“When Joel called, how did he sound? Was he upset, worried?”

“No. Nothing about the conversation seemed urgent. He sounded in a good mood.”

Bill asked, “Can you remember that conversation in any detail?”

Rosenberg shrugged. “I’m a journalist. Remember is my middle name.” He closed his eyes and, one hand going back and forth as though he were following a Ping-Pong game, he started to mutter.

“… hey, David, how are you…”

“… hey, great to hear your voice…”

“… how’s Ingrid…”

“… how are Ruth, the kids…”

“… when are you coming to New York…” At that David Rosenberg paused but didn’t open his eyes. “… met with this Alice Fairchild day before yesterday, wanted to thank you… interesting case, Shanghai ghetto, stolen jewelry… called in that Chinese girl…”

“… the one with the mother?…”

“… yeah, keeps me young… this Alice Fairchild, you know her well?…”

“… no, just hello, good-bye… she asked about a PI a few weeks back, gave her the best I knew…”

“… gave her the only you knew, bubbaleh…”

“… well, if you know the best, who needs the rest?…”

“… you say that to all the boys… she tells me she was born in Shanghai herself, missionary family…”

“… I know, met her sister a few years ago, like Mutt and Jeff…”

“… asset recovery, strange work for a shiksa…”

“… someone has to do it…”

“… she say anything about the clients?…”

“… no, nothing at all, just she needed a PI…”

David Rosenberg’s hand drifted to a stop, and he opened his eyes. “That’s it. I’m sorry, but that really was it. I had a meeting to prepare for. He promised to think about coming to Zurich with Ruth, maybe in the winter. And we hung up.”

For a few minutes we all sat in silence, watching a sparrow singing from the scarecrow’s shoulder. I hoped it was belting out the bird version of some Broadway song.

“Does that help at all?”

“I can’t see how,” I admitted. “He called me a few hours later and told me something was wrong, but I don’t see anything in your conversation that would make him think that. I’d found out something odd about the clients, and I thought maybe he’d learned it, too, but if you didn’t tell him, I’m not sure how.”

“What was it?”

“About the clients? That they’re not who they told Alice they were.” I explained about Horst Peretz and Horst Chen Lao-li. “That’s true, right?” I suddenly thought to ask. “About Jewish names?”

“Yes, it’s true. But Joel didn’t hear anything about the clients from me.”

“Well, thank you. If you think of anything else, could you call me?”

“Of course. So you really do think Joel’s death is connected to this case? Ruth tells me the police don’t.”

“They might be right. But they’ll have to prove it, before I stop.”

Rosenberg smiled. “That’s exactly what Joel would have said.”

David Rosenberg returned to the crowd in the living room. Bill and I stayed on the porch. The day had grown grayer and heavier, and the kids had come back indoors. No one scolded them for getting their clothes dirty.

“That morning, before he called you,” Bill said, taking out a cigarette, “there were only those two other calls. Rosenberg and Alice. If whatever was ‘fishy’ had come up the night before, wouldn’t he have called you then?”

“Probably, yes.”

“So if there was nothing in that conversation with Rosenberg-”

“Then whatever it was must have been in the call to Alice? Well, but that may not be true. He might have found something on a Web site. His laptop’s gone, so we don’t know where he surfed. Or he might have met someone for a quick cup of coffee. Or just put something together in his head. It doesn’t have to have been on the phone.”

“Granted.”

“But it would be worth knowing what he and Alice talked about in detail anyway, is that what you’re thinking?”

“That, and also, how Joel sounded.”

“Well, in the process of firing me again, she did say she’d call when she got back today. I guess she’s not back yet.”

“Possible. But let me remind you, you also implied you’d give up the case.”

“Ah. And if one of us was fibbing, maybe the other was, too? You think it’s okay to call from here?”

“Yes. You think it’s okay to smoke?”

“No.”

I dialed Alice, got voice mail, and left a message. “I bet she’s ducking me.”

“She’s probably tired of firing you.”

“So she should stop. What does ‘Mutt and Jeff’ mean?”

“Sorry?”

“Mr. Rosenberg used it about Alice and her sister. It’s one of those cultural references I don’t get, right?”

“It used to be a comic strip. Two guys very different from each other. They stopped running it more than twenty years ago, so if you don’t get it it’s probably because you’re young, not because you’re Chinese.”

“You say that as though it makes my ignorance better.”

“Well, youth is a condition that will change.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Leah Pilarsky stepped onto the porch bearing a plate of rugelach. “I thought you might be hungry. Did you talk to David?”

“Yes, thanks. Though I’m not sure how much good it did.” I stood. “Leah, thank you. We’d better go now. If I can do anything, will you promise to call me?”

“And you’ll tell us if we can help in your work? I know Joel would want that.”

I promised I would, thinking that what Joel would really want would be for me to find the bastard who killed him. Silently, I promised I’d do that, too.

As we drove back to the highway, I pulled Bill’s papers from the envelope.

“You want to read those again?” he asked. “You’re not depressed enough?”

“Well, for one thing, you paraphrased some, so I haven’t actually read them. But also, I keep having this feeling there’s something we missed.”

“What kind of thing?”

“I don’t know.” I started to go over his translations of Rosalie’s letters again. He was right, they were depressing, but he was also right, I was already depressed. I scanned the ones I’d already read, and was about to slip the last of those back in the envelope and start the first of the ones I hadn’t, when I reached its final paragraph.

“Bill!” I yelped. “This is it! What we missed! It’s the jeweler!”

“What jeweler?”

“Mr. Friedman’s book said the name of the jeweler who made the Shanghai Moon was lost. But here it is! Corens, Herr Corens.” I whipped out my cell phone.

“What do you-”

I waved to shush him as I heard, “Friedman and Sons, you’ve reached Stanley Friedman.”

“Lydia Chin, Mr. Friedman. Do you know a jeweler named Corens? A refugee also, German, I think. He was in Shanghai the same time as Rosalie Gilder.”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Is there an association, a jewelers’ organization-”

He chuckled. “There are dozens. But the grapevine, it’s better. Shall I check for you?”

“Would you? It’s important.” I thanked him, pocketed the phone, and, in answer to Bill’s skeptical glance, said, “I know, I know, it’s a long shot.”

“Even if he finds him. What could he tell us? And if he’s still alive, he’d be close to a hundred.”

“Right on all counts. But it’s a door.”

And it was a door that wasn’t locked, because as I was finishing the last of Rosalie’s letters, Mr. Friedman called back.

“Yaakov Corens, from Berlin, was in Shanghai from 1933 to 1945,” Mr. Friedman told me. “He emigrated to Australia, one of the first to leave after the war. He died in 1982.”

“Oh.” That deflated me. “Well, maybe that’s not a useful lead after all. But thank you. How did you find that out so fast? That’s some grapevine you jewelers have.”

“Don’t be impressed. Two phone calls, that’s all I made. One to a friend, he retired as secretary of the International Guild of Jewelry Artists a few years ago. He knows everybody. He knew Yaakov Corens.”

“And the other?”