Thief Is an Ugly Word

 Thief Is an Ugly Word (1944) by Paul Gallico

Augustus Swinney, American refrigeration specialist (and ham connoisseur), is a bit mystified as to why he's been invited to a diplomatic, neutral gathering of Nazi, American, British, French, and Swiss representatives at the home of an Argentine millionaire to view the millionaire's latest art acquisition. Sure, he's a fairly high-flying businessman, but he's no art critic. And when he recognizes the painting on display as belonging to a Dutch gentleman of his acquaintance--a gentleman who at best has been displaced by the Nazi occupation of Europe and at worst.... Swinney knows good and well that the piece has been stolen from its rightful owner and, throwing caution to the wind, he says so to the company present and walks out the door with the painting. The Nazis, who are expecting financial assistance for their "glorious cause" in exchange for the painting, aren't too concerned. They are quite certain that Swinney won't make it out of Buenos Aires with painting. But Swinney comes up with a most ingenious method of sending the art piece to America...right under their noses. And even a beautiful Nazi sympathizer can't talk him out of his plan to return the painting to Mr. Jan van Schouven--if he can.

I enjoyed this short little mystery which apparently was originally written as part of WWII propaganda to get the word out about the Nazi war machine trying to fund itself through stolen artwork (see a mention of the story at H.V. Morton). Augustus Swinney is an appealing character and it's too bad that Gallico didn't write more stories about him. It's always nice to see Nazis outwitted and Swinney does it in such an interesting way. There's not a lot of mystery here. The single question is how Swinney plans to get the artwork out of Argentina. But it's handled so well that you don't really notice that there's nothing else to figure out. My only quibble with the story at all is below in my comment about the final sentence. Honestly, Mr. Swinney, I don't care how beautiful she is on the outside. ★★★★

First line: If one were to take a pencil, and upon a stereographic projection of a world map execute a series of straight lines connecting New York, Munich, and Buenos Aires, one would find oneself looking at a large isosceles triangle, the points of which are at a distance from one another that they might seem to preclude the coincidence of a certain day in early January 1944.

Last line: He reflected that only a fool bore a grudge against a beautiful woman. [Bev's take--if the beautiful woman is working with the Nazis, then a man would be a fool not to bear a grudge. Because the beauty is obviously only skin deep and she's rotten at the core.]