“I see nothing of the sort!” I’m afraid my voice rose a bit. “I do not see the scheme, nor do I see your plan, nor do I understand the need for my silence! As a matter of fact...”
He held up a hand to stop the flow of my language and looked at me almost with pity. “Well,” he said, “have another brandy and you soon will.” He called over the waiter, and then looked at me again and shrugged for my stupidity. “Prosit,” he said, holding up his glass.
Well (Huuygens continued, finally putting his glass to one side), the two weeks passed. Far too slowly for my liking, but pass they did. Each evening, Stavros would return from his office and I could tell from the look in his eyes that the figures were bearing out my promise that the losses would stop. But, being the stubborn man he is, he could not bring himself to admit that I was shortly due for a check. Once or twice, I could have sworn that he was on the verge of claiming that the losses had not stopped, but despite his cupidity, he was not downright stupid, and something must have told him this would not have worked for an instant.
In any event, two weeks from that Saturday, I went into the library and pulled a chair up to face him across his desk. “Well?” I asked quietly.
He sighed. “The losses have stopped,” he admitted, albeit with hesitancy. “I shall draw you a check in the amount agreed upon.” He stared at me. “And in return, you will tell me why you will not tell me...” He could not go on; it was evident that he was under a certain amount of stress.
“Certainly,” I said equably. “I will not describe the scheme to you because I have discovered — and stopped — a nefarious means of dishonesty which, were it ever bruited about, could lead to similar attempts by others in supermarkets. In your own chain of supermarkets, to be exact. Attempts, I might mention, that I guarantee would be equally successful. At great cost to you. And since you are no fool...”
Stavros stared at me with growing knowledge of what I was saying. “I am the worst kind of fool,” he said at last, bitterly. “I should have known better than to say one word to you about this. You, of all people!” He shoved the papers on the desk away from him with an angry motion, as if they somehow represented the dishonesty he was always so ardently combatting. His eyes came up. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well,” I said in a reasonable tone of voice, “I thought that ten thousand francs a week would be ample payment for seeing that the scheme is not repeated in any of the other stores.” I held up my hand. “This would be in addition to the reward which I have already earned.”
He clenched his teeth and glared at me. “This is blackmail!” he said tightly. “This is a crime!”
“A crime?” I asked innocently. “To prevent stealing? To see that you are not bankrupt through pilfering? Any other action on my part, it seems to me, could only be interpreted as being dishonest. And, to be frank, would lead you into disaster in short order.” I looked at him evenly across the desk. “Well?”
One thing about Stavros is that he knows when he is beaten. I could almost hear the wheels click in his head as he calculated my demands against his losses should they spread to the other stores.
“I assume,” he said in a voice drained of emotion, “that with this income, you will be able to move from my home into a place of your own?”
“I have spent the last two weeks locating a suitable apartment,” I assured him. “With this income, I can swing it.”
“Then allow me to help you by according with your wishes,” he said politely. “Of course, you know that I shall have to continue spending money on detectives.”
“I imagined you would,” I said coldly and got to my feet. “Otherwise, my demands would have been much higher.”
And that’s how we left it.
Kek Huuygens grinned at me across the table. “And so I live a comfortable life,” he said. His hand gestured idly, including his wardrobe and the sidewalk cafe in general. “And shall continue to — at least, until my cousin figures out how he was being swindled. Which is almost impossible, since it has been stopped and the evidence removed from the area of his investigation.”
“But I still don’t understand it,” I said in irritation, “How did the scheme work? What did you whisper into the ear of the manager of that store?”
“Have another brandy,” he said, and waited once again until we were served. I could barely contain my impatience, but Huuygens, in one of his moods, is not to be rushed. When our glasses were again full, he viewed me in quite another manner — seriously this time — and then nodded as if he had come to an important decision.
“I can trust you,” he said at last. “And it is too good a story to remain untold, although only by me” — his finger came up — “and not by you. What I said to the manager of the store was this: ‘You are the ninth counter.’”
I had started to raise my glass to my mouth, but I paused and set it down untouched. I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it again as Kek’s words came through to me in all their meaning. Kek nodded, happy that I had at last seen the light.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Stavros had told me there were eight girls checking out goods at these counters. But the manager had added a ninth counter which he handled himself. And which was completely beyond the control of my cousin’s vaunted auditors.” He grinned at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I admitted. “Truly beautiful.”
He raised his glass. “To beautiful schemes,” he said. And then added quietly, a glint in his eye, “And if I buy the next one, you will then owe me two.
The Collector
As a general rule I run into Kek Huuygens by pure accident, but this time, believe it or not, I actually knew where it might be possible to find him. It was not, of course, an address or anything that simple, but mutual friends had seen him in the casino in Monte Carlo and said he looked to be quite prosperous. Knowing Huuygens, I felt there was a good chance he might be on a winning streak and if he were, I was sure he’d still be there when I arrived. Kek is an old and valued friend, Polish by birth, Dutch by name, American by passport, and as international as one can get. He has often furnished me with some of my best copy — and even, at times, permitted me to publish it. While Huuygens’ normal activity is to confound the various customs services of the world — for a fee, of course — he is also quite a gambler. I had always wanted to do a column on the difference in gambling habits between a place like, say, Vegas, and a place where you don’t carry nickels around in a paper cup like, say, Monte Carlo. And the thought of an old friend to serve as both guide and source of expertise was a strong temptation. Besides, I owed myself a vacation and by far the best bait for a vacation on the Riviera is New York in winter.
My cab from the Nice airport arrived at the hotel about dusk. I checked in, changed to dinner clothes, and strolled over to the casino. Although it was just about the dinner hour, the place was quite crowded. As I walked from table to table through the various rooms, studying the taut faces of the players, I began to fear that perhaps Huuygens had moved on, for he is a restless soul, but then I spotted him standing behind a fat man playing roulette. I was surprised that he was not involved in the game. I placed myself directly behind him, cleared my throat loudly, and nudged him as if by accident, anticipating the startled look of amazement when he saw who had caused his discomfort, but when he turned there was only the slightest humorous quirking of an eyebrow to change his expression.
“Well, well,” he said, quite as if we had seen each other for dinner, rather than a year ago and across an ocean. “Come into the bar and have a drink.”