Read Online The Eighth Commandment by Lawrence Sanders - Free Book Online

had to resist an impulse to take off my beret and look around for the open casket. If an organ had started to boom “Abide with Me,” I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.
    Awaiting us were Archibald Havistock, wife Mabel, married daughter Roberta Minchen with husband Ross, Orson Vanwinkle, and a lady introduced as Lenore Wolfgang, Mr. Havistock’s attorney. She was almost as tall as I, but blockier: a real linebacker wearing a black gabardine suit that looked like it had been hacked out of a hickory stump.
    We all shook hands, showed our teeth, and got seated on those horrendous velvet couches and obese club chairs. Not at all daunted by the crowd, Detective Georgio took charge immediately, and orchestrated the entire interview. I had to admire his stern, no-nonsense manner.
    “I am going to ask Miss Bateson,” he said, “to relate in detail, to the best of her recollection, exactly what happened on the morning the coin collection was packed and shipped to Grandby’s. Please do not interrupt her. When she has finished, I will ask you, Mr. Havistock, and you, Mr. Vanwinkle, if your memories of that morning differ in any appreciable degree from her account. Miss Bateson?”
    So I began my recital again, as familiar to me now as “Barbara Frietchie,” which I memorized in the 5th Grade: “Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn…” As I spoke, almost mechanically, I looked from face to face, zeroing in on daughter Roberta Minchen and hubby Ross.
    She was a dumpling, swathed in a high-collared, flowery chiffon, loose enough to hide the bulges. A florid face with popping eyes and pouty lips. Her hair was cut short, which was a mistake. I thought she had a kind of blinking, rabbity look. Maybe that was due to her incisors: big and glistening.
    Husband Ross was one of those solemn young men, prematurely bald, who comb their thinning locks from one side to the other. Awfully pale, with the grave look of a professional mourner. I remember that he cracked his knuckles until his wife reached out to stop him. While I was delivering my spiel, I had a sudden, awful vision of those two in bed together, and almost lost the thread of my discourse.
    I finished and looked brightly at Al Georgio.
    “Thank you, Miss Bateson,” he said. “Very complete.” He turned to Archibald Havistock. “Now, sir, does your recollection of the events differ from what you’ve just heard?”
    Havistock stared at me, expressionless, heavy jaw lifted. “No,” he said decisively. “Miss Bateson has given an accurate account.”
    “Mr. Vanwinkle?” the detective asked. “Any corrections or additions?”
    “Oh, I don’t think so,” the secretary said, with a languid wave. “It happened just as she says.”
    Al Georgio took out his pocket notebook, a ballpoint pen, and made a few jottings. It seemed to impress everyone—except me. Then he sat back, crossed his knees, took a deep breath.
    “All right,” he said. “Now we’re at the point when Miss Bateson and Mr. Vanwinkle leave the library and the taped cases and go out into the corridor to send in the armored truck guards. Correct?”
    “Yes,” I said, “that’s how it happened.”
    “You showed them where to go, and then the two of you went down to the street to supervise the packing of the armored van?”
    “Not exactly,” Orson Vanwinkle said. “Miss Bateson was outside when I conducted the two guards into the library.”
    “Oh?” Georgio said. “And when you brought the guards into the library, was Mr. Havistock still there?”
    The attorney, Lenore Wolfgang, spoke up: “What is the purpose of this line of questioning?” she demanded.
    Georgio looked at her stonily. “The purpose of this line of questioning is to find out who stole the Demaretion. Mr. Vanwinkle, when you accompanied the guards to the library, was your uncle there?”
    “Ahh…no,” the secretary said. “He was not.”
    The detective turned to Havistock. “Is that