“I’ve been sitting here going on four days. Plenty of time to think about it,” Jane Eliot said. “He was either just a fool, or he broke in to the wrong apartment.”

“Do you have any valuables there?” I asked. “Has anyone had a chance to see what was missing?”

“I taught elementary school till they put me out to pasture at sixty-five. Fourth grade mathematics. Multiplication tables and time tests-everything that became obsolete with the new math. I’m at an age at which I give my possessions away, Alex. Never had the money for fine things, and don’t like the clutter. Had a sweet set of porcelain dolls people brought me from all over the world, but I gave them to my niece years ago.”

“No cash that you kept in the house? No jewelry?”

“I was wearing the only piece of gold I own. Couldn’t have missed it if he was looking for something pricey to steal. It’s bright and shiny, and practically the size of an alarm clock,” Jane Eliot said. “Show her, Pridgen.”

He walked to the bedside table and picked up the watch, noting its heft before passing it to me. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Eliot. If you had cracked the bum over the head with this, he’d have been a goner.”

“Wish I’d thought of it then,” she said. “It’s a man’s watch, Alex. It was given to my father after fifty years at his job. The big size-and the large numbers-suit me well. I’ve worn it ever since he’s been gone.”

“Fifty years,” Pridgen said to Mercer. “Today most guys would be lucky to get a bologna sandwich and a pat on the back after working someplace half a century.”

I examined the striking face of the old timepiece. The famous French maker’s name written on the dial added value to the watch, which appeared to be made of solid gold.

“He obviously missed the opportunity to take this-it’s such a beautiful keepsake. I’m sure that would have been a terrible loss to you. Were there any other things like this that you had hidden away? Any reason for him to ransack your rooms?”

“Not a blessed thing for him to find, I promise you.”

I turned the watch over in my hand and read the inscription on the back of it. To Joseph Peter Eliot with gratitude for fifty years of devoted service. September 1, 1958. Trustees of the New York Public Library.

I had begun to think the connection to Tina Barr was a coincidence. But now my adrenaline surged.

“Miss Eliot,” I said, “your father worked for the library?”

“Started there right out of high school, Alex, as assistant to the chief engineer.”

“And you, did you have any direct association with the place yourself?”

“My dear, I was born in the New York Public Library during a snowstorm in 1928.”

“Not literally?”

“Yes, quite literally, young lady. There was an entire apartment within the library where the chief engineer and his family lived, till they threw us out. Needed the room after the Second World War. Until I went off to college, Alex, the public library was my home.”

THIRTY-FOUR

“Have I tired you, Miss Eliot?” I asked. “I think you’ve triggered some information that can help us figure out why you were attacked.”

“I’m just getting warmed up for you. Do go on. I’d like to be helpful.”

“A girl was murdered this week. A conservator who used to work at the library but was involved with private collectors most recently.”

“I heard something about it on the radio this morning. Terribly sad.”

“Mercer and I have been all through the library. No one said anything about an actual apartment within it. Is that what you mean?”

“In 1908, even before the library opened, a man named John Fedeler was named chief engineer. There was a seven-room apartment built for him to live in with his family, and when it came time for him to retire eighteen years later, that’s when my father got the job and we moved in.”

“What was it like then?” I asked.

“Quite a spectacular space, really, especially coming from a tenement in Hell’s Kitchen, where my parents had lived. It was an enormous duplex, with an entrance on the mezzanine floor, facing the central courtyard of the building. All paneled in the finest walnut. Big fireplaces and leather armchairs that my mother used to sit in at night, reading to us.”

Jane Eliot seemed to delight in her reminiscences. “It’s where I was raised, Alex. We were the envy of all the children at school.”

“What’s become of that apartment, do you know?” I asked, as Mercer drew his chair in as close to her as mine.

“I get invited back every few years, a bit like a dog and pony show, to some of those luncheons. The president occasionally puts me on display as the only baby ever born inside the place,” Eliot said. “But the whole apartment is broken up now.”

“What’s it used for?”

“The top floor, where we children lived, that’s all become administrative offices. There was a wonderful spiral staircase, so we could go up and down without entering the library hallway. I suppose that’s still in place. Our kitchen is the reproduction center-Xeroxing and that kind of thing. And the family living chambers are where some of the special collections are sorted out.”

“You’re saying the apartment was self-contained, is that right?” Mercer asked. “But were you allowed into the library itself?”

“That was the great fun of it, of course. I mean, we always had to wait until all the offices were closed for the evening, but gradually, as time went by, Father let us have the run of the place. After dark, mostly, when it was quite spooky, full of great shadows that came from the streetlights outside, and an eerie quiet that settled over the enormous hallways.”

“The books, Miss Eliot,” I asked. “Did you have access to the books?”

“Mercy, yes. We thought the whole place was just a playground for the three of us. Roller-skating down those hallways in the evening, playing hide-and-seek in that great reading room.

“Christmas Day, once, George and our cousins decided to play stickball in the corridor on the third floor,” she went on, rubbing her hands together as she pulled up images from her youth. “He just went into one of the collections-things weren’t all locked up back then-and grabbed the biggest books he could find to be the bases. Turned out they were all important double folios. Rare volumes of prints and such, worth a fortune. George got the whipping of a lifetime for that.”

“George?” Mercer said, trying to keep up with her.

“My older brother was George Eliot,” she said. “Mind you, my mother didn’t even have a high school education. When my father got the job there, she decided to name all her children after writers. She didn’t know George Eliot was a woman until she began to educate herself with all the wonderful treasures under our roof.”

“For whom were you named?” I asked.

“Jane Austen. I’m Jane Austen Eliot. I had a big sister, too. Edith Wharton Eliot. Both my siblings are gone now, but my niece and nephews are very good to me.”

“I can appreciate that-mine are, too,” I said. “Tell us more about the books, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ve always loved books, of course, and that may be because I grew up surrounded by them. They were the center of the universe in our family.”

“Did you have books of your own?”

“Our father made it very clear to us that everything in the library was very special, that none of it belonged to us. But for every holiday the trustees would present us with books. I remember our birthdays in particular. After we returned from school, if it was a birthday, we’d get called to the president’s office, all dressed up in our best, and one of the board members would give us a gift, explaining the importance of the particular book and its author.”

“Sounds like a fine little ceremony.”

“Oh, it really was. I got my first Pride and Prejudice that way. They were always heavy on Austen for me, of course. I’ve had a lifetime of pleasure because of those gifts, Alex. It made the loss of my vision even more painful.”