“Well,” I said.
“An’ look at this, will you? He can’t spell for shit, an’ what he says don’t make sense. ‘In high dudgeon, Gully.’”
“What’s wrong with that, Ray?”
“He spelled ‘dungeon’ wrong. It don’t have a d in it, at least it didn’t last time I looked, an’ he left the n out. And dungeons ain’t high in the first place, Bern. They’re down in the basement.”
“I guess you’re not impressed.”
“I’m impressed that somebody’s gonna pay decent money for this crap,” he said. “That impresses me a whole lot. An’ I’ll be impressed six ways from Sunday if you wind up sortin’ out these two murders an’ I get to close the case. I don’t see how you’re gonna do it.”
“Maybe I’m not.”
“Maybe you’re not,” he agreed, “but you got some record for pullin’ rabbits outta hats. Just comin’ up with these is pretty good rabbit-pullin’. You gave me a phone number, I checked the reverse directory an’ gave you the address, an’ the next thing you know you got a stack of purple letters in your hand. I bet you just rang the doorbell an’ asked for them, didn’t you?”
“I said I was working my way through college. When you say that, people do what they can to help out.”
“Yeah, you oughta be sellin’ magazine subscriptions. But you keep pullin’ those rabbits, so I gotta give you the benefit of the doubt, whether it’s reasonable or not. An’ when it’s over,” he said, flicking the stack of purple paper, “when it’s over, me an’ you can cut the cake, an’ that’s right down the middle.”
“Even Steven.”
“Same as always. So I’ll put the rest of it together for you, Bern. If you come up with a murderer, that’s gravy. If you don’t, then all we wind up with is money. An’ what’s so bad about that?”
“Here you go,” Carolyn said. “All done. What do you think?”
“Looks good to me,” I said, “and I can’t thank you enough.”
“No,” she said, “as a matter of fact, you can’t. Not nearly enough. Although it was almost fun, in a sort of harebrained way. ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ What’s the point of that sentence, anyway? Besides the fact that it’s got all twenty-six letters.”
“I think that’s it.”
“It’s also something of a slur on dogs, and I certainly never heard of it happening in real life. Foxes generally get the hell away from dogs as fast as they can. They don’t waste time on gymnastics. Unless the fox was rabid.”
“‘The rabid brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’”
“I think I did it that way once, as a matter of fact. And there’s another twenty-six-letter one, something about packing my bag with six liquor jugs, but that was a subject I wanted to avoid altogether. Anyway, Bern, I hope you’re happy.”
“Pleased,” I said. “I won’t be happy until this is over.”
It was the day after my heart-to-heart with that little old claymaker with the silver beard, and I was in the bookstore, although I hadn’t bought or sold any books to speak of. I kept busy by training my cat, throwing crumpled-up balls of purple paper. I’m not sure cats can distinguish colors, or if they care. He pounced on them as eagerly as he ever had on white ones.
He’d gone far to his right for one when the phone rang. I picked it up and said, “Barnegat Books,” and a voice I recognized said, “Bernie.”
“Oh, hi, Alice. How was the trip to Charlottesville?”
“Uneventful,” she said, and I could believe it. “Bernie, I just got some very disturbing news.”
“Oh?”
“The file of correspondence,” she said. “It was incomplete.”
“There was a letter missing?”
“Half the file was missing, if my information is correct. I thought I had the whole thing, and I only had half of it.”
“The half you shredded and burned.”
“Yes, that’s right. The other half…God, this is crazy.”
“I’ll say.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. You know, I wondered about the letters. I didn’t have a chance to tell you yesterday, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, it just so happens I found a whole batch of letters. Typed, and on purple paper.”
“You found them?”
“Uh-huh. See, there was a disturbance in my apartment the other night.”
“I think I read something about that.”
“In the Charlottesville paper? I’m surprised they covered it.”
“Bernie—”
“A woman was killed,” I went on, and crumpled a sheet of purple paper. “When I heard about it, the first thing I thought was that it was you.”
“Me?”
“But then you called, and you can imagine how relieved I was to hear your voice. I’m relieved right now, as far as that goes.”
“Bernie…”
“And I can hear you clear as a bell,” I said. “It’s a great connection. You’d think you were right here in the city.”
“Bernie, these letters you found…”
“When I got back to my apartment—”
“You found them at your apartment?”
“No, if they’d been there the cops would have hauled them off, along with the dead woman and her purse and whatever else she had with her. But they missed one thing, a scrap of paper with my address written on it in a feminine handwriting.”
“Your address.”
“Uh-huh. And underneath it there was another address, and it was of an apartment on East Seventy-seventh Street.”
“I see.”
“Well, I didn’t. But I went there, and, long story short…”
“You found the letters.”
“Right. I wasn’t looking for them, because you’d already told me how you’d managed to get hold of them and they were destroyed. So I figured these must be fakes, or maybe they were copies, but whatever they were they probably ought to be destroyed, too.”
There was a pause. She was waiting for me to say more, and I let her wait. Finally she said, her voice higher than before, “And you…destroyed them?”
“Not yet.”
“Thank God.”
“But I will as soon as I close up the store and…Did you just say ‘Thank God’?”
“Bernie, don’t destroy the letters.”
“No?”
“I’d better see them.”
“Why, Alice?”
“To authenticate them. To make sure they’re the whole lot. I just think I should, that’s all.”
“I suppose I could bring them to Charlottesville,” I said. “But it’s a little hard for me to get away right now. But maybe sometime after the first of the month—”
“Don’t come to Charlottesville.”
“No? I suppose I could FedEx the letters, but—”
“I’ll come back to New York.”
“I’d hate for you to make a special trip.”
“Bernie, I’m in New York right now.”
Duhhh. “I thought it was an awfully clear connection,” I said. “Well, that’s perfect, Alice. You can come to the party.”
There was a pause. Then, “What party?”
“My party,” I said. “Seven-thirty this evening at the Hotel Paddington. You know where the Paddington is, don’t you?”
“Bernie…”
“What am I thinking? Of course you do. Come to Room 611.”
“Room 611?”
“Not Room 602, where Anthea Landau lived and died, and not Room 415 or 303 either. I don’t suppose they’ll stop you at the desk, but if they do, just tell them you’re coming to Mr. Rhodenbarr’s party.”
Another pause, longer than before. Then she said, “Who’s coming to this party, Bernie?”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?”
“So this is Paddington,” Carolyn Kaiser said. “Nice-looking bear, Bern.”
I bounced hi
m on my knee. “He’s a good fellow,” I agreed.
“And this is the Paddington. I like the place, but your room’s not much, is it?”
“The mice are hunchbacked,” I said.
“The one upstairs is a lot nicer. Bigger, and it’s a good thing, because it’s crowded as it is. You couldn’t fit all those people in here.”
“They’ve started arriving?”
“They’ve arrived,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to fashionably late. They started showing up a little before seven, but Ray held everybody in the lobby until ten minutes after. Now they’re all in 611, trying not to stare back at the King.”
“Elvis on black velvet,” I said. “It makes a strong statement.”
“The eyes follow you around the room, Bern. Did you notice that?”
“That’s great art for you.”
“They even follow you,” she said, “after you leave the room. I could feel them on me when I was out in the hallway, and coming down here on the elevator.”
“Can you feel them now?”
“Nope.”
“Well,” I said, “let’s go up and make sure they’re still open.”
CHAPTER
Twenty
Isis Gauthier’s room was a lot nicer than mine. It was larger, of course, and better furnished, and the window afforded a nice view of Madison Square. Elvis gazed down from above the mantel, and the fireplace beneath that mantel, unlike mine, had escaped being bricked up. It was in fact a working fireplace, and it was working now. You couldn’t really see the fire, it was out of sight behind an almost opaque fire screen, but you could smell woodsmoke in the air, even as you could hear the occasional crackle.
The room would have been warm enough without the fire. It had been cool earlier when I laid the fire, but it was warm now, and I don’t know that it was the fire on the hearth that made the difference. Jam enough people into a room and they’re going to be warm, especially if some of them are a little hot under the collar to begin with.
We had a full house, all right. Isis Gauthier was there, looking much as she had on our first meeting, her hair in cornrows and her clothes a Paddingtonian riot of primary colors. Marty Gilmartin was nearby, more quietly dressed in muted tweed. Alice Cottrell wore a business suit and looked businesslike, and so did a man I’d never seen before, a very tall and very thin fellow with a narrow nose. I recognized everybody else in the room, so I worked it out that he had to be Victor Harkness from Sotheby’s, and I’d say he looked the part.
Gulliver Fairborn wasn’t there, with or without his silver beard and tan beret, with or without his wig and sunglasses. But the World’s Foremost Authority on the author and his works was present in the person of Lester Eddington. He had his shirt buttoned right for a change, but he still looked gawky and geeky, and no doubt would until Glamour magazine gave him a makeover.
Hilliard Moffett, the World’s Foremost Collector, was present as well, his bulk stuffed into gray flannel trousers and a houndstooth jacket, both of which he’d outgrown. He sat forward in his chair, looking more like a bulldog than ever. I have my checkbook, he looked to be thinking, so what are we waiting for?
There were only so many places to sit, and a couple of people were standing. Carl Pillsbury, star of stage, screen, and hotel lobby, was leaning against a wall, and managing to look as though he leaned against walls all the time. His white silk shirt was spotless and his dark slacks were sharply creased, but his black shoes were due for a shine. I guess he’d used up all the shoe polish on his hair.
Ray Kirschmann was standing, too, in—big surprise—an ill-fitting blue suit, and there was another cop posted next to the door. I hadn’t met him before and never did get his name, but it wasn’t hard to tell he was a cop, given that he was in uniform. And Carolyn Kaiser was there, of course, along with her friend Erica Darby. They both looked so feminine it was hard to believe nobody had rushed to give them a seat.
I went over and took center stage, which put me right in front of the oriental screen, which in turn was in front of the fireplace. I could hear the fire, which gives you an idea how quiet the room was. You’d have thought these people would have plenty to say to each other, but nobody was saying a word. They were all looking at me and waiting for me to say something.
I wasn’t sure how to begin. So I began the way I always do, given half a chance.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you all here,” I said. “It’s hard to know where to begin, and I’m not sure that the answer is to begin at the beginning. In the beginning, a man named Gulliver Fairborn wrote a book called Nobody’s Baby. If you feel it changed your life, well, you’re not alone. A lot of people feel that way, including most of the ones in this room.
“It certainly changed Fairborn’s life, for better and for worse. It enabled him to make a living doing the only thing he really cared about—writing. But it made it difficult if not impossible for him to lead the anonymous life he longed for. He stayed out of the limelight, he shunned correspondence and interviews, he never allowed himself to be photographed, and he lived under assumed names. Even so, his privacy got violated from time to time.
“And a major violation was looming on the horizon. A woman named Anthea Landau, a longtime resident here at the Paddington, had been Fairborn’s first literary agent. Now she made arrangements to offer the letters he’d written her for sale to the highest bidder. Anything with Fairborn’s signature on it is rare, and actual letters from him are right up there with hen’s teeth.”
“I have a couple of his letters,” Hilliard Moffett said, “including one to a real estate agent in Hickory, North Carolina, inquiring about houses for rent. As far as literary correspondence is concerned, I don’t think he’s written anything of the sort in years. When he delivers a manuscript to his current agent, he just sends it by express mail with a false return address and no note enclosed.” He sighed. “He’s not an easy man to collect.”
“So the letters to Landau would be valuable,” I said. “Even priceless.”
“Nothing’s priceless,” said Harkness from Sotheby’s. He sounded as if he was quoting the firm’s motto, and who am I to say he wasn’t? “Except in the sense that the price could only be determined by discovering what the material would bring at public auction. I saw a sampling of the letters, and felt confident they would bring a substantial sum, certainly in the high five figures, and possibly well into six figures.”
“The letters haven’t been sold yet,” I said, “so we don’t know what they’ll bring. But we do know that they were valuable enough and desirable enough to bring some interesting people all the way to New York. Some of them are here now, in this room. There’s Hilliard Moffett, for instance, who already told you he has a couple of Gulliver Fairborn’s letters. He wanted the others.”
“I collect the man,” he said.
“And Lester Eddington, who knows a lot about Fairborn.”
“He’s my life’s work,” Eddington told us. “Moffett, I’d be interested in seeing that letter to the North Carolina realtor. I know he spent two years in the Smoky Mountains, and it would be useful to pin it down.”
“The letter’s not for sale,” Moffett snapped, and Eddington told him a copy would suit him just fine, or even a transcription. Moffett grunted in reply.
“And then there was Karen Kassenmeier,” I said.
I looked around, and every face I saw looked puzzled, except for Ray, who knew the name, and the other cop, who didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“Karen Kassenmeier was a thief,” I said. “She wasn’t a perfect thief, because she got caught a couple of times and went to prison for it, but she was pretty good at what she did, and she didn’t shoplift at the dime store. She stole high-ticket items, and the word was that she stole them to order.”
“And she came to New York, Bern?”
“From Kansas City,” I said, “according to the tag on her suitcase. But the airlines didn’t list a passenger named Kassenmei
er on any of their Kansas City-to-New York flights in the past two weeks.”
“So she came earlier,” Moffett said, his jowls wagging.
“Or she used a false name,” Isis Gauthier suggested. “Criminals use aliases all the time, don’t they? Why, I met a man just the other day who called himself Peter Jeffries, or Jeffrey Peters. I can’t remember which, and neither could he.”
“It’s not that easy to use an alias on an airplane,” I said. “You have to show photo ID when you board, and you pretty much have to pay with a credit card or draw more attention from security than anyone would want, especially a thief. And if she used an alias, she wouldn’t have gone on using a luggage tag with her own name on it.”
“She might,” Erica said. “Criminals are stupid. Everybody knows that. Otherwise they wouldn’t get caught.”
“Sometimes they have bad luck,” I said, a little defensively. “Anyway, we know she used her own name because there’s a record of the flight she took. Three days before Anthea Landau was killed, Karen R. Kassenmeier was on a United flight from Seattle to JFK.”
“They got her name on the whatchacallit, the passenger manifest,” Ray said. “An’ there’s prolly a record of her flyin’ from Kansas City to Seattle, which’ll turn up if we look for it. What did she go an’ steal in Seattle, Bern? The dome off the stadium?”
“I don’t think she stole anything, although she may have. My sense of Karen is that temptation was one of the things she found hard to resist. But she went to Seattle to meet with somebody who wanted those letters very badly. Somebody who lived in Seattle, say, or who drove in from someplace an hour or so away. Bellingham, for instance.”
Hilliard Moffett thrust out his jaw. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Pure conjecture. Bellingham’s a considerable distance from Seattle, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. And you say this woman is a thief, and comes from Kansas City. How would I know her?”