it was a pleasant sunday afternoon, two days after vicki’s hair-raising experience with steve miller’s airplane. vicki, mr. curtin, nina, louise, john quayle, and joey watson were sitting on the curtins’ broad patio sipping cool fruit drinks and relaxing. a gentle breeze blew through the flowers and trees that surrounded the big brick house, and vicki could feel its gentle fingers patting her on the cheek.
“so if it hadn’t been for this young lady,” john quayle was saying as he raised his glass and made a toast to vicki, “i’m afraid all of us would still be in the dark about the theft of the gold coins, and the thieves would be well on their way to parts unknown. but now, thanks to her, all of the gang except amos tytell are safely behind bars. since the old man was an unwilling accomplice, we released him, and, for the first time since he came south, he’s enjoying himself170 here in tampa waiting to be the key witness at the trial.”
“the newspapers,” mr. curtin said, “didn’t tell all the details of the story, not enough anyway to satisfy those of us who had a part in it. frankly, mr. quayle, that’s why i invited you here today. are you at liberty to give it all to us? i suddenly found myself caught up in the middle of it—first when our committee opened the crate of scrap metal, and second when i bought that gold ship in havana—but frankly i’m still at sea.”
mr. quayle took a long sip of his drink. “it might be well,” he said, “if i started at the beginning.” he paused for a second to marshal the thoughts in his mind, and then went on.
“it all started out with eaton-smith. he had, as we finally found out, a pretty shady career behind him. he had never been arrested, though, and that’s why it took our people so long to track down his past. he had become friendly with a certain max schmidt in new york. max didn’t have a record either, but eaton-smith discovered that he wasn’t above making a dishonest dollar if he thought he could get away with it. max was a man-of-all-work at the numismatic museum, and when eaton-smith learned that your committee, mr. curtin, had requested that the antique coin exhibit be sent to tampa, the two of them went to work on an elaborate scheme to steal them.
171 “first he contacted raymond duke who had, he knew, a business in havana under the name of ramon garcia and who also was not reluctant to steal several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold. through duke he got in touch with van lasher.”
“but i thought you said van was an old federal airlines employee with a good record,” vicki interrupted.
“he had been for the past eight years, vicki, and that’s what almost fooled us. after you reported that skull-and-crossbones warning, we started digging a little deeper into the background of all employees at the airport here. and we found out that he had served a prison term in texas ten years ago for larceny. when he got out of prison, he changed his name and went to work for federal airlines. so far as we can tell, he had kept his record clean ever since. but duke, who had been involved in a deal with lasher some years ago, approached him on the gold coin job. and again, the prospect of all that easy money was too much for him.”
he took another sip of his lemonade.
“it is this kind of case that is always toughest to break. where you are dealing with people who are known criminals, you automatically suspect them when a crime is committed. but all of these men had an outward cloak of respectability that acted as protective coloration.”
“but mr. tytell?” vicki began, unable to control172 her curiosity about the old man who had so aroused her sympathy.
“i’m coming to him,” quayle continued. “he had been an expert jeweler and goldsmith as i told you the other day, vicki, and eaton-smith ran into him in new york. when this gold coin business came up, the old man immediately came to eaton-smith’s mind. eaton-smith went to him and told him that he had a good job for him in tampa. the old man was so grateful that he didn’t say he hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. that’s why he was practically starved when you saw him on the plane.
“eaton-smith picked him up in a taxi on the morning of—let’s see—thursday the sixth. on the way to the airport, tytell made certain inquiries about the job and eaton-smith evaded them. then, when eaton-smith told him that the two were going to travel on the plane as if they didn’t know each other, the old man began to get suspicious. being old and sick and hungry and nervous, he began talking to you, vicki, after he was on the plane. eaton-smith noticed this, moved over into the empty seat beside him, and told him in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut. then tytell knew for sure that something was wrong and he became badly frightened. that’s when he left what he hoped you would discover as a message in the form of the folded travel folder. the granada restaurant thing was an accident. he was trying to tell173 you that he would be in ybor city, where he knew that eaton-smith lived.”
“but how in the world did he think vicki could help him?” louise asked.
“he wasn’t thinking clearly at all. remember that he was badly frightened and desperate.”
the fbi man stopped for a moment.
“am i keeping this straight enough for you?”
everyone nodded silent assent, and he continued:
“well, for weeks eaton-smith and raymond duke had been scheming to steal the coins. max schmidt in the museum in new york had found out that the shipment would be made by air, since the closing of the exhibit in new york and the opening of the festival here were only a few days apart. part of schmidt’s work at the museum was handling packing and shipping details. schmidt then made up an exact duplicate of the crate that the coins would be shipped in. he loaded this duplicate crate with scrap metal and shipped it in advance to raymond duke. when it was received, van took it to the small inside room of the warehouse where valuables were kept overnight and covered it up with a canvas tarpaulin. being the warehouse foreman, van’s movements were never questioned. of course, at this point, there was nothing for anyone to be suspicious about. so when schmidt in new york advised duke that the gold was coming on federal’s flight seventeen—your ship, vicki—they174 were all ready to snatch it. it was only a coincidence that eaton-smith and tytell were on the same plane.
“since he was the warehouse boss, it seemed natural for van to offer to sit up with the private detective who had accompanied the shipment and whose main reason for coming to tampa was to guard the coins while they were on exhibit at the hall. jones, of course, was glad of the company. and van had figured out a pretty cute gimmick. he knew that the all-night guard duty in the warehouse would be a pretty dull affair, so he brought along a thermos jar of coffee which he went out at regular intervals to refill. he had also provided himself with some very mild sleeping pills. sometime during the night he slipped one of the pills into jones’s coffee. since jones had been up all day, and had had a fairly tiring plane trip too, the mild pill was just enough to put him into a sound sleep and give van a chance to switch the crates. schmidt had sent him a set of duplicate labels from the museum in new york. so van soaked the original labels off each crate with a solvent solution, and put the label addressed to duke on the crate of gold, and the label addressed to the festival committee on the crate of junk. since the solvent had thoroughly dried by morning, there was no way to tell that a change had been made. then he switched the bills of lading, covered up the175 genuine crate with the canvas—and that was all there was to it.
“when it was all shipshape, he woke the detective up, and so far as jones knew he had only slipped off for a moment into a brief nap. the bit about the prowler, joey, was staged by van to indicate that someone had been snooping around. it was just by chance that he used your flashlight. you had left it on top of your locker and van happened to see it.”
“and so,” mr. curtin said, “the theft was accomplished by the simple device of van lasher switching the crates.”
“that’s right,” mr. quayle said, “it was as simple as that. the next morning, at the same time the fake crate was delivered to your committee, the crate containing the gold was delivered to raymond duke. naturally, we checked on all deliveries made that morning, but duke showed our man the bill of lading for a shipment of perfume, and we had no reason to doubt him.”
at that moment mrs. tucker interrupted with a plate of sandwiches and a fresh pitcher of lemonade. mr. quayle turned his attention briefly from the gold coins to the food.
“being a bachelor,” he said to the housekeeper, “i don’t often get chicken sandwiches like these.” he helped himself to another one.
as she sipped on her lemonade vicki couldn’t get her mind off the old man who had been the176 starting point of the whole case so far as she was concerned.
“how,” she asked, “did duke and eaton-smith get mr. tytell to work for them after he found out what was going on?”
“by another simple method,” the fbi man replied. “they threatened to kill him if he made a false move.”
“but when i saw him in ybor city and in the art supply store no one was with him,” vicki said. “so he couldn’t have been completely a prisoner. why couldn’t he have gone to the police? they’d have protected him.”
“they had one other weapon,” mr. quayle said. “it appears that the old man has a grandson in new york. tytell was unable to support him and the boy is in a charitable institution. they threatened to hurt the boy if tytell went to the police. naturally, the tampa police would have gotten in touch with the new york force to assure the boy’s protection. but the old man was scared out of his wits and wasn’t thinking straight. that’s why he was so frightened when you saw him that day in front of duke’s house.”
“but he did try to get away on my plane to new york,” vicki reminded him.
“there’s no accounting for what people do when they get panicky,” mr. quayle said. “he saw you in the store that day and the idea of running away on your ship suddenly occurred to him. he had come to look on you as a friend,177 vicki, since you were the only person who had acted friendly toward him. he had seen eaton-smith’s air-travel credit card lying on his desk. so, having no money, he tried to use it to pay for his ticket when he picked it up at the airport. naturally, the federal people called eaton-smith, and he and duke drove to the airport, found the old man, forced him into the car and took him back to ybor city. he lost his violin case in the struggle.”
the fbi man took a long sip of his lemonade. “i’m certainly doing a lot of talking,” he said.
“if you stop now,” louise said pertly, “i’ll take away that tray of chicken sandwiches.”
“in that case—” quayle reached for another sandwich. “now where was i?”
“what i don’t understand,” mr. curtin said, “is how that peddler in havana happened to have the solid gold ship he sold us.”
“we got him, too,” quayle said. “but let me go back a little. eaton-smith had a very ingenious idea about shipping the gold out of the country. he bought up several crates of those little festival souvenirs, on the pretext of giving them to his customers. you saw some of them at his house, vicki. he then forced tytell to melt down the coins and cast the gold in the shape of the little ships. he then recrated the souvenirs, putting several layers of the gold ships under the cheap ones, and duke shipped them to ramon garcia in havana. if the cuban customs178 people bothered to open the crates at all—don’t forget that ramon garcia was constantly shipping things in and out of havana—they would have seen the souvenirs on top and pass the shipment. naturally, they would have no reason to suspect that the crates held anything more valuable than cheap novelties. and, of course, it worked.
“now for the man who sold you the gold ship in havana. he was a handyman who worked at odd times around duke’s place. when duke was removing the gold from the crates of souvenirs, he was careless to let the fellow get a good look at one. he recognized it for what it really was, and when duke’s back was turned for a moment, slipped it into his pocket.”
“and thereby,” mr. curtin volunteered, “providing us with the one piece of concrete evidence that solved the mystery.”
“don’t you mean solid gold evidence, daddy?” nina teased.
“it’s a good thing we went to the thieves’ market that afternoon,” vicki remarked.
“no,” quayle corrected her. “it’s a good thing that you have all the instincts and the quick mind of a good detective, vicki. you were smart enough to put all the odds and ends of evidence together and come up with the right answer. not everyone has that talent.”
“me, for instance.” mr. curtin laughed. “i179 saw the same things vicki did, and they didn’t mean a thing to me.”
“now there was nothing in the world to connect raymond duke and eaton-smith in any way with that gold shipment except van lasher. and that’s where you come in, joey.”
“you mean that offer of a job that duke made me?”
“that’s right. the three of them could never afford to be seen together. they were even afraid to use the telephone, lest a message somehow be intercepted when van was out of the warehouse. but obviously they had to keep in touch. since you were always around the warehouse with van, the idea was to use you as a messenger boy. they figured you needed the money badly enough to do as you were told, and that you would believe any cock-and-bull story van cooked up to explain the need for secrecy. of course, if everything went right, there was no reason for you or anyone else to connect either of them with the missing gold. but you turned them down, and they were afraid to approach anyone else. so van used the cover of the torchlight parade in ybor city, where almost everyone was in costume and most people were masked, to meet with his confederates. that’s why he ran away when he recognized you, vicki, and lost himself in the crowd. and that’s why duke went after you, to hold you up by180 some pretext or another until van could get away. van sending you that threatening note was another dumb play. he thought it might frighten you into keeping quiet.”
“that proves he doesn’t know vicki very well,” mr. curtin said.
“and again you used your detective’s intuition when you saw van walking across the airfield toward olsen’s plane, and recognized him as the pirate. if you hadn’t followed him, olsen would have got his clearance papers and taken van to cuba as a matter of course.”
“but why was van running away in such a hurry?”
“well, up to that morning everything had gone according to plan. eaton-smith and duke, having shipped all the gold to cuba, went there themselves and took the old man with them for safekeeping. they planned to stay there, under cover, until they could make arrangements to dispose of the gold, possibly in south america. then they would simply ditch the old man and fade away. van was completely in the clear up to that point, so the plan was for him to stay here working at his job until everything had blown over. then he was to join them.
“however, van was pretty leery of you, vicki. it was obvious to all three that you were doing a lot of poking around where you had no business to be. van saw me meet you at the plane181 friday morning and take you to my office. since he knew the plane was inbound from havana, he began to smell a rat. he followed us upstairs, saw that my secretary was away from her desk, and took a quick peek through the keyhole.”
“he was taking an awful chance of having your secretary walk in and catch him,” vicki suggested.
“that’s true. but he figured he was taking a worse one if he didn’t find out what we were up to. he saw the gold ship model on my desk, and he knew the jig was up. he hurried to his rooming house, which is just on the edge of the field, picked up some money that eaton-smith had given him in advance for emergencies, grabbed his raincoat and hat, then hurried over to make a quick deal with roy to fly him to cuba. when he saw you had followed him, he got panicky and pulled his gun. you know the rest of the story.”
the fbi man drained the last of his lemonade.
“it’s been quite a case,” he said.
“just one other thing,” mr. curtin said. “how did you locate duke and eaton-smith so fast?”
quayle smiled. “when lasher saw that we finally had him, he told us the whole story from the beginning, including where we could pick up eaton-smith, duke, and old mr. tytell.”
“that poor old man,” vicki said. “this whole thing has been terrible for him.”
182 “on the contrary,” quayle said, “it probably will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“what?” vicki could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“this florida climate was just what he needed,” quayle said. “even with what he’s been through, his health has improved considerably in the few days he’s been down here. a man with his skill as a jeweler shouldn’t have any trouble finding work in tampa. he can bring his grandson down, and start living a normal life again.”
vicki’s eyes sparkled. “oh, i’m so glad for him. so very glad!”
the fbi agent rose to go.
“miss vicki barr,” he said, “it’s been a pleasure working with you. i’ve said it before and i say it again—you’re a darn good detective.”
vicki blushed in spite of herself.
“this crime was much worse than an ordinary theft,” quayle said. “those ancient gold coins were a living part of history. they were irreplaceable and priceless. those men who stole them and destroyed them, all but the handful we found in eaton-smith’s house, did a terrible thing. the jury and the judge will show them no mercy. it’s fortunate that we recovered the gold, but compared to the original coins, it is virtually worthless. there’s a whole vault full of gold up in fort knox.”
183 he grinned. “when i say the gold is worthless, i am speaking only in a comparative sense of course. i don’t think you’ll find this altogether worthless, vicki.”
from his pocket he took the little golden ship that vicki had first seen in the thieves’ market.
“for your invaluable help in solving this case, the insurance company wants you to have this as a reward.”
he reached over and put the ship’s model in vicki’s hand. the polished gold glistened in the afternoon sun.
“if i ever have another case as perplexing as this one, i may call on you for help, vicki. you’re a darn good detective.”
