The lamplight from the level of the floor made the body into a giant, casting its shadow up beyond the wall, which was too small to contain it, and across the ceiling. The shape blurred as he focussed again on the point of the knife, light dancing on the sharp tip, calling his attention to the matter at hand. Any movement would cost him an eye. By great effort of will, he dismissed the knife, refusing to see it anymore, looking back to the eyes of his assailant.
"What part are you playing now, Gaynor? Jack the Ripper?" Charles smiled.
The knife pulled back only a little, a fraction of an inch. Jonathan Gaynor's eyes did the wide-then-narrow dance of what's going on here? The knife came closer, all but touching Charles's eye. "Where is Edith Candle?"
Charles blinked slowly, and his smile widened into a lunatic grin. "You didn't think I'd endanger an elderly woman, did you?"
"How did you put it together?"
"You're wondering if the police could figure it out as easily as I did? They have. It was hardly challenging."
"I think you're running a bluff." The knife wavered back and forth, mimicking, in smaller degrees, the slow shake of Gaynor's head. "You never called the police. You're on your own, aren't you? You sent the note, and signed the old lady's name, right?"
"Believe what you like."
"Tell me how you worked it out."
"No, if you're going to kill me, I don't mind annoying you by taking the list of your stupid mistakes with me."
"It doesn't matter," said Gaynor, drawing the blade back an inch, hefting the weight of the hilt in his hand. "They could only have a circumstantial case. The same evidence could argue for Margot or Henry."
"Oh, sorry. I just had a chat with the police department a few minutes ago. Margot Siddon is in jail. Henry's down there now, trying to make bail for her. Not that they'll let her out. Seems she was having a bad day. She tried to kill an off-duty NYPD detective."
"You're lying, Charles."
"For the next hour or so, they'll have a score of policemen for alibis. So what now?"
"We could while away some time till Henry gets home. Or you could die in the rather boring murder of an interrupted burglary. This is New York City – unsensational corpses get stacked up like cordwood."
Never taking his eyes from Charles, Gaynor reached out one blind hand to pick up the telephone on the table next to the chair. "Dial the numbers as I call them." When the connection was made, he took the receiver and held it to his ear, waiting out the time of six rings. He put the receiver back on its cradle.
"'No answer at Henry's apartment. But then, I take it you'd rather not wait on Henry?"
"I've changed my mind," said Charles as the knife came closer. "I'll tell you how I figured it out. And maybe you could clear up a few small details for me. Deal?" as Mallory would say.
"Deal."
"Your choice of victims wasn't very clever. You might as well have signed Samantha Siddon's corpse."
"She wasn't even – "
"Now, Louis Markowitz's key was your aunt. Louis loved money motives. Of course, you knew your aunt was mentioned in an investigator's report on the Whitman Chemicals merger."
"How do you make the leap from a recent murder to a stock-market transaction in the Eighties?"
"A routine background check on your aunt footnoted an SEC investigation on the merger. All the heavy profiteers were investigated. The US Attorney's office elected not to prosecute. A few old women and a seance got lost in the bigger game of the junk bonds and broker swindles."
"What's the connection to me?"
"Your aunt tipped you off to the merger, didn't she? According to Mallory's reports, you made a modest gain that year, almost too modest. I found that interesting. But then, you could count on inheriting a fortune, couldn't you?"
"I never purchased any stock in Whitman Chemical."
"I'm guessing you exchanged the insider tip for a straight percentage of profit. Perhaps you learned that trick from your aunt. She was a rather small operator up to that point, only steering the marks to Edith and making use of the dates."
"Even if you could prove that, I couldn't be prosecuted. I'm past the seven-year statute of limitations."
"But your aunt wasn't. Mallory told me you quarreled with your aunt over the seances. I believe you did. It must have been a shock to discover her activities were ongoing and so extensive. Your aunt's fortune doubled after the merger Edith arranged. But subsequent deals with the cartel made it grow to ostentatious proportions. It was out of control, wasn't it? So many people in on the action. It was only a matter of time before the cartel was exposed. And the government people routinely take all the profits, don't they? Not to mention fines in the millions of dollars. But even the SEC can't seize a dead woman's estate once it's gone through probate. Mallory's first instincts were good. She liked money motives as much as Louis Markowitz did."
"Back to Samantha Siddon, if you don't mind. I don't see the connection to me."
"It was because Siddon followed Whitman. With a few reservations, I finally gave in to Mallory's fixation with money motives, the idea that, of the four murders, there was one main target. Pearl Whitman left no heirs, no one benefited by her death. The only motive for her murder could be the framing of Henry Cathery."
"One might take the view that Pearl had changed her mind about giving Henry a solid alibi for the time of his grandmother's death."
"I wouldn't. Four murders would be too complex for a young man who thrives on simplicity and lack of distraction. He wouldn't bother to go to all that trouble -certainly not for money. I gather you didn't know he was coming into a personal fortune of his own. You seemed surprised. That's a snag, isn't it?"
"You keep digressing. How does Samantha Siddon give me away?"
"Samantha Siddon was an interesting departure from the pattern. Everyone was so busy with patterns and common motives. And that place where Louis died with Pearl Whitman, that made another interesting departure. Then I realized it wasn't a departure at all. It was business as usual with an unexpected interruption."
"You're wandering off the path again, Charles."
"Sorry. Well, the order of the murders is important. You killed Anne Cathery first to put suspicion on Henry Cathery. He was perfect, wasn't he? A strange boy, reclusive. But even if he had been arrested, there were no witnesses, no physical evidence. All that Cathery money, what were the odds he couldn't make bail? So you didn't have to worry about his confinement while you were killing your aunt. You didn't count on Henry intimidating Pearl Whitman into an alibi after the police came around a second time. Then Miss Whitman was the third victim. That would have been predictable for Markowitz, once he sized Henry Cathery up for a frame. That would have occurred to him shortly after your aunt died. He was following the money motive."
Gaynor kicked the lamp, and the shifting light made his shadow smaller. "It couldn't have been that simple."
"Did it rattle you when he followed Pearl Whitman into the building? Yes, I suppose it did. You must have thought it was all over at that point. You left the plastic bag behind. Very sloppy. It was photographed at the site."
"Siddon," said Gaynor, bringing the knife close and then drawing it back. "Samantha Siddon."
"Right. The last one. It followed Markowitz's logic for the framing of the Cathery boy. You knew about that odd little symbiotic relationship between Henry and Margot. You'd lived in the square for several months by then. I expect you'd seen them together quite a few times. You would have been interested in every aspect of Henry's routine. You couldn't count on Henry not having an alibi for all the murders, so you implicated the only other human he had any ties to. It would destroy her credibility as an alibi and lead the police down the path of a conspiracy."