«The only way in which that could be is if between the time you left and I arrived, someone had come with Pen One, given it to Giles, and taken Pen Two in exchange. But the person who had Pen One was the person who had exchanged pens with Giles at the autographing session. Why should he now want to give up a valued memento in return for a pen he had already cheerfully given away and which was also out of ink?»
«I’d have had no way of answering that, really, if it weren’t for the little heap of powder on the bureau—which I was sure was heroin. Given that, I asked myself if the person who had exchanged pens had not inadvertently given the wrong pen to Giles. He had meant to give Giles a real functioning pen and, in the excitement of a chance to get the monogrammed pen, he had handed one over in which the ink reservoir had been clipped close so that it couldn’t write for more than a few minutes and in which the internal space had been filled with heroin.
«He must have followed you two up to the room and waited for you to leave in an agony of impatience and uncertainty. After all, if, through his carelessness, anything happened to destroy the transport system, he could scarcely expect much of a life expectancy. If he got away from the police, he certainly wouldn’t get away from his superiors in the racket. He came to the door so soon after you left, cutting it so fine in his anxiety, that you caught a vague glimpse of him.
«If he had been able to effect the change—and why should Giles refuse?—all might have been well for him. The trouble is that Giles had this habit of fiddling with pens and unscrewing them, especially when abstracted or distraught. He must have fiddled with Pen Two after you left, and the powder it contained had tumbled out onto the bureau.
«This couldn’t have meant anything to Giles, but when the person made his entry and was ready to exchange pens, the sight of the spilled heroin must have driven him wild. He attacked poor Giles, who was completely unaware of what was going on, and, I suppose, killed him with a blow on the base of the skull. Then, thinking as quickly as he could, he got the clothes off Giles and tried to make it look like a fall in the bathtub.»
«Of course, the murderer couldn’t know that to strew the clothes about would be a dead giveaway to a few people, and that I was one of those few. It was a piece of incredibly bad luck for him. He took away Pen Two, but he should also have taken away Pen One and the spilled heroin. He didn’t, but I’m amazed he did as much as he did. He must have been in one screaming hurry to get away, and forcing the clothes off a dead body and that dead body—a heavy one—across the room and into a bathroom must have taken time… And that’s it.»
Sarah said, «No, it isn’t. How did you know it was Michael Strong?»
«I didn’t. Not at first. When the heroin I had first noticed was gone, I was convinced that Marsogliani had removed it to protect the hotel—and I didn’t connect that with the murder at all.
«This morning, though, when I worked out the matter of the three pens and decided that the murder was part and parcel of the drug situation, I had to think it out again. The one who got rid of the heroin had to be the murderer, and that had to be Strong.
«It was Strong who was an admirer of Devore’s and who had stood in line for the autograph. Rather cleverly, he found an opportunity to tell me this. I imagine he felt that if it had come out independently, then the mere fact that he failed to mention it might look suspicious, whereas a free discussion of the fact would be bound to make the whole thing seem innocuous, as indeed it did. He showed me the book and its autograph and I had no reason to doubt him. I even signed it myself.
«The only way in which he altered the truth was to say he was early in the line to make it seem that he had not been present at the time of the trouble with the dry pens. I had no reason to doubt that, of course.
«But once I began to focus on Strong, I remembered that the autograph had been ‘Best wishes’ in light ink and the signature in dark. I had attributed this to Giles’s egomania, but now it seemed clear that it was at that point that Pen One had dried out and that the exchange had taken place. I actually saw half the writing with Pen One and the other half with Pen Two and that made Strong the murderer.
«It fit in with my feeling that the murder must have been the result of a man losing control, for on the occasions when I spoke with Strong privately, he seemed to me a man emotionally on edge.
«It’s amazing, in fact, how the same facts change their character when seen from a new viewpoint. Strong must have remained near the room, or as near as he dared, after the murder—which was, after all, unpremeditated and undesired. He had to wonder when it would be discovered and how, and he would want to be there to establish accident from the start.
«He must have seen me go in. I heard footsteps in the corridor soon after entering and I’ll bet they were his. He was into the room almost at once after I reported the death. I attributed his being upset to the fact that he was such an admirer of Giles. True, but he was also the killer of Giles.
«He worked overtime to talk me into favoring accident. He strenuously opposed the possibility of murder or of drug involvement. Naturally, I supposed he was protecting the hotel, not himself. But, of course, he was protecting himself.»
Sarah said, «But why did he keep on using the pens after he had made that fatal mistake? He was still carrying heroin when he was caught.»
«I don’t suppose he had a choice, Sarah. He couldn’t let on that he had given the whole thing away or he was a dead man. He had to keep on as before, hoping he could cover up everything, not only from me and from the police but from his superiors as well.
«Where I made my worst mistake, unwittingly, was to seize the impulse of the moment just before the Asimov panel, when Strong and I were sitting together in the audience, to use him to check your story about the drug problem. I told him I knew about the system of drug transportation and that I knew that hotel employees were involved. It was a shot in the dark, and from his strong denial of the whole thing, I thought—sorry, Sarah—that you were the liar. I attributed his obvious fear and perturbation, once again, to his concern for the hotel, and that little bit of blindness nearly killed me—and you, maybe.»
Sarah did not make any attempt to flatten me out for my lack of faith in her. She let it go and said, «You mean, after that he arranged to have you followed and attacked.»
«I don’t know what he told his bosses—that I was a private investigator who was getting too close? In any case, he was convincing enough, or his superiors were sufficiently casual about occasional liquidations, to have me marked for knifing.»
Sarah muttered, «How horrible. What if they’re still after you?»
«If they are, what can I do but try to be careful? I don’t feel good about it, but let’s hope that they’re mainly interested in prevention and not in revenge. They’ll be too busy trying to save themselves now, I hope, to get after me again. Besides, killing me will do them no good now.
«Anyway, the story as I told it to you is beautiful, but as Eunice Devore would say, a defense attorney would never let it get to a jury unshattered. In fact, on my logic alone, I doubt if Strong could be arrested, let alone tried and convicted. So I had to get Strong to break down in the presence of someone smart enough to see the significance and capable, besides, of taking the necessary action. That was Marsogliani, who, you assured me, was honest.»
She said, «How did you know you could break him down?»
«I didn’t know. I could only hope. Strong was on edge to begin with, and coming upon me alive this morning, suddenly and without warning, must have rattled him to the point of despair. When I got him up to 1511, he didn’t know what he was waiting for or what I could possibly intend to do. He knew the murderer wouldn’t come in, because he knew the murderer was already there. I watched the panic and tension mount in him, and I gambled that ten minutes of it would be enough to break him, if I struck suddenly.»