“Yes,” Tycho answered slowly, trying to follow where Bette was going with this.

“You said earlier that it remains unclear, up to today, who initiated the shipments and who owns the gold. Did you mean the firms that appeared to have been consignees of the gold shipments denied arranging to purchase the gold?” she asked.

“Correct. And the third firm, denied supplying it. And despite what the various lawyers, investigators, and what not, have tried to do, no one can dispute those claims, actually,” Tycho answered, still trying to figure out what Bette was thinking. “All three deny responsibility for the shipments.”

“So could the shipments have been timed deliberately?” Bette asked, “By someone, or by parties who knew of the trouble these firms were in, to instigate the movement of the gold in their names?”

“To what end?” Tycho asked.

“To make the gold disappear,” Bette answered, tapping her fingers on her lips.

“What do you mean?” Tycho asked leaning forward, intrigued by Bette’s theory.

“Well, the borrowings those firms took to finance the transactions would most likely have made their way to the balance sheets of those firms, right?” she asked.

Tycho nodded.

He explained, “financial parts of the transactions were all traceable. And the letter of credit used for the first shipment bore a valid reference number, at least at that time, that referred to the Spanish bank owned by one of the firms, but which was brought under the administration of the Spanish Central Bank during the financial crisis, and eventually shuttered. Nine of the 17 letters of credit and shipping documents bear the Spanish bank’s reference, while the rest have reference to “IBC3”, or Iceland Banking Corporation, the Icelandic firm’s bank, which was also eventually shut down.”

“So, running away with the money could not have been their plan,” Bette mused aloud. “As you said, the financing aspects of the shipments were all traceable. They had no hope of trying to hide the money from creditors. So that means money was never the reason behind the shipments.”

She returned her gaze back to him, and concluded, “This would therefore leave the actual gold as the remaining rationale for all this.”

“Why?” Tycho asked.

“Consider what was happening,” she held one finger up, “First, the global financial crisis was throwing everyone into a panic, and the implosion of three firms, as big as they may have been, did not even make front-page news, I think.”