NICK VELVET SAT STIFFLY on the straight-backed hospital chair, facing the man in the bed opposite him. He had to admit that Roger Surman looked sick, with sunken cheeks and eyes, and a sallow complexion that gave him the appearance of a beached and blotchy whale. He was a huge man who had trouble getting around even in the best of condition. Now, laid low with a serious liver complaint, Nick wondered if he’d ever be able to leave the bed.
“They’re going to cut through this blubber in the morning,” he told Nick. “I’ve got a bet with the doctor that they don’t have a scalpel long enough to even reach my liver.” He chuckled to himself and then seemed about to drift into sleep.
“You wanted to see me,” Nick said hastily, trying to focus the sick man’s attention.
“That’s right. Wanted to see you. Always told you if I needed a job done I’d call on you.” He tried to lift his head. “Is the nurse around?”
“No. We’re alone.”
“Good. Now, you charge twenty thousand—that right?”
Nick nodded. “But only for unusual thefts. No money, jewels, art treasures—nothing like that.”
“Believe me, this is nothing like that. I’d guess it’s one of the most unusual jobs you’ve ever had.”
“What do you want stolen?” Nick asked as the man’s head bobbed again.
“First let me tell you where it is. You know my brother Vincent?”
“The importer? I’ve heard of him.”
“It’s at his country home. The place is closed now for the winter, so you won’t have any trouble with guards or guests. There are a few window alarms, but nothing fancy.”
“You want, me to steal something from your brother?”
“Exactly. You’ll find it in a storeroom around the back of the house. It adjoins the kitchen, but has its own outside door. Steal what you find in the storeroom and I’ll pay you twenty thousand.”
“Seems simple enough,” Nick said. “Just what will I find there?”
The sick eyes seemed to twinkle for an instant. “Something only you could steal for me, Velvet. I was out there myself a few days ago, but the burglar alarms were too much for me. With all this fat to cart around, and feeling as bad as I did, I couldn’t get in. I knew I had to hire a professional, so I thought of you at once. What I want you to steal is—”
The nurse bustled in and interrupted him. “Now, now, Mr. Surman, we mustn’t tire ourselves! The operation is at seven in the morning.” She turned to Nick. “You must go now.”
“Velvet,” Roger Surman called. “Wait. Here’s a picture of the rear of the house. It’s this doorway, at the end of the driveway. Look it over and then I’ll tell you—”
Nick slipped the photo into his pocket. The nurse was firmly urging him out and there was no chance for further conversation without being overheard. Nick sighed and left the room. The assignment sounded easy enough, although he didn’t yet know what he’d been hired to steal.
In the morning Nick drove out to the country home of Vincent Surman. It was a gloomy November day—more a day for a funeral than an operation—and he wondered how Surman was progressing in surgery. Nick had known him off and on for ten years, mainly through the yacht club where Nick and Gloria often sailed in the summer months. Surman was wealthy, fat, and lonely. His wife had long ago divorced him and gone off to the West Indies with a slim handsome Jamaican, leaving Surman with little in life except his trucking business and his passion for food and drink.
Surman’s brother, Vincent, was the glamorous member of the family, maintaining a twelve-room city house in addition to the country home. His wife Simone was the answer to every bachelor’s dream, and his importing business provided enough income to keep her constantly one of New York’s best-dressed women. In every way Vincent was the celebrity success, while Roger was the plodding fat boy grown old and lonely. Still, Roger’s trucking business could not be dismissed lightly—not when his blue-and-white trucks could be seen on nearly every expressway.
Nick parked just off the highway and walked up the long curving driveway to Vincent Surman’s country home. The place seemed closed and deserted, as Roger had said, but when Nick neared it he could see the wired windows and doors. The alarm system appeared to be functioning, though it wouldn’t stop him for long.
Following Roger’s directions and referring to the marked photograph, he walked along the driveway to where it ended at the rear of the house. There, next to the kitchen door, was the storeroom door that Surman had indicated. Both the door and the single window were locked, but at the moment Nick was mainly anxious to see what the room contained—what he’d been hired to steal for $20,000.
He looked in the window and saw a room about 20 feet long and 14 feet wide, with an inside door leading to the kitchen.
The room, with its painted red walls and white ceiling and wooden floor, was empty. Completely empty.
There was nothing in it for Nick Velvet to steal.
Nick drove to a pay telephone a mile down the road and phoned the hospital. They could tell him only that Roger Surman was in the recovery room following his operation and certainly could not talk to anyone or receive visitors for the rest of the day.
Nick sighed and hung up. He stood for a moment biting his lower lip, then walked back to the car. For the present there was no talking to Surman for a clue to the puzzle. Nick would have to work it out himself.
He drove back to the country home and parked. As he saw it, there were only two possibilities: either the object to be stolen had been removed since Roger saw it a few days earlier, or it was still there. If it had been removed, Nick must locate it. If it was still in the room, there was only one place it could be—on the same wall as the single window and therefore out of his line of vision from the outside.
Working carefully, Nick managed to bypass the alarm system and open the storeroom door. He stood just inside, letting his eyes glide across every inch of the room’s walls and floor and ceiling. The wall with the window was as blank as the others. There were not even any nail holes to indicate that a picture might have once hung there.
And as Nick’s eyes traveled across the room he realized something else: nothing, and no one, had been in this room for at least several weeks—a layer of dust covered the floor from wall to wall, and the dust was undisturbed. Not a mark, not a footprint. Nothing.
And yet Surman had told Nick he was there only a few days ago, trying to enter the room and steal something he knew to be in it—something he obviously was able to see through the window.
But what was it?
“Please raise your hands,” a voice said suddenly from behind him. “I have a gun.”
Nick turned slowly in the doorway, raising his hands above his head. He faced a short dark-haired girl in riding costume and boots, who held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at his stomach. He cursed himself for not having heard her approach. “Put that thing away,” he said harshly, indignation in his voice. “I’m no thief.”
But the shotgun stayed where it was. “You could have fooled me,” she drawled, her voice reflecting a mixture of southern and eastern origins. “Suppose you identify yourself.”
“I’m a real-estate salesman. Nicholas Realty—here’s my card.”
“Careful with the hands!”
“But I told you—I’m not a thief.”
She sighed and lowered the shotgun. “All right, but no tricks.”
He handed her one of the business cards he carried for just such emergencies. “Are you the owner of this property, Miss?”
She tucked the card into the waistband of her riding pants. “It’s Mrs., and my husband is the owner. I’m Simone Surman.”
He allowed himself to relax a bit as she stowed the shotgun in the crook of her arm, pointed away from him. “Of course! I should have recognized you from the pictures in the paper. You’re always on the best-dressed list.”
“We’re talking about you, Mr. Nicholas, not me. I find you here by an open door that should be locked, and you tell me you’re a realtor. Do they always carry lock picks these days?”
He chuckled, turning on his best salesman’s charms. “Hardly, Mrs. Surman. A client expressed interest in your place, so I drove out to look it over. I found the door open, just like this, but you can see I only took a step inside.”
“That’s still trespassing.”
“Then I apologize. If I’d known you were in the neighborhood I certainly would have contacted you first. My understanding was that the house had been closed down for the winter.”
“That’s correct. I was riding by, on my way to the stables, and saw your car on the highway. I decided to investigate.”
“You always carry a shotgun?”
“It was in the car—part of my husband’s hunting equipment.”
“You handle it well.”
“I can use it.” She gestured toward the house. “As long as you’re here, would you like to see the inside?”
“Very much. I gather this room is for storage?”
She glanced in at the empty room. “Yes. It hasn’t been used in some time. I wonder why the door was open and unlocked.” She looked at the alarm wires, but didn’t seem to realize they’d been tampered with. “Come around to the front.”
The house was indeed something to see, fully furnished and in a Colonial style that included a huge brick oven in the kitchen. Nick took it all in, making appropriate real-estate comments, and they finally ended up back at the door to the storeroom.
“What used to be in here?” Nick asked. “Odd that it’s empty when the rest of the house is so completely furnished.”
“Oh, wood for the kitchen stove, supplies, things like that. I told you it hadn’t been used in some time.”
Nick nodded and made a note on his pad. “Am I to understand that the house would be for sale, if the price was right?”
“I’m sure Vincent wouldn’t consider anything under a hundred thousand. There’s a great deal of land that goes with the house.”
They talked some more, and Simone Surman walked Nick back to his car. He promised to call her husband with an offer in a few days. As he drove away he could see her watching him. He had no doubt that she believed his story, but he also knew she’d have the alarm repaired by the following day.
The news at the hospital was not good. Roger Surman had suffered post-operative complications, and it might be days before he was allowed visitors. Nick left the place in a state of mild depression, with visions of his fee blowing away like an autumn leaf.
He had never before been confronted with just such a problem. Hired to steal something unnamed from a room that proved to be completely empty, he had no way of getting back to his client for further information. If he waited till Roger was out of danger and able to talk again, he would probably jeopardize the entire job, because Vincent Surman and his wife would grow increasingly suspicious when no real estate offer was forthcoming during the next few days.
Perhaps, Nick decided, he should visit Roger Surman’s home. He might find some clue there as to what the fat man wanted him to steal. He drove out along the river for several miles, until he reached a small but obviously expensive ranch home where Roger had lived alone for the past several years.
Starting with the garage, he easily opened the lock with his tool kit. The car inside was a late-model limousine with only a few thousand miles on it. Nick looked it over and then went to work on the trunk compartment. There was always the possibility, however remote, that Roger had succeeded in his own theft attempt, but for some reason had not told Nick the truth. But the trunk yielded only a spare tire, a jack, a half-empty sack of fertilizer, and a can of red paint. The spotless interior of the car held a week-old copy of The New York Times, a little hand vacuum cleaner for the upholstery, and an electronic device whose button, when pressed, opened or closed the automatic garage door. Unless Nick was willing to believe that the fertilizer had been the object of the theft, there was nothing in the car to help him.
He tried the house next, entering through the inside garage door, and found a neat kitchen with a study beyond. It was obvious that Roger Surman employed a housekeeper to clean the place—no bachelor on his own would have kept it so spotless. He went quickly through the papers in the desk but found nothing of value. A financial report on Surman Travelers showed that it had been a bad year for the trucking company. There were a number of insured losses, and Nick wondered if Roger might be getting back some of his lost income through false claims.
He dug further, seeking some mention of Roger’s brother, some hint of what the empty room might have contained. There were a few letters, a dinner invitation from Simone Surman, and finally a recent bill from a private detective agency in New York City. After another hour of searching, Nick concluded that the private detective was his only lead.
He drove down to Manhattan early the next morning, parking in one of the ramps off Sixth Avenue. The Altamont Agency was not Nick’s idea of a typical private eye’s office, with its sleek girl secretaries, chrome-trimmed desks, and wide tinted windows overlooking Rockefeller Center. But Felix Altamont fitted the setting. He was a slick, smooth-talking little man who met Nick in a cork-lined conference room because a client was waiting in his office.
“You must realize I’m a busy man, Mr. Velvet. I can only give you a few moments. Is it about a case?”
“It is. I believe you did some work for Roger Surman.”
Altamont nodded his balding head.
“What sort of work was it?”
The detective leaned back in his chair. “You know I can’t discuss a client’s case, Mr. Velvet.”
Nick glanced around at the expensive trappings. “Could you at least tell me what sort of cases you take? Divorce work doesn’t pay for this kind of layout.”
“Quite correct. As a matter of fact, we do not accept divorce cases. The Altamont Agency deals exclusively in industrial crimes—embezzlement, hijacking, industrial espionage, that sort of thing.”
Nick nodded. “Then the investigation you conducted for Roger Surman was in one of those fields.”
Felix Altamont looked pained. “I’m not free to answer that, Mr. Velvet.”
Nick cleared his throat, ready for his final bluff. “It so happens that I’m in Roger Surman’s employ myself. He hired me to try and clamp a lid on his large insurance losses. The company’s threatening to cancel his policy.”
“Then you know about the hijackings. Why come to me with your questions?”
“Certainly I know about the hijacking of Surman trucks, but with my employer in the hospital I thought you could fill me in on the details.”
“Surman’s hospitalized?”
“He’s recovering from a liver operation. Now let’s stop sparring and get down to business. What was hijacked from his trucks?”
Altamont resisted a few moments longer, then sighed and answered the question. “Various things. A shipment of machine tools one month, a load of textiles the next. The most recent hijacking was a consignment of tobacco leaves three weeks ago.”
“In the south?”
“No, up here. Shade-grown tobacco from Connecticut. No crop in the nation brings as high a price per acre. Very valuable stuff for hijackers.”
Nick nodded. “Why did you drop the investigation?”
“Who said I dropped it?”
“If you’d been successful, Surman wouldn’t need me.”
The private detective was silent for a moment, then said, “I told you we don’t touch divorce cases.”
Nick frowned, then brightened immediately. “His sister-in-law, Simone.”
“Exactly. Roger Surman seems intent on pinning the hijackings on his brother, apparently for the sole purpose of causing a divorce. He’s a lonely man, Mr. Velvet. He’ll give you nothing but trouble.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Nick said. “Thanks for the information.”
When Nick arrived at the hospital late that afternoon he was intercepted by a brawny thick-haired man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Roger Surman.
“You’re Velvet, aren’t you?” the man challenged.
“Correct. And you must be Vincent Surman.”
“I am. You’re working for my brother.”
“News travels fast.”
“You were at my country house yesterday, snooping around. My wife caught you at it. This morning you were in New York, talking to that detective my brother hired.”
“So Altamont’s on your side now.”
“Everyone’s on my side if I pay them enough. I retain the Altamont Agency to do periodic security checks for my importing company. Naturally he phoned me after you left his office. His description of you matched the one Simone had already given me.”
“I hope it was flattering.”
“I’m not joking, Velvet. My brother is a sick man, mentally as well as physically. Anything you undertake in his behalf could well land you in jail.”
“That’s true,” Nick agreed with a smile.
“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”
“My work for him is just about finished. As soon as he’s well enough to have visitors I’ll be collecting my fee.”
“And just what was your work?”
“It’s a confidential matter.”
Vincent Surman tightened his lips, studying Nick. “Very well,” he said, and walked on to the door,
Nick watched him head for the hospital parking lot. Then he went up to the information desk and asked for the doctor in charge of Roger Surman’s case. The, doctor, a bustling young man whose white coat trailed behind him, appeared ten minutes later, and his news was encouraging.
“Mr. Surman had a good night. He’s past the worst of it now. I think you’ll be able to see him for a few minutes tomorrow.”
Nick left the hospital and went back to his car. It was working out just fine now—the money was as good as in the bank. He drove out the country road to Vincent Surman’s place, and this time he took the car into the driveway, around back, and out of sight from the road.
Working quickly and quietly, Nick bypassed the alarm and opened the storeroom door once more. This time he knew what he was after. On his way to the hospital he’d stopped to pick up the can of red paint from the trunk of Roger’s car. He had it with him now, as he stepped across the threshold into the empty room. He stood for a moment staring at the red walls, and then got to work.
It had occurred to him during the drive back from New York that there might be a connection between the can of red paint in Roger Surman’s trunk and the red walls of the empty room. Roger had driven the car to the country house a few days before his operation to attempt the robbery himself. If the paint on the walls had been Roger’s target—the paint itself—he could have replaced stolen paint with fresh red paint from the can.
Nick had stolen strange things in his time, and taking the paint from the walls of a room struck him as only a little unusual. The paint could cover any number of valuable things. He’d read once of a room that had been papered with hundred-dollar bills from a bank holdup, then carefully covered over with wallpaper. Perhaps something like that had been done here, and then a final layer of red paint applied.
He got to work carefully scraping the paint, anxious to see what was underneath; but almost at once he was disappointed. There was no wallpaper under the paint—nothing but plaster showed through.
He paused to consider, then turned to the paint can he’d brought along. Prying off the lid, he saw his mistake at once. The red in the can was much brighter than the red on the walls—it was an entirely different shade. He inspected the can more closely and saw that it was marine paint—obviously destined for Roger Surman’s boat. Its presence in Roger’s trunk had been merely an annoying coincidence.
Before Nick had time to curse his bad luck he heard a car on the driveway. He left the room, closing the door behind him, and had almost reached his own car when two men appeared around the corner of the house. The nearer of the two held a snub-nosed revolver pointed at Nick’s chest.
“Hold it right there, mister! You’re coming with us.”
Nick sighed and raised his hands. He could tell by their hard icy eyes that they couldn’t be talked out of it as easily as Simone Surman had been. “All right,” he said. “Where to?”
“Into our car. Vincent Surman has a few more questions for you.”
Prodded by the gun, Nick offered no resistance. He climbed into the back seat with one of the men beside him, but the car continued to sit there. Presently the second man returned from the house. “He’s on his way over. Says to keep him here.”
They waited another twenty minutes in silence, until at last Surman’s car turned into the driveway. Simone was with him, bundled in a fur coat against the chill of the autumn afternoon.
“The gun wasn’t necessary,” Nick said, climbing out of the car to greet them.
“I thought it might be,” Vincent Surman replied. “I had you tailed from the hospital. You’re a thief, Velvet. I’ve done some checking on you. Roger hired you to steal something from me, didn’t he?”
“Look around for yourself. Is anything missing?”
“Come along—we’ll look.”
With the two gunmen staying close, Nick had little choice. He followed Vincent and Simone around to the storeroom door. “This is where I found him the first time,” she told her husband, and sneezing suddenly, she pulled the fur coat more tightly around her.
“He was back here when we found him too,” the gunman confirmed.
Vincent unlocked the storeroom door.
The walls stared back at them blankly. Vincent Surman inspected the place where the paint had been scraped, but found nothing else. He stepped outside and walked around, his eyes scanning the back of the house. “What are you after, Velvet?”
“What is there to take? The room’s empty.”
“Perhaps he’s after something in the kitchen,” Simone suggested.
Vincent ignored her suggestion, reluctant to leave the rear of the house. Finally, after another pause, he said to Nick, “All right. We’ll look through the rest of the house.”
An hour later, after they’d convinced themselves that nothing was missing, and after the gunmen had thoroughly searched Nick and his car, Vincent was convinced that nothing had been taken. “What’s the paint for?” he asked Nick.
“My boat.”
The dark-haired importer sighed and turned away. “Roger is a madman. You must realize that. He’d like nothing better than to break up my marriage to Simone by accusing me of some crime. Altamont was hired to prove I was hijacking Roger’s trucks and selling the goods through my import business. He hoped Simone would quarrel with me about it and then leave me.”
Nick motioned toward the gunmen. “These two goons could pass for hijackers any day.” One man started for him, but Vincent barked an order. Simone’s eyes widened, as if she were seeing her husband’s employees for the first time.
“You don’t need to hold them back,” Nick said.
This time the nearer man sprang at him and Nick’s fist connected with his jaw. The second man had his gun out again, but before he could bring it up Simone grabbed his arm.
“Simone!” Vincent shouted. “Stay out of this!”
She turned on her husband, her eyes flashing. “I never knew you used hoods, Vincent! Maybe Roger knows what he’s talking about! Maybe you really are trying to ruin him by hijacking his trucks.”
“Shut up!”
Nick backed away, his eyes still on the two hoods. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said. “You two can fight it out.”
Nobody tried to stop him. As he swung his car around the others in the driveway he could see Vincent Surman still arguing with his wife.
The next morning Roger Surman was sitting, up in bed, just finishing a meager breakfast, when Nick entered the hospital room. He glanced at the paper bag Nick was carrying and then at his face. “I’m certainly glad to see you, Velvet. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you what I wanted stolen.”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Nick said with a grin. “After a couple of false starts I figured it out.”
“You mean you got it?”
“Yes, I’ve got it. I had a few run-ins with your brother and his wife along the way, but I got the job done last night.”
“How did you know? How could you know?”
“I talked to your detective, Altamont, and learned about the hijackings. Once I started thinking about it—the country place, the driveway leading to the storeroom—my reasoning must have followed yours quite closely. Vincent’s hired hijackers were bringing the loot there and leaving it in the storeroom for transfer to his own importing company trucks.”
The fat man moved uncomfortably under his blanket. “Exactly. I tried to tell Simone, but she demanded proof.”
“I think she’s got it now. And I think you have too. It wasn’t easy finding something to steal in an empty room—something that would be worth $20,000 to you. First, I considered the room itself, but you would have needed heavy equipment for that—and you told me you’d hoped to accomplish the theft yourself. That led me to your car, and I found the paint can in your trunk. Next, I almost stole the paint off the walls for you, until I ruled that out too. Finally, I remembered about the last shipment that was hijacked a few weeks ago. It consisted of bundles of valuable tobacco leaves, and certainly such a shipment would leave traces of its presence. Yesterday, out at the house, Simone walked into the storeroom and sneezed. Then I remembered something else I’d seen in your car.”
Roger Surman nodded. “The little hand vacuum cleaner. I was going to use it if I got past the alarms.”
Nick Velvet nodded and opened the paper bag he was still carrying. “I used it last night—to steal the dust from the floor of that empty room.”