A Rare Murder In Princeton Read Online Free Page A

at what Anthony Trollope actually wrote.”
    “We’ll make a collector out of you yet,” said Sheridan.
    “I’m very grateful,” McLeod said. “To both of you.”
    “Thanks, Philip,” Nat said and steered McLeod back to his office.
    “That was so interesting, Nat. Tell me about the Sheridan collection. Who is he? Do the books and manuscripts belong to Princeton or to Philip Sheridan?”
    “Philip Sheridan is from a tremendously wealthy old Princeton family. He went to Princeton and he’s always been a loyal alumnus. His father was something of a collector of Americana—he’s the one who bought the Bay Psalm Book. That’s the jewel of the Sheridan Collection.”
    “What’s that?” asked McLeod.
    “It’s the first book printed in America and it is extremely rare,” said Natty. “Philip is interested in Americana but he’s more of an Anglophile and he put together this incredible accumulation of British books and manuscripts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was my predecessor who got him to promise his books and manuscripts to Princeton. The books still technically belong to Sheridan, but in his will he leaves the collection to Princeton, along with a trust fund to pay for a curator and cataloger. In return, we house his collection for him now—it’s quite safe here, safer than it was in his home. And he paid for building those two rooms—they’re replicas of his own library. Everything in it is included in our catalog, and researchers have access to the collection. Researchers don’t work in his rooms, of course, but in the Dulles Reading Room, and staff members bring them the books they call for, just as they do for other books and manuscripts. The Sheridan Collection is heavily used by researchers, as a matter of fact.” He paused for breath. “Now for van Dyke. You can look in the Finding Guide for the van Dyke papers—it’s a kind of index.” He handed it to her.
    McLeod, realizing she had to pay the price of holding a Trollope manuscript in her hands, dutifully looked at the Finding Guide, a large loose-leaf notebook that listed the contents of the collection box by box. Hmmm, she thought when she saw that the collection contained 179 boxes of the papers of three generations of the van Dyke family. Subject headings included things like CLERGY—UNITED STATES—19TH CENTURY—CORRESPONDENCE. It looked dismal.
    Nat Ledbetter did not sense, or just ignored, her lack of enthusiasm. “Now for the papers,” he said cheerfully. McLeod could do nothing but acquiesce.
    Nat led her back out to the receptionist. “Molly will get you signed in and show you how to get started.” It seemed that Nat was washing his hands of her. Molly asked McLeod to sign the daily register and gave her a form to fill out for permanent registration. Then she showed McLeod how to stow her purse and everything else she had brought with her in one of the lockers—not ugly metal lockers, but lockers with wooden doors that measured up to the generally lofty tone of everything in Rare Books and Special Collections.
    “You can only take loose pieces of paper and a pencil with you,” said Molly. “And the key to your locker.” Then she led McLeod back to the John Foster Dulles Reading Room, an octagonal space with tall windows and long tables for researchers. McLeod filled out a call slip for the first box in the van Dyke collection and gave it to the keeper of the Reading Room, who in turn gave it to a page, who quickly disappeared.

Four

    MCLEOD WAS SO overwhelmed by the masses of boring papers in the first van Dyke box—sermons written by Henry’s father—that she soon gave up and left the Reading Room and Rare Books and Special Collections. However, she was sufficiently curious that she went to the library stacks and found a copy of “The Other Wise Man” and a book that van Dyke’s son, Tertius, had written about his father, and checked them both out.
    Outside, she buttoned up her coat, pulled