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I walked from the park to the subway, and by one-thirty I was in Cobble Hill and twenty minutes later I was at the Church of the Redeemer. I met Jessica Garland and the young man she lived with. His name was Clay Merriman, and he turned out to be a lanky fellow, all knees and elbows and a toothy smile. I told them both what I had in mind. He had a little trouble following me, but Jessica grasped it right away. Well, why not? She was Abel's granddaughter, wasn't she?
We looked over the room where the service was to take place. I told her where to seat people, assuming they didn't grab seats on their own. Then I left her and Clay to greet the guests as they arrived, biding my time in a room down the hall that looked to be the minister's study. The door was locked, but you can imagine the kind of lock they put on a minister's study.
At two-thirty the ca
Then it was time. I took two books from my attaché case, refastened its clasps and left it in a corner of the room. I made my way down the corridor and entered the larger room where a fair crowd of people had assembled. I walked down the side aisle, mounted a two-foot platform, and took my place at the lectern.
I looked at all those people and took a deep breath.
CHAPTER Twenty-one
"Good afternoon," I said. "My name is Bernard Rhodenbarr. I'm here, as we all are, because of my friendship for Abel Crowe. Our friend and neighbor was struck down in his own home this past week, and we have assembled here to pay final tribute to his memory."
I looked over my audience. There were a great many unfamiliar faces in the crowd, and I guessed the older ones belonged to Abel's neighbors from Riverside Drive while the younger ones were Cobble Hill friends of Jessica's. Among them were quite a few people I recognized. I spotted Mrs. Pomerance in the second row, and my hearty podiatrist was one row behind her. Over to the left Ray Kirschma
His sister Marilyn was in the first row all the way over on the right. She was dressed quite sedately in a black skirt and dark-gray sweater, but all the same she looked like a whore in church. The man sitting beside her, a round-faced lumpish lout, had to be Harlan Reese.
Denise and Carolyn were sitting together all the way at the back. Carolyn was wearing her blazer. Denise had a sweater on, but I couldn't see whether she was wearing pants or a skirt. No smock, though, and no smile.
As chief mourner, Jessica Garland sat front row center, with Clay Merriman on her left. A pity we hadn't all met before this unhappy occasion, I thought. Abel could have had us all over of an evening, Clay and Jessica and Carolyn and I, and we could have fattened up on pastry while he regaled us with stories of Europe between the wars. But, oddly, he'd never mentioned a granddaughter.
Three men in dark suits sat together at the right of the third row. The one closest to the center was tall and balding, with a long nose and very thin lips. Beside him sat the oldest of the trio, a gentleman about sixty with wide shoulders, snow-white hair and a white mustache. The third man, seated on the aisle, was a small and slightly built fellow with a button nose and thick eyeglasses.
I had never seen them before but I was fairly certain I knew who they were. I paused long enough to meet the eyes of the white-haired man in the middle, and while his face did not change its stern expression he gave a short but distinct nod.
At the opposite end of the second row sat another man I recognized. Oval face, clipped mustache, slate-gray hair, little mouth and nose-I'd seen him before, of course, but Jessica had known where to put him because Herbert Franklin Colca
I winced when I saw it. Somehow with all the ru
Anyway, I'd just introduced myself to the company. So Colca
"We're told our good friend made his living as a receiver of stolen property," I began. "I, however, knew him in another capacity-as a student of philosophy. The writings of Spinoza were particularly precious to Abel Crowe, and I would like to read a brief passage or two as a memorial to him."
I read from the leatherbound copy we'd given to Abel, the copy I'd retrieved Friday and had subsequently packed in my attaché case the following night. I read a couple short selections from the section entitled "On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions." It was dry stuff, and my audience did not look terribly attentive.
I closed Spinoza, placed the book on the lectern, and opened the other volume I'd brought along, one I'd selected last night from Abel's shelves.
"This is a book of Abel's," I said. "Selections from the writing of Thomas Hobbes. Here's a passage he underlined from Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society: 'The cause of mutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting; whence it comes to pass that we can neither expect from others nor promise to ourselves the least security. For if we look on men full-grown, and consider how brittle the frame of our human body is, which perishing, all its strength, vigor and wisdom itself perisheth with it; and how easy a matter it is even for the weakest man to kill the strongest; there is no reason why any man trusting to his own strength should conceive himself made by nature above others. They are equals who can do equal things one against the other; but they who can do the greatest thing, namely kill, can do equal things.'"
I skipped to another marked passage. "This is from Leviathan," I said. "'In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrels. First, competition; second, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh man invade for gain, the second for safety, and the third for reputation.'"
I placed Hobbes with Spinoza. "Abel Crowe was killed for gain," I a
It was not without effect. The whole crowd seemed to draw breath at once. I fixed my eyes for the moment on Carolyn and Denise. They'd known what was coming but my a
"Abel was murdered for a nickel," I went on. "People are killed every day for trifling sums, but this particular nickel was no trifle. It was worth something like a quarter of a million dollars." Another collective gasp from the crowd. "Tuesday night Abel came into possession of that coin. Twelve hours later he was dead."
I went on to tell them a little about the history of the five legendary 1913 V-Nickels. "One of these nickels wound up in the safe of a man who lived in a carriage house in Chelsea. The man and his wife had left town and weren't expected back until the following day. Tuesday evening, while they were gone, a pair of burglars broke through the skylight and ransacked the carriage house."