Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

"Just one question. Rabbi," said Bradford Ames, smiling genially as if to assure him it was not very important, they were once again in the rabbi's tiny college office. "Why didn't you tell Sergeant Schroeder that you left your class early on Friday?" Rabbi Small blushed. "Sheer embarrassment, I suppose," he said. "Of course he didn't ask me what time I had left my classroom, only what time I had left the building. I suppose I should’ve mentioned it, but Lanigan was there and my wife, and I just didn't like to admit I'd had trouble with my class."

"Well, I'm asking now, Rabbi. What time did you leave the classroom?"

"It couldn't have been more than ten minutes or a quarter past one," said the rabbi promptly. "And I came straight here."

"Hendryx was in the office?"

"Sitting, or rather lying back, in this very chair."

"And you stayed here until a little after two?"

"M-hm."

"The two of you sitting here for an hour or so just engaged in friendly conversation."

"That's about it. Mr. Ames."

"And were you friendly, Rabbi? Did you consider him a friend?"

"Not particularly;" said the rabbi. "We shared the same office, that's about it."

"But this time you talked for a whole hour," mused Ames. "Why? What were you talking about?"

"Oh, largely about educational theory." Once again the rabbi blushed. "At first. I was just marking time on the chance that someone from my class might come along to apologize for their behavior earlier, and then I stayed because— well, I was being paid for the time." Ames looked at the rabbi curiously. "A refreshing notion, if you don't mind my saying so, and then on your way home you stopped for a cup of coffee, got immersed in a book and didn't get home until quite late."

"That's perfectly true." the rabbi insisted. Ames chuckled and then laughed out loud. "I believe you, Rabbi,” he said. "You know why? Because it's the damndest unlikely explanation I’ve ever heard, so I can't imagine you making it up." The rabbi grinned. "Have you told it all now?" he said, teasing him slightly. "Nothing you're keeping back because it might be embarrassing or because you consider it unimportant?"

"How would I know?" said the rabbi. "How can I tell what is and isn't significant when I don't know what you're after or what stage your investigation is at?" Ames nodded. Should he tell him? Normally he would never reveal to an outsider the results of an investigation still in progress, but on the other hand, the rabbi might be of some help, he was intelligent and sensitive and had talked with Hendryx for almost an hour shortly before his death. If he knew what they were looking for, he might remember a remark, a phrase, something that could be linked to the evidence they already had. No doubt Sergeant Schroeder would disapprove, and probably the district attorney, too, and this as much as anything decided him. Delighted at the idea, he proceeded to relate in detail what they had discovered to date. "So you see,” he said in conclusion, "it all boils down to one of two possibilities: either Mrs. O'Rourke is lying, or the medical examiner made a mistake."

The rabbi sat silent, then he got up and circling the desk, he began to walk up and down the room. "The two do not balance." the rabbi said at last. "They are not of the same weight. For i-if you believe the medical examiner"— and unconsciously he lapsed into Talmudic argumentative sing-song— "the-en you have to assume not only that Mrs. O'Rourke was lying but that the explosion of the bomb did not cause the statue to topple. But if you believe that the medical examiner was mistaken and that Mrs. O'Rourke was telling the truth, then it is possible Hendryx was killed by the bomb. But it is not probable. So you have an impossibility on the one hand and an improbability on the other."

"Ah. I see what you mean by the two not balancing." Ames chuckled and shifted in his seat. "This chanting of yours—"Oh, was I doing it? I didn't realize. It's the normal accompaniment to Talmudic argument. I do it without thinking. I suppose."

"I see." Ames returned to the matter at hand. "Of course you're quite right about our being left with an improbability at best, the open book and the hassock could be a matter of a minute of two. You could sit down to read and then remember something you've got to do and put the book down without having read a line. But the pipe and all those matches..."The rabbi had resumed his striding, but now he stopped. "Do you smoke?" he asked. "No, thanks."

"Oh, I wasn't offering." said the rabbi. "I just wanted to know if you did."

"No," said Ames. "I never did, as a matter of fact. I had a touch of asthma when I was a kid so I never got around to it."

"Well, I used to smoke." said the rabbi, "but I gave it up when I found it was too hard to smoke during the week and then stop for the Sabbath. When I was in college I tried a pipe for a while. It's almost irresistible to the young student, at least it was when I was in school."

"In my time, too."

"I never really acquired the habit." the rabbi went on. "Most young men don't, there's a trick to it, you know, and long before they've learned it, they've burned their tongues raw and given it up. Now, if I had sat down in that easy chair and smoked a pipe, the half-dozen burned matches you found would make sense. Because I never learned how, and until you've learned how, your pipe keeps going out and you have to keep relighting it. You make a regular bellows of your mouth and puff and puff, and still it keeps going out. But not Professor Hendryx, he knew how to smoke, and he really enjoyed his pipe. I used to watch and even envy him a little, he'd light it— he never needed more than one match— tamp it down carefully, and then keep it lit, effortlessly, a little puff of smoke coming out of his mouth every now and then."

"What are you trying to say, Rabbi?"

"That if it took half a dozen matches to light that pipe, or to keep it lit, then it wasn't Professor Hendryx who was smoking it!" said the rabbi. "You're suggesting that someone came into the apartment and smoked one of his pipes to make it appear that Hendryx had returned after the cleaning woman had left." The rabbi nodded. "But that can only mean Hendryx was already dead and this person wanted to make it appear he was still alive." Again the rabbi nodded. "And that means the pipe smoker was establishing an alibi for himself because he had murdered Hendryx."

"At least it offers a third possibility." said the rabbi with the ghost of a smile. "A third?"

"You said there were only two: that either the medical examiner was wrong or the cleaning woman was. This suggests that they both may have been right, that the medical examiner gave an accurate estimate of the time and that the cleaning woman was telling the truth." Ames nodded slowly in agreement, a thought occurred to him. "Suppose the fingerprints on the pipe turn out to be Hendryx's?"

"It's only what you'd expect." the rabbi replied. "His prints would be on all his pipes, the murderer only had to be careful not to obliterate them, the cleaning woman wouldn't wipe them; a pipe is personal like a toothbrush." Bradford Ames sat back. "You know. Rabbi,” he said, "you're quite a guy, all right, tell me, how did the murderer get into the apartment?"

The rabbi shook his head. "I don't know."