34

… innocence and guilt … in effect changed places.

Billy Budd

It took Homer three days to get through to Jarvis Partridge of Chalmers and Partridge. Mr. Partridge was upright and discreet. He refused to discuss the business matters of any client of his with another party. Was Mr. Kelly a shareholder in the Boatwright Trust? No? Well, then it would be highly improper for Mr. Partridge to reveal the private business matters of the trust to an outsider. Homer hung up in a rage, resolved to go after Dankbinkel in earnest. After all, he told himself, Dankbinkel had an office there in Zurich with a telephone in it. And here he was, Homer Kelly, sitting in a chair in a house in Nantucket with a telephone in his hand. They were both human beings, after all, born of woman, fellow mortal souls. He would try presenting the matter to Hermann Dankbinkel himself, as man to man.

Alas, it was already night in Switzerland. Early the next morning, he placed his call. He spoke to Dankbinkel’s assistant in the Zurich office of the Schweizerische Kredit Anstalt. Joyfully Homer offered up to her his high school German.

(Here follows an English translation of the transatlantic conversation between Homer Kelly of Nantucket and Frau Magdalena Kranzli of Zurich.)

“Good afternoon, dear madam! Or perhaps miss? How goes it? I am Mr. Homer Kelly, of the United States. May I spoke with Mr. Dankbinkel?”

“I am sorry, but Mr. Dankbinkel is not here. Can I help you?”

“I love, please, to know the names of the peoples who have the parts in the Boatwright Trust, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in the United States.”

“Parts? Parts? Oh, I see. You mean shares. You want to know the names of the shareholders. Is that right?”

“Oh, yes, yes, miss or madam, I want this names. Mr. Dankbinkel, he is a trustee.”

“But, Mr. Kelly, I cannot give you information on the telephone. I am sorry. I must ask Mr. Dankbinkel first.”

“Where is Mr. Dankbinkel? When comes he at home?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Dankbinkel will call you when he comes in. Good day.”

“No, no! Halt, please, miss! It is a matter of live or die! I must have this names! Now! These minutes!”

“No, no, I cannot.”

“What is it with you, miss? Don’t you have a head on top of your neck? Don’t you stand on your own two foot?”

“How dare you speak to me like that? You are rude and insulting!”

“Oh, no, no, my good loveliness young lady! How beautiful you are! I love you! I blossom you a kiss! Only give me please the name of the shareholders of the Boatwright Trust! Now, most beautifuls young lady! These minutes!”

“I will not speak with you any longer. Good day!”

“Halt! No, no!”

The phone went dead. Homer stared at the receiver, his chest heaving, shouted “Schweinhund! Dummkopf!” into it, and kicked the telephone table across the room. Then he picked up the phone, which had lost a few chips here and there, and called his friend Jerry on the mainland.

“Well, you might try Interpol,” suggested Jerry. “Aren’t you an old friend of the district attorney of Middlesex County? Maybe he knows somebody over there who knows somebody.”

It was true that the district attorney was an old friend and colleague of Homer Kelly’s. A man of modest talents, he had once been Homer’s superior in the East Cambridge Courthouse, and Homer had worked long and loyally for him. Now Homer called up his old friend and told him about his problem with Dankbinkel.

“Well, I might be able to work something out,” said the D.A. “You know, Homer, I think the Swiss police chief who buddied with me in Paris at the convention last fall was from Zurich. Or maybe it was Geneva. He showed me around gay Paree while everybody else was taking a tour of the French countryside. Saved my life. You know how I feel about the country. I’ll see what I can do. You’ve really got something on this Donkbingle? I mean, no kidding, this is something really rotten? Okay, I’ll just get in touch with the Polizeikommissar in Zurich and ask him to serve a paper on Donkbingle. He’ll do it. That is, if he’s the one I remember. The Geneva fella wouldn’t do you any good, right? Well, I’m pretty sure this chap was from Zurich.”

(Here follows an English translation of the transatlantic conversation between Homer Kelly of Nantucket and Herr Hermann Dankbinkel of Zurich.)

“Hello?”

“Mr. Dankbinkel?”

“This is Hermann Dankbinkel. Is this Inspector Kelly?”

“Mr. Dankbinkel! Mr. Dankbinkel! Thank God! Good morning, Mr. Dankbinkel!”

“Good morning. Police Commissioner Haessler has requested me to tell you something about the Boatwright Trust, Inspector.”

“Yes, yes, that is truly, yes, indeed!”

“Good. I have here the names of the shareholders. Do you have a pencil?”

“Yes, yes! I have the pen of my aunt!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, no, never mind. I have a pencil!”

“Good. Hmm. There is only one shareholder listed here. Her name is Green. Helen Boatwright Green.”

“Helen Green? She was the only shareholder? But she is dead! Helen Green is die dead!”

“Oh? When did she die? This document is only good for a year. I have another document. The Boatwright Trust was to have been taken over by another trust.”

“Halt! I cannot understand you! Another document? What is this other document?”

“Mr. Kelly? Vy do vee not spake in English?”

“Ja, ja—I mean, yes, indeed, by all means. Go to it. Go right ahead. I’m all ears.”

“I haff not zuh English perfected. I spake vrongly, no doubet.”

“No, no, beautifully! You speak beautifully, Herr Dankbinkel! But please tell me about that other document! The Boatwright Trust was to last for one year only? And then it was to be superseded by another trust?”

“Yes. Zuh uzzer trust vas to haff taken over zuh assets of zuh Boatwright Trust on a certain date. I haff a letter of intent to zat effect. It vas to be a landed property trust—how do you call it?—a real estate trust. I vass no longer to be zuh trustee. I vas to be replaced by a Mr. James Harmon. Zuh trust is named for him. Zuh Harmony Real Estate Trust.”

“You mean, James Harmon of Harmony Hotels? Aaahhh.” Understanding flooded in upon Homer. Helen Green had indeed been duped, she had been gulled, she had been swindled. It was just as he had thought. The slender hand of Wilhelmina Magee had slipped in her little card. Somehow or other Mrs. Magee had jumped into the action through a loophole, or a defect in the wording, or through some even more sinister opportunity, some threat of reprisal, perhaps even murder. She had inserted herself between the beneficence and generosity of Helen Green’s intent and its object, she had perverted it to her own ends. “This is not merely a substitution of one free gift for another, is it, Herr Dankbinkel? It is not a gift to Mr. Harmon? Surely there is money involved, a sum of money?”

“Oh, yes, of course, a great deal of money. Fife and a half million dollars, Mr. Kelly, vas to be paid by zuh Harmon Corporation to zuh vooman who signed zuh letter of intent, on completion of zuh exchange of assets from zuh one trust to zuh uzzer. But zuh exchange never took place.”

The woman. Wilhelmina Magee! “Who signed it, Herr Dankbinkel? Can you tell me if the name Wilhelmina Magee is on that letter of intent?”

“Vilhelmina who?”

“Magee, Wilhelmina Magee. M-a-g-e-e.”

“Vilhelmina Magee.” There was a pause. “No, zere is no such name here anyvere,” said Herr Dankbinkel.

“Well, then, who signed the letter?”

“Vy, of course it vas zuh shareholder, Helen Green. She vas zuh only vun who could sign it.”

“Helen Green?”

“Inspector Kelly? Are you still zere?”

“Yes, yes, I’m still here.”

“Tell me, did zhu reeng bevore?”

“Before? Yes, of course. I’ve been calling since yesterday.”

“No, no, I mean a vile ago. Lahst spreeng? Lahst veenter? You spoke to my assistant, Frau Kranzli?”

“No, not I. Did someone call last winter?”

“Ja. You see, Frau Kranzli did not know she was supposed to be—how you say it auf englisch?—umsichtig. Discreet! She was—how you say it?—eingeschüchtert, frightened, by being called oop on zuh transatlantic telephone. It vas likevise a call from Nantucket. And she vas answering hiss qvestions ven I came into zuh room, and zen of course I cut him off short and hung oop qvickly, and reproved my assistant. She cried tears down her face. I don’t remember zuh man’s name. Frau Kranzli, erinnern Sie sich auf den Namen des Mannes der letzten Februar telephoniert hat? Nein? No, Inspector Kelly, she does not remember eezer.”

“It was a man who called? From Nantucket?”

“Yes. He belonged to some Conwerzational Committee, for making conwerzation.”

“Conwerzation?” Homer rolled his eyes to the ceiling and tried to think of something else to say to Herr Dankbinkel, whose voice was beginning to crackle and snap, to wane and wax and wane. The connection was failing. “What did they conwerse about?” he said idiotically. “The Dialogues of Plato? Truth? Goodness? Beauty?”

“Vot? Vot?” The telephone squealed and buzzed. Herr Dankbinkel’s voice was growing fainter and fainter. “Conwerse about? Conwerse about? Vy, zuh trees, of course, zuh green trees and zuh flowers, zuh booshes, zuh green grass …”

And then Herr Dankbinkel’s voice faded away altogether, and as it faded it seemed to Homer that Herr Dankbinkel was drifting back into his childhood. A miniature Herr Dankbinkel in a tiny sailor suit was skipping through a childlike little park in a little toy city in Switzerland, with giant plastic flowers blossoming under trees as round as green balloons. Then Homer understood. He dropped the receiver and threw up his hands and shouted at Herr Dankbinkel across the entire expanse of the Atlantic Ocean and all of southern France and up and up into the foothills of the Alps. “Conserwation, Herr Dankbinkel! You got the ess and the wee in the wrong places! You meant a Conserwation Committee, Herr Dankbinkel! God bless you!”