Free The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King Page A

filled, showing when he had bought a thing, how much he’d paid, and how much he’d sold it for or, occasionally, the laconic note “retained.” In others, the columns were blank when it came to “sold” or “appraised value.” Each step along the way was dated; the earliest transaction was from August, five months before.
    When she ran a finger down the second column, the appraised value of each item, Kate’s shoulders went back in surprise; Williams frankly whistled; Rutland was nodding when they both looked up at him.
    “Like I said, he was a serious collector and dealer.”
    “This stuff’s not all in the house, is it?”
    “Some of it, although he wouldn’t have displayed anything of great value downstairs. Even in the safe, I’d imagine there was nothing worth more than five or ten thousand. You might think he’d want his best things close at hand, but in fact, the real prizes he kept mostly in the bank. He was there regularly.”
    Kate tore her eyes off the open door of the safe and looked back at the printout. “You mean to tell me someone would spend a hundred forty thousand dollars on a magazine ?” Moreover, one whose note said “retained.”
    “Oh, man, October was a hell of a great month for Philip—apparently he’d been working that old man for years to get his hands on the Beeton’s Annual —nobody else even knew the fellow had it, Philip tracked it down, God only knows how. That magazine is the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes in the world, one of maybe thirty still in existence. And of those, only two or three were signed by Conan Doyle. Plus, to top it off, it was in excellent and original condition—almost all of the survivors have been bound into hard covers at some time, to preserve them. Oh, it was worth every cent of what he paid. And prices are shooting up—you could get twice that today, easy. Hang on to it for a couple years, that magazine could hit a million dollars.”
    “Jesus H. Christ,” Chris Williams breathed. “Makes me wish I’d kept some of those comics I used to collect when I was a kid.”
    Kate studied the number of zeros on the list of Philip Gilbert’s possessions—and this showed only those transactions of the past five months. She shook her head: a whole lot of motive here for murder, had the beneficiary been an individual rather than an institution. “What about that list of associates?”
    “Their names are under the column ‘sources,’” Rutland pointed out.
    “Didn’t he have an address book or Rolodex, something like that?”
    “There were so many, he’d probably have them all in his files, either in the cabinet or on the computer. Oh, and you’ll want his password for that as well. It’s Sigerson.” He spelled it for them, explaining, “That’s one of the false identities Sherlock Holmes constructs. A Norwegian explorer.”
    “Right. And these sources will all be business partners of some kind?”
    “Philip didn’t have what you’d call partners, just contacts—antiquarian book dealers, other collectors, auction houses.”
    “And no real friends, you’d say?”
    “A wide number of acquaintances, certainly, he knew by first name most of the prominent Sherlockians here and abroad, but as far as I know, when it came to actual friendships, those of us in the dinner club were pretty much it. If he even knew anyone outside the Sherlockian world, I never heard him speak of them.”
    “No romantic relationships?”
    “Like I said, he was married once, in his late twenties, but she left him after two or three years, and I don’t believe he’s even heard from her in, oh, ten years. Maybe longer. I only know about her because I wrote his will. And they didn’t have any children. As to any current relationships, I wasn’t privy to his personal life. All I can say is, there weren’t any permanent enough to earn a place in his will.”
    “Was he gay?”
    Rutland shrugged, a gesture that as often covered discomfort as it