The Main Death and This King Business Read Online Free PDF Page A

dear?”
    â€œI know of nothing,” she replied.
    He giggled and made a delighted face at me.
    â€œThat is it,” he said. “We know of nothing.”
    â€œHe came back to San Francisco eight o’clock Sunday night—three hours before he was killed and robbed—with twenty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. What was he doing with it?”
    â€œIt was the proceeds of a sale to a customer,” Bruno Gungen explained. “Mr. Nathaniel Ogilvie, of Los Angeles.”
    â€œBut why cash?”
    The little man’s painted face screwed itself up into a shrewd leer.
    â€œA bit of hanky-panky,” he confessed complacently, “a trick of the trade, as one says. You know the genus collector? Ah, there is a study for you! Observe. I obtain a golden tiara of early Grecian workmanship, or let me be correct—purporting to be of early Grecian workmanship, purporting also to have been found in Southern Russia, near Odessa. Whether there is any truth in either of these suppositions I do not know, but certainly the tiara is a thing of beauty.”
    He giggled.
    â€œNow I have a client, a Mr. Nathaniel Ogilvie, of Los Angeles, who has an appetite for curios of the sort—a very devil of a cacoethes carpendi . The value of these items, you will comprehend, is exactly what one can get for them—no more, little less. This tiara—now ten thousand dollars is the least I could have expected for it, if sold as one sells an ordinary article of the sort. But can one call a golden cap made long ago for some forgotten Scythian king an ordinary article of any sort? No! No! So, swaddled in cotton, intricately packed, Jeffrey carries this tiara to Los Angeles to show our Mr. Ogilvie.
    â€œIn what manner the tiara came into our hands Jeffrey will not say. But he will hint at devious intrigues, smuggling, a little of violence and lawlessness here and there, the necessity for secrecy. For your true collector, there is the bait! Nothing is anything to him except as it is difficultly come by. Jeffrey will not lie. No! Mon Dieu , that would be dishonest, despicable! But he will suggest much, and he will refuse, oh, so emphatically! to take a check for the tiara. No check, my dear sir! Nothing which may be traced! Cash moneys!
    â€œHanky-panky, as you see. But where is the harm? Mr. Ogilvie is certainly going to buy the tiara, and our little deceit simply heightens his pleasure in his purchase. He will enjoy its possession so much the more. Besides, who is to say that this tiara is not authentic? If it is, then these things Jeffrey suggests are indubitably true. Mr. Ogilvie does buy it, for twenty thousand dollars, and that is why poor Jeffrey had in his possession so much cash money.”
    He flourished a pink hand at me, nodded his dyed head vigorously, and finished with:
    â€œ Voilà! That is it!”
    â€œDid you hear from Main after he got back?” I asked.
    The dealer smiled as if my question tickled him, turning his head so that the smile was directed at his wife.
    â€œDid we, Enid, darling?” he passed on the question.
    She pouted and shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
    â€œThe first we knew he had returned,” Gungen interpreted these gestures to me, “was Monday morning, when we heard of his death. Is it not so, my dove?”
    His dove murmured, “Yes,” and left her chair, saying, “You’ll excuse me? I have a letter to write.”
    â€œCertainly, my dear,” Gungen told her as he and I stood up.
    She passed close to him on her way to the door. His small nose twitched over his dyed mustache and he rolled his eyes in a caricature of ecstasy.
    â€œWhat a delightful scent, my precious!” he exclaimed. “What a heavenly odor! What a song to the nostrils! Has it a name, my love?”
    â€œYes,” she said, pausing in the doorway, not looking back.
    â€œAnd it is?”
    â€œ Dèsir du Cœur ,” she replied