"The Golden Chalice" by Frank Gruber (from Weird Tales, January 1940, as "Golden Chalice"; reprinted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 1952, as "The Gold Cup"; reprinted in Rainbow Fantasia: 35 Spectrumatic Tales of Wonder, edited by Forrest J Ackerman, 2001)
While we are in the midst of the Lenten season and less than two weeks away from Easter, -- since this week marks the anniversary of the Isabella Stuart Gardner art theft -- I thought this would be an interesting tale to cover today.
Jim Vedder, safe cracker and burglar, has just been released from prison. He meets up with Benny Potter, a cheap hood, and the two decide to rob a safe in one of the fancy estates in Fox Hollow. All they found for their efforts was an old cup "made of gold. No question about that. It was about four inched tall and weighted pretty close to a pound. I don't know of any other metal that would have made the cup weigh as much, even though the thing didn't look like gold. But I guess it was because it was so old." they figure that they could get about $300 to split from a fence who would melt the cup down for its gold value.
They were about to meet with the fence when there was a knock on the door of the cheap room that Benny had rented. No one knew they were there and, even though no one knew they had stolen the cup, they feared the police. It was a tall, lean, dark complexioned man in his early thirties neither had ever seen before., He was polite and soft spoken, saying only, "You'll have to take it back."
Benny panicked and pulled a gun on the man -- something that startled Vedder. He did not know his accomplice had had a gun and Vedder himself had never used a gun in a crime. Benny held the gun on the man and instructed Vedder to tie his up and leave him on the bed. the man remained calm and , as the two crooks began to leave the room, he said, "Take it back. Take it back, Benny Potter and Jim Vedder." How did the stranger know their names?
Frightened and upset, Benny said he needed a drink. The to went into the nearest bar and, when the bartender turned around, it was the Stranger. He said, "You'll have to take it back." The two ran out of the bar. How had the Stranger freed himself? How had he had time to get to the bar before Benny and Vedder? For that matter, how did he know they would stop at that particular bar?
Vedder insists that they return the cup, but Benny has the gun. As they head to the fence, they spot a newspaper that has a story about the burglary. The man they burgled was a famous archeologist who had found the cup on an expedition in the East. the cup dates back nearly two millennia and the archaeologist insists that the cup is the actual Holy Grail and he had intended to place it on display at the World's Fair so all could view it. The scientific community was torn -- half believed it was the Grail and half felt that, while old, the Grail story was fictitious. The owner was offering a $1500 reward for the cups return, no questions asked.
But wait. The story, continued on the inside to the paper, went on to say that a certain wealthy collector of fine art had offered the archaeologist $50,000 for the cup, but had been refused. The story hinted strongly who this man was. $50,000 is far more than %1500, and Benny's greedy eyes lit up. Again Vedder insisted that they should just return the cup to the man they stole it from. But Benny still had the gun.
By now, you, me, and anyone with a second grade education knows where this is going. Well, anyone except for Benny.
They board a train that would take them to the wealthy man. There on the train was the Stranger!. In a panic, Benny runs from him, leaping out of the train. The train was an elevated and Benny landed on a lower track with another train coming on.
When Vedder returns to the Fox Hollow estate when he had stolen the cup, he is met at the door by the Stranger, who escorts him to the archaeologist, The archaeologist insists that Vedder had shown himself in and that there was no one else in the house...
A simple, easily telegraphed story made effective by Gruber's writing.
Frank Gruber (1904-1969) was a popular writer of mystery and western stories, as well as a screen and television writer. His work is less known today but is still very much worth reading. As a side note, Gruber used the last name Vedder as one of his many pen names, and had published eleven stories in the pulp magazine Operator #5 featuring a character named Captain John Vedders from 1935 to 1937.
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