Prisoner's Base

by Rex Stout

  "I know he did."

  "Hagh and his lawyer, Irby. Also Andy Fomos. They left a little after midnight. Sometime during the evening one of them took the keys to Sarah Jaffee's apartment out of her bag. She didn't miss them until she got home, and she phoned me, and I'm here now in her apartment. Whoever took her keys came and got in and waited for her, and at two minutes to two he conked her and strangled her, and she's dead. She's here on the floor. I'm telling it like this because it's now just two-thirty-six, and thirty-eight minutes isn't much time for getting out of this building and getting somewhere, and if you get a move on-"

  "Is this straight, Goodwin?"

  "Yes."

  "You're in the Jaffee apartment now?"

  "Yes."

  "By God, you stay there!"

  "Drop that phone and get your hands up!"

  It was a little confusing, with two city employees giving me commands at once, one on the phone and one in person but behind my back. Purley Stebbins had hung up, so that was all right. I turned, lifting my hands plenty high enough to show that they were empty, because there is no telling how a random flatfoot will act just after discovery of a corpse. He may have delusions of grandeur.

  Evidently he was alone. He advanced, with his gun poked out, and it was no wonder if his hand was not perfectly steady, for it was a ticklish situation for a solitary cop, knowing as he did that I was armed. Probably he also knew of Sarah Jaffee's connection with Softdown and Priscilla Eads, since it had been in the papers, and if so why shouldn't I be the strangler the whole force was looking for and therefore good for a promotion and a barrel of glory, dead or alive?

  "Look," I said, "I've just been talking to Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan-"

  "Save it." He was dead serious. "Turn around, go to the wall, slow, put your palms up high against the wall, and keep 'em there."

  I did as I was told. It was a routine arrangement for a solo frisk, and when I was in position I expected to feel the muzzle in my back and his hand going through me, but no. Instead, I heard him dialing the phone, and in a moment his voice. "This is Casey, gimme the lieutenant… Lieutenant Gluck? Casey again. I came on up to the Jaffee apartment alone without waiting. I walked right in on him cold, and he's here, and I've got him covered… No, I know that, but I've got him and I'll keep him until they come…"

  That was the kind of specimen, flushed by the hackie, who had me with my palms pressed against the wall.

  Chapter 14

  During the eighty-hour period from ten minutes to two Friday morning, when Sarah Jaffee phoned me that her keys were missing, until nine o'clock Monday morning, when I phoned Wolfe from the office of the police commissioner, I had maybe five hours' sleep, not more.

  The first two hours of those eighty I spent in the apartment of the late Sarah Jaffee, mostly-after some grownups had arrived and rescued me from Casey-seated at the table in the alcove where I had breakfasted with Sarah Wednesday morning, answering questions put to me by a captain named Olmstead from Manhattan Homicide West, who was a comparative stranger. The third strangling of course had the whole department sizzling, and the scientists had a high old time that night in that apartment. The murderer's use of the bronze tiger bookend and the cord, which had been cut from a Venetian blind in the alcove, showed that he had not confined his movements to the foyer, and there wasn't a square inch anywhere in the place that didn't get powdered for prints and inspected with a glass under a strong light.

  At 4:30 a.m. I was transported to the Nineteenth Precinct station on East Sixty-seventh Street, put into an upstairs room with a lieutenant and another dick with a stack of stenographer's notebooks, and told to give a complete account of the meeting in Wolfe's office, including all words and actions of everyone there. That took four hours, and during the fourth and last the three of us disposed of a dozen ham sandwiches, six muskmelons, and a gallon of coffee, paid for by me. When it was over I got permission to use a phone and called Wolfe.

  "I'm calling from a desk phone in a police station," I told him, "and a lieutenant is at my elbow and a sergeant is on an extension, so don't say anything incriminating. I am not under arrest, though I am technically guilty of breaking and entering because I knocked the glass out of a door and went in. Except for that I have nothing to report, and I don't know when I'll be home. I have given them a complete account of last night in our office, and they'll certainly be after you for one."

  "They already have been. Lieutenant Rowcliff will be here at eleven o'clock, and I have agreed to admit him. Have you had breakfast?"

  He wouldn't overlook that. I told him yes.

  After that the lieutenant and sergeant left me, and I sat for a solid hour in a room with a uniformed patrolman. It began to look as if history was getting set to repeat itself, except for handcuffs, when a dick entered and told me to come on, and I preceded him down and out to the sidewalk, and darned if he didn't have a taxi waiting. It took us to 155 Leonard Street, and the dick took me in and upstairs to a room, and who should enter to visit me but my friend Mandelbaum, the assistant DA who had chatted with me Tuesday afternoon to no avail.

  Four hours later we were still, as far as I could see, short on avail. I had the highly unsatisfactory feeling that I had been examined down to the last flick about something that had happened somewhere sometime, just to see if I passed, but that it had nothing to do with getting the sonofabitch I was after. I knew how to be patient well enough when I had to be, and I had gone along the best I could, but more than twelve hours had passed since I had opened the door and seen her lying there with her tongue sticking out, and I had answered enough questions.

  At the end of the four hours Mandelbaum shoved his chair back, got up, and told me, "That seems to be it for now. I'll get it typed, and I'll get a copy of your statement uptown. This evening or in the morning-more likely in the morning-I'll ring you to ask you to run down and look it over, so stay near your phone or keep in touch."

  I was frowning at him. "You mean I go?"

  "Certainly. Under the circumstances your forceful entry to that building must be regarded as justified, and since you have agreed to pay the amount of the damage, there will be no complaint. Stay in the jurisdiction, of course, and be available." He looked at his wrist. "There's someone waiting for me." He turned to go.

  I was having an experience that was not new to me. I had suddenly discovered that a decision had been made, by me, upon full consideration, without my knowing it. This time, though, it took me a second to accept it, because it was unprecedented. An officer of the law was telling me to go on home to Nero Wolfe, and I didn't want to or intend to.

  "Hold it," I said urgently, and he stopped. I appealed to him. "I've given you all I've got. I want something-not much. I want to see Inspector Cramer, and now. He's busy, and I don't know where he is, and it might take me until tomorrow to get to him. You fix it for me."

  He was alert. "Is it about this case?"

  "Yes."

  "Why won't I do?"

  "Because he can say yes to this, and you can't."

  He might have been disposed to debate it if he hadn't been late for another customer. He glanced at his wrist again, went to the phone, and got busy. Even for him, the assistant DA on the Eads and Fomos case, it proved to be a job, but after ten minutes on the phone he told me, "He's in a conference at the Commissioner's office. Go there and send your name in and wait."

  I thanked him as he rushed out.

  I had had no lunch, and on the way to Centre Street, which wasn't much of a walk, I bought four nice ripe bananas and took them to a soda fountain and washed them down with a pint of milk.

  At the office of Police Commissioner Skinner things did not look too promising. Not because there was an assortment of citizens in the large and busy anteroom, which was only normal, but because I couldn't find out who Mandelbaum had spoken to and I couldn't even get anyone to admit that Cramer was within. The trouble was that there was another door out of Skinner's office, around a cor
ner of the corridor, and covering them both wasn't easy. However, I tried. I went outside and to the corner of the corridor-and there, standing by the other door, was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. At sight of me he started growling automatically.

  I went up to him. "When did I ever ask you for a favor?"

  "Never." He was hoarse, but he always was. "You're not that dumb."

  "Not until now. I'm going to jump Inspector Cramer when he comes out, and ask him for five minutes, and you will kindly keep your trap shut. You can spoil it if you want to, but why should you want to? I'm a citizen, I pay taxes, and I've only been in jail nine times."

  "He's busy."

  "So am I."

  "What do you want to ask him?"

  I had the reply ready but didn't get to use it. The door opened, and Cramer came through and was with us. He was going to move right on, so preoccupied that he didn't even see me, until I stepped to cut him off.

  "You?" He didn't like it. He darted a glance at Purley. "What's this?"

  I got in. "My idea, Inspector. I've got something to say. If there's a room nearby we can use, five minutes ought to do it."

  "I haven't got time."

  "Make it four minutes."

  He was scowling. "Wolfe sent you."

  "No. My idea."

  "What is it? Right here will do."

  He moved to the wall, and I faced him. Purley made it a triangle. "At the DA's office," I said, "they told me to go on home. Instead, I came here to find you. You heard Mr. Wolfe there Tuesday, saying that I was his client. That was a swell gag, but also he more or less meant it-enough so that he sent me out to see if I could start some fur flying, and with luck I did, and last night they all came-"

  "I know all about that."

  "Okay. I felt some responsibility about Priscilla Eads. I grant it was only bad luck that my using her for a stunt ended like that, but naturally I wanted to put a hand on the bastard that arranged the ending-"

  "I know about that too. Get to it."

  "I'm getting. This Sarah Jaffee is something else. It wasn't just bad luck. While she was telling me on the phone about her keys being gone, he was there in the closet waiting for her. I undertook to tell her what to do. Thinking that there was maybe one chance in a hundred that he was somewhere in the apartment-not more than that because I didn't know any reason for anyone wanting her dead, and I still don't-I told her what to do. I could have told her to run to an open window and start screaming, and that might have saved her. Or I could have told her to grab something to fight with-there was a stool right there at the phone-and back up to a wall and start yelling and pounding on the wall until someone came. That might not only have saved her but caught him. But I didn't. I had something better. I didn't want to put him to the trouble of sneaking up on her, so I told her to go to him. I told her to go to the foyer and cross to the outside door, because that would take her within a few feet of the closet where he was hiding, and as he heard her approaching and passing, he could swing the door and take just one step, and wham. I told her just how to do it, and she followed instructions, though she had admitted to me that she was a coward. Hell, that wasn't just luck."

  "What do you want, a medal?" Cramer rasped.

  "No, thanks. I want a chance to touch him. Feeling as I do, I will not go home and sit on my ass while waiting for Mr. Wolfe to have a fit of genius, and go to bed at bedtime. It happens that I can help, and I would like to. For instance, of course everyone who was there last night has been questioned, but you won't finish with them until and unless it has been cracked. It was at Mr. Wolfe's office last night that her keys were taken. That must have been while my back was turned, because I have good eyes and I was using them last night. If one of them is being questioned now, I suggest that I be allowed to sit in and to offer comments if and when my memory says that one is needed, and that we go on that way until you get him. I claim to be qualified by the fact that I was present last night, with my eyes open, and I know more about when the keys could have been taken and when they couldn't than anybody could learn in a month of questioning. Also I will be glad to help in any other way that may be useful, except that I will not take Lieutenant Rowcliff's hand to lead him across the street."

  He grunted. "A typical Wolfe approach."

  "No. My one talk with Mr. Wolfe was at nine this morning with a lieutenant standing by and a sergeant listening in. This is strictly personal, as described, purely because I don't expect to feel like sleeping for a while."

  He went to Purley. "He was there, and he could help. You know him as well as I do. What about it? Is this straight?"

  "It's possible," the sergeant granted. "His head's been swelling a long time now, and it got a bad jolt, and he can't stand it. I'd buy it. We can always toss him out."

  Cramer came to me. "If this is a dodge, I'll hook you good. Nothing goes to Wolfe, not a damn word, and nothing to the press or anyone else."

  "Right."

  "This was already a big noise, as you know, and now with this third one, another strangling, everybody in town has joined in. Two dozen copies have been made of your full report, and the Commissioner himself is studying one of them right now. Deputy Commissioner Wade is in a room down the hall with Brucker. At the DA's, Bowen is with Miss Duday, and Mandelbaum was to start again on Hagh, the ex-husband, when he finished with you. You can join any one of them, and I'll phone that you're coming, or you can come with Stebbins and me. We're going to do a retake with Helmar."

  "I'll go with you for a starter.

  "Come on." He moved.

  My first appearance as an informal adjunct of the NYPD, seated at the left of Inspector Cramer as he interviewed Perry Helmar, lasted for five hours. It was by no means the first time I had seen and heard Cramer perform, but the circumstances were new, because I was all for him with no reservations. As a spectator at a quiz job I am probably as hard to please as anybody around, after the countless times I have watched Wolfe work, and I thought Cramer was good with Helmar. He couldn't have read my report more than once, with the full day he had had, but his picture of the meeting at Wolfe's office was clear and accurate. I made no great contribution to the performance, supplying a few interpositions and a couple of suggestions, none of which made a noticeable whoosh. At nine o'clock Helmar was sent home without escort, after being told that he would probably be wanted again in the morning.

  Cramer went off to another conference in the Commissioner's office, and Purley and I left the building together. He had been on duty thirteen hours, and his program was eat and sleep, and I offered to buy him fried clams at Louie's.

  I don't know how I had learned that offering Purley fried clams at Louie's was like dangling a bit of red flannel in front of a bullfrog, since our intimacy, not social to begin with, had never reached the peak of a joint meal. In view of my new though temporary status with the NYPD, he hesitated only four or five seconds.

  At Louie's I insisted on his company to a phone booth, and, with the door open and him at my elbow, I dialed and got Wolfe.

  I apologized. "I should have called earlier to say I couldn't make it for dinner, but I was tied up. I was with Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins, questioning Perry Helmar. Cramer's idea is that since I was there at the meeting last night it may help for me to sit in, and I agree. I am now going to buy Sergeant Stebbins some seafood, and afterward, as an aid to digestion, I'm going to the DA's office and check in at a session with Andy Fomos-either that or one with Oliver Pitkin. So again I can't say when I'll be home. This triple homicide is of course a round-the-clock operation for the cops, and I might as well keep going until I drop-chasing the picturesque and the passionate, according to plan. I'll give you a ring someday."

  There was a little noise like a chopped-off chuckle, which seemed ill timed. "The confounded doorbell keeps ringing," he complained. "But Fritz and I will manage. Keep me informed at your convenience."

  It clicked in my ear. I hung up, slow motion, and sat for a moment. He was being picturesq
ue himself. Either he intended to dig in and work on it, in which case he should have insisted on my coming home immediately to help, or he did not intend to, in which case he should have beefed about my fraternizing with our ancient enemies.

  "You know," I told Purley, "eccentrics are such interesting people."

  "Not to me," he objected. "Every goddam murderer I've ever seen was an eccentric."

  By the time he had finished two full portions of fried clams with trimmings, two steins of ale, and two pieces of apple pie with cheese, I was fairly well caught up on the routine aspects. There had been no tails on any of them Thursday night, including Andy Fomos. Within five minutes after getting my phone call Purley had started twenty men checking on them, some by phone and some in person, covering everyone who had been at the meeting at Wolfe's office, not excluding Nathaniel Parker. Though four of them, including Parker, apparently had alibis-still being investigated-no one was conclusively eliminated, and no one was conclusively indicated.

  On that Purley had a comment. When I got the phone call from Sarah Jaffee, if I had called Purley at once, and if he had jumped on it and had not only sent a man to Eightieth Street but had also immediately started the check on all concerned, we would now have the strangler. I agreed-but, I asked, if I had called him at once, would he have jumped on it; and he had to admit he wouldn't, chiefly because there was no known motive for any of them to kill Sarah Jaffee. Even if I had told him about the threat of Sarah's applying for an injunction, it would be stretching it thin to suppose one of them would murder her for that.

  As for the alibis, whether they stood up or not, the law felt the same as Wolfe when he told Viola Duday that while she might not have committed the crimes there was no reason why she shouldn't have contrived them. Purley said they had twenty-six men, the ones best qualified for that chore, trying to find a connection between one of the suspects and a death jobber. It was simpler in a way, but also harder in a way, because they were after a strangler, not a gunman.