Dead Soldiers Read Free Page A

me,“ Partridge said.
    “Stolen, you mean?“
    “Yes, I suppose so. Stolen.“
    “Do you know who did it?“ Burns asked.
    “No. I have no idea.“
    “What was stolen?“
    Partridge looked at the painting again. “Toy soldiers,“ she said.

Chapter Three
     
    “T oy soldiers?“ Burns said. “Why would anyone take toy soldiers?“
    “Well,“ Partridge said, “for one thing, they’re worth several thousand dollars.“
    Burns twisted uncomfortably in his chair. “I remember your telling me once that you got them from a man who made his own molds, but I had no idea they were so valuable.“
    “Those aren’t the ones that were taken. The ones I’m talking about are genuine collectors’ items, made by Britains just before the turn of the century. Britains made the best.“ She paused. “Actually, the soldiers themselves aren’t worth quite as much as I said, since whoever took them left the box.“
    Burns had no idea what she was talking about. “The box?“
    “Yes. It’s bright red, and it’s the original box. When children were given the sets as gifts, they usually threw away the box. That’s why having the box makes the soldiers so much more valuable.“
    Burns was having a hard time figuring out why a box was worth so much.
    “It’s the same with any collectible toy,“ Partridge said. “Let’s say you have a Rifleman gun, a toy modeled on the one used on that Chuck Connors TV show.“
    “I’ve heard of that show,“ Burns said. “It was a little before my time, though.“
    “I’m talking about a principle here, not a TV show. The Rifleman gun is going to be worth two to three times as much to a collector if it’s in the original box. Did you ever collect anything?“
    “Baseball cards,“ Burns said. “When I was a kid.“
    “Do you still have them?“
    “I don’t think so. They were in a shoebox under my bed. My mother probably tossed them out when I went to college.“
    “That’s too bad. Some of the older cards are quite valuable. And if you had the original wrappers, well, you’d really have something. I wasn’t a card collector myself, but I assume that nearly everyone threw the wrappers away as soon as the gum was unwrapped.“
    “We threw the gum away, too.“
    He remembered the sickly sweet smell of the pink gum, often coated with some powdery substance that he could never identify. The gum was rectangular, like the cards, hard, and brittle as glass. Burns and his friends used to throw it on the sidewalk to see it shatter.
    “The gum wouldn’t be worth much, I’m afraid,“ Partridge said, “even if you’d kept it.“
    “Probably not,“ Burns agreed. “It wasn’t worth much even as chewing gum. But let’s get back to those soldiers.“
    “They were Civil War figures. Very colorful, very nicely done, as you can imagine from their value.“
    “Where did you keep them?“
    “They were in the cabinet in my den, along with some other things.“
    Burns had been in Partridge’s house only once, and he was thinking that he hadn’t been as observant as he should have.
    “What other things?“
    “Just some other collectible items. A Malibu Barbie, some Star Wars figures, a 3-D movie magazine, and Elvis’s Christmas album. The cabinet wasn’t locked. I suppose it should have been.“
    It was too late to worry about that now, Burns thought. He said, “But only the soldiers were taken?“
    “That’s right.“
    Burns didn’t like the way things were going at all, and he certainly didn’t want to ask his next question. He did it anyway.
    “Have you told the . . . police?“
    Dean Partridge looked over Burns’s head, probably at another of the O’Keefe prints, thinking things over, though Burns wasn’t sure what there was to think about.
    Finally she said, “I haven’t talked to the police.“
    Burns had been afraid she was going to say that. She probably suspected Boss Napier of the theft. He was the logical person, if you looked at it in the right way. He