J.B. spent the intervening time roaming back and forth between the third and fourth floors of the main building. The employees, some two hundred of them that evening, had been ensconced on the third floor in various banquet rooms; their turn to be interviewed would come only after the members and guests had had theirs. Chatting with the employees still awake, J.B. gradually became aware that now, without the general manager, he was really in charge. Someone asked him if the club would open in the morning, and J.B. realized he wasn't even certain if the club ever opened in the morning. "Yes," he answered, figuring the odds at roughly the same as a coin flip. "Unless we don't open," he added as a hedge.
On the fourth floor, anarchy appeared imminent. Pete's widow had made her statement (thrice) immediately after the ambassadors, and had been led down to her apartment on the B-3 level of the building for sedation and rest. Arrangements had been made by the police department to borrow a young woman from the fire department to sit with Mrs. Peterson in her grief.
Upstairs, meanwhile, the effects of shock and horror were beginning to wear off. Certainly no one was larking about, but a party had been going on, a great deal of alcohol had been consumed, and now premature hangovers and mood swings related to fluctuating alcohol levels were beginning to exhibit themselves.
"Goddamit, J.B.," said the club secretary, "the Pakistan ambassador won't go home. He keeps pushing into line to report more details of his evening's activities to the police. He's been up there three times."
"J.B., I'm due to catch a plane to Korea tomorrow," announced a young man with an excessively frilled dress-shirt," and if I'm not out of here soon, I'm holding you responsible."
"I say, Culhane old chap, form and all that sort of thing are frightfully important, frightfully important indeed." The accoster was wearing medals on his tuxedo jacket. "But I'd be ever so grateful if you'd pop me ahead in line. My da—, ah, business associate here is concerned about her elderly parents, getting home and all that, and of course my wife is waiting, well you know, frightful evening, swimming pool and that sort of thing."
"Jacques," said Jacques, "my wife is going to have a babee. A babeeee," he emphasized (though Mrs. Jacques was perhaps three, three-and-a-half months pregnant.)
"Mr. Culhane, this is my boss and his wife visiting from Boston. They don't want to stay here any longer."
"Hey J.B., you bloody twit, if we're not out of here by midnight, you and Pete will soon be practicing chord progressions together on the bloody harp."
One of the problems, J.B. noticed, was that there was, in fact, a tendency toward volubility among people involved in official inquiries. To be on the safe side, folks were telling more than the inspectors probably wanted to know. Carrying the title of "president"—a carte blanche position in Japan—J.B. was able to wander at will in and out of the interview room.
Women tended to detail trips to the ladies room, men recounted bouts of table-hopping. Gordy Sparks began rambling on about a bug in his lunch, the Pakistan ambassador described his trip to the front desk for a cigar. The inspectors would periodically hop about switching chairs, lighters, and cigarettes—Americans demanded the opportunity to consult with their lawyers. By 11:30 p.m., there were still fifty or sixty people waiting to be interviewed.
J.B. went downstairs looking for his new pal Tim.
* * * *
"We think we know how Pete was murdered," confided Captain Kawamura to J.B. "Your chef informed to us that one knife and one, how you say. . . ," Kawamura made a quick chopping motion with his hand.
"Cleaver?"
"Creaver."
"Cleaver."
"Cleaver is missing."
The two men were standing in a small room off the corridor leading to the service elevator. The room was a temporary holding area for the service carts used to bring food from the B-1 main kitchen level to the banquet area on the top floors. The room was now empty except for two carts with broken wheels and a jumbled pile of large silver serving trays and domed lids in one corner.
"And that," continued Kawamura, pointing to brownish stains on the lower wall next to the room's entrance, "is blood."
J.B. and the police captain looked at the stains. Clearly, something had been splattered on the wall—almost as if a ripe tomato had been thrown against it at point-blank range.
"Are you sure? I mean, are you sure it's blood?" asked J.B. "It could be some kind of food like. . . a tomato."
"Or pumpkin?" suggested Kawamura, bringing to two the items neither man would be comfortable eating again.
"Yes, or a. . . well, never mind."
"It is no doubting blood," said Kawamura. "Those scrape marks came from our men's investigation. They have the way to judge."
"But if that's the case, how could what must have happened here really happen?"
"You mean cutting off of the head?"
"I guess so. I mean, there must be constant activity in here and out by the elevator. I don't see how such an. . . an accident. . ."
"Cutting off of the head."
". . . could go undetected."
"According to your chef, who is by the way a Spanish," said Kawamura, "elevator is a very busy place when food goes up and plates come down."
"That's what I mean. How could. . ."
"But in between," continued Kawamura, "no business is here."
"That means that. . . er, what must have happened here. . ."
"Cutting off of the head."
"Yes, must have happened while everyone was eating food upstairs."
J.B. tried to remember if he had seen Pete during the meal. With the welcoming speech, the raising and dimming of lights, the shuffling of late-arriving people, and the general commotion attendant with serving 350 meals all at once, Culhane realized that he couldn't even begin to pin down Pete's movements. He always seemed to be around, and then he wasn't.
"But there is strange thing," said Kawamura. "Your chef who is a Spanish said no one absolutely saw Pete down here."
"But surely, there must have been people from the kitchen wandering around the hallway, or something. Obviously Pete was here," said J.B. looking at the stain on the wall.
"That is not your Spanish chef's idea."
"How can he be certain?"
"Because," said Kawamura, "he made a strict instruction for everyone to tell to him if Pete comes here."
"And. . .?"
"No one told to him."
"I see."
"Because," said Kawamura, turning from the doorway and walking over to the stain on the wall, "your chef who is a Spanish said if Pete comes here, he will hit him with a. . . ," the captain made a chopping motion with his hand.
"A cleaver?"
"A cleaver."
"I see," said J.B.
* * * *
It was 2:30 in the morning when the interviews with the members, guests, and employees were finally over. J.B. sat with Kawamura in the nearly deserted ballroom and reviewed the lists. It was clear that the mass of information would have to be broken down and put on a computer if any sense was to be made of it.
Various plainclothes investigators and uniformed officers wandered in and out of the room delivering