Chapter VI (3)

    "It isn't that," Lennox answered. "It's the Poison Pen test. That was a bomb. You were right, Kitten. I'm an amateur. I should have stayed out of the act."
    "What happened?"
    "I showed the photostats to all of them, looking for a sign ... a give-away. You remember what I told you about Fink?"
    "Yes. So?"
    "You think those letters knocked them off balance? Hell, they loved them. They ate 'em up. It's like those arsenic eaters of yours."
    "Poison eaters?"
    He nodded. "Poison eaters. They're mixed up. Sick in the head. But trouble doesn't bother them. They live on trouble. They feed on it. Can't do without it. They've got to have a diet that would kill a normal man."
    "All of them?"
    "All of them."
    "Not one knocked off balance?"
    "Not one out of six. And just to show you what an amateur I am, each one found something in the letters I hadn't noticed.... Something that proved they couldn't be getting them."
    "What?"
    "Oh.... Like ... Charlie Hansel found a line that showed the letters are being written to someone who's big. Charlie's a midget, you know that. Plummer noticed something about a loudmouth. And you know how quiet Johnny stammers. He's always whispering the latest from the Kremlin."
    "Kay Hill's loud."
    "But she isn't dark."
    "Stacy's dark."
    "But he isn't moralistic. They've all got outs. I don't know who the hell's getting the threats. I'm no better off than I was when I started." He shrugged. "It shows you, Kitten. Everybody imagines they can do anybody else's job much better. It isn't until you try that you find out. Damn it! I'm licked. All I can do is hope Fink'll pull us out of this jam before Sunday."
    "Tell me what everybody said when you pulled the letters on them."
    "To hell with it."
    "Let's write down how each one eliminated himself. Maybe we can add them up and find something."
    After some persuasion and another drink he gave me the facts. I wrote them down in a column:

Big
Dark
Loud
Moralistic
Went to college
Fancy and elegant
Lives on the East side

    "Look at this," I said.
    Lennox looked.
    "Who does it add up to?"
    "I don't know."
    "I've got news for you," I said. "You may be an amateur, and it may not be as easy as we think to do another man's job, but you've done the job. You've found out who's getting the letters. The only trouble is, you're worse off than when you started."
    "What the hell are you talking about?"
    "You."
    "What about me?"
    "You're the guy who's getting the letters."
    He stared at me, looked at the list, then looked up again.
    "This adds up to me?" he whispered.
    I nodded.
    "Loud?"
    "They can hear you from the Bronx to the Battery."
    "Fancy? Elegant?"
    "As Mike Romanoff."
    "Moralistic?"
    "As a Puritan."
    "This is me? This is the way you see me?"
    "Yes."
    He got up without another word and walked out. I don't know what staggered him most ... the realization that he was the man being threatened, or the picture of himself as other people saw him. But I was right about one thing. He was a lot worse off than when he started.