“What! He has?”
“Yes, sir. If you will—”
“Then you know that my wife is certain that no one entered the tent from the rear while the speeches were being made? No one but you and Mr. Goodwin? Absolutely certain? You know she told him that?”
“I know what she told him, yes. But if you will—”
“And you haven’t told the police?”
“No, not yet. I would like—”
“Then she has no choice.” Banau was on his feet. “It is even more disagreeable than I feared. She must communicate with them at once. This is terrible, a man of your standing, and the others too. It is terrible, but it must be done. In a country of law the law must be served.”
He turned and headed for the door.
I left my chair. Stopping him and wrapping him up would have been no problem, but I was myself stopped by the expression on Wolfe’s face. He looked relieved; he even looked pleased. I stared at him, and was still staring when the sound came of the front door closing. I stepped to the hall, saw that he was gone and hadn’t forgotten his hat, and returned and stood at Wolfe’s desk.
“Goody,” I said. “Cream? Give me some.”
He took in air, all the way, and let it out. “This is more like it,” he declared. “I’ve had all the humiliation I can stand. Jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang. Did you notice how quickly I answered your ring upstairs? Afraid, by heaven, afraid to go into the tropical room to look over the Renanthera imschootiana! Now we know where we are.”
“Yeah. Also where we soon will be. If it had been me I would have kept him at least long enough to tell him—”
“Shut up.”
I did so. There are certain times when it is understood that I am not to badger, and the most important is when he leans back in his chair and shuts his eyes and his lips start to work. He pushes them out, pulls them in, out and in, out and in... That means his brain has crashed the sound barrier. I have seen him, dealing with a tough one, go on with that lip action for up to an hour. I sat down at my desk, thinking I might as well be near the phone.
That time he didn’t take an hour, not having one. More like eight minutes. He opened his eyes, straightened up, and spoke.
“Archie. Did he tell you where his wife was?”
“No. He told me nothing. He was saving it for you. She could have been in the drugstore at the corner, sitting in the phone booth.”
He grunted. “Then we must clear out of here. I am going to find out which of them killed that man before we are all hauled in. The motive and the evidence will have to come later; the thing now is to identify him as a bone to toss to Mr. Delaney. Where is Saul?”
“At home, waiting to hear. Fred and Orrie—”
“We need only Saul. Call him. Tell him we are coming there at once. Where would Mr. Vetter have his conference?”
“I suppose at the MXO studio.”
“Get him. And if Miss Korby is there, her also. And the others. You must get them all before they hear from Mr. Delaney. They are all to be at Saul’s place without delay. At the earliest possible moment. Tell them they are to meet and question the witness, and it is desperately urgent. If they balk I’ll speak to them and—”
I had the phone, dialing.
Chapter 6
After they were all there and Wolfe started in, it took him less than fifteen minutes to learn which one was it. I might have managed it in fifteen days, with luck. If you like games you might lean back now, close your eyes and start pushing your lips out and in, and see how long it takes you to decide how you would do it. Fair enough, since you know everything that Wolfe and I knew. But get it straight; don’t try to name him or come up with evidence that would nail him; the idea is, how do you use what you now know to put the finger on him? That was what Wolfe did, and I wouldn’t expect more of you than of him.
Saul Panzer, below average in size but miles above it in savvy, lived alone on the top floor — living room, bedroom, kitchenette, and bath — of a remodeled house on Thirty-eighth Street between Lexington and Third. The living room was big, lighted with two floor lamps and two table lamps, even at seven o’clock of a July evening, because the blinds were drawn. One wall had windows, another was solid with books, and the other two had pictures and shelves that were cluttered with everything from chunks of minerals to walrus tusks. In the far corner was a grand piano.
Wolfe sent his eyes around and said, “This shouldn’t take long.”
He was in the biggest chair Saul had, by a floor lamp, almost big enough for him. I was on a stool to his left and front, and Saul was off to his right, on the piano bench. The chairs of the five customers were in an arc facing him. Of course it would have been sensible and desirable to arrange the seating so that the murderer was next to either Saul or me, but that wasn’t practical since we had no idea which one it was, and neither did Wolfe.
“Where’s the witness?” Griffin demanded. “Goodwin said she’d be here.”
Wolfe nodded. “I know. Mr. Goodwin is sometimes careless with his pronouns. The witness is present.” He aimed a thumb at the piano bench. “There. Mr. Saul Panzer, who is not only credible and confident but—”
“You said it was a woman!”
“There is another witness who is a woman; doubtless there will be others when one of you goes on trial. The urgency Mr. Goodwin spoke of relates to what Mr. Panzer will tell you. Before he does so, some explanation is required.”
“Let him talk first,” Dick Vetter said, “and then explain. We’ve heard from you already.”
“I’ll make it brief.” Wolfe was unruffled. “It concerns the tape fastening on the flap of the rear entrance of the tent. As you know, Mr. Goodwin tied it before we left to go to the platform, and when he and I entered the tent later and left by the rear entrance it had been untied. By whom? Not by someone entering from the outside, since there is a witness to testify that no one had—”
James Korby cut in. “That’s the witness we want to see. Goodwin said she’d be here.”
“You’ll see her, Mr. Korby, in good time. Please bear with me. Therefore the tape had been untied by someone who had entered from the front — by one of you four men. Why? The presumption is overwhelming that it was untied by the murderer, to create and support the probability that Philip Holt had been stabbed by someone who entered from the rear. It is more than a presumption; it approaches certainty. So it seemed to me that it was highly desirable, if possible, to learn who had untied the tape; and I enlisted the services of Mr. Panzer.” His head turned. “Saul, if you please?”
Saul had his hand on a black leather case beside him on the bench. “Do you want it all, Mr. Wolfe? How I got it?”
“Not at the moment, I think. Later, if they want to know. What you have is more important than how you got it.”
“Yes, sir.” He opened the lid of the case and took something from it. “I’d rather not explain how I got it because it might make trouble for somebody.”
I horned in. “What do you mean ‘might’? You know damn well it would make trouble for somebody.”
“Okay, Archie, okay.” His eyes went to the audience. “What I’ve got is these photographs of fingerprints that were lifted from the tape on the flap of the rear entrance of the tent. There are some blurry ones, but there are four good ones. Two of the good ones are Mr. Goodwin’s, and that leaves two unidentified.” He turned to the case and took things out. He cocked his head to the audience. “The idea is, I take your prints and—”
“Not so fast, Saul.” Wolfe’s eyes went right, and left again. “You see how it is, and you understand why Mr. Goodwin said it was urgent. Surely those of you who did not untie the tape will not object to having your prints compared with the photographs. If anyone does object he cannot complain if an inference is made. Of course there is a possibility that none of your prints will match the two unidentified ones in the photographs, and in that case the results will be negative and not conclusive. Mr. Panzer has the equipment to take your prints, and he is an expert. Will you let him?”