The Final Deduction

“You’ll need evidence if you persist in this slander and are made to answer for it.”

“I doubt if I’ll have to meet that contingency. I merely needed a starting point for a job I have undertaken, and I got it-my conclusion that Mr Vail was murdered. I have no-”

“You have no job. You mean that fantastic scheme with Noel Tedder. That’s off.”

Wolfe turned his head. “Archie. That paper?”

I hadn’t opened the safe, so I had to work the combination. I did so and got the paper from the shelf where I had put it before going up to bed. As I approached with it, Wolfe told me to give it to Frost. He took it, ran his eyes over it, and then read it word by word. When he looked up, Wolfe spoke.

“I’m not a counselor-at-law, Mr Frost, but I have some knowledge of the validity of contracts. I’m confident that that paper binds Mrs Vail as well as Mr Tedder.”

“When did he sign it?”

“Yesterday evening.”

“It won’t stand. He was tricked into signing it.”

Wolfe turned. “Archie?”

“No tricks,” I told Frost. “Ask him. He’s fed up and wants to stand on his own two feet. I bought him three little drinks, but he was perfectly sober. There were witnesses.”

“Witnesses where?”

“Barney’s bar and grill. Seventy-eighth and Madison.” I was still there by him, and I put out a hand. “May I have it, please?”

He took another look at it and handed it over. I went to the safe and put it back on the shelf and swung the door shut.

Wolfe was speaking. “I was about to say, Mr Frost, that I have no intention of broadcasting my conclusion that Mr Vail was murdered, or my reasons for it. I had to tell Mr Tedder in order to explain my approach to our joint problem, and I told Mr Purcell because I wanted to see you; he would of course tell his sister, and she would tell you. My purposes have been served. As for the murder, I am not-”

“There was no murder.”

“That’s your conclusion-or your delusion. I’m not bent on disturbing it. I am not a nemesis.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

“When I know that one of a group of people has committed a murder, and possibly two murders, and I need to know which one, I like to look at them and hear them-”

“Then you are persisting in the slander. You’re saying that you intend to identify one of the people there Wednesday evening as a murderer.”

“Only to my satisfaction, for my private purpose. Perhaps my explanation has lost something on its way to you through Mr Purcell and Mrs Vail. No. I’m wrong. I explained fully to Mr Tedder, but not to Mr Purcell. Having deduced that Mr Vail was murdered, I made two assumptions: that the murder was consequent to the kidnaping and therefore the murderer had been involved in the kidnaping, and that he or she knows who has the money and where it is or might be. So I needed to identify him and I had to see all of you. I had seen Mrs Vail. I intend to find that money.”

Frost was shaking his head, his lips compressed. “It’s hard to believe. I know your reputation, but this is incredible. You wanted to see me so that, by looking at me and hearing me, you could decide if I was a kidnaper and a murderer? Preposterous!”

“It does seem a little overweening,” Wolfe conceded, “but I didn’t rely solely on my acumen.” He turned. “Archie, bring Saul.”

That shows you his opinion of Saul. Not “Archie, see if Saul is around.” Frost was Saul’s subject, so, since Frost was here, Saul was in the neighbourhood. Of course it was my opinion too. I went to the front door and out to the stoop, descended two steps, stood, and beckoned to Manhattan, that part of it north of 35th Street. A passer-by turned his head to see who I was inviting, saw no one, and went on. I was expecting Saul to appear from behind one of the parked cars across the street, and I didn’t see him until he was out of an areaway and on the sidewalk, on this side, thirty paces toward Tenth Avenue. He had figured that Frost would head west to get an uptown taxi, and undoubtedly he would. Reaching me, he asked, “Was I spotted?”

“You know damn well you weren’t spotted. You’re wanted. We need you for four-handed pinochle.”

He came on up, and we entered and went to the office, Saul in front. Sticking his cap in his pocket, he crossed to Wolfe’s desk with no glance at Frost and said, “Yes, sir?”

Wolfe turned to Frost. “This is Mr Saul Panzer. He has been making inquiries about you since yesterday morning.” Back to Saul: “Have you anything to add to your report on the phone last evening?”

Presumably after I had left to go to Mrs Vail. Saul said, “Only one item, from a source I saw after I phoned. Last fall he bought a one-third interest in a new twelve-story apartment house on Eighty-third Street and Park Avenue.”

“Briefly, some of the items you reported yesterday.”

“He’s a senior member of the firm of McDowell, Frost, Hovey, and Ulrich, One-twenty Broadway. Twenty-two names on the letterhead. He was co-chairman of the Committee of New York Lawyers for Nixon. Two years ago he gave his son a house in East Sixty-eighth Street for a wedding present. He’s a director in at least twenty corporations-I don’t think the list I got is complete. He was Harold F. Tedder’s counsel for more than ten years. He has a house on Long Island, near Great Neck, thirty rooms and eleven acres. In nineteen fifty-four President Eisenhower-”

“That’s enough.” Wolfe turned. “As you see, Mr Frost, I realize that my perspicacity is not infallible. Of