“Well, I made a list of hobby shops from the Yellow Pages. We’re going to have lunch in the Times Square area, and then we’re going around to all the addresses I have and try to locate a rock hound’s hammer. Is that the right way, Captain?”
“Exactly the right way,” Delaney assured him. “It’s just what I’d do. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find it in the first four or five or dozen or fifty places you visit. Stick to it.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Langley said stoutly, straightening up. “This is important, isn’t it, Captain?”
Delaney looked at him strangely. “Yes,” he nodded, “it
“Well,” Christopher Langley said, “then I better get to it.”
“May I keep this hammer?”
“Of course, of course. I have no use for it. I’ll keep you informed as to our progress.”
“Well…you know. I must take the Widow Zimmerman to lunch. She has been very kind to me.”
“Of course.”
“But I’ve told her nothing, Captain.
“Good. Keep it that way. And I must apologize for my phone conversation this morning. I’m probably being overcautious. I doubt very much if my phone is being tapped, but there’s no point in taking chances. When you want to reach me from now on, just dial my home phone and say something innocuous. I’ll get back to you within ten or fifteen minutes from an outside phone. Will that be satisfactory?”
Then the ex-curator did something exceedingly curious. He made an antique gesture Delaney had read about in Dickens’ novels but had never seen. Langley laid a forefinger alongside his nose and nodded wisely. Captain Delaney was delighted. “Exactly,” he nodded.
Then they were gone, waving goodby to Barbara and promising to visit her again. When the door closed behind them, Barbara and Edward looked at each other, then simultaneously broke into laughter.
“I like her,” Barbara told him. “She asked very personal questions on short acquaintance, but I think it was from genuine interest, not just idle curiosity. A very warm, out-going, good-hearted woman.”
“I think she’s after Langley.”
“So?” she challenged. “What’s wrong with that? She told me she’s been very lonely since her husband died, and he’s all alone, too. It’s not good to be alone when you get old.”
“Look at this,” he said, changing the subject hastily. “It’s a bricklayer’s hammer. This is what Langley’s come up with so far.”
“Is that what killed Lombard?”
“Oh no. But it’s close. It’s an ugly thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Evil-looking. Put it away, please, dear.”
He put it back in the brown paper sack and placed it atop his folded overcoat, so he wouldn’t forget it when he left. Then he drew up a chair alongside her bed.
“What are you going to do with the gefilte fish?” he smiled. “I may try a little. Unless you’d like it, Edward?”
“No, thank you!”
“Well, it was nice of her to bring it. She’s one of those women who think food solves all problems and you can’t be miserable on a full stomach. Sometimes they’re right.”
“Yes.”
“You’re discouraged, aren’t you, Edward?”
He rose and began to stalk up and down at the foot of her bed, hands shoved into his hip pockets.
“Nothing is happening!” he said disgustedly. “I’m not
“You’re convinced the killer is crazy?”
“It’s just an idea,” he sighed, “but the only theory that makes any sense at all. But if I’m right, it means we have to wait for another killing before we learn anything more. That’s what’s so infuriating.”
“Isn’t that hammer Langley brought a lead?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But even if Lombard had been murdered with a hammer exactly like that. I’d be no closer to finding the killer. There must be hundreds-thousands! — of hammers exactly like that in existence, and more sold every day. So where does that leave me?”
“Come over here and sit down.” She motioned toward the chair at the bedside. He slumped into it, took her proffered hand. She lifted his knuckles to her face, rubbed them softly on her cheek, kissed them. “Edward,” she said. “Poor Edward.”
“I’m a lousy cop,” he grumbled.
“No,” she soothed. “You’re a good cop. I can’t think of anything you could have done that you haven’t done.”
“Operation Lombard did it all,” he said dispiritedly.
“You discovered his driver’s license was missing.”
“Oh sure. Whatever the hell that means.”
After 30 years of living with this man, she was almost as familiar with police procedure as he. “Did they check license — numbers of parked cars?” she asked.
“Of course. Chief Pauley saw to that. The license number of every parked car in a five-block area was taken down on three successive nights. Then the owners were looked up and asked if they saw anything on the night of the murder. What a job that must have been! But Broughton has the manpower to do it, and it had to be done. They got nothing. Just like the questioning of residents in the neighborhood. Zero.”
“Occam’s Razor,” she said, and he smiled, knowing what she meant.
Several years ago he had come across the unfamiliar phrase “Occam’s Razor” in a criminologist’s report dealing with percentages and probabilities in homicide cases in the Boston area. Delaney trusted the findings since the percentages quoted were very close to those then current in New York: the great majority of homicides were committed by relatives or “friends” of the victim-mothers, fathers, children, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, neighbors…In other words, most killings involved people who knew each other.
In light of these findings, the Boston criminologist had stated, it was always wise for investigating officers to be guided by the principle of “Occam’s Razor.”
Intrigued by the phrase, Delaney had spent an afternoon in the reading room of the 42nd Street library, tracking down Occam and his “Razor.” Later he told Barbara what he had discovered.
“Occam was a fourteenth century philosopher,” he reported. “His philosophy was ‘nominalism,’ which I don’t understand except that I think he meant there are no universal truths. Anyway, he was famous for his hard-headed approach to problem solving. He believed in shaving away all extraneous details. That’s why they call his axiom ‘Occam’s Razor.’ He said that when there are several possible solutions, the right one is probably the most obvious. In other words, you should eliminate all the unnecessary facts.”
“But you’ve been doing that all your life, Edward.”
“I guess so,” he laughed, “but I call it ‘Cut out the crap.’ Anyway, it’s nice to know a fourteenth century philosopher agrees with me. I wish I knew more about philosophy and could understand it.”
“Does it really bother you that you can’t?”
“Nooo…it doesn’t bother me, but it makes me realize the limitations of my intelligence. I just can’t think in abstractions. You know I tried to learn to play chess three times and finally gave up.”
“Edward, you’re more interested in people than things, or ideas. You have a very good intelligence for people.”
Now, in the hospital room, when Barbara mentioned Occam’s Razor, he knew what she meant and smiled ruefully.
“Well,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “I wonder if old Occam ever tried solving an irrational problem by rational means. I wonder if he wouldn’t begin to doubt the value of logic and deductive reasoning when you’re dealing with-” But then the door to the hospital room swung open, and Dr. Louis Bernardi glided in, olive skin gleaming, his little eyes glittering. A stethoscope was draped about his neck.
He offered Delaney a limp hand, and with the forefinger of his left hand lovingly caressed his ridiculous stripe of a mustache.
