Lawrence Block - The Topless Tulip Caper

I buzzed Haig from the kitchen. Then I went back to the office and sat down in my chair, and a minute or so later our client entered the room. Our original client, that is. Tulip. She took the armchair alongside the desk without being told.

Then Haig walked in and sat behind his desk and every eye in the room was drawn to him. Including mine.

Seventeen

FOR A LONG moment he just sat there looking at them. His eyes scanned the room carefully. I thought I saw the hint of a smile for a second, but then it was gone and his round face maintained a properly stern and serious look. He put his hands on top of the desk, selected a pipe, put it back in the rack, and drew a breath.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I want to thank you all for coming. All but one of you are welcome in this house. That one is not welcome, but his presence is essential. One of you is a murderer. One of you is responsible for one hundred twenty-five deaths.”

There was a collective gasp at that figure but he went on without appearing to notice. “All but two of those deaths were the deaths of fish. The penalty which society attaches to ichthyicide is minimal. Malicious mischief, perhaps. Certainly a misdemeanor. The other two victims were human, however. One would be difficult to substantiate as homicide. While I am mortally certain that Andrew Mallard was murdered—”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Gregorio cut in. “If you’ve got any information on that you’ve been holding it out, and—”

“Mr. Gregorio.” Gregorio stopped in midsentence. “I have withheld nothing, sir. I remind you again that you are here by invitation.” He scanned the room again, then went on. “To continue. While I may be certain that Mr. Mallard was murdered, and while I could explain how the murder was committed, no jury would convict anyone for that murder. Indeed, no district attorney in his right mind would presume to bring charges. But the other murder, that of Miss Abramowicz, was unquestionably a case of premeditated homicide. The killer is in this room, and I intend to see him hang for it.”

He’d have a long wait. While Haig longs for a return of capital punishment, and thinks public hanging was a hell of a fine way to run a society, the bulk of contemporary opinion seems to be flowing in the other direction.

“The day before yesterday,” he said, “Miss Thelma Wolinski sought my assistance. An entire tank of young Scatophagies tetracanthus plus her breeder fish had died suddenly and of no apparent cause. Miss Wolinski is possessed of a scientific temperament. She had a chemical analysis of the aquarium water performed, and the laboratory certified that the water had been poisoned with strychnine. Miss Wolinski could not imagine why anyone would want to kill her generally inoffensive fish. She concluded that the crime was the work of a madman, that an attack upon her fish represented hostility toward her own person, and that she herself might consequently be in danger.”

“She should have called the police,” Seidenwall said.

Haig glared at him. “Indeed,” he said. “No doubt you would have rushed to investigate the poisoning of a tankful of fish. Miss Wolinski is no witling.” Seidenwall winced at the word. “She came to me. She could scarcely have made a wiser decision.”

That sounded a little pompous to me, but nobody’s hackles rose as far as I could tell. I looked at Tulip. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She looked beautiful, and quite spectacular, but then she always did.

“Of course I agreed to investigate. That was quite proper on my part, but it also precipitated a murder. That very evening Miss Mabel Abramowicz was murdered. Some of you may know her as Cherry Bounce. She was killed while performing at a nightclub. Your nightclub, Mr. Leemy.”

“Not my fault I run a decent place.”

“That is moot, and a non sequitur in the bargain. Miss Abramowicz was also poisoned, but not with strychnine. She was killed with curare, a lethal paralytic poison with which certain South American savages tip their arrows.”

Haig picked up his pipe again and took it apart. He looked at the two pieces, and for a moment I thought that was all he had and he was waiting for a miracle. We’d be out four grand and I wouldn’t get to write a book.

“It was instantly evident that the deaths of the fish and the death of Miss Abramowicz were related. It was furthermore a working hypothesis that the same person was responsible for both outrages. Finally, it seemed more than coincidence that Miss Abramowicz’s death followed so speedily upon Miss Wolinski’s engaging me to represent her interests. Once I was working on the case, Miss Abramowicz had to be disposed of as rapidly as possible. Had the time element not been of paramount importance, the murderer would not have had to take the great risk of committing his crime in full view of perhaps a hundred people.

“And it was an enormous risk, to be sure. But our murderer was very fortunate. While I have never met her, my associate Mr. Harrison assures me that Miss Abramowicz’s endowments were such as to make her the center of attention during her performance. Everyone watched her as her act neared its climax. No one saw—or, more accurately, no one paid attention to— her murderer.

“With one exception, I would submit. Andrew Mallard saw something. He may not have known what he saw. He was clearly not certain enough or self-assured enough to make any mention of his observations to the police. Whether this testifies to Mr. Mallard’s lethargy and reticence or to the inefficiency of police interrogation is beside the point In any event—”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Gregorio said.

“An excellent policy,” Haig murmured. “In any event, the murderer struck, the murder weapon was not recovered, and the murderer seemed to be in the clear.”

The projectile, I thought. Not the weapon.

“A surface examination would suggest that the murderer was irrational. Item: He poisons Miss Wolinski’s fish with strychnine. Item: He poisons Miss Abramowicz with curare. The two incidents cannot fail to be related, yet how are they linked in the mind of the murderer? I must admit that, after I learned of Mr. Mallard’s death, there was a moment when I entertained the hypothesis that the murderer was attempting to strike at Miss Wolinski by destroying everything associated with her—first her pets, then her roommate, finally a former lover. I dismissed this possibility almost at once. I returned to the fish. I decided to assume the killer was rational, and I asked myself why a rational killer would poison fish with strychnine.

“The answer was that he would not. If he wished to kill the fish and make it obvious that he had done so, he might have tipped over their aquarium and let them perish gasping upon the floor. If he wished to make the death look accidental he could have caused their demise in any of a dozen ways which would not have aroused any suspicion. Instead he chose a readily detectable poison without having any grounds for assuming that Miss Wolinski would bother to detect it via chemical analysis.

“The conclusion was obvious. The fish had been killed by mistake. The murderer did not put the strychnine into the aquarium.”

Tulip frowned. “Then who did?”

“Ah,” Haig said. He turned to her; a gentle smile on his round face. “I’m afraid you did, Miss Wolinski. Unwittingly, you poisoned your own fish.”

Tulip gaped at him. I looked around the room to check out the reactions of the audience. They ran the gamut from puzzlement to disinterest. Seidenwall looked as though he might drop off to sleep any minute now. Gregorio seemed to be enduring all of this, waiting for Haig either to make his point or wind up with egg on his face. I tried to find a suspect who indicated that he or she already knew how the strychnine got in the tank. I didn’t have a clue.