by Rex Stout
“How could he have a motive?”
“You’ll have to ask them, not me, because I think they’re off. It’s supposed to be possible to convict a man of murder without proving motive, but juries don’t like the idea.”
“Juries? You mean they will – there’ll be a trial?”
“I sincerely hope not.”
Her eyes were fastened on me. “I believe you really mean that.”
“I really do.”
“Saturday morning I was at home in bed, until after noon. I had been on a flight from Caracas that was due at midnight, but we weren’t down until after two o’clock. I saw Orrie that evening. I had dinner with him at a restaurant. I have to answer so many questions in the air that when I’m on the ground I don’t listen to them.” She pulled her feet back, stood up, and took a step. “Get up and put your arms around me.”
It was an order, and I obeyed. She didn’t lift her arms so we could lock, but when I had her enclosed she gripped my jacket with both hands near my backbone and hid her face on my chest. The dark blue suit felt like wool, but nowadays you never know. I didn’t squeeze, just held her nice and firm, trying to decide whether she knew she was in trouble and wanted to enlist me, or she was getting started on me in case Orrie got permanently eliminated, or it was just a habit she had. She hadn’t used any perfume, or very little, and she smelled fine. There’s no telling how long it would have lasted if it hadn’t been for the doorbell. It rang.
I unwound my arms, politely, crossed to the hall and took a look, stepped back in, and told her, “It’s a cop, one I happen to know. Since you’re in no hurry to meet him, you will please duck.” I had crossed to the door to the front room and opened it. “In here. You don’t have to hold your breath, it’s soundproofed. You can even sneeze.”
Generally speaking, airline stewardesses know how to react. Without a word she picked up her handbag, which had dropped to the floor when she gripped my jacket, moved to the door I was holding, and on through. As I shut the door the doorbell rang again. I broke no records getting to the hall and the front; and if Inspector Cramer noticed the black leather coat on the rack, let him. It was me he wanted to see, since he knew Wolfe was never available until eleven, and one more question to refuse to answer wouldn’t matter. I opened the door, said, “Sorry, I was busy yawning,” and gave him room. His big round face was redder than usual from the cold. There have been times when he refused help with his coat because he wanted to get his eyes on me and keep them there, but now he let me behind him to take it, and he led the way to the office. He hadn’t noticed the black leather coat, but he did notice the yellow chair near my desk, and as he lowered his broad rump onto the red leather one he asked, “Company?”
I nodded. “Come and gone. Have you turned Orrie loose yet?”
“No. Not yet and not soon. Unless you can give me a damn good reason. Can you?”
“Sure. He’s clean.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Parker came here after seeing him yesterday and told us that Orrie had told him he was innocent. We have seen a lot of Orrie and we know he’s not a liar. So Mr. Wolfe is going to look into it. Of course that’s what you came for, to ask if he’s going to horn in. He is.”
“I don’t have to ask that. I came to get information.” He got better arranged in the chair. “When did you see Cather last?”
I shook my head. “No comment.”
“Has he ever spoken to you about Isabel Kerr?”
“Pass.”
“Has he ever spoken to you about Jill Hardy?”
“No comment.”
“You can’t get away with it, Goodwin. If a man is charged he can clam up, but you’re not charged. But, by God, you can be charged.”
“I feel another yawn coming,” I said. “Do we have to go through it again? I don’t say I will answer no questions at all about Orrie Cather. If you ask me where he buys his shoes or when did Mr. Wolfe last use him on a job, I’ll tell you, even in writing. But the kind of questions you’re loaded with, no. Certainly, if you pin a murder on him and make it stick, and if you can prove that I had information that you could have used, you can tag me for obstructing justice and I’ll be sunk. But if it turns out that instead of obstructing justice I’m doing it as a favor by helping Mr. Wolfe find out who did kill Isabel Kerr, he and I ought to get a ticker-tape parade, but we won’t insist on it.”
He opened his tight lips to say, “You’ve crawled out on that limb before.”
“Yeah. I said do we have to go through it again.” I glanced at my wrist. “Mr. Wolfe will be down in twenty minutes, if you think you can scare him better than me.”
He started tapping the floor with the toe of his heavy shoe, focusing on Wolfe’s empty chair. That wasn’t very satisfactory, since it made no sound on the thick rug, not like the linoleum in his office. He was looking at the chair instead of me because it wasn’t my stand that was eating him. He had the answer to one question, where did Wolfe stand, and now the point was, why? Did we really have something, and, if so, what?
“It occurs to me,” I said, “that we might make a deal. It would have to be okayed by Mr. Wolfe, but I’m sure he would. We’ll make an affidavit, the last sentence of which will say that it includes everything we know, and everything Orrie has said and done to our knowledge, that could possibly have any bearing on the murder, and we’ll trade it for a look at your file. The whole file. It would be a bargain for both of us. You would know exactly what we’ve got, and we would know why you’re risking holding him without bail. Fair enough?”
“Balls,” Cramer said. He stood up. “One thing I came for, to tell Wolfe something, but you can tell him. Tell him that it’s too bad I can’t show him Isabel Kerr’s diary. If he read it he would change his mind about horning in. And a tip for you. When you decide to kill someone make damn sure he isn’t keeping a diary. Or she.” He turned and marched out.
I stayed put. It would have been a shame to spoil such a good exit line. When I heard the front door open and close I went to the hall for a look, to see that he had been outside when he shut it, then stepped back into the office and considered a matter. Should Jill Hardy be there in the red leather chair when Wolfe came down? If I left her in the front room and reported, almost certainly he would refuse to see her, and of course he should. It would be eleven o’clock in three minutes. I decided to bring her in, went and opened the door and crossed the sill, and looked around at an empty room. She had exited without a line, by the door to the hall. I went and looked at the rack; her coat was gone. The house phone buzzed in the office, and I went and got it. It was Wolfe, in the plant rooms, wanting to know if she had gone, and I told him yes, and in a minute the sound came of the elevator grumbling its way down. He entered, in his hand the daily orchids for his desk – a panicle of Odonto-glossum hellemense, which, according to the records I keep, is a cross of harvengtense and crispum. A stunner if you feel like orchids, which I didn’t just then. I sat and simmered as he put them in the vase, got settled in his chair, and glanced through the mail. When he finished with a letter from a man upstate who sends deer meat, the only important item, I said, rather loud, “Miss Kerr kept a diary.”
He put the letter down, looked up, regarded me for half a minute, and asked, “How did you pry it out of him?”
“Out of who?”
“Mr. Cramer, of course.”
I stared. “To see the street from up there you have to stick your head way out.”
“I never have. But he would certainly come, and soon, and who else could supply such a particular? How did you pry it out of him?”
“All right, I’ll report.” I did so, starting with Jill Hardy. Sometimes, reporting a conversation, it’s essential to give it verbatim, but even when it isn’t I do it anyway because that’s how I have trained and it’s easier. As usual, he leaned back with his eyes closed. I went right on through, from Jill Hardy on to Cramer, since there had been no break, just a change of cast. When I finished he
opened his eyes halfway, closed them again, and muttered, “Nothing.”
“Right,” I agreed. “As for her, if she’s a liar she’s pretty good. Orrie certainly thinks she knows nothing about Isabel Kerr, and if she does it would take a lot of digging to prove it. If she doesn’t she’s crossed off completely and is absolutely useless. As for Cramer, he probably has got a diary, but so what, we knew he had something hot, and I doubt if it says at the end, ‘He is reaching for the ashtray and is going to hit me with it,’ which is the point. Cramer may have needed a diary to tell him that it would be handy for Orrie if she died, but we don’t, we already knew it. What we need is somebody else it is handy for. It is for Jill Hardy, in a way, but I doubt if she knew it. As you say, nothing.”
He opened his eyes. “You think Orrie killed her.”
“No. I have looked over Saul’s point, from all angles, and I like it. At the very least it packs a reasonable doubt, which is enough for a jury, so it will do for me. Anyhow, we’re now on record. With Cramer. If it turns out that Orrie did it I’ll never forgive him. I’ll cop his girl. She already thinks I look like him.”
He grunted. “Now what? Who?”
“I suppose the sister. Or Avery Ballou.”
“We would have to discuss Mr. Ballou. The sister first.” He straightened up and reached for Invitation to an Inquest.
Chapter 5
There was a Barry Fleming in the Bronx phone book – address, 2938 Humboldt Avenue. Of course I didn’t dial the number. According to the Times, she wasn’t talking to reporters, and naturally she would think I was trying a dodge. I consulted the Bronx street guide to locate Humboldt Avenue, then grinned to myself as my hand went automatically to a pocket for my keyfold. Because of a regrettable occurrence some years back, I had made it a hard and fast rule never to go on an errand connected with a murder without a gun, and the rules you make yourself are the hardest to break, but there’s a limit. Sororicide is by no means unheard of, but to suppose that Stella Fleming might have killed her sister, and therefore anyone who got in her reach should be ready to shoot, would be overdoing it, at least until I had a look at her. I returned the keyfold to my pocket, told Wolfe not to expect me for lunch, and left. After descending the stoop to the sidewalk I turned up my collar, even for the short stretch around the corner to the garage. Instead of a January thaw we were having a good long freeze, and the wind was doing its best to help.
It was twenty past twelve when I left the Heron in a parking lot and walked a block and a half to Number 2938, which was a regulation ten-story brick hive, to be found in all five boroughs, but especially the Bronx. Of course it might not be the right Barry Fleming, but I would soon find out. The tiled floor of the lobby had a rubber runner, no rugs. There was no doorman, but the elevator man was there, a pasty-faced bozo in a uniform that was past due for the cleaner and presser, leaning against the wall. I advanced and said, “Fleming, please.”
He shook his head and said, “There’s nobody there.”
“I know,” I said, “that Mrs. Fleming isn’t receiving any strangers, but I’m not a newspaperman. I want to discuss a personal matter with her, and I’m sure she would want to.” In his case, the face was the index of the mind. He wasn’t impressed and wasn’t going to be. The only question was how much. I removed my gloves, got out my case and extracted a card, got out my wallet and extracted a finif, and said, “On the level. Do you want to see my license? Take me up, and if she doesn’t let me in I’ll double this.”
He took the card and looked it over, took the bill and stuck it in a pocket, and said, “On the level, there’s nobody there. She went out around ten o’clock.”
He deserved a good poke, but it wouldn’t have been tactful. I merely asked, “Do you know where she went?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“No, I don’t.”
I gave him a friendly smile. “That’s not fifty cents’ worth, let alone five bucks’.” I got my wallet again and took out a ten. “What floor is she on?”
“Seven. Seven D.”
“I need to see her, and she needs to see me. Take me up, and I’ll wait there. You have my card. If you want to, get an inkpad and take my fingerprints.”
He surprised me. He had a heart in him somewhere. He actually said, “She might be gone all day, and there’s no place to sit.”
“There’s always the floor.”
He gave me his eyes, looked straight at me for the first time. “No funny business, mister. The doors have got pretty good locks.”
“I don’t know anything about locks. There’s nothing there for me until she comes.” I went to the elevator and pressed my fingertips, all ten, against the metal frame, at eye level. “There. You’ve got me.” I offered the sawbuck. He took it, followed me into the elevator, shut the door, and pushed the handle.
There are a lot of interesting things to do while you’re waiting in an upper hall of an apartment house for four hours and twenty minutes. You can count spots and decide which has more, the left wall or the right wall. You can try to sort out smells and decide how many different flavors there are in the overall effect. You can listen to the wails coming through the door of 7B and decide whether the little lamb is male or female and how old it is, and what steps you would take if you were inside. When people arrive or leave you can look straight at them and notice which ones look back and which ones pretend they haven’t seen you. When a hefty, broad-shouldered woman turns after inserting a key into the lock of 7C and asks, “Are you waiting for someone?” you can say pleasantly and distinctly, “Yes,” and see how she reacts. On the whole, it was time well spent. My one regret was that I hadn’t brought along a chocolate bar, five or six bananas, and a quart of milk.
I admit I frequently glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes to five when the elevator door opened and a man emerged. When he kept coming down the hall I assumed he was headed for E or F, but he stopped to face me and spoke.
“I understand you’re waiting for my wife.”
Of course I had to concede it. “Yes, sir, I am, if you’re Barry Fleming.”
“She won’t see you. You’re wasting your time. She won’t see anybody.”
I nodded. “I know, but I think she’ll see me if she lets me explain why.”
I sent a hand to my pocket for the case, but before I had a card out he said, “I know who you are. I should say, I have seen the card you gave the elevator man. Are you Archie Goodwin?”
“I am. In person. Look, Mr. Fleming, why not leave it to her? When she comes I’ll tell her what I want to talk about, and it will be up to her. I won’t insist, I’ll just ask her.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
I would have preferred to tell her, but a husband is a husband. “About a man,” I said. “His name is Orrie Cather, and the police think he killed Isabel Kerr. He has worked off and on for Nero Wolfe, and Mr. Wolfe and I know him very well, and we don’t think he did. You know I work for Nero Wolfe?”
“Of course.”
“We are looking into it a little, and I would like very much to ask your wife if she can supply any information that might help. Naturally she wants the murderer of her sister caught and punished, but she wouldn’t want it to be Orrie Cather if he’s innocent. You wouldn’t, would you?”
“Of course not.” He was puckering his lips and frowning at me. He was about my height, narrow-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with a long face that showed the cheekbones. He went on, “I wouldn’t want an innocent man punished for anything, certainly not for murder. But I doubt very much if my wife can give you any information that would help. She’s not – she’s taking it pretty hard.”
“Sure. Believe me, I don’t want to make it any harder for her.”
“Well – where’s your coat?”
“There.” I pointed to it, on the floor by the wall.
“Get it. There’s no sense in waiting out here.” With a key ring
in his hand, he went to the door of 7D. When I came with my coat he was holding the door open and I entered. The foyer was about the size of a pool table. He hung my coat in the closet before he took his off, and as he was hanging his up the door opened and a woman entered. At the sight of me she gawked a second, then whirled to him.
“Barry! You let him in?”
From her tone I knew then and there that I had had a break, him coming first.
“Now, dear.” He put an arm across her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “He only wants some information, if we have any. He thinks -”
“We have no information for anybody! You know that!”
I spoke up. “But you must have a preference, Mrs. Fleming. If an innocent man is convicted of murdering your sister, the trouble is that the guilty man goes free. Do you want that?”
She focused up at me. Up, because she wasn’t more than an inch over five feet. “It’s none of your business what I want,” she said, and meant it.
“No,” I said, “but it’s your business. I’m not a newshound trying to get a headline, I’m a private detective trying to dig up some facts. I already have some. I know why you won’t see reporters, why you have no information for anybody. Because your sister was a doxy, and you -”
“My sister was a what?”
“D,O,X,Y, doxy. I happen to like that better than concubine or paramour or mistress. I don’t -”
I stopped because I had to, to protect my face. When a woman flies at you to claw, what you do depends on the woman. If she has real tiger in her you may even have to plug her, but with Stella Fleming, with her short reach, all I had to do was stiff-arm her, with my palm flat on her mouth. Then the husband got her shoulders from behind and pulled her back and told me, “You’d better go.”
I was inclined to agree, but it was just as well that Wolfe couldn’t read my mind by short-wave because he thinks I understand women. She turned and drummed on his chest with her fists and squeaked, “I don’t want him to go,” and then calmly, no hurry, started to shed her coat. When he had it she told me, “Come on inside,” perfectly polite, and headed through an archway. When he had the closet door shut he motioned me on, and I moved.