Delaney hefted the hammer again, swinging it experimentally.
“Yes,” he nodded, “I think you’re right. The handle might possibly break, but this thing could last fifty, a hundred years.”
“Exactly. Well, the hardware store owner said-and it’s amazing how willing and eager men are to talk about their jobs and specialties-”
“I know,” Delaney smiled.
“Well, he said he stocked those hammers because he sold twenty or thirty a year. And not only to bricklayers! He sold them, he said, to ‘rock hounds’-a term, as he explained it, that applies to the people who search for precious and semiprecious stones-gemmologists and others of their ilk. In addition, he sold a few hammers to amateur archeologists. I then asked if he knew of a similar hammer on which the spike, instead of ending in a wide chisel edge, came to a sharp, tapered point. He said he had heard of such a hammer but had never seen it-a hammer made especially for rock hounds, prospectors, and archeologists. And this hammer had a spike, a pick, that tapered to a sharp point. I asked him where it might be available, but he couldn’t say, except that I might try hobby and outdoor stores. What do you think, Captain?”
Delaney looked at him. “First of all,” he said, “I think you have done remarkably well. Much better than I could have done.” He was rewarded by Langley’s beam of pleasure. “And I hope you will be willing to track this thing down, to try to find the rock hound’s hammer with a spike that curves downward and tapers to a point.”
“Willing?” Christopher Langley shouted delightedly. “Willing?” And the two women at the bed, still speaking softly, broke off their conversation and looked over inquiringly.
“Willing?” Langley asked in a quieter voice. “Captain, I cannot stop now. I never knew detective work could be so fascinating.”
“Oh yes,” Delaney nodded solemnly, “fascinating.”
“Well, I haven’t had so much fun in my life. After we leave here, Myra and I-”
“Myra?” Delaney interrupted.
“The Widow Zimmerman,” the old dandy said, casting his eyes downward and blushing. “She has several admirable qualities.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, I made a list of hobby shops from the Yellow Pages. We’re going to have lunch in the Times Square area, and then we’re going around to all the addresses I have and try to locate a rock hound’s hammer. Is that the right way, Captain?”
“Exactly the right way,” Delaney assured him. “It’s just what I’d do. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find it in the first four or five or dozen or fifty places you visit. Stick to it.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Langley said stoutly, straightening up. “This is important, isn’t it, Captain?”
Delaney looked at him strangely. “Yes,” he nodded, “it is important. Mr. Langley, I have a feeling about you and what you’re doing. I think it’s very important.”
“Well,” Christopher Langley said, “then I better get to it.”
“May I keep this hammer?”
“Of course, of course. I have no use for it. I’ll keep you informed as to our progress.”
“Our?”
“Well…you know. I must take the Widow Zimmerman to lunch. She has been very kind to me.”
“Of course.”
“But I’ve told her nothing, Captain. Nothing. I swear. She thinks I’m looking for a rock hammer for my nephew.”
“Good. Keep it that way. And I must apologize for my phone conversation this morning. I’m probably being overcautious. I doubt very much if my phone is being tapped, but there’s no point in taking chances. When you want to reach me from now on, just dial my home phone and say something innocuous. I’ll get back to you within ten or fifteen minutes from an outside phone. Will that be satisfactory?”
Then the ex-curator did something exceedingly curious. He made an antique gesture Delaney had read about in Dickens’ novels but had never seen. Langley laid a forefinger alongside his nose and nodded wisely. Captain Delaney was delighted. “Exactly,” he nodded.
Then they were gone, waving goodby to Barbara and promising to visit her again. When the door closed behind them, Barbara and Edward looked at each other, then simultaneously broke into laughter.
“I like her,” Barbara told him. “She asked very personal questions on short acquaintance, but I think it was from genuine interest, not just idle curiosity. A very warm, out-going, good-hearted woman.”
“I think she’s after Langley.”
“So?” she challenged. “What’s wrong with that? She told me she’s been very lonely since her husband died, and he’s all alone, too. It’s not good to be alone when you get old.”
“Look at this,” he said, changing the subject hastily. “It’s a bricklayer’s hammer. This is what Langley’s come up with so far.”
“Is that what killed Lombard?”
“Oh no. But it’s close. It’s an ugly thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Evil-looking. Put it away, please, dear.”
He put it back in the brown paper sack and placed it atop his folded overcoat, so he wouldn’t forget it when he left. Then he drew up a chair alongside her bed.
“What are you going to do with the gefilte fish?” he smiled. “I may try a little. Unless you’d like it, Edward?”
“No, thank you!”
“Well, it was nice of her to bring it. She’s one of those women who think food solves all problems and you can’t be miserable on a full stomach. Sometimes they’re right.”
“Yes.”
“You’re discouraged, aren’t you, Edward?”
He rose and began to stalk up and down at the foot of her bed, hands shoved into his hip pockets.
“Nothing is happening!” he said disgustedly. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re convinced the killer is crazy?”
“It’s just an idea,” he sighed, “but the only theory that makes any sense at all. But if I’m right, it means we have to wait for another killing before we learn anything more. That’s what’s so infuriating.”
“Isn’t that hammer Langley brought a lead?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But even if Lombard had been murdered with a hammer exactly like that. I’d be no closer to finding the killer. There must be hundreds-thousands! — of hammers exactly like that in existence, and more sold every day. So where does that leave me?”
“Come over here and sit down.” She motioned toward the chair at the bedside. He slumped into it, took her proffered hand. She lifted his knuckles to her face, rubbed them softly on her cheek, kissed them. “Edward,” she said. “Poor Edward.”
“I’m a lousy cop,” he grumbled.
“No,” she soothed. “You’re a good cop. I can’t think of anything you could have done that you haven’t done.”
“Operation Lombard did it all,” he said dispiritedly.
“You discovered his driver’s license was missing.”
“Oh sure. Whatever the hell that means.”
After 30 years of living with this man, she was almost as familiar with police procedure as he. “Did they check license — numbers of parked cars?” she asked.
“Of course. Chief Pauley saw to that. The license number of every parked car in a five-block area was taken down on three successive nights. Then the owners were looked up and asked if they saw anything on the night of the murder. What a job that must have been! But Broughton has the manpower to do it, and it had to be done. They got nothing. Just like the questioning of residents in the neighborhood. Zero.”
“Occam’s Razor,” she said, and he smiled, knowing what she meant.
Several years ago he had come across the unfamiliar phrase “Occam’s Razor” in a criminologist’s report dealing with percentages and probabilities in homicide cases in the Boston area. Delaney trusted the findings since the percentages quoted were very close to those then current in New York: the great majority of homicides were committed by relatives or “friends” of the victim-mothers, fathers, children, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, neighbors…In other words, most killings involved people who knew each other.