The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,32
to be shot dead with a .32-caliber automatic for her troubles. I’d left the gun behind, escaping with my loot, scampering down the fire escape moments before the police arrived on the scene.
When the announcer moved on to other topics I switched him off. Carolyn had a funny expression on her face. I reached into my pants pocket and came up with the bracelet, plopping it down on the table in front of her. She turned it in her hand so that light glinted off the stones.
“Pretty,” she said. “What’s it worth?”
“I could probably get a few hundred for it. Art Deco’s the rage these days. But I just took it because I liked the looks of it.”
“Uh-huh. What did the coat look like?”
“I never even looked in the closets. Oh, you thought—” I shook my head. “More evidence of the moral decline of the nation,” I said. “All I took was the cash and the bracelet, Carolyn. The rest was a little insurance scam the Blinns decided to work.”
“You mean—”
“I mean they decided they’ve been paying premiums all these years, so why not take advantage of the burglary they’ve been waiting for? A coat, a watch, some miscellaneous jewelry, and of course they’ll report a higher cash loss than they actually sustained, and even if the insurance company chisels a little, they’ll wind up four or five grand to the good.”
“Jesus,” she said. “Everybody’s a crook.”
“Not quite,” I said. “But sometimes it seems that way.”
I made up the bed while she did up the breakfast dishes. Then we sat down with the last of the coffee and tried to figure out where to start. There seemed to be two loose ends we could pick at, Madeleine Porlock and J. Rudyard Whelkin.
“If we knew where he was,” I said, “we might be able to get somewhere.”
“We already know where she is.”
“But we don’t know who she is. Or was. I wish I had my wallet. I had his card. His address was somewhere in the East Thirties but I don’t remember the street or the number.”
“That makes it tough.”
“You’d think I’d remember the phone number. I dialed it enough yesterday.” I picked up the phone, dialed the first three numbers hoping the rest would come to me, then gave up and cradled the phone. The phone book didn’t have him and neither did the Information operator. There was an M. Porlock in the book, though, and for no particular reason I dialed the listed number. It rang a few times and I hung up.
“Maybe we should start with the Sikh,” Carolyn suggested.
“We don’t even know his name.”
“That’s a point.”
“There ought to be something about her in the paper. The radio just gives you the surface stuff, but there ought to be something beyond that in the Times. Where she worked and if she was married, that kind of thing.”
“And Whelkin belonged to the Martingale Club.”
“True.”
“So we’ve each got a place to start, Bernie. I’ll be back in a minute.” It was closer to ten minutes when she returned with both papers. She read the News while I read the Times. Then we switched.
“Not a whole lot,” I said.
“Something, though. Who do you want, Whelkin or Porlock?”
“I guess I’ll go over to his club. Maybe I can learn something that way.”
“Maybe.”
“How about you? You won’t leave the apartment, will you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll see what I can find out over the phone.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“And maybe I’ll pray a little.”
“To whom? St. Dismas?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
“Or the lost-objects guy, because we ought to see about getting that book back.”
“Anthony of Padua.”
“Right.”
“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking more of St. Raymond Nonnatus. Patron saint of the falsely accused.”
She looked at me. “You’re making this up.”
“That’s a false accusation, Carolyn.”
“You’re not making it up?”
“Nope.”
“There’s really a—”
“Yep.”
“Well, by all means,” she said. “Pray.”
The phone started ringing minutes after she left the apartment. It rang five times and stopped. I picked up the Times and it started ringing again and rang twelve times before it quit. I read somewhere that it only takes a minute for a telephone to ring twelve times. I’ll tell you, it certainly seemed longer than that.
I went back to the Times. The back-page story gave Madeleine Porlock’s age as forty-two and described her as a psychotherapist. The Daily News had given her age but didn’t tell what she did for a living. I tried