“There’s no accounting for what people do when they get panicky,” Mr. Quayle said. “He saw you in the store that day and the idea of running away on your ship suddenly occurred to him. He had come to look on you as a friend, Vicki, since you were the only person who had acted friendly toward him. He had seen Eaton-Smith’s air-travel credit card lying on his desk. So, having no money, he tried to use it to pay for his ticket when he picked it up at the airport. Naturally, the Federal people called Eaton-Smith, and he and Duke drove to the airport, found the old man, forced him into the car and took him back to Ybor City. He lost his violin case in the struggle.”
The FBI man took a long sip of his lemonade. “I’m certainly doing a lot of talking,” he said.
“If you stop now,” Louise said pertly, “I’ll take away that tray of chicken sandwiches.”
“In that case—” Quayle reached for another sandwich. “Now where was I?”
“What I don’t understand,” Mr. Curtin said, “is how that peddler in Havana happened to have the solid gold ship he sold us.”
“We got him, too,” Quayle said. “But let me go back a little. Eaton-Smith had a very ingenious idea about shipping the gold out of the country. He bought up several crates of those little Festival souvenirs, on the pretext of giving them to his customers. You saw some of them at his house, Vicki. He then forced Tytell to melt down the coins and cast the gold in the shape of the little ships. He then recrated the souvenirs, putting several layers of the gold ships under the cheap ones, and Duke shipped them to Ramon Garcia in Havana. If the Cuban customs people bothered to open the crates at all—don’t forget that Ramon Garcia was constantly shipping things in and out of Havana—they would have seen the souvenirs on top and pass the shipment. Naturally, they would have no reason to suspect that the crates held anything more valuable than cheap novelties. And, of course, it worked.
“Now for the man who sold you the gold ship in Havana. He was a handyman who worked at odd times around Duke’s place. When Duke was removing the gold from the crates of souvenirs, he was careless to let the fellow get a good look at one. He recognized it for what it really was, and when Duke’s back was turned for a moment, slipped it into his pocket.”
“And thereby,” Mr. Curtin volunteered, “providing us with the one piece of concrete evidence that solved the mystery.”
“Don’t you mean solid gold evidence, Daddy?” Nina teased.
“It’s a good thing we went to the Thieves’ Market that afternoon,” Vicki remarked.