The Simeon Chamber (19 page)

There was a moment of hesitation from the detective. Sam’s mind scrambled to come up with an address that he might give to Fletcher any address but Angie’s. Just as Sam was about to give Fletcher Nick’s apartment address in Berkeley, the detective spoke.

“I would appreciate it if you’d return my call promptly if I have to get in touch with you again.” The tone of his voice became solicitous.

“I will.”

Mayhew began to stir from the credenza.

“Lieutenant, don’t you want to ask 223

him …”

Fletcher shot his subordinate a cold stare that nearly caused Mayhew to swallow what was left of the toothpick. “Ah yes. There is one more question. What hospital did they take you to following the attack in your apartment?”

“Saint Jerome’s. Why do you ask?”

“And your room number?”

“I’m not sure. I think it was 417. You can probably find out with a phone call.”

“I’m sure I can,” said Fletcher.

“That’s all, Mr. Bogardus—for now.” He watched Sam as the lawyer walked out of the office and down the corridor toward the exit.

Mayhew looked over at his boss. “Why didn’t you ask him …”

“Jack—Jack. When are you gonna learn?

You interrogate someone to get information, not to give it out.” Fletcher flicked through the pages of a hand-scrawled police report lying under the Paterson file. It had been hastily prepared at three-fifteen the preceding morning. a retired auto mechanic had been found dead in his hospital bed, a syringe tainted with mercury hanging from the I.V. tube running into the man’s arm. Paterson’s murder and the assault on Bogardus were no coincidence. The detective’s eyes ran to the hospital room number where the mechanic had been killed—Room 417. 7

The polished oak table in the city’s central library bore the idle scars of juvenile vandals. Initials carved with the sharp point of a pen marred the surface just above the books and magazines stacked in front of Nick Jorgensen.

He opened the hand-scrawled note penned by Bogardus in the Frenchman’s parlor. Nick could have saved himself the trip. Reinhard Heydrich was a name familiar to anyone versed in the terror tactics of the Third Reich. An ambitious officer, Heydrich was the protégé and top lieutenant of Heinrich Himmler, chief of Hitler’s dreaded S.S. His career was marked by a restless quest for power. He lived long enough to earn the name “Hangman Heydrich” for his relentless persecution of the Jews and methodical execution of political rivals during 225

Hitler’s purge of the S.A. in 1934.

Jorgensen paged through a thick volume, searching out indexed references to the Nazi officer. He found what he was looking for on page 1243. On May 29, 1942, on a rain-slick street in Prague, the icy-eyed Heydrich fell victim to an assassin’s bomb. Nick looked at the date of Heydrich’s letter that had been noted on Sam’s slip of paper—April 30, 1942. According to Lamonge, his brother had not received the letter or the parchments until sometime in June of that year. Little wonder Slade did not demand the return of Heydrich’s letter when he retrieved the parchments. The author was already dead. Nick stared vacantly at the entry in the book. By the whimsical hand of history, Slade and his principals had been freed to deal directly with the real purveyor of the Drake journal—Heinrich Himmler.

He pushed aside the massive text and picked up a large, glossy magazine. The cover displayed the provocative backside of an American actress; the edition was July 1972. Nick paged through the magazine until he found what he was looking for. The story was dominated by a full-page photograph of a massive blimp, its tailfin lifted skyward like the fluke of some majestic whale. The blimp was cast against an eerie, twilight blue background, the behemoth craft perched on a darkened runway, the horizon lost in shadows.

The article was a feature piece typical of photo magazines of the period, and its angle was the curiosity of a bizarre unsolved mystery as seen through the perspective of history thirty years later.

Nick quickly scanned the story. It traced the last flight of the Ghost Blimp from its departure on the morning of August 16, 1942, to its demise several hours later. Ever since Sam had told him about Jennifer Davies and the search for her father, something had gnawed at the edges of Nick’s memory, something he’d read several years before. Not in a scholarly treatise or academic journal, but in a dental office waiting to have his teeth drilled. He studied the article. Near the end he found what he was looking for—a picture of the Ghost Blimp’s gondola. It was not a drab wartime photograph, but in blazing color—the 227

name “America” could be discerned stenciled under the windows, and on the looming gas bag over the passenger compartment in ten-foot letters was the word “GOODYEAR.”

By the time Jennifer parked her car she was nearly twenty minutes late. The East India Tea Company was situated on a side street in the Financial District. When she entered the restaurant, Jennifer was surprised to see Sam seated at a table with another man. As she walked toward them she surveyed his companion.

He wore a closely cropped beard, his eyes were jovial and his conversation animated. The two men talked over drinks.

Sam rose from his chair.

“Ms. Davies …”

She interrupted: “I thought we were beyond that. Please call me Jennifer.”

Sam hadn’t been confident of a warm reception following his abrupt appearance at her law office. But for whatever reason she had mellowed since their conversation. “Very well. Jennifer, I’d like you to meet my good friend Dr. Nick Jorgensen. Nick, Jennifer Davies.”

Nick stood and extended his hand toward the woman, who took it in her own and responded with a smile.

“How do you do, Nick.”

“Well I must admit I’m honored. I finally get to meet the mysterious lady of the parchments.”

“It’s mutual, I can assure you. You are of course the illustrious Nick Jorgensen of Alleghany fame.”

Nick continued standing with a puzzled expression as Jennifer sat in the chair across from him.

“It seems that Ms. Davies—Jennifer has been talking to my mother. I would venture to guess she knows everything about me, including the location of all birthmarks.”

“That’s something we might discuss at a later time.” Jennifer smiled.

“Well perhaps sometime you can talk to my mother,” said Nick. “Did I say that? You’ll have to excuse me, sometimes my interests tend to run to the licentious.”

She laughed. “What’s this all about? Why all the secrecy—the clandestine meeting in an out-of-the-way restaurant?” 9

“Well, we have some news. It’s not much, but it may be our first concrete lead in the direction of James Spencer.”

“Really?”

“First let me get you a drink and then I’ll tell you all I know up to this point.” Sam called the cocktail waitress to the table. Jennifer ordered a glass of Chardonnay.

Sam avoided the details of Pat’s murder and his conversation with Fletcher at police headquarters that afternoon. He concentrated instead on his conversation with Phillipe Lamonge and watched Jennifer’s demeanor closely as he mentioned the Committee of Acquisition and the name Arthur Symington. There was no hint of recognition. But Sam was convinced that she was still withholding something.

It was more than female intuition that led her to believe that Raymond Slade had killed James Spencer. Lamonge had met Slade.

The sailor was intimately involved with the parchments, and Sam was convinced that his story was the linchpin in the chain of deceit leading to Pat’s murder.

Perhaps it was naive, but Bogardus had decided that the time had come to tell Jennifer Davies about the significance of the parchments. He hoped that a show of trust would be met with reciprocity, that she would reveal the information she was withholding.

“There is something that I couldn’t tell you when we met in the hospital,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“We’ve had the parchments analyzed and translated. They’re authentic. We believe that they are part of a manifest of precious metals and gems that was on board a sailing vessel under the command of Francis Drake when he put in for provisions and repairs somewhere on the coast near San Francisco in the late 1500’s.”

Sam paused and before he could speak again, Nick’s enthusiasm propelled him into the conversation.

“The parchments indicate that Drake had nearly forty-two tons of gold and silver on board when he landed on the Pacific coast at a place he called Nova Albion. By the time he provisioned the Golden
Hinde and made repairs, the ship was grossly overloaded. He had no idea what lay ahead. His Pacific charts, those he was able to plunder from a Spanish Manila galleon, provided only the roughest estimation of distance and currents.” 1

While Jennifer seemed to comprehend everything that Nick was saying, the glazed look in her eyes revealed that its significance continued to elude her.

Nick related the events of earlier that morning. The telephone call had come from Madrid at 4:30 A.M. A colleague of Nick’s on sabbatical in Spain had visited the Archives of the Indies. He had obtained the requested information.

The “Eagle of Cadiz” was reputed to be a masterpiece of Asian artwork. Crafted of solid gold extracted from Spain’s mines in Peru, then cast and hammered into form by Chinese artisans in the Phillipines, the capstone of the piece was an emerald more than forty carats in weight clutched in the eagle’s talons. The piece had last appeared in the literature in a Spanish bill of lading dated 14 March 1579. Consigned to a Manila galleon, it had sailed east toward the Americas but was never to arrive at its final destination, the royal palace of Philip of Spain. All traces of it had disappeared.

That in itself was not unusual. In that day ships went down with tragic regularity, cargoes were routinely lost and records of transit were often poorly maintained, sometimes by design.

What was noteworthy was the fact that on June 29, 1579, before venturing out into the Pacific on his return to England, Francis Drake buried the “Eagle of Cadiz” along with a treasure trove of precious metals and gems on a lonely headland in what was now California. It was this message that Drake had committed to the four pages of parchment now belonging to Jennifer Davies.

Sam engaged Jennifer’s eyes directly. Then he spoke. “The parchments reveal that Drake left approximately twelve tons of precious metal and gems somewhere here on the coast. The exact location is written in his journal.”

Sam searched her face for some expression of comprehension. He didn’t have to wait long. Her mind gravitated in the same direction as his the moment he learned of Pat’s murder.

“The parchments and that book would provide a powerful incentive to kill, wouldn’t they?”

Neither man responded. Sam 3

wondered if James Spencer had known of the significance of the parchments. Jennifer, for some unstated reason, believed he was dead. Had he gone to his grave ignorant, or like Pat unbelieving?

“I’m afraid the fate of your father is inextricably bound to the four pages of parchment you received and the Drake journal,” said Nick.

“We believe that Susan Paterson was murdered because someone mistakenly believed that she knew something about the parchments,” said Sam.

“I don’t want to change the subject,” said Jennifer, “but that reminds me. When we met in the hospital you indicated that you had obtained a file photograph of Raymond Slade from the navy. You didn’t happen to bring it with you by any chance?”

“No.”

“Oh well. You can get it for me later. It is strange, though,” she said, trying to shift gears back as smoothly as possible, “you would think that after all of these years someone would have found it—I mean twelve tons of precious metals.”

Sam was left wondering why the photograph had come to her mind with the mention of Pat’s murder.

“The area where Drake is believed to have landed is still largely undeveloped. It sits in the middle of thousands of acres of federally owned parkland,” said Nick.

“And I suppose the two of you are going to find it?”

“We’re going to try.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“By locating Drake’s journal.”

“What makes you think you can find it?”

Nick chewed on an ice cube from his drink as the two of them sparred.

“Because I think it’s here,” said Sam. “There are only two possibilities. If the letter from the German that Lamonge showed me is accurate, the book was either purchased and delivered to the committee, or for some reason they refused or failed to buy it. The answer can probably be obtained by talking to Arthur Symington, if he’s still alive and we can find him. If the journal is to be found he should know where. After all, he was the go-between, the designated buyer who went to the Jade House to gather all their goodies.”

“I have a better idea. Why not just 235

turn the parchments over to the police and let them handle it? That’s what they’re paid for.”

Nick looked at her and nearly choked as he swallowed the sliver of ice. The thought of having the parchments locked up in some evidence locker, perhaps for years, while the cops chased down Pat’s killer was anathema to him.

“And what do you think they’d do?” Before she could speak Sam answered his own question. “Exactly, nothing. They would never buy the translation of the parchments. Hell, Pat didn’t believe it herself. Why would somebody kill her for a secret that she herself thought was a joke? First question the cops would ask. You could stack experts from here to city hall vouching for the papers and the cops would throw us out the front door and laugh as we bounced down the steps.”

“Besides, the parchments are priceless.” Nick could no longer restrain himself. “You turn them over to the police and there’s no telling what will happen to them or whether we’ll ever see them again. As long as we have those pages we’re in the catbird seat.”

“You both forget one thing. Those parchments belong to me.”

“True,” said Sam. “But you might say that for the time being I hold them in trust. At least until I find out who killed my partner.”

“I’m as interested in finding the answer to that question as you are. I just don’t want you to join her.