Lemuel Vance's eyes followed hers to the red-mustachioed jar. "It's for etching aluminum plates. Mostly we use copper or zinc, but I like the kids to know how to do it all. Or at least be familiar with the techniques. Funny," he said slowly, "I just ordered a fresh batch last month. The first in-hell, must be nearly five years."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Like I said, we don't use much aluminum. As you can tell, that jar's an old one. I just dumped the new stuff in on top. But it was delivered to the office upstairs. I remember Sandy reading off all the warnings out loud. Jesus! Now I remember Riley saying it sounded like something the cafeteria could use to jazz up the soup!"
"Who else was there?" Sigrid asked sharply.
Vance shrugged. "I don't know. The usual crowd, I suppose."
"Ross, Saxer, Leyden?"
Vance nodded.
"Harris, Simpson… or Szabo?"
"No. Szabo comes up to talk to Leyden once in a while, but that's usually in Leyden's office, not out with the rest of us in Sandy 's office." Vance's brow furrowed in deeper concentration. "I don't remember Bert Simpson. Harris? No-Oscar was right about him not coming up much. Who else? David Wade definitely wasn't because he always sits on the corner of Sandy 's desk, and that's where Jake Saxer was leaning to read off the antidote. Not that you're interested in Wade, I guess, but he's usually up there every break. Young love in bloom, you know.
"Oscar was there, too. He told me to be sure and warn the kids again about how dangerous these chemicals can be. As if I don't read them the riot act every time they touch the knob of this closet door!"
Remembering his facetious remarks earlier about "an eye here, a hand there," Sigrid was bemused by his indignation.
"One final thing, Professor Vance. Hypothetically speaking, how unusual would it look if a teacher or student or any unauthorized person entered this closet?"
"Hypothetically, not unusual at all if they had the keys," Vance answered with a resurgence of his former cheerfulness. "Especially during the morning hours. The hall door's never locked, and this room is usually empty up until noon every day."
"But wouldn't a student think it strange to see a historian, for instance, entering your workshop when you're not here?"
Vance laughed outright. "Are you kidding? Ninety-five per cent of our students wouldn't think an elephant in chartreuse tights was strange unless it squirted them in the teeth and whistled three bars of 'Yankee Doodle.' You're talking about kids with eyes that see not, neither do they hear. Or if they do, they won't admit it. They'll print a plate with fuzzy lines and swear it looks as crisp as a photo to them. You think you've got 'em to the point where they'll start to observe, and the next thing you know…"
But Sigrid, recognizing an ancient grievance, signaled to Tillie and quietly withdrew.
6
OF all New York 's native children few were probably less aware of nature's variety than Lieutenant Sigrid Harald. 'A primrose by a river's brim' was just another flower to that austere young woman. If pushed, she might be able to distinguish gardenias from chrysanthemums; but she was unlikely to speculate about a tiny yellow flower's cosmic significance unless it turned up clutched in a murder victim's hand.
Others might mark the changing seasons by leaf and blade, by bird song or shifting constellations. Sigrid seldom noticed spring until it became too hot for bulky sweaters, tweed suits and fleece-lined boots; she awoke to summer's passing when she found herself shivering in thin cottons and polyesters. Winter or summer, her clothes were uniformly dark and unadorned, mostly loose-fitting pantsuits chosen for comfort and utility, not style-and certainly not to celebrate the quickening spring days.
Even a drive through Central Park, as on this evening in mid-April, was merely a way of getting from the East to the West side and was not an occasion to admire Manhattan's largest parcel of nature. Ever since sending Detective Tildon home to wife and dinner earlier, Sigrid had been preoccupied with the puzzle of how Riley Quinn's murderer had known he would take the right cup-always assuming, of course, that it had really been meant for Quinn.
Neither the banks of forsythia and azaleas along the curving road nor the masses of spring bulbs now blooming for the pleasure of jaundiced city eyes made any impression on her. She was unconcerned that the oaks and maples that lined the curbs and nearly met over her car were fully leafed out; was oblivious to the vernal softness in the cool night air as she parked her car almost in front of the dead man's brownstone just around the corner from Central Park West in the west seventies.
Six broad shallow steps flanked by pierced stone balustrades led directly up from the sidewalk to a wide door of gleaming varnished oak adorned by a brass knocker and doorknob polished to golden brightness. The front windows seemed to wear their original glass, leaded and beveled, behind a filigree of wrought-iron bars, that were both decorative and practical in a city with such a high burglary rate.
Sigrid knew this type of house well. Her father's aunts and uncles had owned similar houses in Brooklyn near Prospect Park, and as a small child, she had been taken there for visits. She still remembered the high-ceilinged rooms; the dark parquet floors covered with Turkey red carpets; the peacock feathers in tall vases; and Aunt Kirsten's long, lace-covered table, spread with an incredible assortment of strange-tasting food. After tea Uncle Lars would take her over to the Prospect Park zoo to feed the polar bears while Anne, her mother, southern born and bred and therefore doubly alien, remained behind with the aunts, bridging conversational chasms with her high, light chatter. Family ties were very important to Anne, who for Sigrid's sake had kept up with her dead husband's people. The aunts and uncles in their turn had pitied the plain, gawky child Sigrid had been and always included her in family gatherings. Over the years these had gradually dwindled as the oldest generation died out. The connection with her father's cousins was tenuous by the time Sigrid reached maturity, but she had never forgotten those long-ago Sunday afternoons and those tall spacious houses.
Nowadays such houses were at a premium again, especially in this part of Manhattan. The new owners either restored them to their former elegance, all dark wood and understated antiques, or else gutted the insides, lowered ceilings and created dramatically modern interiors behind the old facades. In any event, there would be a small, exquisite garden in the rear, just large enough for smart cocktail parties on summer evenings and-most important-the cachet of an address near or 'on' the park.
Although she may not have admired the park's beauty, Sigrid knew there were others who did; who were, in fact, willing to pay exorbitant rents or taxes for houses with a view-even a diagonal one-of
Central Park. A shocking waste of money in her opinion, but Riley Quinn's bank balance must have been comfortable enough. The City University of New York paid its full professors generously, and as a leading expert on modern art, he'd probably done quite well financially with books, articles and outside lecture fees. Moreover, Leyden 's and Vance's remarks suggested that Quinn had realized rather large sums from the sale of some of the Hungarian's paintings. Was there a motive in that? Murder to stop the sale of a dead artist's work?
Sigrid didn't actually expect much help from Quinn's widow. Regretfully she was forced to concede that this did not look like the usual simple uncomplicated 'family' murder, so that Mrs. Quinn was not an active suspect. Still her comments might throw a different light on Quinn's character. Although everyone Sigrid had talked to so far said that Riley Quinn had been sarcastic, pompous and condescending, it was possible that in the privacy of his home he had been a confiding husband, had lain in his wife's arms and in the quiet darkness spoken of those who had reason to hate him.