“No phooey. I’m telling you — from a booth in a drugstore. I found the body, and I want to ask a favor.”
“Mr. Lewent is dead?”
“Yes. In order to ask the favor I’ll have to lead up to it — not a full report, but the high spots.”
“Go ahead.”
I did. I gave him no conversations verbatim, but described the cast of characters and the setting, and covered movements and events up to opening the door of Lewent’s room. At that point I got particular.
“It would stand some questions,” I told him. “The first ten feet inside the door it’s not a room at all, merely a passage less than four feet wide. Beyond that is the room proper. The body is in that passage, diagonal, with the feet toward the door. When the door is opened wide its edge comes within ten inches of Lewent’s right foot. There’s a runner the length of the passage, an Oriental, not fastened down, and it’s in place. The body’s on it, of course. There is nothing disarranged in either the room or the passage. Everything is just as it was when I was there an hour earlier.”
“Except Mr. Lewent.” Wolfe’s tone was dry and disgusted.
“Yeah. He was hit in the back of the head at the base of the skull with something heavy and hard enough to smash the whole bottom of the skull. The thing was comparatively smooth, because the skin is not broken, only bruised. No blood. I am not a laboratory, but on a bet there was only one blow and it came from beneath, traveling upward. The weapon is not in the passage—”
“Under him.”
“No. I lifted him and put him back. Nor is it open to view in the room. Won’t that stand some questions?”