“Got it,” Lon said grimly.
“Okay, here’s the picture, at least as much of it as I have: We have a client—name, Walter Cortland. The guy’s a political science prof at Prescott and was a disciple of Markham’s. And fiercely loyal to Markham, at least to hear him tell it.
“Anyway, Cortland called last Monday and came to see us Tuesday, saying he was sure Markham had been helped over the edge of that poor-man’s Grand Canyon on the campus. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—nominate anybody as the shover, though. To make a long story short, I’ve been up to Prescott three times, and Wolfe has even been there himself, and—”
“Wolfe went to Prescott?” Lon wheezed in disbelief.
“Don’t interrupt—it’s impolite. Yes, the man himself got a taste of contemporary college life, and discovered, incredible as I know it must sound, that he likes the brownstone better. To continue, we talked to a number of people up there, including Gretchen Frazier. She was a student of Markham’s, as this morning’s Times points out, and it’s also highly possible that their relationship was something more than just teacher and pupil. Several of the others we talked to were considerably less enthusiastic about him. As you recall, when I asked you about him a few days ago, you said he had a reputation for being irascible, contentious, and not exactly popular with other faculty members. With the exception of one woman in the History Department, your report seems accurate based on our experience.”
“It would be a woman,” Lon remarked. “I’m not surprised, given his supposed reputation with the ladies.”
“Uh-huh. At this point, Wolfe is mulling the situation over, at least I like to tell myself he is, but if he’s getting ready to throw a net over someone, he isn’t sharing it with me.”
“That’s it?” Lon asked.
“That’s it for now. Film at eleven.”
“Very funny. Okay, Archie, I’m good for my word—you know that. But when something happens, remember your old poker-playing buddy.”
“How could I forget? The way I figure it, through the years, my contributions have probably paid for that knockout white fur I saw your wife wearing last winter.” Lon answered with a word best omitted from this report, and I hung up, turning back to the Times piece on Gretchen, which I scissored out of the paper and slipped into the top center drawer of my desk. No sooner had I finished than the phone rang. It was Cortland, who sounded even more breathless than Lon.
“Mr. Goodwin, I’ve just returned home from police headquarters,” he huffed. “They telephoned me early this morning and requested my presence—demanded it, actually. I asked if I could defer the visit until afternoon, but the man on the other end was adamant. He said someone could come for me in a car, and I told him, ‘No thank you.’ After all, who wants a police vehicle pulling up in front of their house, especially with the meddlesome neighbors I’ve got? So I went on foot—it’s only a little over four blocks. And do you know what transpired when I got there?”
“Sure. They grilled you.”
“What? Oh—grilled. Interrogated. Yes, that’s just what they did. And none too nicely, I’d like to tell you. There were two of them, a lieutenant named Powers and another cretin, and they bombarded me with a lot of rude questions about Gretchen Frazier and Hale. They even asked me if I’d ever been…involved with Gretchen, if you can conceive such outrageous effrontery!”
“Had you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t find that the least bit humorous, Mr. Goodwin. The answer, of course, is no. The police also insisted on ascertaining where I was yesterday at the time they calculate that poor girl went into the Gash. I told them the truth, of course—that I was home alone.”
Academics seem to spend a lot of time at home alone—when they’re not bumping one another off. “When did they say that was?”
“Lieutenant Powers declared it was sometime between five-thirty and when she was found. I was at home every bit of that time.”
“How did you find out last night that she had died?”
“I received a call around eight-thirty or so from Orville Schmidt. He said he had just learned from somebody, Campus Security, I believe it was. It’s incredible how speedily word flies in a place like Prescott. Anyway, he said he was calling each faculty member in the department to tell them personally. He seemed understandably appalled and said this would be horrific for the department and the university.”
“Sounds like Leander Bach,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing. What else did the police ask you?”
“What didn’t they ask? They were obsessed in their desire to know how well Hale and Gretchen knew each other. As much as the question offended me, I said I thought she admired him as a great teacher and he was excited by her intellectual potential—both of which I firmly believe constituted the total basis of their friendship. They asked if Hale had enemies on campus, and I said I was aware of none, beyond the usual petty jealousies.”
“Did you tell them about the feuds with Schmidt and Greenbaum? And the business with Potter and Bach over the bequest to the school?”
“I did,” he said after several seconds. “Although they already knew about the Bach brouhaha because of all the commotion it generated at the time.”
“How did the police leave things after they finished talking to you?”
“They told me to be available in the event that they needed to talk to me again. And they weren’t very polite about that, either, I might add.”
“Murder, or even the suspicion of murder, tends to make cops feisty,” I said, “whether they’re in New York or New Paltz. I wouldn’t be too hard on them.”
“They behaved rudely—boorishly,” Cortland whimpered, “and I can’t forgive that in anyone, let alone public employees. Our taxes are what pay their salaries, after all.”
“I’m sure they get reminded of that often enough. But back to the subject at hand: Mr. Wolfe is at work, believe me. I’m confident that he’s on the brink of solving this thing, and I’ll keep you apprised of every development.”
Cortland sounded doubtful as we said good-bye, and for that matter I was pretty doubtful myself. Lying to clients always bothered me for at least fifteen minutes after I did it, which probably reflects my small-town, middle-class Ohio origins.
If I had told Cortland the truth, it probably would have sounded something like this: “I’m terribly sorry, but Mr. Wolfe at present is not in the proper frame of mind to do any thinking about the problem for which you have engaged him and are paying handsomely. He has his orchids to worry about, and his reading—he’s plowing through three books right now—and his crossword puzzles, not to mention the time he is forced to spend overseeing our chef, Mr. Brenner, to ensure that the proper types and amounts of seasonings and sauces are added to the gourmet dishes that comprise such a big part of Mr. Wolfe’s life. So you can see that this doesn’t leave a lot of time for detecting, which after all is something Mr. Wolfe only dabbles in, despite its being his primary source of income. I ask your patience in this matter, and I can assure you that Mr. Wolfe will get back to work on your problem soon, quite possibly as early as next week, but certainly no later than the week after that.”
I was still mentally composing this spiel when Wolfe walked into the office at two minutes after eleven, eased his bulk into the desk chair after wishing me a curt good morning, and started in on the mail, which as usual I’d placed on his blotter. He was halfway through the stack when the doorbell rang.
I went to the hall and, seeing a familiar face through the one-way glass panel, returned to the office. “Cramer,” I said. “Should I let him in?” Wolfe nodded and turned back to the mail.
“Hello, Inspector. What a surprise,” I said, swinging the door open. “Nice morning, isn’t it?”
“It’ll do,” he rumbled, barreling past me as he always does and making straight for the office. In all the years I’ve known Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department’s homicide detail, I can almost never remember his hanging up hi
s overcoat or even handing it to me to hang up. I would have accused him of imitating Peter Falk except that he was around long before Columbo came along. Besides, whatever else I might say about Cramer, he is his own man and doesn’t feel the need to imitate anybody, least of all a television cop.
“Good morning, Inspector,” Wolfe said as Cramer let his 190 pounds drop in the red leather chair and took a cigar from his overcoat pocket. “I’m about to have beer. Will you join me?”
“Too early,” he gruffed, chewing on the unlit stogie. “I’ll only be a minute. I got a call first thing this morning from the police chief in Prescott—name’s Hobson, as I guess you know. He claims we met at a law enforcement conference years ago, although I sure as hell don’t remember it. He wanted to know all about you.”
“And?” Wolfe raised his eyebrows.
“He said you and Goodwin had been up in Prescott investigating that professor’s death,” Cramer snorted. “I said I didn’t believe him—that there was no way you’d be caught that far from the city, but he insisted it was you and described you to the letter. Then I told him I’d known you for more years than I care to count, that you’re one shrewd cookie, that you’ve figured out a lot of tough cases, and that sometimes I trust you, sometimes I don’t. I also told him that when you give your word on something, it can be taken to the bank, but you’re as mule-headed as anybody he’d ever find.”
“Mr. Cramer, I have always admired your candor,” Wolfe said, pouring beer into a glass from one of the two bottles Fritz had just set in front of him.
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t come over here just to butter you up,” Cramer muttered, gesturing with his cigar. “The way I read it, what with this client of yours that Hobson told me about, you’re getting ready to nail somebody for giving the big push to both the professor and the girl. Okay, that’s your affair and technically it belongs to those folks up in Orange County. But I’ve been around you long enough to know that whenever you hold one of your overblown charades and gather everybody in this room for the big moment, the murderer is always sitting there along with everybody else. So whether or not you ask any police from Prescott to come, this is part of my turf, and I intend to be right here.” Cramer jabbed his chest with his finger and bit into his cigar as if it were a medium-rare filet.
“If such an event occurs, you assuredly will be invited,” Wolfe said, turning a palm over. “I wouldn’t think of omitting you—or Sergeant Stebbins—from the guest list.”
Cramer eyed Wolfe suspiciously, took one last chew of the battered panatela, and slowly got to his feet. “I just can’t believe you went to Prescott,” he said, shaking his head. “Were you unconscious all the way up and back?”
I’m happy to report that Wolfe ignored that cheap shot and reached for the mail again while Cramer turned on his heel and marched out to the front hall with me close behind. “You may have hurt Mr. Wolfe’s feelings with your last comment,” I said to his back, but got no answer as he stalked out and went down our front steps to the unmarked car at the curb.
“Nice of Cramer to stop by, eh?” I said back in the office. “Like old times.” Wolfe grunted and I filled him in on the earlier calls from Lon and Cortland. He finished perusing the mail and looked up. “Is Mr. Cortland where he can be reached?”
“I can try,” I shrugged. “You want him now?”
Wolfe nodded and I dialed his office number, getting my favorite new girlfriend. “Yes, he’s here, Mr. Goodman,” she chirped, instantly recognizing my voice, which warmed my heart. “Hold on please.”
I signaled to Wolfe, who picked up his receiver while I stayed on the line. “Mr. Cortland, this is Nero Wolfe—” Before he could get any more out, Cortland loudly bemoaned his morning at the police station, railing at the manners and methods of Prescott’s finest. He was in good form, I had to admit. Wolfe made a face as he listened, mouthing an occasional sympathetic word. “Sir,” he said after our client had finally wound down, “if I may presume on your time for just a few moments, I have a question: Was Mr. Markham a reader of fiction?”
“Hale? Almost never,” Cortland said. “He thought it was a waste of time. So do I, for that matter. In fact, now that you mention it, I can’t ever remember hearing him talk about a novel. Why in the world do you ask?”
Wolfe ducked the question and thanked him, cradling the receiver and leaning back in his chair, eyes closed. I knew what was coming before it started, don’t ask me how—maybe I’ve just been around him so long that I unconsciously pick up the signals. After about a minute, it began—his lips pushing out and in, out and in. I never know where he is at these times and I doubt if he knows himself. Because I’ve gotten into the habit through the years, I timed him as he sat there doing the lip drill. After a few seconds more than twenty-two minutes by my watch, he opened his eyes, blinked twice, and sat up straight. “Confound it, let’s be done with this,” he grumbled. “Get all of them here.”
“You mean right now?”
“Tonight will be soon enough. I suggest nine o’clock.”
“Oh, what a relief—then there’ll be no problem. After all, that’s almost ten hours away. But will you be kind enough to define ‘all of them’ for me?”
“I would have thought that patently obvious,” he said dryly. “Messrs. Potter, Greenbaum, Schmidt, and Bach, and Mrs. Moreau. And our client, of course. Also, that cretinous police chief from Prescott.”
“So you are inviting the billionaire. You realize that means you’ll also be getting his personal assistant in the package?”
Wolfe nodded, returning to the beer he’d abandoned during his séance.
“And you promised Inspector Cramer a seat at the proceedings, too.”
“I will call Mr. Cramer,” Wolfe replied. “After lunch is soon enough.”
“Assuming everybody shows up, this place is going to be more crowded than a room filled with Johnny Carson’s guest hosts.”
“I have absolute confidence in your ability to work out the logistics.” Wolfe turned to an orchid growers’ magazine. I picked up on that signal, too—it meant the discussion was officially over, but that was all right with me, because things were about to get interesting.
TWENTY
AFTER GETTING MY MARCHING ORDERS, I turned immediately to the telephone and started in to deliver on those orders. I caught Cortland in his office just as he was leaving for lunch. “Mr. Wolfe is going to make an announcement here tonight,” I told him. “You’re invited, of course, and so are Potter, Schmidt, Greenbaum, and Mrs. Moreau.”
“What information is he going to impart?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Except that I think it’s fair to say you’ll all want to hear it.”
“May I please speak with Mr. Wolfe?” he asked, the peevishness still in his voice.
“Sorry, he’s not available right now.” Okay, so that’s twice in this narrative that I’ve lied to a client. There was a long pause at the other end.
“All right,” Cortland sighed, “I’ll be present.”
“Think you can get the others?”
Another pause. “I drew them together once for you—isn’t that sufficient?”
“Look, Mr. Cortland, you wanted Mr. Wolfe to take this case—begged him, in fact, through me. And now it looks like you just might be getting some results. It seems to me you’d want to do everything you could to help things along. After all, you are the client.”
Yet another pause followed by another sigh. “You’re right,” he finally said. “And I am happy to learn of progress. It’s just that my colleagues here are highly irritated with me by now, as I’m sure you can appreciate. But I’ll ask them—in fact, I will probably be encountering at least some of them over in the Union at lunch.”
As a sign-off I gave him a few words of encouragement and told him to let me know the results, then swiveled to face Wolfe. “I don’t know if you heard that or not, but Cortland’s trying to round up the college crowd. Should I invite his eminence the
police chief of Prescott, or would you prefer to do the honors?”
Wolfe set his book down and scowled. “You do it. If he balks, I’ll get on the line.”
A female voice answered at the Prescott police station, and when I told her I wanted to talk to Chief Hobson, she put me through without even bothering to ask my name. There were some advantages to dealing with small-town institutions after all.
“Carl Hobson,” he answered gruffly.
“Mr. Hobson, this is Archie Goodwin. You recall we met the other day. I’m calling for Mr. Wolfe, who is inviting you to a meeting at his house in New York tonight at nine o’clock. He plans to—”
“Me? Come to New York? What the hell kind of a game is this?”
I started to say that he plans to name the murderer of both Hale Markham and Gretchen Frazier, and—
“Goddamn it, let me talk to Wolfe!”
I cupped the receiver. “He would very much like to speak to you,” I told Wolfe. “And he’s not being a gentleman about it.”
Wolfe gave me one of his looks of resignation and picked up his instrument. “Yes, Mr. Hobson?” he said nonchalantly.
“What is this claptrap about a meeting at your place to name a murderer?”
“Mr. Goodwin described it accurately. I thought you would relish the opportunity to be present.”
“Inspector Cramer told me about your methods, Mr. Wolfe. Things down in New York may be run casually, but we don’t operate that way in Prescott. Whatever it is you plan to say tonight, you can spit it out right now.”
“No, sir, that won’t work. What I have to say I will say here—and only here—tonight.”
“If you think I’m going to drive all the way down there—and to a meeting about possible homicides, in a private home at that—you’re badly mistaken,” Hobson snarled.
“Suit yourself, sir,” Wolfe said. “Whether you come or not, law enforcement will be represented in the person of Inspector Cramer.”
Hobson swore and then cupped his receiver while he talked to someone else. I couldn’t make out any of it. “What’s your address?” he barked when he came back on the line. Wolfe told him and the chief growled that he would see if he could arrange to come.
The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 3) Page 17