Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 111, No. 1. Whole No. 677, January 1998

The Theft of The Rusty Bookmark by Edward D. Hoch

© 1997 by Edward D. Hoch

The most popular of Edward D. Hoch’s series characters, the irrepressible Nick Velvet has once again captured the imagination of important producers and writers for television. Mr. Hock tells us that the character is now under option to writer/producer Frank Lupo, the creator of suck TV kits as The A-Team and Hunter. We hope to see Nick on television soon!

Driving through the slushy streets of Greenwich Village on a brisk December afternoon, Nick Velvet saw a clerk standing in front of a flower shop smoking a cigarette. In the old days, when he was growing up in the Village, that man would have been a lookout, ready to sound the alarm if any cops appeared to break up the high-stakes gambling in the back room. But times had changed, and now it was just a guy who wasn’t allowed to smoke on the job.

Nick had driven down from Westchester, something he hated to do during the Christmas shopping season. An old school chum, Charles O’Neill, had phoned him that morning on an urgent matter, promising to pay double Nick’s usual twenty-five-thousand fee for a rush job. That was enough to get him into the car, despite Gloria’s complaint that he’d promised to go shopping with her. And that was enough to have him squeezing into a parking space on Hudson Street near the White Horse Tavern.

O’Neill was a few years younger than Nick but they’d played baseball together in high school and been casual friends ever since. His classy Greek Revival house was a few blocks back, past the flower shop, and Nick nodded to the smoker as he went by. This was not his first visit to the O’Neill place. Charles owned a sports catering service that had brought him into contact with certain mob elements in the past. He was a good family man with a pretty wife and a couple of cute kids. But his troubles with the mob wouldn’t go away. His brother-in-law Bob Temple had been killed at home a year earlier, and no one really believed the knife had been wielded by a crack addict breaking into houses at random. Charles feared the mob had sent a warning that he should sell the business and go into some other line of work.

“Good to see you again, Nick,” Charles O’Neill greeted him at the front door. “Merry Christmas.”

“You’re five days early, but I’ll take a drink anyway if you’re offering one. What’s up? More trouble with the mob?”

O’Neill led him into the big living room with its polished hardwood floor and oversized mirrors reflecting the myriad ferns and flowering plants with which his wife Ida had decorated the place. “I have no mob contacts, Nick. You should know that.” He picked up a decanter from the sideboard. “Too early in the day for bourbon?”

“A bit. A cold beer would be fine if you have one.”

Charles O’Neill chuckled. “The first time we ever met you were drinking a beer.” He opened a small refrigerator below the sideboard and took out a bottle. “I think you were eighteen at the time.”

Nick declined a glass and took a sip. Even on a chilly day it tasted good. “How are Ida and the kids?”

“Fine. They’re out seeing Santa Claus with my sister.”

Nick took another sip of beer. “Now what’s your problem?”

“Are you familiar with The Mysterious Bookshop on West Fifty-sixth Street?”

“I’ve passed it. Down the street from Carnegie Hall’s stage door.”

“That’s the place. A man named Otto Penzler owns it, and in addition to selling new books he buys and sells used mysteries, especially valuable first editions. Buys them from all over the world.”

Nick glanced at the single bookcase with its collection of bookclub titles. “Are you a collector?”

“I’m barely a reader. Those are Ida’s books. My brother-in-law Bob was the mystery fan. Did you know him?”

“Bob Temple? Never met him, but I saw your sister once.”

“His death was a terrible blow to Marci. And then there were all the rumors of a mob killing. No truth to it, of course. He was probably stabbed by some drug addict looking for money.” O’Neill laughed sadly. “The house was full of books, not money.”

“Where does The Mysterious Bookshop figure in all this?”

“My sister Marci has been wanting to clear out Bob’s things ever since he was killed. She thinks it’s morbid to keep them, and I agree. But she just can’t bring herself to go through everything. Just after Thanksgiving she and Ida spent a week at a beauty spa on Long Island. While they were gone I packed up all Bob’s mysteries and sold them to Otto Penzler. He paid a pretty good price for them, and best of all, it got them out of the house — about four hundred books in ten boxes.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I sold something I shouldn’t have. Now I need to get it back. I need you to steal it for me.”

“Valuable books are like cash or jewels. You know I don’t touch anything of value.”

“This isn’t a book. It’s a bookmark in one of the mysteries I sold.”

“Go in and tell Penzler about it.”

“I can’t do that. He’d probably want a fortune for it.”

“Nowhere near the fortune you’re offering me to steal it.”

O’Neill looked pained. “I know you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

“All right,” Nick said with a sigh. “What does it look like and what book is it in?”

“It’s a thin strip of copper with some rust on it — a combination bookmark and letter opener, really. But I don’t know just where it is.”

“How many books are there?”

“He bought them all — over four hundred, all hardcover. I took them to the store in my van and helped carry them up to his private study. It’s a big room on the second floor with his personal library in it. He said he’d have to store the books there until he could price them after Christmas. This is their busy season at the store. So that gives us a few days, at least.”

“I’ll need time to flip through four hundred books. That means breaking in at night.”

Charles O’Neill shook his head. “The store has a good alarm system, and Penzler lives right upstairs. You wouldn’t have time to find it before you were discovered.”

“Then I’ll go in while the store is open.”

“I can tell you Penzler and his assistant are in and out of that study all the time. There are several other employees too, and they make sure no one goes in there.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“It has to be before Christmas, and that’s Monday. The store will probably be closed on Sunday too. So you’ve only got till Saturday.”

He was interrupted by the opening of the front door and the voices of women and children. Ida O’Neill, a dark-haired, pale-skinned beauty, entered with her two young daughters and Charles’s sister Marci. Nick put down his empty bottle and said hello to them all.

“We saw Santa, Daddy!” the youngest girl hurried to tell her father. The older one, at an age to know better, simply smirked.

Ida O’Neill turned to Nick. “It’s good to see you again. You know Charles’s sister, don’t you?”

“I believe we met once years ago,” Nick said. Marci Temple was one of those almost-pretty women who relied on cosmetics to complete the job nature had left undone. She was a bit younger than her brother and Ida, and seeing her now, Nick couldn’t help but remember how her husband had died. He and Marci had been awakened around three A.M. by an intruder. Bob had gone to investigate and Marci had heard a tussle and a scream from her husband. She found him dying from a throat wound and immediately phoned the police. He was dead when they arrived a few minutes later. The knife-wielding slasher had escaped.

“I remember you,” Marci Temple said, shaking Nick’s hand. “It was when we were both a lot younger.”

“What brings you into town today?” Ida asked, shucking the winter coats from her daughters. “Christmas shopping?”

“I suppose you could call it that,” Nick said. He glanced at his watch and told Charles O’Neill, “I really must be getting back. Gloria will wonder what’s happened to me.”

“I’ll be hearing from you?”

“Before the end of the week,” Nick promised. When Charles walked him to the door, he noticed the man was still smoking in front of the flower shop. “That guy must really be hooked on cigarettes.”

O’Neill chuckled. “No, they run a crap game in the back of the flower shop and he’s the lookout for the cops. It’s just like the old days.”

“Yeah,” Nick said and walked to his car.

The first thing he did, that same afternoon, was to drive uptown to Fifty-sixth Street and leave his car in a parking garage while he paid a visit to The Mysterious Bookshop, a narrow brownstone building about halfway down the block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Its front window was decorated for the holidays, with tinsel and Christmas ornaments mixed among the books. A sign in one corner announced that mystery writer Lawrence Block would be signing copies of his newest Matt Scudder novel the following afternoon from four to six.

He walked down a few steps to the door. It was locked, and he had to press a buzzer to be admitted. The store itself was small and crowded, with shelves stocked with paperbacks and a central table featuring new hardcover books. It took him a moment to realize there was another floor upstairs. He made his way up a spiral staircase to the hardcover department, where bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling and a ladder was necessary to reach the top. Comfortable chairs seemed to invite reading, but here too there were more buyers than browsers as Christmas approached. He glanced at the books, at an extensive Sherlock Holmes section, and even at a pile of back issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, where somewhat fictionalized accounts of his exploits appeared regularly.

A man he quickly identified as Otto Penzler was speaking on the telephone with someone, apparently a collector, making notes as he talked. When he finished, he went quickly through a small connecting room into a large rear study. Nick caught a glimpse of bookshelves, with boxes piled on the floor, before an employee informed him that the area was private. He glanced around some more, noting a large metal fire door that led out to the building’s staircase. There were apartments and offices on the upper floors, but he could see no way that these would help him. He had to be in that back room long enough to go through four hundred books, and that was a problem. The alarm system seemed to be a good one, making a night visit difficult and dangerous. Doing it by day meant keeping Penzler and the other employees out of that room for a half-hour or longer.

Nick shifted ideas around in his head, weighing each in turn. He could have Gloria phone the store at a prearranged time, pretending to be a collector with a large library to sell. Nick could slip into the study while Penzler was occupied on the phone. But he realized a flaw in the idea almost at once. Surely there was another phone in the study, and it was only chance that Penzler had taken today’s call out in the store itself. The odds were greater that he’d speak to a collector from his study.

Still, he had the beginning of another idea. The big problem was time, but there might be a way to work around that. The rusty bookmark wasn’t made of paper or cloth or plastic, after all. It was made of metal.

By the following morning he’d worked it out. He would do it that day because the appearance by Lawrence Block would bring more traffic to the bookshop, and more traffic would mean more confusion with the Christmas crowds. A call to the public library brought him the names of a half-dozen well-known book collectors who specialized in mysteries. He looted Gloria’s shelves of a handful of old mysteries she’d planned to donate to the Salvation Army, and then went out to purchase a particular piece of equipment that he’d need.

Gloria came upon him as he was fitting everything into a large box. “You just bought that thing this morning and you’re taking it away already?”

“I need it for a job,” he answered vaguely. He stuffed paper into the box along with his gadget, then arranged the books on top of it. After sealing the box with tape, he typed a label to Otto Penzler, using the name of one of the book collectors for the return address. Beneath the collector’s address he typed and underlined: Letter follows!

From his closet he chose a brown shirt and a pair of brown slacks, with a brown jacket to wear over it. Gloria was doing some computer work when she saw him and groaned. “It’s the UPS man again!”

“It works, doesn’t it? Everyone trusts a UPS man.”

“What if they ask about your truck?”

“It’s parked down the block. Couldn’t get any closer.”

“I hope he’s paying you enough for working Christmas week.”

“Double.”

She nodded and went back to her computer. “Good luck.”

At exactly ten minutes to five that afternoon Nick Velvet crossed the street in front of The Mysterious Bookshop carrying a large brown box. At the bookshop door he rested it on the steps and rang the bell for admittance. He could see the place was jammed with customers and autograph seekers. When the door buzzed he poked his head in and said, “Delivery for Otto Penzler.”

“Leave it here,” the bearded man behind the desk said.

“Can’t. This one needs a signature.”

“Otto is upstairs. We’re having an author signing. You’ll never get through this crowd.”

“Is there another way up?”

“Go up the steps through the brownstone entrance and we’ll open the fire door for you.”

Nick did as he was told and after a moment the metal door swung open. Otto Penzler stood there, refilling a guest’s wine glass. “Who’s this from?” he asked, bending to read the label. “Carl Fox! I wonder what he’s sending me. Haven’t spoken to him in years.”

“On the label it says Letter follows. Probably got delayed in the Christmas mail.”

Penzler scrawled his signature on the form Nick offered him. “All right. Put it in the back room, will you? On the floor against the wall.”

“Sure thing!”

“You’re not our usual UPS man.”

“Working a double shift for Christmas. It’s our busy time.”

Penzler glanced at the sea of faces surrounding the table where Lawrence Block was signing books. “You’re telling me!”

Nick hurried through the doors into the book-lined study. There seemed to be boxes everywhere, but he quickly spotted the group of ten that O’Neill had described. He’d expected Penzler to open the box he’d delivered, at least for a look, but he’d been too busy for that. Now Nick opened it and reached beneath Gloria’s books for the hand-held metal detector he’d hidden there. It was the type sometimes used at airports and high-security events to search for weapons. He adjusted it to its most sensitive setting and ran it quickly over the boxes of books. He figured he had less than a minute before Penzler or someone else came looking for him.

Nothing sounded the warning beep on the first pass over the boxes so he moved a couple of them and tried it again from a different angle. This time he was rewarded with a buzz and a blinking light. He opened the box and quickly flipped through a couple of the books. A slender piece of copper, tapered to a point at one end, slid out of the second book. From its shape and size it looked more like a letter opener than a bookmark, but he could see the rust along the edges. He slipped it into a plastic bag in his pocket and turned off the metal detector, placing it under his jacket. Then he quickly resealed the box with a piece of tape and left the study, returning to the crowded bookshop.

Otto Penzler was busy trying to line up people waiting for autographed books. He never looked in Nick’s direction as Nick slipped out the metal door to the brownstone’s front entrance. In another moment he was down the steps to the sidewalk, mingling with the Christmas crowd.

Charles O’Neill sighed gently as Nick took the plastic bag from his pocket and laid it on the coffee table. “One rusty bookmark, as ordered.”

“You’re a wizard, Nick. Always have been.” He produced an envelope full of currency and slid it across the table.

They were seated in O’Neill’s living room later that same evening. Ida was upstairs with the children, getting them ready for bed, and the sounds of laughter drifted down to them. Children were always happy in the days before Christmas.

“There’s just one thing—”

“What’s that?”

“Those spots of rust along the edges of the bookmark. Copper doesn’t rust. Only iron does. Copper is slow to corrode, and when it does the corrosion products are green, not rust-colored. This is something else, something like dried blood.”

O’Neill was silent for a moment. “Take the money, Nick. You’ve earned it.”

But Nick Velvet wasn’t quite through talking. “Bob Temple was killed with that bookmark or letter opener, wasn’t he? There was never a burglar. The killer had to dispose of the weapon quickly so it went into one of the hundreds of books in Temple’s collection, just before the police arrived. Who killed him? Who slashed his throat with that thin strip of copper with its pointed end? It had to be Marci, of course. Your sister Marci. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Don’t get into this, Nick. We’ve been friends for too long.”

“You wouldn’t pay fifty grand for just anyone. If you’d killed him yourself you’d know where the weapon was hidden and you wouldn’t have sold the books to Penzler without removing it. Likewise, if your wife Ida had done it she would have removed the weapon on one of her visits to Marci’s place over the past year. Only Marci could safely leave that bloodstained bookmark where it was. With Bob dead the books were hers, and they were in her house. She never dreamed you’d do her the favor of packing them up and selling them while she was out of town.”

Charles O’Neill shook his head, and there may have been tears in his eyes. “When she got back and found the books gone, she was wild with fear. She had to tell me. They’d both been drinking and he hit her. It wasn’t the first time. She grabbed that bookmark — it’s actually sold as a combination bookmark and letter opener — and struck out at him. She didn’t mean to kill him.”

“The police have to be told, Charles,” Nick said quietly. “It’s for a jury to decide what she meant to do.”

The sounds from upstairs had finally ceased, and Ida came down alone. “They’re in bed,” she said. “Let’s get the Christmas tree up.”

“I’ll speak to Marci after Christmas,” O’Neill told Nick quietly. “Then I’ll tell her what she has to do.”

Nick nodded and slid the envelope back across the coffee table. “Use this to hire a good lawyer.”

“Nick—”

He turned to Ida. “Could you use some help in putting up that Christmas tree?”

It was after Christmas before Otto Penzler had an opportunity to look into the big box that had arrived from Carl Fox. No letter had followed as promised, and he was puzzled by the wads of paper with a dozen or so books on top. Finally he phoned Carl on the West Coast, but the collector knew nothing of the package.

“It wasn’t from me, Otto. You know I don’t work that way.”

“I’m baffled by the whole thing. Why should anyone send it to me and put your name on it?”

“Is there anything of value inside?”

Otto was staring down at the box as he spoke. “That’s the funny thing about it, Carl. Most of the books are of little value, but in among them is a mint first edition of Sue Grafton’s A Is for Alibi. It could bring a thousand dollars. Why would anyone just give it away like that?”