“Good. Put your first men on at eight tonight. Not before.” Fernandez nodded. “Captain…”
“Yes?”
“The Luger’s almost ready.”
“Fine. Any problems?”
“Nope, not a one.”
“You spending any money on this?”
“Money?” Fernandez looked at him incredulously. “What money? Some guys owed me some favors.”
Delaney nodded. Fernandez opened the hallway door to depart, and there was a man standing there, his arm bent, knuckles raised, about to knock on the Captain’s door. “Captain Delaney?” the man asked Fernandez.
The lieutenant shook his head, jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Captain, stepped around the newcorner and disappeared.
“I’m Captain Edward X. Delaney.”
“My name is William T. Willow, Detective lieutenant. I believe you wanted to consult me.”
“Oh yes,” Delaney said, rising from his chair. “Please come in, lieutenant, and close the door behind you. Thank you for coming up. Please sit down over there. Sergeant MacDonald tells me you’re the best man in your field.”
“I agree,” Willow said, with a sweet smile.
Delaney laughed. “How about a drink?” he asked. “Anything?”
“You don’t happen to have a glass of sherry, do you, Captain?”
“Yes, I do. Medium dry. Will that be all right?”
“Excellent, thank you.”
The Captain walked over to his liquor cabinet, and while he poured the drink, he inspected the handwriting expert. A queer bird. The skin and frame of a plucked chicken, and clad in a hairy tweed suit so heavy Delaney wondered how the man’s frail shoulders could support it. On his lap was a plaid cap, and his shoes were over-the- ankle boots in a dark brown suede. Argyle socks, wool Tattersall shirt, woven linen tie secured with a horse’s head clasp. Quite a sight.
But Willow’s eyes were washed blue, lively and alert, and his movements, when he took the glass of sherry from Delaney, were crisp and steady.
“Your health, sir,” the lieutenant said, raising his glass. He sipped. “Harvey’s,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And very good, too. I would have been up sooner, Captain, but I’ve been in court.”
“That’s all right. No rush about this.”
“What is it?”
Delaney searched in his top desk drawer, then handed Willow the photo Thomas Handry had delivered, with the inscription on the back: “With all best wishes. Daniel G. Blank.”
“What can you tell me about the man who wrote this?” Detective lieutenant William T. Willow didn’t even glance at it. Instead, he looked at the Captain with astonishment.
“Oh dear,” he said, “I’m afraid there’s been a frightful misunderstanding. Captain, I’m a QD man, not a graphologist.”
Pause.
“What’s a QD man?” Delaney asked.
“Questioned Documents. All my work is with forgeries or suspected forgeries, comparing one specimen with another.”
“I see. And what is a graphologist?”
“A man who allegedly is able to determine character, personality, and even physical and mental illness from a man’s handwriting.”
“‘Allegedly’,” Delaney repeated. “I gather you don’t agree with graphologists?”
“Let’s just say I’m an agnostic on the matter,”’ Willow smiled his sweet smile. “I don’t agree and I don’t disagree.” The Captain saw the sherry glass was empty. He rose to refill it, and left the bottle on the little table alongside Willow’s elbow. Then the Captain sat down behind his desk again, regarded the other man gravely.
“But you’re familiar with the theories and practice of graphology?”
“Oh my yes, Captain. I read everything on the subject of handwriting analysis, from whatever source, good and bad.”
Delaney nodded, laced his fingers across his stomach, leaned back in his swivel chair.
“Lieutenant Willow,” he said dreamily, “I am going to ask a very special favor of you. I am going to ask you to pretend you are a graphologist and not a QD man. I am going to ask you to inspect this specimen of handwriting and analyze it as a graphologist would. What I want is your opinion. I do not want a signed statement from you. You will not be called upon to testify. This is completely unofficial. I just want to know what you think-putting yourself in the place of a graphologist, of course. It will go no further than this room.”
“Of course,” Willow said promptly. “Delighted.”
From an inner pocket he whipped out an unusual pair of glasses: prescription spectacles with an additional pair of magnifying glasses hinged to the top edge. The lieutenant shoved on the glasses, flipped down the extra lenses. He held the Daniel Blank inscription so close it was almost touching his nose.
“Felt-tipped pen,” he said immediately. “Too bad. You lose the nuances. Mmm. Uh-huh. Mmm. Interesting, very interesting. Captain, does this man suffer from constipation?”
“I have no idea,” Delaney said.
“Oh, my, look at this,” Willow said, still peering closely at Blank’s handwriting. “Would you believe…Sick, sick, sick. And this…Beautiful capitals, just beautiful.” He looked up at the Captain. “He grew up in a small town in middle America-Ohio, Indiana, Iowa-around there?”
“Yes.”
“He’s about forty, or older?”
“Middle-thirties.”
“Well…yes, that could be. Palmer Method. They still teach it in some schools. Goodness, look at that. This is interesting.”
Suddenly he jerked off his glasses, tucked them away, halfrose to his feet to flip the photo of Blank onto Delaney’s desk, then settled back to pour himself another glass of sherry.
“Schizoid,” he said, beginning to speak rapidly. “On one side, artistic, sensitive, imaginative, gentle, perceptive, outgoing, striving, sympathetic, generous. The capitals are works of art. Flowing. Just blooming. On the other side, lower case now, tight, very cold, perfectly aligned: the mechanical mind, ordered, disciplined, ruthless, without emotion, inhuman, dead. It’s very difficult to reconcile.”
“Yes,” Delaney said. “Is the man insane?”
“No. But he’s breaking up.”
“Why do you say that?”
“His handwriting is breaking up. Even with the felt-tipped pen you can see it. The connections between letters are faint. Between some there are no connections at all. And in his signature, that should be the most fluid and assured of anyone’s handwriting, he’s beginning to waver. He doesn’t know who he is.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant Willow,” Captain Delaney said genially. “Please stay and finish your drink. Tell me more about handwriting analysis-from a graphologist’s point of view, of course. It sounds fascinating.”
“Oh yes,” the bird-man said, “it is.”
Later that evening Delaney went into the living room to inspect the log. Danny Boy had returned to the White House at 2:03 p.m. At 5:28 p.m., he had called the Princess in the Castle, hung up abruptly after speaking only a few minutes and then, at 5:47 p.m., had taken a cab to the Castle. He was still inside as of that moment, reported by Bulldog Three. Delaney went over to the telephone desk.
“Did you get a tape of Danny Boy’s call to the Castle at five twenty-eight?”
“Yes, sir. The man on the tap gave it to us over the phone. Spin it?”
“Please.”
He listened to Daniel Blank talking to the lisping Valenter. He heard the clicks, hisses, and echo they were feeding onto the tapped line. He smiled when Blank slammed down his phone in the middle of the conversation.
