Before the door had fully closed behind him, he was unzipping the clown’s costume and stepping out of it. Beneath it, he wore a tight-fitting devil’s suit in vivid red, complete with a tail that had fitted down the pants-leg of the clown outfit. From a pouch secured under his left arm he withdrew a rubber devil’s mask that fitted over his entire head, red gloves and a small pistol.
He slipped the mask over his head, careful to smudge the clown makeup no more than necessary. Then he slid a silencer onto the gun barrel. He didn’t really need it, but it made the small weapon seem bulkier. He opened the window and stuffed the clown suit into the waste basket next to it. The whole operation had taken just under two minutes.
Then he was out of the room and up the stairs. He came out near the raised platform and was onto it before anyone even noticed. Prince Baudlay turned in his seat to smile, and Nick Velvet brought the gun up from his thigh.
“Stay right there,” he said.
A woman nearby screamed, but no one else seemed to notice. He swung the pistol against the protective glass bell and felt it crack. Another blow and it shattered perfectly around the crystal crown.
Prince Baudlay was out of his chair now, hurling himself at Nick Velvet. He grabbed onto a red-clad leg and the tail, but Velvet brushed him away with a glancing blow from the barrel of the gun. The others had seen it now, and a growing wave of panic swept backward through the throng of dancers. Somebody pushed a button, and the wail of a siren added to the screams.
But Nick Velvet had the crown in his hand. He dove for a window, hoping it was the right one. Someone grabbed again at his costume, and he felt the tail rip away. But he was free and through the window. He hit the ground on the run, still clutching the glass crown in his left hand.
There was just one guard, too near to outrun. Nick Velvet shot him in the fleshy part of the leg.
Then he was around the corner and back through the basement window of the men’s room. This was the dangerous part, and if there had been someone else in there, he would have had to use the gun again. But he’d guessed correctly that the screams from the upper floor had brought everyone running. In an instant he had the clown suit out of the basket and was zipping it up.
The mask and gun and gloves went into the tank of one of the toilets, with the crystal crown placed gently within the protective rubber devil’s face. He closed the window, touched up his makeup, and headed upstairs. His body could now pass a hand frisking, and he doubted if the police would have reason to go about unzipping costumes. He glanced at his watch—six minutes and twenty seconds. A bit longer than he’d planned, but he was satisfied.
In the ballroom all was bedlam, and no one had noticed his absence. He told Vera he’d been almost back to her when the thief appeared, and she had no reason to doubt him. Women were still fainting from the near-panic of the crush, and from outside came the chatter of occasional gunfire. Nick Velvet smiled and hugged Vera protectively.
Almost immediately, the island kingdom had become a fortress. American-made jeeps crisscrossed the highways, with grim-faced men seated at the ready behind fifty-caliber machine guns. Nick Velvet dropped Vera Smith-Blue at her place, and then drove to his own room to change into his street clothes. There was still the problem of transporting the crown from the summer palace to the Corfu ferry, and he was beginning to think it would not be an easy job.
He waited till daybreak to drive back to the palace, wanting the crown in his possession no longer than necessary. The police and government guards still seemed at a complete loss to explain the vanished thief, but their search had not yet turned inward toward the palace itself.
The man in the devil suit had been seen to leave, had actually wounded a guard, so there was no reason to suspect that he had returned. Two innocent guests in devil costumes had been questioned through the night, but finally released. Both had been in plain sight of witnesses during the holdup.
Continuing his pose as a reporter and writer, Nick Velvet talked to several of the guards and inspected the ballroom once more. One guard accompanied him at all times, but it was not difficult to stop in the men’s room on the way out. He left the mask and gun and gloves where they were, but the crystal crown went out on his head, resting lightly beneath the soft felt of his hat.
At five minutes to noon, Nick Velvet stood on the dock watching the ferry from Corfu drift slowly but accurately into its slip. He still felt the weight of the crown beneath his hat, but now the tension was gone. In a few more minutes the thing would be delivered and he would be out of New Ionia for good. He’d decided that princes and masked balls and fairy tales were not for him.
“Stop him!” somebody shouted. He turned and saw two army trucks pulling up at the end of the dock. Soldiers, and police—and Vera Smith-Blue was with them!
Nick Velvet watched the ferry drawing closer. Ten feet, nine, eight. He could wait only a second longer. Gripping the crown and his hat, he ran a few paces and launched himself at the narrowing gap. He made the ramp of the ferry boat with a foot to spare, and kept going. People stared and someone shouted, but he didn’t look back.
“Velvet!” It was Vonderberg, waiting in the shadow of a stairway.
“All right,” Nick told him. “Here it is.”
“And you’ve brought the entire New Ionian army with you!”
“You said we’d be safe on the boat,” Nick Velvet said.
The girl and the police had paused at the ramp, and there was much conversation taking place. Finally the ferry’s captain waved his arms in despair, and the pursuers came aboard.
“That one,” Vera said, pointing. “His name is Nick Velvet. And the one with the monocle is Vonderberg.”
“You are on Greek territory,” Vonderberg said, holding the crown Nick had given him.
“We have Greek officials with us,” Vera Smith-Blue said firmly. “This is no longer a New Ionian matter. Our king was assassinated in an Athens hospital this morning. Two Communist agents have been arrested.”
It was then that Vonderberg moved, when he realized that the ferry was no haven for him after all. He put down the crown and stepped back, revealing a gun as if by magic.
“Stay there, all of you!” he shouted.
“You can’t kill us all,” a uniformed guard said, moving closer.
“No, but Miss Smith-Blue will get my first bullet.”
There were a number of things Nick Velvet could have done. He considered three of them in the instant before he acted.
Then he scooped up the crystal crown and hurled it at Vonderberg’s face.
The monocled man fired as the crown shattered against him, but his shot was wild. Two officers brought their guns up before he could aim again, and Vonderberg toppled backward as the bullets staggered him like unseen fists.
“That one too!” an officer shouted, pointing his gun at Nick Velvet.
Velvet smiled and put up his hands. “Miss Smith-Blue, I just saved your life. Won’t you return the favor?”
She walked up to him, waving away the guns. Someone had gone to tend to Vonderberg, but his blood was spreading too fast over the ferry’s deck.
“Yes,” she answered, “I’ll save your life—so you can rot in a New Ionian jail for the next twenty years.”
“I don’t think so.” He dropped his voice so only she could hear. “You’re going to get me out of this, lady, or I’ll tell them all it was you who paid to have the crown stolen. And you must know very well I can prove it, too.”
Vera Smith-Blue’s face had gone white with his words, and that was all the assurance he needed that his guess was correct. He led her a bit away from the watching men, and offered her a cigarette.
“Did Vonderberg tell you?” she asked.
“I could say that he did, but it was really most a guess. You knew where to find me this morning, and you knew I was the thief. You also knew Vonderberg’s name. That got me to thinking just now. I remembered thinking the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and I was right. You tho
ught it would be a great idea, didn’t you? The theft of a crystal crown during a masked ball at the New Ionian summer palace. It would have made every paper in the world, and would have brought tourists flocking, just to see what this place was all about.”
“It still will bring them flocking,” she said.
“I suppose it will. I thought you were awfully cooperative about showing me the palace, and getting me an invitation. Of course that’s why Vonderberg told me to contact you, so you could help ease the way for me. Was the prince in on it, too?”
“Of course not! It was all my idea. I own property here. The island means something to me.”
“But you made the mistake of hiring a Communist named Vonderberg to arrange matters. He had other ideas. New Ionia would make a nice Red base off Greece, and if King Felix were assassinated when the crown was stolen, a real pretender to the throne could appear after all.”
“I never thought he’d do a thing like that. I had no idea he was in with the Reds! But when I heard of the assassination this morning, I realized what a fool I’d been, playing into their hands.”
She met his eyes. “I thought you were one, too.”
“No,” he answered. “Only a simple thief.”
“What do you want, to keep silent?”
“My freedom. And the money Vonderberg promised me. I imagine it’s in his pocket.”
“And if I say no? Would anyone believe you now that Vonderberg’s dead?”
“I think so. You showed no emotion just now when the crown was smashed. You say that Prince Baudlay knew nothing of the plot, but I’ll bet if someone examined that glass they’d find it of recent make. You wouldn’t take a chance on the real crown being damaged in the robbery. You’d have arranged for the substitution of a false one. So somebody in the palace knew about it.”
“You guess very well, Nick Velvet.”
“It helps me stay alive. I’m no detective, only a good guesser when I have to be.”
She turned away, sighed, and then turned back.
“Take this ferry back to Corfu,” she told him finally. “I’ll see that you aren’t bothered.”
“And the money?”
“You devil.”
“Exactly,” he said, and waited while she got the envelope from the dead man’s pocket.
“Come back some time. As a tourist.”
Nick Velvet smiled at her and turned away, looking off across the sea toward Corfu. “I don’t think I could afford the rates.”
The Theft of the Circus Poster
NICK VELVET HAD BEEN home for weeks, in a state of brooding inactivity, when the summons came. It was from a man in Brooklyn whom Nick had once helped, and his voice was raspingly familiar on the phone.
“It’s for a friend of mine in Miami,” the man told him. “If you can fly down there tonight he’ll meet you at the airport.”
Nick hesitated only a moment. “I’ll be there. What’s his name?”
“He’ll be using the name of Mason.”
“How will I recognize him?”
“He’ll recognize you.”
Nick went upstairs to the fancy yellow bedroom and began to pack. After a while Gloria came in with two cans of beer. “You’re not going away again, Nicky?”
“I have to look over some new plant sites in Florida. Should be back by the end of the week.”
She leaned against the door frame, her long hair tumbling over the softness of her face. “I was hoping we could go sailing now that the weather’s warm.”
“We’ll go as soon as I get back,” he promised. “I won’t be long, really. I have to make some money for us, don’t I?”
“Sure, Nicky. Send me a postcard, will you? Something pretty, with an orange grove on it.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips and went downstairs with his suitcase.
The flight down the Atlantic coast was smooth and uneventful, and the skyline of Miami was much as he remembered it from his last visit during the 1972 political conventions. That time he’d stolen something for the staff of an unsuccessful presidential candidate, and he liked to think his action may have altered the course of the convention.
This trip started out in a much more prosaic manner. He was met at the airport by a beefy-cheeked man in a rumpled summer suit who ushered him into a waiting car. “Mr. Mason is sorry he couldn’t meet you in person,” the man said.
“Are we going to his home?”
“A hotel room. He conducts all his business in hotel rooms.”
“I see.”
The man, who said his name was Jimmy, spoke little until they reached their destination, a third-rate hotel north of the city and near the Hialeah racetrack. “Room 26,” Jimmy said. “I’ll wait out here for you.”
Nick found the door to Room 26 slightly ajar and pushed it open. He was utterly unprepared for the sight that greeted him—a man in garish clown’s makeup and wearing an old tuxedo sat in a chair facing the door.
“You’re Nick Velvet? Come in, come in!” The voice was obviously disguised.
“Mr. Mason?” Nick asked, stepping forward uncertainly. He could see nothing of the man’s face beneath the heavy layers of makeup. The skin was dead-white, with big red lips, red spots on each cheek, and a red rubber ball for a nose.
“Mason is the name I use. You’ll forgive the clown makeup, but I find it necessary at times to conceal my appearance and identity. I was told by a friend in Brooklyn that you’re an expert thief who specializes in the unusual.”
“I steal anything without value—never money or jewels. My fee is $20,000—in cash.” Nick’s eyes roamed the hotel room, searching for some clue to the man’s identity. All he saw was a briefcase pushed half under the bed. He thought the initials on it were JKS.
“Could you steal a circus poster?” the clown asked.
“Certainly.”
“It’s part of a collection owned by a retired old clown named Herbie Benson. He lives near Miami. I’ll give you the address.”
“Why is it worth so much to you? Is the poster a collector’s item?”
“Be curious on someone else’s time, Velvet.” The harsh words seemed, somehow incongruous with the grinning clown’s face. “Here’s a down payment, along with Herbie Benson’s address and a description of the poster I want. How long will it take you?”
“Seems fairly simple,” Nick replied. “This is Monday. Let’s say Thursday night, or sooner. I’ll come here with the poster.”
“Fine.”
Nick shook the man’s gloved hand and left the room. Jimmy, the driver, was lounging by his car, and Nick gave him the address of a moderately priced hotel on Biscayne Bay. Heading downtown, he opened the envelope and counted ten hundred-dollar bills inside. Then he put Benson’s address in his wallet and read over the description of the circus poster he’d been hired to steal:
Great National Circus Poster of the 1916 season, with five acrobats at top, rhinoceros and clowns at bottom.
Nick put it back in the envelope with the money. At the hotel entrance he thanked Jimmy for the ride and checked into a room overlooking the bay. There were hotel postcards in the drawer, and he mailed one to Gloria.
The town of Snake Creek was north of Miami, along a canal that ran inland from North Miami Beach to the edge of the Everglades. It was a rural area, barely touched by the spreading suburbs of the city proper, and as Nick drove his rented car down the main street he might have been in any part of the South, far removed from the luxury hotels of Miami Beach.
Herbie Benson seemed much like the other retired residents of Snake Creek, and at first glance there seemed nothing about his sagging face and dull eyes to suggest a former circus clown. He lived in a small white house with peeling paint and steps worn to the bare wood by the passage of feet. He was a little man, aging like his house, and his weak eyes focused on Nick with difficulty.
“Do I know you?” he asked, standing at the front door behind the protection of the screen, a few strands of thin white hair drifti
ng over his forehead.
“My name is Nicholas. I understand you were once a circus clown.”
The old eyes sparkled for an instant behind their thick glasses. “That was long ago. Nobody’s interested in old clowns any more.”
“I’m interested,” Nick said. “May I come in?”
“You’re not going to rob me, are you? Person can’t be too careful these days.”
Nick chuckled. “Do I look like a thief?”
The man studied him. “No, I guess not.” He unlatched the screen door. “Come on in.”
The little house was surprisingly cool after the warmth of the street. Furnished in a worn drabness that seemed to reflect the years of Herbie Benson’s life, it was still a place for pleasant relaxing.
Nick suddenly realized they were not alone in the house. There was a noise from the kitchen and a young tawny-haired woman appeared carrying a glass of fruit juice. “This is my granddaughter, Judy,” the old man said, wiping his old-fashioned spectacles with a soiled handkerchief.
Nick nodded and introduced himself. “Nicholas is my name. I have an interest in circus lore, mainly as a hobby. I couldn’t pass through town without stopping to see Mr. Benson.”
“He lives here alone,” she answered bluntly. “He shouldn’t be opening his door to strangers.” He guessed her age at about 23, and she wore the cool unsmiling expression one saw on so many other young faces these days.
“Now, Judy,” the old man started to protest.
“It’s true, Grandpa! What do you know about this man? If I weren’t here he could hit you over the head and steal everything in sight!”
“He looks honest, Judy.”
“I can assure you—” Nick began, but she waved him into silence. Her long tawny hair swirled as she turned and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind her,” Herbie Benson said. “She just grows tired of all the circus talk sometimes.”
Nick sat down, feeling more welcome. “This is a nice little town you have.”
Thefts of Nick Velvet Page 14
