The Head of Athena

CYRUS SKEEN, noted private detective in San Francisco, has followed an international art fence, ANDRE PETROSSIAN, to a burlesque theater, hoping that the man will lead him to the artworks stolen from a Boston museum. When the theater is raided by the police, Petrossian makes a run for it, but is shot dead by Sergeant ROBERT HOILE, a homicide detective who had made a wager with a colleague that he could find the man responsible for molesting children in a city playground. Together Hoile and Skeen recover the cache of stolen artwork, and learn that Petrossian had planned to sell it to HANDY OLLO, a mobster who owns a gambling ship off the city's coast.The next evening, while attending a ballet, Skeen is approached by EDGAR FREUND, a trial attorney famous for representing gangsters and corrupt politicians. Freund wants to hire Skeen to find evidence proving the innocence of his newest client, ENOCH PAIGE, a noted orator and promulgator of atheism. Paige, the son of a wealthy mining company founder, has been charged with the brutal rape-murder of his ex-wife, ESMEE PLANCHET. Paige is free on a quarter million dollar bail posted by his older brother, REUBEN, who inherited their father's estate and business. Paige is supposed to have bludgeoned his ex-wife to death with his wedding gift to her, a marble bust of Athena by the 19th century sculptor, Hiram Powers. His trial is scheduled for August, and the city's newspapers and clergy are clamoring for his conviction.The next day, Skeen attends Paige's last public lecture on atheism in a hired hall in China Basin. The lecture is interrupted, first by hecklers in the audience, then by men who attempt to drive Paige from the podium. Skeen helps defend Paige and fight off the mob. Paige is nearly re-arrested by Robert Hoile, who Skeen learns originally arrested Paige for Planchet's murder.Later in the day, in the Hall of Justice, Skeen is shown the evidence arrayed against Paige by Hoile, but he points out its deficiencies to the sergeant, who is disappointed that Skeen may be working for Paige. Outside the Hall of Justice, Skeen later observes and recognizes EPHRAIM HONTZ meeting with some of the men who were arrested for inciting the riot at Paige's lecture and are out on bail. Hontz, a low-level thug, discards a scrap of paper, which Skeen retrieves. On it are cryptically written Biblical quotations. Skeen then calls on his friend Lieutenant PATRICK DONOVAN, and learns why Hoile may hate Paige: his fiancée was kidnapped, raped and murdered by four men years ago, in retaliation for Hoile having broken up a white slavery gang. Skeen likes Hoile, but observes that the homicide detective is too obsessed with punishing Paige. Skeen links Ephraim Hontz with an ambulance-chasing lawyer, ALVIN PELL. Skeen follows Pell to a rendezvous in an illegal bar in the Mission District, and anonymously saves Hontz's life from a gang of vengeful roustabouts. The next day, he interviews DONNA GUTHRIE, an iterant fashion model, department store cashier, and Esmee Planchet's former roommate, and also calls on Reverend OSWALD HOXLEY, a Protestant minister who was trying to reunite Planchet with her estranged parents, who disinherited her when she married Paige. While he is talking with the minister, a brick is thrown through the parsonage window. Attached to it is a note containing slanderous accusations against Hoxley, written in the same odd handwriting as the Biblical quotations Skeen retrieved from Hontz outside the Hall of Justice.It is when a meek male secretary, Lysander Yost, comes to Skeen for help, that Skeen is able to fit the final piece of the puzzle. He is not much surprised by the picture he sees.