16

At Columbus, Mississippi, Ogilvie stopped for gas. He was careful to choose a small store on the outskirts of town. He paid cash for the gas and a half-dozen chocolate bars, then drove on.

Traffic was averagely light and the Jaguar performed superbly. Driving conditions were ideal. There was no sign of police activity of any kind. Ogilvie was relaxed.

Gradually traffic grew heavier. A few miles farther on, Ogilvie could see that the scene bore the familiar pattern of a highway accident. Then, abruptly, rounding a curve, he saw the real reason for the delay. Two lines of Tennessee Highway Patrol cars. At the same instant, the car, which had been following, switched on a police beacon of its own.

Ogilvie stopped the car and raised his hands above his head.

“Keep your hands where they are,” a sergeant ordered, opening his door, “and come out slowly. You’re under arrest.”

17

Christine Francis mused aloud, “There! – you’re doing it again. Both times, when the coffee was poured, you’ve held your hands around the cup. As if it gave you a kind of comfort.”

“You notice more things than most people.”

They were in the St. Gregory’s main dining room. Since their arrival more than an hour ago, most of the other diners had left. Max, the head waiter, came discreetly to their table.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

Albert Wells glanced at Christine who shook her head.

“I reckon not. When you’d like to, you can bring the bill.”

“Certainly, sir.” Max nodded to Christine, his eyes assuring her that he had not forgotten their arrangement of this morning.

When the head waiter had gone, the little man said, “About the coffee. Being a prospector in the north, you never waste anything if you want to stay alive, not even the beat from a cup you’re holding. It’s wise to remind yourself of some things once in a while.”

“Because they were good times, or because life is better now?”

“Some of both.”

“I didn’t know about your being a prospector. When you were prospecting, what was it for?”

“Uranium, cobalt. Mostly gold.”

“Did you find any? Gold, I mean.”

He nodded affirmatively. “Mostly, though, the country was too tough to mine and take it out.”

“You said that mostly it was too difficult to mine the gold. It wasn’t always?”

“Not always. Some were luckier ’n others. But the Shield and the Barren Lands do strange things to people. Some you think ’d be strong – and not just in body either – they turn out to be the weak ones. One time I remember…” He stopped as the head waiter placed a salver on the table with their bill. He turned over the bill, inspecting it. He glanced across the room at the head waiter, then back toward Christine. Abruptly, he took out a pencil and signed the bill.

“In ’36 I was prospecting near the shore of Great Slave Lake. Had a partner then, Hymie Eckstein from Ohio. On the Shield you lose all track of time, we were there for a month or two. Then one day the two of us sat down to roll our cigarettes. I took a piece or two of rock from the place. Later I panned the rock. It showed good coarse gold.

“We rushed back to the place and covered it with moss. Two days later, we found the ground had already been staked. A Toronto prospector had been out the year before, then gone back east, not knowing what he had. Under Territories law, his rights’d run out a year from recording. The next three months were the longest any two men lived. Maybe the hardest. We existed. On fish, some bits of plants.

“Finally it got to the last day of September. We had our stakes ready. We rushed in at midnight… The next clear thing I know was being in a hospital in Edmonton, near a thousand miles from where we staked. I found out after, Hymie got me out from the Shield, though I never figured how he did it. And some pilot flew me south. They thought I had died.” He stopped to drink from the coffee cup.

“Wasn’t the claim legal?”

“The trouble was Hymie. Each of us – on paper – turned over his half of the claim to the other, in case one of us didn’t come through. Hymie said it’d save a lot of legal mess.”

Christine prompted, “So while you were in the hospital…”

“Hymie’d taken both papers and registered his.”

Albert Wells stopped and waved a greeting across the dining room.

Christine looked up to see Peter McDermott approaching their table.

Hoping there would be an opportunity to talk privately with Peter afterward, Christine said, “Mr. Wells has been telling me a wonderful story. I must hear the end.”

Peter sipped his coffee, which the waiter had brought.

The little man smiled, “There isn’t a whole lot more. I went north and found Hymie in Yellowknife. When I’d quieted down my curses, Hymie told me to come with him. We went to a lawyer and there were papers, ready drawn, handing me back my half share.”

Bewildered, Christine shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why did he…”

“Hymie had always intended to hand my share back. Only thing was, he had never let me know. Right from the beginning, though, he’d fixed things up legally. If he’d died, I’d have got his share as well as mine. We had the same arrangement – about that one mine – till the day Hymie died, which was five years ago. When you believe in somebody, don’t be in a rush to change your mind.”

Peter McDermott said, “And the mine?”

“It still goes on – one of the best producers in the north. Now and then I go back to take a look.”

Speechless, Christine stared at the little man. “You… you… own a gold mine.”

Albert Wells nodded cheerfully. “There are a few other things now, besides. A couple of newspapers, some ships, an insurance company, buildings, other bits and pieces. I bought a food chain last year. I like new things. In fact, there’s something I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I may as well do it now. I’ve just bought this hotel.”

18

Captain Yolles closed the office door. “Mr. McDermott, Ogilvie has been arrested.” There was a pause, then Yolles said, “He claims he knew nothing about the car being involved in an accident. He says that the Duke and Duchess of Croydon paid him two hundred dollars to drive it north. He had that amount of money on him.”

“Do you believe that?”

“We’ll know better after we’ve done some questioning tomorrow. We intend to pay a call on the Duke and Duchess of Croydon. If you don’t mind, we’d like you along.”

“I suppose… if you think it necessary.”

“There is one other thing, Mr. McDermott,” the second detective said. “Do you suppose anyone kept the Duchess’s written permission for their car to be taken from the hotel garage?”

Kulgmer, the garage night checker, apologized again. “I must have thrown it out yesterday with the paper from my sandwiches.”

Peter McDermott asked, “What did the note from the Duchess of Croydon say?”

“Just that Mr. O. had permission to take away the car.”

“Was the note written on hotel stationery?”

“Yes, Mr. McDermott, I do remember that. The paper was embossed and had ‘Presidential Suite’ at the top. I’m sorry again. I must have thrown the note in a garbage can.” Kulgmer led the way to a garbage can around two in the morning. But this is emptied every day.

“What happens to the garbage when it leaves here?” asked the detective.

“It goes to our central incinerator.”

When they went up to the ninth floor, to Peter’s surprise, the doors of the Presidential Suite were open. As they approached, a buzz of voices could be heard. There was a group of men and women, the Duke and Duchess of Croydon among them. Most of the visitors were holding drinks.

The Croydons’ male secretary appeared in the hallway. “Good evening,” Peter said. “These two gentlemen would like to see the Duke and Duchess.”

“Are they from the press?”

Captain Yolles shook his head. The Duchess of Croydon detached herself from the group in the living room and came toward them. The secretary pointed, “These gentlemen are not from the press.” Her eyes went to Peter with a glance of recognition, then to the other two.

Captain Yolles said, “We’re police officers, madam.”

The secretary closed the living-room door.

“There are some questions, madam, that we’d like to ask you and your husband. We’ll do our best to be as brief as possible.”

“I’ll inquire if my husband will see you.” The Duchess re-entered, followed by the Duke.

Captain Yolles started his interrogation. “I wonder if you’d mind telling me when you last used your car. It’s a Jaguar, I believe.” He repeated the registration number.

“It was Monday morning. It’s been in the hotel garage since then. It’s there now.”

“Please think carefully. Did you use the car on Monday evening?”

“I am not accustomed to having my word doubted.”

“Are either of you acquainted with Theodore Ogilvie?”

“He came here. I’m not sure when. There was some query about a piece of jewelry, which had been found.”

“And you, sir?” Yolles addressed the Duke directly. “Do you know Theodore Ogilvie?”

The Duke of Croydon hesitated. “Only as my wife has described.”

“Would it, then, surprise you to know that your car is at present in the State of Tennessee, where it was driven by Theodore Ogilvie, who is now under arrest? Furthermore, that Ogilvie has made a statement to the effect that he was paid by you to drive the car from New Orleans to Chicago. And, still further, that preliminary investigation indicates, your car was involved in a hit-and-run fatality, in this city, last Monday night.”

“If Ogilvie drove our car so, it was without the authority or knowledge either of my husband or myself. Furthermore, if the car was involved in an accident on Monday night, it seems perfectly obvious that the same man took the car and used it for his own purposes on that occasion.”

Peter protested, “But you wrote an authorization. It specified that Ogilvie could take the car.”

Visibly, she paled.

“Show it to me!”

Peter said, “Unfortunately…”

He caught a gleam of mocking triumph in her eyes.