Death at Charity's Point (29 page)

“Beat that,” he commanded.

With a shrug I took the metal box into my hand. I tried. I was no match for the old man, as I’m sure he expected. “You win,” I said, when my Pac-Man was destroyed for the last time.

We both sat back into the leathery folds of the sofa for a moment, relit the cigars clenched between our teeth. Without sitting up, Ollie said, “I said I had something to show you.”

“So you did.”

“Third shelf, fourth from the left.”

I went to the bookshelf and removed a thin volume bound in soft beige tooled leather that felt like pigskin. There was no writing on the binding or the cover. I brought it back and handed it to Ollie. He opened it onto his lap.

“I give you,” he announced as if he were unveiling the Mona Lisa, “the Netherlands fifteen-cent 1852 imperforate. Better known as the Dutch Blue Error.”

He regarded me expectantly.

The volume he held open contained one page, a transparent plastic sandwich between the sheets of which was a small, unattractive square of paper. I stared at the postage stamp.

It was a dark, dull blue color with a heavy black postmark on the upper right corner. It had squared-off sides, as if its edges had been trimmed carelessly with scissors. The right profile of a bearded man with a high forehead and a sort of page-boy haircut stared off the side of the stamp. The face was framed by a scrolled oval. In the upper left corner appeared the word
post
and in the upper right
zegel.
In the lower left was the digit 15, and the lower right held the letter C.

It was clearly very old, and otherwise it was totally undistinguished. I glanced at Ollie. He was staring intently at me. A grin played at the corners of his mouth.

I shrugged, smiled, looked back at the stamp, and said, “Yeah?”

“You’re not impressed.”

“It’s very nice. A real nice one, Ollie.”

Weston’s eyes shifted. They no longer smiled. “Don’t patronize me, Brady Coyne. If you don’t know philately, that’s okay. But don’t humor me.”

“Sorry. I guess I don’t know philately.”

“I paid two hundred and twenty-nine thousand dollars for this portrait of King William III. It’s the only one of its kind in the world. It could bring a million dollars on the market today.”

“It
is
a nice one,” I said. I smiled at him so that he could see I was contrite.

He rubbed his thumb across the plastic sheet protecting his prize. He seemed to caress the stamp.

“The Blue Error,” he said, as if addressing the stamp. “Discovered in 1885 by a Dutch lad by the name of Hans Wilhelm Van Gluckmann among the papers of his grandfather. Young Hans knew something of stamps—an instance of a little knowledge not being enough, in his case, because he sold it to a dealer who had advertised for the fifteen-cent 1852 issue. The dealer was suspicious, of course, since he knew that the stamps he wanted to purchase were supposed to be orange. But he dipped the blue stamp in water, and when the ink didn’t run, he reluctantly upheld his part of the bargain, and young Hans returned home happily with his ten guldens. Typical story. The stamp has changed hands several times. Its full value has never really been realized.” Ollie turned his head to look hard at me. “The next time it is sold, it will bring full value. It is a genuine rarity. A priceless treasure. And,” he added, touching my knee, “it’s mine.”

“I used to collect stamps,” I said. “When I was a kid. I had several thousand from all over the world. Fascinating hobby. From places like French Equatorial Africa and the Gold Coast and Ceylon, countries that don’t even exist anymore. Beautiful things. Colorful birds, maps, kings, athletes. I sold my collection so I could buy a motor scooter when I was fifteen. Got sixty-five bucks for it.”

Ollie chuckled. “The man who bought it was probably doing you a favor. Listen. I still collect stamps. It’s more than a hobby. It’s a passion and an investment. Most of my stamps are drab. They’re all very old. My total collection numbers forty-seven. Forty-seven stamps. Total.” He pushed his face at me. “My stamp collection is worth, conservatively, five point six million dollars.”

I shook my head and whistled softly.

“And the Dutch Blue Error,” he continued, “is my prize. It has become the mystery stamp of the philatelic world. I have not exhibited it or loaned it to museums or permitted it to be photographed. I have not acknowledged that I own it. I have encouraged romantic legends about my stamp to circulate. That it was seized and held ransom by Irish terrorists and then burned when their hideout was stormed. That the Central Committee of the Soviet Union has it in a vault in the Kremlin. That a crackpot millionaire buried it in his backyard before he died, leaving a treasure map as yet undiscovered. That a beautiful lady ate it when she discovered its owner, her husband, in bed with her sister. Every serious philatelist in the world would kill to own the Dutch Blue Error.”

I looked at Ollie sharply. He held up his hand and laughed. “Not literally, of course. My point is this. There are several unique stamps. One-of-a-kind. All, obviously, equally rare, in equally scarce supply. And yet their value ranges from a bit over a hundred thousand to, as I estimate in the case of my little jewel, something over one million dollars.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why…?”

“Why are some worth so much more than others?” Ollie leaned forward, his hands gripping his lifeless knees. “Demand,” he whispered. “Demand, Brady. The other half of the economic equation. Listen. The British Guyana one cent black and magenta—everybody’s heard of the black and magenta—it brought a cool eight hundred and fifty thousand back in 1980. Now, that’s a unique stamp. Worth an easy million today. But there are other unique stamps, as I told you. The Gold Coast provisional of 1883, for example, or the four-penny Cape of Good Hope Woodblock
tête-bêche.
Or any of the several American Postmaster provisionals—the Alexandria Blue Boy, or the Boscowan, or the Lockport. All of them are just as rare as the black and magenta. What do you suppose those stamps are worth?”

“Jeez, I don’t know, Ollie. I guess…”

“I’ll tell you.” He held up his hand imperiously. “The Lockport Postmaster’s Provisional earned its owner a neat twenty-three grand back in 1964. Today? Maybe five times that amount. A bit short of a million, what? The Blue Boy—this is a famous stamp, mind you—the Blue Boy was purchased for eighteen-five in 1967. Now do you see?”

I looked at him. “No. Not really.”

“Jesus, Brady. Listen to me. Demand, see? Supply makes value possible. But it’s demand that determines it. And demand is something that can be controlled, nurtured. In the world of rare stamps, that is done by myth and legend. Some stamps simply acquire an aura, a mystique. Some never do. Demand is what makes the black and magenta so much more valuable than the others. And the mystique creates that demand. It’s what’s made my own Dutch Blue Error the equal of the black and magenta.”

“What’s the mystique, as you call it, of this black and magenta, then?”

“Oh, nothing dramatic. Just that it’s universally known as the world’s rarest stamp. A misnomer, as I’ve explained. All unique stamps are obviously equally rare. But the black and magenta was the first truly valuable stamp—the first to bring a big price. It’s probably the only stamp that the lay public might recognize. It’s ugly as sin. Terrible condition. Its corners have been cut off, and its surface has been rubbed. Somehow that seems to have contributed to its mystique.” He shrugged. “You can’t always explain mystique. It’s like charisma in politicians. Some just seem to have it naturally. Some are able to have it created for them. And some never have a chance for it.”

I nodded uncertainly. “And you’re creating it for the Dutch Blue Error.”

“Yes,” he said. He reached over and tapped my leg.

“Only four people in this entire world know that I own the Dutch Blue Error. Four. Therein lies its mystery. If the world knew, the myth would be shattered. So would the value of my stamp.”

He pointed at the big rolltop desk. “Top left-hand drawer.”

I rose and went to the desk, slid open the drawer, and removed an envelope from the top of a stack of papers. “This?”

Ollie nodded.

“Open it,” he said.

I found a single typewritten sheet of paper. I glanced at the bottom and saw no signature, no name. I read it.

“My dear Mr. Weston,” it began.

I have in my possession a small blue square of paper 130 years old that I believe will be of interest to you. I assure you it is authentic. This is no hoax. I have chosen to withhold knowledge of my find from the public for the moment on the assumption that it will be to our mutual benefit.

If you do not reply in the precise manner I shall indicate within fourteen days of the postmark on this envelope, I shall be forced to make public my possession of this scrap of paper. Please, therefore, place in the Boston
Globe
automobile classified advertising section the following notice:
WANTED:
blue ʼ52 Mercedes for collection. Call 922-5518.

Renew the advertisement each day until you hear from me.

My price is $250,000. That is firm. I know you will agree that it is reasonable. Unless you are prepared to pay, do not bother to reply.

“He’s got a duplicate of your stamp?” I said.

“So it would appear.”

“But how? I thought you said…”

“That mine was one-of-a-kind. Yes. So I thought. For over a hundred years it was the only one extant. And now?” Ollie shrugged.

“Is it a fake?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “Could be. I tend to doubt it. It’s practically impossible to fake something like this. In the first place, he’s got nothing to copy it from. And anyway, the state of the art is damn sophisticated nowadays. They can test stamps for age, match the grain of the paper; watermarks, cancellations, the ink, all of it. I can believe he’s got the stamp, and that it’s real.”

“But how? Where did it come from?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, my friend,” sighed the old man. “Somebody’s attic, probably, or a trunk in a barn. Somebody’s grandmother’s old love letters. A rusty old strongbox full of old bills and receipts. Who knows? The point is, he’s got it.”

“Okay. But why all this subterfuge?”

“You haven’t been listening to me. Let me try it again. Okay? First, what determines the value of the stamp?”

“Its rarity. Aha, and the mystery. No one knows you own it.”

“Good. Now, by induction, my boy, what happens to the value of my unique stamp if another suddenly appears?”

“Obviously it’s reduced.”

“Reduced! Ha! It’s destroyed. Annihilated, Brady. So therefore, by the same logic, what is the value of the duplicate of my stamp on the open market?”

“Not much, I guess.”

“Good. Right. But for whom
does
it have value?”

“You?”

“Me. Right. Of course. This fellow knows that. He knows that I will pay what the open market will not pay, because the stamp is worth infinitely more to me than to anyone else. I want that stamp, Brady. I will pay the man his price.”

“A quarter of a million dollars? Jesus, Ollie.”

“That is what the man says here. For two hundred and fifty thousand I will own the stamp, protect my investment, and purchase this man’s sworn secrecy. I know he understands all of that.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Why doesn’t this guy sell his stamp as if it were the one you own? You know, as if
it
were the unique Dutch Blue Error?”

“Only a fair question, my friend. Not a good one. First, I doubt he has papers of authentication—that trace the various sales and so forth of the stamp, along with the appraisal of a recognized authority that the stamp isn’t a fake, that it is what it purports to be. Without those papers, his stamp, no matter how genuine it may actually be, could never be passed off as
my
stamp. At best it would be accepted as a duplicate, a second Blue Error. More likely, philatelists would assume it was a fake, and he could never prove otherwise. He’d need my stamp for comparison—which, of course, he’d be unlikely to get. No reputable authority would bother trying to authenticate his stamp without mine beside it. This man understands all that.”

“Sounds like it’s worthless to him, then. Why are you willing to pay so much?”

Ollie sighed. “It’s not worth the risk to call his bluff. Maybe he’s got some kind of papers. Hell, even if he had forged papers, I’d have to go public to prove it. I can’t take that chance. The safest thing to do is to buy the damn thing from him. It’s insurance, part of the investment. I can afford it. Hell, I can’t afford not to.”

I sat back on the sofa. My cigar butt was cold, my brandy snifter empty. I patted my shirt pocket and extracted a Winston, lit it, and said, “And you’ll pay his price. And the stamp-collecting world will be none the wiser. Right?”

Ollie smiled thinly. “Right, Counselor.”

“One question, then.”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you telling
me
all this?”

“Why, Brady. I’m surprised. You are my trusted attorney. You are bound by the ethic of absolute confidentiality. You are discreet. I
trust
you. And I pay you well for it.”

“So?”

“So you will be my go-between?”

“Me? Hell, Ollie. Why me?”

“Who else?” Ollie thumped his withered thighs. “You have legs. You
can
go.”

“But why…?”

“Ah. Why not Perry? Listen. He’s my son, it’s true. But he’s also neither particularly bright nor particularly brave. You, having a generous endowment of both qualities, surely have observed that.”

“Ah, he’s not that bad.”

“It’s true. Listen. This transaction will be tricky. It needs a lawyer’s mind. It needs an experienced hand. Not a boy.”

“He’s twenty-three years old.”

“A boy. A baby.”

“You don’t do him justice, Ollie.”

He smiled. “I don’t trust him. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

I shrugged. “Okay. So what’s next, then?”

“I have placed the notice in the newspaper, as our friend has instructed. Now we wait. We’ll do as he says. For a quarter of a million dollars cash money we’ll buy the stamp and the man’s commitment of secrecy.”