Free The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man by Alfred Alcorn Page B

question of all: Does the fact that the late Heinrich von Grümh gave the museum a collection of fakes have anything to do with his murder?
    I pondered this question with considerable mental effort off and on as the morning progressed. My suspicions revolved around Max Shofar, particularly in light of what Diantha hadtold me about him and Merissa. Working with expert counterfeiters, had he duped Heinie and perhaps others out of millions of dollars? How else could he live the way he did?
    Perhaps Heinie found out about the forgeries. It might have upset him more than Max’s playing around with Merissa. He confronts Max and threatens to expose him, ruining him and the profitable mail-order business he conducts. Max, facing disaster, either has a gun or gets one, no difficult task for someone in his position. He gets close enough to Heinie and shoots him.
    I was in the midst of these conjurations when Felix sidled into my office with mischief showing in his acne-scarred and yet attractive face. He was also in a state of rare excitement, his eyes as big as his grin. He sat down and plunked the Warwick file on my desk. “Norm, this is fantastic.”
    “What,” I said, “a fake mummy to go with the fake coins.”
    “What coins?”
    “The von Grümh collection.”
    He shrugged. “The guy was a three-dollar bill all the way. But this is real. This is the beginning of something big.”
    “I’m not going to allow it. I don’t care how much he gives us.”
    “No, no, no, Norman. This is a no-brainer. This is win, win, win all the way to the bank. Old Warwick is only the start. He’s a genius …”
    “Please, Felix …”
    “Look, most people with dough embalm their names on buildings and benches and you name it. A couple of years later nobody knows or cares who they were. The name turns into nothing but a name. Sometimes it doesn’t take a couple of years. Look at the Prunce Parkway. Who was Prunce …?”
    “Harold Prunce developed …”
    “Yeah, yeah, you know, but nobody else does. But there, in the Warwick Wing, in the Temple Warwick, will be Warwickhimself, all bandaged up in an open sarcophagus. A real live mummy. We take this idea and run with it. Big time. We could set up …”
    “In the first place, we don’t have the space.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding. We’ll take back the Pavilion. I’ve been wanting an excuse to do that anyway. Look, Norm, Mr. de Ratour, Lord Museum, the Wainscott lease of the Pavilion space is up next year. We won’t renew it. That’s proof that we are an independent entity. It’ll underscore the fact that Wainscott agreed to rent it on other than an intra-university basis. We’ll make it into the Mortuary Wing.”
    “But …”
    “But nothing. We not only set up the Warwick Room, but we leave space for others, lots of others. We’ll have a big churchy kind of place, tastefully done, one that we call … the Hall of the Permanent Collection. There, for a goodly sum, you can have your cremated remains put into a space a cubic foot in size. Each niche will have its own marble door with your name and dates on it forever and ever and ever.”
    “You’re being absurd.”
    “Norman, think. Even a dinky ten-by-ten-by-ten space has a thousand cubic feet. Of course we’d only use the walls. And maybe a stack or two. Like a library. We could also have an urn room, open shelves. If someone wanted to upgrade, well, there could be family vaults, little separate temples or templets …”
    “Felix, we are a museum.”
    “Yeah. Full of dead things. A few more won’t hurt.” He bent forward, his scarred face brilliant with intensity. “And that would only be the beginning …”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
    “But think about it. Nothing happens here at night. We could hold … mortuary receptions. Funeral parties. Catered wakes.Even services. People will line up for this stuff. We’d have a waiting list …”
    “You are describing a