Гарри Кемельман - Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

"Ah. I see what you mean by the two not balancing." Ames chuckled and shifted in his seat. "This chanting of yours—"Oh, was I doing it? I didn't realize. It's the normal accompaniment to Talmudic argument. I do it without thinking. I suppose."

"I see." Ames returned to the matter at hand. "Of course you're quite right about our being left with an improbability at best, the open book and the hassock could be a matter of a minute of two. You could sit down to read and then remember something you've got to do and put the book down without having read a line. But the pipe and all those matches..."The rabbi had resumed his striding, but now he stopped. "Do you smoke?" he asked. "No, thanks."

"Oh, I wasn't offering." said the rabbi. "I just wanted to know if you did."

"No," said Ames. "I never did, as a matter of fact. I had a touch of asthma when I was a kid so I never got around to it."

"Well, I used to smoke." said the rabbi, "but I gave it up when I found it was too hard to smoke during the week and then stop for the Sabbath. When I was in college I tried a pipe for a while. It's almost irresistible to the young student, at least it was when I was in school."

"In my time, too."

"I never really acquired the habit." the rabbi went on. "Most young men don't, there's a trick to it, you know, and long before they've learned it, they've burned their tongues raw and given it up. Now, if I had sat down in that easy chair and smoked a pipe, the half-dozen burned matches you found would make sense. Because I never learned how, and until you've learned how, your pipe keeps going out and you have to keep relighting it. You make a regular bellows of your mouth and puff and puff, and still it keeps going out. But not Professor Hendryx, he knew how to smoke, and he really enjoyed his pipe. I used to watch and even envy him a little, he'd light it— he never needed more than one match— tamp it down carefully, and then keep it lit, effortlessly, a little puff of smoke coming out of his mouth every now and then."

"What are you trying to say, Rabbi?"

"That if it took half a dozen matches to light that pipe, or to keep it lit, then it wasn't Professor Hendryx who was smoking it!" said the rabbi. "You're suggesting that someone came into the apartment and smoked one of his pipes to make it appear that Hendryx had returned after the cleaning woman had left." The rabbi nodded. "But that can only mean Hendryx was already dead and this person wanted to make it appear he was still alive." Again the rabbi nodded. "And that means the pipe smoker was establishing an alibi for himself because he had murdered Hendryx."

"At least it offers a third possibility." said the rabbi with the ghost of a smile. "A third?"

"You said there were only two: that either the medical examiner was wrong or the cleaning woman was. This suggests that they both may have been right, that the medical examiner gave an accurate estimate of the time and that the cleaning woman was telling the truth." Ames nodded slowly in agreement, a thought occurred to him. "Suppose the fingerprints on the pipe turn out to be Hendryx's?"

"It's only what you'd expect." the rabbi replied. "His prints would be on all his pipes, the murderer only had to be careful not to obliterate them, the cleaning woman wouldn't wipe them; a pipe is personal like a toothbrush." Bradford Ames sat back. "You know. Rabbi,” he said, "you're quite a guy, all right, tell me, how did the murderer get into the apartment?"

The rabbi shook his head. "I don't know."

Ames could see that Sergeant Schroeder was highly pleased. "We picked up that student. Ekko,” he said, the minute he entered Hendryx's apartment.

"Good work," said Ames. "Has he talked?"

"No, but he will," said Schroeder confidently. "We'll let him stew for a while and then pull the cork and it'll all gush out. You'll see—" He broke off as a police cruising car drew up. "Here's Mrs. O'Rourke now."The cleaning woman looked quite confused, and not a little apprehensive. Schroeder began brusquely. "We're going to ask you some questions. Mrs. O'Rourke, and this time we want the truth."

"Let me handle this. Sergeant." said Ames. The cleaning woman visibly relaxed. "Now. Mrs. O'Rourke,” he said in a mild voice, "here's what I want you to do. Would you please clean this apartment, just the way you did the last time. You understand?"

"Yes sir. Now?"

"Now will be fine. Mrs. O'Rourke." said Ames.

"Well, I start here usually." They followed her into Hendryx's small kitchen, and she made motions of removing dishes from the table and placing them in the sink. "Like this?"

"Just a minute. Mrs. O'Rourke." said Ames. "Do you do all this in your coat?"

"Oh, I take that off first, of course, and hang it up in the closet."

"Then please do so now." said Ames. "And how do you get in?"

"Well, I ring the bell and Professor Hendryx lets me in."

"All right, then please go outside and we'll start from the beginning."

"This is like a— a play, isn't it, sir?" said the delighted Mrs. O'Rourke.

"Yes. Mrs. O'Rourke." said Ames seriously, he and Schroeder watched in silence as she simulated cleaning the apartment.

"When I finish this room," she said, warming to the scenario. "I usually empty the wastebasket."

"Go ahead."

"But it's empty."

"Well, for God's sake, woman, make believe it's full." snapped Schroeder. Dutifully, she picked up the wastebasket and opened the door.

"You leave the door open?" asked Ames.

"No, there's a draft sometimes and it slams shut."

"So you close it and Professor Hendryx would open it for you when you knocked?" Ames persisted.

"Oh no, sir. I wouldn't want to disturb him. I put it on the latch."

Ames directed her to do so, they watched her walk down the corridor to the back hall and make motions of emptying the wastebasket in a large trash barrel, she returned with the presumably now-empty basket and set it back in place.

"Don't you release the catch on the door now that you're back?" asked Ames.

"Oh, no, sir, on account I got to keep going out to empty the other wastebaskets and the newspapers and shake out the mops."

"I see." said Ames. "And when Professor Hendryx is not here? Say, he's gone across the street to the school?"

"Same thing. Nobody's going to come in, and I'm just down the hall."

"And when you finished and left for the day," said Ames, "did you remember to set the catch again?"

Her hand flew to her mouth in guilty embarrassment and she stared from one grim-faced man to the other.

"Well?" Ames' voice was suddenly hard.

"I don't remember, sir,” she wailed, and then in automatic defense. "But it don't make no difference, the professor would be in and out all day, and he was just across the street. Besides, it didn't happen here; it happened over there." And suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began to weep.

The story of the rabbi's part in releasing young Abner Selzer gained wide currency; the Selzers made no attempt to conceal it— quite the contrary. Reactions were mixed.

"I'm not so sure the rabbi did such a good thing, after all, the kids did bomb the place, didn't they? And for my money Jail is exactly the right place for them.

"Others were pleased. "Our rabbi, you got to hand it to him. I don't know how he does it, and I'm not sure he does either; it's like he's got a kind of sixth sense about these things. Remember that time with Hirsh, where everybody thought the guy was a suicide and made all this fuss about burying him in our cemetery, and then the rabbi found out the guy had been murdered so it was okay after all."

Some were inclined to minimize the rabbi's role. "You want to know what I think? I think the rabbi talked to Selzer, all right, and suggested he get him out on bail, like anyone might, then when it worked out. Selzer made a whole spiel because to the Selzers, especially Mrs. Selzer, the rabbi is God's gift to Barnard's Crossing. Mind you. I'm not saying anything against our rabbi, because personally, I'm strong for him— a little. Let's put it this way, if you were to split the congregation into pro-rabbi and anti-rabbi. I guess I'd line up with the pro-rabbi side. But there's no sense losing your sense of proportion. What's such a big deal?"