Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1926

S unshine streamed into the Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library, gilding the dust motes that danced in the beams. It was far closer to the Caravellos' home than the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which made it a better location for this meeting that Lauren was eager to get underway.

"I don't understand why it's necessary that I be here, too." Dr. DeVries twisted his tie tack, ensuring it was absolutely straight. "Lawrence could have handled it on behalf of the society."

"Having two board members here in person, instead of one, communicates that you take this mistake seriously." Lauren kept her voice low so as not to disturb the dozen or so people reading. "This is your chance to make your member feel valued. To reestablish rapport that at this point is rather tenuous. What you want is to inspire loyalty in each of your members. Trust me, a good relationship with your patrons is worth more than gold."

"You've experience in this area, do you?" the doctor asked.

"I do. Patrons can become dissatisfied for any number of reasons. But earning our way back into their good graces, whenever reasonably possible, is a priority. It's easier to retain a member than to recruit a new one."

"Well." Dr. DeVries nodded toward the door. "Here we go, Lawrence. Time to put on a show."

Lauren frowned at the doctor's sentiment. Setting that aside, she waved to Joe and his parents, then walked closer to greet them. Joe had already shared with her that Sal had taken the news of the forgery hard yesterday, but that Joe and Greta had helped him see that he wasn't to blame. Greta, Joe had said, had been confident things would be made right.

"I'm so glad you could meet us today," she told the Caravellos, adding how sorry she was for the reason.

"You must not blame your father, you know," Greta said in low tones. "You won't hold this against him, will you? We all make mistakes, but life is too short to hold on to them."

Lauren nodded, speechless that her concern was Lauren's relationship with her father.

Then Sal, who Lauren had worried over most, gave her a smile so full of meaning that it untied the knots in her chest. "There is nothing more important than family." In the crack in his voice, Lauren heard the rift he still suffered in his own.

"Thank you," she breathed, awash in their grace.

Eyes rimmed in silver, Greta embraced Lauren, and then Sal kissed her cheeks.

"I'll wait for my turn later." Joe winked at Lauren, and she laughed along with his parents.

Grateful for that moment with the Caravellos, she ushered the family to where her father and Dr. DeVries waited.

"My dear Mr. and Mrs. Caravello," Dad said, shaking their hands in greeting, "I cannot tell you how pained I was to learn of our error. How pained we both were."

Dr. DeVries shook their hands as well. "Yes, quite. We value our members and want to make it up to you by offering to you your choice of a replacement artifact."

"And these have both been guaranteed by Dr. Westlake?" Joe asked quietly.

"They have." Dad bowed almost deferentially. "The artifacts and the provenance documents have both been verified."

A bloom of pink crept above Dr. DeVries's collar. Obviously, he didn't appreciate the implication that they needed the confirmation. "An extra measure of diligence."

Joe looked at him. "Not extra. Necessary."

Lauren's eyes rounded. As Dad explained the choice of amulets to Sal and Greta, Joe and the doctor continued to stare at each other. It was like some sort of primal challenge. She couldn't understand why.

A false smile jerked up Dr. DeVries's lips. "If you say so. As you see, we're both here, cooperating as you've insisted."

Joe's smile was natural, perhaps deceptively so. "I'd expect nothing less of board members who have their members' best interests at heart."

The words exchanged between the men were civil. Even the tone was quiet and controlled. But the energy arcing between them was nothing short of electric. If she stood too close, she'd be singed.

"Of course we do." Dr. DeVries turned his back to Joe, paying attention instead to the transaction taking place.

"May I see the provenances, please?" Joe asked.

Lauren passed the papers to him, and he studied both, apparently reading every word.

"I assure you, everything is in order," Dr. DeVries said.

Joe handed the documents back to Lauren. "Indubitably." He smiled.

A muscle twitched beneath the doctor's left eye.

"Do you have any questions for any of us about these two items?" Lauren asked Sal and Greta, redirecting the attention to the senior Caravellos.

"Your father has been doing an excellent job of answering them," Greta said. "Sal? Do you have any questions?"

Lauren feared he'd ask how the Napoleon Society had sold a fake to begin with. He had every right to inquire. Instead, he simply laid a hand on his wife's shoulder and reminded her this was a gift for her. The decision was hers alone.

All tension diffused. In the breath of relief that followed, Lauren could hear pages turn at nearby tables, the muted footsteps of readers coming and going, the murmur of a librarian offering guidance at the carved wooden service desk.

The click and whir of a camera.

Lauren scanned the room until she found where the sound had come from. A man pointed a camera at her and took another photograph. Her scare from a few days ago at Grand Central rushed back to her.

"Joe." Pulse trotting, she touched his sleeve and whispered. "That man over there is taking pictures of me."

"No, he isn't," he told her.

She frowned at him. "You didn't even look. He's twenty feet behind me."

Joe barely glanced at the man. "I see him. You're safe, I promise."

"But how can you be so sure? I'm telling you—"

"Trust me." He squeezed her hands. "Please."

For the sake of his parents, she bit her tongue before she told him how it felt for him to dismiss her concerns without even hearing what she had to say.

Making a show of looking at his watch, Dr. DeVries begged leave to go prepare for his next patient.

"On a Saturday, Daniel?" Dad asked.

"Health emergencies are no respecter of time, I'm afraid."

Sal announced they'd made their selection and said he and Greta would gladly walk out with him. Lawrence bade them farewell and stayed behind to pack up the other artifact.

The man with the camera left, too. Somehow that didn't make Lauren feel much better. She drew Joe a few tables over from Dad. "This has happened before. When I was at the Napoleon House with my father in Newport, he told me to come away from the window, but he didn't tell me why. But he was scared of something, or someone. Then on the train on the way home, I thought someone might have taken a picture of me, but I quickly dismissed the idea."

Finally, Joe was paying attention. "Go on."

"Then at Grand Central, a man, perhaps the same one from the train, followed me with his camera, taking more pictures in Vanderbilt Hall. I'd thought the man had broader shoulders than the one here today, but nonetheless. He'd disappeared by the time I had a Red Cap escort me to a cab."

His face hardened to granite. "Lauren, why didn't you tell me?"

"I convinced myself I was being paranoid. Then after getting home, it was easy to forget about it, especially with the distraction of discovering the horse and rider was a forgery. In fact, I hadn't given it another thought until about two o'clock this morning. I awoke to the sound of someone entering the apartment and almost called the police before realizing it was Elsa and Ivy arriving home from their vacation. That only made me feel more paranoid, but now I know I'm not."

"Did you get a good look at the man who was taking photos of you?"

"I only wish I had. He held the bulky camera in front of his face the entire time, so no, I never saw his face."

Dad approached, concern etched into his features. "Did I hear that right, Lauren?" He set his satchel on the table. "Were you followed home from Newport, and you didn't tell me?" Fear expanded in his eyes.

She took a deep breath. "I didn't want you to worry. I wasn't even sure of my own interpretation of events. I thought maybe I'd absorbed your suspicions from the night before when you urged me away from the window. You never explained that, either, you know."

Joe pulled his leather notebook from his pocket and began taking notes. "All right, you two. Have a seat, and let's start from the beginning. What was the date?"

Sliding into a chair, she told him.

Dad deflated into a seat of his own, lips pressed flat, as though determined not to share anything.

"I'm not the only one keeping secrets, Dad. If there's something you're afraid of, you ought to tell Joe about it, even if you don't want to tell me. I can leave the two of you alone for a while."

"I have nothing to say." Dad shook his head. "It's simply prudent not to display yourself in front of an open window where others could see you. I ordered window coverings, but they've not come in yet."

"Was someone outside the house that night?" Joe asked. "Did you have reason to believe someone might be surveilling you?"

"I thought I saw someone with a lit cigarette," Lauren told him.

"Did you happen to go outside later and look for ashes or the butt? Footsteps in the snow?"

"I would have," Lauren said, "but a fresh blanket of snow fell that night, so there was no point."

"We're wasting the detective's time." Dad stood. "Maybe both of us are imagining things, sweetheart." But his hands shook as he tightened the buckle on his satchel and tried to button his coat.

"You didn't fall on the tracks," she said.

Her father sank back down.

Joe raised his eyebrows, pencil hovering over his notebook, waiting for her to explain.

"I talked to the assistant supervisor for the Red Caps at Grand Central. I wanted to thank whoever it was that helped you when you fell the day after Thanksgiving. The man I spoke with said that no one fell to the tracks that day."

Dad opened his mouth and closed it again. "How could he possibly know everything that transpired?"

"Accidents are always reported. What you described was not filed for that day. So maybe it's time you tell how you really sustained those injuries."

He tugged at his scarf. "It's so hot in here. Why do they keep it so hot in here?"

"Mr. Westlake." Joe kept his voice low. "It will help all of us a great deal if you simply tell the truth."

Color leached from Dad's face. "Is that photographer still here?"

"He left," Lauren said.

His gaze roved the room, as though afraid they were still being observed. Or listened to.

Breathing in shallow pants, he pushed himself up again, his chair scraping back from the table. "I must get back to my work. If you want to help, Detective, don't follow me."

Dumbfounded, Lauren watched him go. Whatever her father was afraid of, he was determined to face it alone. "Something is wrong, but I have no idea what," she whispered. "Do you?"

Joe reached for her hand, and she grasped his fingers. "I don't know what happened to your dad. But I do know the photographer here this morning wasn't here for you. His name is Oscar McCormick, and he's a police officer. I asked him to come and take photos of Dr. DeVries."

"Why?"

Joe opened his notebook, revealing pages that were dated at the top. He pointed to what he'd written on January 1. The phrase Daniel Bradford = Daniel DeVries? had been circled in dark pencil lead.

"The art dealer?" Lauren whispered. "I hardly think..."

Joe brought a finger to his lips and turned the page, tapping it. There, she followed the progression of clues he'd put together based on the provenance documents, the doctor's distinctive vocabulary, and the physical description offered by Mr. Sanderson.

Her mouth went dry. "You were irritating him on purpose today," she guessed.

"So you saw it, too." He pointed to the note about the agitated twitch beneath his left eye.

She admitted she had.

"Let's take a walk." Joe put on his overcoat and led her out of range of listening ears. Their footsteps echoed across the marble as they exited the reading room and began descending the double-wide staircase.

"Mr. Sanderson has seen Daniel Bradford," he continued quietly. "I asked McCormick to take the photos so I can show them to him and see if he can identify him that way. Then we'll know for sure if he's been working with this alias."

Lauren buttoned her fur-trimmed coat and focused on the step in front of her, and the next, and the next, as she descended. If Dr. DeVries was indeed Daniel Bradford, that meant he'd played an active role in at least two forgeries. And this man was on the board of the Napoleon Society with her father.

"There must be another explanation," she whispered. Reaching a landing, her skirt flared at her calves as she turned to walk down another flight. Through the arched opening, she watched well-bundled library patrons trickle through the entrance and into the grand lobby below. "They've asked me to write articles about how to identify forgeries to print in the society newsletter."

"Your father asked you to do that. Correct? Not Dr. DeVries."

"True, but DeVries is the editor. He didn't have to include the article. You're suggesting that Bradford is somehow involved in forgeries, either by selling them or by creating them as well. But if Bradford is DeVries, why would DeVries also print an article about how to tell the difference between fake and genuine? It would be counter to his purposes."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Didn't you tell me that his secretary was the one who actually put the newsletter together on the doctor's behalf? Maybe the editor isn't as involved in the process as we think. Maybe he didn't even know about the article until after it was printed."

Lauren forced herself to consider this possibility. Her footsteps slowed, her mood sinking with every lowering tread. "If he's found to be guilty of anything illegal, it will be far worse for the Napoleon Society than the small matter of the fire at the museum. It could put an end to everything my father's been working for. The society would never recover."

Joe took her hand and walked beside her, matching his pace to hers. "Let's take this one step at a time. If what you describe comes to pass, you will get to Egypt another way. A Napoleon Society expedition is not your only ticket."

She nodded. "My concern is more for my father. Shouldn't we warn him?"

"No." His answer was immediate and firm. In the next breath, they reached the main lobby on the first floor. He drew her around the corner of an enormous pillar so they stood in the shadows beneath the staircase. "You can't say anything about this to him. If DeVries and Bradford are the same man, he is already on edge because of this incident with the horse-and-rider forgery. We can't risk your father hinting anything else to him. We don't want to give DeVries a reason to run or destroy evidence. So it's imperative that we keep this to ourselves for now. Understand?"

She ached with the weight of this burden. "I hate secrets." Her voice was small, and she felt smaller still, especially here, surrounded by cold white marble vaulting high above her. "Secrets expand between people, pushing them apart."

Joe pulled her closer, until their foreheads were almost touching. "It doesn't have to be that way. Secrets are part of the job."

"Part of your job," she corrected. A couple passed by but paid Lauren and Joe no mind.

"You are a consultant on this case, Dr. Westlake. I need you to promise me you'll do nothing to sabotage it. I know this is hard for you, but that means you won't breathe a word of any of this to your father. Remember, he is keeping secrets from us, too."

She wrestled with his words, not wanting them to be true. But her dad had lied about falling onto the tracks. He was afraid of something, or someone, and wouldn't tell her what. Besides which, she recognized that Joe could have kept this from her, as well, for fear that she'd tell her father. But he'd trusted her enough to be honest. The last thing she wanted to do was make him regret it.

Lauren buried her dread. "I trust you, Joe. And I promise."

MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 1926

Cold sliced through Joe's open coat, but he kept it unfastened so he could reach his gun in an instant if he needed to.

He prayed he wouldn't need to. Not here, following Lauren on her walk to work through Central Park. But her description of the man with broad shoulders taking her picture at Grand Central had jogged his memory of the man spying on her the day they ice skated.

Joe had spent the rest of the weekend surveilling her, or rather, watching to see if anyone else was watching her. If there was any chance she'd been right about a man stalking her from Newport to New York City, Joe wanted to know about it. Lauren had agreed to his plan.

Snow settled like powdered sugar on her hat and coat. Methodically, he scanned the environment and backed off when Oscar McCormick walked past him, taking the lead. The young man had been only too eager to help. Switching places every so often gave them a broader perspective on the area. It also lowered their chances of being noticed.

Half a mile from where she'd started at the Beresford, Joe saw Lauren safely enter the rear doors of the Met. Trusting the museum security guards would do their job from there, he wound his way back to where he'd parked the police car and drove to a café to wait for McCormick.

Ten minutes later, the young officer arrived, a paper envelope beneath his arm. His cheeks were ruddy as he slid into the booth and slapped it on the table.

Joe poured him a mug of coffee from the carafe the waitress had already brought. "Did you look at them yet?"

"No, I just picked them up on the way here."

Joe tasted the coffee—Ferrara's it was not—and set the mug down. "Let's see."

McCormick opened the flap and withdrew the photographs he'd taken Saturday morning at the library.

Joe flipped through them.

"Will they work?" McCormick asked.

"These should." Several photos were of the doctor's back, but one was in profile, and a few others captured his front. "I'll meet with Mr. Sanderson and ask if he recognizes anyone in the photos. I suspect he'll be able to ID him as the elusive Daniel Bradford." Joe had considered inviting Mr. Sanderson to Saturday's meeting in person, but if Dr. DeVries spied him, he might have bolted before a positive ID could be made. The photos would be better. Besides, McCormick's presence had prompted Lauren to share a few more pieces to the puzzle.

Joe slid the photos back into the envelope. "I owe you one, kid."

"Uh, sir? Make that two. I found another photo you need to see. But this one, I didn't take." From inside his jacket, McCormick pulled an envelope and slid it across the table to Joe. "I mean, I took it, from my desk where I found it stuck inside a city directory, but I didn't, you know, take the picture." He mimed holding a camera.

"I get it, Mick."

He grinned at the abbreviation of his surname. "Mick. Yeah, I like it. Does that mean I can call you Cara?"

"No."

Joe's smile vanished when he slid the photograph out of the envelope. In it were a few people on the street in front of a brick building. One of them was Wade Martin. Someone had drawn an X in black marker over his head. On the back, Martin's name had been written.

Blood turned to ice in Joe's veins. He looked around the café, but other than the waitress smoking behind the breakfast counter, they were alone. From somewhere in the kitchen, a radio played the song "There's Egypt in Your Dreamy Eyes," its mood discordant with his own.

"Has anyone else seen this?"

"Just you so far. I figured you'd know what to do with it."

Joe nodded. "Tell me again where you found it."

"Like I said, I was going through one of the city directories and found it wedged right up into the spine in the M section."

"A city directory in your desk," Joe clarified. "The desk that had been Connor Boyle's."

"Bingo."

Joe dropped the photo on the table and looked at it again. That building in the background was the waterfront-warehouse-turned-speakeasy where Wade Martin had been killed. In the photo, he was exiting the building. Joe looked closer and saw that the frame had been stamped with the date. It was taken four days before the raid.

Wade Martin's death wasn't an accident, and it wasn't self-defense. It was premeditated murder, and Connor had been the trigger.

———

McCormick returned to the station long before Joe was ready. Questions clamored faster than he could pen them to paper. Who wanted Wade Martin dead? Who would benefit from Martin's death, or stood to lose something if he lived? And why on God's green earth had Connor been the killer?

On a fresh page in his notebook, Joe listed the facts he did know in chronological order.

In June 1923, Connor stopped frequenting Callahan's.

From June 1923 to May 1925, four guns went missing every month from the property seized by the police. Connor Boyle was involved in every raid that had seized those guns. According to Big Red, those guns were never sold on the black market.

In June 1923, Connor began giving Doreen empty wine bottles. Connor said they were all confiscated on Prohibition raids. I couldn't find them in the records.

In November 1924, Connor said at St. Pat's that he wasn't ready to repent. Told me to take care of his aunt when something happened (not if).

In April 1925, Connor asked Doreen if she could imagine a different life in a different city, but then resigned himself to the status quo.

In August 1925, only three guns went missing from police evidence. Connor was involved in those three raids, too.

On September 28, a photograph was taken of Wade Martin exiting a speakeasy. His face was marked with a black X.

Before October 2, the photograph was delivered to Connor.

On October 2, Connor and I participated in the same speakeasy raid. I was arresting Wade Martin, saw him drop the oyster shell. He denied knowing about it and told me to ask Connor, who had allegedly dropped it in his drink. Connor shot and killed Wade.

On November 26, I asked Connor about the oyster shell, and he told me to leave it alone for my own good.

On December 25, Doreen mentioned our conversation about the bottles he'd given her, and he got angry.

Joe stared at the timeline. If Connor had been paid for those guns by someone, it hadn't been in cash. He'd been paid with crates of the most expensive French wine smuggled into the country. It was time to share this, along with the photograph, directly with the new police commissioner, but since McLaughlin had just taken office on January 1, he'd be in meetings all week at least. So until Joe could put this in the commissioner's hands himself, he would keep quiet.

What happened with Connor in August and September? How was Wade Martin involved in all this? He hadn't forged the oyster shell—that honor had been Escalante's—and it certainly was not worth killing over. But if it held zero significance, why had both Connor and Wade tried to deflect attention from it?

Joe wouldn't find answers in the burned grounds at the bottom of his mug.

He might, however, find some over a pastrami on rye.

———

Forty minutes later, Joe sat in a bentwood chair at a table against the wall at Katz's Delicatessen. According to one of the owners, the antique dealer Reuben Feinstein always came on Mondays before the lunch crowd. While he waited, Joe took a bite of the best sandwich in town. If the glistening meat was piled any higher between these slices of rye, he'd have to eat it with a fork and knife. The pastrami melted in his mouth, erasing the leftover taste of the scalded swill from this morning.

When Feinstein entered, Joe watched him take a ticket and stand in line before bringing it to the counter. They punched the slip of paper with his order, loaded a tray with matzoh ball soup and potato latkes, and sent him on his way.

Swiping a napkin over his mouth, Joe waved him over. "Saved you a seat."

Feinstein's expression fell when he spotted Joe. But after looking over his shoulder, he joined him anyway. "I assume we're not meeting by chance."

Joe took a bite of the pickle spear that came with his sandwich, then pushed his tray to the end of the table. "You assume right." He wiped his hands again. "Have you had any more trouble with hoodlums breaking into your shop?"

"Not since you came to visit." Feinstein ducked his head and slurped a spoonful of soup.

"Listen, Mr. Feinstein." Joe leaned forward, dropping his voice. "I know you didn't file an insurance claim after that break-in. I know you're hiding the identity of whoever was responsible, and I'm guessing that's so no more harm comes to you or your shop. I get that. They probably warned you—strongly—against involving the police." He paused, studying every shift in the man's expression.

So far, Feinstein's breathing was steady, and so was his hand as he ate the soup. He made no reply, and no denial.

"But if they were extorting you for money, meeting their demands only feeds their power. Next time they'll come back for more. No matter what they told you, you're better off cooperating with me. The police are here to help law-abiding citizens like you."

Feinstein cut the fist-sized matzoh ball with the side of his spoon. "They didn't want money."

"Information, then."

No reply.

"All right." Joe sat back. "You don't want to talk. I get it. You eat, I'll talk, how's that? I've been looking into forgeries all over Manhattan. I caught one forger; his name is Vincent Escalante. You probably saw that in the paper."

Feinstein kept eating, unperturbed. "That sounds familiar, yes."

"Last October, a man named Wade Martin was killed while in possession of an oyster shell pendant forged by Escalante."

Feinstein shrugged. "I read that Martin was shot by a policeman in self-defense. The article didn't say anything about a forgery or piece of antiquity."

"Allegedly," Joe said quietly.

"How's that?"

"The policeman who shot him is awaiting trial. The jury will decide whether that was an accident or self-defense. I'm trying to figure whether the forgery had anything to do with Martin's death."

The antique dealer stared at Joe. "I've never met Wade Martin or this Escalante fellow in my life. I've never spoken to either on the telephone. I certainly never carried any of Escalante's forgeries in my shop."

"I believe you," Joe said. But that wasn't all he wanted to get a line on. "You sell higher-end antiques, don't you? In fact, I bet some of your items come from an exclusive, in-demand art buyer named Daniel Bradford."

Feinstein tugged his collar.

Joe opened the binder he'd brought with him and pulled out one of McCormick's photographs from yesterday morning. He still planned to meet with Mr. Sanderson and have him ID Dr. DeVries, but two positive identifications would be even better.

After wiping off the table in front of him, Joe spun the photograph to face Feinstein. "Do you recognize anyone in this picture? Besides me, that is." In this shot, McCormick had captured everyone who'd come for the artifact exchange.

Soup dribbled from Feinstein's spoon. Without taking a bite, he set it down. Sweat shone on his skin. His glasses slid down his nose, and he removed them, then mopped his face with a handkerchief.

Joe had hit a nerve. "You see someone you know, don't you?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Mr. Feinstein, I'm on the verge of catching a forger who has cheated countless people and roped upstanding businessmen like yourself into the deception. It's not your fault. You don't deserve this misery. Help me catch him."

"None of these people broke into my shop."

Not surprising. "Let's put the break-in aside. Point to the person you recognize and tell me who he is."

"I never asked for any of this, you know."

"But you can help put an end to it."

Behind Feinstein, people shuffled through the lines with their tickets, and the place filled with the smell of enough cured, smoked, and steamed meat to feed half the borough, it seemed. As soon as one table opened up, a busboy would clear it and wipe it down as more diners would claim it. Bells dinged as satisfied customers brought their tickets to cash registers to pay at the end.

All of that faded to a meaningless blur when Reuben Feinstein finally pointed to a man in the photograph.

Lawrence Westlake.

"This man?" Joe tapped Lawrence's likeness.

"That's right."

Blood pounded in Joe's ears. He took out four more shots from what McCormick had given him and spread them on the table. Perhaps a different angle would help Feinstein identify Daniel DeVries instead. "Take another look," he urged.

Huffing a sigh, Feinstein pointed at Lawrence in all five pictures. "I may be color-blind, Detective, but I know who I saw. One doesn't forget the man who brings in the antiquity he did."

Joe would get to that later. First, "What's his name?"

"He never told me, or if he did, I honestly don't remember it." Sweat trickled from Feinstein's temple. "All I know is, this man came in one time to deliver an antique that I'd agreed to sell on spec when Daniel Bradford told me about it over the phone. I was expecting to meet Bradford, since he'd been the one to call. But this man showed up with it instead. Didn't introduce himself, but his voice wasn't like the one I remembered on the phone. When I asked him who to write the check to once the item sold, he said to make it out to the Napoleon Society." He heaved a great sigh. "When was this photograph taken?"

"Saturday morning."

"Which Saturday morning? This past one?"

When Joe confirmed it, Feinstein exhaled. "Thank God, thank God he's okay." The man's relief was palpable. Then his lips pursed, and his mood shifted into one Joe couldn't quite read.

"Mr. Feinstein, when did this man come in with the artifact? What was it he gave you, and who purchased it? Do you have a copy of the provenance?"

"I have to go. I've said too much. Please, if you want to help, don't follow me," he said, an uncanny echo of Lawrence's parting words. His tray full of uneaten latkes and tepid soup, Feinstein rushed off to pay his ticket and leave.

Nerves firing, Joe scooped the photographs back into the envelope and tucked them away. It was time for yet another fresh sheet in his notebook.

Date unknown: Daniel Bradford called Reuben Feinstein about a potential item to sell on speculation. Feinstein agreed.

Date unknown: Lawrence Westlake brought the antiquity to the store and told Feinstein a check should be made out to the Napoleon Society in the event of its sale.

November 24, 1925. Feinstein's Antiques is broken into, but not reported to police. No insurance claim filed. Whoever broke in wanted information, not money.

November 25, 1925. Lawrence learns there has been a fire at the Napoleon House in Newport. Travels to Newport that night.

November 27, 1925. Lawrence arrives back in New York City with injuries to his head and hands and, allegedly, his shins. Claims he sustained injuries by falling to tracks, but this has been proven false. Refuses to offer another explanation.

January 4, 1926. Feinstein still refuses to name the person or persons who broke into his shop on November 24. Expresses relief when learns that Lawrence Westlake, who he has met only one time, is all right. Implied: Feinstein had feared harm had come to Lawrence.

In a daze, Joe gathered his things, including the half-eaten pastrami wrapped in paper, and paid for his meal at the register.

Back at headquarters, he barely returned McCormick's greeting and picked up the telephone without taking off his coat. "Put me through to the fire inspector in Newport, Rhode Island," he told the switchboard operator.

Several minutes later, the call went through. After introducing himself, Joe said, "There was a fire on the roof of the Napoleon House on November 25, the day before Thanksgiving. I don't have the address, but it's an old house they're turning into a museum."

"Yeah, we know it. There was only one fire that night."

"What was the official cause of the fire? Faulty electrical wiring?"

"No," the inspector replied. "It was arson."