I had better look after this copy, I realized. There was no way I would ever sell it, and I decided against lending it for the exhibit. I would feel better knowing it was in its place on the shelf upstairs. It would probably be perfectly safe in a locked exhibit case in the library, but I didn’t want to take the chance of having it stolen or damaged.

I wondered idly if both Aunt Dottie’s copy and Carrie Taylor’s had come from a bookstore in Athena. I remembered my aunt telling me about one on the square when she was a child, back in the late thirties. At some point she must have told me the name, but it had gone out of business by the time I came along.

My laptop beeped to let me know I had new e-mail. I set the book gingerly aside and checked the screen. I had a response from Kanesha. Terse, as usual: “Thanks. We’ll check for it.”

It was out of my hands now. I knew Mrs. Taylor’s house would be subjected to a thorough and painstaking search. If the book was still there, they would find it. The question was, would Kanesha tell me one way or the other? Without my having to annoy her by asking, that is.

If the book was potentially the motive, then who would want it badly enough to kill for it?

My prime suspect was Gordon Betts—a notion based more on my antipathy to the man than on anything concrete. He boasted he had the largest collection in the world of Mrs. Cartwright’s books. Did he have a copy of the variant printing of the first book, though?

A whisper of memory teased at me. What was it Mrs. Taylor had said the last time I saw her? Something to do with Gordon Betts.

I thought hard and finally dredged it up. I heard her voice in my head saying, Gordon may think he has everything, but I know better.

Could she have been talking about her copy of Spellwood Mansion?

No, it couldn’t be that, surely, because her possession of it was right there on the Web for anyone to see. Gordon Betts, obsessive collector that he allegedly was, surely wouldn’t overlook a piece of information as significant as that.

No, I decided after further thought. There had to be something else Mrs. Taylor had that he didn’t.

If he killed her then, he probably did so for a different reason.

Another idea struck me. Unless she had a better copy than he did. I knew serious collectors would trade up, as it were, replacing an inferior item in their collection with one that was in better condition in some way. Gordon Betts could have wanted her copy for that reason.