“I yelled,” Archie would tell him.
“What did you yell?”
“MURDER!”
“You felt threatened for your own safety?”
“Yes, I felt threatened.”
Looking at the corpse now, Archie felt sudden fear for his own safety. He felt threatened. Very threatened. “MURDER!” he yelled.
Nobody answered. Just the echo of his own voice. Only the sight of Dixie’s arched body resting on the knife inserted in its back. Merely the presence of death with no hint as to its cause.
Archie calmed down. He had to think. Someone had killed Dixie Keller. That someone was undoubtedly after the papers Dixie had stolen from Beaumarchais. Only a few moments could have elapsed since the murder. The murderer probably hadn’t had time to locate the papers yet. In which case, the killer was undoubtedly still on the premises. I.e., Archie decided, he himself was number one target should the killer decide to strike again.
Archie pursued this logic. If the killer was around, then Archie's return from the bathroom must have forced him into hiding. Ergo, he must still be hiding. The question was: where?
Archie scrutinzed the room. The two most likely hiding places, he decided, were the clothes closet and underneath the very bed on which he was still gingerly perched beside the naked corpse. The clothes closet seem the more likely hiding place of the two. But under-the-bed was closer at hand. So Archie put his head between his legs and peered under the bed.
An upside-down face peered back at him. Even upside-down, the face was familiar. Surprisingly familiar. It was the last face Archie had expected to see. Indeed, he was so startled that he straightened up and blinked his eyes hard. Then he looked again to make sure he was seeing right.
No mistake. It was the face he’d thought it was. “You!” he exclaimed as the face peered back. Archie crooked a finger. “Come out of there!” he commanded.
“Shalom.” Helen Steinberg greeted him as she wriggled out from under the bed.
“Statistically,” Archie told her with a sigh, “murder is not a Jewish crime. It has no place in the ethnic ethic. You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Your being young doesn’t mean you should be in such a hurry to jump to conclusions,” she objected. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
“I suppose you were just parking your knife where you could find it if you wanted it,” Archie suggested sarcastically.
“It’s not my knife, and I didn’t kill her!”
“If you didn’t, then who did?”
There was a loud sneeze from the clothes closet.
“Gezundheit,” Helen Steinberg said automatically.
“I knew that was the more likely of the two hiding places for a murderer,” Archie said regretfully. “I should have looked there first.”
“It would have been a fatal look,” a masculine voice from behind the door of the clothes closet assured him. “But then I regret to say that the situation is probably going to be fatal for you two, anyway.” As if to prove the point, the closet door opened and a cocked revolver poked its way into the room. A small man with a large, bald head and a waxed goatee followed it. There was a large button on the lapel of his suit jacket. There was a number on the button, under which was printed in large, block letters: “BROOKHAVEN LABORATORIES TOP LEVEL CLEARANCE.”
“Aha!” Archie exulted. “I know who you are!”
“So who is he?” Helen Steinberg asked.
“He’s a Russian agent that the CIA’s had under surveillance. Strom Huntley told me all about him.”
“Strom Huntley? This is a name?" Helen Steinberg wondered.
“He’s a big wheel in the CIA,” Archie assured her.
“A Jewish name it’s not,” she decided.
“So the CIA’s had me under surveillance, eh?" the Russian mused. “I didn't know that.”
“Maybe I shouldn't have told you.” The thought occurred to Archie.
“No. I’m glad you did. It hurts my ego and it threatens my status, but it’s the kind of thing a man should know. It's the kind of thing a spy has to face up to squarely without kidding himself.”
“I wasn’t concerned about you,” Archie said. “I was thinking of it from the point of view of national security."
“Oh.” The spy looked hurt. “I thought you meant — Well, never mind. Let’s get down to business. Where did the deceased hide the formula?”
“I don’t know,” Archie said truthfully. “You should have asked her that before you stuck the knife in her."
“There wasn’t time,” the spy admitted regretfully. “Not being familiar with your bathroom habits, I wanted to get it over with before there was a chance of your returning and catching me in the act.”
“I don’t dig why you had to kill her, anyway,” Archie said.
“It looked like she was going to double-cross me. She was giving you the go-ahead to deal with the CIA. And after I’d made a firm deal with her!”
“If it was so firm, what were you doing in her closet eavesdropping in the first place?” Archie asked.
“Well, two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. If I could save it for my government— Besides, I didn’t trust her. And I was right."
“Just how long were you in that closet?” Archie wondered.
“A very long time.”
“You could believe him,” Helen Steinberg assured Archie. “Look how he smells of mothballs."
“Were you there while those hoods were torturing Dixie?” Archie asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you put a stop to it?”
“In the first place, it wasn’t my place to interfere. And in the second place, I found it interesting from a professional point of view. When it comes to torture, I try to keep up with any new developments in the field.”
“Weren’t you afraid they’d make her talk and then take off with the formula before you could stop them?”
“On the contrary,” the spy corrected Archie. “I was hoping they would make her talk and save me a lot of trouble. If they had, I had confidence in my ability to shoot them down before they might put the information to use.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty cat, aren’t you?” Archie observed. “It was you who killed Professor Beaumarchais, wasn’t it?”
“That was my handiwork,” the Russian admitted modestly. “Neat, wasn’t it? I so much prefer a gun to a knife. It’s much less sloppy.”
“You have an unfortunate habit,” Archie told him bitterly, “of bumping people off at the most inopportune moments.”
“Sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry!” Archie snorted. A sudden thought took his mind off his regrets. “But if you killed the professor,” he wondered, “then how come you didn’t steal the formula yourself?
“I’m embarrassed to tell you.” The spy blushed.
“Aw, come on, now. Don’t be embarrassed. Spit it out,” Archie wheedled.
“Well, all right.” The spy looked at his shoes and his voice was very low. “You see, I shot the professor from the fire escape. A very nice piece of marksmanship, if l do say so myself. Anyway, at the sound of the shot, the red-headed lady jumped up and looked directly toward the window from which it had come. I leaped back out of sight, intending to take careful aim and finish her off as well.”
“Why didn't you?” Archie asked. “What stopped you?”
“As I jumped back a jagged piece of metal on the fire-escape snagged my trousers. I was unable to free myself. It was a very awkward position.”
“I’ll bet it was,” Archie granted.
“Somebody should complain to the building department the things these landlords get away with,” Helen Steinberg interjected. “There’s a special number, you could call it day or night.”
“There was no telephone handy,” the spy reminded her. “And even if there had been, I don’t think I would have used it. I was otherwise occupied. For one thing, I was trying to get the seat of my pants loose. For another I was trying to draw a bead on the redhead. Two things interfered with that. The first was the way my snagged trousers hampered my movements. The second was the fact that she had quickly crossed over to the safe to get the papers and was out of range.”