Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

I then told them how I had shadowed Glynis Stonehouse to a rendezvous with Knurr and had tailed both of them to a houseboat at the 79th Street boat basin.

'Perce,' I said, 'will you take it from here?'

His recital was much shorter than mine, and delivered in toneless police officialese: 'the alleged perpetrator' and

'the suspect' and so forth. It was courtroom testimony, and both lawyers seemed completely familiar with the phrases and impressed by them.

He told them that he had never been completely satisfied with the suicide verdict in the Kipper case, and gave his reasons why. So, he explained, he had welcomed my in-331

dependent inquiry and co-operated every way he could, especially since he was impressed by the thoroughness and imaginative skill of my investigation.

I ducked my head to stare at the table as he continued.

He said his hope was that I would uncover enough evidence so that the NYPD would be justified in reopening the Kipper case. To that end, he had run the names of Godfrey Knurr and Tippi Kipper through the computer and discovered Tippi's arrest record. He told them about our interview with Bishop Harley Oxman and the revelation of Knurr's prior offence in Chicago.

He had also, he said, after I had furnished the lead, determined what was probably the source of the arsenic used to poison Professor Stonehouse: a medical research laboratory where Glynis Stonehouse had been employed less than a year ago.

Finally, he had discovered that Godfrey Knurr owned a houseboat moored at the 79th Street boat basin.

Then Stilton turned to me and I told them that a cabdriver had come forward that morning who remembered driving Professor Stonehouse to the boat basin on the night he disappeared.

I slid Baum's statement across the table to the senior partners, but neither reached for it. Both men were staring at Percy.

'Detective Stilton,' Mr Tabatchnick boomed in his magisterial voice, 'as a police officer with many years'

experience, do you believe that Godfrey Knurr murdered Solomon Kipper?'

'Yes, sir, I do. With premeditation.'

'But how?' Mr Teitelbaum asked in a mild, dreamy tone.

'I'll let Josh tell you that,' Percy said.

So I told them.

Mr Tabatchnick was the first to turn back to me.

'And the suicide note?' he asked.

'No, sir,' I said regretfully. 'I haven't yet accounted for that. But I'm sure you'll admit, sir, that the wording of the note is subject to several interpretations. It is not necessarily a suicide note.'

'And assuming the homicide occurred in the manner you suggest, you further assume that Tippi Kipper and the Reverend Godfrey Knurr were joined in criminal conspiracy? You assume that they planned and carried out the murder of Solomon Kipper because he had discovered, through the employment of Martin Reape, that his wife had been unfaithful to him with Godfrey Knurr and had decided to change his will to disinherit her to the extent allowed by law? You assume all that?'

'Yes, sir,' I said finally.

But now it was Mr Teitelbaum's turn.

'Do you further assume,' he said in a silky voice, 'that Professor Stonehouse, having discovered that his daughter had attempted to poison him, futhermore discovered that she was having an affair with Godfrey Knurr. And you assume that Stonehouse learned of the existence of Knurr's houseboat, by what means we know not, and resolved to confront his daughter and her paramour on the night he disappeared. And you suspect, with no evidence, that he may very well have been killed on that night. Is that your assumption?'

'Yes, sir,' I said, fainter than before. 'It is.'

We all sat in silence. The quiet seemed to go on forever, although I suppose it was only a minute or two before Mr Teitelbaum pushed himself from the table and leaned back in his chair.

'And what, precisely,' he said in an unexpectedly strong voice, 'do you suggest be done next in this unpleasant matter?'

'As far as I'm concerned,' Percy Stilton said, 'I'm going to tell my lieutenant the whole story and see if I can get the Kipper case reopened. You gentlemen might help me there — if you have any influence that can be brought to bear.'

'What would be the advantage of reopening the case?'

Leopold Tabatchnick asked.

'I would hope to get assigned to it full time,' the detective said. 'With more personnel assigned as needed.

To keep a stakeout on that houseboat so Knurr doesn't take off. To dig deeper into the backgrounds and relationships of the people involved. To check Knurr's bank account, and so forth. All the things that would be done in a homicide investigation.'

The two senior partners looked at each other again, and again I had the sense of communication between them.

'We are not totally without some influence,' Ignatz Teitelbaum said cautiously. 'We will do what we can to assist you in getting the Kipper case reopened. But I must tell you in all honesty that I am not optimistic about bringing this whole affair to a successful solution, even with the most rigorous homicide investigation.'

'I concur,' Mr Tabatchnick rumbled.

Mr Teitelbaum scraped his chair farther back from the table and, not without some difficulty, crossed his knees.

He sat there a moment, staring into space between Percy and me, not really seeing us. He was, I thought, composing his summation to the jury.

'First of all,' he said finally, 'I would like to compliment you gentlemen — and especially you, Mr Bigg — on your intelligence and persistence in this investigation.'

'Imaginative,' Mr Tabatchnick said, nodding.

'Creative.'

'Exactly,' Teitelbaum said. 'You have offered a hypothesis that accounts for all known important facts.'

'It may be accurate,' Tabatchnick admitted almost grudgingly.

'It may very well be. Frankly, I believe it is. I believe your assumptions are correct,' Teitelbaum concurred.

'But they are still assumptions,' Tabatchnick persisted.

'You have little that is provable in a court of law,'

Teitelbaum persevered.

'Certainly nothing that might justify legal action.'

Tabatchnick was firm.

'No eyewitness, obviously. No weapons. In fact, no hard evidence of legal value.' Teitelbaum was firmer.

'Merely thin circumstantial evidence in support of what is, essentially, a theory.' Tabatchnick.

'We don't wish to be unduly pessimistic, but you have told us nothing to indicate that continued investigation would uncover evidence to justify a criminal indictment.'

Teitelbaum.

'You are dealing here with a criminal conspiracy.' The judgment was from Tabatchnick, but the coup de grace was delivered by Teitelbaum as follows:

'Really two criminal conspiracies with one individual, Knurr, common to both.'

Perce looked at them dazedly. I was shattered. I thought their rapid dialogue was a prelude to ordering me to drop the investigation. I glanced at Percy Stilton. He was staring intently at the two attorneys. He seemed entranced, as if he were hearing something I couldn't hear, as if he enjoyed being a tennis ball in the Jurisprudential Open.

'It is an unusual problem,' Mr Tabatchnick intoned, inspecting the spotted backs of his clumpy hands.

'Sometimes unusual problems require unusual remedies.'

'When more than one person is involved in a major criminal enterprise,' Mr Teitelbaum said, uncrossing his knees and carefully pinching the crease back into his trousers, 'it is sometimes possible…'

His voice trailed away.

'You have shown such initiative thus far,' Mr Tabatchnick said, 'surely the possibility exists that. . '

His voice, too, faded into silence.

Then, to my astonishment, the lawyers glanced at each other, a signal was apparently passed, and they rose simultaneously to their feet. Percy and I stood up. They reached across the table and the two of us shook hands with both of them.