Free Styx & Stone by James W. Ziskin

father more than he hates others?”
    Sanger shrugged again. “Probably about the same. He’s a miserable sort. Say, Ellie, what are you driving at?” He seemed amused. “You’re not thinking that Roger Purdy attacked your father, are you?”
    “He’s not exactly Gorgeous George, but big enough to do the job,” I said, watching him wipe his nose into a moist and crumpled handkerchief.
    “I don’t see it,” said Sanger. “What would he stand to gain by robbing your father? He’s the youngest son of Wilbur Purdy, of Purdy and Marchol Adding Machines.”
    “Really? We’ve got lots of those at the paper where I work.”
    “They’ve made millions on those things,” said Sanger, eyeing the heir jealously. “So he has no motive for stealing odds and ends from your dad. It seems pretty clear to me that it was just a run-of-the-mill robbery.”
    “Not to me,” I said, sipping my drink.
    Sanger stopped chewing and gaped at me. “What do you mean?”
    I looked at him pointedly. “You know, Bernie, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me about my father’s manuscript.”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “Hadn’t you expected to get it from my father yesterday?”
    “Of course, but I met you yesterday, and I already knew about the attack.”
    “Don’t you want it now?”
    “Of course I do,” he huffed, putting down his plate to defend himself. “What are you driving at? What’s Daughters of Eve have to do with this?”
    “Did you work on it Friday night?” I asked, avoiding his question for the time being.
    “No, we had dinner at a Spanish restaurant over on Perry Street, then I walked him back to his place to get the manuscript.”
    “Did you see the manuscript, or did you just assume it was there?”
    I’d provoked him. Bernie was nervous or guilty or annoyed by my line of questioning. “Just say what you want to say. What’s the big deal about the manuscript?”
    I drained my glass. “Someone stole it Friday night.”

The bartender poured Bernie some wine from a fiasco of Chianti. He took the glass and digested the information I’d just fed him.
    “Why?” he asked finally. “Why would anyone want to steal a scholarly text?”
    “My father once told me a joke about a scholar who calculated the worth of a sheet of writing paper. For the sake of an argument, let’s say half a cent.”
    Bernie nodded, indicating he was following me.
    “Write a poem on that same piece of paper, and it loses all its value.”
    Bernie chuckled.
    “The same can be said of scholarly work,” I continued. “In a sense, it’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on.”
    “Then why would a burglar take it?”
    “Because this wasn’t just any burglar. I think my father made a formidable enemy of someone in academe.”
    “What?” Bernie spilled some wine on his white shirt. “Are you saying that someone from the Italian Department—this department—attacked your father and stole his manuscript?”
    I shrugged.
    “You’re saying one of your father’s colleagues tried to kill him? Just on the basis of a few missing pages?”
    “Four hundred missing pages.”
    “That’s absurd! Do the police share your suspicions?”
    I shook my head.
    “You can’t run around saying things like that,” he said in a tense whisper, grabbing me by the arm. “What if someone hears you? They’ll think I agree with you. Chalmers would end my career before it gets started. As it is, I don’t think he appreciated my talking to his daughter.”
    I felt a hand on my other arm—a softer grip and a better-looking interlocutor attached.
    “Mr. Lucchesi,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”
    “How’s your father today, Miss Stone?” The pain in his eyes may have been an act, but in that moment I didn’t care. I was just happy he had come to speak to me. Not that I could tell for sure what his motivation was; maybe he was indifferent and didn’t want to show it, or maybe he was trying to impress me.
    “No change,” I