A Prisoner of Birth

"Two coffees, please," said Danny. She smiled and left the room.

Danny was admiring a portrait of the founder of the modern Olympic Games when the door opened and the present holder of the title entered the room.

"Good morning, Sir Nicholas," he said, walking up to Munro, offering his hand.

"No, no, my name is Fraser Munro, I am Sir Nicholas's legal representative."

"I apologize," said the old man, trying to hide his embarrassment. He smiled shyly as he shook hands with Danny. "I apologize," he repeated.

"Not at all, Baron," said Danny. "An understandable mistake."

De Coubertin gave him a slight bow. "Like me, you are the grandson of a great man." He invited Sir Nicholas and Mr. Munro to join him at the boardroom table. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I had the great honor of representing the late Sir Alexander Moncrieff," began Munro, "and I now have the privilege of advising Sir Nicholas." De Coubertin nodded. "We have come to claim my client's rightful inheritance," said Munro, opening his briefcase and placing on the table one passport, one death certificate and Sir Alexander's will.

"Thank you," said de Coubertin, not giving any of the documents even a cursory glance.

"Sir Nicholas, may I ask if you are in possession of the key that your grandfather left you?"

"Yes, I am," Danny replied. He undid the chain that hung around his neck and handed the key across to de Coubertin, who studied it for a moment before returning it to Danny. He then rose from his place and said, "Please follow me, gentlemen."

"Don't say a word," whispered Munro as they followed the chairman out of the room. "It's clear that he's carrying out your grandfather's instructions." They walked down a long corridor, passing even more oil paintings of partners of the bank, until they came to a small elevator. When the doors slid open, de Coubertin stood to one side to allow his guests to step in, then joined them and pressed a button marked -2. He didn't speak until the doors opened again, when he stepped out and repeated, "Please follow me, gentlemen."

The soft Wedgwood blue of the boardroom walls had been replaced by a dull ocher as they walked on down a brick corridor that displayed no pictures of the bank's past officeholders. At the end of the corridor was a large steel barred gate which brought back unhappy memories for Danny. A guard unlocked the gate the moment he spotted the chairman. He accompanied the three of them until they came to a halt outside massive steel door with two locks. De Coubertin took a key from his pocket, placed it in the top lock and turned it slowly. He nodded to Danny, who put his key in the lock below and also turned it. The guard pulled open the heavy steel door.

A two-inch-wide yellow strip had been painted on the ground just inside the doorway. Danny crossed it and walked into a small square room whose walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves, crammed with thick leather-bound books. On each shelf were printed cards, indicating the years 1840 to 1992.

"Please join me," said Danny, as he removed one of the thick leather books from the top shelf and began to leaf through the pages. Munro walked in, but de Coubertin did not follow.

"I apologize," he said, "but I am not allowed to cross the yellow line-one of the bank's many regulations. Perhaps you would be kind enough to inform the guard when you wish to leave, and then do come and join me back in the boardroom."

Danny and Munro spent the next half hour turning the pages of album after album, and began to understand why Gene Hunsacker had flown all the way from Texas to Geneva.

"I'm none the wiser," said Munro as he looked at an unperforated sheet of forty-eight penny blacks.

"You will be after you've had a look at this one," said Danny, passing him the only leatherbound book in the entire collection that was not dated.

Munro turned the pages slowly, to be reacquainted with the neat, calligraphic hand he remembered so well: column after column listing when, where and from whom Sir Alexander had acquired each new acquisition and the price he'd paid. He handed the meticulous record of the collector's life back to Danny and suggested, "You're going to have to study each entry most carefully before you next bump into Mr. Hunsacker."

***

Mr. and Mrs. Moncrieff were shown into the boardroom at 3:00 P.M. Baron de Coubertin was seated at the far end of the table, with three colleagues on each side of him. All seven men rose from their chairs as the Moncrieffs entered the room, and didn't resume their places until Mrs. Moncrieff had sat down.

"Thank you for allowing us to inspect your late father's will," said de Coubertin, "as well as the attached letter." Hugo smiled. "However, I must inform you that in the considered opinion of one of our experts, the will is invalid."

"Are you suggesting that it's a fake?" said Hugo, angrily rising from his place.

"We are not suggesting for a moment, Mr. Moncrieff, that you were aware of this. However, we have decided that these documents do not stand up to the scrutiny required by this bank." He passed the will and the letter across the table.

"But..." began Hugo.

"Are you able to tell us what in particular prompted you to reject my husband's claim?" asked Margaret quietly.

"No, madam, we are not."

"Then you can expect to hear from our lawyers later today," said Margaret as she gathered up the documents, placed them back in her husband's briefcase and rose to leave.

All seven members of the board stood as Mr. and Mrs. Moncrieff were escorted from the room by the chairman's secretary.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

WHEN FRASER MUNRO joined Danny in his room the following morning, he found his client sitting cross-legged on the floor in his dressing gown, surrounded by sheets of paper, a laptop and a calculator.

"I apologize for disturbing you, Sir Nicholas. Shall I come back later?"

"No, no," said Danny as he leaped up, "come in."

"I trust you slept well?" said Munro as he looked down at the mass of paperwork littering the floor.

"I haven't been to bed," admitted Danny. "I was up all night checking over the figures again and again."

"And are you any the wiser?" asked Munro.

"I hope so," said Danny, "because I have a feeling that Gene Hunsacker didn't lose any sleep wondering what this lot is worth."

"Do you have any idea...?"

"Well," said Danny, "the collection consists of twenty-three thousand, one hundred and eleven stamps, purchased over a period of more than seventy years. My grandfather bought his first stamp in 1920 at the age of thirteen, and he continued collecting until 1998, only a few months before he died. In total, he spent £13,729,412."

"No wonder Hunsacker thinks it's the finest collection on earth," said Munro.

Danny nodded. "Some of the stamps are incredibly rare. There is, for example, a 1901 U.S. one-cent 'inverted center,' a Hawaiian two-cent blue from 1851, and a Newfoundland 1857 two-penny scarlet, which he paid $150,000 for in 1978. But the pride of the collection has to be an 1856 British Guiana one-cent black on magenta, which he bought at auction in April 1980 for $800,000. That's the good news," said Danny. "The not so good news is that it would take a year, possibly even longer, to have every stamp valued. Hunsacker knows that, of course, but in our favor is that he won't want to hang around waiting for a year, because among other things I've picked up from the odd article my grandfather kept is that Hunsacker has a rival, a Mr. Tomoji Watanabe, a commodities dealer from Tokyo. It appears," Danny said as he bent down to pick up an old cutting from Time magazine, "to be a matter of opinion which one of their collections was second only to my grandfather's. That argument would be settled the moment one of them gets his hands on this," said Danny, holding up the inventory.