Carella raised the hood, and then looked at the engine. “Oh,” he said, “that’s his extra key. It’s just a little magnetized box you stick somewhere on the car. An extra key fits into it. In case you lock yourself out of the car by accident.”
“Oh,” Hawes said, disappointed.
“Sure.” Carella reached for the commercially marketed device. “See? The key fits right into this little-” He stopped. “Cotton,” he said softly.
“What is it?”
“That’s no car key,” Carella said. “Holy God, cross your fingers!”
THE KEY STUCK to the engine of Kramer’s Cadillac convertible had the round, unmistakable yellow, numbered top of a key to a railroad-station locker. There were two big railroad stations in the city, several smaller ones, and several subway stops in which there were pay lockers. It was not necessary to visit each location in an attempt to match the key with the correct locker. Carella put in a call to the company supplying the lockers to the various spots. He gave them the number of the key on the phone, and the locker was pinpointed within five minutes. Within the half hour, Carella and Hawes were standing in front of the locker.
“Suppose there’s nothing in it?” Hawes said.
“Suppose the roof of the station caves in right this minute?” Carella said.
“It’s possible,” Hawes answered.
“Bite your tongue,” Carella said, and he inserted the key into the locker and twisted it.
There was a suitcase in the locker.
“Old clothes,” Hawes said.
“Cotton, my friend,” Carella said, “do not joke. Seriously, my friend, do not joke. I am a very high-strung nervous-type fellow.”
“A bomb, then,” Hawes said.
Carella pulled the suitcase out of the locker.
“Is it locked?”
“No.”
“Well, open it.”
“I’m trying to,” Carella said. “My damn hands are shaking.”
Patiently Hawes waited while Carella unclasped the bag. There were four big manila envelopes in it. The first envelope contained a dozen photostated copies of the letter to Schlesser from the lawyer of the man who’d drunk the mousy sarsaparilla.
“Exhibit A,” Carella said.
“Tells us nothing we don’t already know,” Hawes answered. “Open the next envelope.”
The second envelope contained two pages from the ledger of a firm called Ederle and Cranshaw, Inc. Both pages were signed by a C.P.A. named Anthony Knowles. A comparison of the ledger pages showed that the second page was a revision of the first page, and that the first page did not exactly balance. It did not exactly balance to the tune of $30,744.29. The second page balanced very neatly, thank you. Mr. Knowles, whoever he was, had robbed the firm of Ederle and Cranshaw of thirty grand, and then balanced the books to cover the deficit. Sy Kramer had, in his own mysterious way, managed to get a copy of both the original entry and the fraudulent one-and had been using both to extort money from Knowles, who was undoubtedly the $1,100-a-month mark.
“Larceny rears its ugly head,” Carella said.
“The skeleton in every closet,” Hawes said.
“We’ll have to pick up this Knowles.”
“Damn right, we’ll have to,” Hawes said. “He may be the one who done in our friend Kramer.”
But, of course, they had not yet opened the remaining two envelopes.
Envelope number three contained six negatives and prints of Lucy Mencken in an attitude close to nudity. Hawes and Carella studied them with something unlike mere professional interest.
“Nice,” Hawes said.
“Yes,” Carella answered.
“You’re a married man,” Hawes reminded him.
“She’s a married woman,” Carella said, grinning. “That makes us even.”
“Do you think she killed Kramer?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said. “But that last envelope better have a lot of answers.” He lifted it out of the suitcase. “I think it’s empty,” he said, with astonishment.
“What? You haven’t opened it. How can you-?”
“It feels so light,” Carella said.
“Open it, will you? For God’s sake!”
Carella opened the envelope.
There was a sheet of onion-skin paper in the envelope, and that was all. The sheet of paper carried a very faint typewritten carbon impression of three words. The three words were:
I SAW YOU!
YOU CAN CARRY DEDUCTION only so far.
You can add two and two, and get four. And then you can subtract two from four, and get two. You can square two, and get four again. And then you can take the square root of four, and get two again-and you’re right back where you started.
There comes a time when your personal mathematics don’t mean a damn.
There comes a time, for example, like immediately after the arrest of Anthony Knowles. There comes a time when Knowles admits to the theft and the fraudulent entry in the ledger, and then comes up with a perfect alibi for the night Sy Kramer was killed.
There comes a time when you’re right back where you started, and no matter how you add the facts you always get the same answer, and the same answer is no damn good at all.
When that time comes, you play a hunch.
