NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A renowned map dealer accused of stealing centuries-old artifacts from Yale University is scheduled to be in court today in a case that investigators hope will lead them to several antique maps that recently disappeared from other libraries.

In the eight weeks since Edward Forbes Smiley III was arrested at Yale with a razor blade and a cache of maps worth nearly $900,000, libraries in Chicago, Boston and London have reported finding gaps in their collections.

"We know that Smiley looked at four books, so we have taken those four books, we've turned every page, and we think he may have taken two maps," said Charles T. Cullen, president of the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Smiley, 49, was arrested on larceny charges June 8 after a librarian at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library found a razor blade on the floor. Police confronted Smiley, who had been reviewing rare books, and asked whether the blade was his.

"Yes, it is," he nervously replied, according to a police report. "I must have dropped it. I have a cold."

Officers searched Smiley's briefcase and pockets and recovered three maps stolen from Yale and four maps that investigators are trying to trace. Smiley told investigators that the maps were his and that he wanted to compare their quality to those in Yale's collection.

Smiley declined to comment yesterday when reached at his office on Cape Cod. His attorney said he will plead not guilty .

The arrest touched off an FBI investigation and prompted a review of rare map collections worldwide. Rare maps frequently are contained in old books or folios, making it easier for thieves to remove them without a library's noticing that they are missing.

Newberry librarians said a 1673 map of Virginia and a map of South Carolina from the 1700s were missing from books that Smiley had reviewed.

Though Smiley reviewed many of the books that librarians have since realized were missing maps, the FBI has so far been unable to link him to the thefts, librarians said.

At the Newberry, Cullen said curators knew that the maps were in the books when they were catalogued, that Smiley was the last person to view the books and that the maps are now missing. But they didn't know whether they were in the books when Smiley reviewed them, he said.