Free The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King

papers that he made his living as a dealer in Sherlock Holmes…” What was it called? Junk? Paraphernalia? “…collectibles.”
    “In the English system, Philip would be classified as ‘gentleman,’ meaning he did not have to earn his living. He wasn’t wealthy, but there was an inheritance that cushioned life, from early on. I think he worked for a while, a long time ago, but certainly in the time I’ve known him he has been a collector and dealer. As for his contacts in that world, I’d probably know a fraction of them. But that information should be in his things, either in the safe or his computer. Philip was good at keeping records.”
    “What about a PDA?”
    “No, I don’t think so. He didn’t like modern machinery a whole lot. He did have a cell phone, but he usually left it sitting on the charger.”
    They’d found the charger, but not the phone, not in his desk, beside his bed, in a coat pocket, or in his sock drawer: They had looked. Kate asked Rutland, “Do you have the number for the phone?”
    He took out his own and, after much scrolling, gave it to Kate. She wrote it down, and asked, “He didn’t like cell phones or PDAs, but he’s got a nice computer setup here.”
    “He had to—a lot of his work was done over the Internet—but I think he’d have been just as happy to go back to snail mail and ads in the monthly journals. Basically, Philip disliked the accoutrements of modern life. I’ve actually seen him sit down to that monstrosity of a typewriter downstairs and pound out a letter. With a carbon copy, if you can believe that—I didn’t even know you could still buy carbon paper.”
    “Maybe we should have a look in the safe,” Williams suggested.
    Rutland opened his briefcase again and took out an envelope, laying it facedown on the table between the two detectives. The back flap was sealed, and across it ran the ornate signature of Philip William Gilbert. “I told him it wasn’t necessary for me to know the combination of the safe, and said that he should leave the number in his bank deposit box, but he said he trusted me and that he might need me to gain access, if, for example, he was traveling and wanted something. This was our compromise.”
    “So you never opened it?”
    “I never needed to use it, no.”
    Williams looked at Kate over the envelope, one of those delicate moments of territoriality. He had been first in the house, stepping in to work the door alarm, but there, the security woman had handed him the paper and he’d gone ahead without considering any overtones. Here, the next step lay between them. After a moment, Kate reached out and picked up the envelope, and the Park Police investigator did not object.
    Kate called Tamsin in and waited until the camera was running before she opened the safe. It was built into the wall, eighteen inches square and looking both new and formidable, but it opened without a protest under her fingers. She stepped back so the camera would record the contents.
    Half a dozen file folders stood against the left wall, held upright by an assortment of small boxes, mailing envelopes, and books with shiny clear wrappers. One folder was about an inch thick, some sort of document printed on heavy buff paper. Two were nearly flat. The last one was less than half the thickness of the buff paper, its cover light blue.
    “Last time I saw it, Philip’s ongoing business file was in a sort of bluish folder,” the lawyer told them.
    Kate pulled out the blue file, glanced inside, and carried it over to the low table. The tab had been labeled LEDGER, although it held not a bound book, but perhaps thirty sheets of legal-sized paper fastened together at one corner by an oversized clip; each page had lines running the long direction, cross-divided with the resulting columns labeled: item, source, price paid, appraised value, comments, and price received, all in pinched but immaculate handwriting. In earlier pages, many of the items had every box