Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [24]
“There is another possibility,” I said. “Someone may have got to it before the Russians did. Someone who did know its value. In all that pandemonium, he could have smuggled it out of the building and out of the city. It didn’t bulk that large. Schliemann bundled the whole lot into his wife’s shawl when he removed it from the excavation.”
“Anything is possible,” John said. He thought for a second and then added, “Almost anything. See here, Vicky, there are a number of points about that scenario of yours that make my hackles rise. Why was the photograph sent to you? Why didn’t the sender give you more information? Your advertisement was a wee bit misleading, you know. Black Michael and Rupert of Hentzau may not be hiding in the woodshed, but something nasty is; the bloodstain you described didn’t come from a cut finger. If the sender is still alive, why hasn’t he communicated with you?”
“He could have had an accident.”
“Tripped on a cobblestone and cut himself on a beer tin,” said John in his most disagreeable voice. “And some kindly passerby found the envelope and posted it?”
“You’re contradicting yourself,” I said. “First you tell me there’s no evidence and then you imply—”
“That the only evidence is bloody,” John said poetically. “Either way, I don’t like it.”
“Then you’re not interested?”
“No.”
The flat finality of his refusal caught me unawares. I stared at him, disconcerted and surprised; he shifted uneasily and turned away. “Give it up, Vicky. You’re wasting your time.”
“Just tell me one thing. Are there any rumors in the art underworld about the Trojan gold?”
“I have severed my connections with that ambiance,” John said primly. “I am leading a life of quiet, honest—”
“Sure you are. That’s why you’re in disguise—why you keep looking nervously in rearview mirrors, why you are so astonishingly well informed about the Battle of Berlin and the architecture of the Tiergarten bunker.”
“Oooh, what an evil, suspicious mind you have,” John murmured. “I know a lot about a lot of things, my dear.”
“Military history is not your specialty. Would you care to swear on something sacred to you—your own precious hide for example—that your interest in the gold of Troy has not been recently reawakened by some of those rumors I mentioned?”
“You cut me to the quick.” John pressed his hand against his presumably aching heart and gave me a soulful look. “In order to dispel your suspicions and restore that perfect amity that should mark our relationship, I will make a clean breast of it. I owe the information to my dear old dad.”
The statement surprised me so that I forgot, momentarily, that he hadn’t denied the allegation. One tended to think of John as self-engendered, like Minerva from Jove’s headache.
He went on blandly, “You’d remember every grisly detail, too, if you had heard them as often as I did. The Battle of Berlin was the old boy’s favorite topic of conversation when he got to reminiscing about the good old days in general and his own heroism in particular. He’d rave on for hours about how Churchill tried to convince the Allies to drive through to Berlin, and how bloody Eisenhower held back. He had studied the subject intensively, and I was the only one who’d listen to him. Or rather, who could be coerced into listening. I was young and frail and helpless—”
“And abused and whatever,” I agreed. “Is that why you became a pacifist?”
“Because of Papa’s ghoulish war stories?” John grinned. “I wouldn’t call myself a pacifist. It’s impossible to convince some people of the error of their ways without hitting them as often and as hard as one possibly can. I’m simply opposed to people hitting me.”
“Emulating dear old Dad’s heroism is not your aim?”
“Emphatically not. Which is why I am presently avoiding publicity. In case it has slipped your mind, I am still being sought by the police