“Is that all?” Ken’s voice cracked on the words.
“Unfortunately yes.” Lausch nodded. “So many of them were made at the time, you see, to be used—apparently—as small money boxes. They can be found in numerous antique shops.”
“Very interesting. Ve-ry interesting,” Sandy said in a curious choked voice.
“Sintelli was quite surprised at your third question,” Lausch went on. “He doesn’t know why you thought such a box as this might have been stolen from a museum or anywhere else. They’re not valuable or rare enough to merit inclusion in a collection—or to merit the risk of stealing, for that matter.”
“Ken will have to refer to his crystal ball for an explanation of that,” Sandy murmured.
Lausch glanced at him questioningly. “I didn’t quite understand you.”
“Nothing—nothing,” Sandy said hastily. “Let’s see. There was one further question, wasn’t there?”
“Yes,” Lausch referred to his notes once more. “Could such a box be duplicated, you wanted to know. Sintelli doesn’t know why any craftsman would attempt it. As I said, the boxes themselves are readily available and inexpensive. And, besides, their only charm lies in the fact that, being handmade, no two were exactly alike. An exact duplication would seem pointless. And a modern craftsman would probably charge more to make such a thing than you would pay for an original box.”
“But it could be duplicated—if there was any reason for doing such a thing?”
Ken knew that Sandy’s persistence was deliberate. He was turning the knife in the wound, paying Ken back for that long vigil in the cold that morning.