Free Kaleidoscope by Dorothy Gilman Page A

many rooms in your house?”
    â€œApartment. Five.”
    In her mind, concentrating on the coin’s picture, she went through each room. “A closet,” she said at last.
    â€œImpossible,” he told her. “Sorry, I’ve searched every closet. Thoroughly. Every drawer, every chair, bed, and couch.”
    Paying no attention to this she added, “I gain an impression of fur.”
    â€œFur!”
    â€œYes, have you a fur coat or rug, perhaps? No,” she amended, “something
much
smaller.”
    â€œSmall? And fur?” With a frown he said, “That’s strange; I’ve a pair of very old fur bedroom slippers.”
    She nodded. “Good. I believe you will find the coin in one of those fur slippers, although one must wonder how it got there.”
    Startled, he said, “I nearly threw them away, but . . . yes, I did wear them one very cold evening a month ago. You really think . . . ?”
    She laughed. “Then how fortunate you did
not
throw them away.”
    Surprised and curious about her, she had brewed coffee and they had settled down to a long and interesting talk about his career and hers, and by the time he left they had established an easy and amusing relationship. Not having a telephone as yet he had sent her by mail the next day a note to say the coin had been found precisely where she’d said he would find it, and he had enclosed a check, begging her to use the money to install a telephone because writing notes bored him, and he would like to talk to her occasionally.
    She had not ordered a phone; she had paid her rent with his check.
    Now he opened the door for her at once, still handsome and distinguished in his seventies; he had cultivated a white goatee to match his white hair, and there was always a twinkle in his clear blue eyes. “Come in, come in,” he said, radiating the charm that brought him so many friends. “It’s a rare day when I can do something for you.”
    Once seated in his well-appointed living room she asked if he’d heard of Georges Verlag.
    â€œOh, yes,” he said, “one of Zale’s men.”
    She smiled. “So you
do
still have connections—as I hoped.”
    He said dryly, “My two experiences in prison invoked a great deal of interest among my fellow inmates, and I have never lost an opportunity to broaden my education. It was very educational for me to make friends with them. When I left it was with many wellwishers, who remain in touch. What about Georges Verlag?”
    She described her experience in the subway, the attaché case tossed to her, his subsequent departure with the man following him.
    â€œCan you describe the man following him?”
    She said efficiently, “Sharp pointed nose, sharp pointed chin, thin lips, roughly six feet tall.”
    He thought for a few minutes, frowning. “That sounds rather like the young man they call Frankie the Ferret, an unsavory chap, works out of Jake Bodley’s group.”
    â€œWhat I want to know,” she said firmly, “is whether the man caught up with Georges and is holding him, or whether Georges escaped him and is in hiding. I want to know if he’s alive.”
    Amos said slyly, “Of course I’d rather know if you’ve kept the diamonds.”
    She laughed. “Oh no, they’re quite unreachable, the police have them. But my problem is that when I met Georges my name wasn’t Karitska, so he has no way to find me—or his diamonds—which worries me.”
    â€œI see. . . . Of course eventually the company would contact both police and FBI.”
    She nodded. “And the police will return the case of diamonds but not to Georges Verlag.”
    â€œYou are fond of this man?”
    â€œFond? I scarcely knew him,” she said. “He was my husband’s friend, they worked for the same firm, but he dined with us several times; it was a decade ago but I have a memory