‘A total disclosure law requiring all private welfare and pension plans to open books to governmental inspection was recommended today by a Senate subcommittee. The proposal was based on a two-year study that disclosed practices ranging from sloppy bookkeeping to a $900,000 embezzlement.
‘The funds have grown to the point, the committee said, that they now provide benefits to 29,000,000 workers and to 46,000,000 dependents of these workers. Assets of the pension funds alone now total about 25 billion dollars, it was said.
‘The Senate group, headed by Senator Paul H. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, said: “While the great majority of welfare and pension programs are being responsibly and honestly administered, the rights and equities of the beneficiaries in many instances are being dangerously ignored. In other cases, the funds of the programs are being dissipated and at times become the hunting ground of the unscrupulous.”‘“
Wolfe put the paper down. “It goes on, but that will do. I read it for the record and because it juxtaposed two things: the word ‘welfare’ and large sums of money. For a solid week I had been trying to find a hint to start me on the trail of the man who killed Michael Molloy-and subsequently Johnny Keems and Ella Reyes- enough of one at least to stir my pulse, to no avail. This, if not a flare, was at least a spark. Patrick Degan was the head of an organization called the Mechanics Alliance Welfare Association, and a large sum of money had been found in a safe-deposit box Molloy had rented under an assumed name.”
He pushed the newspaper aside. “That faint hint, patiently and persistently pursued, might eventually have led me to the truth, but luckily it wasn’t needed. I have here in my drawer a sheaf of papers which contain evidence of these facts: that from nineteen fifty-one to nineteen fifty-five Molloy made purchases of small pieces of land in various parts of the country; that their value, and the amounts of money he had to put up, were negligible; that in each case the purchaser of record was some ‘camp’-examples are the Wide World Children’s Camp and the Blue Sky Children’s Camp; that these camps, twenty-eight in all, borrowed a total of nearly two million dollars from Mr. Degan’s organization on mortgages; that Molloy’s share of the loot was one-fourth and Degan’s share three- fourths, from which each had presumably to meet certain expenses; and that the date of the last such loan on mortgage was October seventeenth, nineteen fifty-five. I can supply many details, but those are the essentials. Do you wish to comment, Mr. Degan?”
Of course all eyes were on him, but his were only for Wolfe. “No,” he said, “except that it’s outrageous and libelous and I’ll get your hide. Produce your sheaf of papers.”
Wolfe shook his head. “The District Attorney will produce them when the time comes. But I’ll humor your curiosity. When Molloy decided to leave the country with his loot, alarmed by the Senate investigation, and to take his secretary, Delia Brandt, with him, he stowed his records in a suitcase and left it in Delia Brandt’s apartment. That is suggestive, since prudence would have dictated their destruction. It suggests that he foresaw some future function for them, and the most likely one would have been to escape penalty for himself by supplying evidence against you. No doubt you foresaw that too, and that’s why you killed him. Do you wish to comment?”
“No. Go ahead and hang yourself.”
“Wait a minute,” Cramer snapped. “I want to see those papers.”
“Not now. By agreement I have an hour without interruption.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Listen and you’ll know.” Wolfe returned to Degan. “The best conjecture is that you knew Molloy had those records, some in your writing, and you knew or suspected he was preparing to decamp. If you demanded that he give them to you or destroy them in your presence, he refused. After you killed him you had no time to search the apartment, but enough to go through his clothing, and it must have been a relief to find the key to the safe-deposit box, since that was the most likely repository of the records-but it was a qualified relief, since you didn’t dare to use the key. If you still have it, and almost certainly you have, it can be found and will be a damaging bit of evidence. You now have another, as the administrator of Molloy’s estate, but surely the safe-deposit company can distinguish between the original and the duplicate they had to have made-and by the way, what would you have done if, opening the box in the presence of Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Parker, you had found the records in it? Had you decided on a course?”
Degan didn’t reply. “Get on,” Cramer rasped. “Where did you get them?”
Wolfe ignored him. “However, they weren’t there. Another question: how did you dare to kill him when you didn’t know where they were? But I’ll venture to answer that myself. By getting Peter Hays there and giving the police an obvious culprit, you insured plenty of time and opportunity for searching the apartment as an old friend of Mrs. Molloy’s. She is not present to inform us, but that can wait.”
“Where is she?” Cramer demanded.
Ignored again. “You must admit, Mr. Degan, that luck was with you. For instance, the safe-deposit box. You had the key, but even if you had known the name Molloy had used in renting it, and you probably didn’t, you wouldn’t have dared to try to get at it. Then fortune intervened, represented by me. I got you access to the box. But in spite of that good fortune you weren’t much better off, for the records weren’t there, and until you found them you were in great jeopardy. What did you do? I wouldn’t mind paying you the compliment of supposing that you conceived the notion that Molloy had cached the records in Delia Brandt’s apartment, and you approached her, but I doubt if you deserve it. It is far more likely that she approached you; that, having decided to marry William Lesser, she wanted to get rid of Molloy’s suitcase, still in her apartment; that before doing so she forced it open and inspected its contents; that if items such as passports and steamship or airplane tickets were there she destroyed them; that she examined the sheaf of papers and from them learned that there was a large sum of money somewhere and that you had been involved with Molloy in extensive and lucrative transactions and probably knew where the money was. She was not without cunning. Before approaching you she took the suitcase, with the records in it, to Grand Central Terminal and put it in a checking locker. Then she saw you, told you what she knew and what she had, and demanded the money.”
“That’s a lie!” William Lesser blurted.
Wolfe’s eyes darted to him. “Then what did she do? Since you know?”
“I don’t know, but I know she wouldn’t do that! It’s a lie!”
“Then let me finish it. A lie, like a truth, should reach its destination. And that, Mr. Degan, was where luck caught up with you. You couldn’t give her the money from the safe-deposit box, but even if you gave her a part of your share of the loot and she surrendered the records to you, you couldn’t empty her brain of what she knew, and as long as she lived she would be a threat. So last night you went to her apartment, ostensibly, I presume, to give her the money and get the records, but actually to kill her, and you did so. I don’t know-
I wouldn’t say that Saul slipped up. Sitting between Lesser and Degan, naturally he was
