Trio for Blunt Instruments

9

INSPECTOR CRAMER SETTLED BACK in the red leather chair, narrowed his eyes at Wolfe, and rasped, “I’ve told Mr. Vance that this won’t be on any official record and he can answer your questions or not as he pleases.”

He wouldn’t have settled back if he had been the only city employee present, since he knew that almost certainly some fur was going to fly. Sergeant Purley Stebbins was there at his right on a chair against the wall. Purley never sits with his back to anyone, even his superior officer, if he can help it. James Neville Vance was on a chair facing Wolfe’s desk, between Cramer and me. Rita Fougere was on the couch at the left of my desk, and Saul and Fred and Orrie were grouped over by the big globe.

“There won’t be many questions,” Wolfe told Cramer. “Nothing remains to be satisfied but my curiosity on a point or two.” His head turned. “Mr. Vance, only you can satisfy it.” To me: “Archie?”

I regretted having to take my eyes away from Vance. Not that I thought he needed watching; it was just that I wanted to. You can learn things, or you think you can, from the face of a man who knows something is headed for him but doesn’t know exactly what and is trying to be ready to meet it. Up to that point Vance’s face hadn’t increased my knowledge of human nature. His lips were drawn in tight, and that made his oversized chin even more out of proportion. When Wolfe cued me I had to leave it. I got the seven ties from a drawer, put them in a row on Wolfe’s desk, and stood by.

“Those,” Wolfe told Vance, “are the seven ties that remained on the rack in your closet. I produce them-”

A growl from Cramer stopped him. It would have stopped anybody. It became words. “So you did. Stebbins, take Mr. Vance out to the car. I want to talk to Wolfe.”

“No,” Wolfe snapped. “I said there would be no illegal entry and there wasn’t. Mr. Goodwin, accompanied by Mr. Panzer, Mr. Durkin, and Mr. Cather, rang the bell at Mr. Vance’s apartment and were admitted by Mrs. Fougere. She was in the apartment with Mr. Vance’s knowledge and consent, having gone there earlier to talk with him. When an officer came to take him to you she remained, with no objection from him. Is that correct, Mrs. Fougere?”

“Yes.” It came out a whisper, and she repeated it. “Yes.” That time it was a croak.

“Is that correct, Mr. Vance?”

Vance’s drawn-in lips opened and then closed. “I don’t think…” he mumbled. He raised his voice. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“You might answer me,” Cramer said. “Is it correct?”

“I prefer not to answer.”

“Then I’ll proceed,” Wolfe said. “I produce these seven ties merely to establish them.” He opened a drawer and produced Exhibit A. “Here is an eighth tie. Pinned to it is a statement written and signed by Mr. Panzer, on your stationery. I’ll read it.” He did so. “Have you any comment?”

No comment. No response.

“Let me see that,” Cramer growled. Of course he would; that’s why I was standing by. I took it from Wolfe and handed it over. He read the statement, twisted around for a look at Saul, and twisted the other way to hand the exhibit to Stebbins.

“It’s just as well I haven’t many questions,” Wolfe told Vance, “since apparently the few I do have won’t be answered. I’ll try answering them myself, and if you care to correct me, do so. I invite interruptions.”

He cocked his head. “You realize, sir, that the facts are manifest. The problem is not what you did, or when or how, but why. As for when, you typed that envelope and message to Mr. Goodwin, using your own stationery and having found or made an opportunity to use Mr. Kirk’s typewriter, at least three weeks ago, since that machine wasn’t available after July nineteenth. Mr. Kirk’s disposing of it just then was of course coincidental. So your undertaking was not only premeditated, it was carefully planned. Also you retrieved the tie you had given Mr. Kirk before he moved from his apartment. Using the typewriter and retrieving the tie of course presented no difficulty, since you owned the house and had master keys. Any comment?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll continue. Only the whys are left, and I’ll leave the most important one, why you killed her, to the last. For some of them I can offer only conjecture-for instance, why you wished to implicate Mr. Kirk. It may have been a fatuous effort to divert attention from yourself, or, more likely, you merely wanted it known that Mrs. Kirk had not been the victim of some chance intruder, or you had an animus against Mr. Kirk. Any of those would serve. For other whys I can do better than conjecture. Why did you take a tie from your closet and hide it in your studio? That was part of the design to implicate Mr. Kirk, and it was rather shrewd. You calculated-”

“I didn’t,” Vance blurted. “Kirk did that, he must have. You say it was found in a piano score?”

Wolfe nodded. “That’s your rebuttal, naturally. You intended the necktie maneuver to appear as a clumsy stratagem by Mr. Kirk to implicate you. So of course a tie had to be missing from the rack in your closet. But if Mr. Kirk had taken it he wouldn’t have hidden it in your studio; he would have destroyed it. Why then didn’t you destroy it? You know; I don’t; but I can guess. You thought it possible that the situation might so develop that you could somehow use it, so why not keep it?”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again. “Another why: why did you send the tie to Mr. Goodwin? Of course you had to send it to someone, an essential step in the scheme to involve Mr. Kirk, but why Mr. Goodwin? That’s the point I’m chiefly curious about, and I would sincerely appreciate an answer. Why did you send the tie to Mr. Goodwin?”

“I didn’t.”

“Very well, I can’t insist. It’s only that he is my confidential assistant, and I would like to know how you got the strange notion that he would best serve your purpose. He is inquisitive, impetuous, alert, skeptical, pertinacious, and resourceful-the worst choice you could possibly have made. One more why before the last and crucial one: why did you phone Mr. Goodwin to burn the tie? That was unnecessary, because his curiosity was sufficiently aroused without that added fillip; and it was witless, because whoever phoned must have known that he had not already phoned you or gone to see you, and only you could have known that. Do you wish to comment?”

“I didn’t phone him.”

I must say that Vance was showing more gumption than I had expected. By letting Wolfe talk he was finding out exactly how deep the hole was, and he was saying nothing.

Wolfe turned a hand over. “Now the primary why: why did you kill her? I learned yesterday that you probably had an adequate motive, but as I told Mr. Cramer, that was only hearsay. I had to have a demonstrable fact, an act or an object, and you supplied it. Not yesterday or today; you supplied it Tuesday afternoon when, after killing Mrs. Kirk, you stooped over her battered skull, or knelt or squatted, and cut off a lock of her hair, choosing one that had her blood on it. With a knife, or scissors? Did you stoop, or squat, or kneel?”

Vance’s lips moved, but no sound came. Unquestionably he was trying to say “I didn’t” but couldn’t make it.

Wolfe grunted. “I said a demonstrable fact. To demonstrate is to establish as true, and I’ll establish it. Mr. Goodwin found the lock of hair, caked with blood, some two hours ago, in a drawer in your bedroom. He called it a keepsake, but a keepsake is something given and kept for the sake of the giver, a token of friendship. Trophy would be a better term.” He opened a desk drawer.

I can move fast and so can Purley Stebbins, but we both misjudged James Neville Vance, at least I did. When he started up at sight of the glove Wolfe took from the drawer I started too, but I wasn’t expecting him to dart like lightning, and he did; and he got the glove, snatched it out of Wolfe’s hand. Of course he didn’t keep it long. I came from his left side and Purley from his right, and since he had the glove in his right hand it was Purley who got his wrist and twisted it, and the glove dropped to the floor.

Cramer picked it up. Purley had Vance by the right arm, and I had him by the left.

Wolfe stood up. “It’s in the glove,” he told Cramer. “Mr. Goodwin, will furnish any details you require, and Mrs. Fougere.” He headed for the door. The clock said 5:22. His schedule had hit a snag, but by gum it wasn’t wrecked.