James Twining - The Double Eagle

Clarke clamped his mouth shut and Tom could see from the colour rising to his face that he was focusing all his energies on not losing his temper. Eventually he turned away from Tom and indicated the room around him with his head.

‘So, all this shit yours then?’

Tom stole an anxious look at Dominique, but she was staring at the computer screen as if nothing was going on behind her.

‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.’

‘You mean it is now,’ said Clarke laughing coldly. ‘But God knows which poor sod you nicked it off.’ He kicked the crate nearest to him, his clumpy, thick-soled shoes at odds with his delicate frame and making his feet seem huge. ‘What about this one. What’s in here?’

‘You’re wasting your time, Clarke,’ said Tom, his own mounting frustration giving his voice a slight edge now. ‘I’ve moved my father’s business from Switzerland and I’m re-opening it here. I have import papers in triplicate from both the Swiss and British authorities for everything.’

Clarke turned back to face him and smirked.

‘Tell me, was it the drink or the shame over having you for a son that finally did him in?’ Tom’s body stiffened, the muscles in his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth together. He could see Clarke savouring the moment, his eyes narrowed into fascinated slivers of grey.

‘I think it’s time you left,’ said Tom, taking a step forward.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘No, I’m asking you to leave. Now.’

‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’ Clarke thrust his chin out in defiance and folded his arms across his chest, the material of his grey suit, shiny on the elbows, acquiring a new set of creases.

‘Dominique,’ Tom called out while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Clarke’s. ‘Could you please get me the Metropolitan Police on the line and ask to speak to Commissioner Jarvis. Tell him that Detective Sergeant Clarke is harassing me again. Tell him that he has illegally entered my premises without a warrant. Tell him that he’s refusing to leave.’ She nodded but didn’t move.

Clarke stepped forward until he was so close that Tom could smell the smoke on his breath.

‘You’ll slip up, Kirk. Everyone does eventually, even you. And I’ll be there when it happens.’

Flicking his cigarette to one side, sparks scattering in its wake, Clarke marched back up the stairs and through the door.

Dominique fixed Tom with a questioning stare. He cleared his throat nervously. Although he had known that he would have to have this conversation at some stage, he had planned to do it on his own terms when he was good and ready. Certainly not like this.

‘I’m sorry you had to sit through that,’ he began. ‘It’s not what it looks like.’

‘Sure it is.’ She gave him a half smile and then looked away.

‘What do you mean?’ His eyes narrowed.

Silence.

‘Your father used to talk a lot, you know, when he drank,’ she said eventually. ‘He said some things about you. I got the picture. Your policeman friend just filled in a few gaps.’

Tom sat down on the crate nearest her and rubbed the back of his head.

‘Well, if you knew that, what are you doing here?’

‘You really think I expected you to be the only honest person in the art business? Everyone’s got some sort of angle. Yours is better than others I’ve seen.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Partly.’ She smiled and tilted her head to one side. ‘You know, I put a lot of time into this business with your father. By the time he died, things were going really well. When we first met, you said you were serious about trying to keep it going. I guess I wanted to believe you.’

‘I am serious about making it work. More now than when we first spoke about it.’ He looked at her earnestly.

‘So what about…?’

‘That’s over. This is all I’ve got now.’

‘Okay.’ She nodded slowly.

‘Okay?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You sure?’

‘Okay.’ She put her glasses back on and turned back to the computer.

The Smithsonian, Washington DC19th July – 09:06am

‘And unofficially?’

Baxter leapt up from his desk and gripped the back of his chair.

‘Unofficially, ten coins survived.’ He breathed excitedly, his upper lip beginning to bead. ‘It turned out they were stolen from the Mint by George McCann, the former chief cashier there, before the melting. He denied the accusations, of course. But it was him.’

‘And the coins?’

‘A couple started surfacing at numismatic auctions in 1944. A journalist alerted the Mint who brought in the Secret Services. It took them ten years, but eventually they tracked them all down and destroyed them. All apart from one.’

‘They couldn’t find it?’

‘Oh, they knew where it was. Only problem was that they couldn’t get to it. You see, it had been bought by King Farouk of Egypt for his coin collection and the United States Treasury, not realising what it was, had issued him with an export license. There was no way he was going to hand it back just because they’d screwed up their paperwork.’

‘Even though he knew it was stolen?’

‘As far as he was concerned, that probably just added to its value. In any case, after the Egyptian Revolution in 1952 he was out of the equation. The new government seized the collection and auctioned it off, including what had by then become known as the ‘Farouk coin.’

‘So somebody else bought it.’

‘No.’ Baxter’s eyes flashed, mirroring the excitement in his voice as he seemed to relive the events he was describing. ‘The coin just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ Jennifer found herself edging forward on her seat, excited by Baxter’s fevered account.

‘Vanished.’ Baxter bunched his fingers into a point and then blew onto them, stretching his hand out flat as he did so. ‘For over 40 years. Until 1996, when Treasury agents posing as collectors seized the coin from an English dealer in New York and arrested him.’ Baxter’s eyes glistened. ‘Only he then sued the Treasury, claiming that he’d bought the coin legitimately from another dealer. It went to court and eventually the Treasury agreed to auction the coin and split the proceeds with him.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Jennifer asked, puzzled at the level of detail that Baxter seemed to have at his fingertips. ‘This is just one coin – you must have hundreds of thousands here.’ Baxter threw up his hands.

‘Because this isn’t just any old coin, Jennifer. This is the holy grail of coins. It has been stolen from the Philadelphia Mint, owned by a king, vanished and then reappeared in dramatic circumstances. This is the forbidden fruit, the apple from the garden of Eden. It is totally unique.’

‘So how much are we talking?’

‘Twenty dollars for the paperwork to make it official US coinage,’ Baxter paused dramatically. ‘And just under eight million for the coin itself.’

Jennifer’s eyes widened. Eight million dollars for a coin? It was a crazy, reckless amount of money. It didn’t make any sense. Except that perhaps it did. It was certainly enough to kill for and, in Ranieri’s case, maybe even to die for.

‘You know, the National Numismatic Collection automatically receives examples of all American coins. We actually have two 1933 Double Eagles on display over in the Money and Medals Hall. They and the Farouk coin are the only 1933 Double Eagles in existence, although as museum exhibits they are clearly not available for private ownership as the Farouk coin is. We can go and take a look if you like.’ Baxter suggested eagerly.

‘Sure.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘That way we could at least compare them to this one.’