fellow Bonfils got hot and hit Gantvoort with the first thing he put his hand on. But what was the typewriter doing in a stolen car? And why were the numbers filed off it?”
I shook my head to signify that I couldn’t guess the answer, and O’Gar went on enumerating our clues.
“Number three: the threatening letter, fitting in with what Gantvoort had said over the phone that afternoon.
“Number four: those two bullets with the crosses in their snoots.
“Number five: the jewel case.
“Number six: that bunch of yellow hair.
“Number seven: the fact that the dead man’s shoe and collar buttons were carried away.
“Number eight: the wallet, with two ten-dollar bills, three clippings, and the list in it, found in the road.
“Number nine: finding the shoe next day, wrapped up in a five-day-old Philadelphia paper, and with the missing collar buttons, four more, and a rusty key in it.
“That’s the list. If they mean anything at all, they mean that Emil Bonfils whoever he is—was flimflammed out of something by Gantvoort in Paris in 1902, and that Bonfils came to get it back. He picked Gantvoort up last night in a stolen car, bringing his typewriter with him—for God knows what reason! Gantvoort put up an argument, so Bonfils bashed in his noodle with the typewriter, and then went through his pockets, apparently not taking anything. He decided that what he was looking for was in Gantvoort’s left shoe, so he took the shoe away with him. And then—but there’s no sense to the collar button trick, or the phony list, or—”