Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

They talked a while about nothing much. They had a smoke. Then Joe said, hoping it sounded casual, “When they found Kennedy, Lew, was there anything on him? Money, for instance?”

“A dollar forty cents, I think. George was a family man. You ought to know that. He never had any money.”

Joe took a last drag on his cigarette. “Anything else on him? After all, nobody talks to me. You’d think I was his mother and you were trying to spare me.”

“There was nothing on him, Joe. Just junk. You know the way he was. Busted pencils, paper clips, wood shavings.”

“Wood shavings?”

“From all that doodlin’ with wood at home. He had the sloppiest pockets I ever saw on a sane man. Didn’t he?”

“I won’t argue, Lew. Get any breaks at all?”

“Frankly, no. Lots of guys picked up, Joe. Lots of tries, but no cigar.”

“What about Solly Druze?”

Farber looked at him closely. “I remember you mentioned him the other day. Why Solly?”

“Just a notion. Kennedy gave him a bad time once.”

“Kennedy gave many a crook a bad time, then an’ now, till the day he died. Matter of fact, Solly did get called downtown for the usual shave an’ a haircut, like every hoodlum, plain or fancy, in the town. But Solly hasn’t been active. He don’t as much as spit on the subway any more.”

They went inside.

Yes, it can all dissolve and die, he thought, as far as I’m concerned. They will get Solly, if they’re able, but what happens to him is less important than a quiet grave for Kennedy and honor in his house.

It was morning now. The summer dawn had taken the city. The skinny birds in wretched backyards were awake. The family were all upstairs, the widow resting under sedatives. Only a sleepy-eyed mortician and Joe maintained the quiet vigil. Just a few more hours, and then, when it was 9 o’clock, they’d carry Kennedy into the church. Maybe then it would be over?

You lie very well to yourself, his conscience said. His conscience was the most persistent, articulate companion ever to sit beside him, or to walk, and if required, to race beside him when he sought to get away. It was a contest he could not expect to win. Any fair analysis informed him he had been wrong from the beginning when he accepted Needham’s kindness, not as an earned indulgence, but for a shield. He got up and walked into the kitchen. He ran cold water in the sink. He raised it in cupped hands to his face. The one thing he knew that should not prove difficult would be locating the unsuspected Solly Druze.

Solly was not in his bed or his apartment at 6 o’clock. This much the night clerk grudgingly conceded. Solly lived in Kennedy’s precinct, in a Broadway hotel, in the 70s. He was a twilight creature most of the time, and unless he went to the races, slept all day.

“You haven’t seen him?” Joe asked.

“I didn’t say I hadn’t seen him.”

“Then don’t be cute with me,” Joe cautioned. “When was he here?”

“Ten minutes ago, maybe fifteen minutes,” the night clerk said. “He came in, bought a paper, then went out.” The clerk nodded towards the stacked editions on the desk.

“He went out to eat?”

“That’s right. Next door he went.”

“Many dear thanks,” Joe said.

“No thanks at all,” the night clerk said. “Thank City Hall what gave you the badge.”

Solly Druze sat in the big and nearly empty cafeteria eating pineapple-cheesecake, which is not a breakfast item. On Solly’s inverted calendar it was a go-to-bed goodie. He pushed the last bit on his fork with his little finger. He seemed pleased with the pineapple-cheesecake and not tired at all, for he blew his nose with great force in his paper napkin. He shoved his newspaper aside and got up, replacing his reading glasses with his ordinary ones. At the fountain against the wall he drank some water, swishing it in his mouth, decisively. He was a decisive fellow, Solly. He paid his check and walked outside. He went through the lobby of the adjacent hotel and into the waiting elevator there. And this was where Joe chose to join him.

“Good morning, Solly.”

The elevator began to climb. It was not a rapid one, but grilled and fancy and old, rocking leisurely in its ascent. The car was lined with mirrors which at certain angles displayed more Solly Druzes than you would need to stuff a jail. Retired from sinful habit, and ostentatiously reformed (if you could believe it), Solly had once been a thief of staggering consequence. Not yet 50, he was stylish and healthy, and by reputation, brave. Carefully now he appeared to examine his beard in one of the mirrors. It had prospered through the night.

“And good morning to you, young man,” said Solly finally.

The tone was forced, Joe knew. The elevator stopped and they got out together. Together they walked along the figured carpet of the long, long corridor.

“This is a pinch,” Joe said. “I’m the man with the lock and key.”

Solly laughed. “You’d better go home an’ squeeze some of the custard out of your head. Stop botherin’ me.” He began to open the door of his apartment.