“You didn’t last time,” Gregor noted.
“Oh, we caught him all right. We just didn’t convict him. And yes, I still believe that in spite of what happened at your friend’s apartment last night. Paul Hazzard killed his wife. There’s never been a doubt in my mind. In the end, you know, he barely tried to deny it.”
“Mmm,” Gregor said. In his experience, murderers denied everything vigorously and often, no matter what the circumstances. “Let’s not worry about the other Hazzard case for the moment, except where it might connect—”
“Like with the weapon.”
“Exactly,” Gregor said, “like with the weapon. I’ve been thinking about that weapon all night. In the end, I suppose it’s the most important thing to be explained. What was it doing there? How did Hannah get hold of it? Who brought it into the house?”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. This is not some standard kitchen knife we’re talking about. This is not a penknife somebody might carry around in his pocket. This is a valuable antique. I take it that by now somebody has verified that it was the same dagger?”
“They’ve verified that we’ve got every reason to believe it was the same dagger,” Bob said. “The dagger that was on the wall in Paul Hazzard’s living room is missing. The officer who picked up James Hazzard checked. And asked, of course.”
“Of course. Did James Hazzard say when he’d seen it last?”
“No.”
“Did he notice it missing last night on his own?”
“He says not.”
“What about the position of the dagger?” Gregor asked. “One of the things I’ve never been able to get clear in my mind is where that dagger was on that wall. Toward the floor? At shoulder height? Higher?”
Bob Cheswicki considered. “It’s one of those really old Federal houses,” he said, “and the ceilings are fairly high, but this thing was placed in the middle of a bunch of others—there are dozens of weapons on that wall—at what would be about eye level for you. This is from what I remember, and it was a long time ago. But I think I’m accurate. You’re a very tall man.”
“Six four,” Gregor said.
“So it was pretty far up,” Bob concluded, “but not outrageously so.”
“The point is that it couldn’t have been taken by accident. Someone couldn’t have stuck it into a pocket by mistake, without thinking. It would have had to have been reached for.”
“Definitely.”
Gregor tapped his fingers impatiently against a pile of papers on Bob Cheswicki’s desk. “I don’t like it. What do you think, by now, if you count my time with the Behavioral Sciences Department at the Bureau, I must have investigated hundreds of murders, wouldn’t you think?”
“Well, yes, Gregor. But some of them came in sets.”
“I know that, but that’s not the point. The point is that in all that time, in the Bureau, out of the Bureau, it doesn’t matter, never once have I found a case where a murderer used an odd or unusual weapon or an odd or unusual method unless he had to. Had to. Murderers do not go rigging up locked rooms or stabbing people with antique South Pacific ornamental daggers unless they have no alternative. This just doesn’t make sense.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Bob said. “That’s why I want you with us. To help make sense out of it.”
Gregor got out of his chair and tried to pace. There wasn’t much room. He kept bumping into furniture.
“Look at the murder of Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard,” he said. “Here is a woman in her own living room, in a house that was in all probability like all houses, meaning stocked with everyday weapons. I assume there were sets of steak knives in the kitchen?”
“I didn’t check,” Bob said, “but there must have been.”
“Of course there must have been. Steak knives in the kitchen. Ice picks. Razor blades. Then there was that wall that the dagger was on. You said there were dozens of other weapons. Were there more obvious weapons?”
“What do you mean, more obvious?”
“Straightforward large knives,” Gregor suggested. “This dagger is actually fairly small. How about something like a bowie knife or a small sword? Something closer at hand that would have been harder to miss.”
“I suppose there must have been. Gregor, I just don’t know these details off the top of my head.”
Gregor waved this away. “We can check later, but what I’m saying only makes sense. There was no reason at all to use that dagger in the murder of Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard.”