I followed him into the long, dark-paneled ornate room and sat across from him at the table he selected. We both ordered and I studied him. As our mutual friend had reported, Kek looked both prosperous and content.
“And what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking of a column on gambling,” I said. “I heard you were here and I was sure you could help.”
Kek shook his head; he tried to look sad but there was a twinkle in his eye. “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong man. I’ve given up on gambling; there’s too much of an element of risk in it.”
I frowned at him. “Then what on earth are you doing at the casino?”
“I’ve become a collector,” he said calmly, “and my reason for being here is merely to look for donors.”
“A collector?” I must have sounded puzzled. “But you’ve always been a collector. And what do you mean, to look for donors?”
Kek paused as our waiter placed our drinks before us, waited until we were alone once more, and raised his glass in a salute. I responded; we sipped our cognac and then Kek put his glass down.
“I’ve become a different type of collector,” he said. He saw the look on my face and laughed. “I suppose you won’t be satisfied until you have the complete story of my reformation. I may even permit you to print it. Some day...”
To begin with (Huuygens said, twisting his brandy glass idly), as I say, I’ve become a different type of collector. I collect money. And — although this is not particularly germane to the point and you won’t know what I’m talking about for a while — I seldom like the type of people I collect from, and I have to put Ralph White and his wife Vera at the top of the list. They are the sort of Americans you run into over here; the ones with huge villas who will wine and dine you when you have all the funds you need to wine and dine yourself, but who wouldn’t permit you within a fork length of their kitchen door when you could really use a meal. Something like bankers, you might say.
In any event, this particular day I had been watching White play baccarat, and when he left the game rooms I followed him into the bar — we actually sat at this very table — and sat down across from him without being invited. I spoke to him quite frankly.
“Ralph,” I said, “I’ve been recruited to do some rather noble work, and this year, you know, I’m looking for a rather large contribution from you. It’s for an extremely worthwhile charity—”
He interrupted me brusquely. “You’re collecting for charity?” There was more than a touch of disbelief in his voice, but then he shrugged the matter off as being unimportant. “Well,” he went on, “it really makes no difference. You may or may not know it, but I’m stoney.” He tipped his head in the direction of the game rooms as if in explanation.
Well, of course I knew he was low in funds, if that isn’t an exaggeration of his true financial position. Little things, like the number in help and the cheaper wines served at their parties, were apparent. Actually, with the way he played cards, one has to wonder how he lasted as long as he did. However, I kept up the charade.
“Broke?” I asked, my own tone surpassing his in disbelief. “But what about that villa?”
“What about it?” he asked gloomily. “The rent’s paid on it for the season, but then...” He allowed it to drift off into a tragic picture of himself and Vera, in rags, sleeping under a bridge.
“Oh, come!” I said. “What about those diamonds your wife drapes herself with! Or aren’t they real?”
“Oh, they’re real enough,” he said bitterly, and upended his drink. I had known, of course, they were real. He tapped the table for a refill, and added, “And Vera would part with them about as soon as she’d part with her right arm.”
“And when do you think she’ll part with her right arm?” I asked quietly. “When you two are forced to eat it?”
He looked at me with sudden suspicion. Ralph never was much of a trusting soul. “Just what are you getting at, Huuygens? Because if I know you, you’re getting at something.”
I shrugged. “All I’m trying to say,” I said, “is that despite the old proverb, there are still a few ways to eat your cake and still have it, if you know how.”
He stared. “Such as?”
“Such as paste,” I said bluntly. “You’d be amazed at how realistically they make some of these imitations these days.”
“And then what?” he said in his usual surly manner. “Sell the real ones? Vera would never do it, not in a million years, even if she had a dozen replicas and each one better than the original! And even if I could convince her — which I know damn well I couldn’t — you know what you get for stuff when you’re forced to sell? Nothing!”
The man was really innocent, you see?
“Sell?” I said. “Heavens no!” I leaned closer to him as the waiter placed a second drink before him, refused one for myself — I never mix drinking with business — and went on once the waiter had left. “First, as I say, you have replicas of the diamonds made. Then you throw a cocktail party—”
“A cocktail party?” Ralph was not only innocent, he also wasn’t very bright.
“Exactly,” I said patiently. “You invite all sorts of the usual hangers-on around here; you might even bring some in from Mentone, or Nice. And when the party is in full swing— My God!” I rolled my eyes dramatically. “People walking in and out and the jewels gone! Obviously stolen! Hysterics, tears, hair-tearing, the police, and,” I paused significantly, “eventually, of course, the insurance company.”
He stared at me, his little pig eyes beginning to glimmer with what for him passed as intelligence. “And where would the diamonds really be?” he asked softly.
“In a safety-deposit box, of course,” I said evenly, “waiting for you when you go back to the States. Vera, with a wig of a different color and shape, and with dark glasses and slacks to hide extra-high heels, and possibly some padding here and there — or, now that I remember, the removal of some padding here and there — Vera simply rents a safety-deposit box in-well, Nice, for example. Less than ten miles from here; close enough for a visit now and then. The Banque Succursàle National there, I happen to know, does not ask too many embarrassing questions of the people who rent their boxes.”
His suspicion returned instantly. “And just how do you know that?”
I looked at him pityingly. “Because,” I said — and I suppose my sincerity showed, since I was being perfectly honest — “this is not the first time the scheme has been tried.”
“Nice,” he said thoughtfully, and then frowned. “But under what name?”
I had been prepared for that. “A French name,” I suggested. “It will add to the disguise and be further confusing for one and all. Vera speaks French, doesn’t she?”
“Barely,” he said. “And with an awful accent.”
Well, of course I knew Vera White spoke French with an accent that would have shamed a Corsican. She also had a nasal voice that sounded like a brake-drum that hadn’t been greased in a long, long time, but that is neither here nor there. “Well, then,” I said, “what language does she speak?”
White sighed. “She took three years of Spanish in college, but I wouldn’t exactly say she speaks it. Anyway, what difference does it make?”
“The bank,” I said patiently, “won’t know she barely speaks it. And as for what difference it makes, she has to pick out a name she can easily remember, because it would be quite foolish to write it down.” I thought a moment. “Blanco,” I said at last, with conviction. “That’s it. Señora Blanco.”
“Blanco?”
“It means ‘White,’” I explained. “She could hardly forget that.”