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note that the replacement volume was an early printing, worth $200, I guessed. Near the end of the shelf was a reprint of The Wizard of Oz signed by the film cast: Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton, and Billie Burke.
    â€œOh, wow,” I said softly.
    He leaned forward in tense expectation. “What?”
    â€œJust a helluva nice book. I wonder why whoever he was didn’t take this.”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “Is it real?”
    â€œI’m wary of signed books, but yeah, it sure looks real.”
    â€œWhy are you wary?”
    â€œThere are too many people today who can sign books and make it look real. But the ink is old and it’s from different fountain pens. If she bought this long ago and you have records telling where and when and from whom, we can assume it’s real. At least for the moment. And as we say in the trade, these people ain’t signing any more of ’em.”
    â€œAny ideas?”
    â€œMaybe whoever took these, he wasn’t looking for this one.”
    â€œI don’t understand what you mean by that.”
    â€œI don’t either. Yet.”
    My first theory, that the thief knew what he was doing and went after the highest-end stuff, was suddenly in trouble. Why pluck a book like The Wishing Horse of Oz when more valuable books were within arm’s reach, just as easy to conceal, just as quickly tucked away and gone? Her Disney section had been ravaged: so many wonderful and hugely expensive books, so easily replaceable with good-looking reprints for book-ignorant guys like Willis and Geiger. The value would be in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, I thought, adding the tally mentally and putting in nothing extra for such amenities as signatures. I did find a nice Disney Pinocchio under Collodi, signed by Disney with a generous and highly readable full-page inscription. Beside that was a true first edition of the same book, 1883, in Italian: a major rarity if my memory could be trusted. A section away, I found the first British edition of Alice in Wonderland, suppressed by the author and virtually unavailable anywhere. I had no reliable idea, but in this exceptional condition I guessed sixty to a hundred grand, maybe twice that. Softly I said “Jesus,” and Junior leaned toward me, waiting. “Another good one,” I said.
    â€œHow good is good?”
    I smiled at his choice of words and told him what I thought, adding the usual caveats. He nodded and I moved on. Under Clemens was a pristine Huckleberry Finn, signed by the author, but the Tom Sawyer was gone, replaced by a reprint from the late 1890s. “Strange for a thief to take one and not the other,” I said, but life was strange, and maybe this wasn’t so strange after all. Her Joel Chandler Harris stuff looked untouched: all first editions, some signed, all in that wonderful condition. There was a Song of the South misfiled, the Grosset & Dunlap edition from 1947, and again it had Disney’s signature.
    I moved around the room, taking in the obvious high spots: a run of Milne’s Pooh books, beginning with the first, When We Were Very Young, then Winnie the Pooh, and Now We Are Six, and The House At Pooh Corner, running on and on through the long series, all in dust jackets, oh my pounding heart, the jackets, it made my scrotum tingle just to touch them. And the Beatrix Potters!… The Tale of Peter Rabbit missing with a cheap substitute, but a gorgeous unbelievable signed limited of The Fairy Caravan and other first-edition fairy and bunny books were real. I had reached the Arthur Rackhams: more fairies in original drawings and books. The Compleat Angler had been replaced, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream and other signed limiteds had been left. For the moment I did little more than glance at the Tolkiens. I sat on the other chair and Junior and I looked at each other.
    â€œSo