Steele glared at me. “It’s not that easy. I could have done it, but that’s my profession and I’ve had twenty years’ practice. Few amateurs could have done it.”
“Well, a man is dead and a valuable stamp is missing,” Garrett said. “Somebody did something. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to question each of you separately. Miss Royce, I understand that you and Mr. Schneider were good friends.”
Lillian nodded her assent. She still seemed dazed.
“Would you come with me, please?” Garrett asked gently. “Let’s talk about it.” He led her out of the Stamp Room and we all more or less straggled behind. Garrett preempted the private office for interrogation, with Mrs. Lorde’s grudging permission.
Steele called Ardis over to us. “Are you still friendly with that young lady who works for the phone company?”
“As far as I know,” she said.
“Get hold of her. Find an open phone. Tell her—”
“But it’s—”
“I know, it’s three o’clock in the morning. We’ll take her out to dinner next week. Have her get over to the billing computer and get a list of all numbers called from this store since ten o’clock this evening.”
Ardis went off. Magicians’ assistants are used to doing whatever their boss asks of them without question and without hesitation. It’s a necessary prerequisite of the job; otherwise one of them can wind up embarrassed, injured, or dead.
Magicians’ managers, however, are another matter. “Why do you want the list of numbers?” I asked Steele.
He gave me one of his enigmatic smiles. “Perhaps we’ll find nothing, and perhaps a great deal,” he said.
“Thanks a lot.”
Steele walked over to where Mrs. Lorde was leaning on her cane, scowling down at the floor. “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions,” he said.
She lifted her head and regarded him with one eye. “What questions, young man?”
“I’ll be brief. I imagine you must be distressed by the death of Mr. Schneider and the loss of the Hayes Two-and-a-Half-Cent Vermilion.”
“The stamp is insured,” Mrs. Lorde said. “A man’s life is infinitely more important than a piece of gummed paper. Even a man like Victor Schneider.”
Steele raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“Meaning Victor Schneider was a fool and an incompetent. If he had not died, I would almost certainly have replaced him.”
“Incompetent as a store manager?”
“Indeed. His accounting procedures were dangerous and he had a knack for purchasing unsalable merchandise without consulting anyone. If I had not been in Europe for more than a year, I would have discovered this much sooner.”
“How long had Schneider been your manager here?”
“A little over two years.”
“I see,” Steele said. “Did you have someone in mind as his replacement?”
“Of course. Lewis Thorp.”
“Did Thorp know of your displeasure with Schneider? Did he know that he was next in line?”
“He did not. I tell no one what I intend to do until I do it. However, I did plan to speak to Lewis about Schneider tonight; that is why I summoned him to my office earlier. There were interruptions and then this murder and theft, so I did not have the chance to carry out my intention.”
“You hadn’t as yet mentioned to Schneider that his job was in jeopardy, is that correct?”
“It is. I was waiting until our CPA firm completed an independent audit this past week, but when I had their report, I knew nothing more than I had previously. There are incompetents in every business. So I called a second CPA firm; they will begin their audit next week.”
“You suspected a shortage, Mrs. Lorde? Embezzlement?”
She tapped her cane sharply on the hardwood floor. “Not exactly. Victor Schneider was a fool but not a knave; he lacked the intellectual capacity for knavery. No, I merely suspect mismanagement due to incompetence. But our CPA’s are also incompetent. They couldn’t tell, they said, if there were any discrepancies. Do you believe that? Well, I expect the new firm I’ve hired will be able to tell.”
Steele nodded thoughtfully.
“I suppose you think it’s rude of me to speak so harshly of the dead,” Mrs. Lorde said, “but Death is too close a companion for me to hold in reverence.”
“A man in death is just what he was in life,” Steele said sententiously. “Neither more nor less, and he should be remembered thus.” He gave the old woman a courtly bow, and we turned away.
I studied his face, and he had the air of someone doing mental mathematics. He said, “Tell me, Matthew, about your friend, Miss Royce. Have you any idea of her feelings toward Lewis Thorp?”
I thought back to my dinner conversation with Lillian. The subject had come up, briefly. “He made a pass at her once, which she repulsed. Subsequently he got himself a steady girlfriend and ignored Lillian — Miss Royce. She happily ignored him also.”
Steele fell silent, pondering again as he led the way to Lewis Thorp’s office cubicle.
Thorp was sitting at his desk. He looked up and gave us a wan smile as we approached. “Well, Mr. Steele,” he said, “any new developments?”
Steele shook his head. “I’d like to hear your ideas.”
“If you mean about how poor Victor was murdered in a locked room,” Thorp said, “I can’t help you. It seems like a baffling crime.”
“So it does,” Steele agreed.
“Victor must have been killed by whoever stole the stamp,” Thorp said. “He must have walked in on him — the thief, I mean.”
“That’s not likely,” Steele said. “He would have known that the theft would be uncovered in the murder investigation.”
“Maybe he just wanted time to get the stamp out.”
“No, I don’t think the theft has anything to do with the murder. Just an unfortunate coincidence.”
Thorp worried his lower lip for a moment. “There is one other possibility,” he said. “Our books have just undergone a surprise audit. The rumor is that there was a major discrepancy.”
“You think Schneider may have been tapping the till?”
“I knew Victor rather well. He had his faults, as we all do, but he seemed to be a basically honest man. But he was extravagant in his tastes, and he may have needed money. If he was embezzling from the store and someone found out about it, he may have tried to blackmail him. And suppose they had a fight of some kind, and Schneider was killed by accident. Or suppose he had an accomplice who thought that the audit would reveal Schneider’s duplicity and killed to keep himself in the clear.”
“How could such an embezzlement have been accomplished?” Steele asked.
Thorp considered. “What was done — if anything at all was done — was probably a juggling of purchase records; false requisitions to dummy firms, with the money paid by Lorde’s siphoned off. That’s done to firms like ours periodically; we have to be on the watch for it. And any one of a dozen people in the store might have helped Schneider falsify records.”
“I see. It’s an interesting theory, in any case. I appreciate your candor, Mr. Thorp.”
Thorp nodded, and Steele and I left him in his cubicle. When we returned to the front area, I saw that Ardis had come up from downstairs and was beckoning across the floor to us. Steele went immediately to meet her. I was about to follow, but Lillian Royce appeared and intercepted me, clutching at my arm.
“I... I’d like to speak with you, Matthew,” she said. Her nails dug into the tweed of my jacket.
“Of course.”
“I know I shouldn’t impose, but... there’s no one else I can talk to just now about Victor.”
I took her hand. “I understand,” I said.
“I’ve just come from a long talk with Lieutenant Garrett. I did most of the talking. He kept asking questions. I told him the truth, that I was having an affair with Victor. Everyone seemed to know that already. Victor was a nice man, you know. Ineffectual, weak, easily taken advantage of — but he meant well, he always meant well. And they seem to think I might have killed him. Why would I want to kill Victor? Why would anyone—?” She broke off abruptly and buried her face against my shoulder. I could feel her tears against my neck, but she didn’t make a sound. I held her.