The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross

Author:Amanda Cross [Cross, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 978-0-307-80211-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-19T14:00:00+00:00

Eight

DETECTIVE George Young found that the custom shirt shop bore its name, “The Gentleman’s Gentleman,” discreetly upon the door. When Young entered, there was a customer in the shop, and he waited patiently until the customer concluded a, to Young, unbelievably protracted discussion of shirt cloth, stripes, cuffs, and colors. Young himself, when he needed a shirt, wandered into some store, named his neck and sleeve size, and walked out almost with the first thing he saw. He supposed the rich had more time and didn’t mind spending it this way, not to mention money, though money was not mentioned between the gentleman’s gentleman and his customer. The owner of the store, pausing for a moment in his momentous deliberations, and apparently sizing Young up as unlikely to be a very remunerative proposition, asked if he could do something for him. “I’ll wait,” Young said, in a voice indicating he intended to.

When the customer had at last exhausted all alternatives, decided upon his shirts, and retired, Young approached the counter, flipping open the case which held his identification. “We have a label from your shop found under circumstances of interest to the police. We wonder if you can help us. The owner of the shop is a man named Sam Meyer. Is that you?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how I can help you. I have many customers. As most of them are well-to-do, when they tire of their shirts they give them away, perhaps to their servants. You see the problem.”

“Did this label come off a shirt?”

Mr. Meyer glanced at it. “No, that’s off a tie. They’re even given as gifts. I’m afraid I can’t be much help.”

“Try. Do you have a customer named Jablon?”

Mr. Meyer looked concerned. “Mr. Cedric Jablon is one of my oldest customers. Is that whom you mean?”

“Let’s talk about him and see.”

“I met Mr. Jablon years ago, when I was a salesman at a big chain of elegant men’s stores when I began, and Mr. Jablon used to get his suits and all his accessories from me. When I left to open this shop, he came to me for his shirts. He couldn’t be mixed up in anything the police had to do with—it’s impossible.”

“Did Mr. Jablon’s grandson ever come in for a tie?”

Mr. Meyer eyed Young uneasily. “Look, I don’t want …”

“Just answer the question.”

Mr. Meyer sighed. “The old gentleman brought the boy in, oh, perhaps a year or two ago, to have some shirts made for him. Made rather a thing of it, you know, now the kid was grown and Grandpa was going to give him some fine shirts. But it didn’t turn out that way.”

Young, impassive, continued looking at Mr. Meyer.

“This younger generation,” Mr. Meyer said. “The boy asked me the price of the shirts—it was fifteen dollars then, which it was worth, considering each shirt is individually tailored and made of the finest Egyptian cotton; they’re over twenty now—and when he heard the price he became, I regret to say, rude.

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