Before Midnight

Chewing griddle cake and ham, I looked at him. "Good lord, if that's the best we can do. Cramer has an army on it right now. There are six of us and we have no badges, and if--" I stopped because I saw his eyes. "You've got something?"

"Yes. A straw to grab at. Can't it be reasonably supposed that the decision to kill Mr. Assa was made only yesterday afternoon, resulting from the situation caused by the contestants' receipt of the answers by mail? Various circumstances support such--"

"Don't bother. I've gone over it too a little. I'll buy that."

"Then some time yesterday afternoon, not before, he decided that Mr. Assa would have to be killed, and he conceived the idea of using cyanide and putting it in his drink. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Then where the devil did he get the cyanide?"

"I couldn't--oh. That does make it a little special."

"It does indeed. Did he choose cyanide as something he knew to be lightning--swift and go out and buy some? Hardly. He could of course have procured it easily--a photographic supply house, for one--but he was not an imbecile. No. He knew where some was, handy; he knew where he could get some without being observed. Where? There are a thousand possibilities, and it may have been any one of them, but I didn't bother speculating about them because one of them was looking at me--or rather, at you. I hadn't seen it, but you had."

"Hold it." I put my coffee cup down. "I've seen it?"

"Yes."

"And told you about it?"

"Yes."

"That's interesting." I closed my eyes, opened them, and slapped the table. "Oh, sure. The display cases at the LBA office. I might have thought of it myself if I had stayed up all night--but I don't remember seeing any cyanide."

"You weren't looking for it. You said there are thousands of items from hundreds of firms. We're going to look for it."

"After it's gone? If he took it, it's not there."

"All the better. If he took only what he needed of it well find the residue. If he took it all yesterday or has removed the residue since, we'll find where it was--or we won't. There must be a list of the contents of those cases. There's no point in our trying to intrude before office hours, so there's plenty of time. Now for the details. I'll be with you, but you should know what I have in mind for the various eventualities--all of you. Fritz! Coffee!"

He gave us details.