Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories (29 page)

On four or five occasions since then, whenever a new batch of pulps came his way, Rothman had contacted me. I hadn't bought much from him, what with escalating prices, but I had purchased enough to keep my name in his files and in his memory.

But it wasn't his profession that had brought him here today; it was mine. "I've got a serious problem at the bookshop," he said, "and I'd like to hire you to get to the bottom of it."

"If I can help, I'll be glad to do what I can."

I waited until he was seated in one of the two clients' chairs and then sat down again myself. He was in his fifties, tall and aristocratic-looking, with silvering hair and cheekbones so pronounced they were like sharp little ridges. His limp was the result of some sort of childhood disease or accident—he had once made a vague reference to it—and he needed the use of a cane; the one he hooked over the arm of the chair was thick and
gnarled and black, with a knobby handle. Its color matched the three-piece suit he wore.

"I'll get right to the point," he said. "I've been plagued by thefts the past few months, and I'm damned if I can find out who's responsible or how they're being done."

"What is it that's been stolen?"

"Valuable antiquarian items. Rare books at first; more recently, etchings, prints and old maps. The total value so far exceeds twenty thousand dollars."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot of money."

"It is, and my insurance doesn't cover it all. I've been to the police, but there doesn't seem to be much they can do, under the circumstances. There seldom is in cases like this."

"You mean book thefts are a common occurrence?"

"Oh, yes," Rothman said. "Thieves are a thorn in the side of every bookseller. I lose hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of stock to them each year. No matter how closely we watch our customers, the experienced thief can always find a way to slip a book into a concealed pocket or inside his clothing, or to wrap a print or an old map around himself under a coat. A few years ago an elderly gentleman, very distinguished, managed to steal a first edition of Twain's Huckleberry Finn, even though I can still swear I had my eyes on him the whole time."

"Do these people steal for profit—to resell the items?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Others are collectors who don't have the money or the inclination to pay for something they desperately want. A much smaller percentage are kleptomaniacs. But this is an unusual case because of the number and value of the thefts, and because of the circumstances surrounding them, and I'm fairly certain the motive is resale for profit. Not to other dealers, but to unscrupulous private collectors who don't care how the items were obtained and who don't ask questions when they're offered."

"Then you think the thief is a professional?"

"No. I think he's one of my employees."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"For several reasons. All of the items were taken from the Antiquarian Room on the third floor; a room that is kept locked at all times. I have a key and so do—or did—two of my employees; no customer has ever been allowed inside without one of us present. And after the first two thefts—a fine copy of T.S. Arthur's temperance novel,
Ten Nights in a Bar Room
, and an uncommon children's book, Mary Wollstonecraft's
Original Stories from Real Life
—I ordered the Antiquarian Room out of bounds to customers unless they were personally known to me. I also had a sensor alarm installed on the front entrance. You know what that is, of course?"

I nodded. It was an electronic gateway, similar to the metal detectors used in airports, through which customers had to pass on their way out. Any purchases they made were cleared by rubbing the items across a sensor strip. If someone tried to leave the premises with something that hadn't been paid for and cleared, an alarm would sound. A lot of bookstores used the device these days; so did most libraries.

"Three weeks later," Rothman said, "a sixteenth-century religious etching attributed to one of the pioneers of printmaking, Albrecht Dürer, disappeared. It was one of two I had recently purchased, and extremely valuable; if it had been authenticated, it would be priceless. Even so, I was in the process of realizing several thousand dollars from a collector in Hillsborough when it vanished." He paused. "The point is, I checked the Antiquarian Room that morning, before I went out to lunch, as I regularly do; the Dürer was still there at that time. But it had vanished when I checked the room again late that afternoon—and no customer had been permitted inside in the interim, nor had the door lock been tampered with."

"Did you take any further precautions after that theft?"

"Yes. I confiscated the other two keys to the Antiquarian Room. But that didn't stop him either. There have been four other thefts since then, at increasingly frequent intervals—all of
them between eleven and two o'clock, evidently when I was away from the shop. The second Dürer etching, two seventeenth-century Japanese color prints and a rare map of the Orient; the map disappeared two days ago."

"The thief could have had a duplicate key made before you confiscated the originals," I suggested.

"I know; I thought of that, too. Any of my four employees could have had a duplicate made, in fact, not just the two who had keys previously. On occasion those two gave their keys to the other two, when they needed something from the Antiquarian Room and were too busy to get it themselves."

"Did you consider changing the lock?"

"I did, yes. But I decided against it."

"As clever as the thief is," Rothman said, "I suspect he'd have found a way to circumvent that obstacle, too. And I don't just want to stop the thefts; I want the person responsible caught and punished, and I want to know how he's getting the stolen items out of the shop so I can take steps to prevent it from ever happening again. The how of it bothers me almost as much as the thefts themselves."

"Couldn't the thief have simply cleared the items through the sensor when no one was looking and walked out with them later under his clothing?"

"No. The only sensor strip is located at the cashier's desk, and none of my people had access to it on the days of the thefts except Adam Turner. Adam is the only one of my people I trust implicitly; he's been with me twenty years, and he's loyal and honest to a fault. He'd taken to guarding the sensor since the thefts began, and on at least two of the days he swears he never left the desk for even a moment."

"Do you deactivate the alarm system when you close up for the day?"

"Yes."

"Well, couldn't the thief have stashed the items somewhere in the store and left with them after the alarm was shut off?"

Rothman shook his head. "I'm the last person to leave nearly
every day. And when I'm not, Adam does the locking up. No one but the two of us has a key to the front door. Not only that, but each of the others has to pass through the alarm gateway on his way out, before it's shut off; that is a strict rule and there have been no exceptions."

I did some ruminating. "Is it possible the thief could have slipped out through another entrance during working hours? He wouldn't have to have been gone more than a couple of minutes; he could even have passed the stolen items to a confederate . . .

Rothman was shaking his head again. "All the other entrances to the shop—first-floor rear and fire-escape doors on the second and third floor—are kept locked and are protected by separate alarm systems."

"How many people have keys to those entrances?"

"Only myself. And even if one of the others managed to get hold of it and have a duplicate made, the alarm would still ring if any of the doors were opened."

"Where is the control box for those alarms located?"

"Behind the cashier's desk. But it's also kept locked, and Adam guards it as zealously as he does the sensor strip."

"What about a window?" I asked. "Are there alarms on
those, too?"

"No, but they are all securely locked and also painted shut. None of them—has been touched."

I ruminated again. "I can think of one other possibility," I said at length. "Suppose the thief hasn't gotten the stolen items out of the shop? Suppose he hid them somewhere with the idea of making off with them later, because he hasn't figured out a way to beat the alarms?"

"I'm afraid that's not the answer either," Rothman said. "For one thing, Adam and I have searched the shop on more than one occasion; it's quite large, granted, but I'm sure we would have found the missing pieces if they were there. And for another thing, at least one item—the first Dürer etching—appears to have surfaced in the collection of a man named Martell in Chicago."

"You've heard rumors, you mean?"

"More than just rumors. After each theft I notified other antiquarian booksellers throughout the country and in Europe, as well as
AB Bookman's Weekly
and other publications in the trade; that's standard procedure whenever anything of value is stolen. A dealer in Chicago called me not long after I publicized the theft of the first Dürer, to say that he'd heard Martell had intimated to another collector that he had acquired it. Admittedly, that's secondhand information. But I know of Martell; he's a passionate collector of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century religious etchings, and he had a reputation of being unscrupulous about it. My colleague in Chicago knows Martell personally and says that if he has bragged about having the Dürer etching, he really does have it."

"Did you try to contact Martell?"

"1 did. He denies possession, of course."

"Isn't there anything you can do to prove otherwise?"

"No. Without proof that he bought it, there is no legal way I can have his premises searched or force him to admit to its current ownership."

"So the only way to get that proof" I said, "is to find out who stole it from you and sold it Martell."

"That's correct."

"Do you suspect any one employee more than the others?"

"Not really. I've ruled out Adam Turner, as I told you; it could be any of the other three."

I had been taking notes as we talked; I flipped over to a clean page on my pad. "Tell me about those three."

"Tom Lennox has been with me the longest, next to Adam. Four years. He's quiet, intense, knowledgeable—a good bookman. He hopes to open his own antiquarian shop someday."

"So you'd say he's ambitious?"

"Yes, but not overly so."

"Is he one of the two who had keys to the Antiquarian Room?"

"Yes. Adam was the other. They both gave up their keys
willingly."

"Uh-huh. Go ahead, Mr. Rothman."

"Harmon Boyette," he said, and spelled the last name. "He has worked for me a little more than two years, ever since he moved here from Seattle. He owned a bookstore there for several years, but he went bankrupt when his wife divorced him. He seems quite bitter about it."

"Do you consider him dependable?"

"Most of the time. But he does have an alcohol problem. Not that he drinks on the job—I wouldn't stand for that—but he comes in badly hung over on some mornings, and has missed days now and then."

"Does money seem to be important to him?"

"If so, he's never said anything about it. Nor has he ever said anything about wanting to go into business for himself again."

"And the third man?"

"Neal Vining. A Britisher, born in London. His father is a bookseller there. He married an American girl and came to San Francisco about eighteen months ago. I hired him because he has considerable expertise in English and European books, both antiquarian and modern. He learned the business from his father, and in a remarkably short time; he's only twenty-six."

"Is he ambitious, would you say?"

"Yes. He's, eager, always asking questions, gathering more knowledge. His only apparent fault is that he tends to be a bit egotistical at times."

I took a moment to go back over my notes. "The thefts began how long ago?" I asked.

"Approximately five months."

"Were there many valuable items stolen in, say, the year prior to that?"

"Two books, as I recall." He frowned. "Are you thinking the same person might have stolen those, too?"

"It's possible," I said. "The man responsible could have started off in a small way at first and then decided to risk stealing items on a more regular basis. Particularly if he feels he has an undetectable method. Impatience, greed, a feeling of
power—all those things could be driving him."

Rothman nodded speculatively. "Now that I think of it," he said, "an inscribed first edition of Henry Miller's
Black Spring
disappeared about three months after Neal Vining came to work for me."

"Lennox and Boyette are just as likely to be guilty, from what you've told me. Lennox could have been taking rare books off and on for four years, Boyette off and on for two."

"Yes, you're right." He ran spread fingers through his silvering hair. "How will you handle your investigation?"

"Well, first of all I'll run a background check on each of the three suspects. And it would be a good idea if I spent some time in the store, especially since the thief seems to be getting bolder; I might be able to spot something that'll tell us how he's doing it. You could introduce me as a new employee, give me some work to do and let me take it from there."