I had almost come to think of myself as invisible, the hidden observer, the one who sees everything but is himself unnoticed. I was, therefore, looking straight at the lady’s ice-blue eyes when they turned and looked straight back at me.
It was like being hit in the forehead with a piece of cold pipe. The eyes saw me, catalogued me, weighed me, considered me, and set me aside as being, at least for the moment, not worth the trouble. She turned — did I say her gown was low-cut, floor-length and shimmering gold? — and strode out of the doorway, followed immediately by Joseph.
Mr. Gross now sat down at the table at which we’d been playing cards. “You two,” he told Luke and Harvey, “stand over there by the door. If this young man tries anything, stop him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I won’t try anything,” I said.
“Come over here and sit down,” he ordered.
I went over and sat down, opposite him.
He raised a finger like a white sausage. “Nothing,” he said, “is senseless. That I learned long ago. If a fact is presented which appears to be devoid of sense, it means only that we must look again.” He paused, as though wanting comment.
I nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
He pointed the white sausage at me. “You,” he said, “are discovered in perfidy. Trask and Slade are sent to dispatch you. You escape. You appear at the Farmer’s place, and the Farmer is murdered. You appear here, with a pistol in your pocket. The conclusion seems inescapable — you killed the Farmer and you intended to kill me.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, I didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t—”
“Wait.” Five white sausages raised up to halt me, with a gesture like a traffic cop. “I told you, nothing is senseless. And yet, from appearances, your behavior is utterly devoid of sense. You know that killing Farmer Agricola will not save you, that killing me will not save you. The obvious course of events, therefore, is not necessarily the true course of events. Some other, or some further, explanation will be required.”
“That’s what I’m trying to—”
“No, no.” The sausages waggled; I had the uneasy feeling his fingers would fall off, but they didn’t. He said, “Let me do this in my own way. Order out of chaos. Now, if you did not kill Farmer Agricola, then someone else must have. And you must have had some purpose for going to see him other than his murder. And you must have had some purpose for coming here other than my murder. Now, the question is, what other purpose? And who else would want to kill Farmer Agricola?”
I’d always understood that big wheels in the organization were awash in enemies prepared to do them in, that violent ends were common among them and the practice of keeping bodyguards no mere affectation, but Mr. Gross seemed to think otherwise, and he was after all a big wheel in the organization himself and should know. So I let that question go, and tried the other one: “What I wanted to see—”
But it wasn’t my turn yet. “Ah ah ah,” he said. “One moment. Allow me please to see if this problem can be worked out with no more information than that which I already possess.”
I sat back and allowed him.
He thought it over, pursing his lips, which was a disgusting sight. After a minute he said, “There is, of course, also the daughter, who aided your escape. Her name?”
“Aided my—”
He snapped his fingers. It sounded like hitting two pork chops together. “Her name,” he said.
“Miss Althea,” I said. “But she—”
“Yes. Althea. Is this the explanation?”
I said, “She didn’t aid my escape, Mr. Gross. In fact, she tried to kill me. She thought I killed her father, and she came—”
“Please,” he said. “If you must lie, do so intelligently. The Farmer’s bodyguard, who himself has questions to answer, locked you away for safekeeping. This Althea person, the daughter, released you and gave you a gun. Further, she went away with you. The only term for this is my lexicon is ‘aided your escape.’ Yes?”
“No,” I said. “That’s all wrong. She—”
“Is undoubtedly somewhere nearby,” he said, “waiting for you to dispatch me and return to her arms.”
“But why?” I said. “Why would I do anything like that?”
“That,” he told me, “is the question with which I am currently engaging myself. What has been done is clear and obvious. Why is more complex.”
“Mr. Gross, I swear—”
“Don’t. Be still.”
I was still.
The wait this time was a longer one. Mr. Gross sat there with hooded eyes, like a white frog waiting for some beauty’s kiss to turn him into a green prince, and thought and thought, while I sat all atremble with corrections and emendations I wanted to make to his misinformation and incorrect conclusions.
Finally he spoke again: “Perhaps I begin to understand. The Farmer had tried always to keep the truth of his occupation from his daughter’s ear, which never ceased to strike me as snobbery. If a man’s own family cannot be taken into his confidence and be expected to spur him on in his professional endeavors, then God help us all. Be that as it may, to each his own, the Farmer wished his daughter to believe he was a farmer. An idiosyncrasy.”
He looked at me expectantly, but so far he hadn’t said much of anything, so there was nothing for me to reply to. I kept my silence, waiting for him to get to the parts that counted.
After a few seconds he nodded as though we’d come to agreement on something, and went on: “Somehow, the daughter learned the truth. Hearing it from outsiders, undoubtedly in a distorted and prejudiced manner, and at a highly impressionable age, the truth affected her badly. Particularly since the Farmer had given credence to the idea of his guilt and ill feelings by hiding this truth from his child so many years. A vigilante feeling came over the child. She must atone for her father’s sins by destroying the organization herself, with her own two hands.”
Again he stopped, and this time I did have something to say. “That’s wrong, Mr. Gross. She still doesn’t believe the truth. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
He smiled, pityingly, which was horrible to see. “You are very young,” he said, “and inexperienced at lying. However, let us go on. This daughter, this child, this young girl, feeling herself helpless to destroy such a large and powerful organization, sought assistance in her scheme, and that’s where you came in.”
“Mr. Gross! For—”
“Be still! When I have done, you may speak, you may rebut, you will be given your chance.”
All right then. I shrugged, and folded my arms, and sat back in the chair, all in an attempt to give the impression I was listening to utter nonsense and would be able to prove my case in a twinkling once my turn to speak had come. I wondered if I could.
Mr. Gross said, “Somewhere you two had met, the beautiful daughter of the gangland leader and the drifter, the ne’er-do-well, the useless nephew in his useless job. You understand, I mean nothing personal.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t yet my turn to speak.
“I am only,” he explained, “being vivid. In any case, you two met. She, purposeful, strong, beautiful. You, purposeless, weak, willing to be led. The two of you formed an alliance, and began your efforts to undermine the organization, and ultimately to destroy it.”
I shook my head, but didn’t say anything.
“At first,” he said, ignoring my shaking head, “you were content to be a informer, passing information on to the police, but after a—”