No Police Like Holmes (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five
-
“I Think I'm on to Something”

After breakfast, while others drifted toward the Hearth Room for the first talk of the day, Mac followed me into the corridor

“You have something to report?”

“Not much. Just that I wouldn't put any money on Reuben Pinkwater for the killer if I were you.” Only after I said it did I realize with bitterness the assumption Mac had made - that I would act the Watson (sorry, amanuensis) he expected me to be. “I don't even know why you want me talk to people on that damned list of yours,” I added. “You could have interrogated most of them yourself right there at your breakfast table.”

“I had no way of knowing that when I formulated the list,” Mac said. “Of course, I did question my breakfast partners to a certain subtle degree before you arrived. However, I would still benefit from your objectivity as a total outsider and your considerable skills as an interviewer. And there are others-”

“All right, all right.” When Mac refers to himself as subtle, it's time to shut him up. Besides, he was spreading on the butter awfully thick. “I've already talked to Pinkwater and Renata. I'll keep working my way down the list, unless I can prove the killer's identity before I get that far.”

Mac paused with his hand halfway into his breast pocket. “You have been holding out on me, old boy. You have a theory.”

“An idea, anyway. I think I'm on to something, but only an expert could tell me for sure. Who knows more about Sherlock Holmes first editions and stuff like that than anybody else here?”

“Woollcott,” Mac said without hesitation.

“Aside from him.”

Mac pulled a cigar from his pocket, for once without some hocus-pocus or even a dramatic flourish. “Lars Jenson. He can readily describe all five Croatian editions of some obscure Spanish pastiche. He is even adept at certifying the handwriting of several important Sherlockian figures. What are you groaning about, Jefferson?”

“The Swedish Chef. It would have to be him. Even if he tells me what I need to know I'll never be able to understand it.”

“Admittedly, English is not his best language. He and I mostly communicate in German, sometimes Italian.”
Show-off.

I asked Mac to go with Jenson and me to the library as an interpreter, but he shook his head and said it was impossible. In a few minutes he had to acknowledge the tragic death of Hugh Matheson and say a few appropriately kind words. He was also scheduled to introduce Dr. Queensbury's talk on “Dr. John H. Watson: Conductor of Light” and Bob Nakamora's on “Sherlock Holmes on Radio,” then speak himself on “Humor in the Canon.” He dared not risk Queensbury or Nakamora coming up short and leaving the audience at a loss for a host, as had happened on one embarrassing occasion already.
What, Sebastian McCabe couldn't bi-locate?

“However,” Mac said, “I would be delighted to use my good offices to persuade Lars to accompany you, should such persuasion prove necessary. Of course” - he cocked an eyebrow as he gestured airily with the unlit cigar - “that would be all the easier if I knew what the bloody hell you have in mind, Jefferson.”

“Are you ready to explain your mumbo-jumbo about Matheson not being the thief? No? I didn't think so. Well, this time I'm the detective and I get to do mysterious things without explaining.”

Besides, if I told him my idea and it proved wrong, I'd look like the biggest fool outside of Congress.

Mac took my reticence in good humor, promising to pull Jenson out of the Hearth Room where he was awaiting the start of the program. With an aggressive lope, he crossed the hallway and disappeared into the Hearth Room. As I was watching him go, Lynda blindsided me on my right.

“Okay, Jeff,” she said. The greeting, totally unexpected and out of context, made me jump slightly. “You two had your Boys' Night Out. Now, what gives?”

“You!” I said, investing the syllable with the most accusatory tone I could muster. “You sure didn't do me any favors with those two stories in the paper this morning.”

“I'm sorry, Jeff, I really am, but doing you favors isn't part of my job description at the
Observer
. You never seem to get that.” She ran a hand through her honey-colored hair, a nervous gesture.

“Any more of this crap and I'm going to lose
my
job. I wish you could have at least quoted Ralph in the - oh, never mind.”

I was overcome by the depressing familiarity of a scene played out so many times before. The conflict between Lynda's job and mine had been a constant irritant the whole time we had dated. Here it was again, just when I was hoping that what we had been through together yesterday, and the conspiracy of silence about it that still bound us together, meant that our romantic relationship was no longer in the dead letter file. And even before that, she had said she loved me - and then called me an idiot. Confused as well as depressed, I changed the subject.

“I didn't expect to see you here this morning,” I said.

“It seemed the place to be. This is where the murderer is.” She gripped her purse with a force that turned her knuckles white. “Look, Jeff, I want to know if you and Mac have any idea who killed Matheson - because Oscar and his crew don't. They may never find those books in his room if they aren't even looking for them. And that means they won't know Matheson was the thief, which could turn out to be the biggest clue of all. I think we screwed up last night by not calling 911 and telling the whole story as soon as we found the body. It would have been a lot easier on my nerves.”

“Not if you were in jail.”

She ignored that. “Unless you have any better ideas, it's not too late to tell Oscar about the books.”

“Somebody in housekeeping at the hotel will find the books eventually. Besides, Matheson didn't steal them.”

“What?”

“That's what Mac said, and I have to admit that he's right often enough that the other times don't count.”

Lynda yanked open her purse, pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and shoved it into her mouth. “If he wasn't the thief, then why did he have the books?”

“Mac wouldn't tell me that much. He's acting mysterious about it. But it could be that Matheson actually
recovered
the books somehow, only for some reason didn't find all of them. Anyway, what's really important is, I have an idea that may explain why Matheson died, if not who-”

I stalled out when I saw Mac coming out of the Hearth Room with Lars Jenson.

“Jefferson,” my brother-in-law called. “Lars is quite amenable to assisting you. Have you met?”

We hadn't, although I had watched the tall, stooped Swede in the library. Mac introduced him to Lynda and me.

“A great pleasure,” Jenson said in that sing-song voice. He bowed at Lynda, oh-so-Continental and old-fashioned. She stuck out her hand for shaking. After a while Jenson figured out what he was supposed to do with the hand, and he did it. Then he turned to me. “You like to look at some books now,
ja
?”

“
Ja
,” I said.

“And Lynda makes three,” she added.

You may think we'd have trouble getting into the Lee J. Bennish Memorial Library on a Sunday during spring break, and normally you'd be right. But things weren't normal. Guards were all over the place, inside and out. The Campus Security people knew me. And even if they hadn't, my staff ID card would have been at a high enough level to get me past them.

Gene Pfannenstiel's office, full of ancient books spilling out of bookcases, looked almost Dickensian except for the laptop computer open on his roll-top desk. The gnome looked up from it in surprise when we entered.

“Oh, hi,” he said. “What are you folks doing here? It's Sunday, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but we have a distinguished visitor all the way from Sweden and we wanted to take him on a quick tour of the Chalmers Collection.”

Jenson smiled. “
Ja, ja
.”

Gene regarded Jenson shrewdly. “Didn't I see you yesterday during-”

“We'll only be a few minutes,” Lynda interrupted. “He can't stay long.”

“Right,” Gene said, reaching down to tie a lace on his right gym shoe. “I'm knee-deep in cataloguing right now, but go ahead and look. The guards won't stop you. They'll just watch you real closely if you touch any books.”

“Actually, that might happen,” I said. “Dr. Jenson is a serious scholar. Can you unlock the cases where the best stuff is on display?”

He agreed without complaint.

While we were walking from his office to the rare book room, where the Chalmers Collection was on display, I asked Gene whether he'd heard anything from Decker about the books that were stolen.

“Nothing, I'm afraid.”

“Did you know Hugh Matheson, the man who was murdered?” I didn't expect an affirmative answer, and I didn't get one.

Gene shook his head. “That was a terrible thing, wasn't it? The murder. No, I didn't know him, but I must have seen him if he was at the library yesterday, huh? I saw so many people.”

I tried to think of more questions Mac might ask, since Gene was on his infamous little list, but I drew a blank. So did Lynda.

When we reached the Chalmers Collection, I could practically hear Larsen's pulse race faster as he shoved his glasses against his nose and bent down to read the titles in the foreign section. He talked to himself in Swedish as he pulled out a book called
Sherlock Holmes aventyr
.

I tugged on his sleeve and led him to where Gene was unlocking the cases holding the rarest remaining gems of the Chalmers Collection.

“Mr. Jenson,” I said, “I want you to look at as many of these books as you can with extreme care and tell me if each of them is exactly what it's supposed to be. Are the first editions really first editions and are any inscriptions inside genuine? Understand?”

“
Ja
. Just like a mystery. I am sleuth.”

Gene's eyes widened. “It's just a wild idea,” I assured him. “There's probably nothing to it. Relax. Go back to your cataloguing. The guards will keep an eye on us.” I wanted him gone. He was a suspect.

“Okay. Call me if you need me.”

When Gene was out of earshot, Lynda said, “That's your brilliant idea?” Her tone lacked the admiration I would have hoped for. “You think the books in the Chalmers Collection might be fakes?”

“I didn't say it was brilliant; I said it could explain why Matheson was murdered. I got the idea from a Sherlock Holmes story that was described to me. It's about a collector who steals his own book to keep a rival from finding out that it's a phony. Now maybe somebody killed Matheson for the same reason - because when he got his hands on those missing books they turned out to be frauds. And if that's true, other books in the Chalmers Collection could be just as spurious.”

“But that would mean that Chalmers himself is the killer,” Lynda said.

Jenson murmured over a faded red volume.

I shook my head. “That's where truth has to depart from fiction. Chalmers never would have donated fraudulent books to begin with. He'd know that at the college they'd be available to scholars who could expose them.”

“Then if the Chalmers Collection was the real stuff when it got here, parts of it must have been stolen and replaced later,” Lynda said. “That little librarian must have done it, or at least been involved.”

“Yeah,” I said miserably. “Gene wouldn't be the first academic librarian who peddled rare books, as Queensbury reminded me yesterday. I don't want to believe it, but that's where my logic leads me.”

“Well, I'm not sure your logic is so logical. If your scenario is correct, then the two books we found in Matheson's room must be phonies. Why would the killer leave those behind where somebody else could see the fakery?”

“Because the killer couldn't find them - he wasn't as clever at searching as you were. The other book, the one that's still missing, was hidden somewhere else and he found that one.”

She took a wad of gum out of her mouth and wrapped it in foil. “Back up a minute, Jeff. How could Matheson spot these books for phonies? He was no expert on Sherlockiana. He was a guy with a collection and a lot of bucks to spend on it.”

“That's what Chalmers said - talking about his bitter rival. We don't know whether that's true or he was just dissing the competition.”

I think I had her there, because she said, “All right, then, this gets me back to where I was before: The cops need to know that Matheson had those books.”

Before I had a chance to answer, Jenson poked his soulful gray eyes up over the book in his hands.
Three Problems for Solar Pons
, the title read. What in the world could that be?

“Excuse me please,” the Swede said. “Your theory is most intriguing, Jefferson,” - Yefferson - “but I do not believe it is so very likely.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“You expect lots of fakes,
ja
? Not the missing books only.” He shook his head vigorously. “I have look at ten, fifteen books here. I find no fakes.”

Chapter Twenty-Six
-
I've Got Your Number

Outside the library, in the fresh air of a beautiful spring Sunday, I pulled out my notebook.

“Now what?” Lynda said.

“Just crossing names off Mac's list.”

When the truth hits you in the face, there's no point in trying to smack back. I didn't kid myself that there were another ten or fifteen phony books that Jenson had missed.

“Don't be too hard on yourself, Jeff. It wasn't a bad idea, really.”

“I know. In fact, it was as swell idea. I'm going to write it down and use it in a Max Cutter story.”

I flipped through the notebook, looking for a blank page, until I saw something that brought me back from the fictional world of my Philadelphia private eye with a jerk.

“What are you staring at?” Lynda asked. It's that journalistic DNA of hers; she's always full of questions.

“Something I'd forgotten all about,” I told her.

I showed her a page containing nothing but three digits - 525. It was the number I'd copied off the notepad in Matheson's room, presumably a hotel room number that the lawyer had called or intended to call the day he died.

Jenson looked on with a mixture of interest and puzzlement, clearly curious but too polite to ask what was going on. When we reached the Hearth Room we shook hands with him again, thanked him, and let him get back to the lunacy at hand.

I pulled out my phone, tapped on the number for the Winfield from my contacts list, and asked for room 525.

Five rings, six rings, seven...

What are there, ten rings to a minute? I'd given up counting by the time a generic hotel voicemail message kicked in. I disconnected in disgust.

“We should have expected that, you know,” Lynda said. “Whoever has that room isn't going to be just sitting around waiting for us to call. He's going to be in there.” She pointed at the Hearth Room across the way. “I mean, it's got to be one of the Sherlockians. Unless Graham Bentley Post-”

“No, it's not his room number.”

Although the popular culture maven was staying at the Winfield, I had a clear recollection that the room number he'd written on his business card began with a seven. I pulled it out of my wallet for a quick confirmation: room 718.

“I bet the hotel won't tell us who's in that room if we just call them out of nowhere,” Lynda said, “but there must be some way to find out.”

“Yeah. Mac would find a way.”

I cracked open the door at the front of the Hearth Room about four inches. Noah Queensbury was talking but with the air of a man winding down, while Mac looked on benignly from his throne-like chair across the room. I opened the door wider and signaled my brother-in-law with all the agitated movement of a spasmodic semaphore operator. Finally I caught his eye and he caught my meaning. He shook his head no. I shook my head yes. Glowering, he stalked behind Queensbury and over to the door.

“Jefferson,” he said heavily, “eager as I am for another progress report, this is a most infelicitous time. Couldn't you tell me about your adventures after the Sherlockian auction?”

“Fine, fine.” For what I had to report so far, I was in no hurry. “But we need some help right now.”

“We're trying to learn the occupant of a certain room at the Winfield,” Lynda said. “It's probably one of your colloquium people. Can you help us put a name to the number?”

“Of what possible interest-”

“I thought you were in a hurry,” I said. This was my show, and this time Mac was
my
assistant.

The sound of applause came from inside the Hearth Room, magnified by the speakers in the corridor. Mac looked toward the room and tugged at his beard. “Blast it, nobody ever did this to Nero Wolfe! I do not have access to the colloquium participants' room numbers. You will have to call Sandy Roeder at the Winfield and ask her who is registered for that room. Mention my name. Sandy is a former student of mine.”

“R-O-E-D-E-R?” Lynda asked. “Doesn't she own the Winfield?”

“Not yet. Her mother has that distinction. You shall owe me dearly for this.”

Without further farewell, he slipped back into the Hearth Room (if an elephant can slip).

“He means he was happy to be of help,” I told Lynda, who was already pulling out her Android.

Sandy Roeder wasn't an easy sell. I could tell that from Lynda's hand gestures, and never mind what they were. But finally she disconnected and stuck the phone back in her purse with a satisfied look on her face.

“I'm not going to try to guess,” I told her, “so just give. Whose room is it?”

“Molly Crocker.”