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on hold.”
    â€œHim whom?” Swift asked, reaching for the phone.
    â€œYou know, him ! The President.”
    â€œWell, Mary, lucky thing I came in just as he called.”
    â€œHe’s been on the phone about ten minutes,” Mary said. “I hold him you were out. He said he’d wait.”
    â€œTen minutes?” Swift said, staring at the receiver in his hand with a snake-handler’s respect. He brought it slowly up to his ear. “Hello?”
    â€œMr. Swift?” Not the President.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œOne second.” Which stretched to five minutes.
    â€œHello?” The President.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œNate? Where the hell you been, boy?”
    â€œI’ve been out investigating, Mr. President. That’s what you pay me for: to investigate.”
    â€œDamn right. And I got confidence in you, Nate. Confidence which had better not be misplaced. The country is counting on you, Nate. A fact which the country had better not ever find out. What have you got for me? You got IT yet?”
    â€œNo, Mr. President. But we have a lead. A start.”
    â€œI knew it. I knew I could rely on you. Let’s hear it.” Swift told him about the coins. There was a silence, while the President digested the information. Then: “You’re kidding!”
    â€œHow’s that Mr. President?”
    â€œYou’re kidding. That’s progress?”
    â€œIt’s a connection. We had nothing before; now we have three gold coins.”
    There was a short pause, then the President abruptly hung up.
    â€œNice office,” Ves said. “I’ve never been in your office before, you know that? Nice secretary.” He smiled down at Mary, who was young, pretty and easily flattered by distinguished-looking older men who smiled without leering. She smiled back.
    Nate put down the phone. “The President,” he told Ves, “just hung up on me.”
    â€œYou told him about the coins?” Ves asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHe is not amused?”
    â€œObviously he expected more. He’s disappointed at the lack of progress.”
    â€œYour president,” Ves said, with heavy accent on the ‘your’, “is a man who expects miracles. And clearly he has a right to: he got elected, didn’t he?”
    â€œHe’s afraid of what will happen if the people find out,” Nate said.
    â€œThey already know,” Ves told him. “It’s hard to keep the results of presidential elections secret for long.”
    â€œLaugh,” Swift said. “Go ahead. But he’s right, you know. If the people find out the Constitution has mysteriously disappeared, there’ll be panic in the streets. Look at it this way: aside from the symbolic importance of the document, if the Constitution, kept in a vault-tight building under constant guard, in a helium-filled bullet-proof case that’s set to dive under concrete at the first sign of trouble, can silently vanish away, then what is safe, and where should it be kept?”
    â€œWell, then, let us proceed to find the damn thing,” Ves said. “If Tom Browne was willing to attempt ‘What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women’, then surely we can try where the paper strayed, or what hand signed its replacement.”
    â€œI’m glad it will prove so easy,” Swift said. “I had rather feared it would be difficult. What do we do?”
    â€œLet me sit down and muse over a piece of paper for a few moments,” Ves said, “and I’ll tell you.” He took off his jacket, a blue blazer with large gold buttons. He was about to hang it over the chair when he noticed the small coat rack in the corner and appropriated a hanger instead. “Like the jacket?” he asked Mary, who’d been watching the process. “I used to wear suits,” he told her when she nodded, “but now