Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [62]
“Me? Why would I…” Tony considered the question. “No reason why it shouldn’t have been me, come to think about it. According to Friedl, the object in question is a work of art—she didn’t seem to know more than that. I met Hoffman last year, chatted with him…Hey. What about the rest of them—Dieter, Elise, Rosa…”
“I’m sure he liked you best,” I said.
“I might not have taken notice of a letter,” Tony muttered. “We get a lot of crank mail.”
“I know.”
“Just the week before I left, there were half a dozen or so. People seem to get weirder during the holiday seasons…. An appeal for funds from that Psychic Archaeology crowd in Virginia, a curriculum vitae from some loony who thinks he should be appointed to the staff because he’s the reincarnation of Herodotus, a copy of that photo of Sophia Schliemann—Hey, watch out!”
I had spilled my beer. “Sorry. Did you say Sophia Schliemann?”
Tony grabbed a handful of napkins off a nearby table and swabbed at his sweater. “Damn it, Ann made this for me…. Yeah, you know, the one where she’s wearing the jewelry from Troy. I don’t know what the hell that was all about; there wasn’t even a letter with it.”
That answered one question, unless Tony was a lot sneakier than I had ever known him to be. “What else did Friedl tell you?”
“She didn’t make a lot of sense,” Tony admitted, “what did she tell you?”
“She hasn’t told me anything yet,” I said, with perfect truth.
“Well, let’s go see her. Maybe the two of us can extract some information. So far it’s a damned fishy story.”
I was about to endorse this assessment when Tony’s mouth took on the wistful curve that made strong women want to mother him. “It would be too good to be true,” he said longingly.
Friedl did not rise to greet us. She gave Tony her hand at an angle that made it impossible for him to do anything with it except kiss it.
Usually I can tell when people are lying. Friedl defeated me; she was so accustomed to putting on an act that everything she said sounded phony. The gist of her long and rambling narrative was that (a) her husband had some hidden treasure, (b) she didn’t know what it was, and (c) she didn’t know where it was.
Though visibly moved by her quivering lips and pathetic story, Tony was not moved to the point of excessive gullibility. Tactfully he pointed out that old men sometimes suffer from delusions.
“He was not old,” Friedl protested.
“Seventy-five?” I suggested.
“Not in his heart—in his love…” Friedl covered her face with her hands.
Tony patted her clumsily on the shoulder and gave me a reproachful look. Like all men, he is quite willing to believe that a young and beautiful girl will adore him when he’s eighty.
Friedl restrained her grief, which had left not a smudge on her make-up, and proceeded with her story. She had not learned of the treasure until the past spring. It was something her husband had rescued at the end of the war and had kept safely hidden for forty years. Recently, however, he had begun to fear that his enemies had finally tracked him down.
“Enemies?” Tony said. “What enemies?”
Friedl opened her eyes so wide her mascara flaked. “The Russians. The Communists.”
“Oh,” said Tony.
I said, “Bless their red hearts, they make such handy villains.”
The comment passed over, or through, Friedl’s head. She went on. Her husband would tell her nothing more for fear of endangering her, and when she suggested that he turn the treasure over to the authorities—she didn’t specify which authorities and neither of us pressed her—he had angrily refused. The treasure was his. It had passed through many hands, the original ownership had always been in dispute, and now it was his by right of possession. He had as much right to it as anyone. He had saved it.
This part of the story had the ring of truth.
Then, late in the fall, Hoffman had changed his mind. His enemies were closing in. He feared for his life—and hers. He had spoken of getting in touch with me—was I sure, absolutely certain, he had not told me…
“I have no idea where