by Rex Stout
“Nonsense.” Wolfe was belligerent too. “You haven’t asked a favor. You have called Mr. Goodwin a liar and you have made preposterous demands. Besides, this is on your way home from your office.” That was the intellectual level they had descended to. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Cramer had produced a map of the city, to prove that Wolfe’s house was not on a direct line between his office and his home, but he skipped that and concentrated on the other point-whether he had asked a favor or not. He maintained that he had, and that if it had sounded like a demand that was only on account of his mannerisms, with which we were well acquainted and therefore had no right to misinterpret. At length, by that roundabout route, he got back to his main point: would we or would we not break off relations with Naylor-Kerr, Inc.? Apparently Deputy Commissioner O’Hara had really built a fire under him.
“It isn’t as urgent as all that, is it?” Wolfe asked in his tone of fake concern, which has maddened older men than me, or even than Cramer. “For a long time Mr. Kerr Naylor-” The phone rang. I gave it a glance of distaste before reaching for it, thinking it was certainly Mrs. Pine, with nothing special to do for another two hours till bedtime, calling to ask about my face. But no. A gruff male woice asked to speak to Inspector Cramer and I moved out of my chair to let Cramer take the call at my desk.
It was a one-sided conversation, with Cramer contributing only a few grunts and, at the end, three or four questions. He told someone he would be there in five minutes, hung up, and swiveled to us.
“Kerr Naylor has been found dead on Thirty-ninth Street near Eleventh Avenue.
Four tulocks from here. Apparently run over by a car, with his head smashed.” Cramer was on his feet. “They got his name from papers in his pocket.” He growled at me, “Want to come and identify him?” “Indeed,” Wolfe muttered. “Remarkable coincidence. Mr. Moore died there too. It must be a dangerous street.” “And now,” I complained, “I’ll never be able to make him take back calling me a liar. Sure, glad to help. Come along, Inspector.”
CHAPTER Twenty
Since so far as I knew I was still on the Naylor-Kerr payroll, it was a good thing they didn’t work Saturdays, because Saturday morning I didn’t get out of bed until noon was in plain sight. At that I had been there something short of six hours, having got home just as the sun was taking its first slanting look at Thirty-fifth Street.
Coincidence was right. On Thirty-ninth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, not thirty feet from the spot where the body of Waldo Wilmot Moore had been found nearly four months before, a car had run over Kerr Naylor, flattening his head and breaking his bones. I had appreciated, better than I had when he had told me about it, the difficulties Kerr Naylor had encountered when he had gone to the morgue to identify the remains of Waldo Moore, but there had been no doubt about it. It was unquestionably Naylor, when you had made the mental adjustment required by the transformation of a sphere into a disk.
To go on with the coincidence, the body, which had been discovered by a taxi driver at twelve-forty A.M., had been there unnoticed for some time, anyway over half an hour, if the guess of the Medical Examiner on the time of death was any good. Not only that-and this was really stretching it too far-the car that had run over him had been found parked on Ninety-fifth Street just west of Broadway, in front of a branch laundry, in the identical spot where the car that had finished Moore had been found. On that one I had to hand it to Inspector Cramer.
One of his first barks on arriving at the scene had been at a squad dick, telling him to beat it to Ninety-fifth Street and go over the cars parked in that block. Showing that an inspector knows a coincidence when he sees one.
Already, before I had left to go home for a nap, the owner of the car had been brought in from Bedford Hills and thoroughly processed. The processing was mostly unnecessary, since it was easily established that he had reported to the police at eleven-eighteen that his car had been stolen from where he had parked it on Forty-eighth Street, having driven to town to go to the theater; and having, as lots of boobs do every day, forgotten to lock the car or even take the key.
It had taken two laboratory men, working with spotlights on the tires of the car where it stood on Ninety-fifth Street, to get the proof that it was the one that had rolled over Naylor, and that was one more detail of the coincidence.
Part of the time I had been a kibitzer, but had been made to feel welcome throughout because Inspector Cramer wanted me handy to answer some more questions when he got a chance to work them in, between other chores. During all the hours he made no reference to Wolfe’s objectionable behavior, and mine, in trying to stir up a murder stink when there had been no murder, and I, knowing he was busy and it would aggravate him, brought it up only eight or nine times.
Even then he didn’t have me bounced because he wanted me around. The first session with him I stalled a little on the ground that it would be outrageous for me to betray the confidence of a client, but when he got to the point of a certain tone I gave him everything that I knew he would soon be getting elsewhere anyway. I told him all, or nearly all, about the folks I had been meeting down at Naylor-Kerr, including, of course, such details as the impression Ben Frenkel had been carrying around since December. When I had tried to loosen Gwynne Ferris up by threatening to tell the cops all and let them take a crack at her I hadn’t dreamed I would actually be doing so within ten hours.
Cramer shifted headquarters three times, taking me along. For half an hour or so he worked outdoors there on Thirty-ninth Street and then moved inside, to the 18th Precinct Station House on Fifty-fourth Street. Around three o’clock he moved again, to his own hangout, the office of the squad on Twentieth Street, and an hour later made another transfer, this time to the office of Deputy Commissioner O’Hara at Centre Street. O’Hara himself was there and things had really started to hum. I was right in the middle of it and was even given the pleasure of an interview with the Deputy! Commissioner himself. From the way he started in on me it was a fair inference that he not only regarded me as a damn liar but also had inside dope to the effect that I had done it all myself, and that when I had got home and joined Wolfe and Cramer in the office at 11:30 I had just come, not from a movie, but from parking the murder car on Ninety-fifth Street. Since I had already given Cramer all the information I had that could help any, I thought I might as well let O’Hara keep his illusions and fed him a peck or more of miscellaneous lies such as I didn’t know how to drive a car and in strict confidence I had not been at a movie, but in a hotel room with the wife of a prominent politician whom I would rather die than name. Eventually O’Hara caught on and there was quite a scene.
Kerr Naylor’s sister had of course been notified, not on the phone, but by dispatching Lieutenant Rowcliff to her house on Sixty-seventh Street. When Rowcliff returned-we were then at the 18th Precinct Station House-Jasper Pine was with him, having had his sleep broken into after all. Pine had been taken by Rowcliff, on their way, to identify the body, and since I knew from having done it myself how jolly that was, I didn’t blame him for looking a little pale. He didn’t have the appearance of a man overcome by grief, but neither did he look like a top executive with everything under control. Cramer, having learned that both he and his wife disclaimed any knowledge of Kerr Naylor’s whereabouts Friday evening and had no idea of what he might have been doing on Thirty-ninth Street, spent only a short time on him and then gave him back to Rowcliff for more talk. I spoke just sixteen words to him. As he started away with Rowcliff he confronted me and demanded, “Did Naylor tell you what you reported to me?
That he knew who had killed Moore?” “Yes,” I said. “If I had wanted to make something up I could have done better than that.” Before the night shift was through I met other acquaintances, after we got down to Centre Street. Not Hester Livsey. The dick who was sent for her came back with a report that her mother, with whom she lived in Brooklyn, had stated that her daughter was not there and had not been home that evening because she had g
one straight from work to Grand Central to catch a train, to spend the week-end with friends in Westport, Connecticut. She had furnished the name of the friends, and they had been phoned to. No answer. But Cramer and his boys were moving fast and in all directions. They had phoned the Westport police, who had made a call on the friends and reported back that Hester Livsey was there, snug in bed, having arrived on a train that had reached Westport at one-nine A.M.
Since it takes around seventy minutes, not eight hours, for a train to go from Grand Central to Westport, the caller had insisted on speaking to Miss Livsey and had done so. She had stated that she had decided to take a later train and that how she had spent the evening in New York was her own business. Told of the death of Kerr Naylor, she repeated her statement, and said that she knew nothing about Mr. Naylor and that her association with him was extremely remote, since he was head of a large department and she was merely a stenographer. Asked if she would return to New York in the morning so the police could talk with her, she refused, saying that she couldn’t possibly tell them anything helpful.
There was a report from a sergeant who had had a chat with Sumner Hoff in his apartment in the East Fifties. Hoff had been able to contribute nothing, but was quite willing, as a responsible citizen, to cooperate with the police in the investigation of a crime-which sounded to me like a distinct and encouraging improvement in his manners.
Bell ringing and door knocking had produced no results at the Greenwich Village room-and-bath tenanted by Rosa Bendini. In her case there was no mother around to get information from, and no one else in the building knew where Rosa was. I had a healthy conviction, knowing as I do what a liking for companionship can lead to, that when Rosa showed up her mind would be a blank as to where she had spent Friday night, but that was one of the things I didn’t communicate to Cramer, not wanting to lower his opinion of American womanhood. They thought they might find her with her husband, where he lived with his folks on Washington Heights, but no. Harold Anthony, hauled out of bed, dressed and came down to Centre Street without being asked. His story was that he hadn’t seen Rosa since Wednesday evening, when she had left him and me to fight it out on the sidewalk in front of Wolfe’s house; and as for him, he didn’t know Kerr Naylor from Adam, and had spent Friday evening at a basketball game at the Garden, where he had gone by his lonesome, and had then walked all the way home-some six miles-to use up energy.
I asked him, “So you got some energy back in the short space of forty-eight hours? After what I took out of you?” “What the hell,” he bragged, “I’d forgotten about that the next day. What do they want Rosa for? Are they fools enough to think she would kill a man? What have they got?” He had actually come clear down to Centre Street at that time of night through anxiety for his wife! Loyalty is a very fine thing, but it shouldn’t be allowed to get the bit between its teeth. I told him not to worry, the cops were just shaking it all through a sieve. Regarding his energy, I didn’t believe him.
Three of my kidney punches do not kill a man, but neither do they fade utterly from recollection the next day.
But that was along toward the end. Before that we had had a session with Ben Frenkel, one of the first things after our arrival at O’Hara’s office. At the moment Cramer was seated at the big desk and I was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at the carbon copy of my reports to Naylor-Kerr, which I had stopped off at Wolfe’s office to get. A dick towed Frenkel in and planted him in a chair at the end of the desk. I had thought his hair was undisciplined when he came to see me on Thursday, but now no two hairs were parallel. He was trying to look nowhere and at no one, which really cannot be done unless you go at it with all your might and shut your eyes.
“Hello there,” I said.
He returned no sign of recognition.
Cramer growled at him, “You’re Benjamin Frenkel?” “Yes, that’s my name.” “Are you under the impression that you killed Kerr Naylor?” Frenkel gawked at him, then made another try at looking at nothing, and did not speak.
“Well, are you?” Frenkel looked straight at me and cried, “You rat! I told you that in confidence!” “You did not,” I denied. “I told you I couldn’t keep a confession of murder confidential.” “I didn’t confess to a murder!” “Then do it now,” Cramer urged. “Confess now. Come on, let’s have it, get it off your chest, you’ll feel better.” That didn’t work at all. Put straight that way, an invitation to confess to murder seemed to be just what he had wanted for his birthday. He quit trying to look at nothing, his big bony shoulders went to the back of the chair for normal support, and his voice, though still intense, had no note of panic at all as he said: “I was told I had to come here to answer questions. What are the questions?” He smiled sweetly and sadly.
Cramer asked the questions and he replied. He had last seen Kerr Naylor around three o’clock Friday afternoon, at the office, and knew nothing of him since that hour. After work he had gone to his room on Ninety-fourth Street, bathed and changed his clothes, eaten dinner alone in a restaurant around the corner on Broadway, and taken the subway downtown to call for a young woman who lived on Twenty-first Street with whom he had an engagement for the evening. He preferred not to mention her name. They had gone to Moonlight, on Fiftieth Street, and stayed there, dancing, until after twelve. He had taken the young woman home and then gone home himself, arriving about one o’clock. He would not give the young woman’s name because there was no reason why he should. If for any good reason it became necessary the name would be forthcoming.
What about his impression that he had killed Waldo Moore?
That, he had decided, was one of the mental vagaries to which high-strung men like him were subject. He had often been bothered by them. Once he had become obsessed with the idea that he was secretly a Nazi, and had gone to a Bund meeting at Yorkville to get rid of it. He did not state categorically, but strongly implied, that his coming to me had been the same thing as his going to a Bund meeting, which did not increase my affection for him.
Hadn’t he come to me only for one purpose, to find out if Naylor had mentioned his name in connection with Moore’s death?
No, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t even thought of that until it occurred to him during the conversation.
Did he know Gwynne Ferris?
Yes, she was one of the stenographers in the stock department.
Had he spoken with her on Friday?
Possibly; he didn’t remember.
Hadn’t she told him that Naylor had stated that he knew who had killed Waldo Moore?
No, not that he remembered. But of course, he added, he had known that Mr.
Naylor had made that statement. Everybody did. It was being discussed all over the department.
That was news to me. I goggled at him. I took it away from Cramer and demanded, “When?” “Why, today. Yesterday. Friday.” “Who did Naylor make the statement to?” “I don’t know-that is, I only know what I heard. The way I got it, he made it to you and you reported it to the president’s office.” “Who did you get it from?” “I don’t remember.” Frenkel had reverted to form. His rumble was low from deep in his throat and his eyes were probing me again. “It is not a quality of my mind to cling to factual details like that. Whereas matters which have an intellectual content-” “Nuts.” Cramer said in bitter disgust. He had thought for one shining moment that he had a confession coming, and now this blah. He aimed a half-chewed cigar at Frenkel’s face, brandished it, and asserted: “Gwynne Ferris told you! Didn’t she?” “I said she didn’t.” “And I say she did! I happen to know- What do you want?” The question was for a city employee who had approached the desk. He answered it. “Sergeant Gottlieb is here, sir, with the Ferris woman.” Cramer scowled at him. “Keep her until I get through-no. Wait.” He looked at Frenkel and then at me. “Why not?” “Sure, why not?” I agreed.
Cramer told the dick, “Bring her in here.”
CHAPTER Twenty-One
Gwynne Ferris entered, not aware or
not caring that a detective sergeant was right behind her elbow, halted a moment to survey the big room, and then approached us at the desk.
“Hello, Ben,” she said in her sweet musical voice. “Of all the terrible things, but what are you here for?” Not waiting for a reply, her glance darted to Cramer and then to me. “Oh, then you are a policeman!” She was, I admitted, equal to any situation, and that applied not only to her nerves but also to her appearance. Routed out by a cop at four in the morning, getting dressed while he waited, and brought down to headquarters in a police car, she looked as fresh and pure and beautiful as she had when she had raised her clear blue eyes to mine and told me she couldn’t spell.
“Sit down, Miss Ferris,” Cramer told her.
“Thank you,” she said sarcastically, and sat, on a chair a couple of paces from Frenkel’s. “You look terrible, Ben. Have you had any sleep at all?” “Yes,” Frenkel rumbled from a mile down.
Gwynne spoke to Cramer and me. “The reason I asked him that, I saw him only a few hours ago. We were dancing. But I suppose he’s told you that already. It’s a good thing tomorrow isn’t a workday. Are you an inspector, Mr. Truett, or what?”
“This is unspeakable, utterly unspeakable,” Ben Frenkel declared with deep intensity. “I didn’t tell them who I went dancing with because I thought they’d be after you to verify it, and they did it anyway, for no reason on earth. Were they decent about it? Were they rough with you?” Harry Anthony had been anxious about Rosa, and here was Frenkel being anxious about Gwynne. I made a note to quit trying to understand women and start trying to understand men.
“No, he was really very courteous about it,” Gwynne testified generously.
Cramer had been glancing from one to the other. He opened up. “So you two were together all evening. Is that right, Frenkel?” “Yes. Since Miss Ferris has told you so.” “Not just since she has told me so. Were you?” “Yes.” “Did Mr. Frenkel take you home, Miss Ferris?” “Certainly he did!” “What time did you get home?” “When was it, Ben, about-” “I asked you.” “Well, it was a quarter to one when I got upstairs to my room. I went up alone of course. We talked a while downstairs.” Cramer surprised me. He was seldom plain nasty, leaving that to the boys, but now he barked at her, “When Waldo Moore took you home you didn’t go upstairs alone, did you?” Ben Frenkel sprang from his chair with his fists doubled up and his eyes blazing. A dick standing in the rear moved forward. I tightened up a little myself, not knowing how far Frenkel’s impulses might go. But evidently Gwynne did, for she was on her feet and in front of him, with her hands up to grasp his coat lapels.