Guttmann has made slight rearrangements to receive Mr. Matthew St. John W–. He has moved his chair over to LaPointe’s desk, and has seated himself in the Lieutenant’s swivel chair. He rises to greet Mr. W–, who looks around the room with some uncertainty.
“Lieutenant LaPointe isn’t here?”
“I’m sorry, sir. He’s not available just now. I’m his assistant. Perhaps I could help?”
Mr. W–looks exactly like his photographs in the society section of the Sunday papers—a slim face with fragile bones and veins close to the surface, full head of white hair combed severely back, revealing a high forehead over pale eyes. His dark blue suit is meticulously tailored, and there is not a smudge on the high shine of his narrow, pointed black shoes.
“I had hoped to see Lieutenant LaPointe.” His voice is thin and slightly nasal, and its tone is chilly. He surveys the young policeman thoughtfully. He hesitates.
Not wanting to lose him, Guttmann waves a hand at the chair opposite him and says in as offhanded a voice as possible, “I believe you had some assistance to offer in the Green case, sir?”
Mr. W–frowns, the wrinkles very shallow in his pallid forehead. “The Green case?” he asks.
Guttmann’s jaw tightens. He is glad LaPointe isn’t there. The victim’s name was not mentioned in the newspaper. But the only thing to do is brave it out. “Yes, sir. The young man found in the alley was named Green.”
Mr. W–looks toward the corner of the room, his eyes hooded with thought. “Green,” he says, testing the sound. He sighs as he sits on the straight-backed chair, lifting his trousers an inch by the creases. “You know,” he says distantly, “I never knew that his name was Green. Green.”
Instantly, Guttmann wishes he had somebody with him, a witness or a stenographer.
But Mr. W–has anticipated his thoughts.
“Don’t worry, young man. I will repeat anything I say to you. What happens to me is not important. What does matter is that everything be handled as quietly as possible. My family… I know I could rely on Lieutenant LaPointe to be discreet. But…” Mr. W–smiles politely, indicating that he is sorry, but he has no reason to trust a young man he does not know.
“I wouldn’t do anything without consulting the Lieutenant.”
“Good. Good.” And Mr. W–seems willing to let the conversation rest there. A thin, polite smile on his lips, he looks past Guttmann’s head to the damp, metallic skies beyond the window.
“You… ah… you say you didn’t know his name was Green?” Guttmann prompts, making every effort to keep the excitement he feels from leaking into his voice.
Mr. W–shakes his head slightly. “No, I didn’t. That must seem odd to you.” He laughs a little sniff of self-ridicule. “In fact, it seems odd to me… now. But you know how these things are. The social moment when you should have exchanged names somehow passes with the thing undone, and later it seems foolish, even impolite, to ask the other person his name. Has that ever happened to you?”
“Sir?” Guttmann is surprised to find the conversational ball suddenly in his court. “Ah, yes, I know exactly what you mean.”
Mr. W–investigates Guttmann’s face carefully.
“Yes. You have the look of someone who’s capable of understanding.”
Guttmann clears his throat. “Did you know this Green well?”
“Well enough. Well enough. He was… that is to say, he died before we…” Mr. W–sighs, closes his eyes, and presses his fingers into the shallow sockets. “Explanations always seem so bizarre, so inadequate. You see, Green knew about the White Plot and the Ring of Seven.”
“Sir?”
“I’d better begin at the beginning. Do you remember the nursery rhyme ‘As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives’? Of course, you probably never considered the significance of the repeated sevens—the warning passed to the Christian world about the Ring of the Seven and the Jewish White Plot. Not many people have troubled to study the rhyme, to unravel its implications.”
“I see.”
“That poor young Mr. Green stumbled upon the meaning. And now he’s dead. Stabbed in an alley. Tell me, was there a bakery near where he was found?”
Guttmann glances toward the door, trying to think up something he has to go do. “Ah… yes, I suppose so. The district has lots of bakeries.”
Mr. W–smiles and nods with self-satisfaction.
“I knew it. It’s all tied up with the White Plague.”
Guttmann nods. “Tied up with the White Plague, is it?”
“Ah! So Lieutenant LaPointe has told you about that, has he? Yes, the White Plague is their name for the steady poisoning of the gentile with white foods—flour, bread, sugar, Cream of Wheat…”
“Cream of Wheat?”
“That surprises you, doesn’t it? I can’t blame you. There was a time when we hoped against hope that Cream of Wheat wasn’t in on it. But certain evidence has come into our hands. I mustn’t tell you more than you need to know. There’s no point in endangering you needlessly.”
Guttmann leans back in the swivel chair, links his fingers, and puts his palms on the top of his head. His eyes droop, as though with fatigue.
Mr. W–glances quickly toward the door to make sure no one is listening, then he leans forward and speaks with a confidential rush of words. “You see, the Ring of Seven is directed from Ottawa by the Zionist lobby there. I began to collect evidence against them seven years ago—note the significance of that figure—but only recently has the scope of their plot become…”
Guttmann is silent as he drives LaPointe up the Main in his yellow sports car. It is eleven in the morning and the street is congested with off-loading grocery and goods trucks, and with pedestrians who flow out into the street to bypass blocked sidewalks. It is necessary to crawl along and stop frequently. From time to time Guttmann glances at the Lieutenant, and he is sure there are crinkles of amusement around his eyes. But Guttmann is damned if he will give him the satisfaction of bringing it up first.
So it is LaPointe who has to ask, “Did you get a confession out of Mr. W–?”
“Very nearly, sir. Yes.”
“Did you learn about Cream of Wheat?”
“What, sir? In what connection would he mention Cream of Wheat?”
“Well, he usually…” LaPointe laughs and nods. “You almost got me, son. You heard about Cream of Wheat, all right!” He laughs again.
“You might have warned me, sir.”
“Nobody warned me the first time. I was sure I had a walk-in confession.”
Guttmann pictures LaPointe being sucked in, leaning forward to catch each word, just as he had done. He has to laugh too. “I suppose this Mr. W–is harmless enough.”
“Look out for that kid!”
“I saw him! Jesus Christ, sir.”
“Sorry. Yes, he’s harmless enough, I suppose. There was a delicate case some years ago. Your Mr. W–and a young man were picked up in a public bathroom. The kid was Jewish. Because of W–’s family, the thing was hushed up, and they were both back out on the street before morning. But the fear of scandal did something to the old man.”
“And ever since then he comes in each time there’s a murder in the papers?”
“Not every murder. Only when the victim is a young male. And only if it’s a stabbing.”
“Christ, talk about sophomore psychology.”
“That truck’s backing out!”
“I see him, sir. Are you sure you’re comfortable?”
“What do you mean?”
“It must be hard to drive from over there.”
“Come on, come on! Let’s get going!”
Guttmann waits for the truck to clear, then eases forward. “Yes, that’s real sophomore psychology stuff. The need to confess; the stabbing image.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing, sir.” It seems odd to Guttmann that LaPointe should know so much about human reactions and the human condition, but at the same time be so uneducated. He doubts that the Lieutenant could define words like “id” and “fugue.” He probably recognizes the functioning of these forces and devices without having any names for them.