"Maybe she did take it," I said. "Maybe if you can describe-"
"Queenie-is that what you call her? Queenie didn't get the particular coin I'm talking about," Stark said, smiling at me again. "That one actually wound its tortuous way back into our very own hands. I just mean that with objects as rare as the things Farouk bought for himself, one of them alone might be worth a fortune."
"Well, go back to the piece you referred to-the one you wound up with. Maybe there was another just like it."
"Ah, Ms. Cooper. That is the stuff that dreams are made of-sort of like a dirty old black falcon that a private eye set out to find. This coin- ourcoin-was an eagle, and I know for a fact there was only one in the entire world."
"You mentioned the CIA and Secret Service, though," Mike said. "You want to explain what this is all about?"
"I think you should know the story, Detective. Perhaps it will suggest some comparable avenue of investigation. Have any of you ever heard of a Double Eagle?"
Stark walked to a glass display case that stood at the far end of the room. He took a small key out of his breast pocket and unlocked it, taking from the top shelf a black leather box with a hinged clasp.
He sat down and opened the box, staring at the large coin inside before passing it across to us. "Mind you, this is just a proof-a copy of the actual gold piece. But it might be the most magnificent coin ever struck."
I lifted the shining disk from its nest and rubbed my finger over its raised image.
"She's quite gorgeous," I said.
Stark took off a strip of paper that was affixed to the inner lid of the box. "This is a passage from the auction catalog when we sold the piece. It describes her better than I can."
He paraphrased the copy. "Lady Liberty, striding forward in a loose gown, against the wind. Her left hand holds an olive branch while her right is extended with a lighted torch. There's a small representation of the Capitol Building on the bottom, with forty-eight stars circling the edge of the disc, and the rays of the sun emanating from beneath the feet of Liberty. The year of issue was 1933."
Mike took her from me and flipped her over. On the back were a finely etched profile of an eagle in flight, and the designation of the amount of the piece in United States value: twenty dollars.
"You sold one of these at auction?" Mike asked.
"Correction, Mr. Chapman. Don't get your hopes up. We sold the only one of these that existed at auction. July 2002. It was the one Farouk owned."
"You mean only one of these was ever made, that's how come you're so sure?"
"Many were made, in fact, but the government never issued them. They were all destroyed."
"I gotta ask you, sir, what this one went for. What price did you get for it?"
Stark was only too pleased to answer Mike's question. "It was in all the newspapers, Mr. Chapman. I've got nothing to hide." Stark reached over and reclaimed his proof, holding it up between his thumb and middle finger.
"The Double Eagle sold for more money than any other coin in history," Stark said proudly, puffing up as he gave the answer. "More than seven million dollars."
I looked at Mercer's three plastic bags of supposedly rare coins, which together would only fetch a few thousand. It was impossible to conceive that a single piece of gold with a face value of twenty dollars could eventually sell for seven million dollars.
Mike was incredulous, too. "So, just humor me, Mr. Stark. Suppose there was a second one. Just like that one you're holding, all solid and real. Suppose we found it mixed in with these others and brought it back to you. What'd you give me for it?"
"Nothing, Mr. Chapman. Not a dime."
Mike laughed. "At least I'd get twenty bucks' worth."
"No, that isn't true. Your hypothetical piece wouldn't even be worth the twenty dollars engraved on its back side. The coin was literally illegal the very day it was made."
Mike mimicked the position of Stark's fingers, which were still holding the coin. He had a goose egg instead of a gold proof. "Zilch. Zero. Bupkes."
"I suppose if you melted it down you'd get the price of the gold weight, but that's about it."
"How come?"
"Very simple, Detective. After the Mint creates the coins-all coins-they have to be 'monetized.' That's the process the Treasury Department has to go through with every kind of currency, or else-like the Double Eagle-it never becomes legitimate money. It's the process of monetizing the coins that makes them legal tender." Stark sighed. "This particular value is all in the history of this piece, the uniqueness of it."
"You wanna tell me about that?"
"Certainly. If I entertain you enough, perhaps I can charm Ms. Cooper out of some of these other little treasures," Stark said, referring to Queenie's stash. "I'd like to see everything you found in the lady's closet."
He started after the Gold Rush of the 1840s, which placed the young American nation among the wealthiest in the world. "The United States Mint needed a new denomination for the growing economy, something more than the original one-dollar gold piece. The highest value of currency that had been available until then was the ten-dollar coin. So a bill was introduced in Congress to create a twenty-dollar piece, cast with nearly a full ounce of gold."
Stark went back to his glass étagère and brought several coins back to us. "Plenty of these twenty-dollar gold pieces to go around," he said. "They were minted almost every year between 1850 and 1933."
I looked at the older version that he handed to me. "This one isn't nearly as elegant as yours, is it?"
"You can thank Teddy Roosevelt for the improvement. While he was president, he had a chance encounter with the man most people considered America's greatest sculptor."
"Who was that?" Mercer asked.
"Saint-Gaudens. Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Roosevelt complained to him that the U.S. coins lacked artistic qualities. Old Teddy wanted something to rival the ancient Greeks, with brilliant design and high relief. He had found the man capable of designing it. This new golden Double Eagle became the symbol of American wealth and power, a very desirable object from the first moment it went into circulation."
"There's only one bird on this thing," Mike said. "Why call it a Double Eagle?"
"Because it was twice the amount of the old ten-dollar piece, which had been nicknamed the Eagle."
"What ended the Eagle's flight?" I asked.
"Another Roosevelt, Ms. Cooper. Teddy's cousin, Franklin. By the time he was inaugurated in 1933, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. You could buy a daily paper for two cents and a pack of cigarettes for a quarter. The only thing that held its value during this crisis was gold itself."
"So there was a run on the banks, and people began to hoard gold coins," Mercer said.
"And two days after he was sworn in, President Roosevelt closed all the banks, embargoed the export of the very precious metal, and took America off the gold standard. After March of 1933, never again was the United States Mint to issue gold coinage."
"So Farouk's piece was made before FDR's proclamation?"
"Ah, the heart of the matter, Mr. Chapman. The Treasury Department prohibited the Mint from monetizing, or legitimatizing, any gold coins from that point on. But it neglected to forbid the actual production of the coins themselves."
"Farouk's Double Eagle was struck after we went off the gold standard?" I asked.
Stark nodded his head. "The Mint was just a factory, after all. The engraving for the coin had already been completed, the bullion was prepared, and within a month after the embargo, one hundred thousand 1933 Double Eagles had been cast. The Treasury realized the gaffe and immediately told the Mint not to license this particular coin."