'Hi,' I said.
'Glynis went beddy-bye,' she giggled.
I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes to ten. Early for beddy-bye.
I caught the subway on CPW, got off at 23rd Street, and walked the three blocks to my home. I kept to the kerb and I didn't dawdle. When I was inside the building, I felt that 68
sense of grim satisfaction that all New Yorkers feel on arriving home safely. Now, if a masked intruder was not awaiting me in my living room, drinking my brandy, all would be well.
It was not a would-be thief awaiting me, but Captain Bramwell Shank, and he was drinking his own muscatel.
His door was open, and he wheeled himself out into the hallway when he heard me climb the stairs.
'Where the hell have you been?' he said querulously.
'Come on in and have a glass of wine and watch the eleven o'clock news with me.'
'I think I better take a raincheck, Captain,' I said. 'I've had a hard day and I want to get to bed early.' But I went in anyway, moved laundry off a chair, and sat watching the 24-inch colour set.
'You get your invite to the party?' Captain Shank demanded, pouring himself another glass of wine.
'Yes,' I said, 'I got it.'
'Knew you would,' he said, almost cackling. 'Happened just like I said, didn't it?'
I took a sip of wine, put my head back, closed my eyes.
The local news came on, and we heard more dire predictions of New York's financial fate. We saw a tenement fire in the Bronx that killed three. We watched the Mayor hand a key to the city to a champion pizza twirler.
I was contemplating how soon I could decently leave when the news came on. The anchorman read a few small items of local interest to which I drifted off. Then he said:
'Service was halted for an hour on the Lexington Avenue IRT this evening while the body of a man was removed from the express tracks at the 14th Street station.
He apparently fell or jumped to his death at the south end of the station just as a train was coming in. The victim has tentatively been identified as Martin Reape of Manhattan.
No additional details are available at this time. And now, a message to all denture wearers. . '
'What?' I said, waking up. 'What did he say?'
7
I read the story in the Times on the 23rd Street crosstown bus in the morning. It was only a paragraph in 'The City'
column:
'Police are seeking witnesses to the death of Martin Reape of Manhattan who fell or jumped at the 14th Street station of the Lexington Avenue IRT subway. The accident occurred during the evening rush hour and resulted in delays of more than an hour. The motorman of the train involved told police he had just entered the station and had applied his brakes when 'the body came flying out of nowhere.' '
Rook before you Reape.
I made it to the office a few minutes before 9.00, called Thelma Potts, and told her I had to see Mr Tabatchnick as soon as possible.
'You're getting to be a regular visitor,' she said.
'Just an excuse to see you,' I said.
'Oh you! ' she said.
I spent an hour typing up a report of my conversations with the Stonehouses and Mrs Dark. I tried to leave nothing out, because at that time I had no conception of what was important and what was just sludge. After reading over the report, I could detect no pattern, not even a vague clue to the professor's disappearance. Just then Thelma Potts called to say Mr Tabatchnick would see me.
When I entered his office, he was standing behind the trestle table, drinking from a mug that had 'Grandpa'
painted on it. He was in a testy mood.
'What is so urgent that it couldn't wait until I had a chance to inspect my fish?'
I laid the Times column on his desk. I had boxed the Reape item with a red grease pencil.
Mr Tabatchnick removed a heavy pair of black hornrimmed glasses from his breast pocket. He took out a clean, neatly pressed handkerchief and slowly polished the glasses, breathing on them first. He donned the spectacles and, still standing, began to read. His expression didn't change, but he lowered himself slowly into his swivel chair.
'Sit down, Mr Bigg,' he said. The voice wasn't irritable anymore. In fact, it sounded a little shaky. 'What do you think happened?'
'I think he was murdered, sir. Pushed on to the tracks by that other customer or customers he was going to see.'
'You have a vivid imagination, Mr Bigg.'
'It fits, sir.'
'Then wouldn't he have had the money on him if he had sold the information? The paper mentions nothing of that.
Or if he hadn't made the deal, wouldn't he have had the information on his person?'
'Not necessarily, sir. First of all, we don't know that his information was physical evidence. It may have been just something he knew. And it's possible he went to see his other customers just to discuss the details of the deal, and no exchange took place prior to his death. But after talking to him, his customers feared the payment would be only the first of a series of demands, and so they decided his death was the only solution.'
He exhaled heavily.
'Very fanciful,' he said. 'And totally without proof.'
'Yes, sir,' I said, 'I admit that. But during my meeting with Reape, I said something to the effect that fifty 71
thousand was a lot of money, and he said, quote, It's worth fifty grand to make sure it goes to the right people, ain't it? Unquote. He was speaking of the estate, sir. So perhaps his other customers were the wrong people. You follow, Mr Tabatchnick?'
'Of course I follow,' he said furiously. 'You're saying that with Reape out of the picture, the wrong people will profit. That means that the beneficiaries named in the existing will may include the wrong people.'
He didn't like that at all. He leaned forward to read the Reape story for the third time. Then he angrily shoved the paper away.
'I wish,' he said, 'that I could be certain that this Reape person actually did possess what he claimed. He may merely have read the news story of Sol Kipper's suicide and devised this scheme to profit from the poor man's death. It might have been just a confidence game, a swindle.'
'Mr Tabatchnick, did the news story of Sol Kipper's suicide mention the value of his estate?'
'Of course not!'
'During my meeting with Reape, he said, quote, How much is that estate — four mil? Five mil? Unquote. Was that a close estimate of the estate, Mr Tabatchnick?'
'Close enough,' he said in a low voice. 'It's about four million six.'
'Well, how would Reape have known that if he hadn't been intimately involved with the Kipper family in some way? Surely his knowledge of the size of the estate is a fairly solid indication that he had the information he claimed.'
Leopold Tabatchnick sighed deeply. Then he sat brooding, head lowered. He pulled at his lower lip. I was tempted to slap his hand and tell him his lips protruded enough.
I don't know how long we sat there in silence. Finally, Tabatchnick sighed again and straightened up. He put his thick hands on the tabletop, palms down.
