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it had to go through the mail. We didn't think of changing the whole book
because they are personalized and arranged in a certain order."
"I can figure that out too, Trav."
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She went and got a three ring notebook and opened it up at the index tab which
bore the initials F.A.S. "These are the inventory sheets for Mr. Sprenger's
account. I haven't kept this in the safe or anything. Why should I? Now look
at these little figures I wrote in. There are thirty-six double-sided pages,
and seven transparent pockets across each page. I number the pages in ink up
in the top corners. Okay. Take this stamp here." I read: US #122a* 90c car. &
blk, w/o grill, VF $1500 ($1375) 28-6-4. The last three figures were written
in.
I looked up over my shoulder at her. "Twenty-eighth page, sixth row down,
fourth stamp over?"
"I don't want to seem like I'm accusing Jane."
"Build the case and I'll try to tear it down."
"Okay. When she was alone here, she could bring these pages back to this
little duplicating thing and run off copies. They give her exactly what had
been bought for the Sprenger account and the exact order in the book."
"And then she "
"Let me do it. If I'm going to. Hirsh let her run that little speculative
account, bid things in at the auctions, buy things from other dealers. It was
like some kind of a joke between them. So she could have bought junk and put
it into a duplicate stock book in the same order. And she always got the names
put on the books."
"At a luggage store?"
"Luggage and leather goods. Cerrito's. We walked past it going to the bank."
"So she could get a second stock book labeled Frank A. Sprenger without you or
Hirsh knowing?" She nodded. I said, "I wonder if they keep any record."
"Could you go find out? Please? Now? I have to be sure. I just can't stand &
thinking about it and not knowing."
Chapter Fourteen
When I got back, I noticed her eyes were red. She snuffled and smiled and
said, "I'm okay now. What did they say?"
I told her that they liked Jane Lawson at Cerrito's. Quite a few years ago,
knowing that they were giving Hirsh a very special price on imprinting, she
had asked if she could do it. The press was in the back room. She had become
adept at locking the pieces of type into the press, aligning the album
properly, and pulling the handle to give it the right pressure to impress the
gold leaf letters into the leather. They were happy to have her do it. They
enjoyed having her come in. They were shocked at her death and at the
suddenness and the ugliness of it.
At M.A.'s suggestion, I took her into Hirsh's office and held her in my arms.
"Now I know the ugliest thing of all," she said. "The last and ugliest thing
about it. She had to poison me."
"What!"
She pushed me away and stared at me. "You better believe it. We went to lunch
together that day. That was because I was going to eat earlier so I could go
to the bank at quarter to one. You know, I'd forgotten about it until today?
That was back in May. I don't know the date. I could look it up. We had
exactly the same thing. Exactly. That's what was so strange about it. I'm
never sick. But coming back I told her I was feeling very very peculiar. By
the time I got here, I was really sick. At the restaurant I went to the girls'
room after our lunch came. That's when she must have put something in my
coffee to make me toss up everything. You see, Trav, that's when she must have
had the book full of junk all ready, in this box or one just like it, and she
knew that Hirsh wouldn't go to the bank alone because he likes to make a
little ceremony out of it. She had to know he'd take her. I didn't remember
that one time because there are a lot of other times I went on the other
accounts. And she went sometimes when I couldn't for one reason or another.
You know what? I bet Mr. Sprenger would remember because that would have been
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the only time he saw her."
"But wasn't there another time you went to the bank to put things in
Sprenger's book? July?"
"Right. But there was no reason to look at the old pages, like with the other
investors. So nobody noticed. Trav, while you were gone, I've beat my brains
out trying to remember if she had a box like this that day I was sick. I don't
want to be unfair. I don't want to imagine anything that didn't really happen.
But I keep thinking she had something she said she was going to mail. A
package of some kind."
"How could she work the switch?"
"I'd guess maybe she'd go in there with the box empty and the duplicate stock
book in her purse. She'd have a chance to slip the stock book full of junk
from her purse to her lap, under the table. At the moment Hirsh would be
showing Mr. Sprenger the first item, they would both be looking at it, and she
could take the book out of her lap and open it on top of the good book and
edge the book off into her lap. Probably with one hand she could shove it into
the box, past the spring. I mean in that way, there would always be the book
on top of the table. The table wouldn't ever be empty. Hirsh might remember if
she mailed anything."
She sat on Hirsh's desk, and I stood frowning in front of her. "And I'm
supposed to shoot it down?"
"I hope you can. I really hope you can. She & just wasn't that kind of a
person."
"In May she scores. Big. In September she's still here?"
"I know. Mr. Balch's account must be worth at least two hundred thousand
market value."
"Hirsh leafed through the book, and he guessed that the stuff that was
substituted was worth about sixty-five thousand."
"What? Oh, no. You must have misunderstood. I think he included the good stuff
we just added that day." She turned and indicated her notebook. "Jane was here
a lot longer than me, but I bet I could take Sprenger's list and go up to New
York with fifteen thousand dollars, and I could buy stuff that would look okay
maybe to Mr. Sprenger or to you but not to a dealer. And & Hirsh sent Jane to
New York in April to bid on some things when he couldn't make it."
"So where would she get fifteen thousand?"
"I don't know. I just don't know."
"Why do you say it that way?"
"Well & because we both do appraisals. You get so you know what to look for.
It wouldn't be any big deal to see something really good and slip it out of
the collection and put in something cheap that looks like it. They are estate
things usually. The collector is dead. So it just looks like he made a mistake
in identification. And it would be a hundred dollars here, fifty dollars
there, two hundred in the next place."
"She'd have no trouble selling them?"
"Why should she? It's like they say, I guess. People start taking a little bit
and then more and then a lot. Like a disease. If it was like that with her,
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