Lieutenant Ames became silent again, and Adam let him take his time.
“Another thing,” the lieutenant said, suddenly. “The book might have done it.”
“Done it?” Adam felt confused.
“Attracted someone. Maybe a Sherlock Holmes fan. Mr. Stanton says they are a special group, almost fanatical. Well, that may be a crazy idea, but it’s an idea, and we try not to overlook any idea, however crazy. You can help us there. If the book is all right, all present and accounted for, then it probably wasn’t a Holmes fan.”
Adam rejected an attractive image of an avid Holmes fan, killing the proprietor to get a closer glimpse of a bibliographical treasure.
“No material clues,” he asked, “like fingerprints or cigar ashes? Or don’t the modern criminals approve of those sentimental things?”
“Nothing definite. Prints on the gun, very blurred. Probably both Willoughby’s and Miss Clark’s. The lab is working on it. Willoughby was killed by a series of light blows. It could have been a woman who did it.”
For some reason this brought home to Adam the tragic side of the affair. As an expert, poring over books, he could talk about murder with gusto, but here a man had been killed, and not a character in Chapter Two...
“I’d like to look at the book now,” he said.
Lieutenant Ames led the way to the office. Grandfather Clark’s eyes watched them as they walked past the fireplace, following them as the eyes of some pictures will, and his granddaughter’s eyes met Adam’s as they came in at the office door. Had she inherited, together with the old man’s features, his acquisitive greed, and a little of her father’s moral weakness?
Mark Willoughby’s office was not large. A vertical file, several chairs, and a desk filled it comfortably. One corner of the room was built as a vault, and before the door of this Lieutenant Ames hesitated briefly, and glanced at Miss Clark. Whatever he had on his mind, however, he apparently decided not to divulge.
When the lieutenant brought out the brilliant leather case, Adam took it eagerly over to the desk. Good leather work, done by a careful hand, and the color, although bright, was not in bad taste. He slid out the book itself, and whistled silently in absolute awe. It was a superb copy, with front and back wrappers intact — indeed, the most immaculate copy he had ever seen or heard of. He whistled again, this time aloud, and reported his findings enthusiastically to Lieutenant Ames.
“Then that’s settled. Now, in the vault are about fifty books, probably the most valuable of the stock. Better look them over. Mr. Stanton wanted a general idea of Willoughby’s business and interests. Then, of course, there’s the rest of the books out in the main room.”
At that moment they were interrupted. For what proved to be so momentous an interruption it began quietly enough. A patrolman put his head in at the office door.
“We have that Mr. Bellows here to see you. Lieutenant,” he said.
“Good.” Lieutenant Ames seemed pleased. He turned to Adam. “I want you to be in on this. Bellows is the man who sold Willoughby the Slier-lock Holmes book.” He nodded to the patrolman. “Send him in here.”
Miss Clark got up from the chair at the desk and stepped back against the wall.
“Miss Clark,” said the lieutenant, “just wait for us in the other room, if you please.”
There was no time. A small man, dressed in formal morning attire, and carrying a cane, gloves, and a black Homburg in a hand that shook slightly, stood in the doorway.
Mr. Bellows was not only small, he was delicate and dainty. His little face was precisely divided by a rather thin nose, and his pale eyes were watery. A mass of white hair, waved by more than nature if Adam was any judge, and bushy white eyebrows, added a touch of drama, or perhaps of melodrama, to his appearance.
Mr. Bellows paused.
“Come in, Mr. Bellows,” said the lieutenant.
But Mr. Bellows, framed in the doorway as by a proscenium arch, had too good a sense of theatre to leave the center of the stage.
“How excellent!” he exclaimed, sweeping hat, gloves, and slick in a gesture that nearly took Adam in the pit of the stomach. “How fine! The stern voice of duty pulling at the oar of justice, tipping the scales through storm and sleet! The Law! Gentlemen, I give you The Law! Why, sir,” he declaimed, swinging around to include in his audience a gaping patrolman, “without these denizens of the constabulary, alert from dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn, what would our poor lives be?” He leaned forward, and prodded Adam carefully in the chest. “Dead where we stand, sir, dead where we stand.”
He stepped into the room, and a look of poorly simulated solemnity came over his face. His back to the vault, he stared down at the desk.
“Like poor Mark,” he said. “Like poor Mark.”
Fascinated though he was by Mr. Bellows, Adam saw out of the corner of his eye the uniformed patrolman enter the room, close the door, and stand with his back against it. And with that simple action something of the atmosphere of the music hall was dispelled, and the plain, paneled walls of the office again enclosed a place where death had been real. Even Mr. Bellows became silent, and Miss Clark in her corner stood rigid, her eyes closed, while the lieutenant waited, and everything seemed to wait for him.
“Now, Mr. Bellows,” said the lieutenant, finally, “may we ask you a question or two about Mr. Willoughby?”
“A question or two? A hundred.” Mr. Bellows placed his hat upside down on the desk, dropped his gloves into it, and leaned elegantly on his cane.
“You sold Mr. Willoughby a first edition of A Study in Scarlet?”
Mr. Bellows bowed.
“When was this?”
“I brought it to him yesterday, just before the noon hour.”
“And where did you get it, Mr. Bellows?”
Mr. Bellows opened his eyes very wide.
“But, sir,” he protested, “such a question! It is not done. Not done at all. Oh, no, no, no!”
To Adam’s surprise, Lieutenant Ames turned an inquiring eye in his direction, and this Adam took to be an opportunity for the expert to come forward.
“You were acting as an agent for someone who wishes to remain anonymous?” he asked.
“Quite so,” said Mr. Bellows, with a delighted smile, appearing to notice Adam for the first time.
“But you gave it to Mr. Willoughby yourself,” added the lieutenant.
“With my own hands.” A startled look came over Mr. Bellows’ face. “Don’t tell me it is gone! Stolen! The criminal who killed poor Mark has... He paused; the lieutenant was slowly shaking his head.
“It is here, Mr. Bellows. Can you identify this?” The lieutenant picked up the scarlet case from the desk and slipped out the book itself.
If Mr. Bellows had seemed theatrical before, he now presented a full circus of attitudes at the sight of the first book edition of the first story about Sherlock Holmes. He represented devotion, ecstasy, and a discreet amount of covetousness, in that order.
“That,” said Mr. Bellows, “is The Book.”
“Good.” The lieutenant replaced the book in its case. “And what were your relations with Mr. Willoughby?”
“We had been — friends — for years.” As he hesitated over the word, Mr. Bellows seemed to Adam to change costumes, becoming the man of precision, the careful historian. “He had purchased many volumes from me. We were, in truth, rival collectors. Yes, you may say,” he continued, rubbing his chin with the ivory handle of his cane, “that we were fellow searchers down the byways of the world of books, pausing at the same springs of learning...”
“Now, about yesterday,” interposed the lieutenant, his round face turning slightly pink. “You brought the book here. You gave it to Mr. Willoughby personally. Everything was as usual.”