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It had struck Denia Soderling as a perfectly reasonable solution, and it even seeh she’d have been just as happy to see him back horasp it? He u

Thirty-Eight

Denia Soderling must have heard him pull into the drive, because she met him at the front door with a cup of coffee "I know you want to get right to work on the stamps," she told him

He set himself up in the sta with his tongs and a box of sht his own Scott Classic catalog along; he used it not only as a price guide but as a checklist, circling the number of each new acquisition, so that it served as a full inventory of his collection

The bookcase full of albuan with Italy and Colonies He opened it to the Italian Aegean Islands But for sta about the Turco-Italian War of 1911–12, which ended with Italy in control of three provinces in Libya and thirteen islands in the Aegean Sea The largest island was Rhodes, which he figured ht have trouble finding it on a map The others were Calchi, Calino, Caso, and Coo, Lero, Lisso, and Nisiro, Patmo and Piscopi, and Scarpanto, Simi, and Stampalia, and it had taken many hours at his desk to enable Keller to reel them off like that

Turkey officially ceded the islands to Italy in 1924, under the Treaty of Lausanne, but as early as 1912 the Italians had begun overprinting stamps for use there, and each island had its own stamps One island’s sta the only difference, but Keller liked theh priced at only a few dollars apiece, were virtually impossible to find

They ell represented in Jeb Soderling’s collection Keller, tongs in hand, went to work, selecting a sta number and price Calchi 5, 325 Calino 4–5, 650 Caso, sa also had the Caso Garibaldi issue, the only Garibaldi set Keller still needed Caso 17–26, unused, lightly hinged: 170

And so on

There was a ’s presence in the rooone, and a fresh cup of coffee had replaced the eh French Colonial issues by then, and got all the way to an early overprinted issue from Gabon, when she returned to ask if he’d like to break for lunch

"In a fewhis eyes froot about her, and about lunch, and the next thing he knew the door had opened and closed again, just barely registering on his consciousness, and there was a tray at the far end of the desk holding a plate of sandwiches and a glass of iced tea

He forced himself to take a break, ate the sandwiches, drank the iced tea Away fro his lunch, his mind returned to the burned-out suburban hoht a Denver newscast on thepaper while he ate his breakfast, and as far as he could ed Richard Hudepohl remained in critical condition, a fire department spokesman attributed the fire’s rapid devastation to the use of "ically deployed," and Joanne Hudepohl, having released a stateh an attorney, seemed to have lawyered up

No concern of his, Keller assured hi about it, but there was nothing to do about it, and it vanished from his mind the moment he returned to the stamps

It was hard to knohen to stop Jeb Soderling’s collection had no end of stao through it like locusts through a field of barley He worked diligently, keeping a running tally as he went along

At one point he looked over at theand was surprised to note that day had apparently turned to night He hadn’t glanced at his watch, and didn’t do so now He told hiot out of there, but first there was one ht to have a look at…

By the tied from the stamp room, it was almost ten o’clock He was pretty sure Denny’s would be open, not that he feltroom table was set for two, and before he knew it she had steered hiested he pour the wine While he filled their glasses froht their dinner to the table--a tossed salad in a large wooden bowl, a pot of chili

He’d been ready to apologize for his lack of appetite, but once he got a whiff of the chili he had nothing to apologize for He polished off one bowl and let himself be talked into another

"I know beer’s the natural accompaniment to chili," she said, "but my husband preferred wine He said a full-bodied red transported the dish from a West Texas juke joint to a three-star restaurant"

"It’s great chili," Keller said

"The secret’s the cumin," she said, "except it’s not much of a secret, because you can smell it, can’t you? But there is a secret Would you like to knohat it is?"

"Sure"

"Coffee Leftover coffee, although I suppose you could make a pot for the occasion if you didn’t have any left over You simmer the beans in it You can’t taste it, can you? I can’t, not even if I know it’s there But it is there, and it makes all the difference"

Over coffee--in china cups, not in their chili--he told her that he’d finished selecting the stamps that would constitute his commission on the sale He estimated the fair h of course the book value was a good deal higher than that

The staiven hi And the box would remain in the stamp room until it was time for him to take it back to New Orleans

"Of course," she said "It wouldn’t be safe to leave it in your h, although he hadn’t even thought of that aspect of it The stamps weren’t his yet, and wouldn’t be until the rest of the collection was sold

"And that brings up another question," she said "We’ll have a stamp dealer here on each of the next three days, and I don’t suppose they’ll breeze in, flip through albuain"

Keller agreed that it would take each dealer the better part of a day

"And you’ll be here while they are? Not that I wouldn’t be safe, but--"