“Then you know,” Zoltan said. “Then she is guilty.”
“Not at all. I haven’t the slightest idea who is guilty. When you have finished with her you will phone the other four and repeat the performance—Miss Choate, Miss Annis, Miss—”
“My God, Mr. Wolfe! That’s impossible!”
“Not impossible, merely difficult. You alone can do it, for they know your voice. I considered having Archie do it, imitating your voice, but it would be too risky. You said you would help, but there’s no use trying it if the bare idea appalls you. Will you undertake it?”
“I don’t … I would …”
“He will,” Felix said. “He is like that. He only needs to swallow it. He will do it well. But I must ask, can he be expected to get them all to agree to meet him? The guilty one, yes, but the others?”
“Certainly not. There is much to discuss and arrange. The innocent ones will react variously according to their tempers. One or more of them will probably inform the police, and I must provide for that contingency with Mr. Cramer.” To Zoltan: “Since it is possible that one of the innocent ones will agree to meet you, for some unimaginable reason, you will have to give them different hours for the appointments. There are many details to settle, but that is mere routine. The key is you. You must of course rehearse, and into a telephone transmitter. There are several stations on the house phone. You will go to Archie’s room and speak from there. We will listen at the other stations: Archie in the plant rooms, I in my room, Fritz in the kitchen, and Felix here. Archie will handle the other end of the conversation; he is much better qualified than I to improvise the responses of young women. Do you want me to repeat the substance of what you are to say before rehearsal?”
Zoltan opened his mouth and closed it again. “Yes,” he said.
VIII
Sergeant Purley Stebbins shifted his fanny for the nth time in two hours. “She’s not coming,” he muttered. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.” His chair was about half big enough for his personal dimensions.
We were squeezed in a corner of the kitchen of John Piotti’s little restaurant on 14th Street between Second and Third Avenues. On the midget table between us were two notebooks, his and mine, and a small metal case. Of the three cords extending from the case, the two in front went to the earphones we had on, and the one at the back ran down the wall, through the floor, along the basement ceiling toward the front, back up through the floor, and on through a table top, where it was connected to a microphone hidden in a bowl of artificial flowers. The installation, a rush order, had cost Wolfe $191.67. Permission to have it made had cost him nothing because he had once got John Piotti out of a difficulty and hadn’t soaked him beyond reason.
“We’ll have to hang on,” I said. “You never can tell with a redhead.”
The exposed page of my notebook was blank, but Purley had written on his. As follows:
Helen Iacono 6:00 p.m.
Peggy Choate 7:30 p.m.
Carol Annis 9:00 p.m.
Lucy Morgan 10:30 p.m.
Nora Jaret 12:00 a.m.
It was in my head. If I had had to write it down I would certainly have made one “p.m.” do, but policemen are trained to do things right.
“Anyhow,” Purley said, “we know damn well who it is.”
“Don’t count your poisoners,” I said, “before they’re hatched.” It was pretty feeble, but I was tired and still short on sleep.
I hoped to heaven he was right, since otherwise the operation was a flop. So far everything had been fine. After half an hour of rehearsing Zoltan had been wonderful. He had made the five calls from the extension in my room, and when he was through I told him his name should be in lights on a Broadway marquee. The toughest job had been getting Inspector Cramer to agree to Wolfe’s terms, but he had no good answer to Wolfe’s argument that if he insisted on changing the rules Zoltan wouldn’t play. So Purley was in the kitchen with me, Cramer was with Wolfe in the office, prepared to stay for dinner, Zoltan was at the restaurant table with the hidden mike, and two homicide dicks, one male and one female, were at another table twenty feet away. One of the most elaborate charades Wolfe had ever staged.
Purley was right when he said we knew who it was, but I was right too—she hadn’t been hatched yet. The reactions to Zoltan’s calls had settled it. Helen Iacono had been indignant and after a couple of minutes had hung up on him, and had immediately phoned the District Attorney’s office. Peggy Choate had let him finish his spiel and then called him a liar, but she had not said definitely that she wouldn’t meet him, and the DA or police hadn’t heard from her. Carol Annis, after he had spoken his lines, had used only ten words: “Where can I meet you?” and after he had told her where and when: “All right, I’ll be there.” Lucy Morgan had coaxed him along, trying to get him to fill it all in on the phone, had finally said she would keep the appointment, and then had rushed downtown and rung our doorbell, told me her tale, demanded that I accompany her to the rendezvous, and insisted on seeing Wolfe. I had to promise to go to get rid of her. Nora Jaret had called him assorted names, from liar on up, or on down, and had told him she had a friend listening in on an extension, which was almost certainly a lie. Neither we nor the law had heard a peep from her.
So it was Carol Annis with the corn-silk hair, that was plain enough, but there was no salt on her tail. If she was really smart and really tough she might decide to sit tight and not come, figuring that when they came at her with Zoltan’s story she would say he was either mistaken or lying, and we would be up a stump. If she was dumb and only fairly tough she might scram. Of course they would find her and haul her back, but if she said Zoltan was lying and she had run because she thought she was being framed, again we would be up a stump. But if she was both smart and tough but not quite enough of either, she would turn up at nine o’clock and join Zoltan. From there on it would be up to him, but that had been rehearsed too, and after his performance on the phone I thought he would deliver.
At half past eight Purley said, “She’s not coming,” and removed his earphone.
“I never thought she would,” I said. The “she” was of course Peggy Choate, whose hour had been seven-thirty. “I said you never can tell with a redhead merely to make conversation.”
Purley signaled to Piotti, who had been hovering around most of the time, and he brought us a pot of coffee and two fresh cups. The minutes were snails, barely moving. When we had emptied the cups I poured more. At 8:48 Purley put his earphone back on. At 8:56 I asked, “Shall I do a count down?”
“You’d clown in the hot seat,” he muttered, so hoarse that it was barely words. He always gets hoarser as the tension grows; that’s the only sign.
It was four minutes past nine when the phone brought me the sound of a chair scraping, then faintly Zoltan’s voice saying good evening, and then a female voice, but I couldn’t get the words.
“Not loud enough,” Purley whispered hoarsely.
“Shut up.” I had my pen out. “They’re standing up.”
There came the sound of chairs scraping, and other little sounds, and then:
Zoltan: Will you have a drink?
Carol: No. I don’t want anything.
Zoltan: Won’t you eat something?
Carol: I don’t feel … maybe I will.
Purley and I exchanged glances. That was promising. That sounded as if we might get more than conversation.
Another female voice, belonging to Mrs. Piotti: We have good Osso Buco, madame. Very good. A specialty.
Carol: No, not meat.
Zoltan: A sweet perhaps?
Carol: No.
Zoltan: It is more friendly if we eat. The spaghetti with anchovy sauce is excellent. I had some.
Carol: You had some?
I bit my lip, but he handled it fine.
Zoltan: I’ve been here half an hour, I wanted so much to see you. I thought I should order something, and I tried that. I might even eat another portion.
Carol: Yo
u should know good food. All right.
Mrs. Piotti: Two spaghetti anchovy. Wine? A very good Chianti?
Carol: No. Coffee.
Pause.
Zoltan: You are more lovely without a veil, but the veil is good too. It makes me want to see behind it. Of course I—
Carol: You have seen behind it, Mr. Mahany.
Zoltan: Ah! You know my name?
Carol: It was in the paper.
Zoltan: I am not sorry that you know it, I want you to know my name, but it will be nicer if you call me Zoltan.
Carol: I might some day. It will depend. I certainly won’t call you Zoltan if you go on thinking what you said on the phone. You’re mistaken, Mr. Mahany. You didn’t see me go back for another plate, because I didn’t. I can’t believe you would tell a vicious lie about me, so I just think you’re mistaken.
Mrs. Piotti, in the kitchen for the spaghetti, came to the corner to stoop and hiss into my free ear, “She’s wearing a veil.”
Zoltan: I am not mistaken, my dear. That is useless. I know. How could I be mistaken when the first moment I saw you I felt … but I will not try to tell you how I felt. If any of the others had come and taken another plate I would have stopped her, but not you. Before you I was dumb. So it is useless.
Needing only one hand for my pen, I used the free one to blow a kiss to Purley.
Carol: I see. So you’re sure.
Zoltan: I am, my dear. Very sure.
Carol: But you haven’t told the police.
Zoltan: Of course not. As I told you.
Carol: Have you told Nero Wolfe or Archie Goodwin?
Zoltan: I have told no one. How could I tell anyone? Mr. Wolfe is sure that the one who returned for another plate is the one who killed that man, gave him poison, and Mr. Wolfe is always right. So it is terrible for me. Could I tell anyone that I know you killed a man? You? How could I? That is why I had to see you, to talk with you. If you weren’t wearing that veil I could look into your beautiful eyes. I think I know what I would see there. I would see suffering and sorrow. I saw that in your eyes Tuesday evening. I know he made you suffer. I know you wouldn’t kill a man unless you had to. That is why—
The voice stopped. That was understandable, since Mrs. Piotti had gone through the door with the spaghetti and coffee and had had time to reach their table. Assorted sounds came as she served them. Purley muttered, “He’s overdoing it,” and I muttered back, “No. He’s perfect.” Piotti came over and stood looking down at my notebook. It wasn’t until after Mrs. Piotti was back in the kitchen that Carol’s voice came.
Carol: That’s why I am wearing the veil, Zoltan, because I know it’s in my eyes. You’re right. I had to. He did make me suffer. He ruined my life.
Zoltan: No, my dear. Your life is not ruined. No! No matter what he did. Was he … did he …
I was biting my lip again. Why didn’t he give them the signal? The food had been served and presumably they were eating. He had been told that it would be pointless to try to get her to give him any details of her relations with Pyle, since they would almost certainly be lies. Why didn’t he give the signal? Her voice was coming:
Carol: He promised to marry me. I’m only twenty-two years old, Zoltan. I didn’t think I would ever let a man touch me again, but the way you … I don’t know. I’m glad you know I killed him because it will be better now, to know that somebody knows. To know that you know. Yes, I had to kill him, I had to, because if I didn’t I would have had to kill myself. Some day I may tell you what a fool I was, how I—Oh!
Zoltan: What? What’s the matter?
Carol: My bag. I left it in my car. Out front. And I didn’t lock the car. A blue Plymouth hardtop. Would you … I’ll go. …
Zoltan: I’ll get it.
The sound came of his chair scraping, then faintly his footsteps, and then silence. But the silence was broken in ten seconds, whereas it would have taken him at least a minute to go for the purse and return. What broke it was a male voice saying, “I’m an officer of the law, Miss Annis,” and a noise from Carol. Purley, shedding his earphone, jumped up and went, and I followed, notebook in hand.
It was quite a tableau. The male dick stood with a hand on Carol’s shoulder. Carol sat stiff, her chin up, staring straight ahead. The female dick, not much older than Carol, stood facing her from across the table, holding with both hands, at breast level, a plate of spaghetti. She spoke to Purley. “She put something in it and then stuck something in her dress. I saw her in my mirror.”
I moved in. After all, I was in charge, under the terms Cramer had agreed to. “Thank you, Miss Annis,” I said. “You were a help. On a signal from Zoltan they were going to start a commotion to give him an excuse to leave the table, but you saved them the trouble. I thought you’d like to know. Come on, Zoltan. All over. According to plan.”
He had entered and stopped three paces off, a blue handbag under his arm. As he moved toward us Purley put out a hand. “I’ll take that.”
IX
Cramer was in the red leather chair. Carol Annis was in a yellow one facing Wolfe’s desk, with Purley on one side of her and his female colleague on the other. The male colleague had been sent to the laboratory with the plate of spaghetti and a roll of paper that had been fished from inside Carol’s dress. Fritz, Felix, and Zoltan were on the couch near the end of my desk.
“I will not pretend, Miss Annis,” Wolfe was saying. “One reason that I persuaded Mr. Cramer to have you brought here first on your way to limbo was that I needed to appease my rancor. You had injured and humiliated not only me but also one of my most valued friends, Fritz Brenner, and two other men whom I esteem, and I had arranged the situation that gave you your opportunity; and I wished them to witness your own humiliation, contrived by me, in my presence.”
“That’s enough of that,” Cramer growled.
Wolfe ignored him. “I admit the puerility of that reason, Miss Annis, but in candor I wanted to acknowledge it. A better reason was that I wished to ask you a few questions. You took such prodigious risks that it is hard to believe in your sanity, and it would give me no satisfaction to work vengeance on a madwoman. What would you have done if Felix’s eyes had been on you when you entered with the plate of poison and went to Mr. Pyle? Or if, when you returned to the kitchen for a second plate, Zoltan had challenged you? What would you have done?”
No answer. Apparently she was holding her gaze straight at Wolfe, but from my angle it was hard to tell because she still had the veil on. Asked by Cramer to remove it, she had refused. When the female dick had extracted the roll of paper from inside Carol’s dress she had asked Cramer if she should pull the veil off and Cramer had said no. No rough stuff.
There was no question about Wolfe’s gaze at her. He was forward in his chair, his palms flat on his desk. He persisted. “Will you answer me, Miss Annis?”
She wouldn’t.
“Are you a lunatic, Miss Annis?”
She wasn’t saying.
Wolfe’s head jerked to me. “Is she deranged, Archie?”
That was unnecessary. When we’re alone I don’t particularly mind his insinuations that I presume to be an authority on women, but there was company present. I gave him a look and snapped, “No comment.”
He returned to her. “Then that must wait. I leave to the police such matters as your procurement of the poison and your relations with Mr. Pyle, mentioning only that you cannot now deny possession of arsenic, since you used it a second time this evening. It will unquestionably be found in the spaghetti and in the roll of paper you concealed in your dress; and so, manifestly, if you are mad you are also ruthless and malevolent. You may have been intolerably provoked by Mr. Pyle, but not by Zoltan. He presented himself not as a nemesis or a leech, but as a bewitched and befuddled champion. He offered his homage and compassion, making no demands, and your counter-offer was death. I would myself—”
“You lie,” Carol said. It was her first word. “And he lied. He was going to lie about me. He
didn’t see me go back for a second plate, but he was going to say he did. And you lie. He did make demands. He threatened me.”
Wolfe’s brows went up. “Then you haven’t been told?”
“Told what?”
“That you were overheard. That is the other question I had for you. I have no apology for contriving the trap, but you deserve to know you are in its jaws. All that you and Zoltan said was heard by two men at the other end of a wire in another room, and they recorded it—Mr. Stebbins of the police, now seated at your left, and Mr. Goodwin.”
“You lie,” she said.
“No, Miss Annis. This isn’t the trap; it has already sprung. You have it, Mr. Stebbins?”
Purley nodded. He hates to answer questions from Wolfe.
“Archie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did Zoltan threaten her or make demands?”
“No, sir. He followed instructions.”
He returned to Carol. “Now you know. I wanted to make sure of that. To finish, since you may have had a just and weighty grievance against Mr. Pyle, I would myself prefer to see you made to account for your attempt to kill Zoltan, but that is not in my discretion. In any case, my rancor is appeased, and I hold—”
“That’s enough,” Cramer blurted, leaving his chair. “I didn’t agree to let you preach at her all night. Bring her along, Sergeant.”
As Purley arose a voice came. “May I say something?” It was Fritz. Heads turned as he left the couch and moved, detouring around Zoltan’s feet and Purley’s bulk to get to Carol, and turning to stand looking down at her.
“On account of what Mr. Wolfe said,” he told her. “He said you injured me, and that is true. It is also true that I wanted him to find you. I can’t speak for Felix, and you tried to kill Zoltan and I can’t speak for him, but I can speak for myself. I forgive you.”
“You lie,” Carol said.
Method Three
for Murder
I
Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe Page 7