Thefts of Nick Velvet (6 page)

But he couldn’t see it, even with the aid of the miniature monocular that was part of his equipment.

Nowhere.

And the watchman was already walking back toward the light switch, ready to plunge the place into its slumbering darkness.

Nick watched the scene go suddenly black beneath him with a feeling of utter frustration. The mouse must be in a box, under something else, impossible to spot from above.

And yet there was no way for him to gain entrance to the building. A frontal assault, and damn the alarms, would have brought the police before he’d have time to locate his objective.

He slid off the roof and hit the ground feet first, with knees bent. All right, now what?

His frown turned slowly to a smile as he saw the warm glow of a public telephone booth halfway down the block.

In a moment he’d found Cintfilm and dialed the number. The voice of the watchman, gruff and sleepy, answered in English. “This is Lee Fitzwright,” Nick said, muffling his words. “I want you to check something for me. Unlock the prop room and make certain the toy mouse is there.”

“What?” the man mumbled. “I don’t know no mouse. I guard the place.”

“In the prop room. It’s the end room on the right. The mouse is a little metal thing about four inches long. Take it out of its box and leave it on the table. I want to be certain it’s there. Come back and tell me.”

“I can’t do that. I’m not supposed to touch things.”

“It’s very important to me. I’ll make it worth your while tomorrow.”

A hesitation. “I don’t know.”

“Did anything strange happen there tonight? Any noise?”

“Yes, there was something.”

“Go and check, then! I must know!”

A sigh. “All right. Hold on.”

But Nick was already sprinting from the phone booth back to where his rope still dangled from the roof. Above him he saw the glow from the lights as it hit the sky. Then he was in position again, in time to see the watchman unlocking the prop-room door. The watchman puttered around a bit, looking here and there, until finally he opened a small box and revealed the mouse. After studying it for a moment he put it back in its box, but left the lid off. All right, Nick breathed; good enough.

The watchman went back to the dead telephone, leaving the lights on. Finally he came back, shaking his head, and locked the prop-room door. He turned out the lights, and the place was in darkness again.

Now Nick worked swiftly. He edged out over the skylight until he was above the prop room. It was difficult to be certain in the dark, and he had to risk a quick flash of his flashlight to make sure. Yes, the mouse was directly under him, about forty feet below.

Another tiny circle of glass came carefully out, then a small but powerful magnet dropped through at the end of a vinyl fishing line. The line was safe—unbreakable and almost invisible, even if the watchman returned. He only prayed the mouse was made of a ferrous metal.

It wasn’t.

After ten minutes of grappling he knew the magnet wouldn’t work. Not by itself. He pulled it carefully up and added a glob of sticky adhesive, then lowered it very much like a boy fishing coins up through a grating with chewing gum. This time he felt the contact almost immediately. A quick flash of his light told him that the mouse was hooked.

A few moments later, when he’d pulled it up to the glass skylight, he carefully cut a slightly larger hole, snipping the wire mesh in two places. Reaching through with his fingers, he turned the mouse and eased it out by its head. The hole was still only about two inches in diameter.

He smiled as he held it in his hand. Then he turned the key in its underside and watched the little wheels spin. The mechanical mouse was his. He’d earned Jason Orchid’s $20,000.

The theft had taken place on Sunday evening, and by Monday afternoon the English-language papers had the story on page one.
Cat Burglar Steals Mouse!
one headlined, and Nick chuckled. They’d found the hole almost immediately, and deduced the rest of it. Since the mouse had already been used in some scenes, it was essential to obtain an identical one before filming could be resumed—and this particular type was not sold in France. A substitute would have to be flown from New York. The co-producer, Archer, had phoned his partner Fleming in Manhattan to get one on the earliest plane. The article concluded with a detailed rundown on the recent financial reverses of Fleming-Archer Productions.

Nick read it all and then wound up the little mouse and let it run in circles on the coffee table. He relaxed in his hotel room all day, waiting for word from Orchid.

By evening nothing had happened. He began to wonder if anything would. Why pay him $20,000 to steal a toy mouse that Orchid didn’t even want? But the answer now seemed obvious to Nick. Orchid simply wanted to delay the production, adding to the producers’ financial woes. Mary Karls had told him of Orchid’s enmity, his threat to kill both Fleming and Archer.

When the mouse ran down for the hundredth time after midnight, Nick put it away and went to bed. He’d give Orchid till tomorrow noon to show up. Then he was checking out, mouse and all, and heading home.

He slept well, as he always did when he was traveling, and in the morning he paused only to look out at the early morning mists off the Seine. Then he packed his small suitcase and prepared to depart. There was no need to wait even until noon. The feel of the whole job was somehow wrong.

And there was no point in taking the mechanical mouse with him. He glanced around the hotel room for a likely hiding place, and finally settled on a convenient space in the back of the television cabinet, where it wouldn’t be found until the next time the set was repaired.

He picked up his bag, stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him, and faced two slender young men with badges already in their hands.

“Monsieur Velvet? Paris police. Please accompany us for questioning.”

At one time it had been the Sûreté. Now it was simply Paris Police Headquarters, an aging but imposing building that seemed constantly in a flux of activity. Nick Velvet sat on a straight-backed wooden chair and answered uncertain questions with vague answers. It was not his first encounter with the police, and he knew at once that they were unsure of themselves.

“The mouse,” one of them said. “Where is it?”

“I know of no mouse.”

“We have a copy of a letter, sent to us anonymously. In it a man named Orchid hired you to steal the toy mouse.”

“Then you only have to prove I really did take it. You haven’t found it yet, have you?”

The Inspector, an utterly patient man named Philippe, sighed and got to his feet. “We have not found the mouse,” he admitted. “Come with me. We will drive out to Cintfilm and see if they wish to press charges. I cannot tie up my entire department over a crime so petty as this—a five-franc toy!”

And so Nick traveled once more to the sprawling sound stage on the city’s outskirts. This time he entered through the door and confronted a milling group of confused people. He recognized Carol Young at once, despite the white peasant girl’s costume she wore and the change in her hair styling. Mary Karls was nowhere in sight, and he was at least thankful for that.

“Is this the man, Inspector?” someone asked, stepping forward. He was a tall man with ash-gray hair, whom Nick hadn’t seen in the Saturday night group.

The Inspector nodded. “This is Nick Velvet, Monsieur Archer.”

The producer nodded and turned to Nick. “That nut Orchid paid you to steal the mouse, didn’t he?”

“I’ve never met anyone by that name,” Nick answered truthfully.

The director, Fitzwright, joined the group. “If we’re going to keep to any sort of schedule, I have to get those cameras rolling.”

Mary Karls had followed the director from an inner office, and she gave a little gasp when she recognized Nick. She seemed about to speak, but then thought better of it and turned to Archer. “We’re ready for the mouse scene, if it’s arrived.”

The producer nodded and went into his office. “It was just delivered. Fleming must have gotten it on the first plane.” He returned in a minute with a small slim package not yet unwrapped.

“I’ll take it,” Mary said.

“Wait.” Archer still had the package in his hand. “Fitz, let’s have Carol open it and get a picture for the papers. It’ll make great publicity. After all, it’s her mouse in the film.”

The director called to somebody and in a few moments a camera was produced. They’d all but forgotten Nick’s presence, and he could have walked away without being missed. But instead he was staring at the little package, at the neat row of air-mail stamps and the label addressed to Archer. There was something …

“How’s this?” Carol Young asked, posing prettily as she began to tear off the wrapper.

“Great,” Archer said. “Snap it while I make a phone call.”

“Then we get to work,” Fitzwright reminded them.

Inspector Philippe cleared his throat. “I wish to know whether you will press charges against Monsieur Velvet.”

Carol Young ripped away the last of the paper and started to open the box. Then Nick Velvet moved, more on instinct than anything else. He threw himself at the girl, knocking the little box from her hand and sending it sliding across the studio floor.

Already the Inspector was reaching for his gun, and Carol Young had started to scream. Archer turned in the office doorway and started back.”

“Don’t anybody touch it,” Nick said. “There just might be a bomb in it.”

Some time later Inspector Philippe faced them with a sad and drawn face. “You were quite correct, Monsieur Velvet. The little box contained a bomb which would have exploded two seconds after the lid was opened. Now you can tell us how you knew that.”

Nick relaxed against the wall with a cigarette. “It was only a guess. I noticed there was no customs declaration on the package—only the label and stamps. Even if it could have reached here so quickly, it would have had to pass through customs. If the package did not come from Mr. Fleming in New York, it was at least a good possibility that it came from the mysterious Jason Orchid, whom I understand threatened to kill Fleming and Archer. A bomb was my first guess, and it was correct.”

“It could have killed Carol!” Archer gasped.

The Inspector stepped forward. “I fear, Monsieur Velvet, that you are now an accessory to an attempted murder.”

Nick smiled slightly. “I believe you’d have a difficult time proving that, even if Mr. Archer wanted to press charges.”

“What’s that mean?” the producer asked.

“Could I speak to you alone?”

Archer looked annoyed, then waved Inspector Philippe and the others from the room. “What’s on your mind, Velvet?” he asked after the door was closed.

“I’ll make it fast, Mr. Archer. Someone sent the Paris police a copy of Orchid’s letter to me. Obviously that someone must have been the sender of the letter, and just as obviously it wouldn’t have been Orchid. Wherever he is, Jason Orchid has been made the fall guy for this whole business.”

“What?”

“The fall guy. He couldn’t possibly have planned it all. He couldn’t have known, for instance, that you’d ask Fleming to send you another toy mouse by air mail. It would have been much more logical to postpone those scenes till you got back to Hollywood to shoot the rest of the interiors. No, only you—and possibly Fleming—knew what action you’d take when the mouse was stolen.”

“You mean I tried to kill myself?”

“Not at all. You tried to kill Miss Carol Young.”

“That’s, insane!”

“Is it? A rising young actress, yes, but not yet famous enough to pay her own way. You’d naturally have a big insurance policy on her for the period of the filming—say, a cool million dollars. Carol Young dead—or even badly injured—would be worth more to you at this stage of her career than even the finished picture. And one million dollars would pull Fleming-Archer Productions out of its current financial difficulties.”

“Can you prove any of this?”

“A dozen people saw you hand her the box and then walk quickly away when she started to open it. To make a phone call. To whom, Mr. Archer? To your New York partner, or wasn’t he in on it? Of course you made the bomb at this end, so you’re the one who’ll take the rap.”

Archer pressed both hands against the desk top and stared down at them. “What do you intend to do?”

Nick Velvet smiled. “I intend to sell the toy mouse back to you for $20,000.”

“Why, that’s—”

“Now, now, no ugly words, Mr. Archer. Besides, it’s the only choice you have. And if I hear of any injury to Miss Young before you finish the picture—even a splinter in her finger—you won’t even have that choice.”

That evening at the airport, as they were announcing his flight, Nick Velvet suddenly remembered the perfume he’d promised Gloria. He chose the most expensive bottle in the airport shop, and then bought two because he could afford it.

T
HE MAN WAS SLIM
and dark and Latin, and his name was Jorge Asignar. He sat across the table from Nick Velvet, studying him through narrow, uncertain eyes.

“I understand that you steal things,” he said, speaking with a pronounced accent.

“Some things,” Nick admitted. “Unusual things.” He’d been at home with Gloria, relaxing with a cold beer, when the call had come from Asignar. He disliked the man immediately, but personal feelings never entered into his professional activities. “What do you want stolen?”

Jorge Asignar smiled, showing a line of gold-capped teeth. “A baseball team.”

“A baseball team?” In his business nothing ever surprised Nick Velvet. “Any special one?”

The Latin shrugged. “I leave the choice to you. Your fee, I believe, is $20,000?”

“That’s correct, under ordinary circumstances. But for especially difficult or dangerous assignments I charge thirty thousand. With something this size I believe the larger fee would be justified.”

Asignar waved an indifferent hand. “Agreeable. Half the money now and the balance on delivery.”

“Fine.”

“Then the choice of a team and all other arrangements are yours. It must be a major league professional team, and it must be delivered intact to my country within the next two weeks.”