“I was in here, cataloguing the silver I bought at Dodd’s auction.” Barry gestured to the items in front of them on the table, then a shadow crossed his face. “Wait a minute. Someone came to the door …”

The hairs on the back of my neck started to tingle and my leg throbbed. I remembered how easily the door had swung open when I arrived. It wasn’t unusual for people to leave their doors unlocked in Mystic Notch, but Barry’s door hadn’t even been shut all the way—almost as if someone had left in a hurry and only loosely closed the door behind them.

“Who came to the door?”

“I’m not sure.” Barry’s forehead creased in concentration. “One of the Bates brothers, I think. No, everything is so fuzzy, I might be imagining that.”

I remembered the way Bing was driving down the road, as if he was in a hurry. “Was it Bing Thorndike?”

“I don’t think so. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not really sure anyone was here at all. I saw Carson Bates at the auction last night and my memory is getting confused.”

“What was Carson doing at an auction? Surely they already have enough antiques at home.” My mind drifted to the bronzes in the library. The Bates family had so many antiques they could afford to donate them.

“Apparently, Felicity sold off some stuff at a yard sale and he was looking to get some of it back. Old family heirlooms and such. He was going on about some books, quite insistent. Wanted to know if I’d come across them.”

“Oh, right. I remember Derek came by the shop wanting to know if I had some old family scrap-books.”

Barry laughed. “I guess Felicity needs to find clever ways to get at the Bates money. She always was kind of strange. Come to think of it Carson’s kind of strange, too.”

I nodded in agreement, looking around the room. “You’re not missing anything?”

Barry glanced around, looked at the silver on the table and in the box. “Nope, everything is here. Now that I think about it, I’m sure no one came … my memory’s just a little screwed up. Anyway, I have that box of books for you over here.” Barry retrieved a cardboard banana box from the pantry.

I noticed he was steady on his feet and my worry for him started to subside as I peeked into the box, eager to check out the books. An old leather-bound was on the top and my stomach flitted with excitement as I pulled it out.

Barry frowned at the book, then looked into the box. “That’s strange. I’m sure I put the leather-bound on the bottom. I wanted to surprise you with the best book last.”