Sergeant Shrubsole came in then and patiently filled out a file-card on Priscilla. He wrote down a description of her appearance and her habits, and at Mrs. Bewley's shrill insistence, a transcription of her very distinctive soprano cluck. Then Mrs. Bewley went home, where she found Priscilla roosting naughtily on the rubber plant. She shrieked with relief and proceeded to give Priscilla a severe screaming-to and a whole bowlful of crushed graham crackers. Then she took her in her lap and scratched Priscilla's pinfeathers affectionately. Naughty she was, Priscilla, but nice. Back at the police station, Jimmy Flower was entertaining Charley and Philip Goss. Released from captivity, Charley was as amiable as ever and he meant to show that he harbored no hard feelings. It was apparent that the brothers were enjoying one another's company. The revelation of the truth had freed them of a burden of mutual suspicion that had been heavier, even, than the fear of death. But Jimmy looked at them and wondered if things could ever be altogether the same. After all, Charley had jumped to take the blame, and Philip had not. But perhaps Philip's reluctance could be explained away—he must have known from his legal experience that lies on his part wouldn't help a guilty Charley, and that only a good trial lawyer could be of any use at all.
They were putting a good face on it, however it was. Charley had come to say goodbye. He was on his way to school. 'I've got a few credits to finish up and then (don't laugh) I'm going to take a crack at law school. I can't think why the legal profession should suddenly interest me so much. It's not as if I'd ever had any contact with it or anything.'
'We're saving Charley a blank space on our shingle,' said Philip. 'Some day it will be Goss, Jarvis and Goss.'
'Say, that's great,' said Jimmy. 'Oh, by the way, Charley, look here. That fingerprint expert, Mr. Campbell, has sent back that other letter you wrote. You know, the one Thoreau was supposed to have written to Emily Whatsername. I had it right here. I was just about to look over his report on it. You want the letter back? (Where in heck did I put it?)'
'For sentimental reasons? Good God, no. Which letter? did you say it was?'
'You know, the one that turned up in Mrs. Bewley's trash collection. Or didn't you know about that? It's the one Thoreau was supposed to have written to Emily Dickinson. It was right here on this desk a minute ago.'
'You must be wrong there. I never wrote one like that.'
Charley and Philip said goodbye, then, and Jimmy got down on his hands and knees and looked under the desk. The letter wasn't there either. Shaking his head, Jimmy got up again and unfolded Campbell's report. He read it to himself. 'Well, I'll be damned. Hey, Shrubsole, come here. Look at this. Campbell says that last letter we sent him had a couple sets of old prints on it. They turned up when he tried this ninhydrin test. He thinks they're very old prints indeed. And the lab says it's old paper and old ink.'
'Well, say, then, it must be real. A real letter from Henry Thoreau to that lady poet. Where is it?'
'That's just the trouble. I can't find it. It was right here on my desk. Of course there weren't any last names on it, it was just 'Emily' and 'Henry,' so who knows if it was really ... Still, holy horsecollar, the thing could be worth thousands of dollars. Come on, let's turn this place upside-down.'
Together they stirred through the wastebasket and looked all over the office and then all over the building. Jimmy ransacked his drawers, scrabbled through the files, went through his pockets and bawled out three sergeants. But they couldn't find the precious letter anywhere.
Jimmy had a doleful conversation about it on the phone with the D.A. 'How'll we tell Kelly?' he said. 'He was awful interested in things like that.'
'Look, Flower, take my advice. Don't tell him nothing. The first thing I learned at my blessed mother's knee was when to shut my trap. Say, I'm glad you called. Did you ever run across a loony kind of pervert out there in Concord, called himself Granville-Galsworthy? He turned up in the jail the other night here in Cambridge for attacking a schoolteacher. Turns out he's wanted all over the map from London to L.A. for crummy offenses like that. The scholarly type. Specializes in librarians and schoolteachers. His last stop must have been out in your territory. You had any complaints out there? I mean he's got four stranglings on his record, not to mention rape and——'
'Kee-rist, no kidding? No, thank the Lord, no complaints that I've heard of. But it's a mercy that Morgan girl is all in one piece though. He took a real shine to her. Say, that's something else Kelly better not hear about, or he'll tear us all limb from limb, himself included. He's sweet on Mary himself.'
'Attaboy, Flower, you're learning fast. Plenty of times the only thing to do is clam up. Keeps you out of all kinds of hot water.'
The letter never did turn up. Its disappearance continued to bother Jimmy, and for weeks he kept poking absentmindedly around his office for it. After all, a thing like that must be worth thousands of dollars ... It was a shame they couldn't find it and give it back to Mrs. Bewley, so she could get the cash. Of course, she had probably swiped it from Ernie in the first place, but what the heck, the Gosses didn't need the money. And there it had been, that letter, right in Mrs. Bewley's paper bag.
But Jimmy was wrong about Mrs. Bewley. She didn't need the money either. She had gone back to a primordial system of exchange that predated all forms of currency, a system that had been invented long before gold standards and stock markets and chancellors of the exchequer. Mrs. Bewley's system was as old as trade and barter. Swap or swipe. She could get along very well without cold hard cash.
-END-
