Martin was eyeing him suspiciously. “So?”
“Then how can he hope to take anyone in? If he holds his auction — and he is not trying to sell it to an individual collector, but to a museum — then the whole world will know of it in a short time. Including the Russians. And they could easily prove the man is a swindler — I mean, a project director,” he added with a smile.
“Except I’m sure he has no intention of delivering.”
Keller shook his head decisively. “Then I’m sure he has no hope of collecting. I know those of us in the museum field are thought to be woolly-headed, but we’re really not so stupid as to buy that pig in or out of a poke.”
Martin thought a moment and then smiled craftily.
“Unless,” he said slowly, slyly, “it’s the Russians themselves who are offering the treasure for sale!”
Keller smiled sardonically.
“So now the treasure is suddenly authentic, is that it? Only now it’s the Russians who are peddling it! I suppose you can also come up with a good reason why they would do a thing like that? After all these years of sitting on it?”
Martin shrugged, but there was a gleam in his eye. The more he examined his new theory, the better he liked it.
“That’s simple. Because as I said before, they have no legal right to it. What good is a treasure like the Schliemann gold if you can’t exhibit it? So they probably feel they might as well get some money out of it, at least. And they have to go about it in this anonymous way because otherwise there would be a stink if they sold something they didn’t own.”
Dr. McVeigh had been listening to this exchange quietly. Now she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I seriously doubt if this letter came from the Russians. They’ve been returning tons of material to the East German museums, and this would certainly fall into that category. After all, the legal ownership of material donated to the Kaiser’s government back in 1887 or 1889 is certainly open to a good deal of question, especially when there have been several completely different governments since, including the late unlamented Third Reich. Lawyers would have fun with that one. And also especially since the material was donated by a man whose own legal right to the treasure has been certainly questioned often enough.”
“Overlooking that fact for a moment,” Keller said, “to sell the Schliemann treasure for a mere fifteen or twenty million dollars? I know,” he added, smiling. “A minute ago I described the sum as huge, and now it’s merely mere. But, really, for the Russians to peddle the Schliemann treasure for less than the cost of a medium Illyushin bomber? Or one of those missiles they parade around Red Square at the drop of a hat?”
“Then it’s a fake, a swindle,” Martin said positively, and came to his feet, holding up the ring and reaching for the photographs, “and if you’ll let me get on with it, I’ll prove it!”
“Do that,” Ruth McVeigh said, and pushed the wrapping paper and sealing wax across toward him. “Take these along and see what you can do about finding out where the package came from, at least.” She watched the small man pick them up with an expression of distaste, add it to his other burdens, and dart through the door. Bob Keller knocked the dottle from his pipe, blew through the stem to clear it of the remains of smoke, and tucked it carelessly into one sagging pocket. This ritual completed, he looked across the desk at the museum director and sighed.
“All right, Ruth,” he said quietly. “I recognize that look in your eye. Let’s get down to it. Let’s take it a step at a time. Let’s suppose the letter is genuine, and Jed Martin and his laboratory prove the ring is from the era of Troy. And let’s suppose the best photographic analysis indicates the pictures are genuine.”
“So?”
“So let’s go a bit further. Let’s suppose someone actually has the Schliemann treasure in his hands—”
“The Russians?”
“No, let’s suppose it’s an individual, not the Russian government. And let’s suppose this person, after all these years, has either just discovered the value of what he has been holding—”
“Or just recently came into possession of it.”
“Which could mean, of course, a recent robbery at one of the Russian museums, although you would think we would have heard of something like that. Still,” Keller said, nodding his big head, “I like that idea better. Whoever he or she is, or wherever they got their hands on it, it’s hard to believe a person could have held the treasure all these years and not known what he had, or tried to capitalize on it before. So what do we have? A man or woman, unknown, is offering the Schliemann treasure — the real article, no substitutions — for auction.” He paused and looked at Ruth McVeigh. “Question: Who is going to bid on it?”
Ruth frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say.” Keller shrugged and brought out his pipe, but not to light it, merely to stroke it, as if the feel of the smooth still-warm wood aided him in choosing his words. “I know that we won’t bid on it, and I seriously doubt if any other museum will. In fact, I’m sure they won’t. Jed Martin was right in one thing, at least. Whoever has the treasure, whether it be the Russian government or Joe, the hot-dog man at the corner, the legal ownership of the Schliemann treasure is definitely in doubt.”
“If it’s in doubt—” Ruth began.
“Wait.” Keller held up his hand. His half-humorous smile remained, but his voice was serious. “Look, Ruth. I know your history as a collector, an avid collector. We all are, or at least we’d like to be if the circumstances warranted. We wouldn’t be doing what we do if we weren’t. But this is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and you are its director. We do not, I repeat not, touch anything in the least dubious as to ownership. You know that as well as I do. It’s merely the smell of acquisition battle in your nostrils, my dear war horse, that has made you forget it. Temporarily, I assume, or at least hope.”
Ruth McVeigh smiled.
“Robert Keller, if you are going to tell me that after nearly a hundred years, and after almost that long in the legal possession of another country, the Turkish government will be able to successfully present a case for ownership of the Schliemann treasure just because it originally came from a section of that country that happened to be Turkey—”
“I’m telling you precisely that,” Keller said forcefully, and then weakened his argument a bit by adding, “or if not the Turks, then the Germans, or possibly even the Greeks—”
“Exactly. Which merely means the ownership is not clear.”
Keller ran a hand through his unruly hair in frustration. “Not clear to you because you’re stubborn. If the title is not crystal clear, we won’t touch it. This isn’t the first time we’ve been offered antiquities that we’ve had to refuse. We’ve even bought some and had to return them. Ruth, listen to me! Not only will the board never give you permission to even consider bidding on something like this, but no museum in the world will bid on it. Whoever is offering it to museums is an idiot. To private collectors, possibly, although fifteen million is far more than he’ll ever get from them. But museums? Never. You see—”
He paused as the telephone at Ruth McVeigh’s elbow rang. She shrugged her apology for the interruption and raised the receiver. It was her secretary.
“Dr. McVeigh, I’m sorry to interrupt your conference, but you have an overseas call from Spain. Dr. Armando Lopez is calling. Will you take the call?”