Understandably triumphant due to the lead I'd just taken over Hooter in the Apatoff Stakes, I nonetheless managed to smile modestly and flirt sheepishly for the rest of the meal. The warmth of Yetta's grasp as we parted definitely promised an escalation of our relationship in the very near future.
As I approached my office, I noted Mrs Kletz was poring over a file on her corridor desk. She was so 240
engrossed that she didn't look up until I was standing next to her.
'Which one is that?' I asked, gesturing towards the folder.
'The Kipper case. I'm almost finished with it. People,'
she intoned with a sweetly sad half-smile. She wasn't saying, 'The horror of them,' she was saying, 'The wonder of them.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Come into my office, please, when you're finished with it.'
I hung away my coat and hat and called Ada Mondora and asked for a meeting with Mr Teitelbaum. She said she'd get back to me.
Mrs Kletz had left on my desk the research inquiries she had answered, using the sources I had supplied. She'd done a thorough job and I was satisfied. I typed up first-draft memos to the junior partners and associates who had requested the information and left them for Mrs Kletz to do the final copies. She came into my office as I was finishing, carrying the Kipper file.
'Sit down, Mrs Kletz,' I said, motioning towards my visitor's chair. 'I have just one more rough to do and I'll be through. You did a good job on these, by the way.'
'Thank you, sir,' she said.
It was one of the few times in my life I had been called
'Sir.' I found it an agreeable experience.
I finished the final draft and pushed the stack across the desk to my assistant.
'I'll need two finished copies on these,' I said. 'Do what you can today and the rest can go over to Monday.' I drew the Kipper file towards me and rapped it with my knuckles.
'Strictly confidential,' I said, staring at her.
'Oh yes. I understand.'
'What do you think of it all?'
'Mr Bigg,' she said, 'is it always the one you least suspect?'
I laughed. 'Don't try to convince the New York Police Department of that. They believe it's always the one you most suspect. And they're usually right. Who do you suspect?'
'I think the widow and the preacher are in cahoots.' she said seriously. 'I think they were playing around before the husband died. He suspected and hired that private detective to make sure. When he had the evidence, he decided to change his will. So they killed him.'
I looked at her admiringly.
'Yes,' I said, nodding, 'that's my theory, and it's a — it's an elegant theory that explains most of the known facts.
After Sol Kipper died, Marty Reape tried blackmail. But he underestimated their determination, or their desperation. So he was killed. His widow inherited his files, including his copies of the Kipper evidence. She sold the evidence, or part of it, or perhaps she made copies, realizing what a gold mine she had. She got greedy, so she had to be eliminated, too. Does that make sense?'
'Oh yes. Tippi and Knurr, they were only interested in Mr Kipper's money. But with the evidence he had, he could get a divorce, and her settlement would have been a lot less than she'll inherit now. So they murdered the poor man.'
'It's an elegant theory,' I repeated. 'There's just one thing wrong with it: they couldn't have done it.'
'I've been puzzling that out,' she said frowning. 'Is it positive there was no one else in the house?'
'A hired killer? The servants say that no one came in and they saw no one leave. The police were there soon after Sol died, and they searched the house thoroughly and found no one.'
'Could they be lying? The servants? For money?'
'I don't believe they're lying, and the detective who did the police investigation doesn't think they are either. If they were in on it, they would all have to be in on it. That means five people engaged in a murder conspiracy. I can't see it. The more people involved, the weaker the chain.
Too many opportunities for continuing blackmail. Tippi and Knurr are too smart for that. I think it happened the way they told it: four people on the ground floor when Sol Kipper went to his death.'
She sighed. 'Leaving a suicide note,' she said.
'Yes, there's that, too.'
'What will you do now?'
'Well, I — ' I stopped suddenly. What would I do now? 'I don't know,' I confessed to Mrs Kletz. 'I don't know what more I can do. I can follow Tippi or the Reverend Knurr. I can definitely establish that they are having an affair. But what good will that do? It won't bring me any closer to learning how the murder of Sol Kipper was engineered.
And I'm just as convinced as you are that it was murder.'
'Chicago,' she said.
'What?'
'In your notes, Mr Bigg. The Reverend told you he was from the Chicago area. Then the Kipper sons told you that they thought Tippi came from Chicago.'
I took a deep breath. 'Thank you, Mrs Kletz,' I said fervently. 'That's exactly the sort of thing I hoped you might spot. I've been too close to this thing, but you came to it fresh. All right, maybe they're both from the Chicago area. What does that prove? Probably nothing. Unless they knew each other before they ended up in New York.
Even that might not mean anything unless. . '
'Unless,' she said, 'they had been involved together in something similar.'
'Back in Chicago?'
'Yes.'
'Yes,' I agreed. 'It's not much, but it might be sufficient to convince the NYPD to reopen their investigation.
They've got resources and techniques to unravel this thing a lot faster than I could hope to. Meanwhile, I'll try to dig 243
up what I can on the Chicago background of Tippi and Knurr. It may prove to be nothing, but I've got to — '
The phone rang. Mr Teitelbaum was free now.
Ada Mondora clinked her gypsy jewellery at me and smiled pertly as I stood before her desk.
'I hear someone had a nice lunch today,' she said archly.
'News does get around, doesn't it?' I said.
'What should we talk about?' she demanded. 'Torts?
Yetta just loves her sweater.'
I groaned.
'I think my bet is safe,' Ada said complacently. 'I'm betting on you. Thelma will just die when she hears about the sweater.'
'Thelma Potts? She's betting on Hooter?'
'Didn't you know?' Ada asked innocently, widening those flashing eyes and showing her brilliant white teeth.
'As a matter of fact, Thelma and I have a private bet.
Lunch at the Four Seasons. I know exactly what I'm going to order.'
When I entered Mr Teitelbaum's office, he was seated, as usual, behind his enormous desk, his pickled hands clasped on top. He motioned me to an armchair, asked for a report on the Stonehouse investigation.
Consulting my notes, I capsuled the results of my inquiries as briefly and succinctly as I could. I told him that I first suspected the nightly cup of cocoa was the means by which Professor Stonehouse was poisoned, but I now realized it was the brandy in the Professor's study. I reported that Stonehouse had submitted two substances for analysis at a chemical laboratory.
'I will try to obtain copies of those analyses, sir,' I said.
'I'd be willing to bet the arsenic was put into the Professor's cognac.'
'By whom?'
I told him about my interviews with Powell Stonehouse and Wanda Chard, and my last meeting with Glynis 244
Stonehouse. I said that Powell seemed to have easiest access to the poison, via Wanda Chard, but since he was banished from his father's home during the period of the poisoning, it seemed unlikely that he was the culprit, unless he was working in collusion with one or more of the other members of the household.
'You think that likely?' Mr Teitelbaum asked in his surprisingly vigorous voice.
'No, sir.'
'Surely not the wife then? On her own?'