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"I'll be able to find it."
"It's the only church I could find that would allow a memorial service on a Sunday. We'll be meeting there that afternoon at two-thirty. The service won't be religious because Grandfather wasn't a religious man. He did have a spiritual side, however. I don't know if he ever showed that side to you."
"I know the sort of reading he did."
"Yes, all the great moral philosophers. I told them at the church that we'd conduct our own service. Clay, the chap I live with, is going to read something. He was quite fond of Grandfather. And I'll probably read something myself, and I thought you might be able to take part in the service, Mr. Rhodenbarr."
"Call me Bernie. Yes, I could probably find something to read. I'd like to do that."
"Or just say a few words, or both. As you choose." She hesitated. "There's another thing, actually. I saw Grandfather every few weeks and we were close in certain ways, but he didn't mention many of his…business friends. I know you were a friend of his, and I know of one or two others in that category, but perhaps you'll be able to think of some other persons who might properly come to the service."
"It's possible."
"Would you just go ahead and invite anyone you think ought to be invited? May I just leave that up to you?"
"All right."
"I've already spoken to several of the people in his building, and one woman's going to post a notice in the lobby. I suppose I should have made arrangements with a church in that neighborhood. Some of those people find it difficult to get around easily. But I'd already made plans with the Church of the Redeemer before I thought of it. I hope they won't mind coming all the way out to Brooklyn."
"Perhaps it'll be an adventure for them."
"I just hope the weather's decent. The rain's expected to have left off by then, but the weatherman doesn't give guarantees, does he?"
"Not as a general rule."
"No, more's the pity. I'm sorry to have gone on so, Mr. Rhodenbarr, but-"
"Bernie."
"Bernie. It's late and I'm tired, perhaps more so than I'd realized. You will try to come? Sunday at two-thirty? And you'll invite anyone you think of?"
"Definitely," I said. "And I'll bring along something to read."
I wrote down the time and the address and the name of the church. Carolyn would want to come, of course. Anybody else?
I got in bed and tried to think if I knew anyone who'd want to attend a memorial service for Abel. I wasn't acquainted with many other burglars, having a longstanding preference for the company of law-abiding citizens, and I didn't know who Abel's friends were. Would Ray Kirschma
My mind drifted around. So Abel had a granddaughter. How old was Jessica Garland likely to be? Her mum must have been born in 1936 or thereabouts, and if she had indeed married young and had Jessica early on, then twenty-four or twenty-five sounded like a reasonable ballpark figure. I didn't have any trouble picturing Abel playing host to a young woman about that age, telling her charming lies about the old days in the Vie
And he'd never once mentioned her, the old fox.
I was almost asleep when a thought nudged me back awake again. I got out of bed, looked up a number, made a phone call. It rang four times before a man answered it.
I stayed as silent as if I'd called Dial-a-Prayer. I listened, and the man who'd answered said "Hello?" several times, querulously, while in the background music played and a dog interposed an occasional bark. Then he hung up-the man, I trust, rather than the dog-and I went back to bed.
CHAPTER Sixteen
One of the things I'd found time to do between late phone calls was set my alarm clock, and come morning it rang its fool head off. I got up and groped my way through a shower and a shave and the first cup of coffee, then turned on the radio and toasted a couple slices of whole-grain bread, buttered them, jammed them, ate them, drank some more coffee, drew the drapes and cocked an eye at the dawn.
It looked promising, even to a cocked eye. To the east, dark clouds still obscured the newly risen sun. But the sky was clear in the west, and the winds generally blow from that direction, sweeping yesterday's weather out over the Atlantic -which, in this case, was right where it belonged. The sky over the Hudson had a distinctly blue cast to it.
I poured myself one more cup of coffee, settled in my most nearly comfortable chair with the phone and the phone book, glanced ruefully at Morton's feet, and let my fingers do the walking.
My first call was to the American Numismatic Society, located some four miles north of me at Broadway and 156th Street. I introduced myself as James Klavin of the New York Times and explained I was doing a piece on the 1913 V-Nickel. Could he tell me a few things about the coin? Was it true, for example, that only five specimens were known to exist? And did he happen to know where those specimens were located at the present time? Could he say when a specimen had last changed hands? And for what price?
Almost everyone likes to cooperate with the press. Describe yourself as a reporter and you can ask no end of time-consuming and impertinent questions, and all people ask of you in return is that you spell their names right. The man I spoke with, a Mr. Skeffington, said he might be a moment and offered to ring me back. I said I'd hold, and I held for ten minutes, sipping coffee and wiggling my toes, while he scurried around doing my legwork for me.
He came back in due course and told me more than I really needed to know, repeating a lot of what Abel had told us Tuesday night. There were indeed five specimens, four of them in public collections, one in private hands, and he was able to furnish me with the names of the four institutions and the private collector.
He was less helpful on the subject of value. The A.N.S. is a high-minded outfit, more interested in scholarly matters like the varieties and the historical context of numismatics than such crass considerations as price. The most recent cash transaction of which Mr. Skeffington had a record was a sale Abel had mentioned-in 1976, for $130,000. According to Abel there'd been a sale since then for a substantially higher price.
I called the four museums in turn. At the Smithsonian in Washington, the curator of coins and medals was a gentleman with a dry voice and a hyphenated surname. He confirmed that a 1913 V-Nickel was a part of the Smithsonian's numismatic holdings, having been acquired as a gift of Mrs. R. Henry Norweb in 1978.
"It's on permanent display," he informed me, "and it's terribly popular. Tourists gawk at it and tell each other how beautiful it is. Now our coin is a frosty proof, but aside from that it looks like any Liberty Head Nickel, hardly an extraordinary item from the standpoint of numismatic design. You might care to argue that the Standing Liberty Quarter is beautiful, or the Saint-Gaudens high-relief twenty-dollar gold piece, but the Liberty Head Nickel? What makes this example beautiful? The date? Why, it's the value, of course. The rarity, the legends. People ooh and ahh at diamonds, too, and couldn't tell them from cut glass, not by looking at them. What exactly did you want to know about our coin?"
"I just wanted to make sure it was still there."
A dry chuckle. "Oh, it's still here. We haven't had to spend it yet. Not much you can buy with a nickel nowadays, anyway, so I guess we'll hang onto it for the present."
A woman at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts confirmed that a 1913 V-Nickel was one of the stars of the museum's coin display and had been since its acquisition by bequest shortly after the Second World War. "It's an extremely important numismatic item," she said, sounding like catalog copy, "and we're gratified to have it here in Boston."