I read the story in the Times on the 23rd Street crosstown bus in the morning. It was only a paragraph in 'The City'
column:
'Police are seeking witnesses to the death of Martin Reape of Manhattan who fell or jumped at the 14th Street station of the Lexington Avenue IRT subway. The accident occurred during the evening rush hour and resulted in delays of more than an hour. The motorman of the train involved told police he had just entered the station and had applied his brakes when "the body came flying out of nowhere." '
Rook before you Reape.
I made it to the office a few minutes before 9.00, called Thelma Potts, and told her I had to see Mr Tabatchnick as soon as possible.
'You're getting to be a regular visitor,' she said.
'Just an excuse to see you,' I said.
'Oh you! ' she said.
I spent an hour typing up a report of my conversations with the Stonehouses and Mrs Dark. I tried to leave nothing out, because at that time I had no conception of what was important and what was just sludge. After reading over the report, I could detect no pattern, not even a vague clue to the professor's disappearance. Just then Thelma Potts called to say Mr Tabatchnick would see me.
When I entered his office, he was standing behind the trestle table, drinking from a mug that had 'Grandpa'
painted on it. He was in a testy mood.
'What is so urgent that it couldn't wait until I had a chance to inspect my fish?'
I laid the Times column on his desk. I had boxed the Reape item with a red grease pencil.
Mr Tabatchnick removed a heavy pair of black hornrimmed glasses from his breast pocket. He took out a clean, neatly pressed handkerchief and slowly polished the glasses, breathing on them first. He donned the spectacles and, still standing, began to read. His expression didn't change, but he lowered himself slowly into his swivel chair.
'Sit down, Mr Bigg,' he said. The voice wasn't irritable anymore. In fact, it sounded a little shaky. 'What do you think happened?'
'I think he was murdered, sir. Pushed on to the tracks by that other customer or customers he was going to see.'
'You have a vivid imagination, Mr Bigg.'
'It fits, sir.'
'Then wouldn't he have had the money on him if he had sold the information? The paper mentions nothing of that.
Or if he hadn't made the deal, wouldn't he have had the information on his person?'
'Not necessarily, sir. First of all, we don't know that his information was physical evidence. It may have been just something he knew. And it's possible he went to see his other customers just to discuss the details of the deal, and no exchange took place prior to his death. But after talking to him, his customers feared the payment would be only the first of a series of demands, and so they decided his death was the only solution.'
He exhaled heavily.
'Very fanciful,' he said. 'And totally without proof.'
'Yes, sir,' I said, 'I admit that. But during my meeting with Reape, I said something to the effect that fifty 71
thousand was a lot of money, and he said, quote, It's worth fifty grand to make sure it goes to the right people, ain't it? Unquote. He was speaking of the estate, sir. So perhaps his other customers were the wrong people. You follow, Mr Tabatchnick?'
'Of course I follow,' he said furiously. 'You're saying that with Reape out of the picture, the wrong people will profit. That means that the beneficiaries named in the existing will may include the wrong people.'
He didn't like that at all. He leaned forward to read the Reape story for the third time. Then he angrily shoved the paper away.
'I wish,' he said, 'that I could be certain that this Reape person actually did possess what he claimed. He may merely have read the news story of Sol Kipper's suicide and devised this scheme to profit from the poor man's death. It might have been just a confidence game, a swindle.'
'Mr Tabatchnick, did the news story of Sol Kipper's suicide mention the value of his estate?'
'Of course not!'
'During my meeting with Reape, he said, quote, How much is that estate — four mil? Five mil? Unquote. Was that a close estimate of the estate, Mr Tabatchnick?'
'Close enough,' he said in a low voice. 'It's about four million six.'
'Well, how would Reape have known that if he hadn't been intimately involved with the Kipper family in some way? Surely his knowledge of the size of the estate is a fairly solid indication that he had the information he claimed.'
Leopold Tabatchnick sighed deeply. Then he sat brooding, head lowered. He pulled at his lower lip. I was tempted to slap his hand and tell him his lips protruded enough.
I don't know how long we sat there in silence. Finally, Tabatchnick sighed again and straightened up. He put his thick hands on the tabletop, palms down.
'All right,' he said, 'I realize what you are implying. You feel that if Martin Reape told the truth and had evidence to upset the will of Sol Kipper, then an investigation into Kipper's suicide would be justified.'
'The alleged suicide,' I said. 'Yes, sir, that's the way I feel.'
'Very well,' he said. 'You may conduct a discreet inquiry. I repeat, a discreet inquiry. To avoid prejudicing your investigation, I will not disclose to you at this time the principal beneficiaries of Sol Kipper's estate.'
'As you wish, sir,' I said. 'But it would help a great deal if you would give me some background on the man and his family. You mentioned that he had been a personal friend of yours for fifty-five years.'
'Yes,' he said. 'We were classmates at CCNY together. I went on to law school and Sol went into his father's textile business. But we kept in touch and saw each other frequently. He was best man at my wedding, and I at his. Our wives were good friends. That was Sol's first wife. She died six years ago and Sol remarried.'
Did I detect a note of disapproval in his voice?
'Sol was an enormously successful businessman. After his father's death, he became president of Kipmar Textiles, and expanded to include knitting mills in New England, South Carolina, Spain, and Israel. They went public ten years ago, and Sol became a wealthy man. He had three sons and one daughter by his first wife. All his children are grown now, of course, and married. Sol had eleven grandchildren. Shortly after his second marriage, he semi-retired and turned over the day-to-day operations of Kipmar Textiles to two of his sons. The third son is a doctor in Los Angeles. His daughter lives in Boca Raton, Florida. What else would you care to know?'
'The second wife, sir — what can you tell me about her?'
'She is younger than Sol was — considerably younger. I believe she was on the stage. Briefly. Her name is Tippi.'
Now I was certain I heard that note of disapproval in his voice.
'Yes, sir. And now the man himself. What was he like?'
'Sol Kipper was one of the dearest, sweetest men it has ever been my good fortune to know. He was generous to a fault. A fine, loving husband and an understanding father and grandfather. His children worshipped him. They took his death very hard.'
'Why did he commit suicide, sir — if he did? Was there any reason for it?'
Tabatchnick wagged his big head sadly. 'Sol was the worst hypochondriac I've ever known or heard about. He was continually running to doctors with imaginary physical ailments. It was a joke to his family and friends, but we could never convince him that he was in excellent health, even when doctor after doctor told him the same thing. He had only to read a medical article on some obscure illness and he was certain he had the symptoms.
He dosed himself with all kinds of nostrums and, to my personal knowledge, swallowed more than fifty vitamin pills and mineral capsules a day. He was like that when he was young, and it worsened as he grew older, sometimes resulting in extreme depression. I assume he committed suicide while in that condition.'
'After making an appointment with you to execute a new will?'
'That's the way it happened,' Mr Tabatchnick said crossly.
'I think that's about all, sir,' I said, standing. 'I'll report to you if there is anything you should know.'
'By all means,' he said. 'If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. You may call me at home, should that become necessary. I am in the book. I am depending on you, Mr Bigg, to conduct your investigation quietly and diplomatically.'
'Yes. sir, I understand. I'd like to start by talking to that officer who investigated Mr Kipper's death. Do you happen to recall his name?'
'Not offhand, but Miss Potts has his name and phone number. I'll instruct her to give them to you.'
'Mr Tabatchnick, the detective will probably want to know the reason for our interest. May I tell him about Martin Reape?'
He pondered that for a while.
'No,' he said finally, 'I'd prefer you didn't. If nothing comes of this, the role of Reape will be of no significance, and I don't wish anyone else to know of our willingness to deal with him. If the detective asks the reason for our interest, tell him merely that it concerns the estate and insurance. I am sure that will satisfy him. You might take him to lunch or dinner. I suspect he may be more forthcoming over a few drinks and a good meal. I will approve any expense vouchers. Any reasonable expense vouchers.'
Detective second-grade Percy Stilton was the cop on the Kipper case. I got his number from Thelma Potts. I called him the moment I returned to my office, but the man who answered said Detective Stilton would not come on duty until 4.00 p.m. I said I'd call him then.
I started typing notes of my conversation with Mr Tabatchnick, leaving out all mention of Marty Reape.
When I had done that I phoned the Stonehouse apartment; a very throaty voice answered. I assumed that it was the maid, Olga Eklund. Mrs Stonehouse came on in that trilly voice. I asked her questions about her husband's health.
He had been well at the time of his disappearance but had recently been ill.
'It started late in the summer,' she said. 'But it got progressively worse. October and November were very bad. But then he just snapped out of it. He was a Scorpio, you know.'
'October and November?' I repeated. Then he must have recovered about a month prior to his disappearance.
'What was the nature of his illness, Mrs Stonehouse?'
'Oh, I don't really know,' she said blithely. 'My husband was so tight-lipped about things like that. The flu, I suppose, or a virus that just hung on. He simply refused to go to a doctor, but then he got so weak and miserable he finally had to go. Went several times, as a matter of fact, and the doctor did all kinds of tests. He must have discovered what it was, because Yale recovered very quickly.'
'Could you tell me the doctor's name, Mrs Stonehouse?'
'His name?' she said. 'Now what is his name? Morton, I think, or something like that.'
I heard her call, 'Olga!' and there was confused talking in the distance. Then Mrs Stonehouse came back on the phone. 'Stolowitz,' she said. 'Dr Morris Stolowitz.'
I looked up the phone number of Dr Morris Stolowitz.
He was on West 74th Street, within easy walking distance of the Stonehouse apartment. I called, and a woman's voice answered: 'Doctor's office.' Doctor was busy with a patient. I left my name and number and asked that he get back to me.
I had my doubts that Dr Stolowitz would ever return my call. I was debating the wisdom of asking Mrs Stonehouse to intercede for me, when Hamish Hooter came barging into my office and threw my pay envelope on to the desk.
'See here,' he said.
'What is it now, Hooter?'
'I've been trying to tell you in a nice way,' he said, sucking his teeth noisily. 'But apparently you're not catching on. Yetta Apatoff and I are an item. I want you to stop bothering her.'
'If I am bothering her,' I said, 'which I sincerely doubt, let the lady tell me herself.'
He muttered something threatening and rushed from my office, banging the door.
So, of course, I had to call Yetta immediately.
'Hi, it's Josh,' I said, wondering why my speech became so throaty and — well, intimate, when I spoke to her.
'Hi, Josh,' she said in her breathy, little girl's voice.
'Long time no see.'
Now did that sound like a woman I was bothering?
'How about lunch today?' I suggested. 'Just to celebrate payday?'
'Ooh, marvy!' she said. 'Let's go to the Chink place on Third.'
When I went out to her reception desk at noon, she was waiting for me, her coat on her arm, a fluffy powder-blue beret perched enchantingly on her blonde ringlets. She was wearing a tightly fitted knitted suit of a slightly darker blue, and when I saw that divine topography, I felt the familiar constriction of my breathing and my knee joints seemed excessively oiled.
While we walked over to Third Avenue, she took my arm, chatting innocently, apparently unaware of what her soft grip was doing to my heartbeat and respiration. As always when I was with her, I was blind and deaf to our surroundings. All my senses were zeroed in on her, and once, when she shivered with cold, said, 'Brrr!' and hugged my arm to her yielding breast, I almost sobbed with joy.
In the restaurant all I wanted was to look at her, watch those perfect white teeth bite into a dumpling, note how the soft column of her throat moved when she swallowed, and how she patted her mouth delicately with a paper napkin when a small burp rose to her lips.
'Oh, Josh,' she said, between bites and swallows, 'did I tell you about this absolutely marvy sweater I saw in this store on Madison? I'd love to get it, but it's soo expensive, and also it's cut way down. I mean it really is a plunging neckline, and I suppose I'd have to wear a scarf with it, something that would cover me a little if I wore it to work, or maybe a blouse under it, but that would spoil the lines because it's sooo clinging, and it's like a forest green. Do you like green, Josh?'
'Love green,' I said hoarsely.
'It costs sooo much, but maybe just this once I'll spend more than I should because I believe that if you really want something, you should get it no matter what it costs. I have this saying, "I don't want anything but the best," and that's really the way I feel, and I suppose you think I'm just terrible.'
'Of course not. You deserve the — '
'Oh well,' she said, giggling, 'maybe I'll buy it as a birthday present to me from myself.'
'It's your birthday?' I cried.
'Oh not yet, Josh. Not until next week. But I certainly hope you don't think I'm, you know, telling you that for any, you know, ulterior motive like I was angling for a present or anything, because I'm certainly not that kind of girl.'
'I know that, Yetta.'
She reached across the table to put a hand briefly on mine.
We got fortune cookies with our ice cream. Yetta's fortune was A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU. Mine read: A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU.
Yetta stared at me, suddenly solemn.
'Josh,' she said, 'isn't that the strangest thing that ever happened to you? I mean, we're both going to have a new life. I certainly think that's strange. You don't suppose —? '
She broke off, glanced at her watch.
'Goodness,' she said, 'look at the time! I've really got to get back. Duty calls!'
We strolled back to the office together. Just before we got there I said, 'Yetta, that store where you saw the sweater you liked. . '
'Between 36th and 37th,' she said, 'On the west side. It's in the window.'
I resolutely stayed in my office all afternoon and worked hard on routine inquiries from the junior partners and associates. A few minutes after four o'clock, I called the officer who had investigated Sol Kipper's suicide. He answered the phone formally.
'Detective Percy Stilton.'
'Sir,' I said, 'my name is Joshua Bigg. I work for the legal firm of Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum.
Mr Tabatchnick gave me your name and address. He said you investigated the suicide of Solomon Kipper.'
'Kipper?' he said. 'Oh yes, that's right. I caught that one.'
'I was hoping I could talk to you about it,' I said. 'This concerns a matter of estate and insurance claims.'
'I can't show you the file,' he said.
'Oh no,' I said hastily. 'Nothing like that. I mean, this isn't official. Very informal. You won't be asked to testify.
I just wanted to ask a few questions.'
'You say this concerns insurance?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Uh-huh,' he said. He was silent a moment. Then: 'Well, I guess it wouldn't do any harm. You want to come over here?'
'I was wondering if we might meet somewhere. Dinner perhaps?'
'Dinner?' he said. 'You on an expense account?'
'Yes, sir,' I said.
'Great,' he said. 'I'm getting tired of pizza. Want to make it tonight?'
'That would be fine.'
'I have to do some work later at Midtown Precinct North. That's on West 54th Street. I should be finished about eight o'clock, and be able to break loose for a while.
I'll meet you at eight or thereabouts at the Cheshire Cheese 79
on West 51st Street between Eighth and Ninth. It's veddy British.'
I was tidying up my desk, getting ready to leave, when my phone rang. That was a welcome change.
'Joshua Bigg,' I answered.
'Just a moment, Mr Bigg,' a woman's voice said. 'Dr Morris Stolowitz calling.' When he came on he was loud and irascible. 'What's this about Professor Stonehouse?'
he demanded.
I told him who I was and whom I worked for, and explained that I wanted to talk to him. He wanted to know where I got his name and snarled that the doctor-patient relationship was confidential. In the end he said he could see me for five minutes the next day. He slammed down the phone and I decided to call it a day.
Since my route home took me to Madison Avenue, I, found the store Yetta Apatoff had mentioned. The green sweater was in the window, displayed on a mannequin.
Yetta hadn't exaggerated; that neckline didn't plunge, it submerged. About as far down as my spirits when I saw the price: $59.95. Maybe she'd like a nice handkerchief instead. I decided to think about it for a while; after all, her birthday wasn't until next week. I continued down Madison to 23rd Street, took a crosstown bus to Ninth Avenue, then walked home from there. Captain Shank wasn't on the third-floor landing to greet me, but I could hear his TV set blaring behind his closed door. I sneaked into my own apartment and shut my door ever so softly. I liked the old man, I really did, but I was not partial to muscatel.
At 7.30 I took the Eighth Avenue bus uptown and arrived at 51st Street ahead of time. I found the Cheshire Cheese, a few steps down from the sidewalk. It was, as Stilton had said, an English-style restaurant with a long bar on the left as you entered, and small tables for two along the right wall. In the rear, I could see a large dining room 80
with tables for four.
It was a pleasantly dim place, redolent with appetizing cooking odours and decorated with horse brasses and coats of arms. The theatre crowd had already departed, and there were few diners: two men together, two couples, and a foursome. No Detective Stilton.
I waited near the entrance until a slender man wearing a long white apron came from behind the bar and approached me. He was polishing a wine goblet with a cloth.
'Sir?' he said.
'I'm meeting a gentleman,' I said. 'Perhaps I'll take a table and have a drink while I'm waiting.'
'Very good,' he said, looking around. 'How about the corner?'
So that's where I was seated after I had hung up my coat. My back was to the wall, and I could watch the entrance. A waiter came over and I ordered a Scotch and water.
I had taken only one sip when a tall black man came into the Cheshire Cheese and looked around. He took off his coat and hat, stowed them on the open rack, and came walking directly towards me with a light, bouncy stride. I struggled out of my chair to shake his hand.
'Mr Bigg?' he said. 'I'm Stilton.' As he shifted the free chair from my right to sit opposite me, the waiter scurried over to move the pewter serving platter, napkin, utensils, and water goblet in front of the detective.
'Waiting long?' Stilton asked.
'Just got here,' I told him. 'I'm having a drink.
Something for you?'
He ordered a dry martini straight up, no twist or olive. It arrived with lightning speed.
'All right?' I asked him.
'Just right,' he said. 'How long have you been a Chief Investigator?'
He smiled at my shock. I managed to regain composure.
'Two years. But I was an assistant for two years before that. To a man named Roscoe Dollworth. He was with the Department. Did you know him?'
'Dolly? Oh hell yes. He was some kind of a cop before the sauce got to him. He still alive?'
'He's retired and living in Florida.'
'I think we better order,' he said. 'We can talk while we're eating. I've got maybe an hour before the loot starts getting antsy. I know exactly what I want. Roast beef on the bone, very rare. Yorkshire pudding. Whatever vegetable they're pushing. And a salad. And a mug of ale.'
I had a steak-and-kidney pie, salad, and ale.
'About this Kipper thing,' Stilton said abruptly. 'You say your interest is in the insurance?'
'The claim,' I said, nodding. 'We have to justify the claim with the company that insured him.'
'What company is that?'
'Uh, Metropolitan Life,' I said.
'That's odd,' he said. 'About a week after Kipper died, I got a visit from a claim adjuster from Prudential. He said they had insured Kipper.'
He looked at me steadily. I think I was blushing. I know I couldn't meet his stare. I may have hung my head.
'You don't mind if I call you Josh, do you?' Stilton asked gently.
'No, I don't mind.'
'You can call me Perce,' he offered. 'You see, Josh, two years in this business, or even four years, aren't enough to learn how to be a really good liar. The first rule is only lie when you have to. And when you do lie, keep it as close to the truth as you can and keep it simple. Don't try to scam it up. If you do, you're sure to get in trouble. When I asked you if your interest was the insurance, you should have said yes and let it go at that. I probably would have swallowed it. It's logical that lawyers handling the estate would be interested in a dead man's insurance. But then you started fumbling around with justifying the claim, and I knew you were jiving me.'
'And I didn't even know the name of the company,' I said sadly.
He put his head back and laughed, so loudly that the other diners turned to look.
'Oh, Josh,' he said. 'I don't know what company insured Kipper either. No claim adjuster ever visited me. I just said Prudential to catch your reaction. When you collapsed, I knew you were running a game on me.'
Our food was served, and we didn't speak until the waiter left the table.
'Then you won't tell me about the Kipper case?' I said.
'Why the hell not?' he said, astonished. 'I'm willing to co-operate. It's all a matter of public record. That boss of yours, the guy with the fish, could probably even get a look at the file if he pushed hard enough. How's the steak-and-kidney pie?'
'Delicious,' I said. 'I'm really enjoying it. Is your roast beef rare enough?'
'If it was any rarer, it would still be breathing. All right, now let me tell you about the Kipper thing. I went over the file before I left the office, just to refresh my memory.
Here's what happened. . '
As he spoke, and ate steadily, I glanced up frequently from my own plate to look at him.
I guessed him to be in his early fifties. He was about six feet tall, with narrow shoulders and hips. Very willowy. He was dressed with great care and polish, in a double-breasted blue pinstripe that closed at the lower button with a graceful sweep of a wide lapel. His shirt was a snowy white broadcloth with a short, button-down collar. He wore a polka-dot bowtie with butterfly wings. He had a gold watch on one wrist and a gold chain identification bracelet on the other. If he was wearing a gun — and I presumed he was — it certainly didn't show.
His colour was hard to distinguish in the dim light, but I judged it to be a dark brown with a reddish tinge, not quite cordovan but almost. His hair was jet black and and lay flat on his skull in closely cropped waves. His hands were long, fingernails manicured.
His eyes were set deep and wide apart. His nose was somewhat splayed, and his thick lips turned outward. High cheekbones, like an Indian. He had a massive jaw, almost square, and a surprisingly thick, corded neck. Small ears were flat to his head.
I would not call him a handsome man, but his features were pleasant enough. He looked amused, assured, and competent. When he was pondering, or trying to find the right word or phrase, he had the habit of putting his tongue inside his cheek, bulging it.
I think I was most impressed by the cool elegance of the man, totally unlike what I envisioned a New York police detective would be. He really looked like a business executive or a confident salesman. I thought this might be an image he projected deliberately, as an aid in his work.
'Let's start with the time sequence,' he began. 'This happened on January 24th, a Wednesday. The first call went to 911, and was logged in at 3.06. That's p.m., the afternoon. A squad car was dispatched from the One-Nine Precinct and arrived at the premises at 3.14. Not bad, huh?
Two cops in the squad. They took a look at what had happened and called their precinct. This was at 3.21.
Everyone was doing their jobs. We don't fuck up all the time, you know. The squeal came to the Homicide Zone where I work at 3.29. It didn't sound like a homicide, but these things have to be checked out. I arrived at the scene at 3.43. I was with my partner, Detective Lou Emandola.
We no sooner got in the place when the loot called and pulled Lou away. Some nut was holding hostages in a supermarket over on First Avenue, and they were calling out the troops.
'So Lou took off and I was left alone. I mean I was the only homicide guy there. There were plenty of cops, the ambulance guys, the Medical Examiner, the lab truck technicians, a photographer, and so forth. A real mob scene. I questioned the witnesses then, but they were so spooked I didn't get much out of them, so I left. I went back again that evening, and I went twice more. Also, I talked to neighbours, the ME who did the PM, your Mr Tabatchnick, Kipper's doctor, and Kipper's sons. After all this, it looked like an open-and-shut suicide, and that's how we closed it out. Any questions so far?'
'Who made the first call to 911?' I asked.
'I'm getting to that,' Stilton said. 'I've hardly started yet.'
He paused, drained his tankard of ale, and looked at me. I called the waiter and ordered two more. The detective continued:
'Here's the story. . First of all, you've got to understand the scene of the crime, although there was no crime, unless you want to call a suicide a crime. Anyway, that townhouse is a palace. Huge? You wouldn't believe. You could sleep half of East Harlem in there. It's six floors high and it's got a double-basement, plus an elevator. I never did get around to counting all the rooms. Thirty at least, I'd guess, and most of them empty. I mean they were furnished, but no one lived in them. A terrible waste of space.
It runs halfway back the depth of the building. The rear half is an open terrace. The room up front is used for parties. It has a big-screen TV, bar, hi-fi equipment, movie projector, and so forth. The rear terrace has plants, and trees, and outdoor furniture. Sol Kipper took his dive from that terrace. It has a wall around it thirty-eight inches high — I measured it — but that wouldn't be hard to climb over, even for an old guy like Kipper.'
He paused again to take a swallow of his new ale. I used the interruption to dig into my dinner. I had been so engrossed in his story, not wanting to miss anything, that I had neglected to eat. He had finished most of his beef and was now whittling scraps off the rib, handling his knife with the dexterity of a surgeon.
'The nearer the bone,' he said, 'the sweeter the meat. All right, here's what I found out: At 2.30 p.m. on that Wednesday, there were five people in the townhouse. Sol Kipper, his wife, Tippi — she's a looker, that one — and the three servants. Sol and Tippi were in their bedroom, the master bedroom on the fifth floor. The servants were on the ground floor, in and around the kitchen. Tippi was expecting a guest, a Protestant minister named Knurr. He was a frequent visitor, and he was usually served a drink or two and some little sandwiches. The servants were setting up for him.
'Mrs Kipper came downstairs about ten minutes to three to make sure everything was ready for the Reverend Knurr.
Now we got four people downstairs, and only Sol Kipper upstairs — right? In the back of the townhouse there's a patio. Most of it is paved with tiles, and there's aluminium furniture out there: a cocktail table, chairs, an umbrella table — stuff like that. Farther in the rear is a small garden: a tree, shrubs, flowers in the summer, and so on. But most of the patio is paved with tiles. There are two ways of getting out there: one door through the kitchen, and French doors from the dining room.
'A few minutes after three, the four people hear a tremendous crash and a big, heavy thump on the patio.
They all hear it. They rush to the kitchen door and look out, and there's Sol Kipper. He was squashed on the tiles.
That was the thump they heard. And one of his legs had hit the umbrella table, dented it, and overturned it. That was the crash they heard. They ran out, took one look, and knew Sol Kipper was as dead as a mackerel — no joke intended.'
Stilton finished his dinner. He pushed back his chair, 86
crossed his knees, and adjusted his trouser crease. He lighted a cigarette and sipped at what remained of his ale.
'Instant hysteria,' he went on. 'Mrs Kipper fainted, the cook started bawling, and right about then the front doorbell rang.'
'The guest?' I said.
'Right. Reverend Knurr. The butler went to the front door, let him in, and screamed out what had just happened. I gather this Knurr more or less took charge then. He's a put-together guy. He called 911, and he got Tippi Kipper revived, and the others quieted down. By the time I got there, they had found the suicide note. How about some coffee?'
'Sure,' I said. 'Dessert? A brandy?'
'A brandy would be fine,' he said. 'May I suggest Remy Martin?'
So I ordered two of those and a pot of coffee.
'I've got a lot of questions,' I said tentatively.
'Thought you might have,' he said. 'Shoot.'
'Are you sure there were only four people in the house besides Sol Kipper?'
'Absolutely. We searched every room when we got there. No one. And the witnesses swear no one left.'
'The time sequence you gave me of what happened — did you get that from Mrs Kipper?'
'And the servants. And Reverend Knurr. All their stories matched within a minute or so. None of them sounded rehearsed. And if you're figuring maybe they were all in on it together, forget it. Why should they all gang up on the old guy? According to the servants, he treated them just right. A fast man with a buck. The wife says the marriage was happy. None of them showed any signs of a struggle.
No scratches or bruises — nothing like that. And if one of them, or all of them, wanted to get rid of Sol, it would have been a lot easier to slip something into one of his pill bottles. You should have seen his medicine chest. He had a drugstore up there. And, of course, there was the suicide note. In his writing.'
'Do you remember what it said?' I asked. 'Exactly?'
'It was addressed to his wife. It said: "Dear Tippi.
Please forgive me. I am sorry for all the trouble I've caused." It was signed " Sol. " '
I sighed. Our coffee and cognac arrived, and we sat a moment in silence, then sipped the Remy Martin. Very different from the California brand I drank at home.
'Did you check the wall on the terrace?'
Stilton looked at me without expression.
'You're all right,' he said. 'Dolly did a good job on you.
Yes, we checked the terrace wall. It's a roughly finished cement, painted pink. There were scrape marks on the top where Kipper went over. And there were crumbs of pink cement on the toes of his shoes, stuck in the welt. Any more questions?'
'No,' I said, depressed. 'Maybe I'll think of some later, but I can't think of any now. So it was closed out as a suicide?'
'Did we have any choice?' Detective Percy Stilton said, almost angrily. 'We have a zillion homicides to work on. I mean, out-and-out, definite homicides. How much time can we spend on a case that looks like a suicide no matter how you slice it? So we closed the Kipper file.'
I took a swallow of brandy, larger than I should have, and choked on it. Stilton looked at me amusedly.
'Go down the wrong way?' he said.
I nodded. 'And this suicide,' I said, still gasping, 'it sticks in my throat, too. Perce, how do you feel about it? I mean personally? Are you absolutely satisfied in your own mind that Sol Kipper committed suicide?'
He stared at me, bulging his cheek with his tongue, as if trying to make up his mind. Then he poured himself more coffee.
'It's trade-off time,' he said softly.
'What?' I said. 'I don't understand.'
'A trade-off,' he said. 'Between you and me. You tell me what your interest is in how Sol Kipper died and I'll tell you what I personally think.'
I took a deep breath and wished I had never asked Mr Tabatchnick if I could tell the detective about Marty Reape. Tabatchnick had definitely said no. If I hadn't asked, I could have traded with Stilton without a qualm. I pondered where my loyalty lay. I decided.
'It means my job,' I said, 'if any of this gets out.'
'No one will hear it from me,' Stilton said.
'All right,' I said. 'I trust you. I've got to trust you. Here it is. . '
And I told him all about Marty Reape. Everything, beginning with his telephone call to Mr Tabatchnick, then my call to him, my meeting with him, what he said and what I said, the decision to meet his price, and how he died Wednesday evening under the wheels of a subway train.
Stilton listened closely to this recital, not changing expression. But he never took his eyes off me, and I noticed he chain-smoked while I was speaking. He was about to light another when I finished. He broke the cigarette in two and threw it down.
'I smoke too damned much,' he said disgustedly,
'What do you think?' I said, leaning forward eagerly,
'about Marty Reape?'
'Your boss could be right,' he said slowly. 'Reape could have been a cheap chiseller trying to pull a con.'
'But he was killed!' I said vehemently.
'Was he?' Stilton said. 'You don't know that. And even if he was, that doesn't prove he had the information he claimed. Maybe he tried to pull his little scam on some other people who aren't as civilized as you and your boss, and they stepped on him.'
'But he knew the size of the Kipper estate,' I argued.
'Doesn't that prove he knew the family or had some 89
dealings with them?'
'Maybe,' he said. 'And maybe Sol Kipper told someone what's in his will, and maybe that someone told Marty Reape. Or maybe Reape just made a lucky guess about the size of the estate.'
It was very important to me to convince this professional detective that my suspicions about the death of Sol Kipper had merit and justified further investigation. So, having come this far in betraying Mr Tabatchnick's trust, I felt I might as well go all the way.
'There's another thing,' I said. 'On the morning of the day Sol Kipper died, he called Tabatchnick and set up an appointment. He said he wanted to change his will.'
Stilton had been turning his cigarette lighter over and over in his long fingers, looking down at it. Now he stopped his fiddling and raised his eyes slowly until he was staring at me.
'Jesus,' he breathed, 'the plot thickens.'
'All right,' I said, sitting back. 'That's my trade. Now let's have yours. Do you really think Sol Kipper committed suicide?'
He didn't hesitate.
'That's the official verdict,' he said, 'and the file is closed. But there were things about it that bugged me from the start. Little things. Not enough to justify calling it homicide, but things, three, to be exact, that just didn't set right with me. First of all, committing suicide by jumping from the sixth floor is far from a sure thing. You can jump from a higher place than that and still survive.
'That's why most leapers go higher up than six storeys.
They want to kill themselves, but they don't want to take the chance of being crippled for life. This Kipper owned a textile company. He was semi-retired, his sons run the business, but Kipper went there for a few hours three or four days a week. The office is on the thirty-fourth floor of a building in the garment centre. He could have gone out a window there and they'd have had to pick him up with a blotter.'
'Perce, what actually killed him when he went off the sixth-floor terrace?'
'He landed on his head. Crushed his skull. All right, it could happen from six floors. He could also break both arms and legs, have internal injuries, and still live. That could happen, too. It couldn't happen from thirty-four floors. That's the first thing that bothered me: a suicide from the sixth floor. It's like trying to blow your brains out with a BB gun.
'The second thing was this: When jumpers go out, from a window, ledge, balcony, whatever, they usually drop straight down. I mean, they just take one giant step out into space. They don't really leap. Practically all the jumpers I've seen have landed within six feet of the side of the building. They usually squash on the sidewalk. When they go from a really high place, maybe their bodies start to windmill. But even then they hit the sidewalk or, at the most, crush in the top of a parked car. But I've never seen any who were more than, say, six or seven feet out from the side of the building. Kipper's body was almost ten feet away.'
I puzzled that out.
'Perce, you mean someone threw him over?'
'Who? There were four other people in that house — remember? Kipper weighed about one-sixty. None of the women could have lifted him over that terrace wall and thrown him so he landed ten feet from the side of the building. And the only man, the butler, is so fat it's all he can do to stand up. Maybe Kipper just took a flying leap.'
'An old man like that?'
'It's possible,' he said stubbornly. 'The third thing is even flimsier than the first two. It's that suicide note. It said: "I am sorry for all the trouble I've caused." Get it?
"Caused." Please forgive me for something I've done.
That note sounds to me like he's referring to something he did in the past, not something he was planning to do in a few minutes. Also, the note is perfectly legible, written in straight lines with a steady hand. Not the kind of handwriting you'd expect from a guy so mixed up in his skull that a few minutes later he was going to take a high dive from his terrace. But again, it's possible. I told you it's flimsy. All the things that bug me are flimsy.'
'I don't think they are,' I said hotly. 'I think they're important.'
He gave me a half-smile, looked at his watch, and began to stow away his cigarette case and lighter.
'Listen,' I said desperately, 'where do we go from here?'
'Beats me,' he said.
'Can't you — ' I began.
'Reopen the case?' he said. 'No way can I do that on the evidence we've got. If I even suggested it, my loot would have me committed. You're the Chief Investigator — so investigate.'
'But I don't know where to start,' I burst out. 'I know I should talk to the Kipper family and servants, but I don't know I should talk to the Kipper family and servants, but I know what excuse I can give them for asking questions.'
'Tell them what you told me,' he advised. 'Say you're collecting information to justify the insurance claim.
They'll buy it.'
'You didn't,' I pointed out.
'They're not as cynical as I am,' he said, grinning
'They'll believe what you tell them. Just remember what I said about lying. Keep it simple; don't try to gussy it up.
While you're nosing around, I'll see what I can find out about how Marty Reape died. From what you told me, it's probably been closed as an accident — but you never know.
Keep in touch. If anything turns up, you can always reach me at that number you've got or leave a message and I'll call back. Can I call you at Tabatchnick and whatever?'
I thought about that.
'Better not, Perce,' I said. 'I'd rather keep our, uh, relationship confidential.'
'Sure.' he said. 'I understand.'
'I'll give you my home phone number. I'm in almost every night.'
'That'll do fine.'
He copied my number in a little notebook he carried. It was black pinseal with gold corners. Like all his possessions, it looked smart and expensive.
I paid the bill, left a tip, and we walked towards the door.
'I still don't think it was a suicide,' I said.
'You may be right,' he said mildly. 'But thinking something and proving it are entirely different. As any cop can tell you.'
We put on our coats and moved out on to the sidewalk.
He was wearing a navy blue chesterfield and a black homburg. A dandy.
'Thanks for the dinner, Josh,' he said. 'Real good.'
'My pleasure,' I said.
'Which way you going?' he asked.
'Ninth Avenue. I'll catch a downtown bus. I live in Chelsea.'
'I'll walk you over,' he said, and we headed westward.
'Don't give up on this one, Josh,' he said, suddenly earnest. 'I can't do it; my plate is full. But I've got the feeling someone is jerking us around, and I don't like it.'
'I'm not going to give up,' I said.
'Good,' he said. 'And thanks for meeting with me and filling me in.
'Listen,' he added hesitantly, 'if what you think turns out to be right, and someone snuffed Sol Kipper and pushed Marty Reape under a train, then they're not nice people — you know? So be careful.'
93
'Oh sure. I will be.'
'You carry a piece?' he asked suddenly.
It was a few seconds before I understood what he meant.
'Oh no,' I said. 'I don't believe in violence.'
He sighed deeply.
'And a little child shall lead them,' he said. 'Good night, Josh.'