“You’re nuts,” McGee said to Moe. It was an index of his growing fear that he addressed himself to Moe.
“You lost money on the races. You have tools in your room. You could obtain explosives. You had motive and opportunity, and stand to gain by the murder.”
“You can’t prove a damn’ thing!” McGee said, but he began to look a little rattled.
“We have photostats of all pertinent documents, including microphotographs of the cutting edges of your tools,” Moe said.
The hallway was very still. A batch of people stood out on the sidewalk wondering what was going on. Sirens sounded in the distance.
I looked at Julie. Her face was blank, her eyes speculative. She ran the tip of a pink tongue along a full under lip.
She turned on McGee and said: “Now I know! You killed my husband! You murderer!” She tried to hack his face with her blood-red fingernails.
“You double-crossing—” McGee muttered.
Suddenly he ducked and scooted under Moe’s outstretched arm and ran out the front door. Moe turned like lightning and went after him. The crowd on the sidewalk scattered in all directions. The police sedan was just coming around the far corner.
A big furniture truck was exceeding the speed limit along the road in front of the house. McGee was smart. He figured he’d run across in front of the truck and delay pursuit. But at full speed, just as he went out in front of the speeding truck, Moe hooked a big finger in the back of McGee’s collar.
There was a scream of tires on asphalt, a sickening thud and a great crash which sounded as though somebody had dropped fifteen milk cans down a brick staircase.
The case was settled right out there under the elm trees. McGee was killed instantly. Bits of Moe were scattered for a hundred feet around. Nicky, beyond speech, filled with grief, knelt by the major part of the torso of Moe.
I got the ear of the Chief of Police and got the photographs away from Nicky, and turned them over, along with the whole story. McGee’s sprint was the final admission of guilt.
In hushed tones, the Chief told me that it would be okay if Nicky came in and made his statement when he was feeling better.
The body of McGee was taken away. The police collected the scattered fragments of Moe and put them by the curb. The crowd, bored with watching a little round man weeping over jumbled tinware, drifted off.
I walked over to Nicky and put my hand on his shoulder. I said: “Well, Moe did his job for you, pal.”
He twisted away from me, his face contorted. “It was your fault!” he said hoarsely.
“Are you nuts, Nicky?” I asked.
“Remember what you told me a detective should do? All those things? And end up by putting the finger on the criminal! That’s what Nicky was doing. He put the finger on him right in front of the truck!”
I didn’t know how to answer him. To change the subject, I leaned over and picked up a jointed metal finger. It seemed undamaged. I said: “Don’t feel too bad, Nicky. You can salvage a lot of this stuff for the next one.”
His eyes hot, he snapped: “What do you think I am? A ghoul?”
Four days later Moe was officially cremated in a Pittsburgh blast furnace. Nicky didn’t even ask me to go along.