“What happened at Ab’s house?”
“The Van Hooten van arrived, and they unloaded two pieces, wrapped the way the ones last night were wrapped.”
“So, Ab bought the Charleston secretary from Charlie Crow.”
“It would appear so. Next time I see Ab, he’ll tell me about it, if he thinks he has the real thing.”
“I especially want to know if Ab thinks he has the real thing.”
“If he thinks so, he might ask me to authenticate it.”
“He might, if he had no part in Charlie’s stealing the original.”
“We don’t know if Charlie stole the original,” Barton pointed out. “He may just be selling Ab a copy, identified as such.”
“I guess I still have more work to do on the original theft, then.”
“I guess you do.” Barton hung up.
Joan buzzed again. “Dino on line one.”
“Good morning.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Charlie Crow is on the move today.”
“Where?”
“He’s in Bristol, Rhode Island, right now. Drove up this morning.”
“You have an address?”
“It’s Water Street, which is only a block long, but I don’t have eyes on him, so I don’t know which house or building.”
“I wish we had somebody up there,” Stone said.
“Wait a minute,” Dino said. “I know a retired police captain in Providence who will do anything for two hundred bucks. He’s not that far away. Let’s see if he’ll drive down there.”
“Call me back.”
Dino hung up, and Stone ordered in a sandwich; he didn’t want to miss this call.
Nearly two hours passed before Dino called back. “Hey. My guy knows somebody in Bristol, and he went down there. We’ll give them a hundred each, okay?”
“Okay. What do we know?”
“Crow’s Rolls was parked in front of number eleven Water Street, and he left half an hour ago. He answered to the description of Crow. Hang on, call on the other line.” Dino put Stone on hold.
Stone worked on the Times crossword for three minutes.
“I’m back. You there?”
“I’m here. What’s a four-letter word for a Siouxan tribe?”
“Otoe.”
“Right.” Stone wrote that in. “What did he find out?”
“Our guy made some calls. The owner of the house is a Mrs. Caleb Strong, first name, Mildred. She’s a widow in her nineties, a prominent member of Rhode Island society for many decades. Her late husband was the last of a New England shipping family that goes back more than two hundred and fifty years.”