Trojan Gold by Elizabeth Peters

questions,” John said.
    â€œWhy bother?”
    â€œTit for tat. Have there been any new developments?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHmmm,” said John.
    â€œYou said you weren’t interested.”
    â€œNot under any circumstances whatever. I cannot conceive of any contingency that would persuade me.”
    â€œThen you have no need to know.”
    â€œEr—quite. Look here, suppose I ring you tomorrow. A late report may yet come in.”
    â€œWho was that?” Schmidt demanded as I hung up.
    â€œA friend of mine.”
    â€œYou did not sound very friendly,” said Schmidt.
    Schmidt finally left at about one-thirty. As I pushed him out into the night he called, “I will telephone you at nine o’clock. We must get an early start.”
    I nodded agreeably. At nine the next morning I expected to be halfway to Garmisch.

Four
    A T NINE O’CLOCK I WAS JUST LEAVING M UNICH . I had overslept. I figured Schmidt had probably done the same, so I wasn’t worried about his following me. I was worried about two other people.
    I lost more time taking a roundabout route through the suburbs instead of heading directly for the autobahn. The sun was trying to break through clustering clouds, but the side streets were slick with packed snow. I had to concentrate on my driving and try, at the same time, to keep an eye on the rearview mirror.
    I didn’t expect to have any difficulty spotting Dieter. He was such a ham he wouldn’t be able to resist some silly trick. Having observed no bright purple Beetles painted with vulgar mottoes (Dieter’s last-owned car) or vehicles driven by gorillas or mummies, I turned onto the autobahn and put my foot down. The suggested speed limit is 130 kilometers per hour, but nobody pays much attention to it; I got in the (comparatively) slow lane and gave myself up to introspection.
    Painful introspection. I wasn’t too pleased with myself. There is nothing wrong with having a positive self-image, but when self-esteem blossoms into conceit, it is apt to cloud one’s judgment.
    Whether the photograph was a hoax or a swindle or a sales pitch, it was reasonable to assume the sender would not limit himself to a single sucker. Until the previous day, I hadn’t been able to pinpoint a particular group of prospects; but I should have made some phone calls to colleagues and asked whether they had received anything unusual in the mail.
    On the other hand, nobody had telephoned me either. That made me feel a little less culpable. Either I was the only one Hoffman had contacted or the others were being devious—like me.
    Schmidt it was who said it: “If there is the slightest chance…” The acquisition of the gold of Troy would be the museum coup of the century. Well, maybe not the century—there have been others—but a coup of mythical proportions. We’re no nobler than anybody else. We talk about cooperation and mutual assistance in the lofty name of scholarship, but let some prize come on the market and we’re in the arena with knives swinging. Competition stops short of assassination, but not by much. I could tell you some stories….
    It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Hoffman had communicated with the others. They might even have information I lacked—a return address that had not been obliterated, a note or covering letter of which I had been deprived by Gerda’s interfering nosiness. They were behaving precisely asI would have expected if such a contingency had occurred.
    Dieter would be intrigued and amused, and perfectly willing to spend a few days on a possible wild-goose chase, so long as the geese were nesting in one of his favorite vacation spots. Tony would call me on some pretense and wait to see if I would mention the peculiar photograph I had received from that dear old gentleman at the Gasthaus Hexenhut. My failure to do so would persuade him I was up to my old tricks, trying to