Prisoner's Base

Wolfe leaned back and got comfortable. "I told you Thursday evening that my sole interest was investigation of the murder of Priscilla Eads, and that is still true, except that now the murder of Sarah Jaffee is joined to it. After you people left that evening I told Mr. Goodwin that I thought I knew who killed Miss Eads and Mrs. Fomos. That surmise, for that is all it was then, was based on two things: first, the impression I had got of you five people that evening; and second, the fact that Mrs. Fomos had been killed.

"The supposition that the attack on Mrs. Fomos was solely for the purpose of getting the keys to Miss Eads's apartment was clearly not acceptable if any alternative could be had. If that was all that was wanted it would only have been necessary to snatch her bag. A dozen women's bags are snatched every day in this city. Killing Mrs. Fomos greatly increased the hazard of killing Miss Eads. If her body had been discovered sooner, as it might easily have been, and if that city detective-Auerbach, was it, Mr. Cramer?"

"Yes." Cramer's eyes were narrowed at him.

"If he had got his notion about the keys more promptly, he would have got to Miss Eads's apartment before her return and would have found the murderer ambushed there. Surely the murderer was capable of calculating such a risk, and he would not have killed Mrs. Fomos except under a strong impulsion. This objection of course occurred to the police, and I understand that they met it by assuming that in his attempt to get the bag from Mrs. Fomos her assailant was recognized and so was compelled to kill her. That assumption was not impossible, but it implied that the murderer was an egregious bungler, and I doubted it. I preferred to assume exactly the opposite-that Mrs. Fomos had been killed, not because she had recognized her attacker, but because he knew she couldn't recognize him."

"Is this for effect?" Skinner demanded. "Or do you think you're getting somewhere?"

"I am already somewhere," Wolfe retorted. "I've just told you who the murderer is."

Purley Stebbins stood up with his gun in his hand, his eyes on the cast, trying to keep them all in focus at once.

"Go on and spell it," Cramer growled.