"Yes, it is." Cora consulted the file. "About a year ago." She snapped the file shut. "Okay. Thanks for your time."

"You giving up?"

Cora smiled her trademark Puzzle Lady smile, though she doubted if Wilbur would recognize it. "Not at all," she told him.

Chapter 5.

HARVEY BEERBAUM COULDN'T believe his good fortune. Cora Felton hadn't been at his house in months, and never alone. The last time was when he threw a garden party for the selectmen. Cora wasn't a selectman, but Iris Cooper had suggested she come. Cora had been suspicious that Harvey had pressured the First Selectman to ask her. He had, but Iris didn't let on. At least, not officially. Not in front of him. Now that he recalled, the two ladies had spent a good deal of the party giggling in the azaleas.

Harvey's house befitted the portly cruciverbalist. The walls were hung with crossword puzzle momentos. A framed copy of the first puzzle he'd ever had published in the New York Times. A third-place trophy he'd taken in the nationals-he'd have won it, too, if he hadn't written an E for an A, a simple-enough mistake when one is solving a difficult Saturday puzzle in front of three hundred people with the knowledge that at any moment one of the other two finalists may shout, "Done!" and all will be lost.

Hanging from the ceiling was a huge crossword puzzle grid. Not the one he'd missed, but the one created by ace constructor Merl Reagle for a charity event, and then auctioned off to the highest bidder. Merl had signed it, too, in magic marker, making it well worth the two hundred dollars he had spent for it.

Harvey, thrilled by the company, fluttered about like a mother hen.

"It will only be a minute. The tea, I mean. I love the gas stove. So much faster than electric. Then we'll have our tea. I wish I had some scones. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have picked some up at Cushman's. So nice of you to drop in, of course."

"It's all right, Harvey. You didn't even need to make tea."

"Oh, but I did. I'd be a poor host not to offer refreshment of some kind. Now that you've stopped drinking-" Harvey broke off, flushed. "Do forgive me. I'm somewhat flustered. I don't know what came over me. I would never make any assumptions of the kind. And I wouldn't want you to think people were talking about you. Of course they haven't been talking about you. Well, they have, but only in terms of your notoriety. I don't mean notoriety, I mean fame."

Cora, watching the little man prance back and forth from the couch where she sat to the stove where the watched pot never boiled, was rapidly losing patience. "Harvey, sit down. You're driving me nuts. When the teapot whistles, you can get it."

"It's not the whistling kind."

"I am. I'll see it boiling, and I'll whistle. Now sit."

No golden retriever ever obeyed a command so quickly. Harvey perched on the edge of a chair, a bundle of nervous energy. "It's not a teapot, of course. It's a kettle. Not that I should be telling you words. Still-"

Even the hint of a discussion of syntax was more than Cora could bear. "Harvey, let me get right to the point. I happen to need your help."

Harvey's jaw descended to the vicinity of his navel. "You need my help? That'll be the day. You do five puzzles a week, fifty-two weeks a year. You construct in your sleep. How could you possibly need my help?"

"Your water's boiling," Cora told him. "Would you like me to whistle?"

Harvey hopped to the stove, filled two teacups with hot water, brought the tray to the coffee table. On the tray was a wooden box with Heinz 57 varieties of tea.

"Which kind would you like? I've got Lemon Zinger, Earl Grey, camomile, Sleepytime-"

"Tea's tea," Cora told him. "You could give me ground oak leaves, I wouldn't know the difference. Harvey, I need a favor."

"Of course, of course. What do you need?"

"I want you to sell something for me."

Harvey stopped dipping his tea bag in his cup. "I beg your pardon?"

Cora wondered vaguely what kind of tea it was. "On eBay, Harvey. I'd like you to sell something on eBay."

"For you?"

"Yes, for me."

"I don't understand."

Cora rolled her eyes. Of course he didn't. It was too easy. There was nothing to wrap his torturous mind around.

"It's perfectly simple, Harvey. You're a registered seller on eBay. You have an account."

"How do you know that?"

"It's not a secret, Harvey. When you put something up for bids on eBay, it's rather public."

"You shop on eBay?"

"Ah. A meeting of the minds. Yes, Harvey. I buy things on eBay."

"You've never bought anything of mine."

"No, I haven't," Cora admitted. "But I've seen your offerings." She repressed a shudder at the thought of the crossword puzzle cuckoo clock Harvey once had up for bids.

"And you have something you want to sell?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Harvey frowned. "What do you mean, in a manner of speaking?"

"Well, I don't want to sell it. I want someone to sell it for me. I've never sold anything on eBay. I don't have an account. But you do. So, if you could sell the item for me, I'd really appreciate it."

"What is the item?"

"A chair."

"What kind of chair?"

"A rattan wicker-back chair. With wooden arms."

"Oh. Like mine?"

Cora followed his gaze to the corner of the room where a square wooden table sat framed by four meticulously placed rattan chairs. It would have been a perfect bridge table, if Harvey only played.

"Mine's a different style. Not that it matters."

"Do you have it in the car?"

"No, but I have a picture of it."

Cora dug into her drawstring purse, handed over the picture of the chair.

"I see," Harvey said. "So, you'd like me to advertise this: 'Rattan chair, owned by the Puzzle Lady- Cora put up her hand. "No, no. Don't mention me. I have nothing to do with it. It's just a chair. You're selling a chair. Four chairs, actually."

"Four chairs?"

"Yes."

"How much do you expect to get for them?"

"I have no idea. It will be interesting to see how they go."

"How much would you want for an opening bid?"

"I don't know. Twenty bucks apiece."

"That's all?"

"Well, I wouldn't want to scare anyone off."

"I understand. But that's an inconveniently sized item to sell so cheap."

"What's inconvenient about it? You just scan the picture."

"I mean in terms of shipping. It's hard to move an item when the shipping cost exceeds the purchase price. It makes people reluctant to bid."

"Well, we don't want to do that. How about shipping cost included?"

Harvey's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? If they go for the floor bid, you'll wind up losing money."

Cora sipped her tea. She'd chosen her tea bag at random, was surprised to find it had an orange flavor and wasn't all that bad. "So what? It's not your money."

"No, but I'd hate to see you get taken."

Cora smiled, patted his face. "You worry too much, Harvey."

Harvey looked at her searchingly. "You've got something up your sleeve, haven't you? Come on, Cora. It's me. Harvey. Level with me. What's this all about?"

Chapter 6.

SHERRY LOOKED UP from the computer. "Cora, have you lost your mind?"

Cora shrugged. "Well, no more than usual."

"You have Harvey Beerbaum selling phony chairs for you?"

"They're not phony. They don't exist."

"Exactly."

"No, not exactly. Doesn't something have to exist to be phony? I mean, you're the wordsmith here. How can you have a phony nothing at all?"

"Cora, I'm not in the mood."

"Marital troubles again? Amazing how you can have them when you're not even married. Of course, I always did. But Aaron's not married either."

"The fact is, you've got Harvey involved in something you shouldn't have. I'm surprised he was willing to do it."

"He likes me."

"That makes it ten times worse. You seduced him into doing something he shouldn't."

"I didn't seduce him."

"Oh, no?"

"Oh, yes. Trust me, I know when I've seduced someone." Cora shrugged. "At least, since I quit drinking."

"Was Harvey happy to do it?"

"He got a little snarky when he found out there weren't any chairs."

"Yeah, I would imagine he did. You could ruin his rating."

"What rating?"

"Come on, Cora. You buy on eBay. You check the seller's performance rating. The evaluation he got from his customers. What do you suppose it will be when he gets a reputation for fraud?"

"Reputation, schmeputation," Cora said. "He was actually kind of amused when I told him my plan."

"What's your plan?"

"Well, it all goes back to the Kleinsmidt inheritance."

"The what?"

"The eight Kleinsmidt heirs. They inherited a ten-million-dollar estate, share and share alike. Each heir got a million bucks. Two million was never found. It was rumored to be in diamonds. The famous Kleinsmidt diamonds."

"Cora!"