As he left Bronstein, the rabbi reflected sadly that his first attempts to help had succeeded only in uncovering two points, both minor and both detrimental to the unfortunate man. In his interview with Mrs. Bronstein he had learned that on this one night of the week she had not been up to greet her husband. Of course even if she could say he had not seemed upset, it would not help much; as his wife she would not be given full credence, and in any case it was only negative evidence. And what stuck in his mind from his interview with the husband was the picture of him scooping his wife up in his arms and depositing her on the car seat. He had always thought it might be difficult and awkward for the murderer to carry the body from one car to the other, but now Mel Bronstein had demonstrated it would be no trick at all, that he was a practiced hand at it.
Bronstein's car was a big Lincoln, whereas his was a compact, which could make a difference. When he got home, he drove into the garage, got out, and studied the car, a frown on his thin, scholarly face. Then he called into the house for Miriam to come out for a minute.
She did so, standing beside him and following the direction of his stare. 'Did someone scratch it?'
Instead of answering, he put his arm around her waist absently. She smiled affectionately at him, but he did not appear to notice. He reached out and swung open the car door.
'What is it, David?'
He pulled at his lower lip as he surveyed the interior of the car. Then, without a word, he bent down and picked her up in his arms.
'David!'
He staggered with his burden over to the open car door.
She began to giggle.
He tried to ease her onto the seat. 'Let your head hang back,' he ordered.
Instead, still giggling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and put her face against his.
'Please, Miriam.'
She pecked at his ear.
'I'm trying to-'
She swung her legs provocatively. 'What would Mr. Wasserman say if he saw us now?'
'Having fun?'
They turned to see Chief Lanigan in the doorway, a broad smile on his face.
The rabbi hastily set his wife down. He felt foolish. 'I was just experimenting,' he explained. 'It's not easy to maneuver a body onto a car seat.'
Lanigan nodded. 'No, but although the girl probably weighed more than Mrs. Small, Bronstein's a good bit bigger than you.'
'I suppose that makes a difference,' the rabbi said, as he led the way into the house and to his study.
When they were seated, Lanigan asked how he had made out with Bronstein.
'I got to know him this afternoon,' said the rabbi. 'He's not the sort of person who would be likely to do a thing like this-'
'Rabbi, rabbi,' the chief interrupted impatiently, 'when you've seen as many criminals as I have you'll know that appearances are meaningless. Do you suppose a thief has a furtive look? Or that a confidence man is shifty- eyed? Why, his stock in trade is an open, frank appearance and an ability to look you straight in the eye. You people are called the People of the Book, and I suppose a rabbi is a particularly bookish sort of person. I have a great deal of respect for books and for bookish people, rabbi, but in matters such as this it's experience that counts.'
'But if appearances and manner are deceptive, then all appearances are neutralized,' said the rabbi mildly, 'and it's hard to see how a jury system could possibly function. What do you base your convictions on?'
'Evidence, rabbi. On mathematically certain evidence, if it's available, or on the weight of probabilities if it isn't.'
The rabbi nodded slowly. Then he said with seeming irrelevance, 'Do you know about our Talmud?'
'That's your book of laws, isn't it? Does it have anything to do with this?'
'Well, it's not really our book of laws. The Books of Moses are that. It's the commentaries on the Law. I don't suppose it has any direct connection with the case at hand, but you can't be too sure of that either since al! kinds of things can be found in the Talmud. I wasn't thinking at the moment of its contents, however, but rather of the method of its study. When I began to study in the religious school as a youngster, all subjects- Hebrew, grammar, literature, the Scriptures-all were taught in the ordinary way, just as subjects are taught in the public school. That is to say, we sat at desks while the teacher sat at a larger desk on a platform. He wrote on the board, he asked questions, he gave out home lessons and heard us recite. But when I began Talmud, instruction was different. Imagine a large table with a group of students around it. At the head of the table was the teacher, a man with a long, patriarchal beard in this case. We read a passage, a short statement of the Law. Then followed the objections, the explanations, the arguments of the rabbis of old on the proper interpretation of the passage. Before we quite knew what we were doing, we were adding our own arguments, our own objections, our own hair- splitting distinctions and twists of logic, the so-called pilpul. Sometimes the teacher took it on himself to defend a given position and then we peppered him with questions and objections. I imagine a bear-baiting must have been like that-a shaggy bear surrounded by a pack of yelping dogs, and the moment he manages to toss off one another is ready to charge. As you begin to argue, new ideas keep presenting themselves. I remember an early passage I studied, which considered how damages should be assessed in the case of a fire resulting from a spark that flew out from under the blacksmith's hammer. We spent two whole weeks on that one passage, and when we finally reluctantly left it, it was with the feeling that we had barely begun. The study of the Talmud has exercised a tremendous influence over us. Our great scholars spent their lives studying the Talmud, not because the exact interpretation of the Law happened to be germane to their problems at the time-in many cases the particular laws had become dead letters-but because as a mental exercise it had a tremendous fascination for them. It encouraged them to dredge up from their minds all kinds of ideas-'
'And you propose to use this method on our present problem?'
'Why not? Let's examine the weight of probabilities in your theory and see if it stands up.'
'All right, go ahead.'
The rabbi got up from his chair and began to stride about the room. 'We will start not with the body, but with the handbag.'
'Why?'
'Why not?'
Lanigan shrugged his shoulders. 'Okay, you're the teacher.'
'Actually, the handbag is a more fertile field of investigation if only because it touches on three people. The body lying behind the wall concerns only two people: the girl and her murderer. The handbag involves those two and me, because it was in my car that the handbag was found.'
'Good enough.'
'Now, what are the possibilities by which the handbag could have been left where it was found? It could have been left by the girl or by the man who killed her, or by a third party, unkown, unsuspected, and until now unconsidered.'
'You got something new up your sleeve, rabbi?' asked Lanigan suspiciously.
'No, I'm merely considering all the possibilities.'
There was a knock on the study door and Miriam came in with a tray.
'I thought you'd like some coffee,' she said.
'Thank you,' said Lanigan. 'Aren't you going to join us?' he said when he noticed there were only two cups on the tray.
'May I?'
'Certainly. There's nothing very confidential about this. The rabbi is just giving me my first lesson in the Talmud.'
When she returned with a coffee cup, he said, 'All right, rabbi, we've listed all the people who could have left the handbag. Where does that take us?'
'Of course the first question that comes to mind is why she had the bag with her at all. I suppose it's automatic with some women.'
'A lot of women attach their house key to the inside of the bag by a chain,' suggested Mrs. Small.
