Lawrence Block - The Topless Tulip Caper

“You brought the curare,” Haig went on. “You delivered it to X. You left. And X waited, because the last thing X wanted was to murder Miss Abramowicz on the premises of the nightclub. Ideally X would have waited until the evening had come to a close. X and Miss Abramowicz would have left together, and X would have managed to perform the deed in private.

“This plan was spiked when Mr. Harrison made an appearance at the club. X learned his identity, realized he was my associate, and recognized that there would be no opportunity to go off with Miss Abramowicz and deal with her as planned. Mr. Harrison would instead be interrogating Miss Abramowicz immediately after she finished her performance, at which time her knowledge might well be passed on to him. And this was something X was wholly unprepared to leave to chance.

“And so X waited, waited until the last minute. Waited until Miss Abramowicz was at the very conclusion of her act, and then injected curare into her bloodstream and killed her.”

I saw it all again in slow motion. The finale of the act, Cherry shaking her breasts over the edge of the stage, straightening up, doing her spread, going coyly prim, then trying so desperately to reach her breast—

“When we think of curare,” Haig said, “we think of savages in the jungle. We think of blow darts, we think of arrows tipped with the deadly elixir. And when we consider this crime, we assume that X must have employed such a device, that some projectile served to carry curare from X’s hand to Miss Abramowicz’s breast. No projectile remained stuck in the breast in question; hence we assume that the dart or arrow or whatever struck the breast, pierced the skin, and then fell away. Mr. Harrison was the first person to leap onto the stage after Miss Abramowicz fell. He had the presence of mind, after determining there was no office he could perform for the victim, to make a quick search for the projectile. And he—”

“And he put it in his pocket.” This from my old friend Wallace Seidenwall. “I knew Harrison had it. I been saying so all along, and I been saying—”

“You have been saying far too much, sir. Mr. Harrison did not find the projectile. Neither did the police, who may be presumed to have subjected the premises to an exhaustive search. Dismissing such preposterous theories as an arrow with an elastic band tied to it—and I trust we can dismiss such rot out of hand—it is quite inconceivable that X could have retrieved the projectile. Sherlock Holmes established the principle beyond doubt, and I reiterate it here and now: When all impossibilities have been eliminated, that which remains is all that is possible. There was no projectile.”

I suppose everybody was supposed to gasp when he said this. That’s not what happened. Instead everybody just sat there staring. Maybe they had trouble following what he’d just said. Maybe they were confused about the difference between a weapon and a projectile. I’d already had a lesson in that department so I managed to stay on top of things, and at that moment I finally figured out who X was. Instead of feeling brilliant I sat there wondering how it had taken me so long.

“There was no projectile,” Haig said again. “Miss Abramowicz was stabbed with some sort of pin. A hair pin, a hat pin, it scarcely matters. The pin was pressed into her breast and withdrawn. Then—”

“Wait.” It was Gregorio. “Unless I’m off-base, she was all alone on that stage. How did someone stick a pin in her breast without anyone seeing it?”

“Because she was bending over the edge of the stage. She did this at the conclusion of every performance, leaning forward almost parallel to the floor with her breasts suspended over the stage apron. This was X’s genius—it would have been simpler by far to inflict a wound in her foot, for example, but by waiting for the one perfect moment X could guarantee that everyone would assume that a nonexistent projectile had been employed.”

I said, “How come she didn’t feel anything? She went right ahead and got up and danced around for a minute, and then there was suddenly blood on her breast and she started to crumble.”

“Curare is not instantaneous. Poisons borne by the bloodstream need time to reach the heart. And small puncture wounds rarely begin bleeding immediately. Indeed they often fail to bleed at all. As for her failure to react, she was caught up in an intense dance routine. She might have been too involved to feel a pinprick. She might have assumed it was an insect bite and ignored it. For that matter, she might not have felt it at all. She had had silicone implants. The skin of her breasts was thus stretched to accommodate their enlargement, the nerve endings consequently far apart. Some nerves may even have been severed when the silicone was implanted.”

Haig shrugged. “But it hardly matters. Once one knows how the murder was committed, the identity of X is instantly obvious. Indeed it has been obvious to me for some time that only one person was ideally situated to commit the murder. That same person was also ideally situated to receive consignments of drugs from Mr. Flatt and dispense them in the normal course of occupational routine.

“Miss Remo. I suggest you keep your hands in plain sight and avoid sudden movements. Mr. Wong Fat has you within line of sight. He could plant his cleaver in your head before you could get your purse open. Yes, keep your hands right where they are, Miss Remo. Mr. Seidenwall, I trust you thought to bring a pair of handcuffs? I suggest you put them on Miss Remo. She is rather more dangerous than she looks.”

Eighteen

SEIDENWALL PUT THE cuffs on her. He may have been a witling but he knew how to follow orders. I didn’t take my eyes off her until the bracelets snapped shut. Then I let out a breath I hadn’t remembered taking and glanced at the doorway. Wong was standing there and he still had the cleaver raised. He wasn’t taking any chances.

Gregorio lit a cigarette and blew out a lot of smoke. He said, “You don’t really have anything, do you? Just a theory. I’m not arguing with your theory. I have to hand it to you, you tied all the ends together and made it work. And if we put the jury in this room and let you put on a show for them they might bring in a conviction, but that’s not how the system works. Maybe it should be but it isn’t.”

“You need proof.” “Right.”

“And I told you earlier that proof is the world’s cheapest commodity. The contents of Miss Remo’s purse might prove interesting. Even if she has been bright enough to avoid bringing anything incriminating with her, you should have little trouble tying her to Flatt and to the drug operation. Once you know what to look for it’s a simple matter to find it. You might start by establishing a link between Mr. Flatt and the strychnine in this jar.” He tapped the jar of wheat germ. “Odd that this would be left accessible, but perhaps neither of them had an opportunity to retrieve it.”

That was all Glenn Flatt needed. He whirled around and glared at Jan Remo. “You stupid ass-faced little bitch! You said you switched jars yesterday afternoon. What in the hell is the matter with you?”

Jan Remo didn’t turn a hair. She just closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them she spoke in a calm and level voice.

She said, “Now I know why you’re such a terrible gambler, Glenn. How many times do you let the same man bluff you out of a pot? There was nothing in that jar of wheat germ. He doctored it with something that would kill the fish.” She sighed. “I think it’s about time somebody advised me of my rights. I have the right to remain silent. I intend to remain silent. Glenn, I think you should remain silent, too. I really do.”

Gregorio advised them both of their rights and put cuffs on Flatt, and he and Seidenwall led the two of them away. Wong closed the door after them and returned to the kitchen to hang up his cleaver. In the office everybody seemed to be waiting for somebody else to say something. When the silence got unbearable I broke it by asking how he knew Mallard had been killed.