down a little, so I stretched it to ten, and when I ran out of facts I continued, “I would want full price, no discount, for my two guesses-that the knife came from his kitchen drawer, and that he was drugged, unconscious, when he was stabbed. I have another guess on which I’d allow five per cent off for cash, no more-that he had been dead eighty hours. Between eighty and eighty-five. He was killed late Wednesday night. X went straight to him after killing Jane Ogilvy. If he had put it off until after the news about Jane Ogilvy was out, Rennert would have been too much on his guard to let X put something in his drink. Rennert may or may not have suspected that X had killed Simon Jacobs, since nothing had been published connecting his death with the plagiarism charge he had made three years ago. But if Rennert had known about Jane Ogilvy too, he certainly would have suspected. Hell, he would have known. So X couldn’t wait, and he didn’t. He went to Rennert to discuss their claim against Mortimer Oshin, knowing that Rennert would offer him a drink. He offered me one before I had been in his place three minutes.”
I stopped for breath. Wolfe opened his fists and worked his fingers.
“Three comments,” I said. “First, one question is answered-whether Rennert’s operation was independent or was one of X’s string. X has answered that for us. I admit it doesn’t help any, with Rennert dead, but it makes it neater, and you like things neat. Second, with Rennert dead, his claim against Mortimer Oshin is dead too, and Oshin may want his ten grand back, and the committee may fire you tomorrow, and the Alice Porter surveillance is costing over three hundred bucks a day. Third, your beer and meat pledge. We’ll ignore it. You were temporarily off your nut. This is tough enough as it is, and with you starving and dying of thirst it would be impossible.” I left my chair. “I’ll bring the beer.”
“No.” He made fists again. “I have committed myself. Sit down.”
“God help us,” I said, and sat.
Chapter 14
We were in conference, off and on, all the rest of the day, with time out for meals. The meals were dismal. Squab marinated in light cream, rolled in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, clove, thyme, and crushed juniper berries, sauteed in olive oil, and served on toast spread with red currant jelly, with Madeira cream sauce poured over it, is one of Wolfe’s favourite tidbits. He ordinarily consumes three of them, though I have known him to make it four. That day I wanted to eat in the kitchen, but no. I had to sit and down my two while he grimly pecked away at his green peas and salad and cheese. The Sunday-evening snack was just as bad. He usually has something like cheese and anchovy spread or
In the state he was in now, he would have been willing to try one or more of the routine lines, even one the cops had already covered or were covering, if it had offered any hope at all. We discussed all of them, and I made a list:
Combing Rennert’s apartment and Jane Ogilvy’s cloister.
Trying to pry something out of Mrs Jacobs and Mr and Mrs Ogilvy.
Getting names of everybody who had known of the plan to go after Jacobs, analyzing them, and seeing those who were at all possible.
Trying to trace Jacobs to his meeting with X Monday evening, 25th May.
Trying to find someone who had seen a car parked in the lane back of the cloister Wednesday evening, 27th May.
Trying to find someone who had seen X, any stranger, entering the 37th Street building Wednesday night, 27th May.
Seeing a few hundred of the friends and associates of Jacobs, Jane Ogilvy, and Rennert, to find out if all three of them had been acquainted with a certain person or persons.
Trying to learn how Jacobs and Jane Ogilvy had disposed of the loot they got from Richard Echols and the estate of Marjorie Lippin; and supposing they had transferred a big share of it to X, trying to trace the transfers. Also the loot Alice Porter had got from Ellen Sturdevant.
Trying on Alice Porter the approach we had meant to try on Jane Ogilvy. Or trying to throw a scare into her. Or trying to get from Ellen Sturdevant and her publishers, McMurray & Co., an agreement not to prosecute or demand repayment if Alice Porter would identify X.
Get a membership list of the NAAD and go over it, name by name, with Cora Bollard.
Have a couple of hundred copies made of “There Is Only Love,” “What’s Mine Is Yours,” and “On Earth but Not in Heaven,” and send them to editors and book reviewers, with a letter citing the internal evidence that they had all been written by the same person, and asking if they knew of any published material, or, with editors, submitted material, apparently by that person.
During the discussion of this last item Wolfe had before him the manuscripts of the first two, and the copy of the third, they having been returned by Cramer Friday afternoon as agreed.
There were other suggestions that I didn’t bother to put down. To each of the items listed I could have added the objections and difficulties, but they’re so obvious, especially to the routine ones, the first eight, that I didn’t think it was necessary.
The stymie was the motive. In ninety-nine murder investigations out of a hundred it gets narrowed down before long to just a few people who had motives, often only two or three, and you go on from there. This time the motive had been out in full view from the start; the trouble was, who had it? It could be anyone within reach who could read and write and drive a car-say five million in the metropolitan area, and except for Alice Porter there was absolutely no pointer. She was still alive at midnight Sunday. Orrie Cather, phoning from Carmel at twelve-twenty-three to report that Saul Panzer had relieved him on schedule, said that the light in the house had gone out at ten-fifty-two and all had been quiet since. Wolfe had gone up to bed, leaving it that we would decide in the morning how to tackle Alice Porter.
In the kitchen at a quarter to nine Monday morning, as I was pouring a third cup of coffee, Fritz asked me what I was nervous about. I said I wasn’t nervous. He said of course I was, I had been jerky for the last ten minutes, and I was taking a third cup of coffee. I said everybody in that house was too damned observant. He said, “See? You’re very nervous”-and I took the coffee to the office.
