“We have no doubt,” said Adler.
“Then why are you here?”
“Cash, Mr. Storms. Our old reliable friend cash. Backed by gold.”
The mild-mannered Adler suddenly had a steel gleam in his eye, and steel in his voice. “Cash can come from untaxed gains. Even illegal gains. Does he have private accounts or does he represent a corporation?”
Storms looked a little surprised by the question, and Adler feared he had misstepped. It turned out he hadn’t. Storms said, “Both actually. He has some corporate entities that maintain some accounts. And he also trusts us with the privilege of managing his personal holdings.”
“Numerous accounts of cash?”
Storms sprang to his feet. “I have spoken far too freely about private matters, don’t you think?”
“We think that a government prosecutor might wonder whether that cash was invested with you to hide all trace of ill-gotten gains.”
“I don’t like your implication, sir.”
Adler quoted from his dictionary: “Concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions is a crime.”
Kliegman quoted from his: “To transfer funds of dubious or illegal origin to a foreign country, and then later recover them from what seem to be clean sources, is a crime.”
Adler added, “To help a criminal hide cash is to become an accomplice in the crime of tax evasion.”
Detective Marcum had yet to speak. He had a deep voice that rumbled like a chain-drive “Bull Dog” truck. “To gain by not paying taxes is tax evasion, whether the original gain is legal or illegal.”
“No one has ever been prosecuted for that,” Storms protested.
“Yet,” said Marcum.
“Would you like to be the first?”
Newtown Storms said, staunchly, “An American citizen would be violating his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if he admitted to illegal gains on his tax return.”
“Would you like to spend years in appeal, waiting for the Supreme Court to eventually rule on that dubious interpretation of our constitution?”
“Mr. Storms, we’re not asking for your money. We are asking you to betray a crook.”
“‘Crook’ is not a word that applies to the gentlemen classes my firm serves.”
“What if we told you he was a Bolshevik?”
Storms laughed. “Next, you’ll tell me President Harding wants America to join the League of Nations. And Marcus Garvey is signing on with the Ku Klux Klan.”
“What if it were true that Prince André is a Bolshevik?”
“How can he be a Bolshevik? The revolutionaries kicked him out of his country and seized his estates.”
“What if Prince André is a Bolshevik?”
“If it were true, Prince André would be a traitor to his class, and I would tell you everything you want to know.”
• • •
THE WIND WAS RISING IN NASSAU, shivering flags and slapping halyards, when Isaac Bell returned to the steam yacht Maya. Fern Hawley received him in the main salon, which had been designed in the old Art Nouveau mode by the Tiffany Company. It was a breathtaking sight, thought Bell, that would force anyone questioning the pleasures of wealth to change his tune.
“Why, Mr. Bell, where are your swim trunks?”
“I hired a launch. There’s a mean chop on the harbor. Besides, it’s getting dark and I’m told sharks dine at night.”