Might as Well Be Dead

There are things about Saul I don’t understand and never will. For instance, the old cap he always wears. If I wore that cap while tailing a subject I’d be spotted in the first block. If I wore it while calling on people for information they would suspect I was cuckoo or quaint and draw the curtains. But Saul never gets spotted unless he wants to, and for extracting material from people’s insides nothing can equal him except a stomach pump. While he was hanging up his coat and sticking the cap in its pocket I stepped to the office door to tell Wolfe, and Wolfe said to bring him in. He came, and I followed him.

“Yes?” Wolfe inquired.

Saul, standing, shot a glance at the red leather chair and said, “A report.”

“Go ahead. Mrs. Molloy’s interest runs with ours. Mrs. Molloy, this is Mr. Panzer.”

She asked him how he did and he bowed. That’s another thing about him, his bow; it’s as bad as his cap. He sat down on the nearest yellow chair, knowing that Wolfe wants people at eye level, and reported.

“Two employees of the Metropolitan Safe Deposit Company identified a picture of Michael M. Molloy. They say it’s a picture of Richard Randall, a renter of a box there. I didn’t tell them it was Molloy, but I think one of them suspects it. I didn’t try to find out what size the box is or when he first rented it or any other details, because I thought I’d better get instructions. If they get stirred up enough to look into it and decide that one of their boxes was probably rented under another name by a man who has been murdered, they’ll notify the District Attorney. I don’t know the law, I don’t know what rights the DA has after he has got a conviction, since he couldn’t be looking for evidence, but I thought you might want to get to the box first.”

“I do,” Wolfe declared. “How good is the identification?”

“I’d bank on it. I’m satisfied. Do you want to know just how it went?”

“No. Not if you’re satisfied. How much are they already stirred up?”

“I think not much. I was pretty careful. I doubt if either of them will go upstairs with it, but they might, and I thought you might want to move.”

“I do.” Wolfe turned. “Mrs. Molloy. Do you know what this is about?”

“Yes, I think so.” She looked at me. “Isn’t it what I told you yesterday, the envelope and slip of paper when I was looking for the hockey ticket?”

“That’s it,” I told her.

“And you’ve found out already that my husband was Richard Randall?”