"We didn't take no nickel!" Heads swiveled and eyes stared at Rabbit Margate. "We never took no nickel," he said again, "and we never opened no safe. We found the safe, sure, but we couldn't punch it or peel it or nothing. I don't know shit about no nickel."

"No."

"And we didn't kill nobody. We didn't hurt nothing. Wasn't nobody home when we went in, and we went out again before nobody came home. I don't know shit about no murders and no nickels."

He slumped in his seat. Ray Kirschmann turned to whisper something to him, and Rabbit's shoulders sagged in dejection. I don't know what Ray said, probably pointed out Rabbit had just admitted the burglary in front of God and everybody.

"That's true," I said. "The first burglars. Rabbit Margate and Harlan Reese"-and didn't Harlan look startled to hear his name spoken aloud-"contented themselves with burglary and vandalism. Not long after they left, a second burglary took place. This burglar, a considerably more sophisticated and accomplished individual than Margate and Reese, went directly to the wall safe, opened it, and removed a pair of earrings, a valuable wristwatch, and the 1913 nickel. He took them directly to Abel's apartment, where he left them on consignment."

No point, really, in mentioning we'd obtained some cash for the watch and earrings. No need to tell these people every last detail.

"While the second burglar was delivering the safe's contents to Abel Crowe, the nickel's owner and his wife were returning to their home. They'd had a change of plans that none of the burglars had any reason to be aware of, and so they walked in on a house that looked like Rome after the Goths sacked it. They also walked in on another burglary in progress, and this third burglary was the charm. The man and woman were knocked out and tied up, and when the man regained consciousness and worked free of his bonds he discovered that his wife was dead."

I looked at Colcannon. He returned my glance, his face quite expressionless. I had the feeling he'd have preferred to be almost anywhere else, and I don't suppose he figured he was going to have the chance to buy his coin back, not this afternoon. He looked like a man who wanted to walk out of a bad movie but had to stay to find out what happened next.

"The nickel's owner called the police, of course. He was given the opportunity to look at the perpetrator of the second burglary but couldn't identify him. Subsequently he did make a positive identification of one of the participants in the first burglary."

"That was a frame," Rabbit Margate called out. "He never saw me. That was a setup."

"Let's just call it a mistake," I suggested. "The gentleman was under a lot of stress. He'd lost his wife, his house had been cruelly looted, and a coin worth a fortune was missing.

"And here's something interesting," I said, glancing again at Colcannon. "He never mentioned the coin to the police. He never said a word about it. You have to report losses to the police in order to make an insurance claim, but that didn't mean anything in this instance because the coin wasn't insured. And it wasn't insured for a very good reason. The gentleman didn't have title to it."

"This has gone far enough." It was Colcannon who spoke, and he managed to surprise me, not to mention the rest of the crowd. He got to his feet and glared at me. "I don't know how I let myself be gulled into coming here. I never knew the late Mr. Crowe. I was brought here on a false pretext. I never reported the loss of a 1913 V-Nickel and never carried insurance coverage on such a coin for a much better reason than the one you've advanced. I never had such a coin in my possession."

"I almost believed that for a while myself," I admitted. "Oh, I knew you had one, but I thought it might be a counterfeit. I ran a check on the five V-Nickels to find out which one you bought, and it turned out that they were all accounted for. Four were in museum collections and the fifth was privately owned, and the private specimen was lightly circulated and easily distinguishable from the others, and certainly not the specimen I took from your safe."

Another collective gasp-I'd gone and blown my anonymity, and now all and sundry knew who the perpetrator of the Second Burglary was. Ah, well. These things happen.

"But I had a good close look at that coin," I went on, "and I couldn't believe it was a counterfeit. So I did a little more checking and I invited some museum people to take a close look at their coins, and three of the four told me their coins looked just fine, thank you.

"The fourth museum had a counterfeit in the case."

I looked at the three men in dark suits. The one seated on the aisle, the little button-nosed guy with the thick glasses, was Milo Hracec, and he recognized his cue. "It was not a bad counterfeit," he said. "It was made from a proof 1903 nickel. The zero was removed and a one soldered in place. It was good work, and no one glancing into our display case would be likely to think twice about it, but you could never sell it to anyone as genuine."

The white-haired man cleared his throat. "I'm Gordon Ruslander," he announced. "When Mr. Hracec reported his discovery to me I went immediately to see for myself. He's right-the coin's not a bad counterfeit, but neither is it terribly deceptive at close glance. It's certainly not the coin I received when I traded a painting to the Baltimore Historical Society. That was a genuine specimen. I knew they wouldn't palm off a counterfeit on me, but as a matter of course I had it xrayed anyway, and it was authentic. The coin that had been substituted for it didn't have to be x-rayed. It was visibly fraudulent."

"What did you do after you'd seen the coin?"

"I went to my curator's home and confronted him," he said. The man on Ruslander's other side, the balding chap with the long nose, seemed to shrink in his seat. "I knew Howard Pitterman had been having his troubles," Ruslander went on. "He went through a difficult divorce and had some investment reverses. I didn't realize just how hard his circumstances had been or I would certainly have offered help." He frowned. "Instead he took matters into his own hands a couple of months ago. He substituted a counterfeit for the 1913 nickel, then sold off our most important rarity for a fraction of its value."

"I got twenty thousand dollars for it," Howard Pitterman said, his voice trembling. "I must have been insane."

"I don't know who that man is," Colcannon said, "but I've never seen him before in my life."

"If that's the man who bought the coin," Pitterman said, "he didn't buy it from me. I sold it to a dealer in Philadelphia, a man with a shady reputation. Maybe he sold it to this Mr. Colcannon, or maybe it went through another pair of hands first. I wouldn't know. I could give you the name of that dealer, although I'd rather not, but I don't think he'd admit to anything, and I can't prove he bought the coin from me." His voice broke. "I'd like to help," he said, "but I don't see that there's anything I can do."

"I'll say it again," Colcannon said. "I don't know any disreputable coin dealers in Philadelphia. I scarcely know any reputable ones. I know Mr. Ruslander by reputation, of course, as the founder of the Gallery of American and International Numismatics as well as proprietor of the Liberty Bell Mint, but I've never met him or his employees."

"Then why did you call Samuel Wilkes yesterday?"

"I never heard of Samuel Wilkes."

"He has an office near Rittenhouse Square," I said, "and he deals in coins and medals, and shady's the word for him. You called him yesterday at his home and left your name, and you called his office, and you also put in a call to the Gallery of American and International Numismatics. You made those calls from your home telephone, and since they're long distance there'll be a record of them."