The Zero Clue

7

The office is a good-sized room, but there wasn’t much unoccupied space left when that gathering was fully assembled. There were twenty-seven of us all told. The biggest assortment of Homicide employees I had ever gazed upon extended from wall to wall in the rear of the six subjects, with four of them filling the couch. Cramer was planted in the red leather chair, with Stebbins on his left, and the stenographer was hanging on at the end of my desk.

The six citizens were in a row up front, and none of them looked merry. Agatha Abbey was the only person present who rated two chairs, one for herself and one for her mink, but no one was bothering to resent it in spite of the crowding. Their minds were on other matters.

Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again, taking them in. He spoke. “I’ll have to make this somewhat elaborate, so that all of you will clearly understand the situation. I could not at the moment hazard even a venturesome guess as to which of you killed Leo Heller, but I now know how to find out, and I propose to do so.”

The only reaction visible or audible was John R. Winslow clearing his throat.

Wolfe interlaced his fingers in front of his middle mound. “We have from the first had a hint that has not been imparted to you. Yesterday — Tuesday, that is — Heller telephoned here to say that he suspected that one of his clients had committed a serious crime and to hire me to investigate. I declined, for reasons we needn’t go into, but Mr. Goodwin, who is subordinate only when it suits his temperament and convenience, took it upon himself to call on Heller this morning to discuss the matter.”

He shot me a glance, and I met it. Merely an incivility. He went on to them, “He entered Heller’s office but found it unoccupied. Tarrying there for some minutes, and meanwhile exercising his highly trained talent for observation, he noticed, among other details, that some pencils and an eraser from an overturned jar were arranged on the desk in a sort of pattern. Later that same detail was of course noted by the police, after Heller’s body had been found and they had been summoned; and it was a feature of that detail which led Mr. Cramer to come to see me. He assumed that Heller, seated at his desk and threatened with a gun, knowing or thinking he was about to die, had made the pencil pattern to leave a message, and that the purpose of the message was to give a clue to the identity of the murderer. On that point I agreed with Mr. Cramer. Will you all approach, please, and look at this arrangement on my desk? These pencils and the eraser are placed approximately the same as those on Heller’s desk, with you, not me, on Heller’s side of the desk. From your side you are seeing them as Heller intended them to be seen.”

The six did as requested, and they had company. Not only did most of the homicide subordinates leave their chairs and come forward for a view, but Cramer himself got up and took a glance — maybe just curiosity, but I wouldn’t put it past him to suspect Wolfe of a shenanigan. However, the pencils and eraser were properly placed, as I ascertained by arising and stretching to peer over shoulders.

When they were all seated again Wolfe resumed. “Mr. Cramer had a notion about the message which I rejected and will not bother to expound. My own notion of it, conceived almost immediately, came not as a coup d’éclat, but merely a stirring of memory. It reminded me vaguely of something I had seen somewhere; and the vagueness disappeared when I reflected that Heller had been a mathematician, academically qualified and trained. The memory was old, and I checked it by going to my shelves for a book I had read some ten years ago. Its title is Mathematics for the Million, by Hogben. After verifying my recollection, I locked the book in a drawer because I thought it would be a pity for Mr. Cramer to waste time leafing through it.”

“Let’s get on,” Cramer growled.

Wolfe did so. “As told in Mr. Hogben’s book, more than two thousand years ago what he calls a matchstick number script was being used in India. Three horizontal lines stood for three, two horizontal lines stood for two, and so on. That was indeed primitive, but it had greater possibilities than the clumsy devices of the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans. Around the time of the birth of Christ some brilliant Hindu improved upon it by connecting the horizontal lines with diagonals, making the units unmistakable.” He pointed to the arrangement on his desk. “These five pencils on your left form a three exactly as the Hindus formed a three, and the three pencils on your right form a two. These Hindu symbols are one of the great landmarks in the history of number language. You will note, by the way, that our own forms of the figure three and of the figure two are taken directly from these Hindu symbols.”

A couple of them got up to look, and Wolfe politely waited until they were seated again. “So, since Heller had been a mathematician, and since those were famous patterns in the history of mathematics, I assumed that the message was a three and a two. But evidence indicated that the eraser was also a part of the message and must be included. That was simple. It is the custom of an academic mathematician, if he wants to scribble ‘four times six,’ or ‘seven times nine,’ to use for the ‘times’ not an X, as we laymen do, but a dot. It is so well-known a custom that Mr. Hogben uses it in his book without thinking it necessary to explain it, and therefore I confidently assumed that the eraser was meant for a dot, and that the message was three times two, or six.”

Wolfe compressed his lips and shook his head. “That was an impetuous imbecility. During the whole seven hours that I sat here poking at you people, I was trying to find some connection with the figure six that would either set one of you clearly apart, or relate you to the commission of some crime, or both. Preferably both, of course, but either would serve. In the interviews the figure six did turn up with persistent monotony, but with no promising application, and I could only ascribe it to the mischief of coincidence.

“So at three o’clock in the morning I was precisely where I had been when I started. Without a fortuitous nudge, I can’t say how long it would have taken me to become aware of my egregious blunder; but I got the nudge, and I can at least say that I responded promptly and effectively. The nudge came from Mr. Busch when he mentioned the name of a horse, Zero.”

He upturned a palm. “Of course. Zero! I had been a witless ass. The use of the dot as a symbol for ‘times’ is a strictly modern device. Since the rest of the message, the figures three and two, were in Hindu number script, surely the dot was too — provided that the Hindus had made any use of the dot. And what made my blunder so unforgivable was that the Hindus had indeed used a dot; they had used it, as is explained in Hogben’s book, for the most brilliant and imaginative invention in the whole history of the language of numbers. For when you have once decided how to write three and how to write two, how are you going to distinguish among thirty-two and three hundred and two and three thousand and two and thirty thousand and two? That was the crucial problem in number language, and the Greeks and Romans, for all their intellectual eminence, never succeeded in solving it. Some Hindu genius did, twenty centuries ago. He saw that the secret was position. Today we use our zero exactly as he did, to show position, but instead of a zero he used a dot. That’s what the dot was in the early Hindu number language; it was used like our zero. So Heller’s message was not three times two, or six; it was three zero two, or three hundred and two.”

Susan Maturo started, jerking her head up, and made a noise. Wolfe rested his eyes on her. “Yes, Miss Maturo. Three hundred and two people died in the explosion and fire at the Montrose Hospital a month ago. You mentioned that figure when you were talking with me, but even if you hadn’t, it is so imbedded in the consciousness of everyone who reads newspapers or listens to radio, it wouldn’t have escaped me. The moment I realized that Heller’s message was the figure three hundred and two, I would certainly have connected it with that disaster, whether you had mentioned it or not.”

“But it’s—” She was staring. “You mean it is connected?”

“I’m proceeding on that obvious assumption. I am assuming that through the information one of you six people furnished Leo Heller as factors for a formula, he formed a suspicion that one of you had commited a serious crime, and that his message, the figure three hundred and two, indicates that the crime was planting in the Montrose Hospital that bomb that caused the deaths of three hundred and two people — or at least involvement in that crime.”

It seemed as if I could see or feel muscles tightening all over the room. Most of those dicks, maybe all of them, had of course been working on the Montrose thing. Cramer pulled his feet back and his hands were fists. Purley Stebbins took his gun from his holster and rested it on his knee and leaned forward, the better to have his eyes on all six of them.

“So,” Wolfe continued, “Heller’s message identified not the person who was about to kill him, not the criminal, but the crime. That was superbly ingenious, and, considering the situation he was in, he deserves our deepest admiration. He has mine, and I retract any derogation of him. It would seem natural to concentrate on Miss Maturo, since she was certainly connected with that disaster, but first let’s clarify the matter. I’m going to ask the rest of you if you have at any time visited the Montrose Hospital, or been connected with it in any way, or had dealings with any of its personnel. Take the question just as I have stated it.” His eyes went to the end of the row, at the left. “Mrs. Tillotson? Answer, please. Have you?”

“No.” It was barely audible.

“Louder, please.”

“No!”

His eyes moved. “Mr. Ennis?”

“I have not. Never.”

“We’ll skip you, Miss Maturo. Mr. Busch?”

“I’ve never been in a hospital.”

“That answers only a third of the question. Answer all of it.”

“The answer is no, mister.”

“Miss Abbey?”

“I went there once about two years ago, to visit a patient, a friend. That was all.” The tip of her tongue came out and went in. “Except for that one visit I have never been connected with it in any way or dealt with any of its personnel.”

“That is explicit. Mr. Winslow?”

“No to the whole question. An unqualified no.”

“Well.” Wolfe did not look frustrated. “That would seem to isolate Miss Maturo, but it is not conclusive.” His head turned. “Mr. Cramer. If the person who not only killed Leo Heller but also bombed that hospital is among these six, I’m sure you won’t want to take the slightest risk of losing him. I have a suggestion.”

“I’m listening,” Cramer growled.

“Take them in as material witnesses, and hold them without bail if possible. Starting immediately, collect as many as you can of the former staff of that hospital. There were scores who survived, and other scores who were not on duty at the time. Get all of them if possible, spare no effort, and have them look at these people and say if they have ever seen any of them. Meanwhile, of course, you will be working on Miss Maturo, but you have heard the denials of the other five, and if you get reliable evidence that one of them has lied I’m sure you will need no further suggestion from me. Indeed, if one of them has lied and leaves this room in custody with that lie undeclared, that alone will be half the battle. I’m sorry—”

“Wait a minute.”

All eyes went to one spot. It was Jack Ennis, the inventor. His thin colorless lips were twisted, with one end up, but not in an attempt to smile. The look in his eyes showed that he had no idea of smiling.

“I didn’t tell an exact lie,” he said.

Wolfe’s eyes were slits. “Then an inexact lie, Mr. Ennis?”

“I mean I didn’t visit that hospital as a hospital. And I didn’t have dealings with them, I was just trying to. I wanted them to give my X-ray machine a trial. One of them was willing to, but the other two talked him down.”

“When was this?”

“I was there three times, twice in December and once in January.”

“I thought your X-ray machine had a flaw.”

“It wasn’t perfect, but it would work, and it would have been better than anything they had. I was sure I was going to get it in, because he was for it — his name is Halsey — and I saw him first, and he wanted to try it. But the other two talked him out of it, and one of them was very — he—” He petered out.

Wolfe prodded him. “Very what, Mr. Ennis?”

“He didn’t understand me! He hated me!”

“There are people like that. There are all kinds of people. Have you ever invented a bomb?”

“A bomb?” Ennis’s lips worked, and this time I thought he actually was trying to smile. “Why would I invent a bomb?”

“I don’t know. Inventors invent many things. If you have never tried your hand at a bomb, of course you have never had occasion to get hold of the necessary materials — for instance, explosives. It’s only fair to tell you what I now regard as a reasonable hypothesis: that you placed the bomb in the hospital in revenge for an injury, real or fancied; that included in the data you gave Leo Heller was an item or items which led him to suspect you of that crime; that something he said led you, in turn, to suspect that he suspected; that when you went to his place this morning you went armed, prepared for action if your suspicion was verified; that when you entered the building you recognized Mr. Goodwin as my assistant; that you went up to Heller’s office and asked him if Mr. Goodwin was there for an appointment with him, and his answer heightened or confirmed your suspicion, and you produced the gun; that—”

“Hold it,” Cramer snapped. “I’ll take it from here. Purley, get him out and—”

Purley was a little slow. He was up, but Ennis was up faster and off in a flying dive for Wolfe. I dived too, and got an arm and jerked. He tore loose, but by then a whole squad was there, swarming into him, and since I wasn’t needed I backed off. As I did so someone dived at me, and Susan Maturo was up against me, gripping my lapels.

“Tell me!” she demanded. “Tell me! Was it him?”

I told her promptly and positively, to keep her from ripping my lapels off. “Yes,” I said, in one word.

Two months later a jury of eight men and four women agreed with me.