“Suppose,” Demeter said, and looked up at the ceiling, “suppose Fastnaught here and me made you a proposition, maybe something like you say Ogden made you?”
“He made it,” I said.
“Suppose we made it then. Would you be surprised?”
“I’d be surprised.”
“Why? Because we wear cheap suits?”
“No.”
Demeter leaned forward in his chair and stared at me with his beany eyes. “You got something built into your head, St. Ives? Some kind of a gauge that tells you this cop’s honest and this one’s a crook? You got something like that?”
“No.”
“Then how about me and Fastnaught? How can you tell we’re honest?”
“Because I don’t know any differently.”
“And you’d be surprised if we made you a proposition?”
“I’ve already said that.”
Demeter finished his drink and placed it on a table beside his chair. I didn’t ask him whether he wanted another one. He tapped off an inch of cigar ash into a tray, looked at Fastnaught who nodded, and then leaned back comfortably in the chair.
“Fastnaught and me,” he said, “are going to make you a proposition. We talked about it on the way over here, even before we knew that Ogden was mixed up in the deal. Now we’d like to get your considered opinion. You say that Ogden knew who the thieves were?”
“He said he did.”
“And you figure they killed him because he knew?”
“Probably.”
Demeter puffed on his cigar. “Now that he’s dead, you think they’ll go ahead with the switch?”
“How should I know?”
“I think they will,” Demeter said. “What do you think, Fastnaught?”
“Another dead one won’t bother them,” Fastnaught said.
“You’re probably right,” Demeter said. “How many does that make now?” He stuck the cigar in his mouth and started counting on his left hand. “There’s Sackett, the spade guard, that’s one. Ogden makes two. And there was this guy, Frank Spellacy, up in New York. You forgot to mention him to the homicide boys, St. Ives.”
“So did you,” I said.
“Well, we’re not sure about him.”
“Who told you? Ogden?”
“No, Not Ogden. Ogden’s not the only cop I know in New York.”
“He even knows a couple of honest ones,” Fastnaught said.
“Let’s just say that we found out that you had an appointment with Frank Spellacy the day he got killed and that Ogden put in a word or two for you.”
“All right,” I said.
Demeter was counting on his left hand again. “Now how many’s that? The guard, Ogden, and Spellacy. That’s three. Any more, Fastnaught?”
“One more,” Fastnaught said from his seat at the window. “George Wingo.”
“That’s right, George Wingo. Mrs. Wingo’s husband. But you knew about him, didn’t you, St. Ives? I mean you knew he was a junkie?”
“I knew,” I said.
“The Coroner’s Office said you were asking, and that you had some assistant U.S. Attorney General call up and find out for you.”
“You get around,” I said.
“Just routine police work. Even the Coroner’s Office thought it was something of a coincidence when Fastnaught here asks for the autopsy report one day and the assistant attorney general asks for it the next. So the guy at the Coroner’s Office calls us, we call the assistant attorney general, and he says he did it as a favor for that lawyer of yours… what’s his name?”
“Myron Greene,” Fastnaught said.
“Greene,” Demeter said. “So what’d you think when you found out that both Sackett, the guard, and Mr. Wingo were junkies?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Fastnaught said.
“Come on, Fastnaught,” Demeter said. “Maybe St. Ives hasn’t got a keen deductive mind like yours. You know what Fastnaught thought?”
I sighed. “That Wingo got the guard hooked and then talked him into being the inside man when the shield was stolen. That’s what a five-year-old would think anyway. At least what my five-year-old would think, but then he’s got a high IQ.”
“Probably got it from his daddy,” Demeter said. “So the way Fastnaught figures it is that Wingo is desperate for a wad of money that’ll keep him in smack. Because he’s something of an art expert he decides to steal the shield and then sell it back to the museum. But he needs help; he needs not only the inside man but the outside thieves. Now where’s he going to find them?”
“Spellacy,” I said.
“You’d be a credit to the force, St. Ives. How’d you figure that?”
“When I was in Spellacy’s office, he wrote Wingo’s name on a pad. It was the last thing he ever wrote.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.”
“You could have saved us a lot of trouble,” Fastnaught said. “A hell of a lot of trouble.”
“You sure could have,” Demeter said. “We had to go see Mrs. Wingo last night and tell her what we thought. She didn’t like it; she didn’t like it worth a damn. But then she let us go through her husband’s papers and we ran across some correspondence between him and Spellacy.”
“What kind of correspondence?” I said.
“About some stocks that Wingo had bought through Spellacy maybe six or seven years ago when he was still in New York. It seems Spellacy sold Wingo short on some stocks that were supposed to go down. They went up instead. Spellacy owed Wingo quite a hunk of money. So we called New York about Spellacy. It was the only thing we had and they told us that Spellacy had just been done in. They also gave us a run down on him and he seemed to be the kind of a guy who might have lined up a couple of thieves for Wingo.”
“And a go-between,” I said. “He checked me out for Wingo.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell anyone about that either,” Fastnaught said. “You’re not much of a gossip, are you, St. Ives?”
“Well, what do you expect from a high-priced go-between, Fastnaught?” Demeter said. “You expect him to go around blabbing everything he knows to cops who’re probably crooked even if they don’t wear three-hundred-dollar suits?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Fastnaught said. “I shouldn’t expect that.”
I got up and mixed myself another drink. I didn’t ask either of them if they wanted one. “Now what?”
“You want to hear our theory?”
“I thought I’d just heard it,” I said. “Wingo masterminded the theft of the shield to keep himself in heroin. He got himself an inside man by getting the guard hooked. Then he got in touch with Spellacy who set him up with a couple of thieves, the man and the woman who’ve been calling me on the phone. When everything was planned, the pair got greedy, gave Wingo an overdose of heroin, and then rolled him down an embankment in his car. They took over then and when the guard had done his job, they blew his head off. Spellacy figures most of it out and threatens to talk unless he gets a bigger cut so they shove a knife into him. They did the same thing to Ogden an hour or so ago down in the lobby. I don’t know how Ogden found out who they were, if he really did, but then I don’t really care.”
“What do you mean, you don’t care, St. Ives?” Demeter said in a quiet voice.
“Just what I said. There’re too many dead bodies.” I got up and walked over to the far wall and examined a print of some medieval gateway. “I’m bowing out,” I said. “Quitting.”
“He’s getting carefully cautious again, Lieutenant,” Fastnaught said.
“Uh-huh,” Demeter said. “So it seems.”
“You can find someone else,” I said. “Someone who might enjoy the risk.”