She listened intently, sucking her breath in sharply when I told her about Glynis and Knurr.
'And that's where the cabdriver took Professor Stonehouse the night he disappeared,' I finished triumphantly.
But she was thinking of something else. Those young eyes seemed to have taken on a thousand-yard stare.
'Do you suppose, Mr Bigg,' she said in her light, lilting voice, 'do you suppose that either of the two women, Tippi Kipper or Glynis Stonehouse, knows of the other?'
I blinked at her. The question had never occurred to me, 326
and I was angry with myself because it should have.
'I don't know, Mrs Kletz,' I confessed. 'I'd say no, neither is aware of the other's existence. If there's anything Knurr doesn't need right now it's a jealous and vindictive woman.'
She nodded thoughtfully. 'I expect you're right, Mr Bigg.' She went back to her desk and began answering some of the routine requests. As for me, I ordered a pastrami on rye, kosher dill pickle, and tea from a Madison Avenue deli. Bernie Baum arrived and turned out to be a squat, middle-aged man with two days' growth of grizzled beard and a wet cigar. He was wearing a soiled plaid mackinaw and a black leather cap.
I handed him the statement I had prepared, and he took a pair of spectacles from his inside shirt pocket. One of the bows was missing and he had to hold the ramshackle glasses to his eyes to read.
Then he looked up at me.
'What'd this guy do?' he asked in his raspy, gargling voice. 'Rob a bank?'
'Something like that,' I said.
'It figures,' he said, nodding. 'Since I talked to you on the phone, I been trying to remember the guy better. I figure now he was nervous — you know? Something was bugging him and that's why he was bugging me.'
'Could be,' I said.
'Well,' said Bernie Baum judiciously, 'if he had a yacht stashed in that boat basin, he's probably in Hong Kong by now.'
'That could be, too,' I said. 'Now if you'll just sign the statement, Mr Baum, I'll get you your money.'
He signed Bernard J. Baum, with his address, and I made out a petty cash voucher for $100. We shook hands and I sent him up to the business office with Mrs Kletz. She was back in five minutes and told me Bernie Baum had received his cash reward and departed happily. She also 327
told me that Hamish Hooter had okayed the request with no demur. In victory, magnanimous…
Percy Stilton showed up right on time, dressed, I was happy to see, very conservatively in navy blue suit, white shirt, black tie. No jewellery. No flash. He had judged his audience to a tee. I showed him the statement the cabdriver had signed.
Percy sat there a moment, knees crossed, pulling gently at his lower lip.
'Uh-huh,' he said finally. 'We're filling in the gaps — slowly. Know what I think? Professor Stonehouse is down in the mud at the bottom of the Hudson River at 79th Street with an anchor tied to his tootsies. That's what I think. I checked out the boat basin about an hour ago.
There's a houseboat registered to a Mister Godfrey Knurr.
Not reverend, but mister. It's a fifty-foot fibreglass Gibson, and the guy I talked to told me it's a floating palace. All the comforts of home and then some.'
I sighed.
'It makes sense,' I said. 'It doesn't make sense to think a man like Knurr would be content to live in the back room of a dingy store down on Carmine Street.'
Percy was silent, and I glanced nervously at my watch.
We only had a few more minutes.
'Something bothering you?' I asked.
'Do you really think Knurr burned Kipper and Stonehouse?' he asked tonelessly.
'Kipper certainly,' I said. 'Probably Stonehouse.'
'That's how I see it,' he said, nodding sombrely.
'What's bothering me is this: we know of two. How many more are there we don't know about?'
I gathered up my notes and files and we took the elevator up to the library. Neither of us spoke during the ascent.
There was a note Scotch-taped to the library door:
'Closed from 2.00 to 3.00 p.m.' An effective notice to me 328
that I would be allotted one hour, no more. Stilton and I went in and took adjoining leather-padded captain's chairs at the centre of one of the table's long sides.
'Perce, can you get through this without smoking?' I asked him.
'Sure.'
'Try,' I said.
I arranged my files and papers in front of me. I went over my presentation notes. Then we sat in silence.
When Ignatz Teitelbaum and Leopold Tabatchnick entered together, at precisely 2.00 p.m., Stilton and I rose to our feet. I thought wildly that there should have been a fanfare of trumpets.
Both senior partners were wearing earth-coloured vested suits, with shirts and ties of no particular style or distinction. But there the resemblance ended. Tabatchnick, with his brooding simian posture, towered over Teitelbaum, who appeared especially frail and shrunken in comparison.
I realized with a shock that these two men had lived a total of almost a century and a half, and shared a century of legal experience. It was a daunting perception, and it took me a few seconds to gather my courage and plunge ahead.
'Mr Tabatchnick,' I said, 'I believe you've already met Detective Percy Stilton of the New York Police Department. Detective Stilton was involved in the initial inquiry into the death of Solomon Kipper.'
Tabatchnick gave Percy a cold nod and me an angry glare as he realized I had disobeyed his injunction against sharing the results of my investigation with the police.
I introduced Percy to Mr Teitelbaum. Again, there was an exchange of frosty nods. Neither of the partners had made any effort to sit down. My longed-for conference was getting off to a rocky start.
'Detective Stilton,' Mr Tabatchnick said in his most orotund voice, 'are we to understand that you are present in an official capacity?'
'No, sir, I am not,' the detective said steadily. 'I am here as an interested observer, and perhaps to contribute what I can to the solution of a dilemma confronting you gentlemen.'
I could have kissed him. Their eyebrows went up; they glanced at each other. Obviously they hadn't been aware they were confronted by a dilemma, and just as obviously wanted to hear more about it. They drew up chairs opposite us. I waited until everyone was seated and still.
'Gentlemen,' I started, 'it would save us all a great deal of time if you could tell me if each of you is aware of my investigation into the other's case. That is, Mr Teitelbaum, have you been informed of the circumstances surrounding the death of Sol Kipper? And, Mr Tabatchnick, are you — '
'Get on with it,' Tabatchnick interrupted testily. 'We're both aware of what's been going on.'
'As of your last reports,' Mr Teitelbaum added, his leather hands lying motionless on the table before him. 'I presume you have something to add?'
'A great deal, sir,' I said, and I began, using short declarative sentences and speaking as briskly as possible without garbling my words.
I was gratified to discover that I could speak extemporaneously and forcefully without consulting my notes. So I was able to meet the eyes of both men as I spoke, shifting my gaze from one to the other; depending on whether I was discussing matters relating to Kipper or Stonehouse.
It was like addressing two stone monoliths, as brooding and inexplicable as the Easter Island heads. Never once did they stir or change expression. Mr Teitelbaum sat back in his chair, seemingly propped erect with stiff, spindly arms thrust out, splayed hands flat on the tabletop. Mr Tabatchnick leaned forward, looming, his hunched shoulders over the table, heavy head half-lowered, the usual fierce 330
scowl on his rubbery lips.
Up through my account of recognizing one of Knurr's street Arabs among my attackers, neither of the
