The 1st Deadly Sin

poured Langley a glass of vermouth, took a rye for himself. He handed Langley his wine, got him settled in the leather club chair. He retreated a few steps out of the circle of light cast by the reading lamp and stood in the gloom.

“Your health, sir.”

“And yours. And your wife’s.”

“Thank you.”

They both sipped.

“Well,” Delaney said, “how did you make out?”

“Oh, Captain, I was a fool, such a fool! I didn’t do the obvious thing, the thing I should have done in the first place.”

“I know,” Delaney smiled, thinking of Occam’s Razor again. “I’ve done that many times. What happened?”

“Well, as I told you at the hospital, I had gone through the Yellow Pages and made a list of hobby shops in the midtown area, places that might sell a rock hound’s hammer with a tapered pick. The Widow Zimmerman and I had lunch-I had stuffed sole: marvelous-and then we started walking around. We covered six different stores, and none of them carried rock hammers. Some of them didn’t even know what I was talking about. I could tell Myra was getting tired, so I put her in a cab and sent her home. She is preparing dinner for me tonight. By the by, she’s an awful cook. I thought I’d try a few more stores before calling it a day. The next one on my list was Abercrombie amp; Fitch. And of course they carried a rock hound’s hammer. It was so obvious! It’s the largest store of its kind in the city, and I should have tried them first. That’s why I say I was a fool. Anyway, here it is.”

He leaned over, pulled the tool from his white shopping bag, handed it to Captain Delaney.

The hammer was still in its vacuum-packed plastic coating, and the cardboard backing stated it was a “prospector’s ax recommended for rock collectors and archeologists.” Like the bricklayers’ hammer, it had a wood handle and steel head. One side of the head was a square hammer. The other side was a pick, about four inches long. It started out as a square, then tapered to a sharp point. The tool came complete with a leather holster, enabling it to be worn on a belt. The whole thing was about as long as a hatchet: a one-handed implement.

“Notice the taper of the pick,” Langley pointed out. “It comes to a sharp point, but still the pick itself does not curve downward. The upper surface curves, but the lower surface is almost horizontal, at right angles to the handle. And, of course, it has a wooden handle. But still, it’s closer to what we’re looking for-don’t you think?”

“No doubt about it,” Delaney said definitely. “If that pick had a downward curve, I’d say this is it. May I take off the plastic covering?”

“Of course.”

“You’re spending a lot of money.”

“Nonsense.”

Delaney stripped off the clear plastic covering and hefted the ax in his hand.

“This is almost it,” he nodded. “A tapered spike coming to a sharp point. About an inch across at the base of the pick. And with enough weight to crush a man’s skull. Easily. Maybe this really is it. I’d like to show it to the police surgeon who did the Lombard autopsy.”

“No, no,” Christopher Langley protested. “I haven't told you the whole story. That’s why I stopped by tonight. I bought this in the camping department, and I was on my way out to the elevators. I passed through a section where they sell skiing and mountain climbing gear. You know, rucksacks and crampons and pitons and things like that. And there, hanging on the wall, was something very interesting. It was an implement I’ve never seen before. It was about three feet long, a two-handed tool. I ruled it out immediately as our weapon: too cumbersome to conceal. And the handle was wood. At the butt end was a sharp steel spike, about three inches long, fitted into the handle. But it was the head that interested me. It was apparently chrome-plated steel. On one side was a kind of miniature mattock coming to a sharp cutting edge, a chisel edge. And the other side was exactly what we’re looking for! It was a spike, a pick, about four or five inches long. It started out from the head as a square, about an inch on each side. Then it was formed into a triangle with a sharp edge on top and the base an inch across. Then the whole thing tapered, and as it thinned, it curved downward. Captain, the whole pick curved downward, top and bottom! It came to a sharp point, so sharp in fact that the tip was covered with a little rubber sleeve to prevent damage when the implement wasn’t being used. I removed the rubber protector, and the underside of the tip had four little saw teeth. It’s serrated, for cutting. I finally got a clerk and asked him what this amazing tool was called. He said it’s an ice ax, I asked him what it was used for, and he-”

“What?” Delaney cried. “What did you say?”

“I asked the clerk what it was used-”

“No, no,” the Captain said impatiently. “What did the clerk say it was called?”

“It’s an ice ax.”

“Jesus Christ,” Delaney breathed. “Leon Trotsky. Mexico City. Nineteen-forty.”

“What? Captain, I don’t understand.”

“Leon Trotsky. He was a refuge from Stalin’s Russia-or perhaps he escaped or was deported; I don’t remember exactly; I’ll have to look it up. Trotsky and Lenin and Stalin were equals at one time. Then Lenin died. Then Stalin wanted to be Numero Uno. So Trotsky got out of Russia, somehow, and made his way to Mexico City. They caught up with him in nineteen-forty. At least it was said the assassin was an agent of the Russian Secret Police. I don’t recall the details. But he killed Trotsky with an ice ax.”

“Surely you don’t think there’s any connection between that and Frank Lombard’s death?”

“Oh no. I doubt that very much. I’ll look into it, of course, but I don’t think there’s anything there.”

“But you think Lombard may have been killed with an ice ax?”

“Let me freshen your drink,” Delaney said. He went over to the liquor cabinet, came back with new drinks for both of them. “Mr. Langley, I don’t know whether being a detective is a job, a career, a profession, a talent or an art. There are some things I do know. One, you can’t teach a man to be a good detective, anymore than you can teach him to be an Olympic miler or a great artist. And two, no matter how much talent and drive a man starts out with, he can never become a good detective without experience. The more years, the better. After you’ve been at it awhile, you begin to see the patterns. People repeat, in motives, weapons, methods of entrance and escape, alibis. You keep finding the same things happening over and over again; forced windows, kitchen knives, slashed screens, tire irons, jammed locks, rat poison-the lot. It all becomes familiar. Well, what bugged me about the Lombard killing, nothing familiar in it. Nothing! The first reaction, of course, going by percentages, was that it had been committed by a relative or acquaintance, someone known to Lombard. Negative. The next possibility was that it was an attempted robbery, a felony- homicide. Negative. His money hadn’t even been touched. And worst of all, we couldn’t even identify the weapon. But now you walk in here and say, ‘Ice ax.’ Magic words! Click! Trotsky was killed with an ice ax. Suddenly I’ve got something familiar. A murder weapon that’s been used before. It’s hard to explain, I know, Mr. Langley, but I feel better about this than I’ve felt since it started. I think we’re moving now. Thanks to you.”

The man glowed.

“But I’m sorry,” Delaney said. “I interrupted you. You were telling me what the clerk at Abercrombie amp; Fitch said when you asked him what the ice ax was used for. What did he say?”

“What?” Langley asked again, somewhat dazed. “Oh. Well, he said it was used in mountain climbing. You could use it like a cane, leaning on the head. The spike on the butt of the handle bites into crusty snow or ice, if you’re hiking across a glacier, for instance. He said you could get this ice ax with different ends on the butt-a spike, the way I saw it, or with a little wheel, like a ski pole, for soft snow, and so forth. So then I asked him if there was a shorter ice ax available, a one-handed tool, but with the head shaped the same way. He was very vague; he wasn’t sure. But he thought there was such an implement, and he thought the whole thing might be made of steel. Think of that, Captain! A one-handed tool, all steel, with a spike that curves downward and tapers to a sharp point as it curves. How does that strike you?”

“Excellent!” Captain Delaney crowed. “Just excellent! It’s now a familiar weapon, used in a previous homicide, and I feel very good about it. Mr. Langley, you’ve done wonders.”

“Oh,” the old man smiled, “it was mostly luck. Really.”

“You make your own luck,” Delaney assured him. “And my luck. Our luck. You followed through. Did the clerk tell you where you can buy a one-handed ice ax?”