t say. And the woman said, ‘It was a game. I never thought—’ and that’s when she stopped. Then they didn’t say any more, so I stopped for gasoline, and I’m calling you from there. They can’t see me.”

“Did they mention Arne Nordberg?”

“No, sir.”

Count Lindgren took a deep breath. His mind had been racing all through Wilten’s report. “They discovered something! I’m sure they discovered something! The treasure has been under the sea, just as the girl suspected, and they have found out how it was found. It never was in Russia. She said that, and it was true! That lying Nordberg! They’ll find him, and he’ll lead them to us. If we let them, that is!”

“Yes, sir.”

“So we won’t let them.” The decision made at last, the count’s voice seemed to lighten. Actually, it was a decision that Lindgren had suspected would be necessary since their lunch the day before, and the information that had been given them at the naval station. It was too bad, in a way; he had liked Ruth McVeigh, and he disliked destroying anything of beauty. But where his own well-being was at stake, there was no choice. “You know what to do?”

“We discussed it last night.”

“Exactly! When you’re through with the police, get back here as soon as you can.”

“Right.”

Wilten put the telephone back in its cradle, pushed himself from the narrow booth, and walked back to the car. He paid the bill and climbed into the driver’s seat, starting the engine and pulling the car back into the slack traffic pattern of the highway. In the rearview mirror he could see his two passengers holding hands tightly, looking at each other in silent wonder. With no expression at all on his fleshy face, Wilten brought his attention back to the road and stepped on the accelerator, heading north.

In the rear seat Gregor and Ruth continued to look at each other, still unable to accredit that the silly game that had begun in the map room of the British Museum had eventually led them here, to where there was an excellent possibility that they would shortly be able to actually put their hands on the Schliemann collection! It seemed so absolutely unbelievable, particularly in the first moments of their discovery, that they sat in silence, as if speaking of it might bring their remarkable success from reality to the phantasy it seemed it had to be. In their silent contemplation of the miracle that had befallen them, Gregor became aware that the car was slowing again. He looked through the window. They were at the point in the highway he remembered from their trip down, where the sea could be seen below from a point near the Fakse Bugt. Gregor leaned forward as the car left the road and came to a halt nearly out of sight of the highway on a dirt road pointing to the sea.