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Second, I did not inform Lieutenant Tracy that my wife had had an affair with the victim. Indeed, my animus toward the man has remained sporadically murderous despite something Diantha told me in the wake of their affair. During one of our tender moments of reconciliation, the keener for being edged with the savor of jealousy and curiosity, I had asked her how Heinie had been in bed. She paused in her ministrations and a sly smile lit her face. “He was classy enough. But as Marilyn Monroe said about Frank Sinatra — he was no Joe DiMaggio.” Implying, I assumed, that I’m a real slugger in this regard.

Still, I conceived a visceral hatred of Heinrich von Grümh. In the guise of worldliness, he deigned to patronize me, making what he probably thought were subtle allusions to having slept with my wife. But then, Heinie was a force of nature in the way of a big wind. He had to win or, rather, beat everyone else in the smallest things. At the same time, I pitied him. He was the echoing shell of a man who had everything and nothing. The more wealth and expensive toys he acquired and displayed, the less there seemed of him. Is this all there is? his expression seemed to say. As though all would never be enough. In the end, he had become the ultimate impostor, that is, someone posing as himself.

Why then, one might ask, did I accept coins from him for the MOM’s collection? The fact is, a responsible museum director does not turn down objects worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, however many strings come attached. In fact, a conservative estimate of Heinie’s donation of coins to the museum amounts to well over two million dollars. It’s not a matter I would allow personal feelings to interfere with.

The final reason I might be considered a suspect in the case is that I have a license to not only own but also to carry concealed the Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver I inherited from my father. Oiled but not loaded, it is locked in a chest in my study. Ballistics would easily prove that my gun had not been used as the murder weapon.

Then why not tell Lieutenant Tracy? I submit that my motivation is nothing less than exemplary. As a suspect, I doubt my friend would consent to my help on the case, however distant and unofficial my involvement. It would be false modesty to deny that I played a key role in bringing to justice those responsible for past murders in the Museum of Man. At the same time, I relish the role of investigator, of participating in a direct way in what is nothing less than a manhunt.

But I must also be candid. I confess that I did not want it known, especially by Lieutenant Tracy, that my wife had not only been unfaithful to me, but had been so with a man of Heinie von Grümh’s ilk.

3

Merissa Bonne does make a most fetching widow. She dropped by early last evening for a drink and to ask for a favor. I couldn’t tell whether she wore the black satin choker with its circle of small diamonds in celebration or in mourning. “I just hope he didn’t suffer,” she sniffled, wiping away a nonexistent tear and holding out her glass for a refill of the house Merlot, a sturdy red we buy by the case.

We were comfortably ensconced in the tree-shadowed conservatory with Di up and down getting drinks and things and taking care of Elsie. Merissa sat close enough to me on the small wicker sofa for the effects of her perfume, redolent of spring flowers, to sharpen the effect of the wine on me. So much for the trappings of woe, I thought, though in fact the favor she finally got around to asking involved the arrangement of obsequies for her late husband. She wanted me to petition the Reverend Alfie Lopes to have a memorial service for Heinie in Swift Chapel.

“Heinie was absolutely devoted to the museum and to Wainscott,” she said. “He went to all the graduations although he didn’t graduate himself.”

I doubted Heinie’s devotion to anything but himself, but did not feel it my place to demur. Grief, even feigned grief, must be served. Still, I nodded only vaguely,