CHAPTER TWENTY

DENMARK—July

With the glass between them closed, and with Wilten sitting rigidly in the driver’s seat, Ruth and Gregor were being driven south from Copenhagen along the coast highway. They had skirted the Køge Bugt and had passed the small corner of the Fakse Bugt that permitted a view of the sea below through stands of trees; now they were approaching Vordingbord. Ruth, studying Gregor’s profile across the width of the back seat, frowned slightly. She loved the profile. In fact, she loved the entire face with its strong planes framed by that tangle of dark hair. What she did not care for was the expression at the moment.

“Darling,” she said quietly, “I honestly do not understand you. We predict a boat was sunk somewhere between Warnemünde and Denmark, and we find a boat that was sunk on the day we said it was sunk, at the place we said it was sunk. And instead of being happy about it, you look as if you were being driven to a funeral.”

Gregor sighed. “My dear Ruth,” he said dryly, “I was born and raised in Leningrad, which is on the Gulf of Finland, which is an arm of the Baltic Sea. In school they drummed a lot of geography into our heads, and a lot of it dealt with the body of water we were connected to. For your information, the Baltic Sea is over a thousand miles long, has an average width of well over a hundred miles, and has an area of more than 160,000 square miles. It is twenty-five percent larger than all of Italy; it is five times the size of Ireland—”

“Very informative,” Ruth said. “So?”

“So the chances that one sunken boat in all that vast expanse is your boat, simply because you want it to be, strikes me as being—well, ridiculous.”

“So it’s ridiculous. What would you rather be doing today?” She saw the sudden gleam in his eye, the quirk of his lips, and laughed. “Besides that?” Her laughter faded. She became serious. “Gregor, why don’t you want this to be the boat? My boat, if you put it that way?”

Kovpak hesitated before answering. “Because,” he said at last, “I don’t believe there is a boat. And when this is proven to be just a boat that some smuggler was using to bring explosives, or gunpowder, into Denmark—or, what is far more likely, isn’t proven to be anything—then we’ll be at the end of the road.” He looked across the car somberly a moment, “Then what excuse will we have for—well, for not saying good-bye and going home?”

Ruth leaned over, touching his cheek tenderly, and then sat back again. “We promised not to discuss that,” she said quietly. “When it happens, it will happen. In the meantime, it’s pointless to think about it.”

Gregor shrugged. “If you feel that way about it.”

“I feel very much that way about it. I don’t see any other way to feel about it,” Ruth said, and looked out the window. They had passed Nykøbing and were nearing Gedser, with an arm of the sea visible to their right beyond the railroad tracks that paralleled the highway. The land here was flat, farms running down to the edge of the waters, fields separated by hedges rather than by trees, tiny docks at the end of each bit of land, and the farmhouses were small and gaunt, built of stone, with sharply sloping roofs. Ruth turned to Gregor. “This is more what I thought Warnemünde would be like, instead of those big cranes and warehouses and all that concrete.” She pointed. From the slight rise on which they found themselves a dock and sails could be seen in the distance. She nodded positively. “This is where we finish this business.”

Which, Gregor thought a bit sadly, is what I’m afraid of.

Ruth leaned forward, sliding the glass divider open. “Wilten—”

“Miss?”

“That dock. I want to stop there.”

“Yes, miss.”

The car pulled into the town proper, past the small shops and the narrow spired church, past the large ferry slip where the train ferry from Germany landed, and turned to take a small road running in the direction of the dock they had seen, past the slight rise where the lighthouse stood. The road ran along several farms and then curved toward the dock. Sailing boats were scattered about the small harbor, white chalk marks against the slate gray of the water, each trailing a dinghy or two like piglets suckling a sow. Men were visible on the dock, repairing nets or just smoking and talking. As they approached and Wilten began to slow down at the entrance to the pier, Ruth could see that while none of them appeared to have chin whiskers, and none was wearing a sou’wester, the scene was remarkably reminiscent of the Winslow Homer scene she had pictured in Warnemünde. Maybe it’s an omen, she thought hopefully, and turned to Gregor as Wilten brought the car to a halt and hurried around to open the door for her. “You stay here. I’ll do the talking.”

Gregor smiled faintly. “My pleasure.”

A thought came to Ruth as she got down. She looked at Wilten. “Do you suppose that any of them speak English?”

“Oh, yes, miss. Almost everyone in Denmark speaks English except possibly the very old folks. It’s taught in school, and school is compulsory, miss.”

“Good!” Ruth said, and marched off toward the nearest group.

The men looked up at sight of the beautiful lady, and then one by one they came to their feet, wiping their hands on their trousers, wondering at the unexpected visit. The oldest, who seemed to have been elected spokesman for any unforeseen events, stepped forward a bit, frowning uncertainly. Beautiful ladies seldom visited the Gedser dock. “Miss? Is there something—?”

Ruth took a deep breath and got right to the point, looking from man to man as she spoke. “There was a ship sunk very near here, off the Gedser light,” she said. “It was a long time ago, I realize. It was in 1945—May 1945. It was a small boat, probably a fishing boat. Do any of you recall anything like that?”

“1945?” The spokesman frowned and shook his head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, miss. That was a long time ago. I was in the Royal Navy at the time, stationed off Iceland.” He looked around. “I don’t believe any of us was around in 1945.”

Ruth looked at the others. One by one they shook their heads.

“I was working in factory,” one said. “In Herning. Defense industry—”

“I was army—”

“I was fishing, but off Sylt—”

“I was just a lad in 1945. Living in Korsør, going to school—”

Ruth sighed. “Let me ask you this. Would there be anyone around who might remember a ship sinking off the lighthouse in 1945? May 1945?”

The men looked at each other. The oldest shook his head slowly. “That was over thirty-five years ago, miss. Gedser wasn’t much of a place in those days; not much of a place now, to tell the truth. Not much reason for anyone to be here.”

“Then or now—” someone added bitterly.

The elderly man disregarded this. “How was she sunk, miss?”

“She exploded.”

“In May 1945? That was just after the war,” the man said thoughtfully. “Lots of ships sunk during the war between here and Germany. Lots of them exploded, too. We scuttled some ourselves, in the navy—” He studied her. “Why are you asking, miss? You a reporter for a newspaper?”

It was as good an excuse for asking questions as any. “A magazine,” she said with a smile, and went back to her questioning. “Does anyone remember anyone trawling around here, say in the past four or five months, and bringing up a crate, or a box, or a case of some sort?”

“From that sunk ship, miss?”

“We think so.”

The men looked at each other and then, seemingly with one accord, shook their heads. “Near the light, that would be? Nobody trawls there, miss. Lose their nets if they did. Bottom’s a jumble of rocks, sharp as knives.”

Ruth was running out of questions, getting a bit desperate. “Or diving, say, four or five months ago?”

“Four, five months ago?” The men grinned. “Nobody dives in water around here, miss. Oh, a little in summer, some of the younger fellows, but certainly not in winter. Water’s like ice.”

“Lots of times water is ice—”

“Man would be crazy—!”

“Except,” one man suddenly said, thinking about it, “that Knud Christensen. You took him out, didn’t you, Jens?”

Jens Krag nodded. He stepped forward, happy to be in the limelight, even though he considered the entire discussion to be foolish. “Man was diving for his brother’s body,” he said quietly. “Tried to talk him out of it, but couldn’t. His only two brothers went down in a storm off the light. Never found Niels or any sign to this day, but Gustave, the youngest, was tangled in ropes. Knud, he went down for Gustave’s body, not for any crate or box. Brought Gustave up, too.” He said it with a touch of pride for the man’s tenacity and endurance.

“Anyway, Knud Christensen ain’t a man. He’s a bear. A polar bear.”

“He’s a loony, diving in water that cold,” someone else said. “Lucky he came up himself.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t in 1945 that the Christensen boat went down,” Krag added, as if to put an end to the matter. “It was January this year, end of January.” His voice became philosophical. “Knud hasn’t been the same since his brothers died. Farm’s going to hell.”

“He should have married—”

“Who’d marry him? Sits like a log and just stares half the time. Drinks more than he should. More than he can afford, too. Going to lose the farm he doesn’t wake up—”

“Don’t think he cares. Anyway, going to starve first, one of these days—”

“This Knud Christensen,” Ruth said suddenly. “Where does he live? I’d like to talk to him—for my article.” Although, she added to herself with honesty, he doesn’t sound like the man who could possibly have brought up the treasure, not if he’s on the verge of starvation. Still, he might have seen something when he was bringing up his brother’s body—

Jens Krag pointed. “You must have passed it on your way here. It’s back the way you came, by the light. Name’s on the mailbox.”

“Only he don’t get no mail,” someone said, and sounded sad about it.

“Thank you. Thank you all.” Ruth gave them a brilliant smile that each man felt more than repaid him for the effort, and walked back to the car, climbing in. Gregor looked at her.

“Well?”

Ruth raised her shoulders. “None of them were here in 1945. They don’t think anyone in Gedser was, although they’re obviously wrong. We can follow up on that later, maybe at the church or at the police. They say that nobody would trawl off the light because of the sharp rocks there. The only person known to have dived in those waters in the last three or four months did it in January to bring up the body of his brother whose boat had gone down in a storm. He brought up the body, but no box.”

“So where do we go from here? Church or police? Or, better yet, why not go back to Copenhagen?”

“We go visit the man,” Ruth said evenly. ‘We’re here and he’s here, and maybe he saw something when he was diving. At least he was on the bottom of the sea near our boat. Or my boat, if you prefer. He lives back down the road we just came on, near the lighthouse. His name is Knud Christensen, and the name is on the mailbox …” She looked at Wilten, who had been listening. “Back down the road a bit, please, Wilten. I’ll tell you where to turn in.”

Knud Christensen often wondered why he had wasted a good portion of the money he had gotten from his distant cousin, Professor Nordberg, on anything as silly as a new anchor. He had never taken the boat out since the night he had brought the box up. The boat had lain in the water until the wood had started to swell and the caulking had begun to dry and shred and after it had slowly filled with water and sunk to the oarlocks to rest on the bottom. He had not even taken the trouble to bail it and haul it higher on land to dry. He hated the sea for what it had taken from him and knew he would never go out on it again.

Nor had the cross he had purchased with the remainder of the money been of long endurance. Some young fellows, driving a borrowed automobile through the cemetery one night while drunk, had torn the cross from the small base he had made for it and twisted it beyond repair. He had nailed together another cross from wood and replaced it above Gustave’s grave, but neither the cheap metal cross nor the wooden one satisfied him. He had even considered using the anchor as a memorial, setting it in cement at the head of the grave, but although other graves in the small cemetery demonstrated similar memoria for those whose lives had been taken by the sea, the thought was repugnant to Knud. It would have reminded him too strongly of the body as he had seen it dangling in the shrouds. It would also have reminded him of his foolishness in buying the anchor in the first place.

What Knud Christensen would have liked to do was to buy a real stone, a large one of rough granite with a large granite cross on top, and with a polished panel on the face of it that would allow space for the names of both brothers to be engraved upon it. Or, better yet, a monument large enough to go across the heads of all the Christensen graves lined up together in the cemetery, with the names of his father and mother there as well as Gustave’s, and Niels’s, and a space for his own name when the time came. There would be no need for further space. There would be no further Christensens—not of their family.

He thought about the monument constantly, taking time from chores that needed doing. In his imagination he would run his calloused hands over the coarse grain of the huge gravestone and feel with his worn fingertips the cool smoothness of the highly polished panel, and pick out, like a blind man, the sharp indentations where the names had been carved. But it was an idle dream, and he knew it. Stones cost money. The block of granite as wide and thick as he wanted, finished and engraved as he wanted, would probably cost more than he could ever hope to obtain in a lifetime of hard work. Still, the longer he dreamed of the stone, the more exact the details as he pictured them, the more the project became fixed in his mind, until he had reached the point where he knew he would not settle for less, even though less would have still meant the most massive monument in the cemetery. To sell the farm? Knud Christensen was honest enough to know that in the condition it was in, the farm would bring little, certainly not enough for the memorial he wanted. And what would he do then? Where would he go? He could never leave Gedser and the cemetery.

He looked up, frowning, at the sound of an automobile being driven into the entrance to the farm, braking in the gravel of the driveway. Visitors? He never had visitors. Someone wishing directions? Let them get them elsewhere. He came to his feet heavily and walked through the living room to the front door, opening it, and watched a woman and a man come down from a car and approach while another remained in the driver’s seat. His first reaction was to close the door in their faces. He had nothing to do with strangers. Let them go away and leave him in peace. But there was something about the friendly smile on the woman’s face that reminded him that once he had been a part of the world, had not always been the recluse he had become in the six months since he had lost his brothers. He suddenly realized the condition of the kitchen with the dirty pans and dishes piled high in the sink, and he hurried back to close the door to that room, and then looked about as if to see if he should straighten out the living room, but the living room appeared to be all right. He never used the living room to sit and think; it faced the sea.

The woman was peering into the gloom of the living room from her place at the open door. The man, a stocky, strong-looking man, with a pleasant face, stood at her shoulder protectively. Christensen cleared his throat; it was almost as though he wondered after his long self-imposed exile from people, if he still had the power of speech. But his voice came out low and hard, even slightly suspicious.

“You want something, ma’am?”

Ruth gave him her friendliest smile, a smile that Gregor would have wagered would make any man her slave, but Christensen merely waited impassively for an answer. Ruth looked past the bulky body to the room. “We should like to talk to you a bit. May we come in?”

“Talk about what? If you’re collecting for some charity, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s something important. And I think we’d all be more comfortable sitting down,” Ruth said, and moved forward in such a way that Christensen automatically took a step backward. The action appeared to be an invitation to enter although all three knew it was not. Ruth sat down on a sofa; Gregor sat beside her. Christensen walked to the windows and raised the drawn shades, letting sunlight pour in through the curtains. Dust rose in the air from the unattended furniture, dancing in the shafts of light. And why should I apologize for the dust or the dirt? Christensen thought angrily. I didn’t ask these people to come here! He sat down in a chair across from the two, his cold blue eyes moving from Ruth’s face to Gregor’s and then back again, resentful of the unwanted intrusion.

“All right,” he said abruptly. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Ruth nodded, again taking the role of spokesman, knowing it was certainly all right with Gregor who hadn’t even wanted to come. “My name is Ruth McVeigh and this is Dr. Kovpak. We want to talk to you about something that happened last January. You dove in the vicinity of the Gedser lighthouse, to recover the body of your brother who had gone down in a storm—”

Knud Christensen frowned. These two certainly didn’t want to talk about Gustave or his recovery of Gustave’s body. Why should they? Then what did they want to talk about? Obviously they wanted to talk about that case he had brought up at a later date. But how could they have known about that? He hadn’t said anything. Had the professor? Or had somebody in the village become suspicious because of the money he had spent? But he had been careful not to spend the money in Gedser, knowing villages and villagers for what they were. Instead, he had taken the train to Naestved and gotten the anchor in a chandler’s there, and the cross at a religious shop a block away. Still, thinking about it now, after the fact, he could see how stupid he had been. Who could have failed to notice the newness of the anchor now tied to the dinghy which had since sunk, and who could have failed to wonder where the old one had gotten to? And who could have failed to notice the twisted cross torn from Gustave’s grave by those drunken vandals? The entire village had gone down to inspect the outrage, and many must have wondered at Knud Christensen’s sudden affluence in buying that cross of gold. It had been gilt over welded steel, but who would have considered that?

Still, what was all the fuss about? So somebody knew or thought they knew that he had gone down again and brought up a box from an old sunken wreck near Gustave and Niels’s fishing schooner. So what? All this to-do over a few pieces of junk costume jewelry and a shoe box full of beads and buttons?

A sudden frightening thought came. It changed his thinking completely. Who sent investigators to look into his finding some poor pieces of pot metal mixed with brass? Who even sent investigators to look into his spending a few kroner on an anchor and a welded steel cross? There must have been something in that old sunken wreck besides the one box he had brought up, something of far greater value, something to interest the authorities, like drugs, or gold bars! And they thought he had it! He knew it would be impossible to convince these two that he had only gone back the one time, and never again, not even in warm spring weather, to further investigate that sunken wreck. He knew he could never convince them that even if he had known there was something of great value there, that he would never go back, not even for the price of a granite tombstone for his family; that he could not go back. They would never believe him. The only thing to do, then, was to deny everything. Deny and continue denying. He wet his lips.

“I dove to bring up my brother’s body,” he said through stiff lips, his face now rigid, his hands now released from the chair arms as being too revealing with their white clenched knuckles, and now clasped firmly in his lap. He stared down at them. “That’s all I dove for and all I brought up. Not another thing.” His eyes came up for a moment. “Jens Krag was with me. It was his boat. He would have seen if I’d brought up anything more, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. Go ask him. He’ll tell you. Jens Krag doesn’t lie. If he isn’t at the dock he’ll be there later. Go ask him—”

Knud Christensen was speaking as if by compulsion now, sweat beginning to stand out on his brow. Ruth and Gregor were staring, incredulous and silent.

“And I can explain the new anchor, too,” Christensen said, speaking now as if to himself. He looked up, taking the other two into his confidence. “The cross was just welded steel with some gold paint on it, but I didn’t have much money after I bought the anchor. He didn’t give me very much, but then I don’t suppose it was worth very much.” He looked down again. “I don’t know why I bought the anchor. I never used it, and I never will. The dinghy, either. If you don’t believe me, look down at the dock. It’s sunk right alongside.” His eyes briefly turned to the windows facing the sea, and then down again quickly, in pain. “I could have gone back for the old one, but even if the dinghy wouldn’t have drifted without an anchor, I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t!” He said it fiercely and then returned to his thoughts. “I dove for Gustave’s body—he was hanging in the shrouds, as if he had been waiting for me to come for him and was glad to see me …” He looked up, desperately trying to be convincing. If he failed, he knew they would not believe him and might even take him away, away from his family. “But I never dove again. I never brought up any box.” He stared at the two white-faced people facing him, confused, hurt by the unfair inquisition. “I—I’ll swear to it if I have to—”

He suddenly stumbled to his feet and walked unsteadily to the kitchen door, throwing it open and staggering inside. The two in the living room could hear the sound of a cupboard door being opened, then the rattle of a bottle and a glass being taken down. Ruth began to get to her feet, but Gregor waved her down almost savagely. He got up silently and walked into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Christensen had a bottle of aquavit in one hand, the half-full glass was at his lips and he was drinking eagerly. Gregor waited until the glass had been emptied and then took the bottle and glass gently from the other man. He set them down on the cluttered counter and led the man back to the living room. Christensen came docilely. Gregor seated the man in his chair again and sat down opposite him on the sofa. Ruth was still trying to fully comprehend the possibilities inherent in the jumbled statement. She leaned forward.

“Do you mean—?” she began, but Gregor’s look brought her to a stumbling silence. Gregor turned back to the huge man across from him, staring at Christensen with sympathy.

“Listen to me,” he said softly. “We are not here to cause you any trouble. Please believe me. We are here as your friends.” Christensen was staring at him dully, with faint curiosity as if wondering who this man was and how he came here. Gregor went on, his voice still soft. “This is what happened. You dove for your brother’s body and brought it up. While you were diving, you saw another sunken ship, or what was left of it, a ship that had been sunk many years ago. You saw a box there, that had been there since the boat sank. You brought that up as well.”

“I went back later and dove again. That’s when I brought the box up.” The liquor was making itself felt. Between the aquavit and the man’s friendly face, Knud was feeling better, less threatened. Besides, the man already seemed to know everything, so what was the secret?

“You went back later and dove again, and on that dive you brought the box up,” Gregor said, hardly believing what he was saying, or what he was hearing. Still, the wrecked ship could have been any wrecked ship, and the box could have contained anything: explosives, gunpowder …“It was a case made of welded steel inside of a wooden box, the whole thing held with steel straps, and it had lettering on it that said—”

“There was no lettering. When I brought Gustave up the wood was almost all gone; it was all gone when I went back for it. That’s how I lost the anchor,” Christensen said earnestly. “I had to loop the line through the straps to pull the box to the surface, and I had to cut the anchor loose to get the line free. There wasn’t time to work the knots loose, not under water, and not when the water was that cold.”

“You brought the metal case to the surface,” Gregor went on quietly, almost hypnotically, not wanting to break the spell. “You opened it and inside you found a treasure in gold—”

Christensen had been listening with a frown on his face, concentrating on what the man was saying. At this statement his frown deepened. So that was what they thought he had found! He shook his head violently, hoping the man would believe him, but doubting it. He knew he would hardly believe it himself.

“No!” he said hotly. “There was no gold treasure!” He looked about the room and then turned back to Gregor with a touch of grim humor. “Does all this look as if I had found a treasure?”

It did not, and Gregor had to admit it. Still, it had been quite a coincidence, a steel-case box found very close to the site where a small boat had gone down on May 22 or early on May 23, 1945. The box probably contained something quite different and obviously worthless. He leaned forward a bit, studying the blue eyes of Christensen, quite sure he was going to be told the truth. “What did you find?”

“Junk!” Christensen said bitterly. “A lot of beads and buttons and some real crude amateurish-looking lumps made into, well, like necklaces. And some masks hammered out of the stuff that looked like what children make, and a lopsided cup, I think, or maybe there were two of them.” He shrugged. “He said they were made of some cheap alloy. Pot metal and brass, I think, but I’m not sure.” He looked at Gregor sadly. “There was no treasure. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s still down there at the bottom of the sea. And it will stay there for all of me.” He shook his head. “What I found was junk. He said so.”

Ruth and Gregor exchanged stunned, unbelieving glances. Ruth opened her mouth to say something, but Gregor waved her down in no uncertain manner. He studied the man across from him. “He?” he asked softly.

“A cousin of mine. Not a close one, actually a distant cousin of my mother’s, but still. I asked him to look at it. He’s a professor at the university in Copenhagen.” Christensen smiled in remembrance. “He’s a nice fellow. He gave me a thousand kroner for the stuff.”

With nice people like this around, Gregor thought sardonically, who needs un-nice people? “What’s the name of this cousin of yours? This professor? This nice fellow?”

Christensen shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. I promised I wouldn’t. You see,” he said, explaining, “he gave me a thousand kroner just for junk. He doesn’t want anyone to know about it, of course, because he’d look foolish, and nobody likes to look foolish.”

Gregor made up his mind. He took a deep breath. “Mr. Christensen, what you found was not junk. What you found was the Schliemann treasure, a collection of archaeological artifacts made of almost pure gold that was discovered by a man named Schliemann at Troy, in Turkey, over a hundred years ago. The treasure has been missing for the past thirty-five years. You found it.”

Christensen had been listening, his head cocked, his forehead wrinkled, trying to understand what was being said to him. Now he shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. I told you, it was only—”

“I know what you told me,” Gregor said steadily. “That was the Schliemann treasure.”

“That was a treasure?”

“That was a treasure.”

“But it certainly didn’t look like—”

“It was still the Schliemann treasure. Believe me.”

Christensen wet his lips, still finding it difficult to comprehend. “It wasn’t junk?”

“It was the farthest thing from junk.”

“It was worth more than a thousand kroner?”

Gregor smiled, a cold smile. “It was and is worth millions of kroner. In fact, it has a value far beyond that of money. Every museum in the world would be happy to get their hands on it.”

Christensen pressed his head into his hands, trying to understand what the man was saying. He wished now he hadn’t had that full glass of aquavit; on the other hand there was nothing he would have liked more at the moment than another glass, but he knew he would not take it. Maybe later he might even break open that bottle of lovely scotch whiskey. Millions of kroner? Millions of kroner made little sense to him. He could not picture them, although he knew they were a fortune. But how could the pieces he had found be worth a fortune? It made no sense. However—he looked up.

“Look,” he said earnestly. “Do you know how much a good block of granite is worth? Big enough to go across four—no, five graves? Maybe this high?” He stood, towering above them, and placed his hand across his chest, and then sat down again, looking at them anxiously. “Maybe three-feet thick, with enough stone for a cross on the top.” A sudden frightening possibility occurred to him. “Do they—do they quarry granite that big?”

Gregor had no idea of how granite had come into the conversation, but there was no doubt that the man was deadly serious. “Yes,” he said simply. “They quarry granite that large. They quarry it as large as you want.”

“And what would a block that big cost?”

Gregor shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea.”

Christensen turned to Ruth, who had been staring at both men during the conversation. “Do you know, ma’am?” Ruth could only shake her head. The giant sighed and turned back to Gregor. “I don’t want a lot of money. I just want those pieces I found, if you say they’re worth something, to have the value of a piece of granite that big. Including the engraving,” he added hastily. “There would have to be a polished panel in the center on one side big enough for five names, though only four need to be engraved now. But there has to be enough room for all five. And enough money left over to engrave the last one,” he finished, not wishing to overlook his own name once he would be beyond collectors.

Gregor sighed. “I have no idea why you want a piece of granite,” he said, “but the value of the treasure you found would probably pay for every headstone in every cemetery in Denmark.”

Ruth leaned forward, determined not to be left out of the conversation.

“I know why you want the granite,” she said quietly. “You want it for a memorial to your family, and to the brothers you lost. If you will tell us the name of that professor cousin of yours, the museum I direct will guarantee you a reward of one hundred thousand kroner. Which will be more than the cost of your monument. If it isn’t, we’ll see to it that it is.”

Christensen looked miserable. It would have been nice to buy the monument he had always visualized, and if anything had been left over to put the farm back into shape, because he felt with a proper headstone over the family graves, he would have been able to go back to the farming he had always liked, and even begin to live as a human being again. But it was impossible. “I can’t,” he said sadly. “I promised.”

Gregor started to say something, but this time it was Ruth who savagely waved him to silence.

“I’ll tell you who you promised,” she said angrily, but her anger was not directed at Christensen but at that “nice fellow,” his cousin. “You promised a man who cheated you.”

“Cheated me?”

“Your cousin cheated you,” Ruth said evenly. “Your professor cousin cheated you. He knew exactly what you found, and he knew its value. In fact, he is offering the treasure for auction to the leading museums of the world, asking a fortune in money.” Christensen was staring at her in shocked disbelief. “It’s the truth,” she said flatly. “You were cheated.”

“Arne Nordberg cheated me—?” Christensen looked stunned.

“Yes,” Ruth said, and glanced swiftly at Gregor. The name had not been lost on Kovpak. Ruth came to her feet, looking down on Christensen with pity. “When the treasure is recovered, you will receive the hundred thousand kroner. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.”

“Cheated …”

Ruth opened her purse and brought out money. It was all she had with her but she knew she could get more at a bank in the morning as soon as she cabled New York. “Here are two thousand kroner on account, and my card. I’m at the Plaza Hotel in the Bernstorffsgade, if there is anything I can do for you.” She held out the money. “Take it and find out how much your monument will cost. I promise you’ll get it, no matter what happens to the treasure.”

Knud Christensen made no move to take the money. Ruth placed the small pile of notes on a table as Gregor also came to his feet. Gregor put his hand on the other man’s rigid shoulder and pressed lightly in comradeship. There was no response from the large man in the chair. He continued to stare sightlessly at the floor. Gregor addressed him, although he was not sure if the other man heard him or not.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. Christensen. You’ll get your monument, I assure you. And more.” He looked around the dingy room. “Enough to begin living like a man again.”

Christensen did not respond. He seemed to be stunned by everything that had been said, all that he had heard. He watched dully as the two people nodded their good-byes and walked from the room, closing the door behind them. He heard the car engine start and listened to the wheels churning in the gravel as the car swung about to leave. He stared at the door without actually seeing it, and took a deep breath.

Cheated …!

And not just him, but the entire Christensen family. They had been cheated of their granite memorial. Gustave had been cheated; Niels had been cheated; even his poor parents, hardworking and dead all these many years—they had all been cheated. They could have had their granite monument by this time, had they not all been cheated.

And after cheating him and his entire family, the man had presented him with an expensive bottle of scotch whiskey, of a quality so good that he had held it for an occasion …

He came to his feet, a lumbering, stumbling giant, and walked into the kitchen. He reached as high as he could to the top shelf of the cupboard, far to the rear, the place he had hidden the bottle to await a proper event to celebrate. His fingers fumbled blindly for a few moments and then found their target. He drew the bottle from its hiding place and carried it to the living room. He sat down and stared at it, and then looked at the two thousand kroner on the table that the lady had left.

A proper event? What was a proper event?

In the rear seat of the car, the glass divider once again closed after Wilten had been instructed to return them to Copenhagen and their hotel, Ruth and Gregor stared at each other in total disbelief while Wilten brought the car back to the main road and headed for the city. Gregor held up one of his hands; it was shaking.

“My God!” he said, almost as if in shock.

“I don’t believe it,” Ruth said, her voice tinged with awe.

“It isn’t possible!”

“But it’s true …”

“A farmer! Diving for his brother’s body! And finding—!” Gregor found it impossible to even voice the words, to comprehend the enormity of their discovery. They had found out what had happened to the Schliemann treasure, after all those years, after all the conjectures undoubtedly on the part of the Americans as well as Ulanov and the KGB! It was enough to make anyone’s head spin, let alone the head of a dedicated archaeologist and scientist.

“It was a game,” Ruth said in a dazed voice, almost as if speaking to herself. “A silly game. I never actually thought—”

“Neither did I,” Gregor said with wonder. “Who on earth could ever have thought—?”

Ruth reached over and took Gregor’s hand, squeezing it tightly and feeling him respond equally. She closed her eyes, inexplicably fighting back tears. And then opened them as the car slid to a halt before a pump in a gasoline station. Wilten leaned over, speaking to them through the speaking tube; his words echoed hollowly in the enclosed space. “Fuel …” He climbed down, gave instructions to the attendant to fill the tank and check under the hood, and then tilted his head toward the rear of the station, indicating that while the needs of the automobile were being attended to, he would attend to his own needs. He walked to the back. Beside the twin doors to the rest rooms there was a telephone booth. He squeezed his ample bulk into it, dropped a coin, and dialed.

Count Lindgren had been awaiting the call anxiously. He snatched the telephone up at the first ring. “Yes?”

“Wilten here—”

“Well?”

“First they stopped at the Gedser dock and the woman spoke to someone there. Then they had me drive them to a farmhouse nearby; the name of the man who lives there is Christensen, Knud Christensen. On the way there they said something about his diving for his brother’s body. Does the name Christensen mean anything to you?”

“No. Do you know what they talked to him about?”

“I don’t know, but they talked to him a long time. When they came out they seemed to be almost in shock. I kept the car’s intercommunication line open, even though the glass divider was closed. They kept saying things like, ‘It can’t be true, but it is,’ almost as if they had discovered something important.” He remembered something else. “The man, the Russian, said something about a farmer, diving for his brother’s body, and finding—”

“Finding what? Speak up!”

“He didn’t say. And the woman said, ‘It was a game. I never thought—’ and that’s when she stopped. Then they didn’t say any more, so I stopped for gasoline, and I’m calling you from there. They can’t see me.”

“Did they mention Arne Nordberg?”

“No, sir.”

Count Lindgren took a deep breath. His mind had been racing all through Wilten’s report. “They discovered something! I’m sure they discovered something! The treasure has been under the sea, just as the girl suspected, and they have found out how it was found. It never was in Russia. She said that, and it was true! That lying Nordberg! They’ll find him, and he’ll lead them to us. If we let them, that is!”

“Yes, sir.”

“So we won’t let them.” The decision made at last, the count’s voice seemed to lighten. Actually, it was a decision that Lindgren had suspected would be necessary since their lunch the day before, and the information that had been given them at the naval station. It was too bad, in a way; he had liked Ruth McVeigh, and he disliked destroying anything of beauty. But where his own well-being was at stake, there was no choice. “You know what to do?”

“We discussed it last night.”

“Exactly! When you’re through with the police, get back here as soon as you can.”

“Right.”

Wilten put the telephone back in its cradle, pushed himself from the narrow booth, and walked back to the car. He paid the bill and climbed into the driver’s seat, starting the engine and pulling the car back into the slack traffic pattern of the highway. In the rearview mirror he could see his two passengers holding hands tightly, looking at each other in silent wonder. With no expression at all on his fleshy face, Wilten brought his attention back to the road and stepped on the accelerator, heading north.

In the rear seat Gregor and Ruth continued to look at each other, still unable to accredit that the silly game that had begun in the map room of the British Museum had eventually led them here, to where there was an excellent possibility that they would shortly be able to actually put their hands on the Schliemann collection! It seemed so absolutely unbelievable, particularly in the first moments of their discovery, that they sat in silence, as if speaking of it might bring their remarkable success from reality to the phantasy it seemed it had to be. In their silent contemplation of the miracle that had befallen them, Gregor became aware that the car was slowing again. He looked through the window. They were at the point in the highway he remembered from their trip down, where the sea could be seen below from a point near the Fakse Bugt. Gregor leaned forward as the car left the road and came to a halt nearly out of sight of the highway on a dirt road pointing to the sea.

“Why are we stopping now?”

Wilten’s voice came hollowly over the intercom system. “I’m afraid one of the rear tires is losing pressure, sir. I’m just going to check it now. It will just take a minute, sir.”

“Oh.” Gregor leaned back and watched the heavy-set Wilten get down and move out of sight behind the car. He was about to turn to Ruth and say something when he became aware that the heavy car was beginning to move, to roll down the slope, gaining momentum. Ahead in the near distance he could see the dirt road end in a turn-around guarded only by a low stone wall, and beyond that a sheer drop to the sea. He swung around, staring through the rear window. Wilten was running after the car as fast as his weight would allow, his hands outstretched. He could hear Wilten’s voice, screaming.

“Oh, my God! I forgot the hand brake! Oh, my God!”

Ruth was sitting rigidly, white faced. Gregor tried the door handles; the doors were locked! Ahead, the edge of the cliff was coming closer and closer as the heavy car picked up momentum, the deep ruts of the worn dirt road keeping the wheels locked on their inevitable juggernaut course, the sea below frothing over rocks beneath a sheer drop. Suddenly Gregor leaned back in his seat, raising his two feet, jamming his shoes through the glass that divided the empty front seat from the enclosed rear. A moment later he had forced himself through the shards of broken glass still embedded in the frame, unaware either of the ripping of his clothes or the shredding of his skin as he slithered on his stomach across the seat and under the dashboard, pulling with all his force on the emergency brake. The car responded slowly, as if resenting this interference with its unexpected freedom, swaying from side to side as its great weight seemed determined to overcome the demands of the tightening brake bands. Gregor blanked his mind to the thought of the rapidly approaching cliff, or of Ruth sitting petrified in the rear of the car. He gritted his teeth and pulled on the emergency brake with all his power. The car shuddered under the force of that strength, swayed a bit more, and came to rest with a jarring thud against the stone wall of the turn-around, settling down with one wheel dished under by the impact.

For several seconds Gregor stayed where he was, half under the dashboard, his hands still locked tightly on the emergency brake, trembling, and then he reached up with one shaking hand to open the front car door and roll to the ground just as Wilten came panting up, his face truly white as he considered Count Lindgren’s reaction to the failure of his mission.

“Thank God!” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Count Lindgren will never forgive me! You might have been killed!”

Gregor came to his feet still trembling, and opened the door to the rear of the car. Ruth still sat inside, unable to move. Gregor turned to Wilten, his jaw hard, his eyes narrowed in fury. “The doors didn’t open from inside!”

“Oh, no, sir! They are locked, controlled from the front seat. For safety reasons, sir—” Wilten seemed to realize how foolish that sounded in the circumstances. “I mean—well, sir, the count never opens the door himself. The chauffeur always does that, sir. So when they are locked, the doors are arranged only to be opened from the outside. Count Lindgren often sends his car to take orphans on picnics, sir, and you know children, sir—” He brought out a handkerchief and held it out a bit tentatively toward Gregor. “Your cheek, sir. It’s bleeding.”

People were stopping on the highway, looking down toward the wreck; a farmer was trotting over from his fields alongside the sloping road. Wilten was pleased with his presence of mind in acting the innocent chauffeur, screamingly denouncing himself for his failure to set the hand brake. Let them think him stupid, but never let them suspect the truth. Count Lindgren, unfortunately, would not be that forgiving. It was a thought Wilten preferred not to dwell upon.

Some of the people from the highway were beginning to come down toward the wrecked car. Gregor took a deep breath, bringing himself under control, holding the handkerchief against his cut cheek. It was an accident, but at least it was over and both he and Ruth were alive. He reached into the car for Ruth’s hand, bringing her to stand beside him. Her face was still pale from the fright and the thought of the death they had so narrowly escaped, but her pride in Gregor for his quick thinking that had saved them more than compensated. Gregor studied Wilten’s face. There was no doubt the poor chauffeur was as upset by the affair as he had been himself. Gregor looked at the dished wheel and then back to Wilten.

“And what do we do now?”

Wilten looked at the people coming down the road to see if they could help. “I’m sure one of these people will be happy to give you a lift into Praestø, sir,” he said deferentially. “You can rent a car there. I’m terribly sorry for this, sir. I’ll stay with the car, if you could ask them to send a wrecker …”

“I’m sorry, too,” Gregor said, feeling compunction for the unhappy Wilten. “It was just one of those things, and I’ll tell Count Lindgren that.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Wilten said, although the statement did not make him appear any happier. “Count Lindgren will be very upset about this, sir. Very upset …”