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"I know he didn't, so he wasn't actually fencing at the moment he was killed. Miltan says no one ever fences with the йpйe without a mask. The one Ludlow had been wearing was on a bench over by the wall. And the йpйe that was sticking through him had no button on it, just the blunted end, and it couldn't possibly have pierced him like that. But there was that thing in the cabinet in the office which Mrs Miltan discovered was missing while your Mr Goodwin was present. Which she calls a culdymore. You talk French; you can say it better than I can."
"Col de mort."
"Right. Anyone could have taken it from the cabinet. The chances are a million to one it was used on the йpйe that killed Ludlow. At a distance of a few feet, and especially with the йpйe in motion, he would never have seen it was that and not the ordinary fencing button. But the culdymore was not on the йpйe. So it had been removed. So everyone was searched and twenty men went through that joint like molasses through cheese-cloth. They didn't find it. One person and only one had left that building, namely Goodwin here. You don't imagine he took it with him for a souvenir?"
Wolfe smiled slightly. "I wouldn't suppose so. Thrown out of a window perhaps?"
"It could have been. They're still looking, in the damn dark with flashlights. Also for the other objects which may be missing. Miss Tormic has an idea a glove is gone, one of the ladies'-size fencing gauntlets, from the cupboard in the locker room. Miss Lovchen and the dame that calls herself Zorka don't think so. Mrs Miltan won't commit herself. Nobody seems to know for sure exactly how many there were."
"What about the button that had to be removed from the йpйe before the col de mort could be used?"
"They're all over the place. Right in the fencing rooms in drawers."
"Would the handle of the йpйe show fingerprints if it had been grasped without a glove?"
"No. Wrapped with cord or something for a grip."
"Well." Wolfe looked sympathetic. "The only two objects that might have helped aren't there. I'll promise you one thing, Mr Cramer, if Archie did take them away I shall see that they are handed over to you as soon as we finish with them. But to go on, how many persons were in the building at the time the body was found?"
"Counting everybody, twenty-six."
"How many have you eliminated?"
"All but eight or nine."
"Namely?"
"First and foremost, the one who was fencing with him. Your client."
"I wouldn't expect that. If she is still my client after I see her I'll eliminate her myself. The others?"
"Mr and Mrs Miltan. They alibi each other, which would be a drug on the market at two for a nickel. The girl that came to see you, Carla Lovchen. That's four. She had been fencing with Driscoll, but they had quit and had gone to the locker rooms, and she could have sneaked to the end room and done it. Driscoll. He's unlikely but not eliminated. Zorka. She was in the big room on that floor with a young man named Ted Gill. He claims not to be a fencer and was in there with her learning how to start."
I said, "It was him that was with Belinda Reade yesterday when they saw our client in the hall as she was going to the locker room not to pinch Driscoll's diamonds."
"Right. Then there's the Reade girl and young Barrett. They were moving around and it's hard to tell. Of course if it's Donald Barrett you can have it. Also there's a kind of a man named Rudolph Faber."
"The chinless wonder."
"Not original but good. It's him, by the way, that's responsible for the fact that there's been no arrest. How many does that make?"
"Ten."
"Then it's ten. And no discovered motive in the whole damn bunch. I wouldn't-"
The phone rang. I performed and, after a moment, beckoned to Cramer.
"For you. It's the boss."
"Who?"
"The police commissioner, by gum."
He got up, said in a resigned tone, "Oh, poop," and came and took it.
Chapter Six
That telephone conversation was in two sections. During the first section, which was prolonged, Cramer was doing the talking, in a respectfully belligerent tone, reporting on the situation and the regrettable lack of progress to date. During the second, which was shorter, he was listening and apparently to something not especially cheerful, judging from the inflection of his grunts, and from the expression on his face when he finally cut the co
He sat and scowled.
Wolfe said, "You were lamenting the lack of motive."
"What?" He looked at Wolfe. "Yeah. I'd give my afternoon off to know what you know right now."
"It would cost you more than an afternoon, Mr Cramer. I read a lot of books."
"To hell with books. I am fully aware that you've got some kind of a line on this thing and I haven't; I knew that as soon as I heard about Goodwin. If it ever did any good to look at your face, I'd look at it while I'm telling you that the commissioner just informed me that he had a phone call ten minutes ago from the British Consul-General. The consul stated that he was shocked and concerned to learn of the sudden and violent death of a British subject named Percy Ludlow and he hoped that no effort would be spared and so forth."
Wolfe shook his head. "I'm afraid my face wouldn't help you any on that. My sole reaction is the thought that the British Consul-General must have remarkable cha
"Nothing remarkable about it. He heard it on a radio news bulletin."
"The source of the news was you or your staff?"
"Naturally."
"Then you had discovered that Ludlow was a British subject?"
"No. No one up there knew much about him. Men are out on that now."
"Then obviously it's remarkable. The radio tells the consul merely that a man named Percy Ludlow had been killed at a dancing and fencing studio on 48th Street, and he knows at once that the victim was a British subject. Not only that, he doesn't wait until morning, when the usual conventional communication could be sent to the police from his office, but immediately phones the commissioner himself. So either Mr Ludlow was himself important or he was concerned in important business. Maybe the consul could supply some details."
"Much obliged. The commissioner has a date with him at eleven o'clock. Meanwhile how about supplying a few yourself?"
"I don't know any. I heard Mr Ludlow's name for the first time shortly before six o'clock this afternoon."
"You say. All right, to hell with you and your client both. I don't kick on any ordinary murder, it's my job and I try to handle it, but I hate these damn foreign mix-ups. Look at those two girls, they barely speak English, and if they want to monkey around playing with swords why can't they stay where they belong and do it there? Look at Miltan, I suppose some kind of a Frenchman, and his wife. Look at Zorka. Then look at that Rudolph Faber guy, he reminds me of the cartoons of Prussian officers at the time of the World War. And now the Federals are up there horning in, and this Consul-General informs us that even the dead man wasn't a plain honest-to-God American-"
"From old Ireland," I slipped in.
"Shut up. You know what I mean. I don't care if the background is wop or mick or kike or dago or yankee or square-head or dutch colonial, so long as it's American. Give me an American murder with an American motive and an American weapon, and I'll deal with it. But these damn alien trimmings, йpйes and culdymores and consuls calling up about their damn subjects-and moreover, why I was fool enough to expect anything here is beyond me. I should have had you tagged and hauled in and let you wait in a cold hall until sunrise."