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the lieutenant, who wore a suit of dark summer-weight wool, an impeccably turned shirt, and a jazzy tie with a design that look like linked handcuffs, that, technically speaking, the murder did not occur on museum property. I might, unconsciously, have been trying to exculpate myself. Because, for the whole time, I teetered on the edge of disclosing my own qualifications as a suspect.
    “Close enough,” he said ruefully. Then, abruptly, “Who on the staff here or at the university might have had a motive for murdering von Grümh?”
    Though I expected the question, I feigned musement, something, I think, the lieutenant noted.
“Qui bono?”
I said. “Well, let’s see, I suppose we could start with Feidhlimidh de Buitliér.”
    “Felonious the what?” he half joked.
    “Not quite. More like
felimi.”
    “Could you spell that?”
    “Not off the top of my head.” My laugh sounded nervous, even to me. I rootled through a file and came up with a document with the man’s official name. “Feidhlimidh o Súilleabháin de Buitliér,” I said, spelling it out. “It’s Irish Gaelic. Or, as he informed me, a Gaelicized Norman name, at least the Butler part of it. I don’t how real it is. Someone told me his original name was Philip Buttles or Bottles and that he has Sullivans somewhere in his family. We call him Phil for short.”
    “What does he do?”
    “He’s Curator of the Greco-Roman Collection.”
    “And why would he want to murder von Grümh?”
    “Well, Lieutenant, I’m not saying he wanted to murder him. In fact, I doubt very much he could have.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “I doubt very much he has the …”
    “Testicular fortitude?”
    “Exactly. What I’m saying is that the two of them never got along. Heinie always managed to treat Phil as a lackey. And Phil had difficulty accepting Heinie’s appointment as Honorary Curator of the Numismatic Collection. Heinie kept telling Phil how to do his job. Phil insinuated on several occasions that Heinie’s coins were fakes …”
    “Is that a possibility?”
    I paused for a moment, wondering if I should disclose the e-mail from Worried. “When it comes to anything in a museum, forgery is always a possibility. It is an art form in and of itself.” I paused. “As a matter of fact, here’s an e-mail sent anonymously to me this morning.” I handed him a printout of Worried’s communication and waited as he read it.
    “Have you asked the curator about it?”
    “Not yet. But I plan to.”
    He nodded. “Let me know if you turn up anything.”
    “Of course.”
    “So your curator and von Grümh didn’t get along?”
    “There was a chronic, low-grade aggravation between them, but nothing, as far as I can see, that would lead to murder.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “I suppose Colin Saunders wouldn’t mind seeing Heinie among the dead.”
    “Who’s Colin Saunders?”
    “Col Saunders is the Groome Professor of Ancient Greek Civilization and Curator of Classical Antiquities in the Frock. You know, Wainscott’s …”
    “I do. Groome with an
e?”
    “Right. Heinie’s late father. He funded the chair in a bequest,and Heinie was on the search committee that helped select Saunders. Only he campaigned against his appointment.”
    “Why?”
    “Who knows. Heinie was like that. A gadfly in the ointment, as Izzy Landes called him.”
    “So Saunders might carry a grudge?”
    “Indeed, but it goes deeper than that.”
    He waited and, I must say, his skeptical gaze put me on edge.
    “Well, as you know, we are having some battles royal where the university has been concerned. We have conceded that, though independent, we are historically affiliated with the university and want to remain so. But there is an element in the Wainscott administration that will settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender. For them the revenues from the Genetics Lab …”
    “Saunders and von Grümh,” he said, cutting off what might have become a familiar