There was a knock at the door and Fritz entered. He advanced and spoke over a dick’s shoulder:
“Mr. Panzer, sir.”
“Tell him I’m engaged with Madame Zorka and Mr. Cramer.”
“I did so, sir. He said he would like to see you.”
“Send him in.”
Cramer bellowed, “So it was Donald Barrett that got you to take a powder—”
“Just a moment,” Wolfe begged him. “I think we’re getting a reinforcement.”
Nobody seeing Saul Panzer for the first time would have regarded him as a valuable reinforcement for anything whatever, but they would have been wrong. A lot of people had underrated him, and a lot of people had paid for it. He had left his old brown cap and coat in the hall and, as he stood there absorbing a couple of million details of the little group with one quick glance, everything about him looked insignificant but his big nose.
Wolfe asked him, “Results, Saul?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Definite?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Indeed. Let us have them.”
“I was going to bring her birth certificate along, but I thought that might make trouble, so I took a copy—”
He retreated a step, because Zorka had leaped to her feet, confronted him, and practically shrieked at him, “You didn’t! You couldn’t—”
A dick reached for her elbow and Cramer bawled, “Sit down!”
“But he—if he—”
“I said sit down!”
She backed up, stumbled on the other dick’s foot, recovered her balance, and dropped into her chair. Her shoulders sagged, and she sat that way.
Saul said, “I didn’t have to make any expenditures of the kind you contemplated, but I spent three dollars and ninety cents on a phone call. I thought it was justified.”
“No doubt. Go ahead.”
Saul took his step back. “First I went to Madame Zorka’s apartment. There were four city detectives there making a search, and the maid was sitting in a bedroom crying. I had already decided what to do if I found that, so I merely went in—”
He stopped, with a glance at Cramer and the dicks.
“Go on, don’t mind them,” Wolfe told him. “If it ruins a modus operandi for you, you’ll invent an even better one for next time.”
“Thank you, sir. I went in for a minute only, establishing a friendly basis, and got the maid to look at me. Then I went to Madame Zorka’s place of business on 54th Street. There were more city detectives there, but aside from that it didn’t look promising, and I decided to leave it as a last resort. From a certain source I got three leads on friends and associates, and I spent nearly four hours on that line, counting lunch, but got nothing at all.
“I then, at 2:15, returned to the apartment. I learned downstairs that two of the detectives were still there, so I waited until they left, which was at 2:35, and then went up. I rang the bell and the maid opened the door and I went in. On account of the impression created at my visit in the morning, she took it for granted that I was a city detective, though I did not say so. I merely went in and started searching—”
Cramer growled, “By God, impersonating—”
“Oh, no, Inspector.” Saul looked shocked. “I wouldn’t impersonate an officer. But I did suspect the maid made a mistake and took me for one, for otherwise she might have objected to my searching the place. I thought if she had it fixed in her mind that I was a city detective, she probably wouldn’t believe me anyway if I tried to tell her I wasn’t, so I didn’t try. And if you won’t regard it as impertinent, I’d like to compliment you on the job your men did. You would hardly know the place had been touched, the way they left things, and they must have gone through every inch. And the fact that they had been over it made it unnecessary for me to do any of the superficial things. I could concentrate on the long chance that there was some trick they had missed. It wasn’t much of a trick at that, only a false bottom in a leather hatbox. Underneath it I found her birth certificate and a few letters and things. I left it all there after taking a copy of the certificate, and then I went out to a phone booth and made a long distance call to Ottumwa, Iowa. To her mother. Just to make sure—”
Zorka blurted at him, “You—you phoned my mother …”
“Yes, ma’am, I did. It’s all right, I didn’t scare her or anything, I made it all right. Having found out from the birth certificate that your name is Pansy Bupp, and having read a letter—”
“What’s that?” Wolfe demanded. “Her name is what?”
“Pansy Bupp.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “P, A, N, S, Y, B, U, P, P. Her father is William O. Bupp. He runs a feed store. She was born at Ottumwa on April 9, 1912—”
“Give me that paper.”
Saul handed it over. Wolfe glared at it, ate it with his eyes, and transferred the glare to her, and it was one of the few times on record that I would have called his tone a snarl as he shot at her:
“Why?”
She snarled back, “Why what?”
“Why that confounded drivel? That imbecile flummery?”
She looked as if she would like to stick a knife through him. “What do you think would happen,” she demanded, “to a Fifth Avenue couturière if it came out that her name was Pansy Bupp?” Her voice rose to an indignant wail. “What do you think will happen?”
Wolfe, beside himself with fury, wiggled a whole hand at her. “Answer me!” he roared. “Is your name Pansy Bupp?”
“Yes.”
“Were you born in Ottumwa, Iowa?”
“Yes.”
“When did you leave there?”
“Why, I … I took trips to Denver—”
“I’m not speaking of trips to Denver! When did you leave there?”
“Two years ago. Nearly. My father gave me money for a trip to Paris—and I got a job there and learned to design—and I met Donald Barrett and he suggested—”
“Where did you get the name Zorka?”
“I saw it somewhere—”
“Have you ever been in Yugoslavia?”
“No.”
“Or anywhere in Europe besides Paris?”
“No.”
“Is what you said last night—about the reason for your phoning here and then running away to Miss Reade’s place—is that the truth?”
“Yes, it is. Like a fool, an utter fool”—she gulped—“I let my conscience bother me because it was murder. If I hadn’t done that, none of this …” She flung out her hands. “Oh, can it be—can’t this be—” Her chin was quivering.
“Miss Bupp!” Wolfe thundered. “Don’t you dare! Archie, get her out of here! Get her out of the house!”
“Zat weel be a plaizhoore,” I said.
Chapter 16
Wolfe looked up at the wall clock and said, “Ten minutes to four. I’ll have to leave you pretty soon to go up to my plants.”
We were comparatively peaceful again. The two dicks had departed with Miss Bupp, and Lieutenant Rowcliff had been phoned to expect her at headquarters for a little talk.
Cramer said, “It could be a frame, you know. We’ve tried some of her friends and associates too. We heard she was a Turk, a Hungarian, a Russian Jew, and maybe part Jap. It won’t hurt any to check it up.”
Wolfe shook his head, grimaced, and muttered, “Ottumwa, Iowa.”
“I guess so,” the inspector admitted. “Does that shove you off onto a siding?”
“No. It merely …” Wolfe shrugged.
“It merely leaves you still waiting at the station, huh?” Getting no answer, he regarded Wolfe a moment and then went on, “As far as I’m concerned, I’m still playing these. If you go up to your plants, I go along. If you go to the kitchen to mix salad dressing—”
“You don’t mix salad dressing in the kitchen. You do it at the table and use it immediately.”
“All right. No matter what you go to the kitchen for, I go too. It’s plainer than ever that you know where the kernel is in
this nut and I don’t. Take the fact of Donald Barrett chasing this Zorka Bupp away so we couldn’t get at her. I would get fat trying to put the screws on Donald Barrett, with both the commissioner and the district attorney having a bad attack of bashfulness. Wouldn’t I? But you don’t even waste time with Donald. You have his old man, John P., himself, coming right here and walking right into your office. That goes to show.”
Wolfe looked at me. “Archie. Find out if Theodore failed to understand that when I send a gentleman to look at orchids—”
Cramer snorted. “Don’t bother. I didn’t sneak downstairs and take a peek. Rowcliff told me on the phone that he had received a report that John P. Barrett had been seen entering this address at 2:55 this p.m.”
“Were you having Mr. Barrett followed?”
“No.”
“I see. You have a regiment watching this house.”
“I wouldn’t say a regiment. But I’ve said and I say again that right now I’m more interested in this house than any other building in the borough of Manhattan. If you want me out of it you’ll have to call the police. By the way, another thing Rowcliff told me, they’ve found Belinda Reade. She’s at a matinee at the Lincoln Theater. Do we want her in here?”
“I don’t.”
“Then I don’t either. The boys’ll take care of her. If she can account satisfactorily for—is that for me?”
I nodded, and vacated my chair for him to take another phone call. This was a comparatively short one. He emitted a few grunts and made a few unilluminating remaries, and hung up and returned to his chair. No sooner had I got back into mine than the house phone buzzed. As I pulled it over to me I heard Wolfe asking Cramer if there was anything new and the inspector replying that there was nothing worth mentioning and then, over the house phone, in response to my hello, Fred Durkin’s voice was in my ear.
“Archie? Come up here.”
I said with irritation, “Damn it, Fritz, I’m busy.” Then I waited a minute and said, “Okay, okay, quit running off your face,” and got up and beat it to the hall, shutting the door behind me. I went quickly but noiselessly up one flight of stairs, opened the door of Wolfe’s room, and entered. Fred Durkin was there on a chair beside the bed, within reach of the phone, where he had been instructed to place himself two hours previously.
He started to grumble, “This is one hell of a job—”
“Don’t crab, my boy. From each according to his ability. What is it, Lovchen?”
He nodded. “I didn’t call you when he got the report on Zorka, because he told them to bring her here, but—”
“What about Lovchen?”
“Her tail phoned in to headquarters.” Fred looked at a pad of paper he had scribbled on. “They followed her to Miltan’s this morning, and she left there at 10:53 and went back to 404 East 38th Street—”
“The hell she did. Anyone with her?”
“No, she was alone. She stayed in there only about ten minutes. At 11:15 she came out and went to Second Avenue and took a taxi. She got out at the Maidstone Building on 42nd Street. They were a little behind her as she entered the building, and she popped into an elevator just as the door was closing and they missed it. They couldn’t find out from the elevator boy what floor she got off at, and anyway, as you know and I know, that would be bad tailing because she could have taken to the stairs and gone up or down. There are four different rows of elevators to watch in that building, and they were afraid to leave to go to a phone, but just now a cop passed by and they flagged him and had him send in a report. They’re sure she hasn’t left the building and they want help because the rush hour will be on at five o’clock.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s the crop.”
I made a face. “And Cramer, the louse, said there was no news worth mentioning! He’s going upstairs with Wolfe, to the roof. When you hear the elevator go up, you go down to the office and stay there. Take all calls. If anybody comes, tell Wolfe on the house phone. Write out a report of what you’ve told me, and add to it that I’ve gone to the Maidstone Building, and send it up to Wolfe by Fritz. If I call in and there’s anyone in the office, use code. Got it?”
“I’ve got it, but why not let me go—”
“No, my boy, this is a job for a master.”
I left him there. Descending the stairs as fast as I could without making a hubbub, I went to the kitchen and told Fritz:
“Go to the office and tell Wolfe the goose hasn’t been delivered and you’ve sent me to the Washington Market for it. Tell him I protested and complain bitterly of the language I used. That is for the benefit of Inspector Cramer. Fred has the low-down. Got it?”
“Yes,” Fritz hissed.
I left by way of the front hall, grabbing my hat and coat. Outside was no regiment, but there was a dick on the sidewalk not far from the stoop, and another one across the street, and a taxi was parked fifty yards east. Not to mention Cramer’s police car, there nosing the hind end of my roadster. I climbed in the roadster and started the engine, called to Cramer’s chauffeur, “Follow me to the scene of the crime!” and rolled. I didn’t go far, only around the corner and a couple of blocks on Tenth Avenue, and then stopped at the curb, locked the ignition, got out, and stopped the first taxi that came along. I waited a minute to see either the police car or the taxi if they turned in from 35th Street, but apparently my invitation hadn’t been accepted, so I hopped in and told the driver 42nd and Lexington.
Entering the marble lobby of the fifty-story Maidstone Building, I felt fairly sappy. I had come because Wolfe had instructed me that if Fred copped any news about Carla Lovchen I was to follow it up, and the only way I could follow it up was to go there. I felt sappy because, observing the extent and complications of the lobby, with the four banks of elevators and the twisting crowds, not to mention such things as stairways and possibly basement exits, it seemed good for even money that she had moved out and on; and also, even if she hadn’t, I stood a fat chance of grabbing her and getting away with her under the circumstances. Apparently the tails had already got their reinforcements; I had easily spotted three of them on one quick survey. It was obvious that the lobby was no place for me, even if she walked out of an elevator right into my arms.
I had had one feeble idea on my way up in the taxi, and I proceeded to use that up. The building directory ward was in two sections, on two sides of the lobby, me A to L and the other M to Z. I tackled the first ection and went over it thoroughly, a name at a time, hoping for a hint or a hunch. I got neither, and moved across to the second section, and there, nearing the end, I saw WHEELER & DRISCOLL 3259. It looked slim, but I went to the information booth and told the guy, “I’m looking for a tenant and don’t know his firm. Nat Driscoll. Or maybe instead of Nat, Nathaniel.”
He opened his book with weary hands and looked at it with weary eyes and said in a weary voice, “Driscoll, Nathaniel, 3259, thirty-second floor, elevators on the—”
I was gone. My heart had started to pump. I love the feeling of a hunch.
I got out at the thirty-second and walked half a mile, around three corners, to 3259. The lettering on the door said:
WHEELER & DRISCOLL
IMPORTERS AND BROKERS
I opened the door and went in, and right away, even in the anteroom, found myself in the midst of prosperity, judging by the rugs and furniture and the type of employee displayed. She was the kind who without any visible effort conveys the impression that she got a job in an office only because she was fed up with yachting and riding to hounds. Not wanting to frighten anyone into scooting out of any other Wheeler & Driscoll doors into the public corridor, I told her:
“My name is Goodwin and I would like to see Mr. Nathaniel Driscoll.”
“Have you an appointment?”
“Nope, I just dropped in. Have you heard about the diamonds? The ones he thought had been stolen from him?”
“Oh, yes.” Her lip twitched. “Yes, indeed.”
“Tell him my na
me is Goodwin and Miss Tormic sent me to see him. I represent Miss Tormic.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Driscoll isn’t in.”
“Has he gone home?”
“He hasn’t been here this afternoon.”
In the first place, my hunch was still alive and kicking, and in the second place, she wasn’t a good liar, even with a common conventional lie like that. I got out my memo pad and wrote on it:
If you don’t want the cops busting in here in about two minutes looking for your fencing teacher, let’s have a little talk. And for God’s sake, don’t let her show her face in the hall.
A.G
I grinned at the employee to show there was no hard feeling, and indeed there wasn’t. “May I have an envelope?”
She got one and handed it to me, and I inserted the note and licked the flap and sealed it. “Here,” I said, “take this to Mr. Driscoll, there’s a good girl, and don’t argue. Do I look like a man who would come all this way to see him unless I knew he was here?”
Without saying a word, she pressed a button. A boy entered from a door at the left, and she gave him the envelope and told him to deliver it to Mr. Driscoll’s desk. I said, “Deliver it to him,” and then, as the boy disappeared, I went to the entrance door and opened it and stood there where I could see the hall in both directions. There were several passers-by, but no sign of any frantic dash for freedom. I must have stood there all of three minutes before I saw, about fifty feet down the hall, the top of a head and then a pair of eyes protruding beyond the edge of a door jamb. I called in a tone of authority:
“Hey, back in there!”
The head disappeared. It had not shown again when I heard the employee’s voice calling my name. I turned. The boy was there holding a door open. He said, “This way, sir,” and I followed him into an inner corridor and past three doors to one at the end, which he opened.
The room I entered was at least five times as big as the anteroom and six times as prosperous. I realized that in my one swift glance as I started to where Nat Driscoll stood at the corner of a large and elegant desk, telling him: “If you sneaked her out while I was coming in here, the cops will have her inside of a minute.”
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