Cramer sent Purley for another scared citizen. This time it was the thin tall bony specimen who, entering the lobby on Thirty-seventh Street that morning, had stopped to aim a rude stare at Susan Maturo and me seated on the bench by the fireplace. Having read his statement, I now knew that his name was Jack Ennis, that he was an expert diemaker, at present unemployed, that he was unmarried, that he lived in Queens, and that he was a born inventor who had not yet cashed in. His brown suit had not been pressed.
When Cramer told him that questions from Wolfe were to be considered a part of the official inquiry into Leo Heller’s death, Ennis cocked his head to appraise Wolfe, as if deciding whether or not such a procedure deserved his okay.
“You’re a self-made man,” he told Wolfe. “I’ve read about you. How old are you?”
Wolfe returned his gaze. “Some other time, Mr. Ennis. Tonight you’re the target, not me. You’re thirty-eight, aren’t you?”
Ennis smiled. He had a wide mouth with thin colorless lips, and his smile wasn’t especially attractive. “Excuse me if you thought I was being fresh, asking how old you are, but I don’t really give a damn. I know you’re right at the top of your racket, and I wondered how long it took you to get started up. I’m going to the top too, before I’m through, but it’s taking me a hell of a time to get a start, and I wondered about you. How old were you when you first got your name in the paper?”
“Two days. A notice of my birth. I understand that your call on Leo Heller was connected with your determination to get a start as an inventor?”
“That’s right.” Ennis smiled again. “Look. This is all a lot of crap. The cops have been at me now for seven hours, and where are they? What’s the sense in going on with it? Why in the name of God would I want to kill that guy?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Well, search me. I’ve got patents on six inventions, and none of them is on the market. One of them is not perfect — I know damn well it’s not — but it needs only one more trick to make it an absolute whiz. I can’t find the trick. I’ve read about this Heller, and it seemed to me that if I gave him all the dope, all the stuff he needed for one of his formulas, there was a good chance he would come up with the answer. So I went to him. I spent three long sessions with him. He finally thought he had enough to try to work up a formula, and he was taking a crack at it, and I had a date to see him this morning and find out how it was going.”
Ennis stopped for emphasis. “So I’m hoping. After all the sweating I’ve done and the dough I’ve spent, maybe I’m going to get it at last. So I go. I go upstairs to his office and shoot him dead, and then I go to the waiting room and sit down and wait.” He smiled. “Listen. If you want to say there are smarter men than me, I won’t argue. Maybe you’re smarter yourself. But I’m not a lunatic, am I?”