Book 2 in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series

“ Gramercy Park,” said Miss Henrietta Tyler, “is an oasis in the middle of a cruel sea, a respite from the slings and arrows of which the Bard has warned us.” A sigh escaped her lips, the sort of sigh that follows upon the contemplation of an oasis in the middle of a sea. “Young man,” she said, “I do not know what I would do without this blessed green plot. I simply do not know what I would do.”

The blessed green plot is a private park tucked into Manhattan ’s East Twenties. There is a fence around the park, a black wrought-iron fence seven or eight feet high. A locked gate denies access to persons who have no legal right to enter. Only those persons who live in certain buildings surrounding the park and who pay an annual fee toward its maintenance are issued keys that will unlock the iron gate.

Miss Henrietta Tyler, who was seated on the green bench beside me, had such a key. She had told me her name, along with much of her personal history, in the fifteen minutes or so we’d been sitting together. Given time, I was fairly sure she’d tell me everything that had occurred in New York since her birth, which I calculated had taken place just a year or two after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. She was a dear old thing, was Miss Henrietta, and she wore a sweet little hat with a veil. My grandmother used to wear sweet little hats with veils. You don’t see them much anymore.