Free The Case of the One-Penny Orange: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Two) by Howard Fast Page B

pictures, a few small mementos, things a woman would treasure.”
    She nodded slowly. “Yes, she had some things like that. There were some snapshots of herself and my father, some letters, a few other things, a lock of my baby hair.”
    â€œDo you still have these things?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhere are they?”
    â€œIn her room, but her room was so upset, like the other rooms. I haven’t gotten to it yet. I worked on my son’s room this morning. I felt that Mother’s could wait — since she’s gone.”
    â€œMay I look in her room?”
    Ellen Briggs stiffened now and faced Masuto squarely. “No, Sergeant. No. Not unless you tell me what you’re after and why. I have been very patient with you, but no more. You are not here with a search warrant or by any official right, but only through my tolerance. And my tolerance has run out.”
    Masuto smiled. “Very well. I’ll tell you.
    â€œYesterday, shortly before I came here, a man was murdered. He had lived for years in Beverly Hills under the name of Ivan Gaycheck. He was a stamp dealer, with a shop on North Canon Drive. His real name was Gaylord Schwartzman, and he was once a captain in the SS — at Buchenwald. He was shot through the head with a small pistol. But his store was not robbed then. Nothing was disturbed. Last night his assistant, a man by the name of Ronald Haber, was beaten to death in his apartment in West Hollywood. His apartment was ransacked, as your house was. A few hours later, Gaycheck’s store was ransacked.”
    Staring at him wide-eyed, she shook her head. “What has that to do with us?”
    â€œI put together a scenario of sorts. I must, you know. Otherwise I would fumble around blindly. Gaycheck made a notation on his calendar — PM. Just the two letters. There is a stamp of enormous value. It was issued in 1847 on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It is called the One-Penny Orange. Penny Mauritius, PM. I am guessing. Your house ransacked, nothing taken. Your father, dead in Buchenwald. Gaycheck — Schwartzman, and Buchenwald. Haber’s apartment, your house, Gaycheck’s store.”
    â€œI still don’t understand you.”
    â€œTry, Mrs. Briggs. Put yourself in the place of your father — in the 1930s in Germany. He knows that sooner or later he will be arrested — unless he escapes. But if he escapes, his property will be forfeit. He plans an escape from Germany, some way to take something with him, so that he will not arrive at his destination as a pauper. But what should he take? Money? Where can he hide it if he is stopped and searched? Jewels? The same problem. The SS were not novices at searching, and your father was not the first one to think of this problem. Now tell me something — do you know what books your father’s firm published?”
    â€œSome of them. My mother loved books. She told me many stories about my father’s publishing house.”
    â€œDid he ever publish any books that related to stamp collecting?”
    Her face lit up with excitement. “Yes, he did! Of course! He published the German edition of Gibbons catalog.”
    â€œThe British stamp catalog. Then he knew the value of British colonial stamps, and he must have known dealers and collectors.”
    â€œI would suppose so.”
    â€œAnd he was a publisher, a well-read man. He would have known the stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Tell me, Mrs. Briggs, did you ever read The Purloined Letter? ”
    â€œI think so. Isn’t that the story where a letter of great importance, instead of being hidden, is simply turned inside out and put in a letter holder with other letters?”
    â€œExactly. Now this is what I think your father did — and of course it is only a guess. But the pieces fit. I think that when your father realized what course he must take, he bought a stamp of great value, but not simply a stamp.