them that it was much more probable that those things were never present to begin with. Your brother—as we both know—had escaped from a private mental hospital.”
My father gave me a Look, and I signaled back no good and hard.
Blue said, “I sometimes visit a friend at the same hospital, Mr. Hollander. I met your brother several times, and recognized his name at once when I heard it over the police shortwave. The point I wanted to make is that most patients there don’t bother to wear watches—I’ve verified this with my friend—and have no reason to carry wallets. They are not permitted currency, and whatever identification they may have is locked away.”
“A mugger couldn’t have known that.”
Blue nodded. “Of course not. But when a mugger kills his victim it is usually by accident—he strikes him on the head, and in the excitement of the moment strikes too hard. Or the victim resists and is stabbed in the melee. One seldom hears of a mugger who shoots his victims in cold blood so he can loot the corpse afterward, and it would seem to be a poorly thought-out technique. Pistols are noisy.”
My father drew on his cigar; he was looking at the ceiling. “Bert might have rushed him just the same. Bert was like that. Suppose this mugger drew his gun—”
“Technically,” Blue interrupted, “that word
If my father knew that an artillery shell had exploded at the Fair, he sure didn’t let on. For a minute there I thought he was going to get angry because Blue was quibbling; then he smiled. “That’s right. How did it go? ‘This is my rifle, and this is my gun. This’s for shooting, this other’s for fun.’”
The smile turned to a grin when he looked at me. “I won’t explain that, Holly. G.I. poetry.”
“You’re correct, of course,” Blue went on. “It’s possible a mugger approached your brother in that parking lot, pointed a pistol at him and demanded his money, and your brother tried to take his weapon from him. I don’t believe it, but it is barely possible.”
“Why don’t you believe it, Mr. Blue?”
“There are at least three reasons. The first is that your brother appears to have been shot while standing fully erect. If he had died while rushing at his assailant, the bullet would have entered his chest an an angle; a man bends forward when he runs or leaps at his enemy.”
“You’ve seen his body?”
Blue nodded.
“Suppose he had grasped the other man’s arm. The two of them might have been wrestling for the pistol.”
“In that case, there would have been severe powder burns around the wound. There were powder burns, but they were light, indicating that the muzzle of the weapon was at least a foot away from him when it was fired.”
My father got quiet for a minute or two, then he said, “All right, you said you had three reasons. What’s the second?”
Blue shook his head. “You won’t like it.”
“I want to hear it.”
“Aside from a few coins, only one object was found in your brother’s pockets. It was a bloodstained paper rose.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. What’s the significance of that?”
“When I was talking with your daughter just before the bomb went off, she was wearing a red flower in her hair. When I saw her after the explosion, her hair was disheveled and the flower was gone. Your brother had come to that room, looking for her, once. He must have come again—perhaps hours, but perhaps only minutes, after the explosion. He found that flower, recognized it, and picked it up. He learned where she had been taken.”
“In other words, he was on his way to see her when he was killed. I’d assumed that.”
“I do not assume it,” Blue said, “but it seems clear to me that your daughter’s injury and your brother’s death are linked, and that eliminates simple robbery as a motive.”
“And your third reason?”
“Because you don’t believe it yourself, Mr. Hollander. Your daughter was injured, as I informed you by telephone. She was still alive, and thus in need of whatever comfort you might have provided her. You were involved in an important business matter and did not come. Then your brother was killed. He is beyond all human aid, yet you came at once.”
“I had intended to come anyway,” my father said. “By last night matters in New York appeared a good deal less urgent than I had thought earlier.”
“One of the first things you said when we entered this room was, ‘The crime I am concerned about, the crime that has brought me back at an exceedingly inconvenient time, is the murder of my brother Bert.’”
“You have a good memory.”
Blue nodded. “Yes, I do. You don’t deny you said that?”
“I’m sure I did, or something like it. You’re right, of course; I was testing the water. You’ve offered your services as a criminologist, Mr. Blue. Very well, I accept—I want you to investigate the death of my brother.”
Blue shut up for a minute; then he said, “We criminologists don’t make investigations, Mr. Hollander; if we did, we would be private investigators. We study crime, and criminals. On one condition, I will undertake such a study of the death of Herbert Hollander the Third.”
“The law intrudes on everything today, doesn’t it. What’s your condition?”
