by Rex Stout
As I turned to go Carl sprang and broke my neck.
I have had enough unpleasant surprises over the years so that I am never completely off guard, but I admit I was careless that time because I underestimated him. He was a full three inches and thirty pounds under me, but I should have known that a guy who had managed a getaway from a concentration camp, and also from a continent, must have learned some good tricks. He had. The one he tried on me took him off the floor and through the air at my back, got his knees in my spine and his arm hooked under my chin. I was careless, but not quite careless enough. I heard and felt his rush too late to wheel or step, but in time to arch my back and drop my chin. He fastened onto me piggyback, and his muscles were a real surprise.
If he was that quick on the spring he might be just as quick with his left hand getting out a knife, so I didn't try to get subtle. I bent my knees, called on my legs for all they had, jumped straight up as high as I could with him on me, jerked backwards in the air to horizontal, and hit the floor--or he did, with me on top. It squashed air out of him and jolted his arm loose. I bounced off to the right, got my feet under me, and came up, facing Tina in case she was prepared to help.
She wasn't. She was just standing there, frozen, with no blood left in her, anyway not in her face. I moved my head a little from left to right and then slowly in a circle. "I thought he broke my neck," I told her, "but he didn't. He only tried to."
She had no comment. Carl was on the floor, pulling air in for replacement. I stepped to him, reached down for his arm, yanked him upright, and went over him good. The only tool he had was a pocket knife with two little blades.
I backed up a step and remarked, "You act on impulse, don't you?"
"I couldn't break your neck," he said, as if his feelings were hurt. "You're too strong."
"You sure could try."
"No. I only wanted to go. If we stay here there is no hope. It would have made you numb, that was all."
97
"Yeah. Napoleon's been numb for over a century. I hope your ribs hurt. If so, think of me."
I went to the door to the office, passed through, closed the door, and locked it. There in privacy I took a survey, physical and mental. It was no pleasure to move my head, especially backward, but it did move. My back was sore where his knees had hit it, but some assorted twisting and bending proved that all the joints worked without cracking. I sat at my desk for the mental part. Getting my neck broke, or damn near it, had cleared my brain. Being smart enough to get it in that neither Carl nor Tina could drive a car was all right as far as it went, but it proved nothing at all about the scissors in Jake Wallen's back; it merely showed that there are motives and motives. The cops thought Wallen had been killed by a cornered hit-and-run driver, but what did I think? And even more important, what did Wolfe think? Was he up ahead of me as usual, or was he being too offhand, since no fee was involved, and maybe letting us in for a bloody nose?
I sat and surveyed and got so dissatisfied that I rang the plant rooms, told Wolfe about Carl's attempt to numb me, and tried to go on from there, but he brushed me off and said it could wait until six o'clock. I sat some more, practiced moving my head in various directions, and then got up to do back exercises. I was bending to touch the floor with my fingers when the phone rang.
It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. "Archie? Purley. I'm at the barber shop. We want you here quick."
Two things told me it was no hostile mandate: his tone and the "Archie." The nature of my encounters with him usually had him calling me Goodwin, but occasionally it was Archie.
I responded in kind. "I'm busy but I guess so. If you really want me. Do you care to specify?"
"When you get here. You're needed, that's all. Grab a cab."
I buzzed Wolfe on the house phone and reported the development. Then I got a gun from the drawer, went to the
kitchen and gave it to Fritz, described-the status of the guests, and told him to keep his eyes and ears open. Then I hopped.
Ijj-j^HE crowd of spectators ganged up in the corridor outside U the Goldenrod Barber Shop was twice as big as it had been before, for two reasons. It was just past five o'clock, and home-goers were flocking through for the subway; and inside the shop there was a fine assortment of cops and dicks to look at. The corridor sported not one flatfoot, but three, keeping people away from the entrance and moving. I told one of them my name and errand and was ordered to wait, and in a minute Purley came and escorted me in.
I darted a glance around. The barber chairs were all empty. Fickler and three of the barbers, Jimmie, Ed, and Philip, were seated along the row of waiting chairs, in their white jackets, each with a dick beside him. Tom was not in view. Other city employees were scattered around.
Purley had guided me to the corner by the cash register. "How long have you known that Janet Stahl?" he demanded.
I shook my head reproachfully. "Not that way. You said I was needed, and I came on the run. If you merely want my biography, call at the office any time during hours. If you call me Archie, even after hours."
"Cut the comedy. How long have you known her?"
"No, sir. I know a lawyer. Lay a foundation."
Purley's right shoulder twitched. It was only a reflex of his impulse to sock me, beyond his control and therefore nothing to resent. "Some day," he said, setting his jaw and then releasing it. "She was found on the floor of her booth, out from a blow on her head. We brought her to, and she can talk but she won't. She won't tell us anything. She says she don't know us. She says she won't talk to anybody except her friend Archie Goodwin. How long have you known her?"
"I'm touched," I said with emotion. "Until today I've merely leered at her, with no conversation or bodily contact
99
of any kind. The only chat I've ever had with her was here today under your eye, but look what it did to her. Is it any wonder my opinion of myself is what it is?"
"Listen, Goodwin, we're after a murderer."
"I know you are. I'm all for it."
"You've never seen her outside this shop?"
"No."
"That can be checked maybe. Right now we want you to get her to talk. Goddam her, she's stopped us dead. Come on." He moved.
I caught his elbow. "Hold it. If she sticks to it that she'll only talk with me I'll have to think up questions. I ought to know what happened."
"Yeah." Purley wanted no more delay, but obviously I had a point. "There were only three of us left, me here at the front, and Joffe and Sullivan there on chairs. The barbers were all working on customers. Fickler was moving around. I was on the phone half the time. We had squeezed out everything we could here, for the present anyhow, and it was a letdown, you know how that is."
"Where was Janet?"
"I'm telling you. Toracco, that's Philip, finished with a customer, and a new one got in his chair--we were letting regular customers in. The new one wanted a manicure, and Toracco called Janet, but she didn't come. Fickler was helping the outgoing customer on with his coat. Toracco went behind the partition to get Janet, and there she was on the floor of her booth, cold. She had gone there fifteen minutes before, possibly twenty. I think all of them had gone behind the partition at least once during that time."
"You think?"
"Yes, I think."
"It must have been quite a letdown."
"I said I was on the phone a lot. Joffe and Sullivan will not be jumped up, and don't they know it. You know damn well how much we like it, her getting bopped with three of us right here."
"How bad is she hurt?" too "Not enough for the hospital. Doc let us keep her here. She was hit above the right ear with a bottle taken from the supply shelf against the partition, six feet from the entrance to her booth. The bottle was big and heavy, full of oil. It was there by her on the floor."
"Prints?"
"For God's sake, start a school. He had a towel in his hand or something. Come on."
"One second. What did the doctor say when you asked him if she
could have been just testing her skull?"
"He said it was possible but he doubted it. Come and ask er.
Feeling that I had enough for a basis for conversation, I followed him. As we went toward the partition all the barbers and dicks along the row of chairs gave us looks, none of them cheerful. Fickler was absolutely forlorn.
I had never been behind the partition before. The space ran about half the length of the shop. Against the partition were steamers, vats, lamps, and other paraphernalia, and then a series of cupboards and shelves. Across a wide aisle were the manicure booths, four of them, though I had never seen more than two operators in the shop. As we passed the entrance to the first booth in the line a glance showed me Inspector Cramer seated at a little table across from Tom, the barber with white hair. Cramer saw me and arose. I followed Purley to the third booth, and on in. Then steps came behind me, and Cramer was there.
It was a big booth, eight by eight, but was now crowded. In addition to us three and the furniture, a city employee was standing in a corner, and, on a row of chairs lined up against the right wall, Janet Stahl was lying on her back, her head resting on a stack of towels. She had moved her eyes, but not her head, to take in us visitors. She looked beautiful.
"Here's your friend Goodwin," Purley told her, trying to sound sympathetic.
"Hello there," I said professionally. "What does this mean?"
The long home-grown lashes fluttered at me. "You," she said.
IOI
"Yep. Your friend Archie Goodwin." There was a chair there, the only one she wasn't using, and I squeezed past Purley and sat, facing her and close. "How do you feel, terrible?"
"No, I don't feel at all. I am past feeling."
I reached for her wrist, got my fingers on the spot, and looked at my watch. In thirty seconds I said, "Your pump isn't bad. May I inspect your head?"
"If you're careful."
"Groan if it hurts." I used all fingers to part the fine brown hair, and gently but thoroughly investigated the scalp. She closed her eyes and flinched once, but there was no groan. "A lump to write home about," I announced. "Doing your hair will be a problem. I'd like to give the guy that did it a piece of my mind before plugging him. Who was it?"
"Send them away, and I'll tell you."
I turned to the kibitzers. "Get out," I said sternly. "If I had been here this would never have happened. Leave us."
They went without a word. I sat listening to the sound of their retreating footsteps outside in the aisle, then thought I had better provide sound to cover in case they were careless tiptoeing back. They had their choice of posts, just outside the open entrance or in the adjoining booths. The partitions were only six feet high. "It was dastardly," I said. "He might have killed you or disfigured you for life, and either one would have ruined your career. Thank God you've got a good strong thick skull."
"I started to scream," she said, "but it was too late."
"What started you to scream? Seeing him, or hearing him?"
"It was both. I wasn't in my chair, I was in the customer's chair, with my back to the door�I was just sitting trying to think�and there was a little noise behind me, like a stealthy step, and I looked up and saw him reflected in the glass, right behind me with his arm raised, and I started to scream, but before I could get it out he struck�"
"Wait a minute." I got up and moved my chair to the 102
outer side of the little table and sat in it. "These details are important. You were like this?"
"That's it. I was sitting thinking."
I felt that the opinion I had formed of her previously had not done her justice. The crinkly glass of the partition wall could reflect no object whatever, no matter how the light was. Her contempt for mental processes was absolutely spectacular. I moved my chair back beside her. From that angle, as she lay there flat on her back, not only was her face lovely to see, but the rest of her was good for the eyes too.
I asked, "But you saw his reflection before he struck?"
"Oh, yes."
"Did you recognize him?"
"Of course I did. That's why I wouldn't speak to them. That's why I had to see you. It was that big one with the big ears and gold tooth, the one they call Stebbins, or they call him Sergeant."
I wasn't surprised. I knew her quality now. "You mean it was him that hit you with the bottle?"
"I can't say it was him that hit me. I think people should be careful what they accuse other people of. I only know it was him I saw standing behind me with his arm raised, and then something hit me. From that anyone can only draw conclusions, but there are other reasons too. He was rude to me this morning, asking me questions, and all day he has been looking at me in a rude way, not the way a girl is willing for a man to look at her because she has to expect that. And then you can just be logical. Would Ed want to kill me, or Philip or Jimmie or Tom or Mr. Fickler? Why would they? So it must have been him even if I hadn't seen him."
"It does sound logical," I conceded. "But I've known Stebbins for years and have never known him to strike a woman without cause. What did he have against you?"
"I don't know." She frowned a little. "When they ask me that I'll just have to say I don't know. That's one of the first things you must tell me, how to answer things to the reporters. I shouldn't think I can keep on saying I don't know, or why would they print it? What hit you I don't know, who hit
i�3
you I don't know, why did he hit you I don't know, my Lord, who would want to read that? What shall I say when they ask why he hit me?"
"We'll come back to that. First we�"
"We ought to settle it now." She was pouting fit for a Life cover, but determined. "That's how you'lt earn your ten per cent."
"My ten per cent of what?"
"Of everything I get. As my manager." She extended a hand, her eyes straight at mine. "Shake on it."
To avoid a contractual shake without offending, I grasped the back of her hand with my left, turning her palm up, and ran the fingers of my right from her wrist to her fingertips. "It's a darned good idea," I said appreciatively, "but we'll have to postpone it. I'm going through bankruptcy just now, and it would be illegal for me to make a contract. About�"
"I can tell the reporters to ask you about things I don't know. It's called referring them to my manager."
"I know it is. Later on it will�"
"I don't need you later on. I need you right now."
"Here I am, you've got me, but not under contract yet." I released h,er hand, which I had kept as something to hold onto, and got emphatic. "If you tell reporters I'm your manager I'll give you a lump that will make that one seem as flat as a pool table. If they ask why he hit you don't say you don't know, say it's a mystery. People love a mystery. Now-"
"That's it!" She was delighted. "That's the kind of thing!"
"Sure. Tell 'em that. Now we've got to consider the cops. Stebbins is a cop, and they won't want it hung on him. They've had one cop killed here today already. They'll try to tie this up with that. I know how they work, I know them only too well. They'll try to make it that somebody here killed Wallen, and he found out that you knew something about it so he tried to kill you. They may even think they have some kind of evidence�for instance, something you were heard to say. So we have to be prepared. We have to go back over it. Are you listening?" 104
"Certainly. What do I say when the reporters ask me if j^m going to go on working here? Couldn't I say I don't want �desert Mr. Fickler in a time of trouble?"
took control to stay in that chair. I would have given a deal to be able to get up and walk out, go to Purley and tier at their eavesdropping posts, tell them she was all ftheirs and they were welcome to her, and go on home. But | at home there were the guests locked in the front room, and ' sometime, somehow, we had to get rid of them. I looked at | her charming enchanting comely face, with its nice chin and straight little nose and the eyelashes, and realized that the matter would be approached from her angle or n
ot at all.
"That's the ticket," I said warmly. "Say you've got to be f, loyal to Mr. Fickler. That's the main thing to work on, how to handle the reporters. Have you ever been interviewed before?"
"No, this will be the first, and I want to start right." "Good for you. What they like best of all is to get the jump on the police. If you can tell them something the cops don't know they'll love you forever. For instance, the fact that Stebbins crowned you doesn't prove that he's the only one involved. He must have an accomplice here in the shop, or why did Wallen come here in the first place? We'll call the accomplice X. Now listen. Sometime today, some time or other after Wallen's body was found, you saw something or heard something, and X knew you did. He knew it, and he knew that if you told about it�if you told me, for exampleit would put him and Stebbins on the spot. Naturally both of them would want to kill you. It could have been X that tried to, but since you say you saw Stebbins reflected in the glass we'll let it go at that for now. Here's the point: if you can remember what it was you saw or heard that scared X, and if you tell the reporters before the cops get wise to it, they'll be your friends for life. Now for God's sake don't miss this chance. Concentrate. Remember everything you saw and heard here today, and everything you did and said too. Even if this takes us all night we've got to work it out."
105
She was frowning. "I don't remember anything that would scare anybody."
"Don't go at it like that. It was probably some little thing that didn't seem important to you at all. We may have to start at the beginning and go over every�"
I stopped on account of her face. The frown had left it, and she was looking past me, not seeing me, with an expression that told me plainly, if I knew her half as well as I thought I did, what was going on inside. I snapped at her, "Do you want the reporters hating you? Off of you for good?"
She was startled. "Of course not! That would be awful!"
"Then watch your step. This has got to be all wool. A girl with a fine mind like you, so much imagination, it would be a cinch for you to be creative, but don't. They'll double-check everything you say, and if they find it's not completely straight you're ruined. They'll never forgive you. You'll never need a manager."