Десмонд Бэгли - The Golden Keel

Coertze frowned and said, ‘Boxes like that ring a bell with me, but I just can’t place it. Let’s have one of them out.’

Walker and Harrison climbed into the truck and moved aside the body of a dead German which was in the way. Harrison grasped the corner of the nearest box and lifted. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘The damn’ thing’s nailed to the floor.’

Walker helped him and the box shifted. ‘No, it isn’t, but it must be full of lead.’

Coertze let down the tailboard. ‘I think we’d better have it out and opened,’ he said. His voice was suddenly croaking with excitement.

Walker and Harrison manhandled a box to the edge and tipped it over. It fell with a loud thump to the dusty road. Coertze said, ‘Give me that bayonet.’

Walker took the bayonet from the scabbard of the dead German and handed it to Coertze, who began to prise the box open. Nails squealed as the top of the box came up. Coertze ripped it off and said, ‘I thought so.’

‘What is it?’ asked Harrison, mopping his brow.

‘Gold,’ said Coertze softly.

Everyone stood still.

Walker was very drunk when he got to this point of his story. He was unsteady on his feet and caught the edge of the bar counter to support himself as he repeated solemnly, ‘Gold.’

‘For the love of Mike, what did you do with it?’ I said. ‘And how much of it was there?’

Walker hiccoughed genthy. ‘What about another drink?’ he said.

I beckoned to the bar steward, then said, ‘Come on; you can’t leave me in suspense.’

He looked at me sideways. ‘I really shouldn’t tell,’ he said. ‘But what the hell! There’s no harm in it now. It was like this...’

They had stood looking at each other for a long moment, then Coertze said, ‘I knew I recognized those boxes. They use boxes like that on the Reef for packing the ingots for shipment.’

As soon as they had checked that all the boxes in that truck were just as heavy, there was a mad rush to the other trucks. These were disappointing at first — the second truck was full of packing cases containing documents and files.

Coertze delved into a case, tossing papers out, and said, ‘What the hell’s all this bumph?’ He sounded disappointed.

Walker picked up a sheaf and scanned through it. ‘Seems to be Italian Government documents of some sort. Maybe this is all top-secret stuff.’

The muffled voice of Harrison came from the bowels of the truck. ‘Hey, you guys, look what I’ve found.’

He emerged with both hands full of bundles of lire notes — fine, newly printed lire notes. ‘There’s at least one case full of this stuff,’ he said. ‘Maybe more.’

The third truck had more boxes of gold, though not as much as the first, and there were several stoutly built wooden cases which were locked. They soon succumbed to a determined assault with a bayonet.

‘Christ!’ said Walker as he opened the first. In awe he pulled out a shimmering sparkle of jewels, a necklace of diamonds and emeralds.

‘What’s that worth?’ Coertze asked Harrison.

Harrison shook his head dumbly. ‘Gee, I wouldn’t know.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Not my kind of stone.’

They were ransacking the boxes when Coertze pulled out a gold cigarette case. ‘This one’s got an inscription,’ he said and read it aloud. ‘“ Caro Benito da parte di Adolfe — Brennero — 1940 .”’

Harrison said slowly, ‘Hitler had a meeting with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass in 1940. That’s when Musso decided to kick in on the German side.’

‘So now we know who this belongs to,’ said Walker, waving his hand.

‘Or used to belong to,’ repeated Coertze slowly. ‘But who does it belong to now?’

They looked at each other.

Coertze broke the silence. ‘Come on, let’s see what’s in the last truck.’

The fourth truck was full of packing cases containing more papers. But there was one box holding a crown.

Harrison struggled to lift it. ‘Who’s the giant who wears this around the palace?’ he asked nobody in particular. The crown was thickly encrusted with jewels — rubies and emeralds, but no diamonds. It was ornate and very heavy. ‘No wonder they say “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,”’ cracked Harrison.

He lowered the crown into the box. ‘Well, what do we do now?’

Coertze scratched his head. ‘It’s quite a problem,’ he admitted.

‘I say we keep it,’ said Harrison bluntly. ‘It’s ours by right of conquest.’

Now it was in the open — the secret thought that no one would admit except the extrovert Harrison. It cleared the air and made things much easier.

Coertze said, ‘I suppose we must bring in the rest of the boys and vote on it.’

‘That’ll be no good unless it’s a unanimous vote,’ said Harrison almost casually.

They saw his point. If one of them held out in favour of telling the Count, then the majority vote would be useless. At last Walker said, ‘It may not arise. Let’s vote on it and see.’

All was quiet on the road so Donato and Parker were brought in from their sentry duty. The prisoners were herded into a truck so that Alberto could join in the discussion, and they settled down as a committee of ways and means.

Harrison needn’t have worried — it was a unanimous vote. There was too much temptation for it to be otherwise.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Harrison. ‘When this stuff disappears there’s going to be the biggest investigation ever, no matter who wins the war. The Italian Government will never rest until it’s found, especially those papers. I’ll bet they’re dynamite.’

Coertze was thoughtful. ‘That means we must hide the treasure and the trucks. Nothing must be found. It must be as though the whole lot has vanished into thin air.’

‘What are we going to do with it?’ asked Parker. He looked at the stony ground and the thin soil. ‘We might just bury the treasure if we took a week doing it, but we can’t even begin to bury one truck, let alone four.’

Harrison snapped his fingers. ‘The old lead mines,’ he said. ‘They’re not far from here.’

Coertze’s face lightened. ‘ Ja ,’ he said. ‘There’s one winze that would take the lot.’

Parker said, ‘What lead mines — and what’s a winze, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s a horizontal shaft driven into a mountain,’ said Harrison. ‘These mines have been abandoned since the turn of the century. No one goes near them any more.’

Alberto said, ‘We drive all the trucks inside...’

‘...and blow in the entrance,’ finished Coertze with gusto.

‘Why not keep some of the jewels?’ suggested Walker.

‘No,’ said Coertze sharply. ‘It’s too dangerous — Harrison is right. There’ll be all hell breaking loose when this stuff vanishes for good. Everything must be buried until it’s safe to recover it.’

‘Know any good jewel fences?’ asked Harrison sardonically. ‘Because if you don’t how would you get rid of the jewels?’

They decided to bury everything — the trucks, the bodies, the gold, the papers, the jewels — everything. They restowed the trucks, putting all the valuables into two trucks and all the non-valuables such as the documents into the other two. It was intended to drive the staff car into the tunnel first with the motor-cycle carried in the back, then the trucks carrying papers and bodies, and lastly the trucks with the gold and jewels.

‘That way we can get out the stuff we want quite easily,’ said Coertze.

The disposal of the trucks was easy enough. There was an unused track leading to the mines which diverged off the dusty road they were on. They drove up to the mine and reversed the trucks into the biggest tunnel in the right order. Coertze and Harrison prepared a charge to blow down the entrance, a simple job taking only a few minutes, then Coertze lit the fuse and ran back.