Murder on the Rocks. Talmage Powell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ shook her head. “Please—”

      “—Or there’s this one other thought: there’s more than you’ve told me. A lot more. And I make it a point to pull out of anything that smells of flim-flam. Your story smells worse than a dead rat in a steamer trunk. I’d guess Silvio has something your father wants. Information, perhaps, or a letter or cash money. If you just wanted to find Silvio you wouldn’t have taken the trouble of looking me up and handing me a thousand dollars; a PI could do it for fifty and show forty profit. Still with me?”

      She nodded.

      “Let’s take it a step further. If Silvio’s got something he should have given the Ambassador or taken something he shouldn’t have, you’d want to get hold of it and you’d want it done quietly and discreetly—those are the words you used. Whatever it happens to be, you want it back. Before Silvio has time to pass it on or cash it in, or whatever else you’re afraid he might do with whatever he has. Is imagination running away with me?” I asked.

      Her tongue passed over her lips. Suddenly she stood up, went to the tansu, and opened the cabinet door. She took out a glass and a cognac bottle. She poured cognac into the glass, looked at it, and tossed it off. No cough, no choking spasm. Sauce was an old friend to this lady. As if I didn’t know.

      She refilled the glass, lifted it by the stem, and turned to me. “The effect was rather startling,” she said in an off-key voice. “I don’t believe in mind-reading, so you’re as clever as Jean promised you were. And probably better.” She lifted the glass to her lips, wet them delicately, and walked toward the sofa. Picking up the money, she brought it to me and put it in my hand. “I should have told you everything from the first. I shouldn’t have tried to trick you.”

      “That sounds like a come-on for more flim-flam.”

      “No.” She shook her head and the hair brushed across her throat. “Honestly it isn’t. Sit down and I’ll start at the beginning.”

      Bending over, she took a cigarette and lighted it, all with one hand. Then she sat on the edge of the sofa and looked up at me. “Please sit down.”

      I sat down beside her.

      She blew smoke across the chow table. The room was so quiet the air-conditioner sounded louder than Niagara Falls. Gazing at the end of her cigarette, she said, “You’d have no way of knowing it but my father’s government has told him there’s trouble down there. Agitation. Political trouble. You know how those things start.”

      “And how they end.”

      She nodded. “The Outs take over the government and then the Ins become the Outs. There’s bloodshed and thievery and all the miserable rest. Well, it’s been building up for a long time, and the government has been quietly sending a lot of money out of the country. Stripping the treasury, really, to transfer funds where they’ll be safe even if there’s a revolution, and where the funds can be used by the Ins if they become Outs. To help them become Ins again. The cash has been sent to places like Berne and Tangier and Hong Kong.”

      “The free-money markets.”

      “Yes. But none was deposited in the United States because of possible legal complications. I guess you’d know about that.” She tapped ash from her cigarette. Her nails were almond-shaped, the polish blood red. Somehow I hadn’t noticed before.

      She said, “My father has been in the diplomatic service nearly thirty years. He’s known and trusted. When his government started sending assets abroad they sent something here for his safe-keeping. Something rather special.” Picking up the glass, she sipped cognac and set it back on the chow table.

      “How special?” I asked.

      She said, “If you know anything about my father’s country, you know most of its wealth comes from mining. Copper, lead, silver, and gold. And gems. Some of the finest amethysts in the world are mined there.” She looked at me sideways. “Do you know anything about emeralds?”

      “I’ve never bought any, if that’s what you mean.”

      “Well, they’re the most expensive precious stone in the world.”

      “More so than diamonds?”

      “Considerably more. Because they’re awfully rare—the perfect ones. The best have a deep velvety green color. The Czar’s Emerald is the largest perfect cut emerald in the world and weighs only about thirty carats.”

      “Worth how much?”

      “It isn’t for sale, but I’ve heard it’s worth close to a million dollars. There’s a much larger emerald crystal, though, still uncut, that weighs about fourteen hundred carats.”

      “Quite a chunk.”

      “If the wastage in cutting brought it down to a thousand carats, then at the same value as the Czar’s Emerald it would be worth around thirty million dollars. But it is badly flawed.”

      The room was cold but my forehead was damp. I mopped away the perspiration. “Is this the emerald we’re talking about?”

      “No, unfortunately, because it wouldn’t be marketable. It’s known as the Devonshire Emerald because it was bought by the Duke of Devonshire. No, the emerald sent to my father is a National Treasure. It has an odd and ancient history. Some historians claim it came from Cleopatra’s Mines on the Red Sea, others that it was found in Madagascar and brought to the New World by a Portuguese sea captain. In South America it is called La Verde de Madagascar: The Madagascar Green.”

      A burst of sound blasted through the duplex wall. Iris leaned back and pounded angrily on the wall. The volume lowered suddenly and she turned back to me. “Tracy Farnham,” she said. “Another hi-fi addict. It’s his quaint way of letting me know he’s home.”

      “A friend of yours?”

      She hesitated. “Well—a neighbor.”

      “Any other cute traits?”

      “A few. He goes in for Yoga and health foods. And he collects old coins.”

      “I always inclined toward flint arrowheads,” I told her. “Old coins usually went for pop and licorice candy. Well, back to the missing emerald.”

      “Yes. It weighs slightly under twenty-nine carats. It is flawless and its color is a deep velvety green. It is polished and step cut. It has been appraised at more than a million dollars. For a month it was in a small package in Father’s safe at the Embassy. Wednesday, when Silvio didn’t appear, Father opened his safe to make sure everything was still there. Everything was—except the emerald. Silvio must have taken it Tuesday night while he was at the Embassy. Father knows he’s personally responsible for it and the fact that it’s missing can’t be made public because it would become a burning political issue back home. The Outs would scream that the National Treasury had been ravaged by the government, and they might even be able to use the issue to set off a revolution.”

      “If Silvio has the emerald, what could he do with it?”

      “Have it cut into smaller stones here or in Europe, sell them, and live happily ever after. Or if his political sympathies happen to lie with the Outs he might even have stolen it to provide them with the issue they need. You guessed correctly СКАЧАТЬ