The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [14]
Worried
Professionally, of course, I am concerned by even the remote possibility that the coins are forgeries. There are so many good fakes out there that it has become the bane of the collector’s profession. And that, ultimately is what people in my position do: We collect rare and beautiful things; we study and classify them; we curate and exhibit them. Quite aside from the aesthetic bliss such objects afford, their beauty, utility, and timelessness give meaning to our past, indeed, to our very existence. At another level, any forgery undermines the appreciation of what is genuine and unique, of things that, in their essence, cannot be duplicated. Which is not an insignificant consideration as the world lapses ever deeper into a coma of virtuality.
Truth be told, I don’t entirely trust Feidhlimidh de Buitliér, Curator of the Greco-Roman Collection. A few months back he proposed that I appoint him assistant director of the museum, intimating that he could be useful in that position in our ongoing efforts to remain independent of the university. When I asked him how he might be useful, he evinced an evasiveness that had an undercurrent of insolence. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him in league with the ever-looming Mr. Morin.
But then, possible forgeries seemed the least of my concerns as the lieutenant took his accustomed seat in front of my desk. Though we remained cordial enough in our greetings, I remarked an edge of wary reserve as he told me he wanted to bring me up to date on the murder and that he had questions about Heinie von Grümh’s relations with the museum. Doreen, who is very happily married to and now hugely pregnant by the divinity student who came by as a grief counselor in the wake of the Ossmann-Woodley murders, brought us coffee and closed the door.
I took some solace from the thought that the officer’s attitude toward me undoubtedly sprang from a weariness with investigating murders at the museum. He began with a sardonic jest, wondering if we shouldn’t call it the Museum of Murder. I countered that we could certainly consider starting a collection or perhaps mounting a special exhibition that would draw from other museums and from the grisly detritus of homicide kept in police departments all over the world. Certainly, I said, warming to my rejoinder, murder and man, both as a gender designation and in the larger sense of Homo sapiens sapiens, go together like cakes and ale. But I did wonder to myself why the MOM attracts these acts of ultimate violence.
I reminded the lieutenant, who wore a suit of dark summer-weight wool, an impeccably turned shirt, and a jazzy tie with a design that look like linked handcuffs, that, technically speaking, the murder did not occur on museum property. I might, unconsciously, have been trying to exculpate myself. Because, for the whole time, I teetered on the edge of disclosing my own qualifications as a suspect.
“Close enough,” he said ruefully. Then, abruptly, “Who on the staff here or at the university might have had a motive for murdering von Grümh?”
Though I expected the question, I feigned musement, something, I think, the lieutenant noted. “Qui bono?” I said. “Well, let’s see, I suppose we could start with Feidhlimidh de Buitliér.”
“Felonious the what?” he half joked.
“Not quite. More like felimi.”
“Could you spell that?”
“Not off the top of my head.” My laugh sounded nervous, even to me. I rootled through a file and came up with a document with the man’s official name. “Feidhlimidh o Súilleabháin de Buitliér,” I said, spelling it out. “It’s Irish Gaelic. Or, as he informed me, a Gaelicized Norman name, at least the Butler part of it. I don’t how real it is. Someone told me his original name was Philip Buttles or Bottles and that he has Sullivans somewhere in his family. We call him Phil for short.”
“What does