The Eighth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  Jack Smack looked at me with astonishment. “Dunk, are you telling us that Archibald Havistock stole the Demaretion?”

  “How can a man steal his own coin?” I asked. “What I’m saying is that Archibald prepared a sealed empty display case, properly taped inside a Styrofoam box and marked as package thirteen. Then he switched boxes. Who else could have done it? Not Orson Vanwinkle. He was with the guards from the armored van. Not anyone else in the family because they couldn’t have known how the display case was sealed with wax imprinted with the signet ring, and how the outside box would be taped and numbered. No, Mr. Havistock made the switch.”

  “And what did he do with the original box thirteen?” Al asked.

  I shrugged. “Probably shoved it into that deep kneehole under his desk where he had kept the empty case. He made the switch, then strolled into the living room for a couple of minutes to chat with his family. Styrofoam box thirteen was loaded into the van, and it was only after I signed the receipt for the collection at Grandby’s that we discovered the Demaretion was gone. Mrs. Havistock, do you agree that’s the way it happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said stonily. “I cannot say if the details are correct. I do know my husband loved his coins. Especially the Demaretion. It is quite possible it happened as you described.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Suppose Havistock did keep the Demaretion, then who wrote the letters to my company offering to make a deal?”

  “Orson Vanwinkle,” I said promptly. “When the coin disappeared, he knew immediately that only Archibald could have switched cases. He was smarter and faster than I was. But then he had a criminal mind and assumed everyone was as crooked as he. So he went to Mr. Havistock and demanded part of the insurance on the loss of the Demaretion. It meant nothing to Orson that Archibald loved that coin and wanted to keep it. So he wrote the letters to your company, Jack, to raise cash as quickly as possible, and he wrote that drop-dead letter to me.”

  “So who was dealing in Lebanon?” Al Georgio asked.

  “Archibald,” I said. “After Vanwinkle was killed, the letters to the insurance company stopped, and the Beirut dealer offered the coin. Mr. Havistock would know about him and his sleazy reputation. After all, Archibald had been involved in the collection of antique coins for many years; he probably knows everyone in the field. And if you’re wondering why he tried to peddle the coin through the Beirut dealer, the answer is simple: he needed the money. Orson was dead, but there was still Vanessa and her ‘gifts.’ And Grandby’s postponed the auction of the Havistock Collection in their vaults. And the insurance companies were dragging their feet on the payoff for the missing coin. A lawsuit might take years. So, in a word, Mr. Havistock found himself broke. Or at least cash-poor. He had to sell the coin if he wanted to keep Vanessa happy. It came down to a choice between a splendid treasure of ancient Greek mintage and the woman who obsessed him. Vanessa won—for a while.”

  Then we were all silent, looking at each other. Mabel Havistock had remained stern and erect through much of my narrative, but now I noticed she was beginning to slump. Not slump so much, perhaps, as soften. No longer so hard, so unyielding. Hearing what she had feared spoken aloud had taken something out of her. I had hit her like a tabloid headline, and I knew it hurt.

  “A nice story,” Al Georgio said finally, “and I believe every word of it. But you know what we’ve got, Dunk?”

  “Zero, zip, and zilch,” I said, sighing.

  “Right,” he said. “Jack?”

  “Nothing. His insurance company hasn’t paid him a cent, and my company hasn’t reimbursed Grandby’s. So how can we scream fraud? At the moment we just can’t nail him.”

  “Hasn’t he suffered enough?” I said.

  “No,” Mrs. Havistock said. “Not enough.”

  Al Georgio stared directly at her. “Ma’am,” he said softly, “you know a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband. But if she volunteers, her testimony is judged just like that of any other witness.”

  “I volunteer,” Mabel Havistock said grimly.

  “Volunteer for what?” a resonant voice asked from the doorway, and we all looked up.

  Archibald Havistock stood planted, regarding us with his ice-cube eyes. Al, Jack, and I stood and confronted him.

  “Sir,” Al said, “could we have a private talk with you, please?”

  Havistock bristled. “By what right,” he demanded, “do you invade my home and disturb my wife? I must ask you to leave at once.”

  “Mr. Havistock,” Al said pleasantly, “cut the bullshit. You’ll either talk to us here and now or I’ll take you down to the precinct house and we’ll talk there. Is that what you want?”

  The two big men locked stares, and it was Archibald who blinked. “Very well,” he snapped. “Come into my library. Please keep it short.”

  “It will be,” Al promised. “And sweet.”

  We all moved out into the hallway and down to the library. Mrs. Havistock watched us go, her eyes filmed with tears. And for the first time I thought Ruby Querita had been right: she was broken.

  Al took my arm and held me back for a moment. “Who swiped your notebook?” he asked in a low voice.

  “I think it was Carlo, one of Vanessa’s pimps. She probably had them all over the East Side.”

  “What a woman,” he said, shaking his head. “She should have gone public and sold shares.”

  In the library, without invitation, the three of us pulled up chairs in a semicircle facing Archibald Havistock as he sat in the swivel chair behind his desk. I took a good look at him.

  He was impeccably dressed as ever, all pressed, creased, starched, and shining. The only sign of disarray was a single lock of his silvered hair that had fallen over his right temple. He kept brushing it back with his palm, but in a moment it would flop down again. I know it sounds fanciful, but that errant lock of hair symbolized for me the man’s disintegration.

  “I trust this won’t take long,” he said, speaking to Georgio.

  “That depends on you,” Al said. “I’ll start off by telling you what we’ve got.”

  Then, a lot blunter and harsher than I had been, he repeated everything I had just recited in the living room. He kept it brief and toneless, making it sound like an official police report. I was impressed, but other than continually brushing his hair back with his palm, Mr. Havistock showed absolutely no signs of dismay. The thought occurred to me that I might be totally wrong. Oh, my God!

  “So,” Al Georgio concluded, “I think the best solution to this whole thing would be if you turned the coin over to me. If you do that, I think it’s safe to say there will be no arrest, no prosecution. Jack?”

  “Not from our end,” Jack Smack said. “All we want is the return of the Demaretion.”

  Archibald Havistock leaned back in his chair and regarded us with what I can only describe as a benign smile.

  “A fairy tale,” he said in his rich, boomy voice. “Not a word of truth in it. Do you have any evidence at all to support this farrago?”

  “You deny what I just told you?” Al asked.

  “Utterly and completely,” Havistock said, leaning forward over his desk. “If this nonsense was what you wanted to talk to me about, then I must ask you again to leave.”

  Al sighed. “Mr. Havistock, I know you’ve got heavy troubles. Your son and son-in-law are going to be charged with homicide. Your nephew and daughter-in-law are dead. Your daughter attempted suicide. Enough problems for any man. But if you keep jerking me around, I’m going to have to add to your troubles. I’ll give you one last chance: Where’s the Demaretion, Mr. Havistock?”

  Archibald looked at him warily, seemed to consider a moment, but then shook his head. “I assure you,” he said, “I do not have the Demaretion and I do not know where it is.”

  “You want me to get nasty?” Al said. “I can get nasty.” Then he gave me a lesson on what a professional detective can do with the resources of the NYPD behind h
im. “Here’s the program: First, I’m going to bring a photograph of you over to the super of that apartment on East Sixty-fifth. I’ll lean on him, and no matter how much you paid him to keep his mouth shut, he’ll admit that, yeah, you were there two, three, or four afternoons a week with Vanessa.

  “Then I’m going to get copies of your cables to that coin dealer in Beirut. How else would you communicate with him—by postcard? Maybe you phoned. If you did, New York Telephone will have a record of the calls.

  “Then I’m going to get a search warrant and tear this place apart. Even if I don’t find anything, the neighbors will learn about it. Won’t that be nice?

  “Then I’m going to have another talk with poor, confused Luther, just to make sure that he knew his father was shtupping his wife.

  “Then I’m going to pull in Carlo and any other pimps who delivered Johns to Vanessa. The tabloids will eat it up.

  “Then I’m going to ask the District Attorney to take a close look at the activities of Lenore Wolfgang, especially in leasing that love nest of yours. I don’t know whether or not what she did was unethical, but it might be enough to get her disbarred.

  “Then I’m going to ask the IRS to audit your returns—did you report the sale of those coins over the past five years?—and the returns of Vanessa, Luther, and everyone else in your family.

  “And finally, just to add to your troubles, I think I’ll have a long chat with Mrs. Havistock. That lady is ready to talk, and after what you’ve done to her and the family, I believe she’ll tell the truth.

  “See how nasty I can be, Mr. Havistock? Now do you want to keep insisting the whole thing is a fairy tale?”

  Throughout Georgio’s discourse, Archibald sat stiffly upright, propping himself with his two palms pressed onto the desktop. I saw no change of expression as Al heaped stone upon stone. But that lank lock of hair now hung across his forehead, almost covering one eye, and he made no effort to brush it back into place.

  It was so quiet in that library that I could hear traffic noises on the street below, thought I heard the hoot of a tugboat on the East River, and did hear the drone of an airliner letting down for LaGuardia. No one spoke. We all waited.

  Mr. Havistock, who had been staring stonily at Al Georgio, now turned his gaze to me. He looked at me a long time.

  “Congratulations,” he said finally with his wintry smile. “I tried to convince my wife not to hire you, but she insisted. I knew you were aching to find the coin. Someone had made a fool of you, and you wanted revenge.”

  “I would have given anything if it had turned out differently,” I told him. “I admired you.”

  “Did you?” he said. Then, forlornly: “I wish I did.”

  “The Demaretion, Mr. Havistock,” Al said impatiently.

  He opened his top desk drawer, found a small key, then swung around in the swivel chair, his back to us. He leaned forward, unlocked a cabinet under those handsome bookshelves. He brought out a Styrofoam box, stood, and placed it on his desk. The tape had been removed, but I recognized it at once: box thirteen.

  Mr. Havistock slid out the sealed teak display case with the glass cover. Then we all rose and bent over the desk. There it was.

  That gorgeous, cursed coin! It loomed like a silver sun. So crisp, so strong. We all stared, mesmerized, and I thought of all the people who had owned it, even briefly. The loves, murders, treacheries, the sorrows and ecstasies—all that the Demaretion had seen and come through unclipped, unscratched, shining and complete.

  “Is that it, Dunk?” Jack Smack asked.

  “Yes,” I said huskily, “that’s it. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I looked up at Mr. Havistock, but he would not meet my eyes and turned away.

  “Thank you, sir,” Al Georgio said briskly. “We’ll take it along now.”

  He slid the display case back into the Styrofoam box, tucked it under one arm, and started out, motioning us to follow. He paused at the doorway and turned back for one final oratorical flourish.

  “I leave you to the tender mercies of your wife, Mr. Havistock,” he said. “Lots of luck.”

  It wasn’t until we were down on the sidewalk in front of the apartment house that we stopped to grin at each other.

  “Dunk,” Al said, “you’re a genius.” And he leaned forward to kiss my cheek.

  “A double-genius,” Jack said, kissing the other cheek. “A triple-genius! Al, how do you feel about this female-type detective making us look like a couple of klutzes?”

  “I love it,” Georgio said. “I’m going to take all the credit at the Department for closing the file. Aren’t you going to take all the credit with your company?”

  “You bet your sweet ass,” Jack said. “The coin has been returned; that’s all we were interested in. Al, Havistock is going to walk, isn’t he?”

  “Sure he is,” Al said. “What could we charge him with? All those things I threatened—so much kaka. I could have done all that, but it wouldn’t have convicted him of anything. Just made his life more miserable than it is now. Let him walk; I’ve got the coin.”

  “If you’re not going to arrest him,” I said, “what do you need the Demaretion for?” And I whisked the box from under Al’s arm. “It belongs to me. I signed for it.”

  He looked at me a moment, startled. Then he laughed. “You’re right, Dunk, it’s yours. Want us to escort you back to Grandby’s?”

  “Nope,” I said, “I’m going to do this my way. If someone tries to mug me, you’ll have another homicide to investigate. Not mine; the mugger’s.”

  “Be careful, Dunk,” Jack warned.

  “Talk to you guys later,” I said, and went breezing away.

  It was late in the afternoon, and I knew my chances of getting a cab were nil. So I practically ran back to Grandby & Sons, hugging the Demaretion to what I laughingly call my bosom and trying not to shout with triumph.

  I dashed up the stairs to my old office and banged on the door, then started kicking it. Hobart Juliana peered at me through the peephole, then unlocked.

  “Dunk,” he said, bewildered, “what on earth…?”

  “Look!” I yelled. “Just look at this!”

  I slid the display case from the box and placed it on Hobie’s desk. He bent over to inspect that single coin nestled on velvet in the middle compartment. Then he straightened and turned to me.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “The Demaretion. Dunk, it’s glorious!”

  “Yes,” I said, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. “It’s so lovely, so lovely.”

  He gave a whoop of delight, grabbed me, and we went dancing around the office, banging into tables and desks, holding each other and so excited and joyous I didn’t think I could stand it.

  Hobie stopped suddenly. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve got to impress Madam Dodat and god with your incredible victory.”

  So, with me carrying the display case, we sped into Felicia Dodat’s office, barging by her indignant secretary. Felicia looked up, shocked by this sudden intrusion. I plunked the display case down on her desk.

  “There it is,” I said. “The Demaretion.”

  She stared at it a moment. “Oh, Dunk,” she said, “isn’t that nice! I must call Mr. Grandby. He’ll be so pleased.”

  Within ten minutes there must have been a dozen people crammed into Felicia’s office, all bending to examine that old Greek coin and laughing, kissing me, or shaking my hand. God was there, but all he could say was, “Well, well, well.” He kept repeating it: “Well, well, well.” Everyone wanted to know how I had recovered it, but I just smiled mysteriously and winked. A great moment in my life. Dunk shot.

  Finally Madam Dodat shooed everyone out of her office except for Mr. Grandby, Hobie, and me.

  “All right, Dunk,” she said, giving me her toothy smile, “now tell us how you did it.”

  I had my story ready. I told them that Archibald Havistock was an impassioned collector and, at the last minute, just couldn’t let go of the D
emaretion. I told them nothing of his relationship with his daughter-in-law or of his being blackmailed by his nephew. If the tabloids got hold of the story, everyone would know the details soon enough, but they weren’t going to hear them from me.

  They accepted my version readily enough, and we all agreed that true collectors were infected with a mania that could never be cured. Then the four of us formed a triumphal procession down to the vaults, god carrying the display case, and saw it safely locked away.

  “Well, well, well,” Mr. Grandby said, beaming, “I think this calls for a celebration. Will you join me for dinner?”

  So we did, adjourning to the Bedlington dining room where we all had Chateaubriand with the best béarnaise sauce I’ve ever tasted. And two bottles of champagne. My employer was acting in a most unpenguinlike manner. He even leaned over to whisper in my ear that I could expect a salary raise for my “remarkable efforts” on behalf of Grandby & Sons.

  We parted about eight o’clock. God and Felicia Dodat went off together—to an apartment on East 65th Street, I wondered? Hobie and I embraced on the sidewalk, and I swore I would be in to work first thing Monday morning. Then he left to return to his consenting adult. I cabbed home alone.

  There was nothing interesting in my mail—just bills and junk. So I kicked off my shoes and sprawled on the couch, beginning to feel a letdown after all the day’s excitement. There was no reason I should have felt depressed—I had won, hadn’t I?—but I did.