Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out

24

"NOW SUPPOSE YOU TELL US JUST WHAT HAPPENED LASTnight." suggested Lanigan genially when Lawrence Gore was seated.

"But I told it all to the sergeant." Gore protested, "and there was a policeman taking it all down in shorthand."

"Well now, that was a statement you were making." said Lanigan. "Sergeant McLure is a state detective and they have their regulations. But we're the local police, and we'd like to hear it, too, not just read what the stenographer types up."

"So you can compare the two statements and badger me if there's a discrepancy?"

Lanigan smiled. "Something like that."

"All right." said Gore wearily. "I was invited there for dinner."

"You go there often?" Jennings asked.

"No. Once before, a few months ago, almost every Thursday night Jordon would go out to the club, the Agathon, and if I were going. I'd drive him out and back, he didn't like to drive, especially at night. But I'd just drive up to the door and honk the horn and he'd come out. But yesterday I called him to tell him I was taking the Peter Archer silver in to the museum—I expect you've heard about that—and it was his last chance if he wanted his soup tureen to be exhibited, he told me I could pick it up and invited me to dinner."

Gore went on to tell his story without further interruption, although he went into considerable detail, he did not mention Molly's visit to the Jordon house since he did not have personal knowledge of it, and in any case it was after the murder had occurred. It was only after Gore had finished that they questioned him.

"When you left, the boy was still in his room?" asked Lanigan.

"Jordon hadn't let him out." Gore answered with a shrug. "Since he got out, he must have let himself out—"

"How do you know that?" asked Jennings quickly. "When I got here this morning. I called out to him, thera was no answer, then I knocked and listened at the door—" "Did you open it?"

"Of course not." said Gore. "That would have meant disturbing evidence, and—"

Lanigan cut in. "So you figure since he let himself out, he could have got out anytime, maybe even while you were still here talking to the old man."

"He could have." Gore admitted.

"What do you know about him?" Lanigan asked.

Gore spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance. "Not much. Jordon told me he had problems and didn't want him pestered, that's the way he put it, he didn't specify what kind of problems, he'd graduated from a secondary school and had no police record, so I hired him, he seemed to be a decent enough kid, but kept pretty much to himself. I don't know of any friends he had in town, he did his work well, and I liked him, he didn't talk about his family or his background at all, maybe Jordon told him not to, and I didn't press him. Oh, he did say once that his father had been killed in the war. Since he was too old to have been born during the Vietnam business and not old enough to have been born during the Korean War. I asked him what war, and he said, the Suez Campaign, well, that was the action in which England and France joined Israel against Egypt. Of course, his father might have been British or French. But he could also have been Israeli, and knowing how Jordon felt about Jews. I didn't pursue the matter."

"Just how did he feel about Jews?" asked Lanigan.

"I'm a banker." said Gore, "and one man's money is the same as another's. So I don't like to talk about religion, and I didn't with Jordon. Once or twice I remonstrated with him when it interfered with business, like when he wouldn't sell some land that the temple people wanted to buy, or once when Henry Maltzman had a customer for a piece of land, all he said then was that he wasn't going to make it any easier for them. I guess he didn't like them." He smiled. "That didn't prevent him from making a pass at my secretary a couple of times, and he knew she was Jewish, she called him a dirty old man."

"That's the one you phoned on your way to Boston?" asked Jennings.

"Uh-huh."

"All right." Lanigan looked up from the notes he had been making. "I guess that about does it. Oh yeah, what about the gun?"

"The gun is one of three that I bought for the bank, one for each teller's cage." said Gore.

"How come?" asked Jennings. "I didn't think banks went in for that kind of thing anymore. I thought they relied on an armed guard nowadays."

"That's right. But we don't have an armed guard, and the tellers have strict instructions not to use them."

"Then what's the point in having them?"

"It gives them a feeling of security. If someone comes in and holds up the bank, they're not supposed to be heroes. But if things should get out of hand, and some wild shooting result—"

"Why didn't you take it with you when you left?" asked Lanigan.

"Because I don't have a license to carry a gun."

"How come?" asked Jennings. "A crackshot like you, and a banker?"

Gore smiled. "For just that reason. I might be inclined to use it, and then be sorry for it afterward. So I eliminate the possibility by not taking out a license. I was planning on calling you people Monday morning so that you could send an officer to pick it up and return it to the bank."

"Too bad you didn't think to call last night as soon as you found the young man had taken it. Jordon might be alive today."