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collections, only one in private hands. I remember seeing a 1913 V-Nickel just once in my life. It was perhaps fifteen years ago. A gentleman named J. V. McDermott owned it and he liked to exhibit his treasure. He put it on display at coin shows whenever asked, and the rest of the time he was apt to carry it around in his pocket and show it to people. Few collectors get the pleasure out of their possession that Mr. McDermott derived from his nickel.
    “When the coin passed into another pair of hands it brought fifty thousand dollars, as I recall. There have been sales since. In 1976, I believe it was, a 1913 nickel changed hands for a hundred and thirty thousand. I don’t remember if it was the McDermott coin or not. It might have been. More recently there was a private sale reported with an announced figure of two hundred thousand.”
    Carolyn put her glass to her lips, tipped it up. She didn’t seem to notice that there was nothing in it. Her eyes were on Abel, and they were as wide as I had ever seen them.
    He sighed. “What do you want for this coin, Bernard?”
    “Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.”
    “A felicitous phrase. Your own?”
    “Samuel Johnson said it first.”
    “I thought it had a classic ring to it. Spinoza called avarice ‘nothing but a species of madness, although not enumerated among diseases.’ Are you mad enough yourself to have a price in mind?”
    “No.”
    “It’s so difficult to put a value on the damned thing. When they sold the John Work Garrett collection, a Brasher doubloon brought seven hundred twenty-five thousand. What might this coin bring at auction? Half a million? It’s possible. It’s not sane, not by any means, but it’s possible nevertheless.”
    Carolyn, glassy-eyed, went for more Armagnac. “But you can’t consign this piece for auction sale,” he continued, “and neither can I. Where did it come from?”
    I hesitated, but only for a moment. “A man named Colcannon owned it,” I said, “until a couple of hours ago.”
    “H. R Colcannon? I know of him, of course, but I didn’t know he bought the 1913 nickel. When did he acquire it?”
    “No idea.”
    “What else did you get from him?”
    “Two earrings and a watch. There was nothing elsein his safe except legal papers and stock certificates, and I left them as I found them.”
    “There were no other coins?”
    “None.”
    “But—” He frowned. “The V-Nickel,” he said. “Didn’t he have it in a frame or a custom lucite holder or something of the sort?”
    “It was just as I gave it to you. Tissue paper and a hinged box in a two-by-two coinvelope.”
    “Remarkable.”
    “I thought so.”
    “Simply remarkable. He must have just purchased it. You found it in a safe in his home? He must keep his holdings in a bank vault. Is this the McDermott coin, do you know? Or did one of the museums sell it? Museums don’t hold on to things forever, you know. They don’t just buy. They sell things off now and then, although they prefer to call it deaccessioning, which is a particularly choice example of newspeak, don’t you think? Where did Herbert Colcannon get this coin?”
    “Abel, I didn’t even know he had it until I found it in his safe.”
    “Yes, of course.” He reached for the coin, opened the envelope, unwrapped a half million dollars’ worth of nickel. With the loupe in one eye and the other squeezed shut in a squint, he said, “I don’t think it’s counterfeit. Counterfeits exist, you know. One takes a nickel from 1903, say, or 1910 or ’11 or ’12, grinds offthe inappropriate digit and solders on a replacement removed from another coin. But there would be visible evidence of such tampering on a coin in proof condition, and I see no such evidence here. Besides, it would cost you several hundred dollars for a proof common-date V-Nickel to practice on. I’m almost certain it’s genuine. An X-ray would help, or the counsel of an expert numismatist.”
    He sighed gently. “At a more