by Rex Stout
“I’m not,” I told him firmly. “I’m not covering up on anyone or anything. You’re not going to pass the buck to me. Here you are, the head of the New York Homicide Squad and the great and only Nero Wolfe, and apparently the best you can do with a murder case is to sit and wonder whether I’m a liar or not. Well, I’m not. Cross that off and go to work. Douglas is out. I did that much for you last night on the telephone. Forget him. You say Leon Furey’s alibi stands up. Then forget him too. In my opinion, if you want it, Miss Leeds and Mrs. Chack are also out. I knew that girl, and I don’t believe either of those women strangled her. So all you’ve got left is the population of the city of New York, between seven and eight million-”
“Including,” Cramer growled, “Lily Rowan.”
“By all means,” I agreed, “include her. I don’t pretend I would open a bottle of milk to celebrate her going to the electric chair, but whoever did that to Ann Amory isn’t getting any discount from me. If it was Lily Rowan, you don’t have to worry about means and opportunity. She admits she was there, and so was the scarf; I suppose you know it was Ann’s. So dig up a motive for her, and you’re set.”
“A motive would help.” Cramer was eyeing me. “Up at the Flamingo Club Monday night. It’s hard to get anything definite from that bunch, but the impression seems to be that she was getting ready to throw the furniture at you when you ran. Taking the Amory girl with you. Was she sore because she was jealous? Was she jealous of Ann Amory? Was she jealous enough to go down there the next day and lose her temper? I’m asking.”
I shook my head. “You’re flattering me, Inspector. I don’t arouse passions like that. It’s my intellect women like. I inspire them to read good books, but I doubt if I could inspire even Lizzie Borden to murder. You can forget the Flamingo Club. It wasn’t even a tiff. You say you know Lily Rowan. She had given me the tip on Ann Amory being in trouble, as I’ve told you, and she was sore because I was following it up without letting her in on it. You’ll have to do better on motive than that. I’m not saying-”
The phone rang. Cramer answered it, listened a minute, grunted instructions, pushed the phone back, and stood up.
“They’re there,” he announced. “Both of them. Let’s go.” He didn’t look happy. “You handle her, Wolfe. I don’t want to see her until I have to.”
Chapter 12
The trouble was, I couldn’t enjoy it.
It was okay again, and it was my doing. The office was dusted and tidied up. Wolfe was in his made-to-order chair back of his desk. There was a bottle of beer in front of him. Faint sounds could be heard of Fritz busy in the kitchen. I had done it in less than 48 hours. But I couldn’t enjoy it. First, on account of Ann Amory. I had gone to see her with the big idea of getting Wolfe to get her out of trouble, and what had happened-well, I had got her out of trouble, all right. She wasn’t ever going to have any more trouble.
Second, Lily Rowan. Without trying to analyze all my feelings about her, it was a cinch there was nothing attractive in the notion of helping to send her up the river, to be taken down the corridor on a summer night to sit in the chair that nobody ever sits in more than once. On the other hand, if she had gone completely haywire, or maybe had some reason I didn’t know about, and had pulled that scarf around Ann’s neck, I couldn’t say I didn’t want that to happen. I did want it to happen. But the net result of things was that I wasn’t enjoying any triumph at seeing the office back in commission again.
I had supposed that Wolfe would take them separately, but he didn’t. I was at my desk with my notebook. Roy Douglas was seated off to my right, facing Wolfe, and Lily was in the red leather chair near the other end of Wolfe’s desk. The door to the front room was open, and around the corner, out of sight, Cramer and Stebbins were planted. Lily and Roy didn’t know they were there. Another thing that was eating me was the expression on Lily’s face and the way she was acting. The way she had spoken to Wolfe and me. There was that little twist to a corner of her mouth, so slight that it had taken me a year to get onto it, that was there when she was betting the stack on four spades with nothing but a six of clubs in the hole. It made her look cocky and made you feel that she was so sure of herself that you might as well quit. Even when you knew about it, you had to be careful not to let it take you in.
Wolfe was as exasperating as I had ever heard him-I mean exasperating to me. But I understood it, or thought I did; it was a war of nerves with Lily, who had to sit there and listen to it. He asked Roy about the loft, the pigeons, how he had first met Miss Leeds and her mother, Mrs. Chack, Ann, Leon Furey, how often had he been in the Chack-Amory apartment, how long had he lived at 316 Barnum Street, where did he live before that, how well did he know Lily Rowan, and on around the mulberry bush. As time dragged on he got my notebook filled with sixteen bushels of useless facts. Neither Leon nor Roy paid any rent for their rooms, Roy had been up on the roof exercising pigeons the afternoon old Mrs. Leeds had died, and had learned about it from Leon when he came down at dark. The upkeep of the loft amounted to around $4,000 a year, including purchase of new birds. About half of it came from prize money and the rest from Miss Leeds, formerly from her mother. Mrs. Leeds had threatened to tear the loft down, Roy admitted that, but then she was threatening everybody with everything, including her own daughter, and no one took it seriously. Roy had not known Lily Rowan. He had heard Ann mention her, that was about all. He couldn’t remember that Ann had ever said anything special about her.
No, he said, Ann had not told him what kind of trouble she was in, or who or what it was about, but from the way she acted he knew something was worrying her. My coming to take Ann to see Lily Rowan on Monday, and my coming back the next day to see him, had made him curious, and since he and Ann were engaged to be married he felt he had a right to know what was going on, so he came to ask me about it. He insisted that was the only reason he came to see me. He had no idea at all that Ann was in danger, and certainly no urgent danger like someone wanting to kill her, and he had no notion who had done it or why. He was sure it couldn’t have been anybody at 316 Barnum Street, because they all liked her, even Leon Furey, who was cynical about everything.
At 5:20 Lily Rowan said, “Don’t talk so loud, Roy. You’d better whisper. You might wake him up.”
I was inclined to agree with her. Wolfe was leaning back comfortably in his chair, his arms folded, with his eyes closed, and I had a suspicion that he was about two-thirds asleep. He had finished two bottles of beer, after going without for over a month, and he was back in the only chair in the world he liked, and his insane project of going outdoors and walking fast twice a day was only a hideous memory.
He heaved a deep sigh and half opened his eyes, with their focus on Lily.
“It is no occasion for drollery, Miss Rowan,” he muttered at her. “Especially for you. You are suspected of murder. At a minimum that is nothing to be jocund about.”
“Ha,” she said. She didn’t laugh; she merely said, “Ha.”
Wolfe shook his head. “I assure you, madam, it is not a time to ha. The police suspect you. They will annoy you and irritate you. They will ask questions of your friends and enemies. They will dig into your past. They will do it poorly, without any discrimination, and that will make it worse. They will go back as far as they can, for they know that Miss Amory’s father worked for your father a long while ago, and they will surmise-probably they already have-that the reason for your killing Miss Amory is buried in that old association.” Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and settled back again. “It will be extremely disagreeable. So I suggest that we clear it away now, all that we can of it.”
The twist was at the corner of Lily’s mouth. “I think,” she said, “that you and Archie ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I thought you were friends of mine, and here you are trying to prove I committed murder. When I didn’t.” She switched to me, “Archie, look at me. Look in my eyes. Really I didn’t, Archie.”
Wolfe wiggled a finger at her
. “You went to that apartment yesterday afternoon to see Miss Amory, arrived about 5:40 or 5:45, found the door open, walked in, and saw her there on the floor, dead. Is that it?”
Lily studied him, with her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t believe,” she said slowly, “that I’m going to talk about it. Of course I’d be willing to discuss it with you as a friend, but this is different.”
“I am merely repeating what you told Mr. Good-”
“Then there’s no use going over it again, is there?”
Wolfe’s eyes opened the rest of the way. He was beginning to get riled. “I am going on the assumption,” he said testily, “that you either killed Miss Amory or you didn’t, which seems reasonable. If you did, the way you conduct yourself here is strictly your own affair. If you didn’t you are foolish to act in a way that enforces suspicion of you. It would be a good plan for you to give the impression that you are willing to help us find out who killed Miss Amory, in either case.”
“I am perfectly willing. More than willing. I’m anxious. But this is a fine way to go about it. Keeping me sitting here for hours while you pump this Roy Douglas.” Lily was indignant. “Cops in front of the house. That room probably full of cops. Starting out by telling me I’m suspected of murder. Archie taking down what I say.” She turned on me. “You bum, this is a swell way to repay me for obeying orders the way I did! I never took orders from anyone else in my life and you know it!”
She went back to Wolfe. “As far as Ann Amory is concerned, if Archie has told you what I told him, you know all I know. I hadn’t seen her or thought of her for years until she came to see me a few weeks ago and said she was in trouble and wanted me to send her to a lawyer. All I can do is repeat what I told Archie.”
“Do so,” Wolfe muttered.
“I will not! Let him do it!” She was warming up. She turned on me again:
“Look at you, you damn stenographer! Telling me to come here and talk it over, and this is what I run into! I used to have some sense until I met you! Now what do I do? Chase off down to Washington just to find out where you are because you won’t answer my telegrams! Use enough pull to get my picture on the cover of Life just to find you’re taking an airplane and get a seat on it! Not only that, blab it all out to you because it might soften your heart! And you were too busy to make any social engagements, and I phone here fifty times, and finally I go out for a drink, and there you are dancing! If I ever do go in for murder, I know exactly where I’ll start! And on top of all that I’m enough of a sap to pack up and take a train-”
“Please!” Wolfe said peremptorily. “Miss Rowan!”
She sat back. “There,” she said in a tone of satisfaction, “I feel better. I wanted to get that off my chest in the presence of witnesses. Now if you’ll instruct him to take me somewhere and buy me a drink-”
“Please,” Wolfe said curtly, “don’t get started again. I sympathize with your resentment at the presence of the police, but it’s not my fault. None of this is my fault. I abandon any attempt to question you about Miss Amory, but I would like to ask you one or two things about Mr. Goodwin. Apparently you find him as vexatious as I do. Did I understand you to say that you went to Washington in search of him, and went to some trouble to get a seat on the airplane he was taking, and informed him of that fact?”
“Yes.”
“On Monday? Day before yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe pursed his lips. “He said that meeting was accidental. I didn’t know he had a streak of modesty in him.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Lily said sarcastically. “He hasn’t. He wouldn’t think it was worth bragging about unless it was the three Soong sisters.”
Wolfe nodded. “It’s only that it gives me an idea. You say he hadn’t answered your telegrams. Possibly your pestering-that is, your recent efforts to communicate with me came from your desire, not so much to help Miss Amory as to learn the whereabouts of Mr. Goodwin. If you would care to answer that-”
“They did.”
“I see. And the phone ringing here Monday evening, that was you. And Tuesday? Yesterday? Was that also you?”
“Yes. You might as well-”
“Please. I can guess what all that frustration might have done to a woman of your temperament. It is only a guess, but it deserves a little investigation.” Wolfe raised his voice. “Mr. Cramer! Come here, please!”
By the time we got our heads turned Cramer was in the doorway.
“I knew it,” Lily said. “I knew darned well there were cops in there. But I didn’t know it was you. What do you think Dad would think of that?”
“I believe you know Miss Rowan,” Wolfe said. “I’ve got a little job for Sergeant Stebbins and those men out in front.” He paused. “No, the Sergeant had better stay here. Are those men any good?”
“Medium,” Cramer rumbled. “What-”
“They ought to do for this. Send them up to the Ritz. To interview Miss Rowan’s maid, elevator men, bellboys, the doormen, telephone girls, everybody. We want to know, to the minute if possible, what time Miss Rowan left there Tuesday afternoon. Especially if it was late in the afternoon, say approaching six o’clock- Did you wish to say something, Miss Rowan?”
“No,” Lily said. She was gawking at him incredulously.
“Very well. Of course you may have left the Ritz at any time during the afternoon, I realize that. But other inquiries can be made. Whether, for instance, Miss Amory received a phone call at her office that afternoon. Whether the bell of any of the tenants at 316 Barnum Street rang between 5:30 and 5:45. Whether-”
“My God,” Lily said. “You actually did guess it!”
“Indeed,” Wolfe said quietly. His eyes had a glint in them. “Then you might as well save us the trouble. What time did you leave the Ritz on Tuesday?”
“A little before six. About a quarter to. You know, if I was as smart as you are-”
“Thank you. And came straight here?”
“Yes.”
Wolfe grunted and turned his head. “Sergeant? Over here. There’s your man. Roy Douglas. You can arrest him for the murder of Ann Amory.”
We all moved, to stare at Roy, but he didn’t because he was frozen. He sat stiff, rigid, gaping at Wolfe.
“Hold it, Stebbins,” Cramer growled. He moved alongside Roy and kept his eyes on him, but spoke to Wolfe. “We don’t charge men with murder just on your say-so, Wolfe. Suppose you fill it in.”
“My dear sir,” Wolfe said petulantly. “Isn’t it obvious? Miss Rowan just said she left the Ritz at 5:45 Tuesday and came straight here. Therefore she didn’t go to Barnum Street at all. She invented that tale about finding Miss Amory dead in her apartment, with a scarf around her neck, because she was determined to see Archie, and, being a female, is utterly irresponsible-”
“You go to the devil,” Lily told him. “I only said that to get him to let me in, I didn’t know anyone else was there, I wanted him to come and have a drink, and then the way he took it, it went over so big-”
“She must have gone to Barnum Street,” Cramer insisted doggedly. “She described it to Goodwin, the body there on the floor propped against a chair with a scarf around her neck-”
“I didn’t do it!” Roy whined. He was trying to stand up, but Cramer had a hand on his shoulder. “I tell you I didn’t do it! I tell you I didn’t-”
“I’m not going to tolerate much of that,” Wolfe said grimly.
Cramer held Roy down in the chair. Roy was starting to tremble. Cramer was going on, “How the hell could she describe it if she hadn’t seen it-” He chopped it off. “Oh, I’ll be damned!”
“Certainly,” Wolfe said impatiently. “That’s the point. She described it, and he heard her. It was good news for him, the best possible news, since it ended his fear that Miss Amory would disclose her knowledge that he had murdered Mrs. Leeds, but naturally he was startled, and had no idea who had done the job for him.”
“I didn’t!” Roy was
whining. “I didn’t do it-”
“Shut up!” Cramer barked at him.
“So,” Wolfe went on, “he dashed down there as fast as he could, and was disconcerted to find that Miss Amory was not quite dead enough. Not, of course, dead at all. Alive and well. His mortification turned him into an imbecile. He conceived the silliest idea in the history of crime. He strangled her with a scarf and propped her up against a chair, the idea being that since Miss Rowan had already described the scene as he arranged it, he had an alibi that could not be broken. I don’t know when he realized how idiotic that was; anyway, when it was done it was done, and Archie arrived so promptly that he had no time to realize anything.”
“I didn’t-” Roy was trembling all over, and trying to squirm out of Cramer’s grasp, but Stebbins had his other shoulder and was getting out handcuffs for him.
Wolfe grimaced and went on. “Of course, instead of saving him, his gambit condemns him. Since it can be proven that Miss Amory left her office after five o’clock, and that Miss Rowan left the Ritz at 5:45 and arrived here ten minutes later, Miss Rowan couldn’t possibly have seen what she said she did at Miss Amory’s apartment, and therefore her description of that scene was an invention. Also Miss Rowan will herself testify to that; she’ll have to. But since the scene actually was as she described it, the inexorable conclusion is that it was staged by someone who heard her describe it. That alone will convict him.”
I started to say something, but found I had no voice. I cleared my throat and got it out, “I heard her describe it too, you know.”
“Pfui.” Wolfe was scornful. “With all your defects, Archie, you are neither a strangler nor a nincompoop.” He wiggled a finger at Cramer. “Get that wretch out of here.”
Chapter 13
An hour later, around half past seven, Wolfe and I were alone in the office. He was behind his desk, with the atlas opened at the map of Australia, and every now and then he lifted his head to sniff. The turkey was broiling in the kitchen.