Trojan Gold (3 page)

Schliemann was the original Horatio Alger hero. He began his career as a stock boy, sleeping under the counter of the store at night, and ended up a millionaire merchant. Once he'd acquired his
wealth, he dumped his business interests and turned to the subject that had obsessed him since his daddy had read to him from Homer. Unlike most historians of his time, naïve Heinrich believed the Homeric poems were literally true. The credulous merchant was right, and the historians were wrong. Schliemann found Troy. At the bottom of the trench he had cut across the city mound, he came upon a disintegrated wooden chest that held the treasure of a vanished nobleman.

Schliemann had found more treasures than any amateur deserves to find. He'd dug up another hoard at Mycenae a few years later. But it was the first one, the Trojan gold, that fired his imagination. He decked his beautiful wife Sophia in the jewels for the picture that had been so often reproduced. Perhaps the divine Helen had worn these very diadems, earrings, chains, and studs…. Actually she hadn't. The gold didn't come from Priam's Troy, but from a period a thousand years earlier.

That was about the extent of my knowledge of Schliemann's find. I knew even less about the disappearance of the treasure, though that event was as dramatic as the circumstances of its discovery.

Schliemann had presented the gold of Troy to a German museum, over the objections of his Greek wife, who felt it ought to remain in Greece. The Turks also claimed it, since Hissarlik, the site of Troy, was on Turkish soil. If the gold had turned up—which of course it hadn't…But if it had, the question of legal ownership would present an interesting tangle.

Nowadays, excavators can't remove a potsherd without the permission of the host government, but
in the nineteenth century, archaeology was a free-for-all, and possession was nine-tenths of the law. The major museums of the world owe their collections of ancient art to methods that are at best highly dubious and at worst downright dishonest. The Greeks have never stopped complaining about the Elgin marbles and the Aegina sculptures; the Egyptians still want Nefertiti to come home. But the marbles remain in the British Museum, and the Aegina pieces are in the Glyptothek in Munich, and Nefertiti has gone back to a case in a Berlin museum after a brief vacation in a bomb shelter.

Like Nefertiti, the gold of Troy had been removed from its museum during World War II and placed in safekeeping. Somewhere in Berlin, that was all I knew. The Russians had been the first to reach Berlin. And that was the last anyone had seen or heard of the Trojan gold.

If I had given much thought to the matter, which I had not, I would have assumed the Russians had taken the gold to Moscow, along with other little odds and ends like factories, the Pergamum altar sculptures, German nuclear scientists, wristwatches, and the like. But surely, I mused, most of that stolen property had eventually resurfaced—hadn't it? The factories had turned out steel and concrete for Mother Russia, the scientists had helped build lots of lovely missiles; even the Pergamum sculptures had been returned to a museum in Berlin. East Berlin, that is.

If the Soviets had returned masterpieces like the Pergamum sculptures, why hadn't they returned the gold of Troy?

The book popped open again; I'm sure I never
touched it. I placed the two photos side by side and picked up my trusty magnifying glass.

The reproduction in the book was of poor quality, and my photo was grainy and blurred. I couldn't make out the finer details. I could see, however, that there were minor discrepancies I had not observed earlier. The pieces were the same—necklaces, earrings, diadem—but they weren't arranged in quite the same fashion.

Since I knew that Sophia's jewelry was the genuine article, the differences should have convinced me that the second set was a careless copy, right? Wrong. You see, the museum displays of ancient jewelry, all shiny and polished and pretty, are the result of long months of repair and restoration. The originals didn't look like that when they were found buried deep in the earth; they were often tumbled, twisted heaps of bits and pieces, and sometimes it is anybody's guess as to how the pieces went together. Was this flat jeweled ornament attached to that golden chain, or did it form part of the beaded girdle whose beads have tumbled from the rotted cord? Was this dangle an earring or a pendant or part of a crown? I could not remember what condition the Trojan gold had been in when it was discovered, but it was a safe bet that a certain amount of restoration had been necessary. The differences between the two sets were the sort one would expect to find if two restorers—two authorities—had disagreed.

My copy certainly was a first-class forgery.

Another tear plopped onto the book, spotting Sophia's face. I scowled and wiped it off with my
finger. I ought to be ashamed of myself, succumbing to self-pity and
Heimweh
. That's all it was, a touch of homesickness. Nothing to do with…. anything else.

“T
HEY” SAY HARD WORK IS THE BEST CURE
for depression. I can think of several things that are more effective, but since none of them were immediately available, I applied myself diligently to a long-overdue article for a professional journal and didn't stop until I was interrupted by the telephone. It was Schmidt, inviting me to lunch. He takes me to lunch once or twice a week so I can regale him with Rosanna's latest escapades.

Rosanna is the heroine of the novel I've been writing on and off for nigh onto five years. I suppose you could call it a historical romance, though the history is wildly inaccurate and romance is a very feeble word for Rosanna's love life. So far she has been abducted by sultans, outlaws, highwaymen, degenerate noblemen, Genghis Khan, and Louis the Fourteenth, to mention only a few. (I
said
the historical part was inaccurate.) Rosanna has never been raped because it is against my principles to contribute, even by implication, to the “relax and enjoy it” school of perversion. However, she
has had quite a few narrow escapes, and I wouldn't exactly claim she was celibate. I have given up any idea of submitting the book to a publisher, since it has become too absurd even for a historical romance, which, believe me, is very absurd indeed. I go on with it because it amuses Schmidt—and me.

Some instinct told me that Schmidt had an ulterior motive that day, but I accepted anyhow. After I had put on my boots and coat, I looked at the sink.

The water was a sickly, sickening brownish red. I pulled the plug and let it run out.

Schmidt never climbs the tower stairs except in cases of dire emergency, which is one of the reasons why I chose that particular office. He was waiting for me in the Hall of Armor, adjoining the tower; as I descended, I heard him talking to the guard on duty. I caught the punch line—“But,
mein Herr
, it is your mustache!”—followed by a chorus of guffaws from Schmidt and his stooge. Everybody laughs at Schmidt's jokes, even though they are all culled from the Bavarian equivalent of Joe Miller's book. A director has certain prerogatives.

I stepped over the velvet rope with its “
Eintritt verboten
” sign, greeted the guard, tucked Schmidt's scarf into his collar, and led him out. It was still snowing. There was almost no wind, and the soft white flakes fell gently from the tarnished silver bowl of the sky. Traffic had stirred the streets into a sloppy slush, but the towers of Munich's myriad churches looked as if they had been frosted with vanilla icing.

We went to our favorite
Bierstube
, which specializes in a particular variety of heavy dark beer to
which Schmidt is addicted. (There are few varieties of beer to which Schmidt is not addicted.) Schmidt ordered
Weisswurst
and got it, even though the church bells had already chimed twelve. He ordered a lot of other things, too, including an entire loaf of heavy black bread and a pound or so of sweet butter. I sipped daintily at my own beer and waited for him to get to the point, knowing it wouldn't take long. Schmidt thinks he is sly and subtle, but he is mistaken.

After the waiter had brought the first course, Schmidt tucked his napkin into his collar and stared fixedly at me.

“That was not Frau Schliemann in the photograph.”

“I know.”

“You know? Oh yes, you, you always know.” Schmidt stuffed his mouth with wurst and masticated fiercely. Then he mumbled, “Mrshwenill.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Miss Know-It-All.”

“Ms. Know-It-All,
bitte
.”

Schmidt grinned. I reached across the table and removed a speck of wurst from his mustache.

“So what shall we do?” he asked.

“What can we do?”

“Have the wrapping examined to see if the stain is blood,” Schmidt said promptly.

“We could.” And of course I would. I had known that ever since I saw the brown-red water. Since we did a lot of work with fabrics, we had a fairly well-equipped lab at the museum. If that particular test was beyond our chemist, I had several pals in the police department.

“But what if it is blood?” I went on.

“Human blood!”

“So what if it is human blood? We can't trace the damned thing; there is no return address. Perhaps the sender will follow up with a letter.”

“And perhaps he is no longer in a position to do that,” said Schmidt. “It took a lot of blood to make a stain that size, Vicky.”

His illogical, melodramatic conclusion irritated me all the more because it was exactly what I had been thinking.

“You ought to write thrillers for a living, Schmidt,” I snarled. “Which reminds me. Madly jealous at being supplanted in the affections of the King, Madame de Maintenon has accused Rosanna of practicing witchcraft. Would you like to hear—”

“No, I would not. At least not at the present time. Why do you refuse to discuss this matter? Most probably the photograph is a childish joke, but if there is the slightest chance it is anything else…. You have a flair for such things, Vicky. All of us develop a certain instinct, which is nothing more than long years of experience working with antiquities; but yours is stronger than most. If the jewelry in the photograph is not the original, it is an excellent copy,
nein
?”

“Yes,” I said.

Schmidt's fork, with its impaled chunk of sausage, stopped midway to his mouth.
Weisswurst
is really quite revolting in appearance; I will spare you the comparisons. I averted my eyes.

“What is it?” Schmidt asked solicitously. “There is in your voice a note of grief, of tears repressed—”

“There is nothing of the sort. Your imagination is getting out of hand.”

“
Ach, so
? Then with the tactfulness for which I am well known, I will pass on to matters of documented fact. Since you are this Ms. Know-It-All, I presume you are well acquainted with the details of the fall of Berlin in 1945.”

“No, I am not, and what's more, I don't want to be. Art history may be a cop-out, but at least it enables me to focus on the positive achievements of the human race.”

I had meant the statement as a criticism—an indictment, if you will—of myself; but Schmidt's sudden sobriety showed I had hit a nerve. Then, too late, I remembered something I had been told by Gerda, who really was Ms. Know-It-All. Schmidt had been a member of the White Rose, the Munich student conspiracy against Hitler—and he had lost many of his friends, including the girl he had hoped to marry, when the plot was discovered and the ringleaders were savagely executed. If the story was true, and I had no reason to suppose it was not, Schmidt had even stronger reasons than I to retreat from the contemplation of man's inhumanity to man.

I didn't apologize, since that would only have made things worse. After an interval, Schmidt's cherubic countenance returned to its normal, cheerful expression. He went on without referring to what I had said.

“The most valued exhibits from the Berlin museums had been removed to a bunker in the Tiergarten—the zoo.”

“I know what
Tiergarten
means.”

“Ha! But you don't know, I will bet you, that many of the objects taken away by the Russians when they entered the bunker have now been returned. The Gobelin tapestries, the Pergamum sculptures, the coin collection of Friedrich the Great…”

One up for Schmidt. I had known of the Pergamum sculptures, but not the other things. Naturally, I wasn't going to admit my ignorance.

“All right,” I said, with an exaggerated sigh. “Let's admit for the sake of argument that both preposterous premises are right. The gold in the photograph is the genuine article and the stain on the envelope is human blood. We're still up the creek without a paddle. We have no idea where that photograph came from.”

Schmidt's cheeks gyrated as he tried to chew and nod at the same time. Swallowing, he patted his mouth daintily with the tail of his napkin and then remarked, “Too true. What a pity that the one man who might lead us out of our dilemma is no longer among the living.”

I reached for a piece of bread and busied myself breaking and buttering it.

Schmidt is so classically, overpoweringly cute that people tend to forget how intelligent he is. And I swear there are times when I think he can read my mind. Not that a high degree of ESP was required in this case. The word “copy” inevitably brought John to mind. Also the words “fraud,” “fake,” and “crook.”

Sir John Smythe he called himself, among other names—none of them his real one. The title was equally apocryphal. He had once admitted that
John was his first name—not very informative, even if it was true, which it might not be. He was the most accomplished liar since Baron Münchausen.

His physical appearance varied as extravagantly as his name. The underlying structure, the basic John Smythe, was inconspicuously average—about my height, rather slightly built, with no identifying characteristics. In repose his features could only be described as pleasantly unmemorable, but they were capable of a rubbery flexibility any actor would have sold his soul to possess. The color of his hair and eyes varied, according to the circumstances (usually illegal); but, as I had good cause to know, he was fair-haired and blue-eyed. The only features he had trouble disguising—from me, at least—were his lashes, long and thick as a girl's, and his hands. Deft, skillful hands, long-fingered, deceptively slender…

“Shall I ask the waiter for more butter?” Schmidt asked sweetly.

I looked at my plate. On it were five pieces of bread, each buried under a greasy yellow mound.

“No, thanks, this will do,” I said, and bit into one of the slices. The slippery, sliding texture of the butter against the roof of my mouth made me want to gag.

Schmidt is a canny little kobold. He didn't refer to the subject again. He didn't have to. The damage had been done, though not by him. By the photograph, the fake, the fraud.

I left work early, and when I got home that evening I did something I had sworn I would never do again. The portrait was buried deep under a pile
of cast-off, out-of-date business papers. Usually it takes me days to find a needed receipt or letter, but I had no trouble finding this particular item.

The portrait was not a photograph, or a sketch, or a painting. I had no snapshots of John; I doubt if many people did. He had good cause to be leery of cameras. But the silhouette had been cut by a master of that dying art; the black paper outline captured not only the distinctive bone structure and the sculptured line of that arrogant nose, but also a personality, in the confident tilt of the chin and the suggestion of a faint smile on the thin, chiseled lips.

 

People claim wine is a depressant. It never depressed me until that evening. I sat on my nice newly upholstered couch with my nice friendly dog sleeping at my feet, sipping my nice chilled Riesling
Spätlese
, and my mood got blacker with every sip—black as the scissored outline at which I stared. It might have been the chilly hiss of sleet against the windows. It might have been Caesar, moaning and twitching in a doggish nightmare. Sometimes dogs seem to have happy dreams. I had always assumed they grinned and whined at visions of bones, and overflowing food dishes, and friendly hands stroking them. What then were the subjects of canine nightmares? Giant cats the size of grizzly bears? Perhaps Caesar was reliving the tribulations of his youth, before I adopted him. I would never forget my first sight of him, bursting
with fangs bared and eyes blazing out of the darkness of the antique shop I happened to be burgling. His keeper had kept him half-starved and beaten him to make him savage…

John was one of the gang—art swindlers, forgers of historic gems. He boasted that half the great art collections contained copies he had substituted for the priceless originals, and he was particularly proud of the fact that the substitutions had never been detected. Not for him the armed attack, the murdered guards, the crude, grab-it-and-run techniques of lesser craftsmen. John abhorred violence, particularly when it was directed against him.

However, he had killed at least one man. I couldn't complain about that since the man he killed had been doing his damnedest to murder me.

John had vanished under the icy storm-lashed waters of Lake Vippen six months earlier, taking with him the aquatic assassin who had picked me as victim number one. The body of the man he killed had been found a few days later. John had never been seen again.

The scenario was as romantically tragic as any I could have invented for my unending novel; and all the surviving participants had been suitably moved, including Schmidt, who had insisted on helping erect a suitable monument to the fallen hero. Schmidt was determined to regard John as a kind of Robin Hood, which couldn't have been farther from the truth. John did confine his depredations to the rich, but that was only because poor people didn't have anything worth stealing, and the only charity to which he contributed was himself. Of course John had never happened to rob
Schmidt's museum. And Schmidt is a hopeless sentimentalist.

Schmidt is not, however, a fool. He had enjoyed wallowing in sloppy tears over the heroic dead; but once the glow wore off, he had probably reached the same conclusion I had reached—namely and to wit, that the memorial might be a trifle premature. The event had given John a heaven-sent opportunity to avoid a number of people whose greatest ambition in life was to nail him to a wall by his elegant ears. The man he had killed was the head of a gang of thieves who would probably resent the death of their leader and the loss of their jobs, particularly since John had been trying to steal the loot from them all along. John was also an object of passionate interest to the police of several countries. His presumed death would wipe the slate clean and give him a chance to start over.

At first I didn't doubt he was still alive. For weeks I expected to hear from him—one of those absurd communications in which his quirky, devious mind delighted. Once he had sent me a forgery of a famous historic jewel. Another time, it had been a single red rose—another fake, a silk copy of a real flower. But six months had gone by without a word from him….