“We do, Mr. Barrett. We haven’t much native subtlety, but a long experience has taught us things—for instance, never to toss ammunition to the enemy except under compulsion or in exchange for something better.” Wolfe’s tone was a soothing purr, which made me wonder when and why he was getting ready to pounce. He went on with it: “By the way, I don’t suppose you happened to meet Miss Tormic on your way down here just now?”
“No, I didn’t. Why? Where was she?”
“She was here for a little talk. She and her friend, Miss Lovchen. They left shortly before you arrived and I wondered if by any chance you had seen them.”
“No.”
“Have you had an opportunity to talk this thing over with her in much detail?”
“Not much of one. You might say none, really. They questioned the men first up there, and they let me go around eight o’clock. She was still there. I don’t know how long they kept her.”
“Indeed. Since you are a sufficiently good friend of hers to bother to come down here, it might be thought that you wouldn’t have gone off and left her there.”
“I couldn’t get at her. The place was full of cops and there was one for everybody. Anyway, that’s my business. Meaning it’s none of yours. You know?”
“Yes, excuse me. You’re quite right.” Then Wolfe pounced. As usual, there was no change whatever in his tone as his forefinger traced a tiny circle on the polished mahogany of his chair arm. “But I think you’ll have to concede that this is my business: where have you hid Madame Zorka?”
Chapter 10
Donald Barrett wasn’t especially good; not much above the average man when he is suddenly and abruptly faced with a question which he isn’t supposed to know the answer to but does. His jaw loosened, his eyes widened, and his breathing stopped. The first two may be the result of innocent surprise, but not the third. But he was fairly quick on the recovery. He stared at Wolfe and made folds in his smooth handsome brow and demanded:
“Where have I hid who?”
“Madame Zorka.”
He shook his head. “If it’s a joke you’ll have to explain it to me. I don’t get it.”
Wolfe said patiently, “I’ll explain it. Madame Zorka phoned here this evening and said she saw Miss Tormic put something in Mr. Goodwin’s pocket and she was going to report it to the police immediately.”
“The devil she did!”
“Please don’t interrupt. It’s wasted. Mr. Goodwin persuaded her to postpone informing the police until he could take Miss Tormic to Madame Zorka’s apartment for a discussion of the matter. When he and Miss Tormic arrived some time later, they found the apart ment empty; and they learned that Madame Zorka had departed fifteen minutes previously, in a hurry, with a bag and suitcase. Mr. Goodwin then brought Miss Tormic and Miss Lovchen here to see me.”
“Well, that—”
“Please. The two young ladies have a talk with me and leave. Soon you arrive. You reveal that you possess knowledge of three facts: that someone says that Miss Tormic was seen putting something in Mr. Goodwin’s pocket, that that information has not yet reached the police, and that it has reached me. The first two you might have got hold of in several conceivable ways, but not the third. You couldn’t possibly have known that the information had reached me unless Madame Zorka communicated with you after she phoned here.”
Barrett was standing up, apparently with the idea that it was time to go. “Rubbish,” he snorted. “If that’s the kind of deduction—”
Wolfe shook his head and his tone got sharp. “I won’t have it, sir. I won’t spend an hour working it into your skull that I know what I know. Madame Zorka told you what she had told me. Don’t try dodging; you’ll only annoy me.”
“It would be too damn bad if I annoyed you.” He looked and sounded nasty. “What if Zorka did tell me about it? What if that’s why I came down here? What’s wrong with that?”
“Did she?”
“What if she did?”
“Did she?”
“Yes!”
“On the telephone?”
“Yes.”
“And you, being a friend of Miss Tormic, saw that the only way to make sure that her story would not reach the police was to hustle her away somewhere—and you somehow persuaded her. Then you thought of the possibility that I might pass it on to the police, and came here to plug that hole. Where is Madame Zorka, Mr. Barrett?”
“I don’t know. I supposed she was at home until you said Goodwin was told she had gone with her bag and suitcase. I’ll tell you something. I don’t like the way you’re handling this and I’m going to tell Miss Tormic so. She ought to have a good lawyer, anyway, and I’ll see that she gets one. If she lets you out, how much cash will you take not to peddle this fairy tale to the police about her putting something in Goodwin’s pocket?”
I got up and took a step toward him, but Wolfe shook his head at me. “No, Archie. Let me—”
I said, “Excuse me. There are times when you get mad and there are times when I get mad. I’ll make a concession. I was going to hit him and then talk, but I’ll talk first.”
I put my face fourteen inches from Barrett’s. “You. I am restraining myself. You have implied that this office has a stooling department. What evidence have you got to back that up? Talk like a man whether you are one or not. I warn you I’m mad. Have you got any evidence?”
“I … I didn’t mean—”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Are you sorry you said it?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say it to oblige me. I’d rather you refused to say it. You are sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Marshmallows,” I muttered, and went back to my chair.
Wolfe said, “You’ll have to learn to control that, Archie. Physical duress, unless carried to an intolerable extreme, is a miserable weapon.” He wiggled a finger at Barrett. “Not that I object to duress when it’s necessary, as it is now. It doesn’t matter what it was that moved Madame Zorka to tell you about her phone call to me; the fact is that she did so; nor does it matter what form of persuasion you used on her. It’s obvious that you hid her, or at least you know where she is, since it was you who got her to pack up and go—”
Barrett started off. I circled around him on the lope to head him off at the door. Wolfe snapped at his back:
“Come back here! Unless you want everyone sniffing on the trail of Bosnian forest concessions and Yugoslav credits—”
I admit that Wolfe’s form of duress was more effective than mine. Mine had made him eat a bite of crow, but Wolfe’s apparently drained him of his blood. Three steps from the door he stopped and stiffened, and his cheeks went pasty. He turned slowly then, to face Wolfe. I went back to my chair and sat and enjoyed looking at him.
He wet his lips with his tongue, twice. Then he moved, clear to the corner of Wolfe’s desk, and squeaked down at him: “What are you talking about? Do you know what you’re talking about?”
“Certainly. About banditry. A euphemism for it is international finance. In this case represented by the well-known firm of Barrett & De Russy.”
“And what about it?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I furnish no details, Mr. Barrett. You know them better than I do. The precise amount of the credits held by your firm, for instance, and the extent of its relations with the Donevitch gang. I don’t need to supply details in order to blackmail you, which is all I’m after. I merely want to see Madame Zorka, and I’m sure you’ll help me on that rather than have this Yugoslav foray exposed to a lot of disconcerting curiosity.”
Barrett, motionless and silent, gazed at him. Southwest of his ear, above the edge of his starched white collar, I could see the tendons on his neck standing out. Finally he squeaked again:
“Who are you working for?”
“For Miss Tormic.”
“I asked you, who are you working for? Rome?”
“I am working on a murder case. My client is Neya
Tormic. My only interest—”
“Oh, skip it. Do you think I’m a boob?” The international financier put the tips of eight fingers on the desk and gave them some weight. “Look here. I understand perfectly that no matter who you’re working for, you wouldn’t be tipping me off just for your health. If you’ll put this damn pet gorilla of yours on a leash, I’m quite willing to discuss details and terms—subject of course to consultation with my associates—”
“Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “I might have known it would make you ugly. Now how the devil am I going to convince you that my only concern is the welfare of my client?”
“I don’t know. If I were you I wouldn’t try.” Barrett’s voice had lost its squeak and assumed a tone that might have sold me on the idea he was really tough if I hadn’t already caught a glimpse of the yellow. “I don’t know how far you’re in, but I presume you know what you’re doing. If you do, I don’t need to tell you that it’s too dangerous a game for anybody to try any private hijacking.”
“I said blackmail.”
“All right, blackmail. Who are you selling out and what’s your price?”
I let it pass. If he was going to wholesale his insults, it would save trouble to wait till he was finished and then collect in a lump sum.
Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “Will you sit down, sir?”
“I’m all right standing.”
“Then please back up. I’m not comfortable with my head tilted. Now listen. Get it out of your head that I represent any interest, either friendly or hostile to you, in your Balkan enterprise. I don’t. Then, you wonder, how did I learn of it? What’s the difference? I did. Next you must somehow manage to believe that I do not want a slice of the loot. Incredible and even immoral as that must seem to a man of your instinct and training, I don’t. I want just one thing. I want you to conduct Mr. Goodwin to Madame Zorka, wherever you have put her, and he will bring her here. That’s all. Unless you do that, I shall send information at once, to three different quarters, of your firm’s projected raid on the property of the people of Yugoslavia. You know better than I do the sort of hullabaloo that would start. Don’t complicate matters by assuming for me a cupidity and corruption beyond the limits I have set for myself. You’re suffering from an occupational disease. When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn’t occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere. I beg you, understand that I want Madame Zorka and nothing else. Beyond that I do not and shall not represent any threat to you—unless, of course, it should turn out that it was you who murdered Percy Ludlow.”
Wolfe shifted his eyes to me. “Archie, I’m afraid there’s no help for it. Mr. Barrett will take you to Madame Zorka. You will bring her here.”
“What if she’s skipped town?”
“I doubt it. She can’t have got far. Take the roadster and go after her. Hang onto Mr. Barrett.”
“That’s the part I don’t like, hanging onto Barrett.”
“I know. You’ll have to put up with it. It may be only—” He switched to Barrett. “Where is she? How far away?”
The financier was standing there trying to concentrate, with his gaze fastened on Wolfe and his lips working. He made them function: “Damn you, if you let this out—”
Wolfe said curtly, “I’ve told you what I want, and that’s all I want. Where is she?”
“She’s—I think—not far away.”
“In the city?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Don’t try any tricks with Mr. Goodwin. They make him lose his temper.”
“I’m coming back with them. I want to talk—”
“No. Not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. Don’t let him in, Archie.”
“Okay.” I was on my feet. “For God’s sake, let’s step on it, or my bed will think I’m having an affair with the couch. I only wish I was.”
He didn’t like going, leaving Wolfe there within three feet of a telephone and all that intimate knowledge of Bosnian forests buzzing in his head, but I eased him into the hall and on out into the November night.
I had rather expected to find a Minerva town car waiting at the curb, considering his category, but there wasn’t anything there at all, and we had to hoof it to Eighth Avenue before we could ambush a taxi at that ungodly hour. We piled in, me last, and he told the driver Times Square.
As we jolted off I surveyed him disapprovingly. “Don’t tell me you left her standing on the sidewalk.”
Disregarding that, he twisted himself on the cushion to face me in a confidential manner. “See here, Goodwin,” he demanded, “you’ve got to help me. I’m in a bad hole. It wouldn’t have done any good to try to persuade Wolfe that I don’t know where Zorka is, because he was convinced that I do. But the fact is, I don’t know.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes. I’m in one hell of a fix. If you go back and say I told you I couldn’t take you to her because I don’t know where she is, he’ll do what he threatened to do.”
“He sure will. So I won’t go back and say that.”
“No, that wouldn’t do. If I couldn’t persuade him I don’t know, I can’t expect you to. But we could work it this way. We can drop in somewhere and have a couple of drinks. Then, say in half an hour or so, you go back and tell him I took you to an address—pick out any likely address—and we went in expecting to find Zorka and she wasn’t there. You can describe how astonished and upset I was—you know, make it vivid.”
“Sure, I’m good at that. But you haven’t—”
“Wait a minute.” The taxi swerved into 42nd Street, and he lurched against me and got straight again. “I know you’ll get the devil for going back without Zorka, but you can’t help that anyway, because I don’t know where she is. I wouldn’t expect you to help me out of this just for the hell of it. Why should you? You know? How about fifty dollars?”
I have never seen a worse case of briber’s itch.
I made a scornful sound. “Now, brother! Fifty lousy bucks with a big deal in international finance trembling in the balance? A century at least.”
The driver called back, “Which corner?”
Barrett told him to stop at the curb and leave his meter on. Then he stretched out a leg to get into his trouser pocket, and extracted a modest roll. “I don’t know if I happen to have that much with me.” He peered and counted in the dim light. Glancing through the window, I saw an old woman in a shawl headed for us with a box of chewing gum. I wouldn’t even have to leave the cab.
“I’ve got it,” Barrett said.
“Good. Gimme, please. I can concentrate on the details better with the jack in my jeans.”
He handed it over. Without bothering to count it, I shoved it through the window at the old woman and told her, “Here, grandma, two packets and keep the change.” She passed them in, took the currency and gave it a look, gave me a swift startled glance from bleary old eyes and shuffled off double-quick. I offered a packet of gum to Barrett and said, “Here, one apiece.”
Instead of taking it he sputtered, “You goddam lunatic!”
I shook my head. “Nope, wrong again. You sure do make a lot of mistakes, mister. That little gesture I just made, that wasn’t original—I first had the idea upstate in a cow barn and the beneficiary was a guy in overalls with a pitchfork.” I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth. “Maybe this will keep me awake. That’s enough horseplay and, besides, Mr. Wolfe is waiting. Lead me to Zorka.”
“Why you dirty cheap—”
“Oh, can it! What’s the address?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward to the driver. “Go to 48th Street, east of Lexington.”
He nodded and got in gear.
Barrett demanded, “What are you going to do? What are you going to Miltan’s for?”
“I left my car there. I’m going to get it a
nd drive it home, and tell Mr. Wolfe the sad news, and then, I suppose, help him until dawn with phone calls and so on. He never puts off till tomorrow what I can do today.”
“Do you mean to say that after taking my money and giving it to that hag—”
“I mean to say exactly that. Either you quit stalling and squirming and take me to Zorka, or I go back to Nero Wolfe and watch him throw the switch. I ought to be asleep right now. You claim you don’t know where Zorka is. My employer claims you do. I have no opinion. My mind is open, but I follow instructions blindly. Take me to Zorka or pop goes the weasel.”
The taxi bumped across Sixth Avenue and scooted ahead for Fifth, along Bryant Park. Nearing the library, he called to the driver: “Stop at the curb and leave the meter on.” As we rolled to a standstill I said, “You’d better keep the rest of your dough to pay the fare with.”
He sat and glared at me in silence. Finally he blurted, “Look here, I can’t take you to her. I can’t do that. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You wait right here, and I’ll take another cab and be back here with her inside of twenty minutes.”
I stared at him. “The reason I don’t talk,” I told him, “is because I’m speechless. Holy heaven!”
“What’s wrong with that? I give you my word—”
“I don’t want it. Cut the comedy and let’s go.”
He glared some more. I permitted it for a full minute and then got impatient. “I’ll count up to twenty-nine,” I said, “one for each year of my life and one to grow on and one to get married on, and then—”
“Wait a minute.” He was approaching the pleading stage. “The reason I can’t take you to her is a personal reason. I don’t intend to try any deception, I can’t. You know damn well the hole I’m in. What about this? You go with me to a phone booth, and I’ll call her up and tell her to meet us—”
I shook my head emphatically. “No. A thousand times no. Quit trying to wiggle off the hook. How do I know but what you’ve got a code with her to use in emergencies? Remember I’m ignorant. I don’t even know but what Wolfe has got it figured out that she killed Ludlow and, in that case—” I shrugged. “I’m only a puppet and I’m under orders. For God’s sake, shut up and let’s go.”
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