Thefts of Nick Velvet (15 page)

Nick parked just off the highway and walked up the long curving driveway to Vincent Surman’s country home. The place seemed closed and deserted, as Roger had said, but when Nick neared it he could see the wired windows and doors. The alarm system appeared to be functioning, though it wouldn’t stop him for long.

Following Roger’s directions and referring to the marked photograph, he walked along the driveway to where it ended at the rear of the house. There, next to the kitchen door, was the storeroom door that Surman had indicated. Both the door and the single window were locked, but at the moment Nick was mainly anxious to see what the room contained—what he’d been hired to steal for $20,000.

He looked in the window and saw a room about 20 feet long and 14 feet wide, with an inside door leading to the kitchen.

The room, with its painted red walls and white ceiling and wooden floor, was empty. Completely empty.

There was nothing in it for Nick Velvet to steal.

Nick drove to a pay telephone a mile down the road and phoned the hospital. They could tell him only that Roger Surman was in the recovery room following his operation and certainly could not talk to anyone or receive visitors for the rest of the day.

Nick sighed and hung up. He stood for a moment biting his lower lip, then walked back to the car. For the present there was no talking to Surman for a clue to the puzzle. Nick would have to work it out himself.

He drove back to the country home and parked. As he saw it, there were only two possibilities: either the object to be stolen had been removed since Roger saw it a few days earlier, or it was still there. If it had been removed, Nick must locate it. If it was still in the room, there was only one place it could be—on the same wall as the single window and therefore out of his line of vision from the outside.

Working carefully, Nick managed to bypass the alarm system and open the storeroom door. He stood just inside, letting his eyes glide across every inch of the room’s walls and floor and ceiling. The wall with the window was as blank as the others. There were not even any nail holes to indicate that a picture might have once hung there.

And as Nick’s eyes traveled across the room he realized something else: nothing, and no one, had been in this room for at least several weeks—a layer of dust covered the floor from wall to wall, and the dust was undisturbed. Not a mark, not a footprint. Nothing.

And yet Surman had told Nick he was there only a few days ago, trying to enter the room and steal something he knew to be in it—something he obviously was able to see through the window.

But what was it?

“Please raise your hands,” a voice said suddenly from behind him. “I have a gun.”

Nick turned slowly in the doorway, raising his hands above his head. He faced a short dark-haired girl in riding costume and boots, who held a double-barreled shotgun pointed at his stomach. He cursed himself for not having heard her approach. “Put that thing away,” he said harshly, indignation in his voice. “I’m no thief.”

But the shotgun stayed where it was. “You could have fooled me,” she drawled, her voice reflecting a mixture of southern and eastern origins. “Suppose you identify yourself.”

“I’m a real-estate salesman. Nicholas Realty—here’s my card.”

“Careful with the hands!”

“But I told you—I’m not a thief.”

She sighed and lowered the shotgun. “All right, but no tricks.”

He handed her one of the business cards he carried for just such emergencies. “Are you the owner of this property, Miss?”

She tucked the card into the waistband of her riding pants. “It’s Mrs., and my husband is the owner. I’m Simone Surman.”

He allowed himself to relax a bit as she stowed the shotgun in the crook of her arm, pointed away from him. “Of course! I should have recognized you from the pictures in the paper. You’re always on the best-dressed list.”

“We’re talking about you, Mr. Nicholas, not me. I find you here by an open door that should be locked, and you tell me you’re a realtor. Do they always carry lock picks these days?”

He chuckled, turning on his best salesman’s charms. “Hardly, Mrs. Surman. A client expressed interest in your place, so I drove out to look it over. I found the door open, just like this, but you can see I only took a step inside.”

“That’s still trespassing.”

“Then I apologize. If I’d known you were in the neighborhood I certainly would have contacted you first. My understanding was that the house had been closed down for the winter.”

“That’s correct. I was riding by, on my way to the stables, and saw your car on the highway. I decided to investigate.”

“You always carry a shotgun?”

“It was in the car—part of my husband’s hunting equipment.”

“You handle it well.”

“I can use it.” She gestured toward the house. “As long as you’re here, would you like to see the inside?”

“Very much. I gather this room is for storage?”

She glanced in at the empty room. “Yes. It hasn’t been used in some time. I wonder why the door was open and unlocked.” She looked at the alarm wires, but didn’t seem to realize they’d been tampered with. “Come around to the front.”

The house was indeed something to see, fully furnished and in a Colonial style that included a huge brick oven in the kitchen. Nick took it all in, making appropriate real-estate comments, and they finally ended up back at the door to the storeroom.

“What used to be in here?” Nick asked. “Odd that it’s empty when the rest of the house is so completely furnished.”

“Oh, wood for the kitchen stove, supplies, things like that. I told you it hadn’t been used in some time.”

Nick nodded and made a note on his pad. “Am I to understand that the house would be for sale, if the price was right?”

“I’m sure Vincent wouldn’t consider anything under a hundred thousand. There’s a great deal of land that goes with the house.”

They talked some more, and Simone Surman walked Nick back to his car. He promised to call her husband with an offer in a few days. As he drove away he could see her watching him. He had no doubt that she believed his story, but he also knew she’d have the alarm repaired by the following day.

The news at the hospital was not good. Roger Surman had suffered post-operative complications, and it might be days before he was allowed visitors. Nick left the place in a state of mild depression, with visions of his fee blowing away like an autumn leaf.

He had never before been confronted with just such a problem. Hired to steal something unnamed from a room that proved to be completely empty, he had no way of getting back to his client for further information. If he waited till Roger was out of danger and able to talk again, he would probably jeopardize the entire job, because Vincent Surman and his wife would grow increasingly suspicious when no real estate offer was forthcoming during the next few days.

Perhaps, Nick decided, he should visit Roger Surman’s home. He might find some clue there as to what the fat man wanted him to steal. He drove out along the river for several miles, until he reached a small but obviously expensive ranch home where Roger had lived alone for the past several years.

Starting with the garage, he easily opened the lock with his tool kit. The car inside was a late-model limousine with only a few thousand miles on it. Nick looked it over and then went to work on the trunk compartment. There was always the possibility, however remote, that Roger had succeeded in his own theft attempt, but for some reason had not told Nick the truth. But the trunk yielded only a spare tire, a jack, a half-empty sack of fertilizer, and a can of red paint. The spotless interior of the car held a week-old copy of
The New York Times
, a little hand vacuum cleaner for the upholstery, and an electronic device whose button, when pressed, opened or closed the automatic garage door. Unless Nick was willing to believe that the fertilizer had been the object of the theft, there was nothing in the car to help him.

He tried the house next, entering through the inside garage door, and found a neat kitchen with a study beyond. It was obvious that Roger Surman employed a housekeeper to clean the place—no bachelor on his own would have kept it so spotless. He went quickly through the papers in the desk but found nothing of value. A financial report on Surman Travelers showed that it had been a bad year for the trucking company. There were a number of insured losses, and Nick wondered if Roger might be getting back some of his lost income through false claims.

He dug further, seeking some mention of Roger’s brother, some hint of what the empty room might have contained. There were a few letters, a dinner invitation from Simone Surman, and finally a recent bill from a private detective agency in New York City. After another hour of searching, Nick concluded that the private detective was his only lead.

He drove down to Manhattan early the next morning, parking in one of the ramps off Sixth Avenue. The Altamont Agency was not Nick’s idea of a typical private eye’s office, with its sleek girl secretaries, chrome-trimmed desks, and wide tinted windows overlooking Rockefeller Center. But Felix Altamont fitted the setting. He was a slick, smooth-talking little man who met Nick in a cork-lined conference room because a client was waiting in his office.

“You must realize I’m a busy man, Mr. Velvet. I can only give you a few moments. Is it about a case?”

“It is. I believe you did some work for Roger Surman.”

Altamont nodded his balding head.

“What sort of work was it?”

The detective leaned back in his chair. “You know I can’t discuss a client’s case, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick glanced around at the expensive trappings. “Could you at least tell me what sort of cases you take? Divorce work doesn’t pay for this kind of layout.”

“Quite correct. As a matter of fact, we do not accept divorce cases. The Altamont Agency deals exclusively in industrial crimes—embezzlement, hijacking, industrial espionage, that sort of thing.”

Nick nodded. “Then the investigation you conducted for Roger Surman was in one of those fields.”

Felix Altamont looked pained. “I’m not free to answer that, Mr. Velvet.”

Nick cleared his throat, ready for his final bluff. “It so happens that I’m in Roger Surman’s employ myself. He hired me to try and clamp a lid on his large insurance losses. The company’s threatening to cancel his policy.”

“Then you know about the hijackings. Why come to me with your questions?”

“Certainly I know about the hijacking of Surman trucks, but with my employer in the hospital I thought you could fill me in on the details.”

“Surman’s hospitalized?”

“He’s recovering from a liver operation. Now let’s stop sparring and get down to business. What was hijacked from his trucks?”

Altamont resisted a few moments longer, then sighed and answered the question. “Various things. A shipment of machine tools one month, a load of textiles the next. The most recent hijacking was a consignment of tobacco leaves three weeks ago.”

“In the south?”

“No, up here. Shade-grown tobacco from Connecticut. No crop in the nation brings as high a price per acre. Very valuable stuff for hijackers.”

Nick nodded. “Why did you drop the investigation?”

“Who said I dropped it?”

“If you’d been successful, Surman wouldn’t need me.”

The private detective was silent for a moment, then said, “I told you we don’t touch divorce cases.”

Nick frowned, then brightened immediately. “His sister-in-law, Simone.”

“Exactly. Roger Surman seems intent on pinning the hijackings on his brother, apparently for the sole purpose of causing a divorce. He’s a lonely man, Mr. Velvet. He’ll give you nothing but trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Nick said. “Thanks for the information.”

When Nick arrived at the hospital late that afternoon he was intercepted by a brawny thick-haired man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Roger Surman.

“You’re Velvet, aren’t you?” the man challenged.

“Correct. And you must be Vincent Surman.”

“I am. You’re working for my brother.”

“News travels fast.”

“You were at my country house yesterday, snooping around. My wife caught you at it. This morning you were in New York, talking to that detective my brother hired.”

“So Altamont’s on your side now.”

“Everyone’s on my side if I pay them enough. I retain the Altamont Agency to do periodic security checks for my importing company. Naturally he phoned me after you left his office. His description of you matched the one Simone had already given me.”

“I hope it was flattering.”

“I’m not joking, Velvet. My brother is a sick man, mentally as well as physically. Anything you undertake in his behalf could well land you in jail.”

“That’s true,” Nick agreed with a smile.

“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

“My work for him is just about finished. As soon as he’s well enough to have visitors I’ll be collecting my fee.”

“And just what was your work?”

“It’s a confidential matter.”

Vincent Surman tightened his lips, studying Nick. “Very well,” he said, and walked on to the door,

Nick watched him head for the hospital parking lot. Then he went up to the information desk and asked for the doctor in charge of Roger Surman’s case. The, doctor, a bustling young man whose white coat trailed behind him, appeared ten minutes later, and his news was encouraging.

“Mr. Surman had a good night. He’s past the worst of it now. I think you’ll be able to see him for a few minutes tomorrow.”

Nick left the hospital and went back to his car. It was working out just fine now—the money was as good as in the bank. He drove out the country road to Vincent Surman’s place, and this time he took the car into the driveway, around back, and out of sight from the road.

Working quickly and quietly, Nick bypassed the alarm and opened the storeroom door once more. This time he knew what he was after. On his way to the hospital he’d stopped to pick up the can of red paint from the trunk of Roger’s car. He had it with him now, as he stepped across the threshold into the empty room. He stood for a moment staring at the red walls, and then got to work.