The Gold of Troy

Chapter Twenty-Four

New York — August

The three weeks Ruth McVeigh had spent in Paris of a month’s leave of absence, approved by cable from the board of directors of the Metropolitan, had done nothing to lessen the combination of grief and anger she still felt whenever the thought of Gregor Kovpak and/or the Schliemann treasure came to her mind. Her visits to the Louvre, once one of her greatest pleasures, were dull and purposeless. She paced the many galleries without seeing the many treasures on either side of her, feeding on her anger, unheeding, even, of where she was or why she was there. No amount of time spent in boutiques selecting clothing — all purposely high-necked and as sexless as she could find — could assuage the constant bitterness. Parisian food, once her greatest delight, was tasteless in her mouth. Her nights were lonely and sleepless, tormented with a need she tried to reject for the sake of her self-respect. Nor did the passage of time seem to ease either the grief or the anger, and when she knew her hiding from her work would never really resolve the problem — although she did not know what would — she cabled the Metropolitan that she had had enough vacation and would be back at her desk on the following Monday.

The plane trip home seemed endless, with her mind constantly revolving between the hurt she had suffered at the hands of a man who had taken advantage of her, taking her to bed under the pretense of love, making her fall in love with him, and then capping his churlishness by stealing a treasure from her — and what she intended to do to even the score once she was home. To begin with, there was no doubt it had been a common theft, a theft from the Metropolitan, as well as from her, personally. After all, she had traced the treasure, she had insisted upon their visiting Knud Christensen, when that — that — Lothario — had wanted to go back to Copenhagen and go to bed. She had done all the work. Dr. Kovpak had merely tagged along to get what he could get, and then when he saw the opportunity, he had stolen the treasure. A common thief! Surely there had to be a way to press charges, possibly through the State Department to the Cultural Commission in the Soviet Union — although if they were anything like Gregor Kovpak, they would probably deny any knowledge of the treasure. And how could she prove her case? At the time she had left Copenhagen, after attending Axel Lindgren’s funeral, poor Knud Christensen had been put in a home for the mentally handicapped. And Count Lindgren was dead and so was Professor Nordberg. So how could she prove her story? To the police, all that Gregor Kovpak — damn the memories of the man! — had stolen was a suitcase. What it contained, nobody knew.

But she knew!

And proof or no proof, she would see to it that the entire world knew just what a libertine Gregor Kovpak was, what a cheat, despite all his fine titles and his great reputation! A common thief, a liar, despite his dark good looks and his glib tongue. She would spread the word through every archaeological society, every professional journal, to every friend she had in the entire archaeological world. She would drive the name of Gregor Kovpak down so far he would never dare to show his face anywhere except at the Hermitage, if even there! Men!

She arrived at Kennedy Airport early on that Monday morning, tired but determined to get right on with her campaign. Until she could rid herself of the incubus of her disgust with Gregor Kovpak and her equal disgust with herself for having fallen in love with a knave, she felt that she could never again lead a normal life. She dropped her suitcases off at her apartment and took a taxi at once to the Metropolitan Museum. She climbed the steps, hating Gregor Kovpak even more for taking from her the great pleasure she had always felt in walking up those steps each day. Now there was no feeling of belonging, of possession. Now there was no feeling except the need for revenge.

She stalked past the many receptionists, all of whom looked up with smiles of pleasure to see their director back again and then looked at each other in wondering surprise at not even having their greetings acknowledged. She marched down the corridors past the neat guards without seeing them or caring how they looked, and entered her office intent upon getting to her telephone and beginning her campaign. Her secretary looked up with a smile.

“Hello, Dr. McVeigh! It’s good to have you back! You have a vis—”

“Later!” Ruth said brusquely, almost savagely, and moved with purpose toward her private office. The first thing to do was to get someone from the legal staff working on the matter. She pushed through the door and then stopped dead, her heart seemingly in her throat. There was a man standing looking from the window and the shoulders and back looked achingly familiar. He turned. It was Gregor Kovpak.

He smiled, his pleasure at seeing her evident in his eyes. “Hello, Ruth.”

“Gregor!” She sat down abruptly, unable to believe it. “What — what are you doing here?”

He shrugged, as if his presence was the most natural thing in the world. “I’m in love with you. You are in love with me — or you were a while ago. I thought we would get married. I’ve defected from my country — with the help, I might mention, of a good but slightly battered friend, a retired colonel, now — and I’ve requested asylum in this country.”

“But... but, Copenhagen—?”

“Ah, yes? You mean my sudden departure from Copenhagen with that suitcase?” Gregor grinned and then straightened his face. “Ruth, suppose I told you that when I got to Leningrad, that suitcase was empty?”

Her anger returned. “I wouldn’t believe you!”

Gregor persisted. “But, suppose, even if there had been something of value in that suitcase — which I am not in a position to verify — that I honestly believed it belonged in Russia, as I once explained. And suppose I thought, considering that fact, that you might be willing to take me, instead...”

She stared at him a moment and then smiled, at first a bit ruefully and then with happiness. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“I’m afraid not.” Gregor frowned slightly. “Incidentally, where have you been? I’ve been in New York over a week, until they told me you would be here this morning.”

“I was in Paris. Trying to forget you, as a matter of fact, but without much success.” She looked at him archly, but feeling as good as she had felt miserable just minutes before. “And you waited over a week before you tried to find me?”

“I was in Copenhagen,” Gregor said. “You had already left when I got there, but there was something I had to do there.”

“And that was?”

“To arrange for a large granite monument,” Gregor said simply. “Knud Christensen will be allowed to visit it rather frequently once it is completed.”

“Oh, Gregor!” She came to her feet and into his arms, but even as they kissed, Dr. Ruth McVeigh, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was trying to figure how she could get her hands on the Schliemann collection to exhibit, if only on loan. But for a decent period of time, not just for a few miserable weeks or months...

The announcement of the coming marriage of the two famous archaeologists, Drs. Ruth McVeigh, of the Metropolitan, and Dr. Gregor Kovpak, late of the Hermitage, was written up in the New York Times by their new cultural reporter, Mr. James Newkirk...