The 1st Deadly Sin

5

The next day started well, with a call from a book dealer informing Captain Delaney that he had located two volumes of the original Honey Bunch series. The Captain was delighted, and it was arranged that the books would be mailed to him, along with the invoice.

He took this unexpected find as a good omen, for like most policemen he was superstitious. He would tell others, “You make your own luck,” knowing this wasn’t exactly true; there was a good fortune that came unexpectedly, sometimes unasked, and the important thing was to recognize it when it came, for luck wore a thousand disguises, including calamity.

He sat at his study desk and reviewed a list of “Things to Do” he had prepared. It read:

“Interrogate Monica Gilbert.

“Calvin Case re ice ax.

“Ferguson re autopsy.

“Call Langley.

“Honey Bunch.”

He drew a line through the final item. He was about to draw a line through the first and then, for a reason he could not understand, left it open. He searched, and finally found the slip of paper Thomas Handry had given him, bearing the name, address and telephone number of Calvin Case. He realized more and more people were being drawn into his investigation, and he resolved to set up some kind of a card file or simple directory that would list names, addresses, and phone numbers of all the people involved.

He considered what might be the best way to handle the Calvin Case interview. He decided against phoning; an unexpected personal visit would be better. Sometimes it was useful to surprise people, catch them off guard with no opportunity to plan their reaction.

He walked over to Lexington Avenue, shoulders hunched against the raw cold, and took the IRT downtown. It seemed to him each time he rode the subway-and his trips were rare-the graffiti covered more and more of interior and exterior surfaces of cars and platforms. Sexual and racist inscriptions were, thankfully, relatively rare, but spray cans and felt-tipped markers had been used by the hundreds for such records as: “Tony 168. Vic 134. Angie 127. Bella 78. Iron Wolves 127.” He knew these to be the first names of individuals and the titles of street gangs, followed by their street number-evidence: “I was here.”

He got off at 14th Street and walked west and south, looking about him constantly, noting how this section had changed and was changing since he had been a dick two in this precinct and thought he might leave the world a better place than he found it. Now if he left it no worse, he’d be satisfied.

The address was on West 11th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. The rents here, Delaney knew, were enormous, unless Case was fortunate enough to have a rent-controlled apartment. The house itself was a handsome old structure in the Federal style. All the front windows had white-painted boxes of geraniums or ivy on the sills. The outside knob and number plate were polished brass. The garbage cans had their lids on; the entry way had been swept. There was a little sign that read “Please curb your dog.” Under it someone had written, “No shit?”

Calvin Case lived in apartment 3-B. Delaney pushed the bell and leaned down to the intercom. He waited, but there was no answer. He pushed the bell again, three long rings. This time a harsh masculine voice said, “What the hell. Yes?”

“Mr. Calvin Case?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“My name is Captain Edward X. Delaney. Of the New York Police Department. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“What about?” The voice was loud, slurred, and the mechanics of the intercom made it raucous.

“It’s about an investigation I’m conducting.”

There was silence. It lasted so long that Delaney was about to ring again when the door lock buzzed, and he grabbed the knob hastily, opened the door, and climbed carpeted steps to 3-B. There was another bell. He rang, and again he waited for what he thought was an unusually long time. Then another buzzer sounded. He was startled and did nothing. When you rang the bell of an apartment door, you expected someone to inquire from within or open the door. But now a buzzer sounded.

Then, remembering the man was an invalid, and cursing his own stupidity, Delaney rang again. The answering buzz seemed long and angry. He pushed the door open, stepped into the dark hallway of a small, cluttered apartment. Delaney shut the door firmly behind him, heard the electric lock click.

“Mr. Case?” he called.

“In here.” The voice was harsh, almost cracked.

The captain walked through a littered living room. Someone slept in here, on a sofa bed that was still unmade. There were signs of a woman’s presence: a tossed nightgown, a powder box and makeup kit on an end table, lipsticked cigarette butts, tossed copies of “Vogue” and “Bride.” But there were a few plants at the windows, a tall tin vase of fresh rhododendron leaves. Someone was making an effort.

Delaney stepped through the disorder to an open door leading to the rear of the apartment. Curiously, the door frame between the cluttered living room and the bedroom beyond had been fitted with a window shade with a cord pull. The shade, Delaney guessed, could be pulled down almost to the floor, shutting off light, affording some kind of privacy, but not as sound-proof as a door. And, of course, it couldn’t be locked.

He ducked under the hanging shade and looked about the bedroom. Dusty windows, frayed curtains, plaster curls from the ceiling, a stained rag rug, two good oak dressers with drawers partly open, newspapers and magazines scattered on the floor. And then the bed, and on the opposite wall a shocking big stain as if someone had thrown a full bottle, watched it splinter and the contents drip down.

The smell was…something. Stale whiskey, stale bedclothes, stale flesh. Urine and excrement. There was a tiny log of incense smoking in a cast iron pot; it made things worse. The room was rotting. Delaney had smelled odors more ferocious than this-was there a cop who had not? — but it never got easier. He breathed through his mouth and turned to the man in the bed.

It was a big bed, occupied at some time in the past, Delaney imagined, by Calvin Case and his wife. Now she slept on the convertible in the living room. The bed was surrounded, by tables, chairs, magazine racks, a telephone stand, a wheeled cart with bottles and an ice bucket, on the floor an open bedpan and plastic “duck.” Tissues, a half-eaten sandwich, a sodden towel, cigarette and cigar butts, a paperback book with pages torn out in a frenzy, and even a hard-cover bent and partly ripped, a broken glass, and…and everything.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Then he looked directly at the man in the bed.

The soiled sheet, a surprising blue, was drawn up to the chin. All Delaney saw was a square face, a square head. Uncombed hair was spread almost to the man’s shoulders. The reddish mustache and beard were squarish. And untrimmed. Dark eyes burned. The full lips were stained and crusted.

“Calvin Case?”

“Yeah.”

“Captain Edward X. Delaney, New York Police Department. I’m investigating the death-the murder-of a man we believe-”

“Let’s see your badge.”

Delaney stepped closer to the bed. The stench was sickening. He held his identification in front of Case’s face. The man hardly glanced at it. Delaney stepped back.

“We believe the man was murdered with an ice ax. A mountain climber’s ax. So I came-”

“You think I did it?” The cracked lips opened to reveal yellowed teeth: a death’s head grin.

Delaney was shocked. “Of course not. But I need more information on ice axes. And as the best mountain climber-you’ve been recommended to me-I thought you might be-”

“Fuck off,” Calvin Case said wearily, moving his heavy head to one side.

“You mean you won’t cooperate in finding a man who-”

“Be gone,” Case whispered. “Just be gone.”

Delaney turned, moved away two steps, stopped. There was Barbara, and Christopher Langley, and Monica Gilbert, and all the peripheral people: Handry and Thorsen and Ferguson and Dorfman, and here was this…He took a deep breath, hating himself because even his furies were calculated. He turned back to the cripple on the soiled bed. He had nothing to lose.

“You goddamned cock-sucking mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch,” he said steadily and tonelessly. “You shit-gutted ass-licking bastard. I’m a detective, and I detect you, you punky no-ball frigger. Go ahead, lie in your bed of crap. Who buys the food? Your wife-right? Who tries to keep a home for you? Your wife-right? Who empties your shit and pours your piss in the toilet? Your wife-right? And you lie there and soak up whiskey. I could smell you the minute I walked in, you piece of rot. It’s great to lie in bed and feel sorry for yourself, isn’t it? You corn-holing filth. Go piss and shit in your bed and drink your whiskey and work your wife to death and scream at her, you crud. A man? Oh! You’re some man, you lousy ass-kissing turd. I spit on you, and I forget the day I heard your name, you dirt-eating nobody. You don’t exist. You understand? You’re no one.”

He turned away, almost out of control, and a woman was standing in the bedroom doorway, a slight, frail blonde, her hair brushing the window shade. Her face was blanched; she was biting on a knuckle.

He took a deep breath, tried to square his shoulders, to feel bigger. He felt very small.

“Mrs. Case?”

She nodded.

“My name is Edward X. Delaney, Captain, New York Police Department. I came to ask your husband’s help on an investigation. If you heard what I said, I apologize for my language. I’m very sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t know you were there.”

She nodded dumbly again, still gnawing her knuckle and staring at him with wide blue eyes.

“Good-day,” he said and moved to pass her in the doorway. “Captain,” the man in the bed croaked.

Delaney turned back. “Yes?”

“You’re some bastard, aren’t you?”

“When I have to be,” Delaney nodded.

“You’ll use anyone, won’t you? Cripples, drunks, the helpless and the hopeless. You’ll use them all.”

“That’s right. I’m looking for a killer. I’ll use anyone who can help.”

Calvin Case used the edge of his soiled blue sheet to wipe his clotted eyes clear.

“And you got a big mouth,” he added. “A biiig mouth.” He reached to the wheeled cart for a half-full bottle of whiskey and a stained glass. “Honey,” he called to his wife, “we got a clean glass for Mister Captain Edward X. Delaney, New York Police Department?”

She nodded, still silent. She ran out, then came back with two glasses. Calvin Case poured a round, then set the bottle back on the cart. The three raised glasses in a silent toast, although what they were drinking to they could not have said.

“Cal, are you hungry?” his wife asked anxiously. “I’ve got to get back to work soon.”

“No, not me. Captain, you want a sandwich?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Just leave us alone, hon.”

“Maybe I should just clean up a-”

“Just leave us alone. Okay, hon?”

She turned to go.

“Mrs. Case,” Delaney said.

She turned back.

“Please stay. Whatever your husband and I have to discuss, there is no reason why you can’t hear it.”

She was startled. She looked back and forth, man to man, not knowing.

Calvin Case sighed. “You’re something,” he said to Captain Delaney. “You’re really something.”

“That’s right,” Delaney nodded. “I’m something.”

“You barge in here and you take over.”

“You want to talk now?” Delaney asked impatiently. “Do you want to answer my questions?”

“First tell me what it’s all about.”

“A man was killed with a strange weapon. We think it was an ice ax and-”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“I think it was an ice ax. I want to know more about it, and your name was given to me as the most experienced mountaineer in New York.”

“Was,” Case said softly. “Was.”

They sipped their drinks, looked at each other stonily. For once, there were no sirens, no buffalo whistles, no trembles of blasting or street sounds, no city noises. It was on this very block, Delaney recalled, that a fine old town house was accidentally demolished by a group of bumbling revolutionaries, proving their love of the human race by preparing bombs in the basement. Now, in the Case apartment, they existed in a bubble of silence, and unconsciously they lowered their voices.

“A captain comes to investigate a crime?” Case asked quietly. “Even a murder? No, no. A uniformed cop or a detective, yes. A captain, no. What’s it all about, Delaney?”

The Captain took a deep breath. “I’m on leave of absence. I’m not on active duty. You’re under no obligation to answer my questions. I was commander of the Two-five-one Precinct. Uptown. A man was killed there about a month ago. On the street. Maybe you read about it. Frank Lombard, a city councilman. A lot of men are working on the case, but they’re getting nowhere. They haven’t even identified the weapon used. I started looking into it on my own time. It’s not official; as I told you, I’m on leave of absence. Then, three days ago, another man was attacked not too far from where Lombard was killed. This man is still alive but will probably die. His wound is like Lombard’s: a skull puncture. I think it was done with an ice ax.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The nature of the wound, the size and shape. And an ice ax has been used as a murder weapon before. It was used to assassinate Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in nineteen-forty.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Whatever you can tell me about ice axes, who makes them, where you buy them, what they’re used for.”

Calvin Case looked at his wife. “Will you get my axes, hon? They’re in the hall closet.”

While she was gone the men didn’t speak. Case motioned toward a chair, but Delaney shook his head. Finally Mrs. Case came back, awkwardly clutching five axes. Two were under an arm; she held the handles of the other three in a clump.

“Dump ’em on the bed,” Case ordered, and she obediently let them slide onto the soiled sheet.

Delaney stood over them, inspected them swiftly, then grabbed. It was an all-steel implement, hatchet-length, the handle bound in leather. From the butt of the handle hung a thong loop. The head had a hammer on one side, a pick on the other. The pick was exactly like that described by Christopher Langley; about five inches long, it was square-shaped at the shaft, then tapered to a thinning triangle. As it tapered, the spike curved downward and ended in a sharp point. On the underside were four little saw teeth. The entire head was a bright red, the leather-covered handle a bright blue. Between was a naked shaft of polished steel. There was a stamping on the side of the head: a small inscription. Delaney put on his glasses to read it: “Made in West Germany.”

“This-” he began.

“That’s not an ice ax,” Calvin Case interrupted. “Technically, it’s an ice hammer. But most people call it an ice ax. They lump all these things together.”

“You bought it in West Germany?”

“No. Right here in New York. The best mountain gear is made in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But they export all over the world.”

“Where in New York did you buy it?”

“A place I used to work. I got an employees’ discount on it. It’s down on Spring Street, a place called ‘Outside Life.’ They sell gear for hunting, fishing, camping, safaris, mountaineering, back-packing-stuff like that.”

“May I use your phone?”

“Help yourself,”

He was so encouraged, so excited, that he couldn’t remember Christopher Langley’s phone number and had to look it up in his pocket notebook. But he would not put the short ice ax down; he held it along with the phone in one hand while he dialed. He finally got through.

“Mr. Langley? Delaney here.”

“Oh, Captain! I should have called, but I really have nothing to report. I’ve made a list of possible sources, and I’ve been visiting six or seven shops a day. But so far I-”

“Mr. Langley, do you have your list handy?”

“Why yes, Captain. Right here. I was just about to start out when you called.”

“Do you have a store named Outside Life on your list?”

“Outside Life? Just a minute…Yes, here it is. It’s on Spring Street.”

“That’s the one.”

“Yes, I have it. I’ve divided my list into neighborhoods, and I have that in the downtown section. I haven’t been there yet.”

“Mr. Langley. I have a lead they may have what we want. Could you get there today?”

“Of course. I’ll go directly.”

“Thank you. Please call me at once, whether you find it or not. I’ll either be home or at the hospital.”

He hung up, turned back to Calvin Case, still holding the ice ax. He didn’t want to let it go. He swung the tool in a chopping stroke. Then he raised it high and slashed down. “Nice balance,” he nodded.

“Sure,” Case agreed. “And plenty of weight. You could kill a man easily.”

“Tell me about ice axes.”

Calvin Case told him what he could. It wasn’t much. He thought the modern ice ax had evolved from the ancient Alpinestock, a staff as long as a shepherd’s crook. In fact, Case had seen several still in use in Switzerland. They were tipped with hand-hammered iron spikes, and used to probe the depth of snow, try the consistency of ice, test stone ledges and overhangs, probe crevasses.

“Then,” Case said, “the two-handed ice ax was developed.”

He leaned forward from the waist to pick up samples from the foot of his bed. Apparently he was naked under the sheet. His upper torso had once been thick and muscular. Now it had gone to flab: pale flesh matted with reddish hair, smelling rankly.

He showed the long ice axes to Delaney, explaining how the implement could be used as a cane, driven into ice as a rope support, the mattock side of the head used to chop foot and hand holds in ice as capable of load-bearing as granite. The butt end of the handle varied. It could be a plain spike for hiking on glaciers, or fitted with a small thonged wheel for walking on crusted snow, or simply supplied with a small knurled cap.

“Where did you get all these?” Delaney asked.

“These two in Austria. This one in West Germany. This one in Geneva.”

“You can buy them anywhere?”

“Anywhere in Europe, sure. Climbing is very big over there.”

“And here?”

“There must be a dozen stores in New York. Maybe more. And other places too, of course. The West Coast, for instance.”

“And this one?” Delaney had slipped the thong loop of the short ice ax over his wrist. “What’s this used for?”

“Like I told you, technically it’s an ice hammer. If you’re on stone, you can start a hole with the pick end. Then you try to hammer in a piton with the other side of the head. A piton is a steel peg. It has a loop on top, and you can attach a line to it or thread it through.”

Delaney drew two fingers across the head of the ax he held. Then he rubbed the tips of the two fingers with his thumb and grinned.

“You look happy,” Case said, pouring himself another whiskey.

“I am. Oiled.”

“What?”

“The ax head is oiled.”

“Oh…sure. Evelyn keeps all my stuff cleaned and oiled. She thinks I’m going to climb again some day. Don’t you, hon?”

Delaney turned to look at her. She nodded mutely, tried to smile. He smiled in return.

“What kind of oil do you use, Mrs. Case?”

“Oh…I don’t know. It’s regular oil. I buy it in a hardware store on Sixth Avenue.”

“A thin oil,” Calvin Case said. “Like sewing machine oil. Nothing special about it.”

“Do all climbers keep their tools cleaned and oiled?”

“The good ones do. And sharp.”

Delaney nodded. Regretfully he relinquished the short-handled ice ax, putting it back with the others on the foot of Case’s bed.

“You said you worked for Outside Life, where you bought this?”

“That’s right. For almost ten years. I was in charge of the mountaineering department. They gave me all the time off I wanted for climbs. It was good publicity for them.”

“Suppose I wanted to buy an ice ax like that. I just walk in and put down my money. Right?”

“Sure. That one cost about fifteen dollars. But that was five years ago.”

“Do I get a cash register receipt, or do they write out an itemized sales check?”

Case looked at him narrowly. Then his bearded face opened into a smile; he showed his stained teeth again.

“Mr. Detective,” he grinned. “Thinking every minute, aren’t you? Well, as far as Outside Life goes, you’re in luck. A sales slip is written out-or was, when I worked there. You got the customer’s name and address. This was because Sol Appel, who owns the place, does a big mail order business. He gets out a Summer and Winter catalogue, and he’s always anxious to add to his list. Then, on the slip, you wrote out the items purchased.”

“After the customer’s name and address were added to the mailing list, how long were the sales slips kept? Do you know?”

“Oh Jesus, years and years. The basement was full of them. But don’t get your balls in an uproar, Captain. Outside Life isn’t the only place in New York where you can buy an ice ax. And most of the other places just ring up the total purchase. There’s no record of the customer’s name, address, or what was bought. And, like I told you, most of these things are imported. You can buy an ice ax in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Geneva, and points in between. And in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Seattle, Montreal, and a hundred other places. So where does that leave you?”

“Thank you very much,” Captain Delaney said, without irony. “You have really been a big help, and I appreciate your cooperation. I apologize for the way I spoke.”

Calvin Case made a gesture, a wave Delaney couldn’t interpret.

“What are you going to do now, Captain?”

“Do now? Oh, you mean my next step. Well, you heard my telephone call. A man who is helping me is on his way to Outside Life. If he is able to purchase an ice ax like yours, then I’ll go down there, ask if they’ll let me go through their sales slips and make a list of people who have bought ice axes.”

“But I just told you, there’ll be thousands of sales checks. Thousands'.”

“I know.”

“And there are other stores in New York that sell ice axes with no record of the buyer. And stores all over the world that sell them.”

“I know.”

“You’re a fool,” Calvin Case said dully, turning his face away. “I thought for awhile you weren’t, but now I think you are.”

“Cal,” his wife said softly, but he didn’t look at her.

“I don’t know what you think detective work is like,” Delaney said, staring at the man in the bed. “Most people have been conditioned by novels, the movies and TV. They think it’s either exotic clues and devilishly clever deductive reasoning, or else they figure it’s all rooftop chases, breaking down doors, and shoot-outs on the subway tracks. All that is maybe five percent of what a detective does. Now I’ll tell you how he mostly spends his time. About fifteen years ago a little girl was snatched on a street out on Long Island. She was walking home from school. A car pulled up alongside her and the driver said something. She came over to the car. A little girl. The driver opened the door, grabbed her, pulled her inside, and took off. There was an eyewitness to this, an old woman who ‘thought’ it was a dark car, black or dark blue or dark green or maroon. And she ‘thought’ it had a New York license plate. She wasn’t sure of anything. Anyway, the parents got a ransom note. They followed instructions exactly: they didn’t call the cops and they paid off. The little girl was found dead three days later. Then the FBI was called in. They had two things to work on: it might have been a New York license plate on the car, and the ransom note was hand-written. So the FBI called in about sixty agents from all over, and they were given a crash course in handwriting identification. Big blowups of parts of the ransom note were pasted on the walls. Three shifts of twenty men each started going through every application for an automobile license that originated on Long Island. They worked around the clock. How many signatures? Thousands? Millions, more likely. The agents set aside the possibles, and then handwriting experts took over to narrow it down.”

“Did they get the man?” Evelyn Case burst out.

“Oh, sure,” Delaney nodded. “They got him. Eventually. And if they hadn’t found it in the Long Island applications, they’d have inspected every license in New York State. Millions and millions and millions. I’m telling you all this so you’ll know what detective work usually is: common sense; a realization that you’ve got to start somewhere; hard, grinding, routine labor; and percentages. That’s about it. Again, I thank you for your help.”

He was almost at the shaded doorway to the living room when Calvin Case spoke in a faint, almost wispy voice.

“Captain.”

Delaney turned. “Yes?”

“If you find the ax at Outside Life, who’ll go through the sales slips?”

Delaney shrugged. “I will. Someone will. They’ll be checked.”

“Sometimes the items listed on the sales slips are just by stock number. You won’t know what they are.”

“I’ll get identification from the owner. I’ll learn what the stock numbers mean.”

“Captain, I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m not going any place. I could go through those sales checks. I know what to look for. I could pull out every slip that shows an ice ax purchase faster than you could.”

Delaney looked at him a long moment, expressionless. “I’ll let you know,” he nodded.

Evelyn Case saw him to the outside door.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

When he left the Case home he walked directly over to Sixth Avenue and turned south, looking for a hardware store. Nothing. He returned to 11th Street and walked north. Still nothing. Then, across Sixth Avenue, on the west side, he saw one.

“A little can of oil,” he told the clerk. “Like sewing machine oil.”

He was offered a small, square can with a long neck sealed with a little red cap.

“Can I oil tools with this?” he asked.

“Of course,” the clerk assured him. “Tools, sewing machines, electric fans, locks…anything. It’s the biggest selling all-purpose oil in the country.”

Thanks a lot, Delaney thought ruefully. He bought the can of oil.

He shouldn’t have taken a cab. They still had sizable balances in their savings and checking accounts, they owned securities (mostly tax-exempt municipal bonds) and, of course, they owned their brownstone. But Delaney was no longer on salary, and Barbara’s medical and hospital bills were frightening. So he really should have taken the subway and changed at 59th Street for a bus. But he felt so encouraged, so optimistic, that he decided to buy a cab to the hospital. On the way uptown he took the little red cap off the oil can and squeezed a few drops of oil onto his fingertips. He rubbed it against his thumb. Thin oil. It felt good, and he smiled.

But Barbara wasn’t in her room. The floor nurse explained she had been taken down to the lab for more X-rays and tests. Delaney left a short note on her bedside table: “Hello. I was here. See you this evening. I love you. Edward.”

He hurried home, stripped off overcoat and jacket, loosened his tie, rolled up his cuffs, put on his carpet slippers. Mary was there and had a beef stew cooking in a Dutch oven. But he asked her to let it cool after it was done; he had too much to do to think about eating.

He had cleaned out the two upper drawers of a metal business file cabinet in the study. In the top drawer he had filed the copies of the Operation Lombard reports. Methodically, he had divided this file in two: Frank Lombard and Bernard Gilbert. Under each heading he had broken the reports down into categories: Weapon, Motive, Wound, Personal History, etc.

In the second drawer he had started his own file, a thin folder that consisted mostly, at this time, of jotted notes.

Now he began to expand these notes into reports, to whom or for what purpose he could not say. But he had worked this way on all his investigations for many years, and frequently found it valuable to put his own instinctive reactions and questions into words. In happier times Barbara had typed put his notes on her electric portable, and that was a big help. But he had never solved the mysteries of the electric, and now would have to be content with handwritten reports.

He started with the long-delayed directory of all the people involved, their addresses and telephone numbers, if he had them or could find them in the book. Then he wrote out reports of his meeting with Thorsen and Johnson, of his interviews with Lombard’s widow, mother, and associates, his talks with Dorfman, with Ferguson. He wrote as rapidly as he could, transcribing scribbles he had made in his pocket notebook, on envelopes of letters, on scraps of paper torn from magazines and newspaper margins.

He wrote of his meeting with Thomas Handry, with Christopher Langley, with Calvin Case. He described the bricklayers’ hammer, the rock hounds’ hammer, and Case’s ice ax-where they had been purchased, when, what they cost, and what they were used for. He wrote a report of his interrogation of Monica Gilbert, his purchase of the can of light machine oil, his filing of a missing driver’s license report.

He should have done all this weeks ago, and he was anxious to catch up and then to keep his file current with daily additions. It might mean nothing, it probably meant nothing, but it seemed important to him to have a written record of what he had done, and the growing mass of paper was, somehow, reassuring. At the rear of the second file drawer he placed the bricklayers’ hammer, the rock hounds’ hammer, and the can of oil: physical evidence.

He worked steadily, stopping twice just long enough to get bottles of cold beer from the kitchen. Mary was upstairs, cleaning, but she had turned the light out under the stew. He lifted the lid and sniffed experimentally. The steam smelled great.

He wrote as clearly and as swiftly as he could, but he admitted his handwriting was miserable. Barbara could read it, but who else could? Still, his neat manila file folders grew: “The Suspect,” Weapon, Motive, Interrogations, Timing, Autopsies, etc. It all looked very official and impressive.

Late in the afternoon, still writing as fast as he could, Mary departed, with a firm command to eat the stew before he collapsed from malnutrition. He locked the door behind her, went back to his reports and then, a few minutes later, the front door bell chimed. He threw his pen down in anger, thought, then said aloud, “Please, God, let it be Langley. With the ax.”

He peered through the narrow glass side panels, and it was Langley. Bearing a paper-wrapped parcel. And beaming. Delaney threw open the door.

“Got it!” Langley cried.

The Captain could not tell him he had held the same thing in his hands a few hours previously; he would not rob this wonderful little man of his moment of triumph.

In the study they inspected the ice ax together. It was a duplicate of the one Calvin Case owned. They went over it, pointing out to each other the required features: the tapering pick, the downward curve, the sharp point, the all-steel construction.

“Oh yes,” Delaney nodded. “Mr. Langley, I think this is it. Congratulations.”

“Oh…” Langley said, waving in the air. “You gave me the lead. Who told you about Outside Life?”

“A man I happened to meet,” Delaney said vaguely. “He was interested in mountain climbing and happened to mention that store. Pure luck. But you’d have gotten there eventually.”

“Excellent balance,” Langley said, hefting the tool. “Very well made indeed. Well…”

“Yes?” Delaney said.

“Well, I suppose my job is finished,” the old man said. “I mean, we’ve found the weapon, haven’t we?”

“What we think is the weapon.”

“Yes. Of course. But here it is, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t suppose you have anything more for me to do. So I’ll…” His voice died away, and he turned the ice ax over and over in his hands, staring at it.

“Nothing more for you to do?” Delaney said incredulously. “Mr. Langley, I have a great deal more I’d like you to do. But you’ve done so much already, I hesitate to ask.”

“What?” Langley interrupted eagerly. “What? Tell me what. I don’t want to stop now. Really I don’t. What’s to be done? Please tell me.”

“Well…” Delaney said, “we don’t know that Outside Life is the only store in New York that sells this type of ice ax. You have other stores on your list you haven’t visited yet, don’t you?”

“Oh my yes.”

“Well, we must investigate and make a hard list of every place in New York that sells this ice ax. This one or one like it. That involves finding out how many American companies manufacture this type of ax and who they wholesale to and who the wholesalers retail to in the New York area. Then-you see here? On the side of the head? It says ‘Made in West Germany. ’ Imported. And maybe from Austria and Switzerland as well. So we must find out who the exporters are and who, over here, they sell to. Mr. Langley, that’s a hell of a lot of work, and I hesitate to ask-”

“I’ll do it!” Christopher Langley cried. “My goodness, I had no idea detective work was so-so involved. But I can understand why it’s necessary. You want the source of every ice ax like this sold in the New York area. Am I correct?”

“Exactly,” Delaney nodded. “We’ll start with the New York area, and then we’ll branch out. But it’s so much work. I can’t-”

Christopher Langley held up a little hand.

“Please,” he said. “Captain, I want to do it. I’ve never felt so alive in my life. Now what I’ll do is this: first I’ll check out all the other stores on my list to see if they carry ice axes. I’ll keep a record of the ones that do. Then I’ll go to the library and consult a directory of domestic tool manufacturers. I’ll query every one of them, or write for their catalogues to determine if they manufacture a tool like this. At the same time I’ll check with European embassies, consulates and trade commissions and find out who’s importing these implements to the U.S. How does that sound?”

Delaney looked at him admiringly. “Mr. Langley, I wish I had had you working with me on some of my cases in the past. You’re a wonder, you are.”

“Oh…” Langley said, blushing with pleasure, “you know…”

“I think your plan is excellent, and if you’re willing to work at it-and it’s going to be a lot of hard, grinding work-all I can say is ‘Thank you’ because what you’ll be doing is important.”

Key word.

“Important,” Langley repeated. “Yes. Thank you.”

They agreed Delaney could retain possession of the Outside Life ice ax. He placed it carefully in the rear of the second file cabinet drawer. His “exhibits” were growing. Then he walked Langley to the door.

“And how is the Widow Zimmerman?” he asked.

“What? Oh. Very well, thank you. She’s been very kind to me. You know…”

“Of course. My wife thought very well of her.”

“Did she!”

“Oh yes. Liked her very much. Thought she was a very warm hearted, sincere, out-going woman.”

“Oh yes. Oh yes. She is all that. Did you eat any of the gefilte fish, Captain?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It grows on you. An acquired taste, I suspect. Well…” The little man started out. But the Captain called, “Oh, Mr. Langley, just one more thing,” and he turned back.

“Did you get a sales check when you bought the ice ax at Outside Life?”

“A sales check? Oh, yes. Here it is.”

He pulled it from his overcoat pocket and handed it to Delaney. The Captain inspected it eagerly. It bore Langley’s name and address, the time (“Mountain ax-4B54C”) and the price, $18.95, with the city sales tax added, and the total.

“The clerk asked for my name and address because they send out free catalogues twice a year and want to add to their mailing list. I gave my right name. That was all right, wasn’t it, Captain?”

“Of course.”

“And I thought their catalogue might be interesting. They do carry some fascinating items.”

“May I keep this sales check?”

“Naturally.”

“You’re spending a lot of money on this case, Mr. Langley.” He smiled, tossed a hand in the air, and strutted out, the debonair boulevardier.

After the door was locked behind him, the Captain returned to his study, determined to take up his task of writing out the complete reports of his investigation. But he faltered. Finally he gave it up; something was bothering him. He went into the kitchen. The pot of stew was on the cold range. Using a long-handled fork, he stood there and ate three pieces of luke-warm beef, a potato, a small onion, and two slices of carrot. It all tasted like sawdust but, knowing Mary’s cooking, he supposed it was good and the fault was his.

Later, at the hospital, he told Barbara what the problem was. She was quiet, almost apathetic, lying in her bed, and he wasn’t certain she was listening or, if she was, if she understood. She stared at him with what he thought were fevered eyes, wide and brilliant.

He told her everything that had happened during the day, omitting only the call from the bookseller about the Honey Bunch books. He wanted to surprise her with that. But he told her of Langley buying the ice ax and how he, Delaney, was convinced that a similar tool had been used in the Lombard and Gilbert attacks.

“I know what should be done now,” he said. “I already have Langley working on other places where an ice ax can be bought. He’ll be checking retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers and importers. It’s a big job for one man. Then I must try to get a copy of Outside Life’s mailing list. I don’t know how big it is, but it’s bound to be extensive. Someone’s got to go through it and pull the names and addresses of every resident of the Two-five-one Precinct. I’m almost certain the killer lives in the neighborhood. Then I want to get all the sales slips of Outside Life, for as many years as they’ve kept them, again to look for buyers of ice axes who live in the Precinct. And that checking and cross-checking will have to be done at every store where Langley discovers ice axes are sold. And I’m sure some of them won’t have mailing lists or itemized sales checks, so the whole thing may be a monumental waste of time. But I think it has to be done, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “No doubt of it. Besides, it’s your only lead, isn’t it?”

“The only one,” he nodded grimly. “But it’s going to take a lot of time.”

She looked at him a few moments, then smiled softly.

“I know what’s bothering you, Edward. You think that even with Mr. Langley and Calvin Case helping you, checking all the lists and sales slips will take too much time. You’re afraid someone else may be wounded or killed while you’re messing around with mailing lists. You’re wondering if perhaps you shouldn’t turn over what you have right now to Operation Lombard, and let Broughton and his five hundred detectives get on it. They could do it so much faster.”

“Yes,” he said, grateful that she was thinking clearly now, her mind attuned to his. “That’s exactly what’s worrying me. How do you feel about it?”

“Would Broughton follow up on what you gave him?”

“Chief Pauley sure as hell would. I’d go to him. He’s getting desperate now. And for good reason. He’s got nothing. He’d grab at this and really do a job.”

They were silent then. He came over to sit by her bedside and hold her hand. Neither spoke for several minutes.

“It’s really a moral problem, isn’t it?” she said finally.

He nodded miserably. “It’s my own pride and ambition and ego…And my commitment to Thorsen and Johnson, of course. But if I don’t do it, and someone else gets killed, I’ll have a lot to answer for.”

She didn’t ask to whom.

“I could help you with the lists,” she said faintly. “Most of the time I just lie here and read or sleep. But I have my good days, and I could help.”

He squeezed her hand, smiled sadly. “You can help most by telling me what to do.”

“When did you ever do what I told you to do?” she scoffed. “You go your own way, and you know it.”

He grinned. “But you help,” he assured her. “You sort things out for me.”

“Edward, I don’t think you should do anything immediately. Ivar Thorsen is deeply involved in this, and so is Inspector Johnson. If you go to Broughton, or even Chief Pauley, and tell them what you’ve discovered and what you suspect, they’re sure to ask who authorized you to investigate.”

“I could keep Thorsen and Johnson out of it. Don’t forget, I have that letter from the Commissioner.”

“But it would still be a mess, wouldn’t it? And Broughton would probably know Thorsen is involved; the two of you have been so close for so long. Edward, why don’t you have a talk with Ivar and Inspector Johnson? Tell them what you want to do. Discuss it. They’re reasonable men; maybe they can suggest something. I know how much this case means to you.”

“Yes,” he said, looking down, “it does. More every day. And when Thorsen went to the scene of the Gilbert attack, he was really spooked. He as much as said that this business of cutting Broughton down was small stuff compared to finding the killer. Yes, that’s the best thing to do. I’ll talk to Thorsen and Johnson, and tell them I want to go to Broughton with what I’ve got. I hate the thought of it-that shit! But maybe it has to be done. Well, I’ll think about it some more. I’ll try to see them tomorrow, so I may not be over at noon. But I’ll come in the evening and tell you how it all came out.”

“Remember, don’t lose your temper, Edward.”

“When did I ever lose my temper?” he demanded. “I’m always in complete control.”

They both laughed.