Too Many Women nwo-12

by Rex Stout

  “Are you going to report upstairs and to the police that Miss Livsey told you that she knows who killed Moore and Naylor?” So it was improving with age, probably started that way by Gwynne herself. “I’m not employed by the city,” I asserted. “Of course it’s usual and proper to report to our client all important developments.” I patted my breast pocket.

  “Yes.” “She denies that she told you that. She denies that she told you anything whatever.” I nodded regretfully. “I expected that, though I hoped she wouldn’t. She also denied that she took a walk with Naylor for an hour and three minutes the evening he was killed. She’s quite a denier.” Hoff wet his lips with his tongue. He swallowed. “You’ve got the report ready.

  There in your pocket.” “Yes, sir.” I took my lapels, one in each hand, and pulled my coat open wide.

  “On the right, the pocket with the report in it. On the left, the armpit holster with my Wembly automatic. Everything in place.” He didn’t seem impressed by the holster; it was the pocket he was interested in.

  Then he came back to my eyes. His were not as penetrating and intense as Ben Frenkel’s, but they were steadier. “What,” he asked, “are you trying to force Miss Livsey to do?” I shook my head. “That’s up to her. Maybe we’re just trying to teach her a lesson, how immoral it is to deny things.” “She”-he wet his lips again-”she has told the truth.” “Okay, brother. You ought to know.” “I do know. I’m not a rich man, Goodwin. When it comes to money I can’t talk big, I have to stick to realities. I’ll give you five thousand dollars cash, I can get it by tomorrow, if you’ll just think it over and decide that you misunderstood her. That wouldn’t be difficult, you won’t have to revoke, you can just say you misunderstood her.” “Not for five grand I can’t.” “But I-” He stopped to think. “How much?” “Not for money. I don’t like money. It curls up at the corners. I could listen to reason if Miss Livsey came in here now, or came with me to see Mr. Wolfe, and delivered a dime’s worth of the truth. Provided we were satisfied it was a full dime’s worth.” “She has told you the truth.” “You ought to know.” He was silent. Slowly his fingers and thumbs closed to make fists, but obviously not with intent to attack or destroy. They stayed fists for a while, then opened up and were claws, then went loose.

  “For God’s sake,” he implored, “don’t you realize what you’re doing? Don’t you realize the danger you’re putting her in?” He was coming close to whimpering.

  “You know what happened to Naylor-don’t you know her life isn’t safe, not for a minute? What kind of a coldhearted bastard are you anyhow?” I leaned forward to tap him on the knee. “Lookit, my friend,” I said slowly and distinctly, “the score is exactly what you think it is. It’s tied up. Like it or lump it.” He jerked his knee aside as if my fingertip might be rubbing germs on him, went sidewise out of his chair and up, and trotted out of the room.

  I had enough now, it seemed to me, to justify blowing a nickel, so after watching Hoff recross the arena to Hester’s room I went out and down the aisle to the corner where the phone booths were.

  I told Wolfe, briefly, what had happened, and asked if he wanted me to fill it in on the phone. He said no, that could wait until I got home, and then proceeded to ask questions that amounted to contradicting himself. He was counting on getting something all right, a good deal more than I was. Finally he let me go. As I returned down the aisle three hundred typewriters stopped their clatter, and all the eyes were mine. It was enough to make Dana Andrews feel self-conscious.

  When I reached the door of my room I stopped and stood, but not to prolong the treat for my audience. The door was closed, and I was sure I had left it wide. I opened it and went in, and then closed the door behind me when I saw that Hester Livsey was standing there.

  I took a step, and she took two, and her right hand took hold of my left arm.

  “Please!” she said, her face lifted to me.

  I asked her stiffly, “Please what?” “Please don’t do this to me!” Her other hand got my other arm. “Don’t! Please!” I stood still, neither inviting her hands to stay, nor, by any motion, implying that I didn’t want them there. The nearness, with her face so close that I could see how black her pupils were, was her doing, and if it suited her it suited me.

  “I’m not doing anything to you,” I said. “I think you’re wonderful-” “You are! You’re lying about me! You’re telling a deliberate malicious lie!” I nodded. “Sure I am.” Her breath was sweet. “You’ve never met Saul Panzer, have you?” “What-who-you’re just-” “Saul Panzer. A friend of mine and the best leg-and-eye detective on earth. He saw you that evening with Naylor. So you lied. I admire you so much that I want to do everything you do, I can’t bear it not to. So I lied.” She took her hands away and backed up a step.

  “It makes me feel better all over,” I said.

  “You admit it’s a lie,” she said.

  “To you, sure. Not to anyone else. It’s our first secret, just you and me. If you don’t love me enough to have secrets with me, we can fix it. We can go to Nero Wolfe and confess we both lied, and tell him the truth. Shall we?” She was breathing hard, as sweet as ever presumably, but I was no longer close enough to get it.

  “You mean it, don’t you,” she said, not a question.

  “I mean everything I say. Let’s go see Mr. Wolfe and get it over with.” “I thought-I thought you-” She stopped. Her voice wanted to quiver but her chin didn’t. “You’re terrible. I thought- you’re terrible!” She moved to the door, not hurrying, just walking, pulled it open, and went.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Two

  At a quarter past eleven that evening, in Nero Wolfe’s office, the phone rang. I answered it, and Fred Durkin’s voice told me: “The lights are all out and so she’s safe in bed. For Christ’s sake, Archie, you don’t want me-” “I do,” I said firmly, “and so does Mr. Wolfe. You’ve got your instructions, and what do you do for a living anyway? You stick and stick good.” I hung up and told Wolfe, “Fred says the lights are out. I’m relieved and I admit it. I was going to marry her if she hadn’t gone partners with Hoff on that damn lie, and I don’t care for my share of this at all. I suppose I’ll have a nightmare tonight.” Wolfe didn’t bother to grunt.

  Although I know Wolfe as well as anybody does and a good deal better, I hadn’t been able to tell whether my report for the day had given him anything that would pass for the word or gesture or countermove he wanted. He had received it all, complete, with the attention it deserved, leaning back motionless, with his eyes closed, and had had plenty of questions. He even wanted to know exactly what Miss Abrams, the receptionist on the thirty-sixth floor, had said when I gave her the report to be taker, in to Jasper Pine. I had performed that ernnd at four-thirty, as usual, and she had tod me that Pine was engaged at the moment but she would be sure he got it before he left for the day.

  That night I had no nightmare, but if there had been a wife in bed with me she would probably have asked me in the morning why all the tossing and turning. It was by no means the first time I had bem responsible for putting someone’s pursuit of happiness in jeopardy, but this was something special. Things had somehow got reversed. At first sight of Hester Livsey I had instantly got the feeling that she was in some trouble that no one but me could get her out of, and here I was poking her head thiough the bull’s-eye of a target for a killer who had made two perfect hits, which was certanly a peculiar way to go about it.

  When I left the house Tuesday morning, April Fool’s Day, I was fidgety because there had been no phone call, though there was no good reason to expect one.

  Fred cerainly wouldn’t call until Hester showed horself, and after that happened there would te no opportunity. I got to the William Street building a quarter of an hour ahead of time at nine-fifteen, and lurked in the lobby at the spot Saul and I had chosen eight days earlier. The incoming throng had already started.

  Five minutes before the deadline here she came. As she entered the elevator I caught sig
ht of Fred Durkin, who had followed her into the lobby and stopped ten paces away. As I glimpsed him Bill Gore appeared from the other direction, exchanged signals with Fred, and strolled on. Fred went to the newsstand and bought a paper and then beat it.

  I took an elevator to the thirty-fourth floor, went to my room, left the door open, and sat at my observation post. I was having a letdown. Our fire hadn’t smoked Hester out and didn’t seem likely to, and it was hard on my temperament just to sit there and wait for someone to make a peep. However, I hadn’t been sitting long when the phone rang. I dived for it as if I was expecting word that it was an eight-pound baby boy, but all I got was a summons from Jasper Pine to come to see him. I obeyed it.

  On the thirty-sixth floor I was shooed into Pine’s office without any wait. He was there alone, standing in the middle of the big room, looking as if he had a grievance, with a sheet of paper in his hand. As I approached he shook the paper at me.

  “This report,” he said in his strong deep voice, as deep as Ben Frenkel’s, but not a rumble. “What is this?” “Have you read it?” I asked him.

  “Yes.” “Well, that’s what it is, Mr. Pine.” “This-” He glanced at the paper. “This Hester Livsey, what did she say?” “What it says there. That she didn’t dare to go to Mr. Wolfe and let him have another session with her because she knows who murdered Moore. You may remember, she’s the one who was engaged to marry Moore. That’s all, unless you want me to try to give you her exact words. I understand that she is now denying that she said that to me. So did Naylor, but you know what happened. I’m going to work on her, and I’m going to take her to see Wolfe if I can manage it.” “No name? She didn’t say who it was?” “No. Not yet.” “Have you reported this to the police?” “Again not yet. We don’t think the tactics they would use are likely to work, not with her.” There was a buzz from Pine’s desk. He walked to it and picked up a phone, talked for a few minutes about something not connected with death, and then circled the desk and dropped into his chair.

  “Damn it,” he said, “always too many things to do at once.” He was scowling at me. “Mr. Naylor said he never told you that. He insisted that you lied. Now this woman does the same.” I nodded. “Yeah. I’m building up a hell of a reputation. You didn’t believe Naylor. This time you can believe her if you want to even up.” “I hope you realize what you’re doing- what might happen to her.” I nodded again. “We’re keeping an eye on her.” “All right.” He picked up one of his phones. “Keep me informed. Let me know if she agrees to go to see Wolfe.” I said I would and left. On the way out of the reception room I used a phone booth to tell Wolfe that we were now getting words and gestures from the executive level.

  The remainder of the morning I played solitaire, without any deck. I stayed glued to my chair, facing my open door, and not a soul entered to pass the time of day. It was monotonous and extremely unsatisfactory. Hester kept her door closed. She emerged once, at ten-fifteen, for a trip to Rosenbaum’s room, where she remained over an hour, presumably for the morning dictation. The only other time I saw her was at one o’clock, her lunch hour, when she showed with her hat and coat on. I descended in the same elevator, with no exchange of greetings, saw Bill Gore pick her up in the lobby, and went myself to a joint down the street and consumed sandwiches and milk.

  Back again in my room, deciding that I had been lonely long enough, I called the reserve pool and said I wanted a stenographer and only Miss Ferris would do. By that time I had them trained, and in no time at all Gwynne entered with her notebook in her hand. I moved a chair so she would be facing me, with her back to the open door, without obstructing my view of the arena.

  “This is the first time I’ve taken from you,” she said, sitting. “You’d better go a little slow.” “Sure,” I agreed, “we’ve got all afternoon. Take a letter to the Police Commissioner. P-O-L-I-C-E-C-O-M-” “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” “You bet I’m smart. Dear Mr. Commissioner. I wish to make a complaint. The most beautiful girl on earth has betrayed my confidence. She said she wouldn’t tell and she did. She told a hundred people in a hundred minutes. Her name is Gwynne Ferris and she-” “I won’t write that! That isn’t so!” “Don’t talk so loud, the door’s open.” I grinned at her charmingly. “I know, Gwynne darling, you only told five or six and they promised not to breathe a word. Remember the first day I was here, how helpful you were?” I reached and got her notebook, tore out the page she had used for me, and handed her the book closed. “Forget it. All I wanted was to look at you. But we’d better talk to keep up appearances, people are looking at us. Is there any news?” “There certainly is.” She put one knee over the other and performed the skirt rite. “They’re fighting like cats and dogs about who’s lying, you or Hester.” “I hope I’m winning.” “Oh, yes, I’m sure you are, but some of them seem to like her, the dopes. That little fool Ann Murphy-do you know her?” “Not intimately.” “She says she’s going to put a complaint in the complaint box that you’re putting Hester in peril! What do you know about that? And oh, yes-my God, I should have told you-Mr. Pine, the president-he had his secretary phone Hester to come to see him, and she said she wouldn’t go, and then Mr. Pine phoned her himself and she still said she wouldn’t go! What do you know about that? Telling the president she wouldn’t go to his office when he told her to! Isn’t that just like her? I hope to God she gets fired.” “Don’t talk so loud. Where do you get all this? How do you know she wouldn’t go?

  I don’t believe it.” “You don’t believe it?” “No.” “All right, then don’t. The girls at the switchboard ought to know, I would imagine. I ate lunch with one of them. Of course they’re not supposed to listen in, but you know how it is, they have to see if they’re through talking, don’t they? You don’t believe it?” “Maybe I do. I’ll let you know.” I reached to pat her on the knee, a knee that was fully worthy of being patted. “You’re my favorite broadcaster, sweetheart.

  When did all this happen, this phoning and refusing?” “This morning, before lunch, I don’t know exactly what time. I think it shows she has guilty knowledge, don’t you?” “Well, at least knowledge. Any other news?” “Lord yes, I should say so. Mr. Hoff didn’t answer his mail all day yesterday, just let it lay there, he probably didn’t even read it, and old man Birch, you know, the correspondence checker with the wart on his nose-” She stopped because I suddenly stood up. “Excuse me?” I apologized, “I forgot something, I have to make a phone call. I forgot all about it.” “I’ll wait here.” I told her not to bother, I was through with dictation for the day, went out and down the aisle to the phone booths, and dialed Wolfe’s number. Fritz answered and switched me to Wolfe.

  “You said,” I told him, “that you wanted them as they left the griddle. You may consider this garbage, but it’s the first one for hours and I was afraid you might starve. This morning Pine had his secretary phone Miss Livsey to come to see him-to see Pine-and she refused. Then Pine phoned her himself to come to his office to see him, and still she refused. That’s all. Apparently she’s upset and is not accepting invitations, no matter who. What seems strange, she says she has to have a job, and she likes it here, or she did.” “Have you seen her? Talked with her?” “No. If I had you would have heard of it.” Silence. It kept on being silence, through a minute and a second and a third, until I asked: “Hello, you there?” “Yes. How did you learn this?” “One of my girl friends, Gwynne Ferris, who got it from a girl on the switchboard. It wouldn’t be invented. I’d pay for it myself.” “Where are you phoning from?” “A booth.” “Good. Here are your instructions.” He gave them to me. It wasn’t hard to see what was in his mind, and since the three or four lies I would have to tell wouldn’t make it any riskier than it already was, I offered no objections. It was fairly complicated, with several contingencies involved, and I had him repeat it to be sure I had it straight.

  Leaving the booth, thinking I might as well have one of the contingencies provided for, I went first to my room for
my hat and coat, and then crossed the arena to Hester’s room. Her door was closed. I went in, shut the door behind me, sat on a chair, and kept my hat and coat on my lap.

  Hester stopped banging the typewriter and looked at me. She was not the same woman I had met there two weeks previously. Then she had been a thousand miles away. Now she was right there with me, all of her. I meant something to her, I did indeed, and she was searching my face to see what it was I meant, coming to her. She didn’t ask what I wanted. She didn’t ask anything.

  “I’m in a difficult position,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. “There are people that want to know who’s lying, you or me. That’s all right, I have no kick coming on that, but they have a nerve to ask me to act as a messenger boy.

  However-” I shrugged. “I understand Mr. Pine, the president of the company, sent for you this morning and you refused to go to see him.” She didn’t move a muscle.

  “That’s correct, isn’t it?” I inquired.

  She spoke. “Yes. I-yes.” “Will you go to see him now? With me or without me?” She didn’t hesitate. “No.” I frowned at her. “One thing I’m not completely satisfied about. Has anyone tried to put any pressure on you? Since you refused to go to see Pine?” “No.” “Then they gave me that straight. Okay. Their position is this, and you must admit they’ve got a point. I have told them that you told me that you know who killed Waldo Moore. They have been informed that you deny you told me that. They have had a talk with me, and they want to have a talk with you. That seems reasonable. I don’t see how you can escape it. If you prefer not to talk with Pine, it can be someone else. When I say ‘they,’ I don’t mean they want to gang up on you. Just one of them-any of the three vice-presidents will do. Will you go to see one of the vice-presidents?” I suppose she was blinking now and then, since it is supposed to be impossible not to, but I could have sworn she wasn’t.