Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Edward D. Hoch The Theft of Nick Velvet

“It’s for you, Nicky,” Gloria yelled from the telephone, and Nick Velvet put down the beer he’d been savoring. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in late winter, when the snow had retreated to little lumps beneath the shady bushes and a certain freshness was already apparent in the air. It was a time of year that Nick especially liked, and he was sorry to have his reverie broken.

“Yes?” he spoke into the phone, after taking it from Gloria’s hand.

“Nick Velvet?” The voice was deep and a bit harsh, but that didn’t surprise him. He’d been hearing that sort of voice on telephones for years.

“Speaking.”

“You do jobs. You steal things.” A statement, not a question.

“I never discuss my business on the telephone. I could meet you somewhere tomorrow.”

“It has to be tonight.”

“Very well, tonight.”

“I’ll be in the parking lot at the Cross-County Mall. Eight o’clock.”

“How will I know your car?”

“The place is empty on a Sunday night. We’ll find each other.”

“Could I have your name?”

The voice hesitated, then replied. “Solar. Max Solar. Didn’t you receive my letter?”

“No,” Nick answered. “Your letter about what?”

“I’ll see you at eight.”

The line went dead and Nick hung up the phone. He’d heard the name Max Solar before, or seen it in the newspapers, but he couldn’t remember in what context.

“Who was that, Nicky?” Gloria appeared in the doorway, holding a beer.

“A land developer. He wants to see me tonight.”

“On Sunday?”

Nick nodded. “He needs my opinion on some land he’s buying near here. I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour.” The excuses and evasions came easily to Nick’s lips, and sometimes he half suspected that Gloria knew them for what they were. Certainly she rarely questioned his sudden absences, even for days at a time.

He left the house a little after 7:30 and drove the five miles to the Cross-County Mall in less than fifteen minutes. There was little traffic and when he reached the Mall ahead of schedule he was surprised to see a single car already parked there, near the drive-in bank. He drove up beside it and parked. A man in the front seat nodded and motioned to him.

Nick left his car and opened the door of the other vehicle. “You’re early,” the man said.

“Better than late. Are you Max Solar?”

“Yes. Get in.”

Nick slid into the front seat and closed the door. The man next to him was bulky in a tweed topcoat, and he seemed nervous.

“What do you want stolen?” Nick asked. “I don’t touch money or jewelry or anything of value, and my fee is—”

He never finished. There was a movement behind him, in the back seat, and something hit him across the side of the head. That was the last Nick knew for some time.

When he opened his eyes he realized he was lying on a bed somewhere. The ceiling was crisscrossed with cracks and there was a cobweb visible in one corner. He thought about that, knowing Gloria’s trim housekeeping would never allow such a thing, and realized he was not at home. His head ached and his body was uncomfortably stretched. He tried to turn over and discovered that his left wrist was handcuffed to a brass bedstead.

Not the police.

But who, then? And why?

He tried to focus his mind. It seemed to be morning, with light seeping through the blind at the window. But which day? Monday?

A door opened somewhere and he heard footsteps crossing the floor. A face appeared over him, a familiar face. The man in the car.

“Where am I?” Nick mumbled through a furry mouth. “What am I doing here?”

The man leaned closer to the bed. “You are here because I have stolen you.” The idea seemed to amuse him and he chuckled.

“Why?” The room was beginning to swim before Nick’s eyes.

“Don’t try to talk. We have no intention of harming you. Just lie still and relax.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“A mild sedative. Just something to keep you under control.”

Nick tried to speak again, but the words would not come. He closed his eyes and slept...

When he awakened it was night again, or nearly so. A shaded lamp glowed dimly in one corner of the room. “Are you awake?” a girl’s voice asked, in response to his movement.

Nick lifted his head and saw a young brunette dressed in a dark turtleneck sweater and jeans. He ran has tongue over dry lips and finally found his voice. “I guess so. Who are you?”

“You can call me Terry. I’m supposed to be watching you, but it’s more fun if you’re awake. I didn’t give you the last injection of sedative because I want someone to talk to.”

“Thanks a lot,” Nick said, trying to work the cobwebs from his throat. “What day is it?”

“Only Monday. You haven’t even been here twenty-four hours yet.” She came over and sat by the bed. “Hungry?”

He realized suddenly that he was. “Starving. I guess you haven’t fed me.”

“I’ll get you some juice and a doughnut.”

“Where’s the other one — the man?”

“Away somewhere,” she answered vaguely. She left the room and reappeared soon carrying a glass of orange juice and a bag of doughnuts. “Afraid that’s the best I can do.”

“How about unlocking me?”

“No. I don’t have the key. You can eat with your other hand.”

The juice tasted good going down, and even the soggy doughnuts were welcome. “Why did you kidnap me?” he asked Terry. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Don’t know.” She retreated from the room, perhaps deciding she’d talked too much already.

Nick finished three doughnuts and then lay back on the bed. He’d been lured to that parking lot and kidnaped for some reason, and he couldn’t believe the motive was anything as simple as ransom. The man on the telephone had identified himself as Max Solar, and asked if Nick had received his letter. Since kidnapers rarely gave their right names to victims, it was likely the man was not Max Solar.

“Terry,” he shouted. “Terry, come here!”

She appeared in the doorway, hands on hips. “What is it?”

“Come talk. I feel like talking.”

“What about?”

“Max Solar. The man who brought me here.”

She giggled a bit, and her face glowed with youth. “He’s not Max Solar. He was just kidding you. Do you really think someone as wealthy as Max Solar would go around kidnaping people?”

“Then what is his name?”

“I can’t tell you. He wouldn’t like it.”

“How’d you get involved with him?”

“I can’t talk any more about it.”

Nick sighed. “I thought you wanted someone to talk to.”

“Sure, but I wanted to talk about you.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “What about me?”

“You’re Nick Velvet. You’re famous.”

“Only in certain circles.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the opening of a door. Terry scurried from the room and Nick lay back and closed his eyes. After a moment he heard Terry return with the man.

“What in hell is this bag of doughnuts doing on the bed?” a male voice demanded. “He’s conscious, isn’t he? And you’ve been feeding him!”

“He was hungry, Sam.”

There was the splat of palm hitting cheek, and Terry let out a cry.

Nick opened his eyes. “Suppose you try that on me, Sam.”

The man from the car, still looking bulky even without his tweed topcoat, turned toward the bed. “You’re in no position to make like a knight in shining armor, Velvet.”

Nick sat up as best he could with his handcuffed wrist. “Look, I’ve been slugged on the head, kidnaped, drugged, and handcuffed to this bed. Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?”

“Shut him up,” Sam ordered Terry, but she made no move to obey.

“You kidnaped me to keep me from seeing the real Max Solar, right?” Nick was guessing, but it had to be a reasonably good guess. The man named Sam turned on the girl once more.

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, Sam, honest! I didn’t tell him a thing!”

The bulky man grunted. “All right, Velvet, it’s true. I don’t mind telling you, since you’ve guessed it already. Max Solar wrote you on Friday to arrange an appointment for this week. He wanted to hire you to steal something.”

“And you kidnaped me to prevent it?”

The man named Sam nodded. He pulled up a straight-backed wooden chair and sat down by the bed. “Do you know who Max Solar is?”

“I’ve heard the name.” Nick tried to sit up straighter, but the handcuff prevented him. “How about unlocking this thing?”

“Not a chance.”

“All right,” Nick sighed. “Tell me about Max Solar.”

“He’s a conglomerate. He owns a number of companies manufacturing everything from office machines to toothpaste. Last year while I was in his employ I invented a computer program that saved thousands of man-hours each year in bookkeeping and inventory control on his export and overseas operations. The courts have ruled that such computer programming cannot be patented, and I was at the mercy of Max Solar. He simply fired me and kept my program. For the past year I’ve dreamed of ways to get my revenge, and on Friday Terry supplied me with the perfect weapon.”

Nick listened to the voice drone on, wondering where it was all leading. The man did not seem the type to resort to kidnaping, yet there was a hardness in his eyes that hinted at a steely determination.

“I’m a secretary at Solar Industries,” Terry explained. “My office is right next to Max Solar’s, and often I help his secretary when my boss is away.”

Sam nodded. “Solar dictated a letter to Nick Velvet, asking for a meeting today. Terry brought me a copy, with a suggestion for revenging myself on Solar.”

“You knew who I was?” Nick asked the girl.

“I had a boy friend once who told me about you — how you steal valueless things for people.”

Sam nodded. “I figured up in the suburbs you probably wouldn’t get Solar’s letter till Monday — not the way mail deliveries are these days — but just to be safe I used his name when I phoned yesterday. See, I had to kidnap you and hold you prisoner till after the ship sails.”

“Ship?”

“Solar was hiring you to steal something from a freighter that sails from New York harbor in two days.”

“It must be something important.”

“It is, but only to Max Solar. It would be worthless to anyone else.”

Nick thought about it.

“That’s not quite correct,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You can revenge yourself on Solar by holding me prisoner, or you can hire me to steal this object and then sell it back to Solar.”

“Why should I hire you? I have you already!”

“You have me physically, but you don’t have my services.”

“He makes sense,” Terry said. “I hadn’t thought about that angle. If Nick steals the thing, you can sell it to Solar for enough to cover Nick’s fee plus a lot more. You’d be getting back the money Solar cheated you out of.”

Sam pondered the implications. “How do we know you wouldn’t go to the police as soon as you’re free?”

“I have as little dealing with the police as possible,” Nick said. “For obvious reasons.”

Sam was still uncertain. “We’ve got you now. In forty-eight hours Max Solar will be in big trouble. Why let you go and take a chance on mining our whole plan?”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll be in big trouble too. Kidnaping is a far more serious crime than blackmail. Unlock these handcuffs now and hire me. I won’t press charges against you. I steal the thing, collect my fee, and you sell it back to Solar for a lot more. Everybody’s happy.”

Sam turned to Terry. When she nodded approval he said, “All right. Unlock him.”

As soon as the handcuff came free of his wrist Nick said, “My fee in this case will be thirty thousand dollars. I always charge more for dangerous assignments.”

“There’s nothing dangerous about it.”

“It’s dangerous when I get hit on the head and drugged.”

“That was Terry. She was hiding in the back seat of the car with a croquet mallet.”

“You knocked me out with a croquet mallet?”

Terry nodded. “We were going to use a monkey wrench, but we thought it might hurt.”

“Thanks a lot.” Nick was rubbing the circulation back into his wrist. “Now what is it Max Solar was going to hire me to steal?”

“A ship’s manifest,” Terry told him. “But we’re not sure which ship. We only know it sails in two days.”

“What’s so valuable about a ship’s manifest?”

They exchanged glances. “The less you know the better,” Sam said.

“Don’t I even get to know your names?”

“You know too much already. Steal the manifest and meet us back here tomorrow night.”

“How do I find the ship?”

“A South African named Herbert Jarvis is in town arranging for the shipment. He’d know which ship it is.” Terry looked uneasy as she spoke. “I could go through the files at the office, but that might arouse suspicion. They might think it odd I took today off anyway.”

“Shipment of what?” Nick asked.

“Typewriters,” she said, and he knew she was lying.

“All right. But there must be several more copies of this ship’s manifest around.”

“The copy on the ship is the only one that matters,” Sam said. “Get it, and we’ll meet you here tomorrow night at seven.”

“What about my car?”

“It’s in the garage,” Terry said. “We didn’t want to leave it at the Mall.”

Nick nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow with the manifest. Have my fee ready.”

The house where he’d been held prisoner was in the northern part of the city, near Van Cortlandt Park. It took Nick nearly an hour to drive home from there, and another hour to comfort a distraught Gloria who’d been about to phone the police.

“You know my business takes me away suddenly at times,” he said, glancing casually through the mail until he found Solar’s letter.

“But you’ve always told me, Nicky! I didn’t hear from you and all I could imagine was you were hit over the head and robbed!”

“Sorry I worried you.” He kissed her gently. “Is it too late to get something to eat?”

In the morning he checked the sailing times of the next day’s ships in The New York Times. There were only two possibilities — the Fairfax and the Florina — but neither one was bound for South Africa. With so little time to spare, he couldn’t afford to pick the wrong one, and trying to find Herbert Jarvis at an unknown New York hotel might be a hopeless task.

There was only one sure way to find the right ship — to ask Max Solar. He knew that Sam and Terry wouldn’t approve, but he had no better choice.

Solar Industries occupied most of a modern twelve-story building not far from the house where he’d been held prisoner. He took the elevator to the top floor and waited in a plush reception room while the girl announced his arrival to Max Solar. Presently a cool young woman appeared to escort him.

“I’m Mr. Solar’s secretary,” she said. “Please come this way.”

In Max Solar’s office two men were seated at a wide desk, silhouetted against the wide windows that looked south toward Manhattan. There was no doubt which one was Solar. He was tall and white-haired, and sat behind his desk in total command, like the pilot of an aircraft or a rancher on his horse. He did not rise as Nick entered, but said simply, “So you’re Velvet. About time you got here.”

“I was tied up earlier.”

Solar waited until his secretary left, then said, “I understand you steal things for a fee of twenty thousand dollars.”

“Certain things. Nothing of value.”

“I know that.”

“What do you want stolen?”

“A ship’s manifest, for the S.S. Fiorina. She sails tomorrow from New York harbor, so that doesn’t gave you much time.”

“Time is no problem. What’s so valuable about the manifest?”

“A mistake was made on it by an inexperienced clerk. All other copies were recovered and corrected in time, but the ship’s copy got through somehow. I imagine it’s locked in the purser’s safe right now. I was told you could do the job. I want this corrected manifest left in its place.”

“No problem,” Nick said, accepting the lengthy form.

“You’re very sure of yourself,” the second man said. It was the first he’d spoken since Nick entered. He was small and middle-aged, with just a trace of British accent.

Solar waved a hand at him. “This is Herbert Jarvis from South Africa. He’s the consignee for the Florina cargo. Two hundred and twelve cases of typewriters and adding machines.”

“I see,” Nick said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You want some money in advance? Say ten percent — two thousand?” Solar asked, opening his desk drawer.

“Fine. And don’t worry about the time. I’ll have the manifest before the ship sails.”

“Here’s my check,” Jarvis said, passing it across the desk to Solar. “Drawn on the National Bank of Capetown. I assure you it’s good. This is payment in full for the cargo.”

“That’s the way I like to do business,” Solar told him, slipping the check into a drawer.

As Nick started to leave, Herbert Jarvis rose from his chair. “My business here is finished. If you’re driving into Manhattan, Mr. Velvet, could I ride with you and save calling a taxi?”

“Sure. Come on.” Downstairs he asked, “Your first trip here?”

“Oh, no. I’ve been here before. Quite a city you have.”

“We like it.” He turned the car onto the Major Deegan Expressway.

“You live in the city yourself?”

Nick shook his head. “No, near Long Island Sound.”

“Are you a boating enthusiast?”

“When I have time. It relaxes me.”

Jarvis lit a cigar. “We all need to relax. I’m a painter myself. I’ve a lovely studio with a fine north light.”

“In Capetown?”

“Yes. But it’s just a sideline, of course. One can hardly make a living at it.” He exhaled some smoke. “I act as a middleman in buying and selling overseas. This is my first dealing with Max Solar, but he seems a decent sort.”

“The Florina isn’t bound for South Africa.”

Jarvis shook his head. “The cargo will be removed in the Azores. It’s safer that way.”

“For the typewriters?”

“And for me.”

After a time Nick said, “I’ll have to drop you in midtown. Okay?”

“Certainly. I’m at the Wilson Hotel on Seventh Avenue.”

“I need to purchase some supplies,” Nick said. He’d just decided how he was going to steal the ship’s manifest.

The Florina was berthed at pier 40, a massive, bustling place that jutted into the Hudson River near West Houston Street. Nick reached it in mid-afternoon and went quickly through the gates to the gangplank. The ship was showing the rust of age typical of vessels that plied the waterways in the service of the highest bidder.

The purser was much like his ship, with soiled uniform and needing a shave. He studied the credentials Nick presented and said, “This is a bit irregular.”

“We believe export licenses may be lacking for some of your cargo. It’s essential that I inspect your copy of the manifest.”

The purser hesitated another moment, then said, “Very well.” He walked to the safe in one corner of his office and opened it. In a moment he produced the lengthy manifest.

Nick saw at once the reason for Max Solar’s concern. On the ship’s copy the line about typewriters and adding machines read: 212 cases 8 mm Mauser semiautomatic rifles. He was willing to bet that Solar Industries was not a licensed arms dealer.

“It seems in order,” Nick told the purser, “but I’ll need a copy of it.” He opened the fat attaché case he carried and revealed a portable copying machine. “Can I plug this in?”

“Over here.”

Nick inserted the manifest with a light-sensitive copying sheet into the rollers of the machine. In a moment the document reappeared. “There you are,” he said, returning it to the purser. “Sorry I had to trouble you.”

“No trouble.” He glanced briefly at the manifest and returned it to the safe.

Nick closed the attaché case, shook the man’s hand, and departed. The theft was as simple as that.

Later that night, at seven o’clock, Nick rang the doorbell of the little house where he’d been held prisoner. At first no one came to admit him, though he could see a light burning in the back bedroom. Then at last Terry appeared, her face pale and distraught.

“I’ve got it,” Nick said. She stepped aside silently and allowed him to enter.

Sam came out of the back bedroom. “Well, Velvet! Right on time.”

“Here’s the manifest.” Nick produced the document from the attaché case he still carried. “The only remaining original copy, showing that Solar Industries is exporting two hundred and twelve cases of semi-automatic rifles to Africa.”

Sam took the document and glanced at it. For some reason the triumph didn’t seem to excite him. “How did you get it?”

“A simple trick. This afternoon I purchased this portable copying machine from a friend who sometimes makes special gadgets for me. I inserted the original manifest between the rollers, but the substitute came out the other slot. It works much like those trick shop devices, where a blank piece of paper is inserted between rollers and a dollar bill comes out. The purser’s copy of the manifest was rolled up and remained in the machine. The substitute copy that I’d inserted in the machine earlier came out the slot. He glanced at it briefly, but since only one line was different he never realized a switch had been made.”

“Where did you get this substitute manifest?” Sam wanted to know.

“From Max Solar. I also got an advance for stealing the thing, which I’ll return to him. I’m working for you, not Solar. And I imagine he’ll pay plenty for that manifest. The clerk who typed it up must have assumed he had an export license for the guns. But without a license it would mean big trouble for Solar Industries if this manifest was inspected by port authorities.”

Sam nodded glumly. “He’s been selling arms illegally for years, mostly to countries in Africa and Latin America. But this was my first chance to prove it.”

“I’ll have my fee now,” Nick said. “Thirty thousand.”

“I haven’t got it.”

Nick simply stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I haven’t got it. There is no fee. No money, no nothing.” He shrugged and started to turn away.

Nick grabbed him by the collar. “If you won’t pay for it, Max Solar will!”

“No, he won’t,” Terry said, speaking for the first time since Nick’s arrival. “Look here.”

Nick followed her into the back bedroom. On the rumpled bed where Nick had been held prisoner, the body of Max Solar lay sprawled and bloody. There was no doubt Solar was dead.

“How did it happen?” Nick asked. “What’s he doing here?”

“I called him,” Sam said. “We needed the thirty thousand to pay your fee. The only way we could get it was from Solar. So I told him we’d have the manifest here at seven o’clock. I left the front door unlocked and told him to bring $80,000. I figured $30,000 for you and the rest for us.”

“What happened?”

“Terry arrived about twenty minutes ago and found him dead. It looks like he’s been stabbed.”

“You’re trying to tell me you didn’t kill him?”

“Of course not!” Sam said, a trace of indignation creeping into his voice. “Do I look like a murderer?”

“No, but then you don’t look like a kidnaper either. You had the best reason in the world for wanting him dead.”

“His money would have been enough revenge for me.”

“Was it on him?”

“No,” Terry answered. “We looked. Either he didn’t bring it or the killer got it first.”

“What am I supposed to do with this manifest?” Nick asked bleakly.

“It’s no good to me now. I can’t get revenge on a dead man.”

“That’s your problem. You still owe me thirty thousand.”

Sam held his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness. “We don’t have the money! What should I do? Give you the mortgage on this house that’s falling apart? Be thankful you got something out of Max Solar before he died.”

Ignoring Nick, Terry asked, “What are we going to do with the body, Sam?”

“Do? Call the police! What else is there to do?”

“Won’t they think we did it?”

“Maybe they’ll be right,” Nick said. “Maybe you killed him, Terry, to have the money for yourself. Or maybe Sam killed him and then sneaked out to let you find the body.”

Both of them were quick to deny the accusations, and in truth Nick cared less about the circumstances of Max Solar’s death than he did about the balance of his fee, and he saw no way of collecting it at the moment.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll leave you two to figure out your next move. You know where to reach me if you come up with the money. Meanwhile, I’m keeping this manifest.”

He drove south, toward Manhattan, and though the night was turning chilly he left his window open. The fresh air felt good against his face and it helped him to sort out his thoughts. There was only one other person who’d have the least interest in paying money for the manifest, and that was Herbert Jarvis.

He headed for the Wilson Hotel.

Jarvis was in his room packing when Nick knocked on the door. “Well,” he said, a bit startled. “Velvet, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Can I come in?”

“I have to catch a plane. I’m packing.”

“So I see,” Nick said. He shut the door behind him.

“If you’ll make it brief, I really am quite busy.”

“I’ll bet you are. I’ll make it brief enough. I want thirty thousand dollars.”

“Thirty...! For what?”

“This copy of the ship’s manifest for the S.S. Florina. The only copy that shows it’s carrying a cargo of rifles.”

“The business with the manifest is between you and Solar. He hired you.”

“Various people hired me, but you’re the only one I can collect from. Max Solar is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Stabbed to death in a house uptown. Within the past few hours.”

Jarvis sat down on the bed. “That’s a terrible thing.”

Nick shrugged. “I assume he knew the sort of men he was dealing with.”

“What’s that mean?” Jarvis asked, growing nervous.

“Who do you think killed him?” Nick countered.

“That computer programmer, Sam, I suppose. That’s his house uptown.”

“How do you know it’s Sam’s house? How do you know about Sam?”

“Solar was going to meet him. He told me on the telephone.”

It all fell into place for Nick. “What did he tell you?”

“That Sam wanted money for the manifest. That you were working for Sam.”

“Why did he tell you about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s take a guess. Could it have been because the check you gave him was no good? A man with Solar’s world-wide contacts could have discovered quickly that there was no money in South Africa to cover your check. In fact, you’re not even from South Africa, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me you’re an artist, and since you volunteered the information I assume it’s true. But you said you have a studio in Capetown with a fine north light. Artists like north light because it’s truer, because the sun is never in the northern sky. But of course this is only true in the northern hemisphere. An artist in Capetown or Buenos Aires or Melbourne would want a studio with a good south light. Your studio, Jarvis, isn’t in Capetown at all. It would have to be somewhere well north of the equator.

“And if you lied about being from South Africa, I figured the check drawn on a South African bank is probably phony too. You reasoned that once the arms shipment was safely out to sea there was no way Solar could blow the whistle without implicating himself. But when he learned your check was valueless, he phoned you and probably told you to meet him at Sam’s house with the money or he’d have the cases of guns taken off the ship.”

“You’re saying I killed him?”

“Yes.”

“You are one smart man, Velvet.”

“Smart enough for a two-bit gunrunner.”

Jarvis’ right hand moved faster than Nick’s eyes could follow. The knife was up his sleeve, and it missed Nick’s throat by inches as it thudded into the wall. “Too bad,” Nick said. “With a gun you get a second chance.” And he dove for the man.

He remembered the address of Sam’s house and got the phone number from a friend with the company. Sam answered on the first ring, sounding nervous, and Nick asked, “How’s it going?”

“Velvet? Where are you? The police are here.”

“Good,” Nick said, knowing a detective would be listening in. “You did the right thing calling them. I don’t know why I’m getting you off the hook, but tell them Solar’s killer is in Room 334 at the Wilson Hotel on Seventh Avenue.”

“You found him?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “But he didn’t have any money either.”

It was one of the very few times Nick Velvet failed — that is, failed to collect his full fee.