Dr. Phibes

by William Goldstein

  Trout inspected the puncture mark on Longstreet’s arm, speaking deliberately as he was thus occupied: “Whoever did this knew what he was doing. He used a pressure cuff—the skin creases up above the puncture mark—and used it with diabolical efficiency if I may editorialize. It was a vacuum pump, as witnessed by the rings on the mantel top. He took seven liters out, which is all the body holds, in less than twenty minutes. You can check me on it, but my guess is that’s optimum speed for a quarter-horse motor!”

  “But twenty minutes, sir—how can you specify that span?”

  “Because our friend here was wrapped up in his home movies. I’d say his taste ran more to the Little Egypt genre than anything else. That reel runs twenty minutes and he hadn’t quite finished.”

  Mrs. Frawley had tiptoed back into the room and now stood meekly at the threshold, looking for all the world like she’d just emerged from under a shower. “Will you be needing me for anything else, Inspector? If not, I’d like to go back to my own house.”

  “Of course. Go home and have some warm tea. If anything comes up, we’ll call on you in a few days.” Trout turned in relief to Schenley: “Tom, help Mrs. Frawley to the door and see that one of our men takes her home. She’s been most helpful to us.”

  Schenley took the dear lady from the room, his heavy frame shielding her damp frailty.

  Once he was alone, Trout renewed his study of the victim. He stood before Longstreet, hands folded across his chest, thumb pressed to his lips, balancing on the balls of his feet. This was a mode of concentration he’d developed in college. To grasp the full dimension of an object, to perceive something rather than merely see it, he would look at it from a distance. Although he was city-born and bred, Harry Trout was an expert on trees, having already published a series of papers in Nature on the most serviceable plantings for urban environments. He’d taught himself about trees by the simple expedient of looking at them, first from distances, then through closer inspection. He’d probe the bark and lower branches with his hands, his fingers gauging the strength, suppleness and age of the wood.

  Harry Trout carried this fastidiousness into his social life. He never met people, he observed them. The simplest handshake was a ritual, an ornate composite of hints, false starts, oblique motions. Had the recipient of his observation been able to surmise Trout’s intent, he would have withdrawn his hand immediately. But Trout had long since learned control: his motions, on the outside, were affable, studied, contained.

  He was conducting an organized search now: shaping, adding, removing bits here and there. By the time Tom Schenley returned, there was little Trout did not know about the mechanics of the murder scene.

  “I’m done here, Tom; what have you got?”

  “Not a helluva lot, Inspector. Just an old lady’s remorse.” Schenley put his hand in his pocket. “Oh, yes, and this little item.”

  He pulled out a brass amulet, holding it in his palm for Trout to see.

  “Where’d you get that, Tom? It’s an amulet of some sort. If my Hebrew serves me, the symbol for blood.”

  “Over behind the mantelpiece. No prints: it appears to have been dropped at random.”

  “Not at random, Tom! By accident is closer to the mark. That belongs to our man.” Trout was firm in his declaration.

  “Do you think Longstreet’s killer is the same man who did the others in?”

  “Think it? I’m certain of it.”

  Harry Trout had a new kick to his walk, Schenley noticed, as the two men dashed down the front stairs to their car. Some children were playing punch ball in the street and Trout dashed off the curb, grabbed the ball and gave it a vicious swipe with his fist. The kids went howling down the block after their toy.

  “I didn’t think you had it in you, sir, and it’s not even lunch time.”

  Trout motioned for Schenley to drive, then hopped into the car on the other side, slamming the door.

  “Thanks for reminding me, Tom. Let’s find a place with some good boiled beef and horseradish. We can check the telephone book there.”

  “For metalsmiths?”

  “Now you’re getting to it!”

  It took them thirty minutes to find a reasonably quiet place with a telephone. Thirty minutes of stop-and-go inching through streets clogged with trucks, cabs and crowds of people rushing to eat and get back to the office. But it was worth the trouble: the thick beef chunks they were served were pink and rare inside, the rolls were fresh and there was enough ale to wash it all down.

  The telephone directory yielded six custom metalsmiths in all, two close at hand, the remainder spread far enough away so that they’d have to hurry to get to them before closing time.

  Dudley Knightson’s was the first stop, a small shop that occupied the top floor of a three-story loft building. Except for a cardboard warehouse at ground level, the loft was all but deserted. They climbed the three flights with no thought other than to hope the staircase would stay together long enough to get back down.

  The Knightson establishment was another matter and, under different circumstances, would have been worth the special trip. Once they’d gotten past the receptionist, a wizened male clerk who must’ve doubled as bookkeeper, they were propelled into a gigantic room whose endless reaches occupied the full top floor. The room was crammed with women, women who otherwise would have worked as seamstresses or chambermaids. These ladies stood at long iron tables in the centers of which were stacks of the most fantastic assortment of stars, wheels, balls, snowflakes and other ornaments. The women were daubing these with paint: blue at one table, red at another, yellow, green, purple at still other stations. Other women rolled tall tray carts about, of the kind one finds in bakeries, collecting the trays of ornaments as they became ready at the long tables. As the carts became full, the ladies wheeled them toward the rear with a great clattering and rumbling. There a rough drying area had been rigged up—double lengths of sheets stretched between four upright posts and beneath outsize bulbs in the overhead lamps. The trinkets baked there before being packed and sent off to gift shops, to be snapped up by an army of housewives who, seeking a way out of tedium, had turned to “home decoration.”

  “A toy factory in broad daylight is an infinitely depressing place,” thought Tom Schenley. He was about to nudge his chief to leave when a bird-like little man descended on them from behind a cart. The man rained such a torrent of high-pitched words that Schenley was stopped before he could pull Trout out the door.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, welcome to the Dudley Knightson establishment, designer and manufacturer of the finest quality artistic metalwork in England and the continent. Been in business for a century-and-a-half and our name is known by persons of sense and sensibility the world over. Now you’ve seen the artists at work; I’d like to show you the fruits of their handicraft and, if there’s any special item required to brighten up that special wall at your home or office, you can count on us to have it in stock. I’m Dudley Knightson VIII and who do I have the pleasure of talking to?”

  The man looked at Trout and Schenley, both of whom stood frozen beneath the frenzy of his introduction. Finally Schenley coughed into his fist and hazarded an answer.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we didn’t come to buy.”

  Knightson’s torrent began again without pause: “That’s all right, that’s all right. I’ll be happy to show you our artists anyway. They take great pride in their work and have done so many beautiful things. . . .”

  Trout cut him off.

  “Mr. Knightson, my name is Trout and this’s Sergeant Schenley. We’re with the police department and we’d like you to tell us about this if you can.”

  Knightson squinted at the amulet, then fluttered his hands. “Cast brass, cast brass, we work with sheets, just sheets, gentlemen. More pliable, more flexible for our medium. That’s a casting.”

  “Who might make something like this?” Trout turned it around in his palm.

  Knightson was unflapped. “A casting, a
casting, who will do a casting? Benedicks? No, no, no, they’re too big. Kifferstein, yes, Kifferstein; they do very good work. They’re in Germany. Very old firm. Highly respectable.”

  “Isn’t there something closer to home?”

  Knightson zipped right on. “London, London he wants. Jason Bowditch. No, he’s dead. Wife went off and left him so he shot himself. Who else . . . let me see, what’s the name of those chaps that do the ceremonial cannons? Gunderson Brothers. Big, old, substantial military concern. And there’s that jeweler fellow, not far from here, he is. Does some work in brass but I think he’s retired. Let me see, what is his name? It’s Italian, I’d recognize if it I saw it.”

  Knightson threw his hands up to assist his memory. Trout and Schenley, sensing an opportunity at last, made the best of it and eased out past the mail clerk without taking leave. The little man was still chattering when the doors closed.

  Simone Latto’s place, in contrast to the bedlam which they’d just left, was as quiet as a monastery. Trout and Schenley had little trouble finding the address; the building was located in a nest of small shops stuck behind a long row of brick-and-wired-glass factory buildings. The shops apparently had been spared by some builder’s oversight and now attracted the area’s workers as well as visitors who came to lunch at the local Italian restaurant.

  Trees had been put up in the cobbled square and although the area was crowded, the thickly leaved elms and sycamores absorbed much of the din of conversation.

  Harry Trout admired the way the sycamores had been pruned. Each major branch had been clipped at the same spot repeatedly and the resulting wood knots, as thick around as the trunk, shot up clusters of slender branches, each one in bud. Trout spotted the building they wanted. He called to Tom to follow him and they set out across the square.

  When they reached the place, a pleasant two-story yellow stucco-and-wood frame building, there was no outward indication of what went on inside. Only the street number gave them reassurance that they had reached the right spot.

  “Odd, isn’t it? D’you think we should go in, sir?” The sergeant seemed a bit wary.

  “We’ll never know if we don’t, Tom.” Trout led the way along a trellis-covered entranceway. Morning glories twined about the lattice overhead and their multi-colored blooms had attracted sparrows and a few hummingbirds. At the end, the solid wooden door was shut tight. They knocked and waited.

  “Better give it another go, Tom.” Trout thought he heard some activity on the floor above.

  Schenley tapped again, louder this time. They waited; still no answer. Again he banged, this time with a full fist. They were just about to try the lock when a gravelly voice boomed through the wood.

  “Momento.”

  Inside the stairs clattered and the door was wrenched open by a huge patriarch who stood scowling at them from beneath thick, scruffy eyebrows, “What you want?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’re looking for a metal-works shop,” Schenley replied.

  “I’m Latto,” the giant growled and, turning around, walked back inside the dark interior. Trout and Schenley followed Mr. Latto into they knew not what.

  They certainly were not prepared for what they found inside. There, in a large gallery-like room at the front of the building, was the most fantastic array of brass angels, globes, helmeted warriors, stainless-steel ceremonial urns, steel and brass firebirds, brass-inlaid shields, turtles, twin lions, squat cylindrical brass owls and other emoluments. Each piece of finely worked sculpture was arranged on a series of pedestals, tables and wall shelving; towering above the whole display were two giant stainless-steel madonnas that shot up to the ceiling. A small inscription, “Facit Simone Latto” ran across the base of each.

  Latto led them through a narrow hallway toward the one other room on the ground floor. A few steps and they’d emerged into a spare, bright workshop whose whitewashed walls and high windows gave great spaciousness to the room.

  A small forge and bellows were located along the rear wall. Work benches lined the side walls—stacked along the tops and shelves of these were the heavy mallets, shears, punches and chisels of Mr. Latto’s art.

  He ushered them to a rough bench, then lumbered over to the forge and bent to inspect the firebed. Apparently the heat had dropped too low. He folded the bellows in his huge hands, getting up a good stroke until the forge was roaring gently. When he turned to his guests the sweat was streaming down his arms, darkening the rough, leather ironworker’s vest he wore against the sparks.

  “What’che want?” he growled.

  “Mr. Latto . . .” Trout began.

  “How you know my name?” he cut Trout off.

  “I’ve seen your work at Marlborough. You’re perhaps the most acclaimed metal sculptor living today.”

  Latto brushed away Trout’s words. “Why you come here?”

  Trout pulled the brass amulet from his pocket and held it out for the old man to see. “Did you make this?”

  Latto answered without hesitation. “Sure, I make it. Ten pieces in the set. About two years ago!”

  Trout was surprised. “Ten you say, in a set?”

  “Yeah. All different. It’s Hebrew.”

  “But who ordered them?”

  Latto thought for a minute. “No one ordered them. It came by mail. A list of measurements.”

  Schenley perked up. “Hebrew. But if nobody came here, didn’t you worry about getting paid?”

  The old man blustered at this slight to his pride. “Pay me? They sure did. Nobody works for nothing. It came by mail. And it was a pretty good fair price too—a couple hundred pounds.”

  “By mail, you say? What about delivery?” Trout queried.

  Latto smiled. “Oh, that was a pickup. A young girl, very pretty. She came in. Didn’t look around, just took the package and left.”

  Trout continued the questioning. “Was that all there was to it—ten Hebrew symbols commissioned by mail?”

  Latto scowled. “No, whoever brought it make sure he get originals.”

  “How do you mean that?” Trout interrupted.

  Latto went on. “Well, with a casting you just pour metal into mold. You can make more pieces, all the same. This person make me break the molds!”

  Trout was surprised. “Break the molds?”

  Latto nodded. “Yeah, break the molds and throw them away like he don’t trust me.”

  “Would you have more?” There was a wink in Schenley’s eye.

  Latto threw his arms open. “What for? Nobody buys alphabet letters.”

  Schenley started to laugh. Latto began to quiver, then worked up into short bursts, finally exploding into great gusts of laughter. He roared and howled about the letters and the perfidy of the customers, jeering and alternately damning the people on whom he depended for a living. Finally he finished, gradually keying down like a heavy ostrich about to land. Then he was able to speak again.

  “Say, you boys make me happy. How ‘bout some grappa?”

  Schenley started to beg out, “It’s late in the day, Mr. Latto. I think we’d best not.”

  But Latto would hear none of it. He lumbered over to a tall cupboard, dragged open the door and produced a heavy wickered carboy and some dingy cups. These he placed on a workbench and, uncorking the carboy with a solid “thung,” began to pour the grappa.

  “Grappa’s good for the bones. Puts iron in your skeleton, makes you fight better. Here, drink.”

  He held out two full cups of red wine. Schenley glanced at Harry Trout who grabbed one of the cups and raised it up in a toast.

  “I propose we drink to all those lovely men and women out there.” He gestured with emphasis. “Men and women who, but for their softened tastes and fattened pocketbooks, would not be able to provide the fundamental bridgework on which all great art rests. Glory to them, gentlemen.”

  They drank, the grappa curling Trout’s throat with its strength. Then Simone Latto started to laugh again. He was still laughing when he let them out of
his shop into the softened afternoon.

  Chapter 7

  “SHEMA Y’ Israel, Adonai, Elohenu, Adonai, Elhod.” The congregation resumed as one voice in this great prayer of Hebrew unity. The men, some fifty in number wearing silvery-white tallis over their dark business suits stood before hard wooden benches on the main floor of the small Sephardic synagogue. Their bass and baritone chants rose up to mix with the lighter tones of the women who, according to the orthodox custom were in the balcony, separated from the men.

  A young lad held forth on the small lectern this fine Saturday in May. He was flanked by the rabbi, a substantial gentleman whose curly brown beard flowed out over his outsize tallis, quivering with the resonance of the prayer. The cantor, a shorter bald man who dominated the chanting with a piercing tenor, loomed at the boy’s left. His father and uncle, both beaming in familial pride at the boy’s entry into manhood, waited at the rear of the dais.

  The boy’s voice rose loud and clear above the others: “Boruch, Shem K’Vod, Malchuto, L’olam, V’oed.” The congregation followed his lead, “Boruch, Shem, K’Vod, Malchuto, L’olam, V’oed,” their voices surging throughout the small white and wood-paneled room. A row of narrow, colored-glass windows admitted the thin sunlight, staining it into red, green and purple diffusion, bathing the rows of men and benches on the main floor in unaccustomed softness. Twin nine-tipped candelabras guarded the approaches to the arc at the lectera’s rear, their eighteen burning candles condensing this soft light with prismatic effect above the lectern.

  Harry Trout had come into the building at a climactic point when the cantor was about to open the arc. Trout was confused at first with the chattering cadenced voices. The men seemed to be speaking at random which, for one unaccustomed to the service, came close to cacophony. He’d come purposely to see the rabbi, Ezra ben Gabirol, without realizing that his old friend would be officiating at a Bar Mitzvah this Saturday morning.