Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

She was a ruddy woman with horsey features and a maiden's innocent eyes. Her hair was iron-grey and wispy.

For a woman her size, her voice was surprisingly light. She was dressed awkwardly, although I could not conceive how a woman of her heft could possibly be garbed elegantly.

She wore a full grey flannel skirt that would have provided enough material for a suit for me. With vest. A no-nonsense white blouse was closed at the neck with a narrow black ribbon, and she wore a tweed jacket in a hellish plaid that would have looked better on Man-o-War. Opaque hose and sensible brogues completed her ensemble. She wore only a thin gold wedding band on her capable hands.

I explained to her as best I could the nature of my work at Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum. Then I told her what I expected from her: filing, typing finished letters from my rough drafts, answering my phone, taking messages, doing simple, basic research from sources that I would provide.

'Think you can handle that, Mrs Kletz?' I asked.

'Oh yes,' she said confidently. 'You must expect me to make mistakes, but I won't make the same mistake twice.'

She sounded better and better.

'There is one other thing,' I said. 'Much of my work — and thus your work, too — will involve matters in litigation.

It is all strictly confidential. You cannot take the job home with you. You cannot discuss what you learn here with anyone else, including husband, family, friends. I must be able to depend upon your discretion.'

'You can depend on it,' she said almost grimly. 'I don't blab.'

'Good,' I said, rising. 'Would you like to start tomorrow or would you prefer to begin on Monday?'

'Tomorrow will be fine,' she said, heaving herself upright. 'Will you be here then?'

'Probably,' I said, thinking about my Friday schedule.

'If not, I'll leave instructions for you on my desk. Will that be satisfactory?'

'Sure,' she said equably.

I stood on tiptoe to help her on with that ridiculous coat.

Then we shook hands, smiling, and she was gone. I thought her a very serene, reassuring woman, and I was grateful to Hamish Hooter, I'd never tell him that, of course.

The moment Mrs Kletz had departed, I called Hooter's office. Fortunately he was out, but I explained to his assistant what was needed: a desk, chair, typewriter, wastebasket, stationery and supplies, phone, etc., all to be installed in the corridor directly outside my office door. By eleven o'clock the following morning.

'Mr Bigg!' the assistant gasped in horror. I knew her: a frightened, rabbity woman, thoroughly tyrannized by her boss. 'We cannot possibly provide all that by tomorrow morning.'

'As soon as possible, then,' I said crisply. 'My assistant was hired with the approval of the senior partners.

Obviously she needs a place to work.'

'Yes, Mr Bigg,' she said submissively.

I hung up, satisfied. Today, a temporary assistant.

Soon, a full-time secretary. A larger office. Then the vvorrld!

I spent the remainder of the afternoon at my desk.

Outside, the snow had thickened; TORT employees with radios in their offices reported that three to five inches of snow were predicted before the storm slackened around midnight. Word came down from upstairs that because of the snowfall anyone who wished to leave early could do so.

Gradually the building emptied until, by 5.00 p.m., it was practically deserted, the noise stilled, corridors vacant. I stayed on. It seemed foolish to go home to Chelsea and then journey uptown to meet Perdita Schug at Mother Tucker's at 7.00. So I decided to remain in the office until it was time for my dinner date.

I got up and looked out into the main hallway. The lights had already been dimmed and the night security guard was seated at Yetta Apatoff's desk. Beyond him, through the glass entrance doors, I saw a curtain of snow, torn occasionally by heavy gusts.

I went back into my office, wishing that Roscoe Dollworth had left a bottle of vodka hidden in desk or file cabinet. A hopeless wish, I knew. Besides, on a night like that, a nip of brandy would be more to my liking. Now if only I had -

I sank slowly into my chair, suddenly realizing what it was that had puzzled me about Professor Yale Stonehouse's study: the bottle of Remy Martin on the silver salver was new, uncorked, still sealed. That meant, apparently, that it had been there since the night he disappeared.

There was a perfectly innocent explanation, of course: he had finished his previous bottle the night before and had set out a fresh bottle, intending to return when he left the Stonehouse apartment on the night of 10 January.

There was another explanation, not so innocent. And that was that Professor Stonehouse had been poisoned not by doctored cocoa, but by arsenic added to his brandy. He had both cocoa and brandy every night before retiring.

The lethal dose could have been added in either. And if he had discovered the source, it might account for the sealed bottle in his study.

I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes past 5.30 — a bad time to call. But I had to know. I dialled the Stonehouse apartment.

'Yah?' Olga Eklund said.

'Hi, Olga,' I said. 'This is Joshua Bigg.'

'Yah.'

'How are you?'

'Is not nice,' she said. 'The weather.'

'No, it looks like a bad storm. Olga, I wonder if I could talk to Mrs Dark for a moment — if it isn't too much trouble.'

'I get her,' she said stolidly.

I waited impatiently for almost three minutes before Mrs 217

Dark came on the line.

'Hello, dearie,' she said brightly.

'Effie,' I said. 'I'm sorry to bother you at this hour. I know you must be busy with the evening meal.'

'No bother. Everything's cooking. Now it's just a matter of waiting.'

'I have a few more little questions. I know you'll think they're crazy, but they really are important, and you could be a big help in discovering what happened to the Professor.'

'Really?' she said, pleasantly surprised. 'Well, I'll do what I can.'

'Effie, who buys the liquor for the family — the whisky, wine, beer, and so forth?'

'I do. I call down to the liquor store on Columbus Avenue and they deliver it.'

'And after they deliver it, where is it kept?'

'Well, I always make certain the bar in the living room is kept stocked with everything that might be needed. Plenty of sherry for you-know-who. The reserve I keep right here in the kitchen. In the bottom cupboard.'

'And the Professor's brandy? That he drank every night?'

'I always kept an extra bottle or two on hand. God forbid we should ever run out when he wanted it!'

'How long did a bottle last him, Effie? The bottle in his study, I mean?'

'Oh, maybe ten days.'

'So he finished about three bottles of cognac a month?'

'About.'

'And those bottles were kept in the kitchen cupboard?'

'That's right.'

'Who put a fresh bottle in the Professor's study?'

'He'd come in here and fetch it himself. Or I'd take it to him if he had a dead soldier. Or like as not, Glynis would bring him a new bottle.'

'And there was usually a bottle of Remy Martin in the living room bar as well?'

'Oh no,' she said, laughing. 'The brandy in there is Eye-talian. The Professor kept the good stuff for himself.'

He would, I thought, gleeful at what I had learned.

'One more question, Effie,' I said. 'Very important.

Please think carefully and try to recall before you answer.

In the month or so before the Professor disappeared, do you remember bringing a fresh bottle of brandy to his study?'

She was silent.

'No,' she said finally, 'I didn't bring him any. Maybe Glynis did, or maybe he came into the kitchen and got it himself. Wait a minute. I'm on the kitchen extension; it'll just take me a minute to check.'