Trio for Blunt Instruments

Ashby; now I know who did. I’ll tell you briefly-”

Cramer cut in. “Now I’m here officially! Now you’re saying you can name a murderer! How did you know Vassos hadn’t killed Ashby?”

Wolfe glared at him. “I have your word. Listen or leave.”

“I’ll listen to your answer to my question!”

“I was about to give it.” Wolfe turned to the others. “I was saying, I’ll tell you briefly how I knew that. Miss Vassos came to me Tuesday evening to engage my services. She said that someone had lied to the police about her; that the police were persuaded that she had been seduced by Ashby and her father had found out about it and had killed Ashby and then himself; that none of that was true; that her father had told her I was the greatest man in the world; that she wanted to hire me to discover and establish the truth; and in payment she would give me all the dollar bills, some five hundred, I had paid her father for shining my shoes over a period of more than three years.”

He turned a palm up. “Very well. If she had in fact misbehaved, and if her misbehavior had been responsible for her father’s committing murder and suicide, what on earth could possibly have impelled her to come to me-the greatest man in the world to her father, and therefore a man not to be hoodwinked-and offer me what was for her a substantial sum to learn the truth and expose it? It was inconceivable. So I believed her.”

He turned his hand back over. “But I won’t pretend that I was moved to act by the dollar bills, by the pathos of Miss Vassos’ predicament, or by a passion for truth and justice. I was moved by pique. Monday afternoon, the day before Miss Vassos came, Mr. Cramer had told me that I was capable of shielding a murderer in order to avoid the inconvenience of finding another bootblack; and the next day, Wednesday, he told Mr. Goodwin that I had been beguiled by a harlot and ejected him from his office. That’s why-”

“I didn’t eject him!”

Wolfe ignored it. “That’s why Mr. Cramer is here. I could have asked the district attorney to send someone, but I preferred to have Mr. Cramer present.”

“I’m here and I’m listening,” Cramer rasped.

Wolfe turned to him. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass over the actions at law I advised Miss Vassos to bring; that was merely a ruse to make contact. I needed to see these people. I already had a strong hint about the murderer. So had you.”

“If you mean a hint about somebody besides Vassos, you’re wrong. I hadn’t.”

“You had. I gave it to you, half of it, or Mr. Goodwin did, when he reported verbatim my conversation with Mr. Vassos Monday morning. He said he saw someone. He said that he had only said what if he told a cop he saw someone, but it was obvious that he actually had seen someone. Also he told his daughter that evening that there was something he hadn’t told either me or the police, and he was going to come and tell me in the morning and ask me what he ought to do; and he wouldn’t tell his daughter what it was. Surely that’s a strong hint.”

“Hint of what?”

“That he knew, or thought he knew, who had killed Ashby. Where and when he had seen someone can only be conjectured, but it is highly probable that he had seen someone leaving Ashby’s room. Not entering; you know the times involved as well as I do, or better; he must have seen him leaving, at a moment which made it likely that he had been in that room when Ashby left it by the window. And it was someone whom he did not want to expose, for whom he had affection or regard, or who had put him under obligation. There I have the advantage of you. Mr. Vassos and I had formed the habit, while he was shining my shoes, of discussing the history of ancient Greece and the men who made it, and I knew the bent of his mind. He was tolerant of violence and even ferocity, and the qualities he most strongly contemned were ingratitude and disloyalty. That was, of course, not decisive, but it helped.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. “So. The person, call him X, whom Mr. Vassos had seen in compromising circumstances and who was probably the murderer, was one who had earned his affection, his high regard, his gratitude, or his loyalty.” He left Cramer and surveyed the others. “Was it one of you? That was the point of my questions yesterday afternoon when you were here, and of a discussion I had with Miss Vassos last evening. It isn’t necessary to elaborate; as you know, only one of you qualifies. You, Mr. Mercer. You fit admirably; Mr. Vassos owed you gratitude for giving his daughter a job. By which door were you leaving Ashby’s room when he saw you, the one to the outer hall or the other?”

“Neither one.” Wolfe had telegraphed the punch, and Mercer had got set. “You’re not intimating that I killed Dennis Ashby. Are you?”

“I am indeed.” Wolfe turned to Cramer. “The question of which door isn’t vital, but the inner one is more likely. You are of course familiar with the arrangement. If Mr. Mercer left by the door to the outer hall after killing Ashby, he would have had to get back in through the reception room and would have been seen by Miss Cox and anyone else who happened to be there. The other way, there was a good chance of being seen by no one, and he was seen only by Mr. Vassos, who had just entered the reception room and been nodded in by Miss Cox.”

“You say,” Cramer growled. “So far, damn little. I’m still listening.”

Wolfe nodded. “I thought it proper to explain what directed my attention to Mr. Mercer. After my talk last evening with Miss Vassos I called in Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin. You know them. Mr. Goodwin wouldn’t be available today. There was a possibility that Mr. Mercer was not the only likely candidate, that there was someone in another office in that building who qualified-whom Mr. Vassos would have been reluctant to expose and who might have had a motive for killing Ashby. Mr. Durkin’s job-”

“Did Mercer have a motive?”

“I’ll come to that. Confound it, don’t interrupt! Mr. Durkin’s job was to explore that possibility, and he has spent the day at it. No negative can be established beyond question, but he found no one who met the specifications; and he got some suggestive information. On the sixth floor of that building is a firm which is the chief competitor of Mercer’s Bobbins, and its president told Mr. Durkin that Ashby’s death was a blow to him because he had been discussing with him the possibility of Ashby’s coming to his firm and they had been approaching agreement on terms. It could be that that man had been so harassed by a competitor that he had killed him, but he fails the other test. He had never had his shoes shined by Mr. Vassos. Only two people in that office had, and only occasionally, and neither of them had put him under any obligation of affection or gratitude or loyalty.”