Needle of jealousy
When it comes to solving a crime passionnel there’s one thing beats all the scientific equipment criminologists can bring to bear. Give the hommy experts their fluorescent dusting-powder, their spectroscopic examination of a cross-section of a hair, throw in that sodium pentothal truth-serum for good measure. I’ll take the jealous wench and beat ’em to the answer four times out of five.
But the hammer and tongs can’t be used; the proper instrument is the needle.
So after I slid my knees under the nook table with its cheery breakfast cloth and gay china, when I’d duly complimented my hostess on the luscious smells of bacon and coffee, I went to work.
“When was the last time you talked to Lanerd?”
“Yesterday afternoon. About three. At the office.” She filled her coffee cup too full, sopped the saucer dry with a paper napkin. “Is the omelette all right?”
“Wonderful.” It wasn’t quite that good. But I’d have relished pancakes of tar paper at that point.
“We had a spat, at the office. I opened a letter he didn’t think I should have; I open all his mail except the ones specifically marked ‘Personal’; usually he shows me those, except the ones from girls. This letter was from a bank. It mentioned the name of a gentleman at its branch in Rio de Janeiro in case Mister Lanerd wished to take up any matters about the fifty-thousand-dollar letter of credit. We-e-ell! I hadn’t heard anything about any trip to Rio, but I could guess what it meant. The Icequadrilles are due to open in Brazil, fifteenth of next month.”
I tried not to think of the place Lanerd had actually had his ticket punched for — that evil-smelling autopsy room down on Twenty-Sixth, where they take all suspected ’cides. “Mushrooms’re out of this world.”
“He loves them.” She caught herself. “What really made him mad, I called Marge to ask if she’d relay the dope about the man in Rio. Course she didn’t know anything about a projected trip, either, and naturally I knew she didn’t, but I had to put her wise.”