The Watchmaker’s Hand

And if so, who would gain from the forgery?

For one, the candidate who was behind Cody in the polls: Marie Leppert, former prosecutor in Texas, near Mexico, where you had a base of operation.

That’s what this was about all along: discrediting Cody, just long enough for him to lose the election. The Kommunalka, its secret radical parent cell, the assassination... All complications.

You’re not responding, Charles, hm? Hardly expect you to. Though I believe your eyes, those intense blue eyes that I am picturing now, are telling me that I’m spot-on.

Well, there’s a way to find out for certain.

And so their “conversation” over, Rhyme had then motored into the parlor, instructing his phone: “Call Sachs.”

While Rhyme had called Emery Digital and learned that, yes, Emery did handle both the.com and.gov email accounts of Stephen Cody, Amelia had gone to the garage where Hale had swapped SUVs one final time and learned of his meeting with Marie Leppert.

“Quod erat demonstrandum, Charles. I’ve proved my case.”

Now, tonight, en route to the dining room, Rhyme paused. His eyes went to the pocket watch on the mantel. The Breguet.

And he gave a sudden laugh of understanding. Hale needed some way to execute his sham assassination attempt by diverting the president. But he could have picked any number of ways — a series of bombs, ending with a small one in the Holland Tunnel. That would’ve done the trick.

But he’d decided to sabotage cranes.

Why?

Drama, certainly. A tumbling tower crane got the city’s attention.

But there was another reason, Rhyme believed, and it was the source of his brief laugh.

Because cranes resemble the hands of timepieces.

Hands...

And was there yet one additional meaning as well? I’ll forego the poker metaphor and pick this one: Was Hale saying that his complex plot here — his last, as it turned out — was, of all his schemes through the years, his finest sleight of hand?

A play on words for anyone who might get it, though Rhyme had a feeling it was meant exclusively for him.

“Dinner,” his aide called.

Noting that no one was watching, Lincoln Rhyme now lifted his glass toward the watch and sipped.

He then moved from the parlor into the dining room, where Thom was placing the first course on the table, and Amelia Sachs was lighting candles.