“So if it hadn’t been for this young lady,” John Quayle was saying as he raised his glass and made a toast to Vicki, “I’m afraid all of us would still be in the dark about the theft of the gold coins, and the thieves would be well on their way to parts unknown. But now, thanks to her, all of the gang except Amos Tytell are safely behind bars. Since the old man was an unwilling accomplice, we released him, and, for the first time since he came South, he’s enjoying himself here in Tampa waiting to be the key witness at the trial.”
“The newspapers,” Mr. Curtin said, “didn’t tell all the details of the story, not enough anyway to satisfy those of us who had a part in it. Frankly, Mr. Quayle, that’s why I invited you here today. Are you at liberty to give it all to us? I suddenly found myself caught up in the middle of it—first when our committee opened the crate of scrap metal, and second when I bought that gold ship in Havana—but frankly I’m still at sea.”
Mr. Quayle took a long sip of his drink. “It might be well,” he said, “if I started at the beginning.” He paused for a second to marshal the thoughts in his mind, and then went on.
“It all started out with Eaton-Smith. He had, as we finally found out, a pretty shady career behind him. He had never been arrested, though, and that’s why it took our people so long to track down his past. He had become friendly with a certain Max Schmidt in New York. Max didn’t have a record either, but Eaton-Smith discovered that he wasn’t above making a dishonest dollar if he thought he could get away with it. Max was a man-of-all-work at the Numismatic Museum, and when Eaton-Smith learned that your committee, Mr. Curtin, had requested that the antique coin exhibit be sent to Tampa, the two of them went to work on an elaborate scheme to steal them.
“First he contacted Raymond Duke who had, he knew, a business in Havana under the name of Ramon Garcia and who also was not reluctant to steal several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold. Through Duke he got in touch with Van Lasher.”
“But I thought you said Van was an old Federal Airlines employee with a good record,” Vicki interrupted.
“He had been for the past eight years, Vicki, and that’s what almost fooled us. After you reported that skull-and-crossbones warning, we started digging a little deeper into the background of all employees at the airport here. And we found out that he had served a prison term in Texas ten years ago for larceny. When he got out of prison, he changed his name and went to work for Federal Airlines. So far as we can tell, he had kept his record clean ever since. But Duke, who had been involved in a deal with Lasher some years ago, approached him on the gold coin job. And again, the prospect of all that easy money was too much for him.”
He took another sip of his lemonade.
“It is this kind of case that is always toughest to break. Where you are dealing with people who are known criminals, you automatically suspect them when a crime is committed. But all of these men had an outward cloak of respectability that acted as protective coloration.”
“But Mr. Tytell?” Vicki began, unable to control her curiosity about the old man who had so aroused her sympathy.