Over My Dead Body

"How the hell do I know?" Cramer sat up and made fists again. "Haven't I made it plain that I don't know a damn thing? I can't even put anyone in that room between ten o'clock, the time that Faber left here on his feet, and the time that Goodwin and Miss Tormic were there and found him. We can't find anyone that saw anybody go in or out of the building. We're still trying it, but you know that game."

He banged a fist and demanded, "And what if we do? What if I had stood there on the sidewalk myself and saw her go in with Faber and come out again without him? What good would that do me? When the question comes up, what did she kill him for, or Ludlow either, what do I say then? Huh? Or anybody else! It is customary, before you turn a murder case over to a jury and ask them for a conviction, to give them some slight hint of what the motivation was. They like it better that way. And where it stands now, I could give just as good a motive for Goodwin here, and say he did it with his jackknife when he went there with Miss Tormic, as I could for anybody else."

I protested, "I don't carry a jackknife. A penknife."

"Maybe your field's too narrow," Wolfe suggested. "Have you considered-"

"I haven't got any field. As far as I'm concerned, it's wide-open. Naturally, we're checking up on everyone that was at Miltan's last evening. Young Gill was at his office. One out. Miltan and his wife were at their place. Three out. That leaves six in, of that bunch. Driscoll went for a walk at half past ten and got to his office at eleven-thirty. Donald Barrett says he was at his office, Barrett & De Russy, but it hasn't been confirmed yet to make it tight. Lovchen and Tormic and Zorka. Two of those disappeared. Belinda Reade left her apartment shortly after ten o'clock to go shopping and has been located."

"The weapon?"

"Hasn't been found. He was stabbed in the left breast with a blade long enough to reach the heart, and it was withdrawn in a few minutes, but not immediately, judging from the amount of bleeding. He was also struck a severe blow, before he was stabbed, on the left eye. A very hard blow with something blunt and hard, and heavy. Very unlikely that he could have got it falling, and anyway, if it had happened at the moment he was stabbed to death it wouldn't look the way it does. It indicates that there was a struggle-what's the idea?"

I had doubled up my right fist and displayed it in front of his nose.

"Blunt and hard, and heavy," I declared.

"Huh? What-"