The Topless Tulip Caper

Nineteen

WE SPENT PART of the evening Scotch-taping hundred-dollar bills together. This would have been easier if we’d kept them in order but I dropped the second batch and they got all jumbled up. We had to match serial numbers. It didn’t really take all that long, but the process kept getting interrupted by people calling from the newspapers and things like that.

Then Haig made me play a few games of chess with him, which I won, and then I played a game with Wong and lost in ten moves. And finally I stood up and said, “I’m going home.”

“Very well.”

“Oh, hell. You were beautiful today and I can’t ruin things by not playing my part. I give up. How did you know to doctor the wheat germ?”

“I gave some of it to some fish while you were seating our guests. They lived to tell the tale.” He examined a fingernail. “It was showmanship. I’ll admit that. Without it, the police could still turn up enough evidence to convict handily. Addicts who have bought drugs from Miss Remo. Witnesses who could place her and Mr. Flatt in various places at various times.” He straightened in his chair. “But I wanted to break them in public. The police dig harder when they know they’re digging for something that exists.”

“And you got a kick out of the performance.”

He grunted.

“So how did you do it? I didn’t know we had any strychnine in the house.”

“We don’t.”

“What did you use?”

“Those roach crystals Wong sprinkles around. I dissolved a handful in water and soaked the wheat germ with it.”

“How did you know it would kill fish?”

“I didn’t. I fed some to some fish and they died.”

“I probably should have figured that part out myself. I guess I’m a little punchy. But that’s not the main point. How did you know they switched jars? How did you know the strychnine was in the wheat germ in the first place?”

He just smiled.

“Oh, hell,” I said. “Actually I’m taking some of the credit for this one. Do you remember the pipe dream I was spinning about Haskell Henderson? How he poisoned the fish because Tulip wouldn’t eat the health foods but gave them to the fish instead? And how he killed Cherry because she was eating the crap instead of passing it on to Tulip? Remember?”

“That piffle,” he said. “How could I possibly forget it?”

“Well, that’s what put the idea in your head. And the notion of Jan Remo stabbing Cherry with a pin, you even said hatpin, and you got that idea because I told you how Althea Henderson stuck a hatpin in her tit. For Pete’s sake, I’m the one who does all the work around here. Why is it that you get all the credit?”

He petted his beard. “Surely you can make yourself look somewhat more intelligent when you write up this case, Chip. It’s only fair that you should have the opportunity.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“And don’t forget what Miss Swann advised you this morning,” he went on. “The book needs sex. Not nearly so much as you seem to need it, but it does need sex.” He gazed past my shoulder and got a very innocent look on his face. “I see no reason why you couldn’t embroider the truth somewhat in that department. In the interest of increasing the book’s marketability. You might, oh, fabricate an incident in which you had sexual relations with our client, for example.”

I glared at him.

“But that might not be enough in and of itself.” He played with his beard some more. “Perhaps you could enlarge this morning’s interview with Mrs. Henderson. Suggest that, after she bared her breast to you, you took her to bed. A bit farfetched, to be sure, but perhaps the circumstances warrant it.”

Hell.

Was he just guessing? Did he know? Or was he really sincerely suggesting I make up something that he didn’t know actually happened?

You tell me. I still can’t make up my mind.