Elizabeth Peters - Trojan Gold

“I despise crude sexual double-entendres,” I said crossly. “You used to quote Shakespeare. Last night all I got was Humphrey Bogart.”

“There were occasional bits of Shakespeare. Even a smidgen of John Donne.”

“Oh, really? ‘License my roving hands, and let them go’?”

“I’ve always considered that one of Donne’s less-inspired passages. No, I believe, among other things, I remarked that ‘Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.’”

“That’s nice. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“I expect your attention was on something else,” John said, demonstrating.

“I thought you considered that one of Donne’s less-inspired—”

“I was referring to the poetic spark—the divine afflatus. Insofar as practical advice is concerned…”

“John, if you don’t stop that—”

“I thought you enjoyed it. Oh, very well. Lie still. I can’t concentrate on crime when you squirm around like that.”

“Is this better?” I curled up against him, my head on his shoulder.

“Not a great deal,” John murmured. “But I will endeavor to rise above lesser distractions. What were we talking about?”

“Crime. If that’s what it is.”

“Taking pot shots at you is a crime in my book.”

“Ah, so that’s what convinced you I wasn’t inventing wild stories in order to lure you back to my arms.” John made a small sound, a mixture of protest and laughter, and I insisted, “You did think that.”

“No, honestly.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I had enough confidence in your veracity to follow you to Garmisch. Damned lucky for you I did.”

“Yes, I deeply appreciate it, but I can’t help wondering why, if you had all that confidence in my veracity, you didn’t say so in the first place.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about crime.”

“I am. I do. I just don’t understand—”

John gave a long, exaggerated sigh. “My dear girl, your initial scenario was pure fantasy. Attempted murder is a solid fact. People don’t try to kill you unless you have done something to annoy them. What did you do yesterday?”

I gave him a brief rundown of the day’s activities.

“Ve-ry interesting,” John said thoughtfully. “Let’s concoct a plot, shall we? I’ll begin; feel free to interrupt if you have contributions or criticisms.”

“I will.”

“I’m sure you will. All right, here we go. Forty-odd years ago, Hoffman was an official of the museum where the Trojan gold was displayed. After the war—”

“Wait a minute, you’re skipping. What was he doing during the war?”

“Irrelevant. We have to assume he was in Berlin at the end of the war and that somehow he managed to make off with the treasure. Otherwise we don’t have a plot.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that.”

“All the same, I wish I knew how he managed it,” John mused. “It was one of the master scams of all time, played against a background of epic tragedy—Homeric tragedy, one might say. Crawling across a hellish no man’s land pocked with bomb craters and fallen bodies, with shells bursting overhead and buildings flaming around him, clutching that precious bundle…We’ll never know, I suppose.” I nudged him and with a wistful sigh—the tribute of a master to a brilliant amateur—he resumed his narrative.

“After the war, he turned up in Bavaria, married the innkeeper’s daughter, and settled into a life of quiet obscurity, giving up what might have been a distinguished academic career. The preservation of the Trojan gold had become an idée fixe, perhaps a symbol of all the masterpieces of art and learning smashed by the barbarians and never to be retrieved, as your friend the carpenter put it. Why should he hand it over to someone else? He had as much right to it as anyone—more, because he had saved it and they had threatened to destroy it. In his admittedly distracted mind, there was no difference between conqueror and conquered. One had bombed London and Coventry, but the other had reduced Dresden to rubble and gutted the Cathedral of Cologne. Well—what do you think?”

“Very literary, very intuitive, very profound. You may even be right.”

“To resume, then. His first wife must have known about the treasure; he photographed her wearing it. Was it her death that made him decide to share his secret with someone else? The inevitability of death is the one undeniable fact we all try to deny—”

“If I want more philosophy, I’ll read Plato,” I informed him. “Get on with it.”

“His wife died,” John said obediently. “He married again—a woman forty or fifty years younger. Did he tell her about the treasure?”

“Of course he did. Men do stupid things when they’re in love.”

“Dear me, what a sweeping, sexist generalization.”

“I said, skip the philosophy.”

“You were the one who…. All right, what next? Did the second Frau Hoffman promise to carry on the trust? Or did she urge him to hand over the gold to the proper authorities?”

“Neither of the above. She’s a greedy, ignorant little gold digger, John. If she found the True Cross, her first idea would be to hock it.”

“I’ll accept your evaluation—without,” John added pointedly, “any sexist comments. The reaction you describe is unfortunately common to many members of the human race, male and female alike.”

“So she said something like, ‘Oh, Anton darling, think of all that money,’ and he said, ‘Bite your tongue,’ and she…well, whatever she said, he realized he had picked the wrong lady. The minute he died, she’d have the treasure out of hiding and into the hock shop. That realization was what made him decide to pass on his trust to a more suitable custodian. Better it should end up in a museum than in the hands of—forgive me—someone like you.”

I paused to give him time for rebuttal; he chose not to take advantage of it, so I went on. “He kept putting off the decision to act, however. How many people die without a will? Something finally forced him to make up his mind. I suspect—and there is some confirmatory evidence—that he learned Friedl had already betrayed him—gone behind his back. To—who?”

“Whom,” said John. “Ouch,” he added indignantly.

“Then don’t be a pedant. You derailed my train of thought. Where was I? Oh—Friedl’s extramarital activities. I’m sure she had plenty. Not only was Hoffman old enough to be her grandfather, but he was a gentleman—not her type. Freddy was definitely her type, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he is not unknown to the police. But he’s even stupider than his lady. What Friedl needed was a person who had two specific qualifications: brains enough to comprehend the unique value of the treasure, and the right connections to dispose of it, quietly, lucratively, and illegally.”

The taut muscles under my cheek quivered, and then relaxed. “It wasn’t me,” John squeaked. “Honest, lady.”

“I believe you, darling. If she had approached you, you’d have taken care of the matter by now and left no loose ends dangling.”

“Thank you.”

“ Bitte schön .”

“Your hypothesis, though unsubstantiated, is worth considering,” John said. “Where could she have met such a person? No, don’t tell me, let me work it out for myself. At the hotel, obviously. All sorts of people go to hotels. They are known to enjoy skiing and other harmless sports; they eat, drink, and are merry. Perhaps it was a chance encounter (how romantic) that introduced Friedl to the man of her dreams, and while they were being merry she opened her little heart to him. She’s the type that would babble in bed—”

“Unlike me,” I said wryly.

“Quite unlike you. I’ve had a look at the lady, and she lacks your external charms as well as your ability to carry on a witty conversation even under circumstances of considerable distraction…. What was I saying?”