Trojan Gold Read Online Free PDF Page A

but if there is the slightest chance it is anything else…. You have a flair for such things, Vicky. All of us develop a certain instinct, which is nothing more than long years of experience working with antiquities; but yours is stronger than most. If the jewelry in the photograph is not the original, it is an excellent copy, nein ?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    Schmidt’s fork, with its impaled chunk of sausage, stopped midway to his mouth. Weisswurst is really quite revolting in appearance; I will spare you the comparisons. I averted my eyes.
    â€œWhat is it?” Schmidt asked solicitously. “There is in your voice a note of grief, of tears repressed—”
    â€œThere is nothing of the sort. Your imagination is getting out of hand.”
    â€œ Ach, so ? Then with the tactfulness for which I am well known, I will pass on to matters of documented fact. Since you are this Ms. Know-It-All, I presume you are well acquainted with the details of the fall of Berlin in 1945.”
    â€œNo, I am not, and what’s more, I don’t want to be. Art history may be a cop-out, but at least it enables me to focus on the positive achievements of the human race.”
    I had meant the statement as a criticism—an indictment, if you will—of myself; but Schmidt’s sudden sobriety showed I had hit a nerve. Then, too late, I remembered something I had been told by Gerda, who really was Ms. Know-It-All. Schmidt had been a member of the White Rose, the Munich student conspiracy against Hitler—and he had lost many of his friends, including the girl he had hoped to marry, when the plot was discovered and the ringleaders were savagely executed. If the story was true, and I had no reason to suppose it was not, Schmidt had even stronger reasons than I to retreat from the contemplation of man’s inhumanity to man.
    I didn’t apologize, since that would only have made things worse. After an interval, Schmidt’s cherubic countenance returned to its normal, cheerful expression. He went on without referring to what I had said.
    â€œThe most valued exhibits from the Berlin museums had been removed to a bunker in the Tiergarten—the zoo.”
    â€œI know what Tiergarten means.”
    â€œHa! But you don’t know, I will bet you, that many of the objects taken away by the Russians when they entered the bunker have now been returned. The Gobelin tapestries, the Pergamum sculptures, the coin collection of Friedrich the Great…”
    One up for Schmidt. I had known of the Pergamum sculptures, but not the other things. Naturally, I wasn’t going to admit my ignorance.
    â€œAll right,” I said, with an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s admit for the sake of argument that both preposterous premises are right. The gold in the photograph is the genuine article and the stain on the envelope is human blood. We’re still up the creek without a paddle. We have no idea where that photograph came from.”
    Schmidt’s cheeks gyrated as he tried to chew and nod at the same time. Swallowing, he patted his mouth daintily with the tail of his napkin and then remarked, “Too true. What a pity that the one man who might lead us out of our dilemma is no longer among the living.”
    I reached for a piece of bread and busied myself breaking and buttering it.
    Schmidt is so classically, overpoweringly cute that people tend to forget how intelligent he is. And I swear there are times when I think he can read my mind. Not that a high degree of ESP was required in this case. The word “copy” inevitably brought John to mind. Also the words “fraud,” “fake,” and “crook.”
    Sir John Smythe he called himself, among other names—none of them his real one. The title was equally apocryphal. He had once admitted thatJohn was his first name—not very informative, even if it was true, which it might not be. He was the most accomplished liar