Roux the Day

by Peter King

The keenly disapproving expression on his face answered my question and I said quickly, “No, you don’t—well, all right, but tell me this … Is there any possibility that it would help me find the book if I knew who your client is?”

  “Wouldn’t help you at all.” He shook his well-groomed head firmly. “I’m quite sure of that.”

  “The person who spotted the book, realized its worth and got it into the auction—have you talked to that person?”

  The question surprised him. “No, I haven’t. Why—do you think they know anything?”

  “Just a thought. It seems that between the time the book was found and its being put into the auction, someone must have looked at it and seen its contents.”

  “One of the people running the auction could put you in touch, I suppose.” He drummed fingers at the side of his coffee cup. My question seemed to be raising thoughts that had not occurred to him. “Mrs. Gracewell, for instance.”

  “Good,” I said, “I can try her.”

  I waited. He didn’t appear to be forthcoming with any revelations and we chatted for a while longer without anything emerging of note. He excused himself to go to his other appointment and insisted on paying the bill.

  “No Time Like the Present” was my motto of the moment. I phoned the Armorers’ Hall; they gave the name of the organization that had run the book auction, and a few minutes later I was talking to Mrs. Gracewell. I did not identify myself but told her I was interested in contacting the person who had put the book into the auction.

  “Perhaps you could tell me the reason for your interest,” she said cautiously.

  “I believe it would make a very good story,” I said, and paused to give her time to draw the appropriate conclusion.

  “Which magazine are you with?” she asked, and then saved me from prevarication by adding, “—Or are you freelance?”

  “I’m freelance,” I said, “but there is interest from several quarters.”

  “I see. That’s fine, then. Enid Pargeter is the lady you should talk to.” She gave me the address.

  On the way to it, I was still mulling over my talk with Van Linn. It seemed fairly obvious that he was the Belvedere family lawyer so it followed that he would be representing the family in this matter. I wondered why he didn’t want to say so. Keeping the name of a client confidential was a theme of many of the private detective stories I had read; Van Linn was a lawyer, though. I knew they had the same rule, but under these circumstances, surely it wasn’t that critical to keep silent?

  Enid Pargeter was a slim, willowy woman, probably in her forties, and with a charming and graceful attitude. She was widowed three years ago, she told me, and had moved into this apartment building a year later. It was in a quiet neighborhood with a park across the street where she walked her dog twice a day. Elmer, she called him. He was a large terrier, blended from various origins, an indeterminate shade of brown in color. He sat by the television and regarded me with a tolerant but not too curious air.

  “I’ve been fascinated by books all my life,” she told me. “Still have a lot of them, as you can see.” She did indeed have them spread in several different locations, on shelves and racks, in bookcases, on tables. A few were new but most were not. At a glance, they represented a variety of tastes, ranging from current affairs to history to biography to art to travel, with a fair representation of mysteries and romance novels.

  I used Mrs. Gracewell’s name liberally and Enid said, “You seem to know her very well.”

  “I would like to think so,” I said and came to the point quickly. “As a matter of fact, when I was talking to her a short while ago, she agreed what a good topic this is for a magazine article. The connection with a well-known restaurant with so many years of serving New Orleans—”

  “Oh, I agree, too, absolutely. Well, you can imagine how surprised I was to come across the Belvedere book—”

  “Just how did that happen?”

  “I’ve been an avid book-buyer for years—just for my own satisfaction, you understand. So when a committee was set up to collect books for this auction, I was happy to volunteer—I saw it as a labor of love.”

  “Have you done this before?” I asked.

  “Oh, the committee was set up four years ago and I’ve done it every year since. I’m pretty good at it now and several people know me and offer books—collections sometimes and private libraries, even. In addition, I scrape around—library cast-offs, bookshops’ can’t-sells, charity shops’ overstocks …” She beamed proudly. “I know all the sources.”

  “You certainly do. Tell me, did you know the source of the Belvedere book?”

  “I’ve had books from him before, so yes, I did.”

  I was closing in now and had to word my questions carefully. “Just the one book, was it?”

  “Goodness, no. Two large boxes—and I mean large. I couldn’t lift them in or out of the van.”

  “You collect the books yourself, do you?” I asked her.

  “Oh, yes. I had to have them loaded in the van for me.”

  “Who donated the books?”

  “He gives to several charities but likes to remain anonymous.”

  “His secret is safe with me,” I said, hoping that I would be able to hold to that. “Is he a collector?” I added casually.

  “He’s a bookbinder. Of course, he loves books, too. Well, in that business, he’d have to, wouldn’t he? He gets in masses of books, he uses bindings off old books, restores them and puts them on other books—oh, he’s a real artisan of the old school, very few like him around anymore.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly. “So after you got these boxes back here—”

  “I had to have young Erwin from next door bring them in for me.”

  “Yes, and then you went through them to pick out the ones worth putting in the auction.”

  “That’s right. It was quite a thrill to find a book by one of our famous local chefs.”

  I noted that she said “a book”—she didn’t say “the book.” “Did you know it was a valuable book?”

  “Why, no, I had no idea. I certainly didn’t know that someone would kill to get it. I heard that on the television news.” She regarded me with some doubt. “Don’t you think they’re wrong there? That wasn’t the real reason for the murder, don’t you agree?”

  “You may be right.”

  We talked a while longer, first about the auction, then about books in general. I commented on several photographs on the walls showing a distinguished-looking man, who turned out to be her late husband and she talked about him. The two of them had shared a love of books and he had been the president of the Southern branch of the National Publishers Association. She was proud of his accomplishments in that position and showed me a framed certificate of achievement awarded him by the association. She went on to talk about her dog, Elmer, named after Mrs. Pargeter’s favorite cousin who had died only recently in St. Paul. Elmer came across, wagged his tail and waited to be patted on hearing his name.

  I didn’t want to place any conversational emphasis on the bookbinder who had given her the book, as it should have been easy enough to find him in the yellow pages. There were only two of them and one was a business run by two sisters. That left only a Herman Harburg. His address was in the Riverbend area of New Orleans, just up the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. Folks with money evidently lived here, for there were some charming houses. But they rubbed shoulders with apartments where students lived.

  I saw signs for artists’ studios as well as bars, restaurants and “music clubs” and among these was a row of small cottages next to several Victorian shotgun houses. One of the cottages had a brass plate that read, HERMAN HARBURG, BOOKBINDER, on an old hand-carved wooden door. I banged on the brass doorknocker twice with no result so I walked around to the back. An addition had been built onto the cottage, an awkward-looking extension that must have been practical because it certainly wasn’t aesthetic.

  Another handmade wooden door w
as there though not nearly as elaborate as at the front. Knocking brought no response here, either. I tried the knob and the door was open. I called out Harburg’s name but could hear no reply. I went in.

  This added structure was a workshop and had all the materials that might be expected in a bookbinder’s—stocks of paper of all kinds, pots of inks and glues, packs of cardboard and thin sheets of leather. This was a dying art, I knew, and only a handful of craftsmen, mostly from Europe, still plied the trade. That Herman Harburg was one of those, I had no doubt, and the conviction was reinforced by the various pieces of equipment. They were old, built of iron, well-used but still serviceable—printing presses, guillotines, collators, stackers and binders.

  The walls were hung with examples of Herman Harburg’s work, covers, first sheets, spines, letters describing satisfaction with a difficult rebinding job, certificates and diplomas that were brown with age and curling at the corners.

  I called Harburg’s name again but still there was no response. I looked around more carefully and noticed a door set flush into one wall that I had not noticed before. I knocked without expectation of any reply. There was none. I tried the door and it was locked. A shelf nearby had several old iron tools on it and I moved one aside—sure enough, behind it was a key. It was the old-fashioned kind and so was the door lock. I tried it, it fitted and I went in.

  The small room was equipped like a draftsman’s office before they became computerized. Tilted drafting tables, bright spotlights, a glass-topped bench with lighting underneath, shelves with ink bottles and racks full of pens and engraving tools. A tiny electric furnace was in one corner and beside it were two ceramic crucibles in stands and a stack of small shiny metal ingots.

  I looked over the benches. Sheets of paper, some new but mostly old. Several books, all with different bindings, again some new and some old.

  Somewhere, a door banged. I hastily exited, locked the door and put the key back. I just had time to be standing, looking idle, when in came a figure.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I RODE THE ST. Charles streetcar line back into town, my head buzzing with conflicting thoughts. I had had at the back of my mind the nasty idea that I might be about to find another body. Two in a row would be hard to explain, even to a cop as friendly as Lieutenant Patrick Delancey.

  It was Herman Harburg who had almost caught me in his inner sanctum. A small, frail man with wispy, gray hair who was probably close to eighty, he moved with a little difficulty, probably due to arthritis, but his mind was alert. He was none too pleased at my intrusion.

  “I go over to my neighbor’s and come back finding you in my workshop!”

  I apologized as profusely as I knew how, tossing in the names of Mrs. Gracewell and Mrs. Pargeter and referring to the charity book auction. I managed to convey the impression that I knew both ladies well and was closely connected with the auction committee. He was partly placated but I saw his eyes stray to the door to his other room. He seemed to be satisfied to see it still locked.

  I began to explain why I was there and he was shaking his head long before I had finished.

  “Bookbinding is my business. I get lotsa books—all kindsa people.” His words were German-accented, the softer German, probably of Bavaria. “Sometimes I look at names of books but not much. This time, I gotta lotta work. I didn’t look, just called Mrs. Pargeter to come get ’em.”

  “You might have noticed this book,” I told him. “I don’t know exactly what it looks like but it was a chef’s book—the kind a chef writes recipes in—so it might look different from all the other books.”

  He shook his head resolutely. “Didn’t see it. No, sir. Didn’t look at all. Nothing like that.”

  He hadn’t been inclined to small talk and he didn’t even want to talk about bookbinding, which had to be a passion with him as well as a vocation. He just wanted to get me out as fast as possible.

  The streetcar squeaked to a stop and we scooped in a few more passengers. I returned to my cascading thoughts. I was relieved at not finding a dead body, but the live one I had found was giving me a lot of reason for conjecture.

  A bookbinder he might be, and probably a very experienced and able one.

  He was also a forger.

  I had no doubt on that score. Everything in that inner room pointed to it. No wonder it had an inconspicuous door and was kept locked. The key was not in the cleverest hiding place but it looked as if he seldom allowed anyone access to it. The paper, the books, the furnace and the metal for casting type on a small scale—all indicated a cozy little forging operation.

  Nothing ambitious like hundred-dollar bills or bearer bonds. Herman did it on a scale that would merit little investigation even if any suspicion were aroused. That was unlikely, too; an expert might spot the difference between a genuine Edgar Allan Poe and a forgery but how many people—even book lovers—could tell a forgery of say, P.G. Wodehouse? Many of his titles I knew to be worth ten to twenty thousand dollars, while early copies, not even first editions, of Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle could bring much more than that.

  Forging books was a safer proposition, as it didn’t provoke investigation by the Treasury Department as did the reproduction of currency or bonds. Herman looked like the kind of man who would want to minimize the risk of scrutiny from authorities.

  So why was a book forger involved here? To produce a copy of the Belvedere chef’s book seemed to be the obvious answer—but why was a copy put into a charity auction? There was no profit in that. That puzzled me but, setting it aside for the moment, it meant that if Richie Mortensen’s murderer had taken the book that Mortensen had bought at the auction—he had a forgery in his hands! Another question was, what had Herman Harburg used to copy from? The original and genuine Belvedere book? If so, where was it now?

  We bounced over a non-uniform section of track. My brain needed shaking up after all these questions but it didn’t help much. I decided I needed mental stimulation, and that meant food.

  I took the St. Charles streetcar into town as far as it went. That was Canal Street where it U-turns and comes back. I walked back to the Monteleone along Royal Street.

  The lobby was busy as always, the overstuffed couches were full of people. Stacks of luggage awaited removal and guests were browsing in the glass-fronted cabinets.

  Electronic door keys in hotels have made the old practice of stopping by the front desk obsolete and I was heading for the elevator when a figure came up beside me.

  “Why, Lieutenant Delancey! What a coincidence!”

  We shook hands.

  “Nah, not really,” he said. He still had that look that was on the edge of rumpled. His eyes looked tired, but then they always did, it seemed. His hair was not untidy but its acquaintance with a brush or comb was fleeting at best. “I figured you’d be here about this time, getting spruced-up to go out to dinner at one of our celebrated spots.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “I am. But you wanted to chat.”

  The lobby was not only busy but getting busier so we went into the Oyster Bar adjoining and ordered coffee. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I have an interesting development to report.” I told him of the visit to Herman Harburg while minimizing my information-gathering talks with Mrs. Gracewell and Miss Pargeter. From previous experience, I knew that the police get annoyed at private citizens acting in a way that leads others to jump to false conclusions. If they get extreme about it, the police call it “impersonating a police officer.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured. “Didn’t leave any broken locks or anything like that behind you, did you?”

  I was appalled. “Of course not! I didn’t break in or even pick any locks.”

  He nodded affably. “Know how to get in without that, do you?”

  “I’ve read about it,” I conceded. “They do it with a library card, don’t they?”

  “Credit card, the way I heard it.”

  “Oh yes, American Express, isn’t it?”

&nb
sp; “I don’t think it makes a lot of difference.”

  “Oh, really? I’ll have to remember that—” I caught his expression and added hastily, “—in case I ever get trapped in a locked room.”

  “Wouldn’t work from the inside. You gotta read more books.” He shifted his position. He was one of those people who never look comfortable in a chair. “So you think this guy Harburg forged a copy of the real Belvedere book?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “So where’s the real copy?”

  “That still puzzles me. Of course, Harburg wouldn’t have to have an original in order to make a phony.”

  “That’s true, I suppose—”

  “But it does raise a further point,” I said. “Unless Harburg is a connoisseur of food, he would be unlikely to know what to put in the forgery to make it convincing.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Meaning that whoever commissioned him to make the copy must know plenty about food.”

  “Exactly. Of course, that doesn’t help a lot in this city—there are plenty of people like that. Have you been making progress?”

  He sighed. “Not enough. We’ve been checking out this Larry Mortensen. Seems he’s been rooming with his brother for the past few weeks so that raises the possibility that the two of them were involved in some scam. It’s a ratty sort of place they live in and neither seems to have either money or income—and that means motive to make money.”

  “Does either of them have any police record?”

  “No, they’re clean.”

  “What about Gambrinus?”

  “Don’t have anything on him. We’re combing the other bookshops in the city but no sign of the book. Ballistics didn’t come up with anything useful, either. It was a nine-millimeter automatic, one of those small foreign jobs, probably made in Eastern Europe.” He gave me a searching look. “So what’s your next line of investigating?”

  “I’m keeping in touch with the Witches—”

  “The Witches … Oh yeah, those women’s-lib broads.”

  “They’re all in the restaurant business so they might hear things. They wanted the book in the first place so they have a stake in this.”