They watched her for a moment, and then Stedman said. "My son, Roy—"
Adoumi cut him off sharply. "Your son tried to cross the border into enemy territory. That is a military matter when a country is at war and a matter for the military courts. I have nothing to do with it."
But Stedman was not to be intimidated. "My information is that the matter rests largely with you. And my informant is reliable." he said evenly. Before Adoumi could reply, he added, "This attempted flight across the border— did you arrange it?"
"What do you mean?" But Adoumi was not angry; he was grinning.
"I mean that it was too apt. The police questioned him about the bombing and then conveniently neglected to return his passport. If they had any real evidence to tie him in with it, they would have arrested him right then and there. But since they didn't. I do not rule out the possibility of your inducing him to do something foolish like running away."
"The innocent do not run away," said Adoumi.
"Unless they are frightened into it." said Stedman. "This Arab friend of his. was he one of your people? Was he by any chance an agent provocateur?"
"We do not shoot our own agents," Adoumi said. "You have been seeing too many spy movies, my friend."
"Anything a Hollywood director can dream up, an Intelligence man can also think of." said Stedman. "He could even have pretended to be shot."
"Oh, he was shot all right, believe me. But he's alive and can be questioned."
"And has been questioned, I think," said the rabbi.
Both men turned to him, and Gittel paused in her work. "What do you mean?"
"If he were critically injured." the rabbi began diffidently, "I think you would have interrogated him immediately to make sure you got what you wanted from him before he died. And if he were not critically injured. I don't think you would wait until he were fully recovered. So I think you have questioned him, and obviously he has said nothing to implicate Roy. or you would not have referred earlier to his crime of crossing the border; you would have had something more serious to charge him with."
Gittel did not continue with her tidying up. She gave her nephew an approving nod and slid into a chair. Adoumi, too, looked at him with respect.
"That's a rabbinic pilpul." he said. "I didn't think you American rabbis went in for that kind of thing. I do not say you are wrong." He considered a moment. "No," he corrected, "but the interrogation of the Arab is still going on—"
"Sure." Stedman chimed in bitterly, "and before you finish with him, he will have guessed what you want him to say."
"We don't work that way here." said Adoumi angrily.
"Every police force works that way, or for that matter, anyone asking a series of questions, like a teacher, if only subconsciously," said the rabbi quietly. "I don't know what induced Rov to leave Jerusalem. It may be that his Arab friend persuaded him, and he in turn could have been frightened by your people. Or he could have had some reason of his own. But if it was a crime for Roy to leave the country, it surely is not a serious crime. You do not retain people here by force as in the Iron Curtain countries. You merely require them to fill out certain forms and follow certain procedures if they want to leave. So. from that angle, all you have against him is that he did not follow official procedure. Normally, that would involve what? A judicial reprimand? A small fine? A few days in jail? So it must be something else that you are holding him for. And that can only be the bombing of the apartment on the next street. Now if it can be proved that he could not have had any connection with that—"
"And how can you prove that?" Adoumi challenged him.
The rabbi tossed the copy of Haolam on the table in front of Adoumi. "That picture proves it. Have you seen it?"
Adoumi glanced at the magazine. "I have seen it," he said. "You say there's something here that proves your man could not have done it?" He picked up the magazine, and no one spoke as he studied the picture. He left the room and returned a moment later with a magnifying glass to look at it more closely. Both Gittel and Stedman had twisted in their seats and leaned over to look at the magazine that he left lying on the table, but as soon as he returned, they straightened up again. He went over every square inch of the photograph with the glass, his head moving up and down while they waited in silence. Finally, he put down both the glass and the magazine and looked his question at the rabbi.
"The doctor saw him to bed before he left." the rabbi began. "He assumed, and I suppose you people agreed, that he must have got out of bed to get a drink from the bottle on the mantelpiece."
"So?"
"So the way he's holding the bottle, he could not have poured a drink." said the rabbi.
Adoumi glanced at the picture again.
"If he tilted the bottle, it would go down his arm." the rabbi offered.
"So perhaps he was going to take the bottle back to bed with him. maybe to leave on the floor and to sip from every now and then." Adoumi was not impressed.
Stedman and Gittel looked at the rabbi, who shook his head slowly and said. "No. he wasn't going to do that either. The bottle was kept on the shelf. These apartments are the same, yours and his, and the shelf is like this one" — he broke off to walk over to it and measured himself against it—"about shoulder high for him. In the picture he's holding the bottle with the thumb down like an Indian club—"
"Indian club? Oh, yes, I know."
"Well, he couldn't take it down from the shelf that way, not without twisting his arm and shoulder in a most unnatural way. Even for you, who are much taller, it would be unnatural."
Adoumi got up and walked over to the shelf and went through the motion. "All right," he admitted. "So why—"
"Why did he hold it that way? To use as a weapon, of course. It's the only reason for holding the bottle like a club, because he was going to use it as a club. And that means that there was someone in the room that he was either going to attack or from whom he was going to defend himself." he added.
"But—"
"And it couldn't have been Roy, because when he got there, the doctor was just leaving and had locked the door behind him."
"He could have come back afterward and come in—"
"With the door locked?"
Stedman's face relaxed in a tentative smile, and Gittel. too. smiled and nodded approvingly.
"But look here"— Adoumi was exasperated—"if the door was locked and no one could come in, there was no point in his arming himself with the bottle. Which means he must have been holding it that way for some other reason."
"Unless it was against someone who was there before the door was locked."
"But that's absurd. There was only the doctor. Why would he arm himself against the doctor?"
"Why not ask the doctor?"
"He's out of the country." Adoumi gnawed on his upper lip in annoyance. Then his face cleared, and he smiled. He came back to his seat. "This is all very interesting, but entirely beside the point. You always find baffling little angles in every case of this kind. The point is that the man was killed by a bomb—"
"How do you know?" the rabbi interjected quickly. "That picture shows that he was struck on the head, on the temple. He could have been pushed and struck his head— on the corner of that same mantelpiece."
"Yes, and precisely the same thing could have happened from the force of the explosion." Adoumi was once again at ease, the momentary doubts induced by the rabbi's argument now gone. His tone as he continued, disinterested, even ironic. "Or are you suggesting that after he fought with the doctor, or whatever happened, that someone came along and planted a bomb on his windowsill? That would be a pretty remarkable coincidence you'll have to admit. What's more." he added triumphantly, "it's the bomb we are primarily concerned with, and you haven't demonstrated that your young man could not have come back and planted it. locked door or no."