Death Times Three SSC

by Stout, Rex

  "It does."

  "Okay, that's easily settled." I stretched my arms wide. "Go to it."

  "Not here." He touched my shoulder. "Come along."

  "I respectfully decline. I'm too heavy for you to carry, so you'll have to drag me. People have been known to plant things on people, and here I have witnesses--this lady and the cab driver. If you undress me and I catch cold I hereby agree not to hold the United States responsible." I stretched my arms again.

  He turned and called, "Come here, Ziegler!" and a man climbed out of the car and joined us. "Stand by," Leach said, and moved. He didn't pat or feel; he simply stuck his hand in my pocket and pulled out the package. He backed up, squatted, put the package on the sidewalk, untied the string, and opened the wrapping. He stared a second at the neat white stack of paper, then picked it up and flipped through it, first at one end and then the other.

  "Don't soil it, please," I said. "That's good bond." I stretched my arms. "Try again. You've barely started."

  He stood up. "I warned you yesterday, Goodwin. It doesn't pay to play games with us. You'll regret this. Come on, Ziegler." He turned and headed for the car, with the makings of the package.

  "Hey!" I called. "I want that!"

  He ignored me, and it wasn't worth an argument, since I could make another one at a cost of under fifteen cents. When they had got in and rolled away, the hackie called to me, "What's he? FBI?"

  "Yes," I told him. "Foiled By Intelligence--What's the idea?"

  Tammy Baxter was opening the door of the cab. "I'm going," she said. "I might as well. The package is gone."

  "But you're not. Nothing doing. There is still something to discuss. We'll go in and discuss it here, or you can discuss it later with Stebbins. Take your pick."

  She hesitated, then swung the door shut. "Okay," I told the driver, "your flag's up," and he fed gas and was off. Tammy turned to me: "What was that in the package? Just blank paper?"

  I eyed her. "Show me your credentials," I said. "What? What credentials?"

  "Nuts. Maybe you're right. You might as well go. Then I can go in and ring a man I know on the Gazette and give him an item he'll appreciate. Human interest. That Archie Goodwin was ambushed on the sidewalk in front of Nero Wolfe's house by two T-men and a T-woman and arrested for possession of counterfeit United States currency, and only his quick wit and presence of mind saved him. I'll bet he doesn't even know there is a T-woman. I didn't. A picture of you would help. A picture of you would decorate any story. The gorgeous glamorous T-woman. Wait here a second while I go in and get my camera."

  "What on earth are you talking about? What's a T-woman?"

  "Oh, come on down. When you went to get your coat you phoned him. Two of them waiting here in a car? And the way he went about it? If I'm wrong you can sue the newspaper and me both for libel."

  "You wouldn't dare!"

  "Ha. You double-talking she-weasel. Giving me the dewy eye and purring at me, `I'm a woman.' Touching my arm and asking me if you weren't fit to be trusted.

  Come in and purr at Nero Wolfe a while. Are you coming or going?"

  "I have nothing to say to Nero Wolfe. If you can set a trap

  "Shut up! If I go in alone I ring my newspaper friend before I take off my coat and hat. Which do you want me to use, Tammy or Tamiris?"

  No reply. I turned and started up the steps. She came. By the time I had my key out she was there, and I swung the door open and let her precede me. T-women first. She stood while I got rid of my hat and coat and then started for the office, but I stopped her. "In here," I told her, opening the door to the front room, and she passed through. "I'm going to report first," I said. "Help yourself to the magazines. Don't bother to strain your ears; the soundproofing is good. I'm locking the door to the hall only so you won't roam around looking for packages; if you get tired waiting you can leave by a window."

  She had something to say but I wasn't interested. Leaving by the hall door, which I locked, and proceeding to the office, I found Wolfe at his desk counting bottle caps he had taken from his drawer. Tuesday is the day for checking the week's beer consumption. I went and stood. When he looked up I asked, "Any more invasions?"

  "No," he said. "I had a talk with Mr. Cramer on the phone. He wanted to know what that woman told you yesterday and what you were doing at her house. Of course he wasn't satisfied, he never is, and he may call. I'll be through in a moment." He finished putting the caps in groups of ten, figured the total, scowled at them, muttered, "I don't understand it," and brushed them into a heap. "Didn't I hear a woman's voice?"

  "You did. She's in the front room. The bait worked fine, as planned, but it hooked the wrong fish. It is now one sweet mess. I'll have to report in full."

  "Very well."

  I went to my desk and sat, and gave it to him, omitting nothing. He is the best listener I know of, his most violent reaction being with his fingertip, making circles the size of a quarter on the arm of his chair. When I got to the end and said, "If you have no use for her I'll take her to the Empire State Building and push her off," he moved the fingertip to rub the side of his nose.

  He cleared his throat. "It could be that your wit was dulled by your discomfiture. How certain are you that she is a colleague of Mr. Leach?"

  "Utterly. Totally. Absolutely. She is probably kept under cover and used only for special occasions. I doubt if Tammy Baxter is her real name."

  He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips moved--out to a pucker and then in again, out and in, out and in. His record for that performance is around forty minutes. That time it was only three or four. He opened his eyes and spoke. "I need your opinion."

  "Of her?"

  "No. Of a stratagem. That one miscarried, but it has prepared the way for another. I'll describe it."

  He did so, and I gave it both ears. It was nothing as complicated or fancy as some of the programs he has cooked up, and I had to answer only three questions as my contribution. And at the end a fourth, when he asked, "Well?"

  "Yes," I said, "except for one detail. What if you can't keep her here and Leach is waiting for me at the door?"

  He grunted. "Am I a clod? Bring her."

  I went and opened the connecting door and said, "In here, Miss Baxter."

  As she sat in the red leather chair Wolfe frowned at her on principle and I frowned at her in particular. The chair would have held two of her, and in order to have her knees straight in front and her feet flat she had to sit on the edge. Twenty-four hours earlier I would have thought that she went fine with the red leather, but now my mind was closed.

  "Do you know what a premise is, madam?" Wolfe demanded.

  "Why .. . yes," she said.

  "We have one: that you are an agent of the Secret Service of the Treasury Department. If you're going to waste my time denying it you may as well go. If you do, you know what Mr. Goodwin's intentions are and I approve of them. It would be a readable item. He suffered a contretemps, but so did you and your colleagues. Shall I proceed?"

  "I'll listen," she said.

  "Good. First, I am concerned only with the exposure of a murderer. With you that is secondary; your target is a counterfeiter. The reason for my concern is personal and not material to this discussion. I wish you success in your pursuit, but I won't let it impede mine. You know who killed Hattie Annis."

  "I do not!"

  "I think you do. At least you have grounds for a strong suspicion. You were assigned to that house because there was evidence that someone there was involved in a counterfeiting operation, and you have lived there three weeks. Surely you aren't so inept that you learned nothing. You may even have known who it was when you went there, and your purpose was to discover his source of supply. I won't list the reasons for the assumption that he killed Hattie Annis; you know them as well as I do. I don't suggest that you will let a murderer escape his doom if it suits your convenience; it is merely that you give priority to your objective, and I do not. But the advantage is with me. I have the
package of counterfeit bills."

  Her eyes widened. "You have it? You admit it?"

  "I state it, here with you, where Mr. Goodwin makes it two to one if you are moved to quote me. Parenthetically, there is a plausible explanation for the package that was just taken from the pocket of Mr. Goodwin's coat. Yesterday Mr. Leach asked if Hattie Annis had left some counterfeit money here. Obviously there was some somewhere, and presumably it had been a factor in Miss Annis' fate, so I told Mr. Goodwin to make a package of appropriate size and shape to use as bait. That's our explanation for the record; for you the truth is better. We have the package."

  "Where is it?"

  "Out of your reach, I assure you. Another parenthesis: the disclosure of your status removes some difficulties. As an instance, we had supposed that Mr. Leach knew that Miss Annis had come to this house yesterday because he or one of his men had followed her here. But if so, as Mr. Goodwin pointed out to me, why hadn't he followed her when she left, and why hadn't he seen the driver of the car that killed her? Now those questions are answered. She was followed here by the man who was soon to kill her--and you could name him--but not by Mr. Leach. He knew she had come here because you told him. I concede that you are not without gumption. When you learned that Mr. Goodwin had said on the phone that his name was Buster you inferred that Miss Annis had spoken with him, and you left the room, ostensibly to get your lipstick, but actually to make a phone call." His head turned. "Archie?"

  I nodded. "Oh, she's bright. I'm proud of her."

  He returned to her. "Other points are clarified by the disclosure of your status, but they are minor. I have a proposal to make. Mr. Goodwin and I are in a pickle. We want the murderer to be exposed, apprehended, tried, and convicted; but the package of bogus money will be an essential item of evidence, and we have it but can't produce it without embarrassment at the least and substantial penalty at the worst. You, on the other hand, have much to gain by producing it. It will more than compensate for your mishap in arranging for Mr. Leach to stub his toe. It will be a leaf for your garland. I propose to make the package available to you. Do you want it?"

  "Of course I want it." She didn't sound enthusiastic. "And of course this is some very fancy trick. What will be in it this time?"

  Wolfe shook his head. "No trick. I am offering to trade. We will give you the package Miss Annis left with Mr. Goodwin, intact, in a manner uncompromising for us but satisfactory to you, if you will answer some questions; and you will not be quoted. This is in good faith, madam."

  "What are the questions?"

  "I repeat, you will not be quoted. I want information for my own use, not testimony for a tribunal. During the three weeks you have lived in that house have you searched the premises?"

  She pinched her lips with her teeth. She looked at me. "What is this, Mr. Goodwin? Another trap?" "No," I said, "this is straight."

  "Is it being recorded?"

  "No. When Mr. Wolfe says in good faith he means it,

  and so do I. He's offering a deal and we're not double-dealers."

  She looked at Wolfe. "All right. Yes, I have." "Did you find what you were looking for?"

  "No. The first thing was to find out if it was being

  made there, and it wasn't. Then to find out where he

  got it."

  "Did you?"

  "No. I think I would have pretty soon--if this hadn't happened."

  "Did you know who he was when you went there?"

  "I knew--" She stopped. She decided to finish it. "I knew a certain person who lived there had passed some. That's all I'm going to tell you unless you tell me something. You said you would give me the package in a manner satisfactory to me. You might think it was satisfactory but I wouldn't. You can't just hand it to me and expect me not to tell where I got it."

  "No indeed, but indulge me. I'll tell you in a moment. Have you searched that house thoroughly?"

  "Well ... I made sure that there was no equipment anywhere to make counterfeit money. I wasn't looking for just a few bills. There would have been no point in that."

  "When you learned that Miss Annis had found something she was going to bring to me, and you suspected what it was, or she told you what it was, did you try to find it? Did you search her room?"

  "No. She only told me about it yesterday morning just before she left, and she showed me the package, but she wouldn't say what was in it."

  "Did she tell you where she had found it?"

  She thought that one over. Finally she said, "Yes." "Did you ever search her room?"

  "I did once, the first week, looking for equipment."

  "Very well." Wolfe rested his elbows on the chair arms and laced his fingers. "This will be the procedure. You will stay here with me. You will give your house key to Mr. Goodwin. He will go and get the package, go to the house and to Miss Annis' room, and choose a place to hide the package. He will choose with care, since a policeman was in that room last evening. He will then phone here, you will go to the house and join him, you will search the room together, and you will find the package. That should be satisfactory. You understand, of course, that if you report this conversation or any part of it we'll deny it in toto. You will have been impelled by your animus against Mr. Goodwin because of the humiliation he subjected you to. Two against one."

  She was looking doubtful. "I am capable of good faith too, Mr. Wolfe. But for the record, she brought the package and gave it to Mr. Goodwin. How did it get to her room?"

  "She didn't give it to Mr. Goodwin. After she spoke with you she decided not to bring it; or after speaking with Mr. Goodwin she decided not to show it to me, merely to tell me about it, went home and left it there, and returned to this neighborhood. There was plenty of time. Neither of those suppositions can be disproved. I will add that this offer is not made under pressure of desperation. If you decline it, no one will ever see that package again. That will make my job more difficult but by no means impossible. If you accept it, and do not report this discussion, you will betray no trust. On the contrary, your recovery of the package will be a coup. I have more questions to ask, but if you accept the offer, Mr. Goodwin can go now."

  "What questions?"

  "A few minor ones and one major one. The major one, naturally, is the name of the murderer."

  "I don't know it."

  "Pfui. That's a quibble. The name of the person living in that house who had passed counterfeit money. What is it?"

  She shook her head. "No," she said emphatically. "Not that. No."

  Wolfe grunted. "You prefer to preserve him to lead you to your quarry. So does Mr. Leach; he felt bound to give the police a hint, but not the name. I intend to press the point, but Mr. Goodwin might as well go. Archie?"

  I got up and went to her. "The key, please?"

  She was and she wasn't. The glamorous she-weasel tilted her adorable, maybe, face up to me, presumably to see if I was fit to be trusted. I made my face the picture of integrity, virtue, and honor. Apparently that did it, for she opened her bag, took out a key fold, removed one of the keys, and handed it to me.

  "You'll get it back," I said, "see you later," and went.

  VII

  There can be any number of reasons for making sure that you're not being tailed or shaking it off if you have one, but on the whole I don't know of a better one than that you prefer not to have company when you are on your way to pick up nine grand in phony lettuce. It took me two blocks to learn that unquestionably I had company, and two more to decide that it was Homicide, not Secret Service. That was cockeyed. I was risking, if not my life, at least my liberty and pursuit of happiness, to give Homicide first call on a murderer, and they were dogging me. It took me an extra ten minutes to make it to the Churchill, since I had to be absolutely certain that I had lost him.

  Having got the envelope with the key at the manager's office, I didn't relax en route to Grand Central; and having got the package from the locker, I changed my attitude. Now, if I got a bad break and was spotted, I no
longer minded being followed to my destination; I merely didn't want to be stopped. Getting a taxi at the 42nd Street entrance, I told the driver I was in a hurry two dollars' worth, and he made it to 47th and Eighth Avenue in seven minutes. From there I walked and, without bothering to reconnoiter, used the borrowed key and entered. No one was visible or audible. I lost no time mounting a flight, getting into Hattie Annis' room, and shutting the door. I opened the bottom drawer of her desk, took the package from my pocket and shoved it underneath some papers, closed the drawer, and breathed. Of course I would have to do better than that, but at least it wasn't on me. As I was dropping my coat on a chair there was a knock at the door, and I called, "Come in!"