Thefts of Nick Velvet by Edward D. Hoch

subdued in her description.”
    “People see what they want to. It was all green and slimy, and probably fifty feet long if you stretched it out.”
    “You’re a fisherman, Mr. Seeley?”
    “Yep, and lots of people say it was just another one of my tall tales. But they’ll sing a different tune when I catch the damned thing and tow it in on the back of my boat!”
    “Just how do you propose to do that?”
    “Look here.” He led Nick around to the side of the cottage and displayed a large heavy-duty net of the type used by ocean-going trawlers. “This’ll stop anything in Silver Lake. I’ve been taking it out in the boat with me mornings and evenings, when the thing’s most likely to surface.”
    Nick nodded in admiration, already thinking that the heavy net might very well fit in with his own plans. He was by nature a makeshift sort of thief, and often the contingencies of the moment contributed to the methods he used. One did not go after a sea serpent with guns or trickery.
    He stayed with Seeley for another half-hour, listening to more tales of the lake as it used to be, of the big ones that had just managed to get away, of broken lines and shattered dreams. Perhaps all these little lakes and summer resorts had someone like Seeley to talk of past glories. But they all didn’t have sea serpents, and he was ready to believe Seeley on that one.
    Nick had taken a room for a few nights at Larry Pike’s Silver Lake Hotel. He was convinced that at least one look at the monster was essential before he made the final plans for the theft, and he was just as convinced that the monster would turn up during his stay. Pike would see to that.
    He was settling down in his room just after ten o’clock when he found he was out of cigarettes. Reluctantly he went downstairs to the desk to purchase some, then decided to phone Gloria at home. She knew nothing of the true nature of his work. For her, he was a consultant on plant sites for new industry, a job that could take him anywhere in the world on short notice. She never questioned the deception, but then Gloria questioned very little of their life together.
    He finished the brief phone call and went back up to the room, pausing with his hand on the doorknob as some sixth sense warned him. Someone was inside. He pushed open the door slowly, saw a motion across the room at his suitcase, and flipped on the lights, ready to move quickly.
    It was Judy Martin, still in her pullover and white shorts, crouched before his overnight bag. She turned, startled, a frightened gazelle trapped by the lion.
    “Good evening,” he said, relaxing a bit. “Find what you’re looking for?”
    She stood up straight, with a measure of dignity, brushing the tumbling hair from her eyes. “I want to know who you are, Mr. Velvet,” she admitted frankly. “Who sent you here?”
    “I told you I was a writer.”
    “But you’re not! We had dozens of writers and reporters here last fall, and all through the winter. You didn’t ask any of the right questions. You never even mentioned the Loch Ness Monster!”
    “Silver Lake isn’t Loch Ness.”
    “And you’re no writer. You were sent here by that terrible Earl Crowder, weren’t you? He’s been trying to ruin us for years!”
    “Miss Martin, I have …”
    His sentence was interrupted by a shout from downstairs. “The serpent!” someone was yelling. “It’s out there!”
    Nick grabbed for his jacket. “Come on!”
    Downstairs, about a dozen people were clustered around the dock, pointing out into the night where a full moon had turned the water’s surface into the shimmering silver that gave the lake its name.
    “See it?” Mrs. Foster shouted excitedly. “Out there near the center!”
    Nick looked, and saw a head breaking the surface. A head, and something else behind. The thing, whatever it was; seemed to be swimming toward the far shore, toward Seeley’s cottage.
    “I’m going after it,” Nick told the girl. He was looking