Free Billy Boyle by James R. Benn Page B

Most of the boats met up with British destroyers and other vessels. A few came directly to England.” He took a drink of wine and set his glass down, adding, “Vidar was responsible for the bookkeeping.”
    He speared a potato and popped it in his mouth. He smiled at Daphne as he chewed, satisfied that the questions were over. Hold your horses, buddy.
    “So you got it all to England?” There, that got a reaction. Birkeland’s face flushed and Skak looked tense. The king patted his lips with a napkin and stopped eating, which was the biggest reaction I had gotten out of him. It must have been the colonial in me that got a kick out of needling royalty.
    “Yes, essentially,” Birkeland said. “There were a few gold coins lost when a crate broke in Molde, and a few discrepancies in paperwork when everything got to England. But nothing that affects the balance of our national treasure.”
    At this, Skak finally turned and spoke. “The leavings of a national treasure may be minor, Lieutenant, but only to nations. To a single person, it is a great fortune.”
    There was a second of interminable silence. Skak had a good point, but nobody agreed with him. Finally the king spoke.
    “Tell me, Lieutenant Boyle. Are there many Norwegians where you come from?”
    I said something polite, and then took the obvious hint to drop the questions. I didn’t know what the gold had to do with a spy, but sometimes you just had to kick over a few garbage cans to see what was hidden behind them. There would be plenty of time to poke a stick in it later.
    Then it came to me. That thing beneath the surface bubbled up and came to the top. It was only a small thing, and it didn’t even make sense or have anything to do with the gold. But there it was.

CHAPTERSIX
    I WAS MORE USED to a ham and cheese on rye washed down with a Coke for lunch. I really wanted to take a nap after drinking two glasses of wine and eating that big meal, but it would have been tough the way Harding was yelling at me.
    We were in the library, sitting in cozy leather chairs, but I wasn’t enjoying it. Not like Kaz was. I could see him lifting one edge of his mouth and suppressing a smile every time Harding looked away. Kaz sat back in a reddish brown leather chair, the brass buttons on his uniform matching the shiny nail heads decorating the leather. His legs were crossed and one arm was lazily draped over the arm of the chair; the other held a cigarette. His eyes darted back and forth between me and Harding, like we were swatting tennis balls at each other.
    “I told you, Boyle, that this was supposed to be a nice social conversation. Not an interrogation! We’re not here about the missing gold, damn it!”
    “Maybe the spy is after the gold,” I said, my cop’s mind going right to one of the two motives that everything ultimately came down to. Greed. The other was love, or rather love gone bad. I preferred greed. It was more direct, pure in its own way. And usually not as messy. Greedy people just wanted to get away. Ex-lovers wanted revenge, or blood.
    “Everyone with half a brain knows the gold is in America, Boyle.”
    Well, he had me there. I didn’t want to go into my theory of investigative techniques, the “poke-everyone-with a-stick” theory. I had come up with that one myself. And if I said, “Yes, sir” one more time to this guy I was going to puke.
    “It gives me an excuse to ask questions, Major. We’ve got to ask questions to find this spy; if he thinks it’s about the gold, all the better.”
    I could see Harding hesitate before he launched into his next lecture. He was actually thinking about what I had said. Ah, the joys of being an Irishman with the gift of the gab. I hadn’t even realized it was a good idea until after I had said it.
    “OK, Boyle. At least you had a reason. But keep a lid on it. Lieutenant Kazimierz, make sure he does. You are now officially Lieutenant Boyle’s nursemaid. Be certain he doesn’t cause an