yours?”
I let him take it, and he looked it over front and back. “What’s this spot?”
“I don’t know. Is it yours?”
“Yes. I mean it must be. That pattern, the colors-they reserve it for me, or they’re supposed to.”
“Did you mail it to me in this envelope?”
“I did not. Why would-”
“Did you phone me this morning and tell me to burn it?”
“I did not. You got it in the mail this morning?”
I nodded. “And a phone call at a quarter past eleven from a man who squeaked and told me to burn it. Have you got a photograph of yourself handy?”
“Why… yes. Why?”
“You have recognized me, but I haven’t recognized you. You ask what kind of a game this is, and so do I. What if you’re not Vance?”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Sure, but why not humor me?”
He was going to say why not, changed his mind, and moved. Crossing the room, detouring around a piano, to a bank of cabinets and shelves at the wall, he took something from a shelf and came and handed it to me. It was a thin book with a leather binding that had stamped on it in gold: THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE by James Neville Vance. Inside, the first two pages were blank; the third had just two words at the bottom: PRIVATELY PRINTED; and the fourth had a picture of the author.
A glance was enough. I put it on a nearby table. “Okay. Nice picture. Any ideas or suggestions?”
“How could I have?” He was peevish. “It’s crazy!” He gave the tie another look. “It
He headed for the rear and I followed, back beyond the second piano, and then down spiral stairs, wide for a spiral, with carpeted steps and a polished wooden rail. At the bottom, the rear end of a good-sized living room, he turned right through an open door and we were in a bedroom. He crossed to another door and opened it, and I stopped two steps off. It was a walk-in closet. A friend of mine once told me that a woman’s clothes closet will tell you more about her than any other room in the house, and if that goes for a man too there was my chance to get the lowdown on James Neville Vance, but I was interested only in his neckties. They were on a rack at the right, three rows of them, quite an assortment, some cream and brown but by no means all. He fingered through part of one row, repeated it, turned and emerged, and said, “It’s mine. I had nine and gave one to somebody, and there are only seven.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine…” He let it hang. “What on earth…” He let that hang too.
“And your stationery,” I said.
“Yes. Of course.”
“And the phone call telling me to burn it. With a squeak.”
“Yes. You asked if I had any ideas or suggestions. Have you?”
“I could have, but they would be expensive. I work for Nero Wolfe and it would be on his time, and the bill would be bad news. You must know who has access to your stationery and that closet, and you ought to be able to make some kind of a guess about who and why. And you won’t need the tie. It came to me in the mail, so actually and legally it’s in my possession, and I ought to keep it.” I put a hand out. “If you don’t mind?”
“Of course.” He handed it over. “But I might- You’re not going to burn it?”
“No indeed.” I stuck it in my side pocket. The envelope and letterhead were back in my breast pocket. “I have a little collection of souvenirs. If and when you have occasion to produce it for-”
A bell tinkled somewhere, a soft music tinkle, possibly music of the future. He frowned and turned and started for the front, and I followed, back through the open door, and across the living room to another door, which he opened. Two men were there in a little foyer-one a square little guy in shirt sleeves and brown denim pants, and the other, also square but big, a harness bull.
“Yes, Bert?” Vance said.
“This cop,” the little guy said. “He wants in to Mrs. Kirk’s apartment.”
“What for?”
The bull spoke. “Just to look, Mr. Vance. I’m on patrol and I got a call. Probably nothing, it usually isn’t, but I’ve got to look. Sorry to bother you.”
“Look at what?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing, as I say. Just to see that all’s in order. Law and order.”
“Why shouldn’t it be in order? This is my house, officer.”
“Yeah, I know it is. And this is my job. I get a call, I do as I’m told. When I pushed the Kirk button there was no answer, so I got the janitor. Routine. I said I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Very well. You have the key, Bert?”
“Yes, sir.”
