the girls might try a little blackmail. But I’m good at schemes and I shouldn’t have much trouble getting around Rastus out there.”
My face must have showed something. She laughed. “No, I’m not a racist,” she said. “No more than the next bigot, anyway. That’s his name.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I don’t think he was born with it. But it’s his name now and he likes to watch people when he introduces himself. Don’t forget your watch, Chip.”
The watch I almost forgot told me that it was ten minutes after two when I left Indulgence. I went around the corner and had a cheeseburger and some iced tea. Walking I was not a very pleasurable experience at the moment. Andrea Sugar had drained all the pain out of my backbone and rolled it up into a ball and stuffed it into my groin.
I’d given her Leo Haig’s number and told her to call as soon as she had the records of clients for the week in question. I couldn’t see how it would help, especially since anyone planning to kill Andrea would have likely used a name about as legitimate as old Norm Conquest himself, but it was something to do.
She had always been convinced that Jessica had been murdered. That was the sort of fact Leo Haig usually found interesting and suggestive, so I spent a dime telling him about it. By the time I left the restaurant I could almost walk without limping.
Almost.
Nine
Ferdinand Bell’s office was within limping distance on the ninth floor of a tall narrow building on 48th Street, just east of Fifth. The building directory in the lobby showed that most of the tenants dealt in stamps or coins. Or both.
In the elevator a man with a European accent said, “I can never recommend for appreciation any surcharges or overprints priced significantly higher than their regular issue counterparts. It is not merely that they may be counterfeited, but that the mere prospect of counterfeiting prevents their reaching their logical levels.” I still do not have the slightest idea what he was talking about. I related the conversation to Haig, who understands everything, and of course he nodded wisely. He wouldn’t tell me what it meant, though.
“If you want to learn about anything under the sun,” he aid, “you have only to read the right detective story. The Nine Tailors will tell you as much as you need to know about bell-ringing in English country churches, for example.” (It told me more than I needed to know, to tell you the truth.) “For philately, MacDonald’s The Scarlet Ruse is excellent. There are others that are less likely to e to your taste—”
“Philately? They were talking about stamps?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I didn’t know,” I said. “How was I supposed to know?”
I haven’t read The Scarlet Ruse yet. I suppose I’ll get to it eventually. The thing is, Haig keeps giving me books to read, and it’s impossible to keep up. I did read a couple of books with a coin-collecting background recently, one by Raymond Chandler and another by Michael Innes, so I now know a little more about numismatics than I did when I walked into Ferdinand Bell’s office.
He was the man I’d picked out at the funeral as the most likely candidate for the Ferdinand Bell look-alike contest. Today he was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of gray pants that might have been from the suit he’d worn a day ago. They certainly looked as though he had been wearing them for a while.
I had established earlier that he was around forty-seven, He looked both older and younger, depending on how you looked at him. He was plump, with chipmunk cheeks and happy little eyes, and that made him appear younger than he was, but his hair (short and snow white, with a slightly, receding hairline) added a few years to his appearance. He sat on a stool behind a row of glass showcases in which coins rested on top of two-by-two brown envelopes. There was a bookcase to his right, filled to capacity, and a desk
My face must have showed something. She laughed. “No, I’m not a racist,” she said. “No more than the next bigot, anyway. That’s his name.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I don’t think he was born with it. But it’s his name now and he likes to watch people when he introduces himself. Don’t forget your watch, Chip.”
The watch I almost forgot told me that it was ten minutes after two when I left Indulgence. I went around the corner and had a cheeseburger and some iced tea. Walking I was not a very pleasurable experience at the moment. Andrea Sugar had drained all the pain out of my backbone and rolled it up into a ball and stuffed it into my groin.
I’d given her Leo Haig’s number and told her to call as soon as she had the records of clients for the week in question. I couldn’t see how it would help, especially since anyone planning to kill Andrea would have likely used a name about as legitimate as old Norm Conquest himself, but it was something to do.
She had always been convinced that Jessica had been murdered. That was the sort of fact Leo Haig usually found interesting and suggestive, so I spent a dime telling him about it. By the time I left the restaurant I could almost walk without limping.
Almost.
Nine
Ferdinand Bell’s office was within limping distance on the ninth floor of a tall narrow building on 48th Street, just east of Fifth. The building directory in the lobby showed that most of the tenants dealt in stamps or coins. Or both.
In the elevator a man with a European accent said, “I can never recommend for appreciation any surcharges or overprints priced significantly higher than their regular issue counterparts. It is not merely that they may be counterfeited, but that the mere prospect of counterfeiting prevents their reaching their logical levels.” I still do not have the slightest idea what he was talking about. I related the conversation to Haig, who understands everything, and of course he nodded wisely. He wouldn’t tell me what it meant, though.
“If you want to learn about anything under the sun,” he aid, “you have only to read the right detective story. The Nine Tailors will tell you as much as you need to know about bell-ringing in English country churches, for example.” (It told me more than I needed to know, to tell you the truth.) “For philately, MacDonald’s The Scarlet Ruse is excellent. There are others that are less likely to e to your taste—”
“Philately? They were talking about stamps?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I didn’t know,” I said. “How was I supposed to know?”
I haven’t read The Scarlet Ruse yet. I suppose I’ll get to it eventually. The thing is, Haig keeps giving me books to read, and it’s impossible to keep up. I did read a couple of books with a coin-collecting background recently, one by Raymond Chandler and another by Michael Innes, so I now know a little more about numismatics than I did when I walked into Ferdinand Bell’s office.
He was the man I’d picked out at the funeral as the most likely candidate for the Ferdinand Bell look-alike contest. Today he was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of gray pants that might have been from the suit he’d worn a day ago. They certainly looked as though he had been wearing them for a while.
I had established earlier that he was around forty-seven, He looked both older and younger, depending on how you looked at him. He was plump, with chipmunk cheeks and happy little eyes, and that made him appear younger than he was, but his hair (short and snow white, with a slightly, receding hairline) added a few years to his appearance. He sat on a stool behind a row of glass showcases in which coins rested on top of two-by-two brown envelopes. There was a bookcase to his right, filled to capacity, and a desk
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