Friday The Rabbi Slept Late

Lanigan nodded to her. 'Good guess. That's how she had her key, attached by a short chain to the ring that's the zipper-pull for an inside pocket.'

'So she took the bag rather than go to the trouble of detaching the key,' the rabbi went on. 'Now let's consider one by one the people who could possibly have left it in my car. First, to clear him out of the way, the third party, the unsuspected stranger. He would be someone who happened to be walking along and saw the bag, presumably because it was lying on the ground somewhere near the car. He would certainly open it, if only to find out if there was any identification so he could return it to its proper owner. But, more likely, he would open it out of common curiosity. If he were dishonest, he would have taken whatever of value it contained. But he did not do this.'

'How do you know that, rabbi?' asked Lanigan, suddenly alert.

'Because you said you found a heavy gold wedding ring. If the man were dishonest, he would have taken it. That he did not, suggests to me that any other thing of value-money, for instance-was left undisturbed.'

'There was some money in the purse,' Lanigan admitted. 'About what you'd expect, a couple of bills and some loose change.'

'Very good. So we can assume it is not the case of someone finding the purse, taking out whatever was of value, and then tossing away the bag itself, now valueless, so that it would not be found on him.'

'All right, where does that get you?'

'It merely clears the ground. Now suppose he were honest and wanted only to return it to its rightful owner, and he put it in my car because he had found it nearby and assumed it belonged there, or because he thought the driver, finding it in his car, would take the trouble to return it to the rightful party. If that were his sole connection with the bag, why did he put it on the floor in back instead of on the front seat, where the driver would be sure to find it? I could have driven around for days without seeing it.'

'All right, so a hitherto unsuspected stranger did not leave the bag in the car, neither an honest one nor a dishonest one. I never said one did.'

'So we'll go on to the next. We'll take the girl.'

'The girl is out. She was dead at the time.'

'How can you be so sure? It would seem that the most likely explanation for the handbag is that the girl herself left it in the car.'

'Look here, it was a warm night and you must have had the window of your study open. Right?'

'Yes. The window was up, but the Venetian blinds were down.'

'How far do you think you were from your car? I'll tell you. The car was twenty feet away from the building. Your study is on the second floor, say eleven feet above ground level. Add another four feet to give you the height of the windowsill. Now if you remember your high-school geometry, the line from the car to you is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. And if you work it out, you'll find that the sill was about twenty-five feet away from the car. Add ten feet to give you your position at your desk. That means you were thirty-five feet from the car. And if someone had got into that car, let alone quarreled and got murdered in it, you'd have heard it no matter how engrossed you were in your studies.'

'But it could have happened after I left the temple,' the rabbi objected.

Lanigan shook his head. 'Not too easily. You said you left sometime after twelve. You figured out it was about twenty past. But Patrolman Norman was walking up Maple Street towards the temple, and about that time or very shortly thereafter he was within sight of the temple. The parking lot was under his observation from that time up to three minutes past one when he pulled the box on the corner. Then he headed down Vine Street, which is the street the Serafinos live on and was therefore the street the girl must have come down.'

'All right, then after that?' suggested the rabbi.

Lanigan shook his head again. 'Nothing doing. The medical examiner first reported that the girl was killed around one o'clock, with a twenty-minute leeway either side. But that was on the basis of body temperature, rigidity, and so forth. When we questioned Bronstein we discovered they'd eaten after the movie, and that enabled the M.E. to make a determination of the time on the basis of stomach content, which is a good deal more accurate. He gave us a supplementary report that fixes one o'clock at the outside.'

'Then in that case we have to consider the possibility that in spite of my proximity to the car I was so engrossed that I heard nothing. Remember, the car windows were up, and if they were careful in opening and closing the car door and if they conversed in low tones I wouldn't have heard them. Also, the way she was killed, by strangulation, would have prevented her from crying out.'

Lanigan pointed at the rabbi's head. 'What do you call that thing you're wearing?'

The rabbi touched his black silk skullcap. 'This? A kipoh.'

'Then forgive me, rabbi,' he said, grinning, 'but you're talking through your kipoh. Why would they be careful about opening and closing the car doors and keeping their voices down to a whisper when they had no reason to assume anyone was within earshot? If they were there before it began to rain, they would have lowered the windows. It was warm, remember. And if it was during the rain, Norman surely would have seen them. What's more, there was no indication the girl had been in your car. Look here.' He opened his dispatch case and took out some papers, which he spread on the rabbi's desk, and they all drew near to look. 'These are the total contents of your car-a list of what was in every receptacle. Here's a diagram of the interior of the car showing where each item was found. Here's where the handbag was found, on the floor under the seat. Here in the plastic trash pocket were lipstick-stained tissues, but it was your wife's lipstick. On the floor in the rear, right behind the front seats, there was a bobby pin but it was your wife's. There were a number of cigarette butts in the front ashtray and one in the rear ashtray, and all were lipstick-stained with your wife's lipstick, and it was the brand she smokes because they're the same as the partially filled pack we found in the glove compartment.'

'Just a minute,' said Miriam, 'that one in the rear ashtray can't be mine. I've never sat in the back seat since we got the ear.'

'What's that? Never sat in the back seat? That's impossible.'

'Is it?' asked the rabbi mildly. 'I have never sat in any seat but the driver's seat. Actually, the back seat has never been used, come to think of it. Since we got the car, less than a year ago, I have never had occasion to transport anyone. When I am in the car, I am in the driver's seat, and when Miriam comes along she sits beside me. What is so strange about that? How often do you sit in the back seat of your car?'

'But it must have got there somehow. The lipstick is your wife's, the brand of cigarette is hers. Look here, here's a list of what was in the girl's handbag. No cigarettes, you notice.'

The rabbi studied the list. Then he pointed. 'But there's a cigarette lighter, and that would indicate that she smoked. As far as the lipstick goes, you said it was the same brand and shade as Miriam's. After all, they're both blondes.'

'Just a minute,' said Lanigan. 'The bobby pin was found in the back of the car, so you must have-'

Miriam shook her head. 'Sitting in the front seat, it would be in the back that the pin would fall.'

'Yes, I suppose so,' said Lanigan, 'but it still doesn't give us what you'd call a clear picture. She had no cigarettes-at least there were none in her purse, right?'

'Right, but she was not alone. There was someone with her-the murderer-and he probably had cigarettes.'

'Are you saying that the girl was murdered in your car, rabbi?'

'Precisely. The lipstick-stained cigarette in the rear ashtray proves that a woman was in the rear seat of my car. The handbag on the floor in the rear shows that it was Elspeth Bleech.'

'All right, let's say she was there. Let's even grant she was killed in your car. How does that help Bron- stein?'

'I'd say it clears him.'

'You mean because he had a car of his own?'

'Yes. Why would he drive into the parking lot with the girl, park alongside my car, and then change cars?'

'He might have killed her in his own car and then transferred the body to your car.'

'You're forgetting the cigarette in the rear ashtray. She was alive in my car.'

'Suppose he forced her into your car.'

'For what reason?'