In the Last Analysis (16 page)

“Very well. I told you about Daniel Messenger.”

“I know. He’s doing something with Jewish genes.”

“Kate, that settles it. I am going. You are going to have a
good night’s sleep, and sometime tomorrow when you are rested …”

“Sorry. You told me about Daniel Messenger, and …”

“I told you, though you were, as I remember, not prepared to accept the statement, that Dr. Messenger looked nothing like our man of the picture. We had sent a young detective out to interview the good doctor, and it seemed we had wasted the detective’s time and the citizens’ money. Messenger had never heard of Janet Harrison, had never heard of Emanuel Bauer, had no particular opinions about psychiatry, and had certainly not left Chicago within weeks of the murder. Moreover, he couldn’t begin to guess why Janet Harrison should have left him her money, but he suggested that perhaps another Daniel Messenger was meant. This was, of course, nonsense. She had delineated him clearly enough—knew, for example, where and when he had his residency, what sort of work he was doing, and so on. The lawyer had advised her to include the man’s address, age, etcetera, which she had done. No doubt in the world that he was the man.

“As you can see, Kate, a pretty problem, though typical of this whole infuriating case—and the young detective was about to call it a day when he thought of something so obvious that he will probably turn out to be a genius and go far in the world—all ideas of genius appearing obvious after the genius has thought of them. Naturally, the detective had a copy of the picture found in Janet Harrison’s purse, to be certain that Daniel Messenger did not, by any possible stretch of the imagination, resemble it. And just before he parted from the doctor, on an impulse, though no one had thought to suggest it to him, he showed Messenger the picture. He showed it to him quite casually, apparently, and not expecting anything to come of it. ‘You
don’t happen to know this man, I suppose,’ he said, or something of the sort.

“It seems that Messenger stared at the picture for quite a while, so that the detective thought he had gone off into a trance—you know how long seconds can be when you’re waiting for a reply—and then Messenger looked at the detective and said ‘That’s Mike.’ ”

“Mike?” Kate asked.

“Just what the detective said: ‘Mike? Mike who?’ And what do you think the doctor said?”

“Oh, goody, guessing games. I just love guessing games. How many guesses may I have, Daddy? What did he say, in heaven’s name?”

“ ‘Mike who?’ he said, ‘Mike Barrister; we shared a room once, donkey’s years ago.’ ”

“Mike Barrister!” Kate said. “Dr. Michael Barrister. Reed! There’s the connection we’ve been waiting for. I
knew
sooner or later some of our stray facts had to fit together. Janet leaves her money to Messenger, Messenger used to know Michael Barrister, and Michael Barrister has the office across from Emanuel. Reed, it’s beautiful.”

“I know it’s beautiful. For one blinding, flashing, allover moment, it’s beautiful. But after the ringing in your ears stops, and you start to think about it a little, it’s still beautiful all right, but it doesn’t mean a goddam thing.”

“Nonsense, she was murdered for her money.”

“Even supposing it was enough money to murder someone for—which I don’t for a single second grant—who murdered her? Messenger didn’t; he didn’t leave Chicago. And even if we’re prepared to fall back on the hired murderer, which you admit is ridiculous, the result of every investigation in the world proves Messenger is the last person in the world to have done such a thing. He didn’t
frantically need money, we know that much, with the cooperation of his bank. His wife works as a secretary, and while they aren’t rich, they aren’t desperate. Far from it, apparently, because they’ve been quietly saving for the college education of their daughters. They haven’t extravagant tastes—their idea of a marvelous vacation is to go camping in the northern reaches of Michigan. They aren’t in debt, unless you call a mortgage on their house a debt; in which case you’ve got several million future murderers in the United States.

“I know, Kate, your mind is moving toward your favorite candidate, Dr. Michael Barrister. We even know he was once sued for malpractice, though I’ve since learned that the great majority of such suits are quite unjustified, and that every doctor is as likely as not to tangle with some lunatic who resents the fact that he hasn’t been given a miracle cure, or who’s heard somewhere that this treatment should have been preferred to that. But even if the suit was justified, being sued for malpractice doesn’t make you a murderer. And if it did, why should Barrister murder a girl he had never met in order to leave a not very large sum of money to a man he hasn’t seen in donkey’s years?”

“Maybe Barrister just wanted to get Emanuel into trouble; maybe for some crazy reason he hates Emanuel.”

“Maybe he does, though it’s hard to imagine why. All we know is that Emanuel didn’t particularly take to
him
. But then what has Messenger got to do with it? Why does the fact we are so excited about—that Messenger and Barrister once knew each other—have any bearing on Barrister’s feeling for Emanuel? Emanuel and Messenger don’t know each other, nor, except for a fortuitous sharing of the same address, do Barrister and Emanuel. It’s a lovely fact, Kate, but it gets us nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.”

“Wait a minute, Reed, you’re confusing me. I’ll admit that Messenger, while helpful, isn’t exactly clarifying. But we now know who the young man in the picture is. Why didn’t
we
recognize him by the way?”

“I didn’t recognize him because I’ve never seen him. And you did, partly. You said the picture reminded you of someone, remember? A man changes a lot in those years between not-yet-thirty and over forty. Remember, Messenger hadn’t seen Barrister since, at least we don’t think he had. He saw the young man he had shared a room with. If I showed you a picture of a girl you’d known in high school you’d probably say: Oh, yes, that’s Sally Jones. She always wore tight sweaters, and lisped. But if I showed you a picture of Sally Jones today, you might very well tell me you didn’t know who she was.”

“All right, go on playing the devil’s advocate. The fact still remains that Dr. Michael Barrister had the office across the hall, was the one to pronounce the girl dead—at least to Nicola—and all the time his picture was in the purse of the murdered girl.”

“And was left there by the murderer.”

“Who overlooked it; it was folded inside her license.”

“Or who left it there purposely, to lead us to think exactly what you’re thinking.”

“Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”

“I couldn’t agree more. But something occurs to me. Sparks said the face looked familiar, if you reported correctly. Could Sparks have known who the picture was of, and left it there? He sounds a man who goes in for rather involved circumspection.”

“Perhaps we should show Messenger a picture of Sparks. It might turn out they had played baseball together in the dear, dead days of boyhood. I didn’t think to ask where
Sparks had come from. Anyway, they might have gone to the same Boy Scout camp when Sparks was visiting a maiden aunt in Messenger’s hometown.”

“I don’t see why Messenger should recognize everyone in the case, but I agree it might not be a bad idea to show him photographs of all of them, supposing we can get them.”

“At least we are moving away from Emanuel, Reed. Although,” she added, remembering Reed’s first news that night, “we seem to be moving either toward me or toward complete chaos. Still, we are moving. What shall we do next? Of course, we’ve forgotten Horan; perhaps he killed her as part of some advertising campaign. And the connection between Barrister and Messenger is coincidence. After all, life is full of coincidence, as Hardy knew, though none of us like to admit it. Oh, dear, I am beginning to go round and round. Reed, one question, before I succumb to dizziness and sleep: Where
was
Barrister the morning of the murder? Did the police ever establish that exactly?”

“He was in his office, which was full of patients, some in the waiting room, some in examining rooms. His nurse, of course, was there too. I suppose now the whole thing will have to be gone into more carefully, though the police didn’t seem to consider that he had an alibi, that he was, that is, absolutely and unarguably elsewhere. I’m beginning to get a little dizzy myself.”

“Well, in the morning I’ll hear from Jerry about Horan. And the nurse. Perhaps Jerry …”

“Oh, yes, we
must
discuss Jerry. Kate, I want you to promise me …”

“It’s no good, Reed, I wouldn’t remember what I’d promised. And tomorrow is
Daniel Deronda
. Not to mention
my other courses. I hope that letter isn’t going to get into the newspapers.”

“I think I can promise you that.”

“Who do you suppose sent it?” But Reed was already at the door. She waved to him sleepily, ignored the remains of their coffee, and dropped her clothes in a heap on the floor. She was certain she would never get to sleep, with Messenger, Barrister, Emanuel, Sparks, Horan whirling in her mind in that kaleidoscopic way, and was still certain of it when Jerry (for she had forgotten to set the alarm) woke her in the morning.

“I
T’S
a good thing you gave me a key,” Jerry said. “I might have gone on ringing, decided you were murdered, lost my head and called in the police. Are you merely hung over?”

“I am
not
hung over, at least not from drink. Get out of here so I can get up. Make some coffee. Do you know how?”

Jerry chortled happily at this question, and left the room. Too late, Kate remembered that he had been a cook in the Army, and that his coffee … “Never mind,” she called, “I’ll make it,” But Jerry, who was already running water, did not hear her.

It turned out that Jerry, who gloried in complete ignorance of drip, percolator, and filter, had simply dumped some coffee into a saucepan of boiling water; the results were surprisingly good, if one poured with care. Kate, somewhat renovated by her shower and three cups of the
brew, cleaned up the shambles of the night before and tried to make up her mind what to do next. Jerry’s report of his previous day’s activities (considerably edited, and containing no reference to his pursuit of Emanuel) did not seem to make the future course of action any clearer. He ought certainly not to have gone to see Barrister’s nurse with that idiotic story; but Kate could not get as exercised over this as she probably should have. It was rapidly being borne in on her that this morning represented a new start. Reed undoubtedly would have insisted that the first step should be to thank Jerry properly and dismiss him. But Kate instinctively knew that when the nebulous plans which were forming in her brain took shape, Jerry would have to be a part of them. There was no one else.

It was eight days since the murder, and already the whole outrageous series of events seemed to be the natural components of Kate’s days. She sat down again across the table from Jerry, and thought that here she was, having morning coffee and evolving plots with a young man with whom, in the normal course of events, she would have had nothing whatever to do. Those people who were, two weeks ago, in the forefront of her life had moved somewhere into the background, out of focus. The various issues, literary and otherwise, which had been at the center of her consciousness, now floated vaguely at its periphery. What she sought, of course, was the return to the more orderly world of a fortnight past. Carlyle (to whom she had not given any attention since a week ago yesterday) was supposed to have said, upon hearing that a young lady had decided to accept the universe, “Egad! She’d better!” All Kate asked, she told herself, was to accept, to restore that universe. It had been shattered, but she could not rid
herself of the conviction that, with sustained effort and a prayer, it could be put back together again.

“Any new ideas?” Jerry asked.

“I am not lacking ideas,” Kate said, “only the ability to make them meaningful. I am beginning to think that Alice was not in Wonderland at all; she was trying to solve a murder. Beautiful suspects keep disappearing, leaving only their grins behind them; others turn into pigs. We are handed a large ungainly bird and asked to play croquet. And running very fast, we are not staying in the same place: we are positively moving backward. A few days ago we had a number of lovely suspects; now all we have is the heir to the murdered girl, and he doesn’t have any connection with the case at all. Well, I’d better tell you about him.” She recounted the story of Janet Harrison’s will, and told him about Messenger’s recognition of the picture. (About the letter accusing herself, she said nothing.) Jerry, of course, was elated to hear that the picture was of Barrister, and Kate had wearily to guide him, as she had been the night before, to the realization that, exciting as the news was,
it
could not be made to lead anywhere.

“The answer must be Messenger. He’s probably a very sinister type, with a good front. After all,” Jerry continued, “we don’t know he wasn’t involved with Janet Harrison. We have only his word for it.”

“But he denied having heard of her even before he knew she was murdered.”

“After he murdered her, you mean.”

“Then why identify the picture, and entangle himself further?”

“He didn’t entangle himself; he entangled Barrister. Obviously, he never expected to be connected with the whole business at all. He didn’t know she’d made a will.”

“If he didn’t know she’d made a will, why murder her? The motive is supposed to be her money.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t her money; perhaps it was, but he hoped the will would never be found.”

“Jerry, you are getting weakening of the brain. If the will wasn’t found, he wouldn’t get the money. But, whatever his motive, he wasn’t away from Chicago. And don’t start suggesting that he hired someone—I simply could not stand discussing that again.”

“I don’t think this case is helping your disposition—you’re beginning to sound petulant. What you need is a vacation.”

“What I need is a solution. Keep quiet a minute, and let me think. While it’s not a process of which I expect spectacular results, it’s the only form of activity that occurs to me at the moment. By the way, if one can make such good coffee by just throwing the ground-up beans in a pot, why are there so many different expensive kinds of coffee makers on the market?”