As Basil entered the Inspector’s private office he heard the hollow, dehumanized voice of a radio announcer: “When you hear the time signal it will be just five o’clock, Naval Observatory Time . . .” As the whistle tooted he looked at his own watch and found that it was nearly ten minutes fast.
At the radio controls stood Lambert himself—a short, chunky man with a porcine face who looked more like a stockbroker or an insurance salesman than a biological chemist. The Inspector was hunched over his own desk, his lean, sharp face twisted into a frowning knot as he read Lambert’s report on the knife handle.
“Just wanted to get the war news,” explained Lambert. “But there doesn’t seem to be any.”
“The city of New York will have a complete practice black-out tonight between 14th Street and 125th from nine-thirty to nine-fifty,” said the hollow voice. “In discussing plans for the dim-out, which will be enforced in the near future, General Wilkenson said—”
Foyle got up and turned off the radio. “What with black-outs and dim-outs and saboteurs and television lectures for air-raid wardens this place is becoming a mere branch of the War Department, and we have no time for ordinary murders. But we’re learning a lot about the physics of high explosive and the chemistry of poison gas. Being a noncombatant in a modern war is a liberal education!”
“Of course there’s no time for murder,” returned Lambert. “With scores of men dying at sea every day to say nothing of Europe, Asia and Africa why should we care who murdered this John Ingelow?”
“Force of habit,” suggested Basil. “A sort of hobby to keep up our morale.”
“Morale, what crimes are committed in thy name!” added Lambert.
Foyle greeted Basil sourly. “Your bright idea about the knife handle is a dud. Look at this analysis. It might mean anything!”
Basil glanced at Lambert’s report. “Chlorate of sodium . . . chlorate of potassium . . . minute quantities . . .” He turned to Lambert. “What does that suggest to you?”
“Well, chlorate of sodium and potassium are ingredients of human perspiration.”
“Sure, sweat is always salt, like tears!” agreed Foyle. “Loss of body salt through sweat is what causes heat prostration. But you said this stuff tasted sweet!”
“If you will take the trouble to read the whole report carefully you will see that I also identified glucose on the knife handle,” returned Lambert with dignity. “Of course glucose is sugar, and the explanation is childishly simple; the knife handle was grasped by a perspiring hand that had just been touching sugar in some form. Once or twice I caught a faint odor about the knife—sort of like baked apple—whatever that came from, there wasn’t enough to identify it as a chemical compound.”
“What earthly good does that do us?” asked Foyle. “Anybody might handle sugar. Probably it was apple jelly and that’s why you got an apple odor.”
“Not exactly apple,” mused Lambert. “More generalized . . . sort of fruity like—like—a fruit salad!”
Basil looked at Foyle. “Have you got any more background material?”
“Lots, but nothing of value,” retorted Foyle. “Just about what you’d expect. Wanda Morley is a stage name. Her real name was Wilhelmina Minton. She was born in Rochester in 1900 which makes her just forty-two. She attended public school and ran away to join a theatrical company at the age of fifteen. Her father was foreman in some factory there—glue, I think. He reported her disappearance to the police at the time, but they couldn’t find her. She seems to have had a pretty tough time the next twelve years doing all sorts of odd jobs more or less connected with the stage. She appeared in burlesque in Chicago and as an extra in Hollywood. She also sang with a jive band. At twenty-eight she had her first small part on Broadway in a Milhau production of a Noel Coward comedy. The show was a flop, but her performance was praised. In three years she was a star, and she has been with Milhau ever since. Maybe there was some sort of affair between her and Milhau at first, and that’s why he pushed her up the ladder. I wouldn’t know,” the Inspector added austerely. Basil had a theory that Foyle had developed his almost Puritanically strict moral sense as a reaction to his life-long association with crime.
“What about the others?”
“Rodney Tait is another type. Tait is his real name. He was born in Boston, went to a small private school and then to Harvard. Took all sorts of drama courses there and appeared in amateur shows given by some club or other. I forget the cockeyed name of it. When he was graduated he became an instructor in French literature there for a year, but he got fed up with academic life and chucked it for the stage. I gather there was consternation in the family. They all say they have absolutely no prejudice against the stage or stage people but—etc. All his pals say he’s a nice guy, but the older actors, who saw him in stock and on tour before he reached New York in Fedora say he can’t act. They have absolutely no prejudice against amateurs but—etc. They say he always plays himself on the stage. I gather he’s a sort of male ingenue, always the nice guy if you get what I mean.”
“And Leonard Martin?”
“Ah!” Foyle grinned reminiscently. “I never heard of him before, but according to the stage people he’s tops and would have been a star by now if he hadn’t dropped out of sight for over a year a few months ago. It seems he comes of old stage stock. His father and mother used to play Shakespeare, and he was actually born in a dressing room backstage during a performance of Macbeth. As a boy he played all sorts of child parts from the time he was carried on as a baby at the age of three. Apparently he never went to any school and his parents spent a lot of time dodging policemen who tried to enforce the laws about child labor and school attendance. Result, he may not be educated, but he can act. His first real acting part was in the Mary Pickford production of the Good Little Devil. He made his first hit as a young man when he played the lead in a road company of Young Woodley. You remember that play about an English schoolboy who fell for his teacher’s wife? Awful muck I thought, but the highbrows went for it in a big way. Anyway, it made Leonard Martin, and he’s played every sort of part ever since—old, young, good, bad, comic, tragic, everything from Iago to Raffles. According to Sam Milhau, Leonard Martin is really good, and he would have been great if the modern public had been educated up to his acting and if he’d been about three inches taller. His small size made it possible for him to play boys of fifteen in his twenties, but now he’s reached his forties he’s not quite tall enough for the important male leads. For all his talent, the managers feel he can’t quite get it across without those few extra inches. Still, he would’ve been a star by this time if he hadn’t dropped out for a year or so when that Chicago business came up.”
“What was that?” asked Lambert.
“He was mixed up in a nasty motor accident and served a prison term for manslaughter under another name.”
“I suppose you checked with the Chicago police?” put in Basil. “Was there any doubt about his guilt?”
“None whatever. A little girl was killed. When the police caught up with his car, five minutes later, he was still at the wheel. He swore then and all through the trial that he wasn’t drunk, but the motorcycle cop who caught him smelled liquor on his breath. There were tire marks from his car beside the kid’s body and bits of her hair and dress on the front wheels of his car.”
“I’m surprised the evidence of his drinking was so well established,” said Basil. “He still denies it, and he doesn’t seem like the sort of man who would be a drunken driver.”