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.
Haig opened a desk drawer and took out a paper bag that looked familiar. Gingerly he extracted the jar of wheat germ from it and peeled away the protective layers of paper toweling. He wrapped a towel around his hand and pushed the jar toward my side of the desk.
“This is a jar of wheat germ,” he said. “I have found it to be an excellent dietary supplement for fishes. I am told it is similarly useful for human beings. I have no grounds for confirming or disputing the latter. Mr. Henderson. Do you recognize this jar? You may examine it closely, but I urge you not to touch it.”
Henderson shrugged. “I don’t need a close look,” he said. “It’s Kretchmer, one of the standard brands. They sell it all over the place, supermarkets, everywhere. What about it?”
“Do they also sell it in health food emporia?”
“Sometimes.”
“I understand you run a chain of such establishments. Do your stores carry Kretchmer wheat germ?”
“I think so.”
“You don’t know for certain, Mr. Henderson?”
“As a matter of fact we do carry it. Why not? It’s a good brand, we move a lot of cases of it.”
“Do you recognize this particular jar, Mr. Henderson?”
“They’re all the same. If you’re asking did it come from my place, I couldn’t tell you one way or the other.”
“I could,” Haig said. “On the reverse of this jar there is a label. It says ‘Doctor Ecology’ and there is an address beneath the store name. That label would tend to suggest that this jar of wheat germ came from one of your stores.”
“Well, then it must have. What’s the point?”
Haig ignored the question. He picked up the bell and rang it, and Wong Fat came in carrying a two-quart goldfish bowl. There were a pair of inch-and-a-half common goldfish in the bow. Haig buys them from Aquarium Stock Company for $4.75 a hundred and feeds them to larger fish that have to have live fish as food. Wong put the bowl on the desk. I wondered if it was going to leave a ring.
His hand covered with a paper towel, Haig screwed the top off the jar. He reached into the jar with a little spoon he used to use to clean the crud out of his pipes back in the days when he was trying to smoke them. He spooned up a few grains of wheat germ and sprinkled them into the goldfish bow.
The fish swam around for a few seconds, not knowing they’d been fed. They weren’t enormously bright. Then they surfaced and began scoffing down the wheat germ.
“Now watch,” Haig said.
We all watched, and we didn’t have to watch for very long before both fish were floating belly-up on the surface. They did not look to be in perfect health.
“They are dead,” Haig said. “As dead as the Scatophagies tetracanthus. As dead as Miss Mabel Abramowicz. I have not had a chemical analysis run on the contents of this jar of wheat germ. It does seem reasonable to assume that the wheat germ is laced with strychnine. Miss Wolinski.”
“Yes?”
“How did this jar of wheat germ come into your possession?”
“Haskell gave it to me.”
Henderson’s eyes were halfway out of his head. Alfalfa sprouts or no, he looked as though a coronary occlusion was just around the comer. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “You just wait a goddamned minute now.”
“You deny having given this jar to Miss Wolinski?”
“I sure as hell deny putting strychnine in it. Maybe that’s the jar I gave her and maybe it isn’t. How the hell do I know?”
“You did give her a jar, however?”
“I gave her lots of things.”
“Indeed. You gave her a jar of wheat germ?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Have you any reason to assume this is other than the jar you gave her?”
“How the hell do I know?” Haig glared at him. “Okay,” he said. “It’s probably the same jar.”
Haig nodded, satisfied. “Miss Wolinski. Was Mr. Henderson in the habit of gifting you with health foods?”