Trio for Blunt Instruments

Kirk.”

“Uhuh. The DA thinks he does.”

“He’s wrong. I have a proposal. I suppose you have spoken with Mr. Vance, James Neville Vance. If you will send a man to his apartment at ten o’clock this evening to take him to you, and you keep him until you hear from me or Mr. Goodwin, and then send or bring him to me, I’ll give you enough to persuade the district attorney that he shouldn’t hold Mr. Kirk on any charge at all.”

Cramer had his chin up. “Vance? Vance?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My God.” He looked at me but saw only a manly, open face. He took a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, stuck it in his mouth, clamped his teeth on it, and took it out again. “You know damn well I won’t. Connive at illegal entry? Of course that’s why you want him away.”

“Merely your conjecture. I give you the fullest assurance, in good faith without reservation, that there will be no illegal entry or any other illegal act.”

“Then I don’t see…” Moving back in the chair, he lost the cigar. It dropped to the floor. He ignored it. “No. Vance is a respectable citizen in good standing. You’d have to open up.”

Wolfe nodded. “I’m prepared to. Not to give you facts, for you already have them; I’ll merely expound. You shouldn’t need it, but you have been centered on Mr. Kirk. Do you know all the details of the necktie episode? Mr. Goodwin getting it in the mail, the phone call he received, and his visit to Mr. Vance?”

“Yes.”

“Then attend. Four points. First the phone call. It came at a quarter past eleven. You assume that Mr. Kirk made it, pretending he was Vance. That’s untenable, or at least implausible. How would he dare? For all he knew, Mr. Goodwin had phoned Vance or gone to see him immediately after opening the envelope. For him to phone and say he was Vance would have been asinine.”

Cramer grunted. “He was off his hinges. The shape he was in, he wouldn’t see that.”

“I concede the possibility. The second point. When Mr. Goodwin went to see Vance he showed him the envelope and letterhead and let him take the tie to examine it. Vance was completely mystified. You know what was said and done. He inspected the ties in his closet and said that the one that had been mailed to Mr. Goodwin was his. But when Mr. Goodwin asked for it he handed it over without hesitation. Preposterous.”

Cramer shook his head. “I don’t think so. The body hadn’t been discovered. He thought it was just some screwy gag.”

“Pfui. One of his ties taken from his closet, his stationery used to mail it to a private detective with a message ostensibly from him, and the phone call; and he was so devoid of curiosity or annoyance that he let Mr. Goodwin take the tie, and the envelope and letterhead, with no sign of reluctance? Nonsense.”

“But he did. If he killed her, why isn’t it still nonsense?”

“Because it was part of his devious and crackbrained plan.” Wolfe looked at the clock. “It’s too close to dinnertime to go into that now. It was ill-conceived and ill-executed, and it was infantile, but it wasn’t nonsense. The third point, and the most significant: two missing neckties. He had nine and had given one to Mr. Kirk, and there were only seven left. Of course you have accounted for that in your theory. How?”

“That’s obvious. Kirk took it from Vance’s closet. Part of his plan to implicate Vance.”

Wolfe nodded. “As Vance intended you to. But have you examined that assumption thoroughly?”

“Yes. I don’t like it. That’s one reason I think the DA is moving too fast. Kirk would have been a sap to do that. Someone else could have taken it to implicate Kirk. For instance, Fougere.”

“Why not Vance himself?”

“Because a man doesn’t smash a woman’s skull unless he has a damn good reason and Vance had no reason at all.”

Wolfe grunted. “I challenge that, but first the fourth point. Those neckties were an integral item of James Neville Vance’s projection of his selfhood. Made exclusively for him, they were more than merely distinctive and personal; they were morsels of his ego. Conceivably he might have given one of them to someone close and dear to him, but not to Martin Kirk-not unless it was an essential step in an undertaking of vital importance. So it was.”

“Damn it,” Cramer growled, “his reason!”

A corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up. “Your new approach is an improvement, Mr. Cramer. You know I wouldn’t fix on a man as a murderer without a motive, so I must have one for Mr. Vance, and you want it. Not now. You would get up and go. That would be enough for you to take to the district attorney, and while it would postpone a murder charge against my client it would by no means clear him permanently, because I strongly doubt if you can get enough evidence against Vance to hold him, let alone convict him. My knowledge of Vance’s motive is by hearsay, so don’t bother to warn me about withholding evidence; I have none that you don’t have. If I get some I’ll be glad to share it. I need to know with certainty where Mr. Vance will be this evening from ten o’clock on, and when Mr. Goodwin told me that you were at the door it occurred to me that the surest way would be for you to have him with you. Do you want it in writing, signed by both of us, that there will be no illegal act-under penalty of losing our licenses?”

Cramer uttered a word about the same flavor as the one Fougere had used, but of course there was no lady present. He followed it up. “I suppose I’d send it to the Commissioner so he could frame it?” He flattened his palms on the chair arms. “Look, Wolfe. I know you. I know you’ve got something. I admit your four points taken together add up. I’ll take your word that you won’t send Goodwin to break and enter. I know I can’t pry any more out of you even if it wasn’t time for you to eat, and anyway I eat too. But you say I’m to keep Vance until I hear from you or Goodwin, and that might mean all night, and he’s not just some bum. Nothing doing. Make it tomorrow morning, say ten o’clock, and limit it to six hours if I don’t hear from you or Goodwin, and I’ll buy it.”