I also have one dated London, England, August eleventh, 1906, which is a receipt for two hundred thousand, seven hundred sixty-one pounds, signed by Rubber Coleman, Gilbert Fox, Harlan Scovil, Turtle-back, Victor Lindquist, and Michael Walsh. After the Turtle-back,’ in parentheses, appears the name William Mollen.
I also have a check for the same amount, dated September nineteenth, drawn to the order of James N. Coleman and endorsed by him for payment.”
Wolfe looked around at them.
“The point here is, gentlemen, that none of those men except Coleman ever saw that receipt.
He forged the names of all the others.”
He whirled suddenly to Perry, and his voice was a whip.
“Well, sir?
Is that slander?”
Perry held himself.
But his voice was squeezed in his throat. “It is. They signed it.”
“Ha!
They signed it?
So at last we have it that you’re Rubber Coleman?”
“Certainly I’m Coleman.
They signed it, and they got their share.”
“Oh, no.” Wolfe pointed a finger at him and held it there. “You’ve made a bad mistake, sir; you didn’t kill enough men.
Victor Lindquist is still alive and in possession of all his faculties.
I talked to him yesterday on the telephone, and I warned him against any tricks that might be tried. His testimony, with the corroboration we already have, will be ample for an English court.
Slander?
Pfui!”
He turned to the others.
“So you see, it isn’t really so important to convict Mr. Perry of murder.
He is now past sixty.
I don’t know the English penalty for forgery, but certainly he will be well over seventy when he emerges from jail, discredited, broken, a pitiable relic—”
Wolfe told me later that his idea was to work Perry into a state where he would then and there sign checks for Clara Fox and Victor Lindquist, and Walsh’s and ScoviTs heirs if any, for their share of the million dollars.
I don’t know.
Anyhow, the checks didn’t get signed, because dead men can’t write even their names.
It happened like lightning, a bunch of reflexes.
Perry jerked out a gun and turned it on Wolfe and pulled the trigger.
Hombert yelled and Cramer jumped.
I could never have got across in time to topple him, and anyway, as I say, it was reflex.
I grabbed my gun and let him have it, but then Cramer was there and I quit.
There was a lot of noise.
Perry was down, sunk in bis chair, and they were pawing him.
I dived around the desk for Wolfe, who was sitting there looking surprised for once in his Ufe, feeling with his right hand at his upper left arm.
Him protesting, I pulled his coat open and the sleeve oS, and the spot of blood on the outside of the arm of the canary-yellow shirt looked better to me than any orchid.
I stuck my Bnger in the hole the bullet had made and ripped the sleeve and took a look, and then grinned into the fat devil’s face.
“Just the meat, and not much of that.
You don’t use that arm much anyhow.”
I heard Cramer behind me,
“Dead as a doornail,” and turned to see the major casualty.
They had let it come on out of the chair and stretched it on the floor.
The inspector was kneeling by it, and the others standing, and Clivers and Skinner were busy putting out a fire.
Clivers was pulling and rubbing at the bottom front of one side of his coat, where the bullet and flame had gone through when he pulled the trigger with his hand still in his pocket, and Skinner was helping him.
He must have plugged Perry onetenth of a second before I did.
Cramer stood up.
He said heavily,
“One in the right shoulder, and one clear through him, through the heart.
Well, he asked for it.”
I said,