the face and figure of Rubber Coleman, and while of course there could be no real identification by a telephone talk after forty years, still it was support. I asked Mr. Lindquist, in fact, for descriptions of all the men concerned in that affair, thinking there might be some complication more involved than this most obvious one, but it was his description of Rubber Coleman which most nearly approximated that of Mr, Perry. The next step-'
'Wait a minute, Wolfe.' Skinner's croak was imperative. 'You can't do this. Not this way. If you've got a case, I'm the District Attorney. If you haven't-'
Perry cut in, 'Let him alone! Let him hang himself.'
Hombert muttered something to Cramer, and the inspector rumbled back. Clivers spoke up. 'I'm concerned in this. Let Wolfe talk.' He used a finger of his left hand to point at Perry because his right hand was still in his coat pocket. 'That man is Rubber Coleman. Wolfe learned that, didn't he? What the devil have the rest of you done, except annoy me?'
Perry leveled his eyes at the marquis. 'You're mistaken, Lord Clivers. You'll regret this.'
Wolfe had taken advantage of the opportunity to finish his botde and ring for another. Now he looked around. 'You gendemen may be curious why, if Mr. Perry is not Rubber Coleman, he does not express indignant wonderment at what I am talking about Oh, he could explain that. Long ago, shordy after she entered Seaboard's employ, Miss Fox told him the story which you heard from her last night. He knows all about the Rubber Band, from her, and also about her efforts to find its surviving members. And by the way, as regards the identity- did Mr. Walsh telephone you around five o'clock yesterday afternoon, Lord Clivers, and tell you he had just found Rubber Coleman?'
Clivers nodded. 'He did.'
Tes.' Wolfe looked at Cramer. 'As you informed me, immediately after leaving the Seaboard office, where he had gone on account of his unfortunate suspicions regarding Miss Fox and myself after Harlan Scovil had been killed, Mr. Walsh sought a telephone. There-as can doubdess be verified by inquiry, along with multitudinous other details-he had seen Mr. Perry. It is a pity he did not inform me, since in that case he would still be alive;
but what he did do was to phone Lord Clivers, with whom he had had a talk in the morning. He had called at the Hotel Portland and Lord Clivers had considered it advisable to see him, had informed him of the payment which had been made to Rubber Coleman long before, and had declared his intention of giving him a respectable sum of money. Now, learning from Mr. Walsh over the telephone that he had found Rubber Coleman, Lord Clivers saw that immediate and purposeful action was required if publicity was to be avoided; and he told Mr. Walsh that around seven o'clock that evening, on his way to a dinner engagement, he would stop in at the place Mr. Walsh was working, which was a short distance from his hotel. I have been told these details within the last hour. Is that correct, sir?'
Clivers nodded. 'It is.'
Wolfe looked at Perry, but Perry's eyes were fixed on Clivers. Wolfe said, 'So, for the identity, we have Mr. Lindquist's description, Mr. Walsh's phone call, and Lord Clivers' present recognition. Why, after forty years, Mr. Scovil and Mr. Walsh should have recognized Rubber Coleman is, I think, easily explicable. On account of the circumstances, their minds were at the moment filled with vivid memories of that old event, and alert with suspicion. They might have passed Mr. Perry a hundred times on the street without a second glance at him, but in the situations in which they saw him recollection jumped for them.' He looked again at the Seaboard president, and again asked, 'What about it now, Mr. Perry? Won't you give us that?'
Perry moved his eyes at him. He spoke smoothly. 'I'm still not talking. I'm listening.' He suddenly, spasmodically, jerked forward, and there was a stir around the circle. Cramer's bulk tensed in his chair. Skinner's hands dropped. Clivers stiffened. I got my hand to my desk, on the gun. I don't think Perry noticed any of it, for his gaze stayed on Wolfe, and he jerked back again and set his jaw. He said not quite so smoothly, 'You go on.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'You're a stubborn man, Mr. Perry. However- as I started to say, the next step for me, yesterday afternoon, was to get in touch with Mr. Walsh, persuade him of my good faith, show him a photograph of Mr. Perry, and substantiate my conjecture. That became doubly important and urgent after Lord Clivers called here and I learned of the payment that had been made to Coleman in 1906.1 considered the idea of asking Lord Clivers for a description of Coleman, and even possibly showing him Perry's photograph, but rejected it I was at that moment by no means convinced of his devotion to scruple, and even had I been, I would not have cared to alarm him further by showing him the imminence of Coleman's discovery- and the lid blown off the pot First I needed Mr. Walsh, so I sent a man to Fifty-fifth Street to reconnoiter.
'Of course, I had found out other things. For instance, one of my men had visited the directors' room of the Seaboard Products Corporation and learned that it has a second door, into the public hall, through which Mr. Perry might easily have departed at five-twenty or [hereabouts Monday afternoon on some errand, and returned some thirty minutes later, without Mr. Goodwin's knowledge. Questions to his business associates who were present might elicit answers. For another instance, Miss Fox had breakfast with me yesterday morning- and I assure you, Mr. Skinner, I did not waste the time in foolish queries as to where her mother used to keep letters sixteen years ago.
'Combining information with conjecture, I get a fair picture of some of Mr. Perry's precautionary activities. In the spring of 1932 he saw an advertisement in a newspaper seeking knowledge of the whereabouts of Michael Walsh and Rubber Coleman. In a roundabout way he learned who had inserted it; and a month later Clara Fox was in the employ of the Seaboard Products Corporation. He could keep an eye on her, and did so. He cultivated her company, and earned a degree of her confidence. When she found Harlan Scovil, and later Hilda Lindquist, and still later Michael Walsh, he knew of it. He tried to convince her of the foolishness of her enterprise, but without success. Then suddenly, last Thursday, he learned she had found Lord Clivers, and he at once took measures to hamstring her. He may even then have considered murder and rejected it; at any rate, he decided that sending her to prison as a thief would completely discredit her and would be sufficient. He knew that her initiative was the only active force threatening him, and that with her removed there would be litde danger. An opportunity was providentially at hand. Friday afternoon he himself took that thirty thousand dollars from Mr. Muir's desk, and sent Miss Fox into that room with a cablegram to be copied. I don't know-'
Muir had popped up out of his chair and was squealing, 'By God, I believe it! By God if I don't! And all the time you were plotting against her! You dirty sneak, you dirty-'
Cramer, agile on his feet, had a hand on Muir's shoulder. 'All right, all right, you just sit down and we'll all believe it. Come on, now.' He eased him down, Muir chattering.
Perry said contemptuously, bitingly, 'So that's you, Muir.' He whirled, and there was a quality in his movement that made me touch my gun again. 'Wolfe, all this you're inventing, you'll eat it.' He added slowly, 'And it will finish you.'
