The Final Deduction

using all the tricks and dodges I knew, and learned later that he had been trying to find a pair of gray suspenders with a yellow stripe.

It was one of those days. Shad roe again for lunch, this time larded with pork and baked in cream with an assortment of herbs. Every spring I get so fed up with shad roe that I wish to heaven fish would figure out some other way. Whales have. Around three o’clock, when we were back in the office, there was a development, if you don’t care what you call it. The phone rang and it was Orrie Cather. He said his and Fred’s subjects were together, so they were. He was in a booth at 54th and Lexington. Noel Tedder and Ralph Purcell had just entered a drugstore across the street. That was all. Ten seconds after I hung up it rang again. Noel Tedder. You couldn’t beat that for a thrill to make your spine tingle: Fred and Orrie across the street, eagle-eyed, and the subject talking to me on the phone. He said he had persuaded Purcell to come and talk with Wolfe and he would be here in twenty minutes. I turned and asked Wolfe, and he looked at the clock and said of course not, and I turned back to the phone.

“Sorry, Mr Tedder, Mr Wolfe will be-”

“I knew it! My sister!”

“Not your sister. He turned her down, and the arrangement with you stands. But he’ll be busy from four to six. Can Mr Purcell come at six?”

“I’ll see. Hold the wire.” In half a minute: “Yes, he’ll be there at six o’clock.”

“Good.” I hung up and swiveled. “Six o’clock. Wouldn’t it be amusing if he gives us a hot lead and Fred and I hop on it-of course Fred will tail him here and be out front-and we’re two hours late getting there and someone already has it? Just a lousy two hours.”

Wolfe grunted. “You know quite well that if I permit exceptions to my schedule I soon will have no schedule. You would see to that.”

I could have made at least a dozen comments, but what was the use? I turned to the typewriter and the cards. When he left for the plant rooms at 3:59 I turned on the radio. Nothing new. Again at five o’clock. Nothing new. When the Gazette came it had pictures of fourteen people who had been at Fowler’s Inn or The Fatted Calf Tuesday evening, which showed what a newspaper that’s on its toes can do to keep the public informed. I was back at the typewriter when the doorbell rang at 5:55. I went to the hall, saw Ralph Purcell through the one-way glass, and stepped to the door and opened it, and he said apologetically, “I guess I’m a little early,” and offered a hand. I took it.

What the hell, it wouldn’t be the first murderer I had shaken hands with.

As I took his hat the elevator jolted to a stop at the bottom, the door opened, and Wolfe emerged, three minutes ahead of time because he likes to be in his chair when company comes.

Purcell went to him. “I’m Ralph Purcell, Mr Wolfe.” He had a hand out. “I’m a great admirer of yours. I’m Mrs Jimmy Vail’s brother.”

Of course Wolfe had to take the hand, and when he does take a hand, which is seldom, he really takes it. As we went to the office Purcell was wiggling his fingers. Wolfe told him to take the red leather chair, went to his, got his bulk arranged, and spoke.

“I assume Mr Tedder has explained the situation to you?”

Purcell was looking at me. When I gave Wolfe a report I am supposed to include everything, and I usually do, and I had had all the time there was Thursday afternoon at Doc Vollmer’s, but I had left out an item about Purcell. I had described him, of course-round face like his sister’s, a little pudgy, going bald-but I had neglected to mention that when someone started to say something he looked at someone else. I now learned that he didn’t go so far as to look at A when he was speaking to B. His eyes went to Wolfe.

“Yes,” he said, “Noel explained it, but I’m not sure-it seems a little-”

“Perhaps I can elucidate it. What did he say?”

“He said you were going to find the money for him-the money my sister paid the kidnaper. He asked me if I remembered that my sister had told him he could have the money if he found it, and of course I did. Then it seemed to be a little confused, but maybe it was just confused in my mind. Something about you wanted to ask me some questions because you thought one of us might know something about it on account of Dinah, Dinah Utley, and I thought he said something about one of us putting something in Jimmy’s drink, but when I asked about it he said you would explain that part of it.”

So Noel had been fairly tactful after all, at least with Uncle Ralph.

Wolfe nodded. “It’s a little complicated. The best- Why do you look at Mr Goodwin when I speak?”

As Purcell’s eyes left me a flush came to his cheeks. “It’s a habit,” he said, “a very bad habit.”

“It is indeed.”

“I know. You notice my eyes stick out?”

“Not flagrantly.”

“Thank you, but they do. When I was a boy people said I stared. One person especially. She-” He stopped abruptly. In a moment he went on. “That was long ago, but that’s why I do it. I only do it when someone starts speaking. After I talk a little I’m all right. I’m all right now.”

“Then I’ll proceed.” Wolfe propped his elbows on the chair arms and joined his fingertips to make a tent. “You know that Miss Utley had a hand in the kidnaping.”

“No, sir, I don’t. I mean I don’t know it, and I guess I don’t believe it. I heard what my sister said to Mr Goodwin and what he said to her, and that’s all I know. The reason I don’t believe it, kidnaping is so dangerous, if you get caught you don’t stand any chance, and Dinah wasn’t like that. She wasn’t one to take big chances. I know that from how she played cards. Gin. She would hang onto a card she couldn’t possibly use if she thought it might fill me. Of course everyone does that if you know it will, but she did it if she only thought it might. You see?”

Wolfe didn’t, since he never plays cards, gin or anything else, but he nodded. “But you do take chances?”