“Put the phone down!”
I hung up. I’m an embezzler, not insubordinate.
He bellowed for Gus, who came shuffling in wearing his rusty tailcoat. “Was it something?” he asked.
“How is our supply of spirits?”
“Gin we don’t got.”
Lyon thanked him and sent him back to the kitchen. Then he turned to me. “Call the liquor store.”
He waited in the front room working Minute Mysteries in Gus’s collection of Cooking for Schlemiels until showtime. It tore him up not being able to make his entrance directly from the elevator like the other tub of lard, but at the last shindig it had gotten stuck and the fire department had to be called, so until we found a repairman as old as the installation he wasn’t risking any more such embarrassment in front of company.
I put Messassarian, Pears, Gaglan, and Constance Ayers in green chairs and gave the big orange one to a doughy jasper named Homer Sayles, owner of Homer Sayles Home Sales. That mark of distinction puzzled the others, who had been no less surprised to see him at all at that address. Everyone recognized him and greeted him by name.
I was happy on a couple of counts. For once I knew what Lyon had up his sleeve besides flab. It had come out during that last phone call, and since Wolfe never did his own dialing, his protégé couldn’t break training just to keep me in the dark. The absence of Captain Stoddard contributed to my air of well-being; this one was outside his jurisdiction, so he didn’t have an excuse to show up and make us wet ourselves when he yelled.
Lyon came in carrying the prop tomato plant for his desk, made a little bow like a toy ducking bird, and hopped onto his chair. His can of soda was waiting. He popped the top, filled a Betty Rubble glass, and passed a little wind.
“I’ve invited Mr. Sayles, who is germane to the matter at hand,” he said, fanning the air with his green handkerchief. “You’ll remember, Mr. Messassarian, that his was one of the names you mentioned when I called to ask about the customers who came to pick up their suits the day Axolotl the Great’s coin went missing.”
The Armenian slid his thick bifocals up and down his long nose, playing miniature trombone. “Yes, but as I told you, all those men are above suspicion.”
“Phooey. However, all four of the men you named are, to flatter your gullible turn of phrase, above suspicion in this matter. So are Mr. Pears, Mr. Gaglan, and Miss Ayers. In fact, Mr. Messassarian, you are the only person present who is not.”
Musty dropped his teeth. I’m not batting around a cliché. They bounced off the Yugoslavian rug and landed under his chair, where I had to get down on my hands and knees to snare them. After that he sat nervously clacking together the uppers and lowers.
“I was inclined at first to suspect Miss Ayers. Of all of you, her finances are the worst, and she became positively hysterical during her interview with Mr. Woodbine. But she is a woman, and therefore given to inexplicable displays of emotion.”
The bookkeeper illustrated his point by taking off a shoe and throwing it at him. He squeaked and ducked. Her heel struck Andy Warhol’s tomato soup can on the wall behind Lyon’s head, cracking the glass in the frame. He wiped his face with the hanky and continued.
“Mr. Pears was my next choice. He stands to inherit, and I’m convinced he has no interest in coins, but he made an unfavorable impression on Mr. Woodbine, whose character judgment is sound. But that was inconclusive.”
The roly-poly fraud was making it up as he went along; I’d been arrested twice by policewomen who looked like perfectly respectable hookers. But any sort of character judgment would look uncanny next to his. He’d hired me.
“I had high hopes for Mr. Gaglan. He appears to have no motive and is well-bred, which as we all know predisposes him toward guilt. The culprit is always the least likely suspect. I cite Agatha Christie, Philo Vance, and Mathilda Pearl Worthwhistle for establishing precedent and upholding it. Mrs. Worthwhistle’s The Corpse Blew a Raspberry is — but I digress.”
Norman Pears’s little pot belly quivered. “So by eliminating everyone else in the shop, you arrived at the conclusion that it has to be Uncle Krekor. What a demented polyp you are.”
Lyon did a fine job of imitating Wolfe’s immunity to insult, by which I mean he didn’t actually burst out crying, just looked like he was about to. I don’t know I’d blame him if he did. I’ve had hemorrhoids I got along with better than Pears, but calling Lyon a demented polyp was hitting it square on the head. A furious clacking from the direction of Messassarian’s lap indicated he agreed.
“You haven’t said why Mr. Sayles is here.” The Ayers woman had her shoe back on, but the way the broken heel wobbled when she crossed her legs drew a picture of her sense of composure.
“The reason I asked him to join us is he was fitted by Mr. Messassarian for a tuxedo. The three other customers who claimed their purchases that day were fitted for ordinary business suits.”
Aurelius Gaglan had a polite, quizzical smile on his mild face. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Sayles is to be honored by the Brooklyn Real Property Association as its Realtor of the Year. The banquet is not until next week, and since he has faith in his tailor, he saw no reason to don it until that evening.
“On the telephone I asked him the same three questions I’d asked the others. One: Have you examined the suit? Two: Have you noticed anything unusual about it? Three: Would you examine it now, purely to satisfy my curiosity? Mr. Sayles was the only man who answered no to question number one.”
Miss Ayers said, “If you don’t start making sense soon, I’ll throw the other shoe.”
He cringed and stepped on the gas. “This is a picture of the coin. Had I seen it yesterday, this meeting would not have been necessary.”
I took the photo from him and handed it to Gaglan, whose polite smile broadened when he saw it. He passed it to the woman. She squealed and giggled. Pears snatched it from her, looked, said, “Oh, for hell’s sake,” and gave it to his uncle. Musty put his teeth back in, hemp fibers and all, peered through his lenses, shook his head, and gave me the expression of a hound dog that had lost the scent.
Lyon focused on Homer Sayles. “You brought it as I asked?” The Realtor of the Year nodded briskly and spoke for the first time. “I gave it to Mr. Woodbine.”
I went out and brought it back from the hall closet on its hanger. On the boss’s instructions I unzipped the vinyl carrier and showed them all the sleek black dinner jacket with Axolotl’s profile stitched in place where the second button belonged.
The tailor fingered it, almost touching it with his nose. He muttered a word that was shorter than his name but had just as many esses in it. I recorded it phonetically on my pad.
“The presence of four holes revealed little, in description,” Lyon said. “Visually, the evidence was suggestive. To avoid a repetition of the mistake, I advise you to make an appointment with your ophthalmologist for a new eyeglass prescription, and take steps to reorganize and separate your vocation from your avocation.”
“Splendid. Arnie, write Mr. Messassarian a check. Include a bonus of five percent.”
I guess when he saw himself in his mirror all decked out in cutaway, cloak, and top hat, Lyon saw Fred Astaire looking back. I saw the little man on the Monopoly box, only fatter.
“For you, no charge,” the Armenian said. “You have saved me a fortune and restored my faith in the integrity of my staff.”
“I cannot accept. That would constitute payment for my investigative services and bring down the wrath of Mr. Stoddard.” He shivered a little.