Corey looked doubtful. “But I didn’t know the two of them concurrently. I only met Ferguson about eight months ago, at a cocktail party. Bliss was already dead by that time.”
Wanger’s face dropped. “So that even through you, any connection between the two of them will have to come by hearsay, at secondhand.”
“I’m afraid so. Even Bliss I only knew the last year or two of his life. He and Ferguson had sort of drifted apart, got out of each other’s orbit, by then.”
“Any trouble between them?” Wanger asked alertly.
“No. Different worlds, that was all. Divergent occupations and hence divergent interests; brokerage and art. No points of contact left after they once started to harden into their molds.”
“Did either of them mention Mitchell?”
“No, never that I can recall.”
“Moran?”
“No.”
“Well, Mitchell and Moran are in it somewhere,” Wanger said doggedly. “But we’ll let them ride for the present, take the two we’ve got. Now, here’s what I want you to do for me: I want you to burrow back in your memory, rake up every particular mention each of those two made of the other — Bliss of Ferguson and Ferguson of Bliss — and try to recall in just what connection the reference was made, just what subject or topic it had to do with. Women, horses, money, whatever it was. Is that clear? My theory is there is some point at which these four lives cross — maybe other lives, as well. But since I don’t know who the others are, I’ll have to confine myself to the four I do know of so far. Once I find that point, I may be able to trace the woman forward, from there on, since I haven’t been able to trace her or her motive backward, from the crimes themselves.”
Wanger to superior:
“As a matter of fact, to clear the decks I’m going to do what will probably seem to you suicidal, fatal. I’m going to eliminate the woman from my calculations entirely, leave her out of it as completely as though she didn’t exist. She only clouds the thing up, anyway. I’m going to concentrate on the four men. Once I can put my finger on the connecting link there is between them, shell reenter the thing automatically, probably dragging her motive into view.”
His superior shook his head dubiously. “It’s sort of an inverted technique, to say the least. She commits the murders, so instead of concentrating on her, you concentrate on the victims.”
“In self-defense. Shell hold us up forever, like she’s already held us up for nearly two solid years. When you can’t get in one door, get in another. Even if they don’t lead to the same rooms, at least you’re in.”
“Well, try to get in, even if it’s by a chimney,” his superior urged plaintively. “The only thing that keeps this from being a big stink is that no one inside or out of the department seems to share your conviction that the four cases have any relation to one another. Presumably to be outwitted by four separate criminals on four different occasions is less of a reflection on us than to be outwitted by the same criminal four times running.”
Wanger was coming down the steps at headquarters when he bumped into Corey on his way up them. Corey grabbed him by the arm. “Hold on, you’re just the man I want to see.”
“What brings you around here at this unearthly hour? I was just on my way home.”
“I was playing cards until now, and listen, remember those ^mentions’ you asked me to recall if I could — Bliss of Ferguson, and vice versa? Well, one of them popped into my head, so I left the game flat then and there.”
“Swell. Come on in and let’s hear it.” They turned and went up the steps together. Wanger led him into an unoccupied room at the back, snapped on a light. “I get the hell bawled out of me whether I get home late or early,” he confessed ruefully, “so half an hour more won’t matter.”
“Now, I don’t know if this is what you want or not, but at least I got something. I wanted to get it to you right away, before I lose it again. Association of ideas brought something back to me. We were playing stud tonight and somebody shoved a stack of chips across the table, said, ‘Can’t take ’em with you.’ That brought Ferguson back to me. We were playing poker down at his studio one night, and I remember him shoving a stack across the table with the same remark. Then that in turn brought back a reference he made at the time to Ken Bliss — and that was what you told me the other day you wanted.
“See how it works? Association of ideas, once removed. He said, ‘I haven’t had a hand like this since I used to belong to the Friday-Night Fiends.’ I said, ‘What were the Friday-Night Fiends?’ He said. ‘Ken Bliss and I and a couple of others were banded together in a sort of informal card-playing club. No dues or charter or anything like that; we’d just meet every other Friday — payday for most of us — for a stud session, each time at a different guy’s room. Then we’d all pile into a car we owned shares in, half-soused, and go joyriding through the town, raising cain.’ ”
“That was all he said, just in the space of time it took the dealer to fill up discards around the board. Now is that worth anything to you?”
Wanger whacked him behind the shoulder, so hard that Corey had to grab the table to keep an even balance. “It’s the first break I’ve had!”
Wanger to superior:
“They belonged to a card club together, Bliss and Ferguson. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it’s what I’ve said I wanted, so I’m not kicking: the point at which their two lives crossed.”
“What does that give you?”
“One thread by itself is not much good. Two crossed threads are that much stronger. Cross a few more together at the same place, and you’re beginning to get something that’ll hold weight. It’s the way nets are made.
“Now I’ve got to do a lot of plodding. I’ve got to find out the date, that is the year, on which this little amateur social club was banded together. I’ve got to find out others who were in it, along with Bliss and Ferguson. I’ve got to find out the dates of the month of the particular Fridays on which they got together. When I have, I’ve got to check those dates carefully to see if I can find just what they were up to when, as Ferguson expressed it; they went tearing around half-stewed. It may show up in the blotter of some out-of-the-way police station.
“Then when I’ve got all that built up, I can start looking for this woman from that point on. I’ll have a fulcrum. I won’t be suspended in midair the way I am now.”
“Outside of all that,” commiserated his superior, but strictly off the record, “you’ve got practically nothing to do. How you going to spend your spare time?”
Ten days later:
“Get anywhere yet?”
“Yeah, like a snail. I’ve got the year date and I’ve got the names of the other two members of the Friday-Night Fiends. But there’s a blind spot has developed in it that I don’t like the looks of. It may make the whole line of investigation worthless if I can’t clear it up pretty soon.”
“What is it?”
“No Mitchell. He wasn’t a member of the card club; his name wasn’t among them. I went checking back through dusty police blotters, and I finally hit something, like I figured I might. Four men in a car were pinched on a Friday for drunken and disorderly conduct, reckless driving, smashing a plate-glass window by throwing an empty liquor bottle at it as they went by and finally knocking over a fire hydrant. They spent sixty days apiece in the workhouse, had to pay the damages, and of course their license was taken away from them. Now, three of the names down on the blotter were Bliss, Moran and Ferguson. They gave their right ones, too, thank God. The fourth is a new one, Honeyweather. Also, I got their addresses — at that time — off the blotter. I’ll have an easier time now tracing this Honeyweather, the other member, from there on. But if Mitchell had been a member of the card club, he’d have been in the jam along with them, and he’s one of the four she’s killed. So I’m scared stiff that the card club has nothing to do with the killings and I’m barking up the wrong tree.”