by Stout, Rex
Noel Ferris stretched, yawned, muttered, "Give me the sun," and came and sat. Martha Kirk went and got cups. Tammy Baxter said, "You have made history, Mr. Goodwin," and pulled up a chair. Dell sank onto one where it was, took an orange from the pocket of his gown, and started peeling it.
"I apologize," I told them. "I don't know what 'flagitious' means, in fact I didn't know it was pronounced like that, but I admit it's monstrous. My excuse is that I wanted to get here before any of you went out."
"More coffee?" Martha Kirk asked me. Looking up at her, from an angle, the dimple seemed a little off-center, but it wasn't.
"I believe I will, thanks." I wanted to be one of them.
"It had better be good," Noel Ferris drawled. His lazy brown eyes were only half open. "Good heavens! I hope you're not going to evict us?"
I would have liked to tell him it would be a pleasure to evict a man who answered the phone by asking who is this. "No," I said, "for that I would need a badge and I'm strictly private." I took a sip of coffee. "I just want to settle a little matter. Why I phoned yesterday and asked for Miss Annis, I had seen her and talked with her. She had come to see Nero Wolfe, but he was busy, and she was coming back at a quarter past eleven. She
never came, and I wondered why. When I phoned of course I didn't know she had been killed."
"You asked for Miss Baxter," Ferris said.
"Yeah. I knew she lived here. I had met her somewhere. Later, when I learned what had happened to Miss Annis, I thought over what she had told me, and on account of something she had said, something she had told me was confidential, I wanted to take a look at her effects. I wanted to know what to do about what she had told me in confidence. So I came, and was talking with Miss Baxter when we were interrupted. And here I am again. I'm going to glance through Miss Annis' things, her papers mostly. Did she have a desk somewhere?"
"A good idea." Ferris yawned. "Go to it. Second floor front. If you find a will leaving the house to Ray Dell we'll be fixed for life."
"That's brutal," Martha Kirk said. "The poor woman isn't even in her grave yet."
"She left nothing to me," Dell rumbled. "She regarded me as a sloven. All my eloquence couldn't persuade her that orange peel, as it dries in a waste basket, gives a scent pleasant to a discriminating nose."
"She was right," Martha declared. "It smells terrible."
"Is it all right to do that?" Paul Hannah asked me. "Go through her things? Isn't there a law about it?"
"If there is," Ferris said, "he should break it. We all should, in her memory. She hated cops."
"I won't be breaking any law," I assured them, "unless I pinch something, and I'm not going to. Of course the strictly proper thing would be to get permission from the executor of the estate, but who is it? Do any of you know?"
They didn't.
"Has anyone been here officially? Someone claiming to be an heir? Or a lawyer?"
They said no. "Hattie was a relict," Raymond Dell declared. "The last of her line. It is my belief that she was without kith or kin--unless we are to be considered her kith. That appeals to me." He thumped his chest. "Raymond Dell, of the kith of Hattie Annis. May I have a napkin, Martha?"
Tammy Baxter spoke for the first time since she had told me I had made history. "You may not find what you're looking for, Mr. Goodwin. That police sergeant was in Miss Annis' room for more than an hour last night after he finished with us. He may have taken it.
"Which suggests a question," Ferris said. He put his cup down. "You're a detective, you ought to know everything. Why the inquisition? Why are we beset? Why did that bloodhound tell us not to leave the jurisdiction? What is the jurisdiction? Why did Hattie go to see Nero Wolfe? What did she tell you in confidence? What do you expect to find among her papers?"
"That's seven questions," I protested. "Have a heart."
"They're damn good questions," Paul Hannah said. He was at the range again. "I'd like to ask them myself. I think we all would. Especially the first two. As far as we know, Hattie was crossing the street and got hit by a goon who had stolen a car." His chubby cheeks were flushed. "Why don't they find him and cut off his hands and feet? What have we got to do with it?"
I shook my head. "Search me. That's not my territory. As for what Miss Annis told me in confidence, now that she's dead it may be that I ought to tell it, and that's what I want to find out. Specifically, about the package she left with me--a little package wrapped in brown paper. She didn't tell me what was in it. I don't want to slander the dead, but from something she said I got the notion that it might have belonged to one of you and she had swiped it. Are any of you minus such a package? Or anything that could be put in such a package?"
"That's horrible," Martha Kirk said. "To accuse Hattie of stealing!"
"He's not accusing her. Martha darling," Ferris told her. "He's eliminating. Detectives spend practically all their time eliminating."
"Could it be a book?" Raymond Dell asked. "My Tamburlaine is gone."
"It's not the right shape for a book," I said. "Six inches by three and two inches thick."
"Where is it?" Tammy Baxter asked.
"In my overcoat pocket." I sent my eyes around. "Oh, I left it in the parlor."
"Well, for heaven's sake." Martha Kirk turned her hands up--a dancer's hands. "I'm not a detective, but when I want to know what's in a package I open it. Shall I bring it?"
"No, thank you, Miss Kirk. Miss Annis told me not to open it. She's dead, but as far as I'm concerned it's still her property. Unless you want to claim it?"
"Me? Why should I? It's not mine."
"Miss Baxter?"
Tammy shook her head. "No."
"Mr. Dell?"
"I am minus nothing." He had finally finished the orange. "Nothing but my illusions, my ambitions, and my hopes. They could not be contained in the package you describe."
"Mr. Ferris?"
His eyes were still only half open. "How can I claim it unless I know what's in it?"
"Have you missed anything recently?"
"No. Not even an illusion."
"Mr. Hannah?"
He shook his head. "I guess we're all eliminated. Why, did Hattie tell you it belonged to one of us?"
"No, it was just a notion I got. --By the way, Mr. Dell, that remark you made yesterday about snooping. I snoop only within reason. I could have opened the package and tried whatever is in it for fingerprints. If I found some I could have come and got hold of samples from you people--for instance, from the coffee cups. That would have been snooping. Instead, I just came and asked you." I pushed my chair back and stood. "I apologize again for coming before breakfast, and many thanks for the coffee and the cooperation. You said second floor front, Mr. Ferris?"
"Correct. One flight up. If you find a will leaving it to anyone but us or one of us, burn it."
"I'll do that." I went.
I took my time mounting the stair, trying each step for creaks, in case developments called for silent descent. The fifth from the top didn't creak but it croaked unless you stepped on the inside end. The upper hall had three doors, one toward each end and one about the middle. The one at the rear end was standing open -Raymond Dell's, since he had told Stebbins that his room was above the kitchen. The one in the middle was shut; probably a closet. The one at the front was also shut, and I went and opened it and entered. There was a massive walnut bed, a big old rolltop desk, a worn and faded carpet with big flowers, some chairs; and a hundred or so pictures of men and women all over the walls, most of them in costume, and all of them actors from a mile off.
Of course staying there was no good; I might as well have stayed at home. A floor and ceiling were between me and the parlor, and if he or she took the bait quick, on leaving the kitchen, he could be in and out of the parlor without my hearing or seeing a thing. There was no place to lurk in the lower hall. Only one place would do. I left, closed the door, went to the landing, and listened. Voices came up, dominated by the boom of Raymond Dell. With that for cover I descended
, remembering the fifth step, saw that the hall was clear, made the door to the parlor, opened it, entered, and shut the door gently.
There were three possibilities: a closet if there was one, the upright piano at the right wall, and the sofa itself. One of the other two doors was probably a closet, but I wanted a better view than a keyhole, and with the blinds down there wasn't much light. To be covered by the sofa I would have had to shift its angle. The thought struck me that one of them might already have dived in and out again, and I felt the pocket of my coat. Still there. I went and huddled at the end of the piano, squeezing into the corner, and decided it would do. It would have to. If he looked around first it would cramp my style, but anyhow there would be something to discuss. I straightened up, listened to my ears, and kept an eye on two doors, since the one at the far corner might be to a passage to the kitchen. It was so dark that I could barely see the hands of my wrist watch. 9:42.
I might have been able to hear their voices, at least Dell's, if it hadn't been for the street sounds. Morning cross-town traffic in the Forties can be heard even when it can't be seen. So I quit trying. I learned later that the historic gathering I had assembled soon broke up, but the only sign I got was footsteps in the hall a couple of times. They went on by. I was rubbing one eye and beginning to think he wasn't going to bite, that I had wasted a lot of typewriter paper and carefully selected items from Fritz's hoard of paper and string, when the door to the hall started to open, and I squeezed into the corner fast.
V
He certainly wasn't noisy. I have good ears, but the door closing was just a faint whisper, and so was his crossing to the sofa. But when a package is a tight fit in a pocket it isn't easy to get it out with no noise at all, especially if you're in a hurry, and I heard that, which was the main point. I moved and spoke: "Did you want me?"
It wasn't he, it was she, and she was quick. She made a dash for the door and got there before I did, but it opened in, and of course that was hopeless. I was against it before she had the knob turned. "You rat," she said, not too loud.
I stretched an arm to reach for the wall switch and turned on the light. "I admit I'm surprised," I said. "If I had made book on it you would have been at the bottom."
"You lied," she said. "Yesterday. You said she hadn't been there."
"Sure. Because she might have had reasons for not wanting you to know. Apparently she did."
"She did not! She told me she was going!" "Maybe. Or maybe you followed her. Anyway, the point isn't why I lied, it's why you sneaked in and snitched that package." I put out a hand. "I'll take it."
She backed up a step. "You will not. It's not yours, it's hers. That's why I came and got it. You have no right to it!"
"Have you?"
"As much as you have. More. This is her house. It belongs here."
I shot out a hand, grabbed her wrist, whirled her off balance, and with the other hand got the package.
"Coward," she said. "If I were a man..."
"I wish you were. For instance, Noel Ferris. I don't like the way he answers the phone. Look, Miss Baxter. I may be a rat and a coward, but I'm not a goof. If you felt that I had no right to the package because it belongs here, why didn't you say so? The three men could have held me while you came and got it, or at least they could have tried. But you sneaked in when the coast was clear, or you thought it was. Of course you knew I would miss it, so the point was that I wouldn't know who had taken it. Why?"
"I'm a woman," she said.
"Right. No argument. And?"
"I'm a woman, that's all." She put out a hand and was going to touch me but let it drop. "You have a reputation for knowing all about women, Mr. Good- win."
"And..."
"And I act like one. Calling you a rat and a coward, that was silly. Of course I know you're not, I know you're a very smart man, and you're honorable and anything but a coward." She put her hand out again, and that time touched my arm. "It's just that I think I may know something about what's in the package on account of what Hattie told me yesterday morning. She said she was going to take it to Nero Wolfe. You say she left it with you and told you something in confidence. If you ask me why I sneaked in here and took it, can't I ask you why you set a trap? Why you told us it was here in your pocket and then sneaked in and hid?"
She talked too much. I had caught her in the very act, and she was turning it into a debating match. I decided to give her a test. "We could keep this up all day," I said. "I'll call Purley Stebbins, the police sergeant who was here yesterday, and he'll come or we'll go and see him. Let him decide about the package. Where's the phone?"
That did it, and I should have been tickled but wasn't. I believe I haven't mentioned that the idea had occurred to me at our first meeting that it might be interesting to know her better, to learn about such details as her table manners and her reactions to dance music, and a girl is not available for that kind of investigation if she is in the coop on a murder charge. Even before she spoke, the expression on her face was a big hint.
She spoke. "I'd rather not," she said. "Hattie hated cops."
"Hattie is dead."
"Yes, but..." She touched my arm. "You said yourself it's still her property and she certainly wouldn't want us to give it to the police. She trusted me, didn't she? When she told me she was going to see Nero Wolfe? Can't you trust me, Mr. Goodwin? Don't you think I'm fit to be trusted?"
I skipped that. She was unquestionably a woman. "All right," I said, "there's an alternative. I'm not too fond of cops myself. We'll go and put it up to Nero Wolfe. Get your coat and hat."
She considered it, twisting her mouth, her head tilted, regarding me. "You won't give me the package if I promise to come later?"
"Of course not."
"All right. I'll go. My coat's up in my room."
I opened the door and she passed through and headed for the stairs. Since I would have at least six minutes, the world record minimum for a human female to get a coat and put it on, I thought I might as well take a look at Hattie Annis' desk, so I went up. The door was standing open, and Paul Hannah appeared on the sill as I approached.
"Oh, there you are," he said. "I was thinking about those questions Ferris asked. You didn't answer them."
"I made a stab at it." I entered and crossed to the desk. The top was rolled up, the pigeonholes were stuffed full, and stacks of papers and magazines and miscellaneous items left no room on the surface. It would have taken an hour for a quick once-over or four hours for a real job, not counting the drawers. I pulled out the contents of a pigeonhole. "Which question especially?" I asked.
"All of them. I don't get any of it."
"I'm not sure I do. That's why I'm snooping. I'll let you know if I find anything that helps."
"I won't be here. I'm leaving for the theatre. Rehearsal."
"Good luck and don't trip on anything. If Clement Brod's around give him my regards."
He said he would, and went. Opening the six drawers of the desk, none of them locked, and finding that they were stuffed too, I went back to the surface and pigeonholes. There were theatre programs, newspaper clippings, pictures cut out of magazines, cancelled checks--something of everything except letters. Not a single letter. My watch told me that the six minutes had stretched to ten, which was surely enough, when Tammy Baxter's voice came: "Mr. Goodwin! Where are you?"
She was below, at the foot of the stairs, in the same fur coat and fuzzy little turban as the day before. I descended and got my coat and hat from the parlor and put the package in the pocket, and we left, heading west. She was a good woman walker, neither trotting nor jiggling. When we had flagged a taxi on Ninth Avenue and I had climbed in after her and given the hackie the address, I asked, "Do you drive a car?"
"Certainly," she said. "Who doesn't?"
So that was no help. You can't steal a car and run it over somebody if you don't know how to drive. If you think I'm piling it on, that I didn't really suspect she might have killed Hattie Annis, you are wrong
. If there's a formula for ruling people out as incapable of murder under any provocation I don't know what it is, and there were four marks against her. But that aspect of the situation was soon to be disposed of. As the taxi rolled to the curb in front of the old brownstone a man got out of a parked car just ahead. It was Albert Leach.
I should have caught on immediately. I should have let Tammy Baxter scramble out by herself instead of giving her a hand. I certainly was a sap that it didn't dawn on me when Leach flashed the leather fold with his credentials and said, "I'm arresting you on suspicion of being in possession of counterfeit United States currency."
My brows went up. "No warrant this time?"
"No warrant is needed if the suspicion is based on reasonable grounds."
"You ought to know. I'm not up on Federal law. But since we're outdoors and you have already searched my room, I suppose 'possession' means having it on my person?"