"You think he's the doer?"

"That's where I am now," Harris said. "The rent-a-cops told me that he spent the night here a lot; drove Nelson's car-cars-and probably had a key. There are no signs of forcible entry. And there's a burglar alarm. One of Nelson's cars is missing. AJaguar, by the way, Inspector," Harris said, a naughty look in his eyes. "I put the Jag in

NCIC."

The FBI's National Crime Information Center operated a massive computer listing details of crimes nationwide. If the Jaguar was found somewhere, or even stopped for a traffic violation, the information that it was connected with a crime in Philadelphia would be immediately available to the police officers involved.

"Screw you, Tony," Wohl said, and laughed.

"A new one," Harris went on. "An 'XJ6'?"

"Four-door sedan," Wohl furnished. "A work of art. Twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars."

Harris's face registered surprise at the price.

"Police radio is broadcasting the description every half hour," he went on. "I also ordered a subsector search. Nelson's other car is a Ford Fairlane convertible. That's in the garage."

"Lover's quarrel?" Wohl asked.

Harris held both palms upward in front of him, and made a gesture, like a scale in balance.

"Maybe," he said. "That would explain what he did to the victim. I think we have the weapons. They used one of those Chinese knives, you know, looks like a cleaver, but sharp as a razor?"

Wohl nodded.

"And another knife, a regular one, a butcher knife with a bone handle, which is probably what he used to stab him."

"You said 'maybe,' Tony," Wohl said.

"I'm just guessing, Inspector," Harris said.

"Go ahead," Wohl said.

"There was a lot of stuff stolen, or I think so. There's no jewelry to speak of in the apartment… some ordinary cuff links, tie clasps, but nothing worth any money. The victim wore rings, they're gone, we know that. No money in the wallet, or anywhere else that anybody could find. He probably had a watch, or watches, and there's none in there. And there was marks on the bedside table, probably a portable TV, that's gone."

"Leading up to what?"

"When two homosexuals get into something like this, they usually don' t steal anything, too. I mean, not the boyfriend. They work off the anger and run. So maybe it wasn't the boyfriend."

"Or the boyfriend might be a cold-blooded sonofa-bitch," Wohl said.

"Yeah," Harris said, and made the balancing gestures again. "We got people looking for Mr. St. Maury," he went on. "And for the Jaguar. We're trying to find if he had any jewelry that was good enough to be insured, which would give us a description. Captain Quaire said you were going to see his father?"

"I'm going there as soon as I leave here," Wohl said. "I'll ask."

"I'd like to talk to him, too," Harris said.

"I think I'd better see him alone," Wohl thought out loud. "I'll tell him you'll want to see him. Maybe he can come up with some kind of a list of jewelry, expensive stuff in the apartment."

"You'll get the list?"

"No. I'll ask him to get it for you. This is your job, Tony. I'm not going to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong."

Harris nodded.

"But I would like to look around the apartment," Wohl said. "So when I see him, I'll know what I'm talking about."

"Sure," Harris said. He started toward the door. "I'm really sorry, Inspector, about sitting on your car."

"Forget it," Wohl said.

ELEVEN

The building housing the PhiladelphiaLedger and the studios of WGHATV and WGHA-FM was on Market Street, near the Thirtieth Street Station, and built, Wohl recalled as he drove up to it, about the same time. It wasn't quite the marble Greek palace the Thirtieth Street Station was, but it was a large and imposing building.

He had been in it once before, as a freshman at St. Joseph's Prep, on a field trip. As he walked up to the entrance, he remembered that very clearly, a busload of boisterous boys, horsing around, getting whacked with a finger behind the ear by the priests when their decorum didn't meet the standards of Young Catholic Gentlemen.

There was a rent-a-cop standing by the revolving door, a receptionist behind a marble counter in the marble-floored lobby, and two more rent-a-cops standing behind her.

Wohl gave her his business card. It carried the seal of the City of Philadelphia in the upper left-hand corner, the legendPOLICE DEPARTMENT CITY OF PHILADELPHIA in the lower left, and in the center his name, and below that, in slightly smaller letters,STAFF INSPECTOR . In the lower right-hand corner, it saidINTERNAL SECURITY DIVISION FRANKLIN SQUARE and listed two telephone numbers.

It was an impressive card, and usually opened doors to wherever he wanted to go very quickly.

It made absolutely no impression on the receptionist in the Ledger Building.

"Do you have an appointment with Mr. Nelson, sir?" she asked, with massive condescension.

"I believe Mr. Nelson expects me," Wohl said.

She smiled thinly at him and dialed a number.

"There's a Mr. Wohl at Reception who says Mr. Nelson expects him."

There was a pause, then a reply, and she hung up the telephone.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you don't seem to be on Mr. Nelson's appointment schedule," the receptionist said. "He's a very busy man, as I'm sure-"

"Call whoever that was back and tell her Inspector Wohl, of the police department," Peter Wohl interrupted her.

She thought that over a moment, and finally shrugged and dialed the phone again.

This time, there was a longer pause before she hung up. She took a clipboard from a drawer, and a plastic-coated "Visitor" badge.

"Sign on the first blank line, please," she said, and turned to one of the rent-a-cops. "Take this gentleman to the tenth floor, please."

There was another entrance foyer when the elevator door was opened, behind a massive mahogany desk, and for a moment, Wohl thought he was going to have to go through the whole routine again, but a door opened, and a well-dressed, slim, gray-haired woman came through it and smiled at him.

"I'm Mr. Nelson's secretary, Inspector," she said. "Will you come this way, please?"

The rent-a-cop slipped into a chair beside the elevator door.

"I'm sorry about that downstairs," the woman said, smiling at him over her shoulder. "I think maybe you should have told her you were from the police."

"No problem," Peter said. It would accomplish nothing to tell her he' d given her his card with that information all over it.

Arthur J. Nelson's outer office, his secretary's office, was furnished with gleaming antiques, a Persian carpet, an oil portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt, and a startlingly lifelike stuffed carcass of a tiger, very skillfully mounted, so that, snarling, it appeared ready to pounce.

"He'll be with you just as soon as he can," his secretary said. "May I offer you a cup of coffee?"

"Thank you, no," Peter said, and then his mouth ran away with him. "I like your pussycat."

"Mr. Nelson took that when he was just out of college," she said, and pointed to a framed photograph on the wall. Wohl went and looked at it. It was of a young man, in sweat-soaked khakis, cradling his rifle in his arm, and resting his foot on a dead tiger, presumably the one now stuffed and mounted.

"Bengal," the secretary said. "That's a Bengal tiger."

"Very impressive," Wohl said.

He examined the tiger, idly curious about how they actually mounted and stuffed something like this.

What's inside? A wooden frame? A wire one? A plaster casting? Is that red tongue the real thing, preserved somehow? Or what?

Then he walked across the room and looked through the curtained windows. He could see the roof of Thirtieth Street Station, its classic Greek lines from that angle diluted somewhat by airconditioning machinery and a surprising forest of radio antennae. He could see the Schuylkill River, with the expressway on this side and the boat houses on the far bank.