The Scarlet Ruse Read online

  "Colonel, if I had looked through them, I would have known that, right?"

  "Yes, but "

  "And then if I told you I had not looked through them, I would be lying.

  Right? Believe me, that book is exactly the way I found it, in one of the cartons. If it's tiresome, I'm sorry."

  "Huh!" said the Colonel.

  "What?" asked Fedderman.

  "Nothing. Nothing at all."

  "Wait. You put this one back crooked. Let me help you. What do you know?

  Look, Mary Alice. A nice double surcharge on Canada C3. Doesn't that go pretty good?"

  "Like about seventy dollars in Scott, Mr. Fedderman."

  "See, Colonel? In the middle of all this junk, a nice little error.

  Let me see. Original gum. Never hinged. Nice centering. To you, Colonel, only forty dollars."

  "Forty!" "I know," said Mary Alice.

  "That surprises me too, sir.

  It ought to be fifty-five at least." "Well... put it aside, dear girl," said the colonel.

  They meshed smoothly and well, did Fedderman and Mary Alice. She went behind the counter. Meyer and I went back to Fedderman's office with him and closed the door.

  "Now what?" Fedderman asked out of the depths of his despair.

  "One thing I know," Meyer said.

  "The impossible doesn't ever happen. Only possible things happen."

  "To me the impossible happens," said Fedderman.

  "If it isn't you and it isn't Sprenger," Meyer said, "then it has to be Mary Alice."

  "Impossible!"

  "So we are comparing two impossible things, and it being Mary Alice is not quite as impossible as what happened."

  "Maybe I follow you," Hirsh said.

  "My head hurts. I hurt all over. I'm coming down. I should be in bed with a pill."

  "Did she bring that same purse," I asked Fedderman.

  "Purse?"

  "The one she had today is like a picnic basket made of straw painted white. Did she have the same purse the last time?"

  "Yes. No. How should I know? There are five clients.

  What difference does it make?"

  "I wish I knew IF it made any difference. That junk you saw in the Sprenger collection. Could it have come out of your stock here in the store?"

  "What I saw? Some of it, maybe. Very little. I didn't have long enough to study it, you understand. A dealer has a good memory for defective pieces. No, I'd say probably none of it from my stock, or I would have recognized one piece anyway. Besides, it was higher catalog value than what I stock here." I remembered Meyer's interesting thought.

  "Hirsh," I asked, "suppose whoever switched the goods has sold the Sprenger items to the trade. Could you identify them?"

  He thought, nodded, and gave me a show-and-tell answer. Once again the projection viewer came out. He put a slide box in place and in the darkened office clicked through a half-dozen slides and stopped at a block of four blue stamps imprinted

  "Graf Zeppelin" across the top.

  They were a two-dollar-and-sixty-cent denomination.

  "This is one I picked up for Sprenger. It was in a Mozian auction catalog last year. It is absolutely superb, and I had to go to fourteen hundred for it. I take an Ektachrome-X transparency of everything I put in an investment account. I use a medical Nikon, and I keep it right here on this mount. Built-in flash. Now you see where the perforations cross in the middle of the block, those little holes?

  They make a certain pattern. Distinctive. Maybe unique? Not quite.

  Now look out at the corners. See this top left corner? That paper between the perforations, right on the corner, is so long, it looks as if maybe there was a pulled perforation on the stamp that was up here, in the original sheet. Okay, add that corner to the pattern in the middle, and it is unique. Any dealer could look at this slide, go through a couple dozen blocks and pick this one out with no trouble.

  Individual stamps would be a lot harder, especially perforated.

  Imperforate, usually they are cut so the margins are something you can recognize.

  Of course, post ally used stuff, old stuff, the cancellation is unique."

  As he put his toys away, I said, "Could you get prints made from the slides of the most valuable items and circulate them to your friends in the trade?"

  "A waste of time and money. These days, believe me, there are more stamp collections being ripped off than ever in history. Information comes in all the time. Watch for this, watch for that: Hoodlums come in here to the store, and they tell me their uncle left them some stamps in an album, do I want to take a look, maybe buy them? I say Tve got all the stock I want. They'll find people who'll buy. But not me. I don't need the grief. After fifty years in the business, I should be a fence? Am I going to look at the stamps the hoodlum brings in and call a cop? Who needs a gasoline bomb through the front door?" "Then there's no way?" Meyer asked.

  Fedderman sighed.

  "If all that stuff goes back into circulation, a lot of those pieces have to find their way into the auction houses. Every catalog, there are pictures of the best pieces. Like if there are two thousand lots listed in the catalog, there could be a hundred photographs of the best items.

  One day last week I sat in here, I went through a couple dozen catalogs to try to spot any item from the Sprenger account. H.R. Manner, Hamer, Rooke and Company, Schiff, Herst, Mozian, Siegel, Apfelbaum.

  Nothing." "Oh," said Meyer, his disappointment obvious.

  "I think I am going home to bed, the way I feel," Fedderman said.

  "What are you fellows going to do now?" I said, "I am going to get Mary Alice to help me." "How do you mean?" Hirsh asked.

  "If she knows more than she's told us, the only thing she can do is play along with me."

  "But that kind of person," Hirsh said, "she would help if you ask. It wouldn't prove anything."

  "Suppose I get to the point where I ask something or do something which would make her back away fast if she was innocent, and she doesn't back away?"

  He stared at me, uneasy and upset.

  "She is a good person. She isn't used to anything rough."

  "Rough?" I asked him.

  "No offense," he said.

  Meyer said, "You look terrible, Hirsh. Travis will drive you home."

  "It's not even as far as the bank, but the other way. So I can't walk it?" "I'll walk with you," Meyer said.

  "Why should you both err "Why shouldn't I?"

  On the way out through the store, by prearrangement, Hirsh told his two ladies that Mr. Travis Mcgee was going to do what he could to help out in this terrible situation, and he would appreciate it if they would answer questions and show him things and so on. Meyer told me he would go his own way, do a little research maybe, take a bus probably, and see me at Bahia Mar.

  Six.

  Jane Lawson went off on her lunch break about fifteen minutes after Meyer and Hirsh left. A man came in to buy a beginner's stamp-collecting outfit for his son's birthday.

  I imitated a browser, leafing through big glassine pages on a countertop easel, looking at incredibly florid stamps from improbable countries, like Ajman, Zambia, and Bangladesh.

  I liked the way Mary Alice handled the customer. She was plugging an outfit which, with stamps, album, manual, hinges, and so on, came to $24.95. The man finally said he couldn't go over fifteen dollars. She told him there was a $14.95 kit, but she could assemble something better for him. She took items from stock, added them up, and told him it came to $14.50. Then she threw in another packet of stamps as a birthday present from Mr. Fedderman. She did not patronize the man.

  She made it seem like a better deal than the more expensive spread.

  The narrow store seemed jammed full of merchandise in a bewildering confusion. But as I got used to it, I could see there was a logical order to the storage and display, and see that everything was bright and clean.

  After the man left, she moved over to where I stood at the counter and said,
"It's sort of a policy in the trade, you know, to encourage kids to collect. But look at what some of these countries are doing. This stuff is just a bunch of. gummed labels. And they grind it out in such millions, they'll never be worth more than what they're worth this minute. I've told Hirsh I wish they'd all get together and boycott the countries that take advantage." She turned a page.

  "Look here. This is a new issue for Grenada; it's an island near Trinidad that used to be part of the British Empire. They've got a contract with some company that grinds out stamps and sends a few of them to Grenada for postal use and sends the rest directly to dealers like us and splits the profit with the government in Grenada. It's just a racket. Gee, I guess we're no better. Our government encourages collectors. Every stamp that isn't used means no postal service is required, so it's practically all profit. People buy all the commemoratives as they come out, in whole sheets and tuck them away like an investment.

  Some investment! You go to sell them, somebody will take them off your hands like for seven percent discount off face value. That's because they print hundreds of millions of every one." She hesitated.

  "I guess you don't want to know about stuff like that."

  "Why not? If I was looking into a theft of paintings, I'd want to know something about art."

  "What are you? Some kind of investigator? I know you are Meyer's friend.

  He's such a dear, sweet man. We all love him."

  Before I could answer, a man came in and was greeted by name. She went back to the safe and brought out five little brown envelopes. The man sat on a stool, took out his own magnifying glass and, one by one, inspected the gold coins. Big coins. Mary Alice waited patiently.

  Finally he said, "Okay, dear. These three. Tell Hirsh this one is a slider, and I don't like the strike on this one. That makes six hundred and twenty, doesn't it?" She used scratch paper and said, "Six forty-four eighty with tax, Mr. Sulzer."

  He produced six hundreds and one fifty. She made out a receipt and gave him his change. He said, "When are you going to change your mind about some nice Sunday? ""If I do, I'll let you know, okay?"

  "How is he doing locating a 1930?"

  "Gee, I don't know. He was complaining about finding one that wasn't the quality you want. I really don't know much about coins, like I keep telling you. If he finds one, I'm sure he'll phone."

  Sulzer left. She made a face at me.

  "He collects double eagles. St. Gaudens, not the Liberty Heads."

  "What's a slider?"

  "He won't buy anything except B.U. or better. That means Brilliant Uncirculated. The only things better are choice, gem, and proof. This one here, he thinks it could just as well have been called A. U." or Almost Uncirculated. So if a coin is sort of in the middle, where you could maybe honestly call it one or the other, it's what a dealer calls a slider. I don't feel a thing for coins. I mean they're valuable, and they keep going up and all, but I don't want to own them. Let me get these back in the safe with, the money." When she came back I said, "What about some nice Sunday?"

  "Oh, he's got a sailboat. And a lot of ideas."

  "And you've already got somebody you'd rather go sailing with?"

  "Yes, but not the way you mean that. You didn't tell me what kind of investigator you are, Mr. Mcgee."

  "Travis or Trav, Mary Alice. I'm not any kind. I just try to find things people lose. On a percentage basis. Salvage consultant."

  "I hope you find the stamps."

  "You'll probably be able to tell me where they are."

  She bit her lip and tilted her head.

  "Now that's kind of a rotten thing to say."

  "How so?"

  "I wouldn't do anything like that!"

  "Like what?"

  "Steal anything."

  "You, dear? I mean you are a bright woman, and you probably saw something or heard something or know something which doesn't seem important at all, but is really very important. When you and I find out what it is you know, then it will tell us where the stamps are."

  She frowned at me.

  "I don't like cute."

  "What?"

  "You said that the way you said it so I would take it wrong. You wanted me to. You wanted to see me react.

  Okay, I'm reacting. I don't like that land of cute. Don't play little games with me. If I'm waiting for you to play games all the time, I won't be thinking of how to help, will I?"

  "Good point."

  "You did it on purpose?"

  "Certainly. Can I take you to lunch?"

  "She'll be back in ten minutes. Sure."

  "Seems quiet around here. Don't you get bored?"

  "Bored! I'm about ten thousand jobs behind right now.

  I've got a whole mess of new issues to mount. Our mailing is going to be late this month. It goes to six hundred people. I've got three appraisals I'm working on, for estates. I took two of them home to my place, because they aren't all that important money wise But the other is back in the safe, and it's pretty nice. It's nicer than Hirsh said it was going to be."

  "And if you wanted to, you could pull a nice item out of it and replace it with something cheaper, and nobody would know?"

  She turned away from me and began straightening albums on one of the shelves behind her.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  "I'm waiting until I can say something."

  I waited. She turned back.

  "Here is the only way I can say it. Excuse my French, I don't give a goddamn what you would do or wouldn't do. Or what anybody else in the world does or doesn't do. If I steal, somebody knows. Mel That's why I can't, won't and don't. And I am going to have lunch alone, thanks."

  "I guess you should. I guess nobody is really worthy of breaking bread with you, dear. We ordinary mortals are unable to tell at first sight just how totally honest and decent and virtuous you really are. At first glance, you look like a sizable and pretty lady, and I have the vague feeling that many pretty ladies have done un pretty things over the last few thousand years. By all means, lunch alone and think clean and honest thoughts, dear."

  She went white and then red with anger. She slapped her palm on the plate glass counter top.

  "But I am getting so goddamn tired of you accusing me of things!"

  I yelled too but just a little louder.

  "So move the scenario elsewhere, you silly bitch! Move it to Chicago.

  Mr. X, the expert, buys for Mr. Y, the Investor. Miss. Z keeps the records and handles the merchandise. X, Y, and Z go to the bank a dozen times. The merchandise is stolen and replaced by cheap goods.

  Who do we blame, dear? X, Y, or Z. You were there! Who? Who? Who?"

  She blinked and blinked, and the tears welled and spilled and trickled.

  She made an aimless gesture, and I took her hands and held them. She looked down and said, "I guess I just... I don't... "

  The door opened, and the pressure on the mat bonged the overhead bell.

  Jane Lawson peered at us.

  "What's going on? Are you crying, Mary Alice?" "We were just going to lunch," I told Jane.

  "Let go and I'll get my purse," Mary Alice said.

  After we'd ordered a drink, Mary Alice went to the women's room to repair the tear damage. She came smiling back and sat and sipped and said, "You're kind of wearing, you know? Or maybe it's the whole rotten day. I feel ragged around all my edges."

  "It doesn't show."

  "On me it never does. I could be dying, and people would tell me how great I look. I always wanted to be one of those mysterious little girls with the hollow cheeks and the sad eyes. I wanted to have a kind of accent. You know. Like Hungarian."

  "And all the sad-eyed little Hungarian girls want "

  "I know. I know.

  You've got a funny look on your face, Trav."

  "I just found out I don't have to wonder about one thing that didn't fit too well. I don't have to accuse you again."

  "Thanks for practically nothing."

  I reached
across and touched the bridge of her nose and pulled my hand back.

  "The answer is right there."

  She looked puzzled, took out a mirror, and turned her head toward the light.

  "Oh. The little groove place, huh?

  From the glasses. But why would. ,. Oh, I think I see. If I inventoried all those things and cut the mounts to size and put them in the book, wouldn't I see they weren't the same when I looked back through the book that day? The answer is, I don't wear my glasses in the bank. The close work is all done. The answer is vanity. Okay. No matter what kind of frames I get, I look like a big goggly owl."