In the comfortable darkness he moved through the house. The stairs were carpeted and the noise he made was less than a sigh; he went down to the drawing room.
He already knew the location of the safe. Finding it in the darkness took two minutes, opening it another five.
The Baroness Erica von Steinholtz wouldn’t realize for a full twenty-four hours that two million dollars’ worth of her family’s fabulous fortune in jewels was gone.
Nadia Grinzel had a chubby face. It was the sort of face one sees on Scandinavian dolls in shop windows at Christmastime: cream and pink porcelain with sculptured lips and eyebrows, a pointed little nose, ears, barely visible at the lobes, that peeked out beneath yellow, spun-candy hair that fitted on top of her head like an elegant bathing cap. Her eyes were magnified by a large pair of heavy-rimmed, tortoiseshell glasses that usually hung from a gold chain looped around the back of her neck.
Nadia Grinzel’s I.Q. matched her vision: 40–40.
When the phone rang that night, she was dressing for an evening out. The reason for the evening out was a young banker, rich, handsome, and almost as dumb as Nadia.
She fully expected him to ask for her hand.
That would be nice.
She had worked for Fabian Huzel for two years. It was better than being a whore in the Damrak — which she had briefly been — but not as good as trapping a banker. The phone rang.
“Yes?”
“Fräulein Grinzel?”
“Yes.”
“This is Horst. I have the merchandise.”
“Oh, God, not tonight.”
“Yes, tonight.”
“But I’m...”
“Fräulein Grinzel, this is business. I have just obtained the merchandise. Needless to say, I can’t wait forever to get a price.”
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath, and then sighed. “All right. How long before you can get here?”
“I am on the corner, two minutes.”
“Fine.”
She killed the connection and dialed. When the old crone who always answered came on, Nadia was brief and to the point.
“I have a very large one. I must have a figure by noon tomorrow.”
“Ja, very well. I will tell him.”
Though it was not yet nine in the morning, a raw and rainy day looked in the windows of the old police central building overlooking the river.
A green-shaded lamp was burning above the desk of Chief Inspector Otis Konig Sev of the Metropolitan Amsterdam Police. He had been in his office since seven that morning, when the package had arrived. It contained papers that solved practically every major jewel robbery in the country for the past ten years.
Konig Sev examined the last of it, leaned back at ease, and smoked a cigarette with an air of doing so cynically. He was a long, stringy man whose thick and wrinkled eyelids gave him a sardonic look that was thoroughly deserved. Though he was not bald, his white hair had begun to recede from the skull as though in sympathy with the close cropping of his gray mustache. His eyes were bright, and right now they were amused.
The phone call had awakened him just before dawn that morning.
“Inspector Konig Sev?”
“Yes, yes, who is this?”
“Never mind. I understand you are very close to retirement, Herr Inspector.”
“I don’t enjoy being awakened from a sound sleep to be told what I already know.”
A low chuckle from the other end of the line. “Early this morning, a package will be delivered to your office by courier. The package will contain records of the buying and selling of vast amounts of stolen gems.”
“Damn you say.” Konig Sev was upright in his bed now, alert.
“The records alone are only circumstantial. They alone probably won’t convict the man. I’ll give you something else that will.”
Konig Sev was a cynical and rational man. “This is beginning to sound like a joke.”
“No joke, Inspector, I assure you. Just before dawn yesterday morning, the house of Baron and Baroness von Steinholtz was burgled. All of the family jewels were stolen.”
“My God, man, if such a robbery had occurred, it would have been reported!”
“Not really. The baron has been out of the city on business. The baroness has been confined to her bed with a cold.”
Konig Sev was incredulous. “You mean...?”
“Exactly, Inspector. Baroness von Steinholtz doesn’t even know she’s been robbed. I suggest you check it. I will call you later this morning in your office.”
The caller had hung up and Konig Sev had rushed into his clothes. A call to his office had brought a car with two patrol officers to his house in minutes.
He couldn’t suppress a laugh when he remembered the look on the face of Baroness von Steinholtz, and her comment, “Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant police work!”
The phone on his desk buzzed. “Yes?”
It was the central operator. “I think this is the call you’ve been waiting for, Inspector.”
“Put him through.” There was a series of clicks and he spoke again. “This is Inspector Konig Sev.”
“I trust you’ve had an enlightening morning, Inspector?”
“Dammit, man, this is serious business. What do you know about the von Steinholtz robbery?”
“A great deal, but, more importantly, I know where the jewels will be between nine o’clock and noon today.”
“I’m listening.”
“Number Twelve Herengracht. The flat is Four-A. It is owned by a young lady named Nadia Grinzel. But she is only a drop. The man you want is Fabian Huzel.”
“Huzel,” Konig Sev whispered.
“Yes, Inspector. You can retire with honors.”
The phone went dead, but Konig Sev kept holding it to his ear, staring off into space.
“Fabian Huzel,” he muttered, “at last.”
Nadia Grinzel checked through the peephole and unlocked the door. Fabian Huzel entered the flat shaking the water from his head and shoulders like a shaggy dog.
“Terrible day,” he mumbled.
It was a comparatively small flat, one main room with a bedroom alcove, an open kitchen area, and a door to a bathroom. It was in a corner of the building, so there were windows on two sides.
Nadia had obviously been preparing breakfast. There was a table near the window, half set, and there were cooking sounds coming from the kitchen.
“Do you want coffee?”
“No, I don’t have time. Where are they?”
“I’ll get them,” Nadia said. “I have to turn my stove down.”
She fiddled with the stove and then stepped up on a low, three-step ladder. She moved aside a square section of the false ceiling and raised to her toes as she felt along the indentation of the neighboring section.
Behind her, Huzel shook his head. If the police ever searched the place, he thought, that would be the first place they would look.
Nadia stepped from the ladder and brought two heavy chamois bags to the table where Huzel sat.
“It’s funny,” he said as he untied the drawstring on the first bag. “I thought Horst Eberson was in prison in France.”
The girl shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I’ve never had him before, but his name was on the list you gave me.”
Huzel’s eyes grew wide and saliva gathered at the corners of his mouth as he emptied the contents of the first bag.
He was examining the third piece through the loop in his eye socket when it struck him.
“Idiot!” he cried. “That damn idiot!”
“What’s the matter?” Nadia almost spilled her coffee.
“A first-year clerk in any watch shop would recognize—”
It was at that moment the door shattered from its hinges and the flat filled with uniforms.