“More coffee?” Jeff’s voice.
“No, thank you, darling.” Tracy’s voice. “Try this cheese that room service sent up. It’s really wonderful.”
A short silence. “Mmmm. Delicious. What would you like to do today, Tracy? We could take a drive to Rotterdam.”
“Why don’t we just stay in and relax?”
“Sounds good.”
Daniel Cooper knew what they meant by “relax,” and his mouth tightened.
“The queen is dedicating a new home for orphans.”
“Nice. I think the Dutch are the most hospitable, generous people in the world. They’re iconoclasts. They hate rules and regulations.”
A laugh. “Of course. That’s why we both like them so much.”
Ordinary morning conversation between lovers. They’re so free and easy with each other, Cooper thought. But how she would pay!
“Speaking of generous”—Jeff’s voice—“guess who’s staying at this hotel? The elusive Maximilian Pierpont. I missed him on the QE Two.”
“And I missed him on the Orient Express.”
“He’s probably here to rape another company. Now that we’ve found him again, Tracy, we really should do something about him. I mean, as long as he’s in the neighborhood…”
Tracy’s laughter. “I couldn’t agree more, darling.”
“I understand our friend is in the habit of carrying priceless artifacts with him. I have an idea that—”
Another voice, female. “Dag, mijnheer, dag, mevrouw. Would you care for your room to be made up now?”
Van Duren turned to Detective Constable Witkamp. “I want a surveillance team on Maximilian Pierpont. The moment Whitney or Stevens makes any kind of contact with him, I want to know it.”
Inspector van Duren was reporting to Chief Commissioner Toon Willems.
“They could be after any number of targets, Chief Commissioner. They’re showing a great deal of interest in a wealthy American here named Maximilian Pierpont, they attended the philatelist convention, they visited the Lucullan diamond at the Nederlands Diamond-Cutting Factory, and spent two hours at The Night Watch—”
“Een diefstal van de Nachtwacht? Nee! Impossible!”
The chief commissioner sat back in his chair and wondered whether he was recklessly wasting valuable time and manpower. There was too much speculation and not enough facts. “So at the moment you have no idea what their target is.”
“No, Chief Commissioner. I’m not certain they themselves have decided. But the moment they do, they will inform us.”
Willems frowned. ‘Inform you?”
“The bugs,” Van Duren explained. “They have no idea they are being bugged.”
The breakthrough for the police came at 9:00 A.M. the following morning. Tracy and Jeff were finishing breakfast in Tracy’s suite. At the listening post upstairs were Daniel Cooper, Inspector Joop van Duren, and Detective Constable Wit-kamp. They heard the sound of coffee being poured.
“Here’s an interesting item, Tracy. Our friend was right. Listen to this: ‘Amro Bank is shipping five million dollars in gold bullion to the Dutch West Indies.’ ”
In the suite on the floor above, Detective Constable Wit-kamp said, “There’s no way—”
“Shh!”
They listened.
“I wonder how much five million dollars in gold would weigh?” Tracy’s voice.
“I can tell you exactly, my darling. One thousand six hundred seventy-two pounds, about sixty-seven gold bars. The wonderful thing about gold is that it’s so beautifully anonymous. You melt it down and it could belong to anybody. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to get those bars out of Holland.”
“Even if we could, how would we get hold of them in the first place? Just walk into the bank and pick them up?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re joking.”
“I never joke about that kind of money. Why don’t we just stroll by the Amro Bank, Tracy, and have a little look?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”
There was the sound of a door closing, and the voices ended.
Inspector van Duren was fiercely twisting his mustache. “Nee! There is no way they could get their hands on that gold. I, myself, approved those security arrangements.”
Daniel Cooper announced flatly, “If there’s a flaw in the bank’s security system, Tracy Whitney will find it.”
It was all Inspector van Duren could do to control his hair-trigger temper. The odd-looking American had been an abomination ever since his arrival. It was his God-given sense of superiority that was so difficult to tolerate. But Inspector van Duren was a policeman first and last; and he had been ordered to cooperate with the weird little man.