by Rex Stout
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it,” she said, not a question. I patted her shoulder professionally and told her we had barely started.
In the office again, Wolfe demanded, “Who is Bill Lesser?”
I told him, reporting it verbatim, including my phone call to Delia Brandt, and explaining I had hoped to get a glimmer from one or more of the quartet at sound of the name. He wasn’t very enthusiastic but admitted it was worth a look and said we would put Fred Durkin on it. I asked if I should phone Purley Stebbins, and he said no, it was too close to dinnertime and he wanted first to think over his talk with Mrs. Molloy’s friends.
He heaved a sigh. “Confound it,” he complained, “no gleam anywhere, no little fact that stings, no word that trips. I have no appetite!”
I snorted. “That’s the least of my worries,” I declared.
Chapter 12
I NEVER DID PHONE Purley because I didn’t have to. Fred Durkin called during dinner and said he had had no better luck at the theater and the bar than at the phone booth places, and I told him to come in, and he was there by the time we returned to the office with coffee. He had drawn nothing but blanks and I was glad we had a bone for him with a little meat on it. He was to do a take on William Lesser-address, occupation, and the trimmings-and specifically, had he been loose at 11:48 Wednesday night? That last seemed a waste of time and energy, since I had it entered that the Arkoffs and Irwins had never heard of him, but Wolfe wanted a little fact that stung and you never can tell. Just before Fred left Orrie Cather came.
Orrie brought a little package of items he had selected from the cartons in the Molloy apartment, and if they were the cream the milk must have been dishwater. He opened the package on my desk and we went through the treasure together, while Wolfe sat and read a book. There was a desk calendar with an entry on the leaf for January 2, Call B , and nothing else; a batch of South American travel folders; half a dozen books of matches from restaurants; a stack of carbon copies of letters, of which the most exciting was one to the Pearson Appliance Corporation telling them what he thought of their electric shaver; and more of the same.
“I don’t believe it,” I told Orrie. “You must have brought the wrong package.”
“Honest to God,” he swore. “Talk about drek, I never saw anything to equal it.”
“Not even check stubs?”
“Not a stub.”
I turned to Wolfe. “Mike Molloy was one of a kind. Meeting sudden death by violence in the prime of his manhood, as you would put it, he left in his office not a single item that would interest a crow, let alone a detective. Not even the phone number of his barber. No gleam anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. Not ‘prime of manhood.’”
“Okay. But unless he expected to get killed-”
The doorbell rang. I stepped to the door to the hall, switched on the stoop light, took a look, and turned.
“Cramer. Alone.”
“Ah.” Wolfe lifted his eyes from the book. “In the front room, Orrie, if you please? Take that stuff with you. When Mr. Cramer has passed through you might as well leave, and report in the morning.”
I stood a moment until Orrie had gathered up the treasure and started for the door to the front room, and then went to the hall and opened up. Many a time, seeing the burly breadth and round face of Inspector Cramer of Homicide there on the stoop, I had left the chain bolt on and spoken with him through the crack, but I now swung the door wide.
“Good evening,” I said courteously.
“Hello, Goodwin. Wolfe in?”
That was a form of wit. He knew damn well Wolfe was in, since he was never out. If I had been feeling sociable I would have reciprocated by telling him no, Wolfe had gone skating at Rockefeller Center, but the haul Orrie had brought had been hard on my sense of humor, so I merely admitted him and took his coat. He didn’t wait for escort to the office. By the time I got there he was already in the red leather chair and he and Wolfe were glaring at each other. They do that from force of habit. Which way they go from the glare, toward a friendly exchange of information or toward a savage exchange of insults, depends on the circumstances. That time Cramer’s opening pass was mild enough. He merely remarked that Goodwin had told Sergeant Stebbins he would call him back and hadn’t done so. Wolfe grunted and merely remarked that he didn’t suppose Cramer had come in person for information which Mr. Goodwin could have given Mr. Stebbins on the phone.
“But he didn’t,” Cramer growled.
“He will now,” Wolfe growled back. “Do you want him to?”
“No.” Cramer got more comfortable. “I’m here now. There’s more to it than Johnny Keems, but I’ll take that first. What was he doing for you last night?”
“He was investigating a certain aspect of the murder of Michael M. Molloy on January third.”
“The hell he was. I thought a murder investigation was finished when the murderer was tried and convicted.”
Wolfe nodded. “It is. But not when an innocent man is tried and convicted.”
It looked very much as if they were headed for insults. But before Cramer had one ready Wolfe went on. “You would ask, of course, if I have evidence to establish Peter Hays’s innocence. No, I haven’t. My reasons for thinking him innocent would not be admissible as evidence, and would have no weight for you. I intend to find the evidence if it exists, and Johnny Keems was looking for it last night.”
Cramer’s sharp gray eyes, surrounded by crinkles, were leveled at Wolfe’s brown ones. He was not amused. On previous occasions, during a murder investigation, he had found Wolfe a thorn in his hide and a pain in his neck, but this was the first time it had ever happened after it had been wrapped up by a jury.
“I am familiar,” he said, “with the evidence that convicted Hays. I collected it, or my men did.”
“Pfui. It didn’t have to be collected. It was there.”
“Well, we picked it up. What aspect was Keems working on?”
“The invitation to Mrs. Molloy to go to the theater. On the chance that it was designed, to get her away from the apartment. His instructions were to see Mr. and Mrs. Arkoff and Mr. and Mrs. Irwin, and to report to me if he got any hint of suspicion. He didn’t report, which was typical of him, and he paid for his disdain. However, I know that he saw those four, all of them. They were here this afternoon for more than an hour. He saw Mrs. Arkoff at her apartment shortly after eight o’clock, and returned two hours later and saw her and her husband. In between those two visits he saw Mr. and Mrs. Irwin at their apartment. Do you want to know what they say they told him?”
Cramer said he did, and Wolfe obliged. He gave him a full and fair report, including all essentials, unless you count as an essential his telling them he wanted to talk with them before he told the police what Johnny Keems had been doing-and anyway Cramer could guess that for himself.
At the end he added a comment. “The inference is patent. Either one or more of them were lying, or Johnny saw someone besides them, or his death had no connection with his evening’s work. I will accept the last only when I must, and apparently you will too or you wouldn’t be here. Did the circumstances eliminate fortuity?”
“If you mean could it have been an accident, it’s barely possible. It wasn’t on the Drive proper, it was on one of those narrow side approaches to apartment houses. A man and woman were in a parked car a hundred feet away, waiting for someone. The car was going slow when it passed them, going up the lane. They saw Keems step into the lane from between two parked cars, and they think the driver of the car blinked his lights, but they’re not sure. As the car approached Keems it slowed nearly to a stop, and then it took a sudden spurt and swerved straight at Keems, and that was it. It kept going and had turned a corner before the man and woman were out of their car. You know we found the car this morning parked on upper Broadway, and it was stolen?”
“Yes.”
“So it doesn’t look like fortuity. I must remember to use that in a report. You s
aid it could be that one of them was lying, or more than one. What do you think?”
Wolfe puckered his lips. “It’s hard to say. It can’t very well be just one of them, since their alibis are all in pairs-the two men in the bar the evening of January third, and for last night man and wife at home together in both cases. Of course you know their addresses, since you collected the evidence against Peter Hays.”
“They’re in the file.” Cramer’s eyes came to me. “In the neighborhood, Goodwin?”
“Near enough,” I told him. “The Arkoffs in the Eighties on Central Park West, and the Irwins in the Nineties on West End Avenue.”
“Not that that’s important. You understand, Wolfe, as far as I’m concerned the Hays case is closed. He’s guilty as hell. You admit you have no evidence. It’s Keems I’m interested in. If it was homicide, homicide is my business. That’s what I’m after.”
Wolfe’s brows went up. “Do you want a suggestion?”
“I can always use a suggestion.”
“Drop it. Charge Johnny Keems’s death to accident and close the file. I suppose a routine search for the hit-and-run driver must be made, but confine it to that. Otherwise you’ll find that the Hays case is open again, and that would be embarrassing. For all I know you may have already been faced with that difficulty and that’s why you’re here-for instance, through something found in Johnny Keems’s pockets. Was there something?”
“No.”
Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “I am being completely candid with you, Mr. Cramer.”
“So am I. Nothing was found on Keems but the usual items-keys, cigarettes, driving license, handkerchief, a little cash, pen and pencil. After what you tell me I’m surprised he didn’t have a memo of those people’s names and addresses. Didn’t you give him one, Goodwin?”
“No. Johnny didn’t believe in memos. He didn’t even carry a notebook. He thought his memory was as good as mine, but it wasn’t. Now it’s no good at all.”
He went back to Wolfe. “About your being completely candid, I didn’t think I’d go into this, but I will. Tuesday’s papers had an ad headed ‘To P.H.’ and signed by you. Tuesday noon Sergeant Stebbins phoned to ask Goodwin about it, and Goodwin told him to ask Lieutenant Murphy of the Missing Persons Bureau. What he learned from Murphy satisfied him, and me too, that your ad hadn’t been directed at Peter Hays but a man named Paul Herold, and we crossed it off as coincidence. But Wednesday morning, yesterday, Goodwin goes to the City Prison and has a talk with Peter Hays. News of that gets to Murphy, and he sees Hays and asks him if he is Paul Herold, and Hays says no. But here you are saying you think Hays is innocent and up to your neck in it hell for breakfast. If you had Keems investigating one aspect, how many men have you got on other aspects? You don’t toss money around just to see it flutter in the breeze. So if you’re being so goddam candid, who’s your client?”
Wolfe nodded. “That would interest you, naturally. I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer, I can’t tell you. You can ask Mr. Albert Freyer, counsel for Peter Hays, and see if you have better luck.”
“Nuts. Is Peter Hays Paul Herold?”
“He told Mr. Goodwin he is not. You say he told Lieutenant Murphy he is not. He should know.”
“Then why are you on the warpath?”
“Because both my curiosity and cupidity have been aroused, and together they are potent. Believe me, Mr. Cramer, I have been candid to the limit of my discretion. Will you have some beer?”
“No. I’m going. I have to start somebody on these Arkoffs and Irwins.”
“Then the Hays case is open again. That is not a gibe, merely a fact. Can you spare me another minute? I would like to know exactly what was found in Johnny Keems’s pockets.”
“I’ve told you.” Cramer got up. “The usual items.”
“Yes, but I’d like a complete list. I would appreciate it, if you’ll indulge me.”
Cramer eyed him. He could never make up his mind whether Wolfe was really after something or was merely putting on an act. Thinking he might find out, he turned to me. “Get my office, Goodwin.”
I swiveled and dialed, and when I had the number Cramer came to my desk and took it. I was supposing he would tell someone to get the list from the file and read it off to me, but no sir. That way I could have faked something, and who would trust Goodwin? He stayed at the phone, and when the list had been dug out and was called off to him he relayed it to me, item by item, and I wrote it down. As follows:
Motor operator’s license
Social Security card
Eastern Insurance Co. Identification card
2 tickets to baseball game for May 11th
3 letters in envelopes (personal matters)
Newspaper clipping about fluorine in drinking water
$22.16 in bills and coins
Pack of cigarettes
2 books of matches
4 keys on a ring
1 handkerchief
Ballpoint pen
Pencil
Pocket knife
I started to hand it to Wolfe, but Cramer reached and grabbed it. When he had finished studying it he returned it to me and I passed it to Wolfe, and Cramer asked him, “Well?”
“Thank you very much.” Wolfe sounded as if he meant it. “One question: is it possible that something, some small article, was taken from his clothing before this list was made?”
“Possible, yes. Not very likely. The man and woman who saw it from the parked car are respectable and responsible citizens. The man went to where the body was lying, and the woman blew the horn, and an officer came in a couple of minutes. The officer was the first one to touch the body. Why? What’s missing?”
“Money. Archie, how much did you give Johnny for expenses?”
“One hundred dollars.”
“And presumably he had a little of his own. Of course, Mr. Cramer, I am not ass enough to suggest that you have a thief on your force, but that hundred dollars belonged to me, since Johnny Keems had possession of it as my agent. If by any chance it should turn up-”
“Goddam you, I ought to knock you through that wall,” Cramer said through his teeth, and whirled and tramped out.
I waited until I heard the front door slam, then went to the hall and on to the one-way glass panel to see him cross the sidewalk and climb into his car. When I returned to the office Wolfe was sitting with his fingers interlaced at the apex of his central mound, trying not to look smug.
I stood and looked down at him. “I’ll be damned,” I said. “So you’ve got your little fact that stings. Next, who did he grease with it?”
He nodded. “Not too difficult, I should think. Apparently you share my assumption that he bribed somebody?”
“No question about it. Johnny wasn’t perfect, but he came close to it about money. That hundred bucks was yours, and for him that was that.” I sat down. “I’m glad to hear that it won’t be difficult to find out who got it. I was afraid it might be.”
“I think not-at least not to reach an assumption worth testing. Let us suppose it was you instead of Johnny. Having seen Mrs. Arkoff, you arrive at the Irwins’ apartment and find them about ready to leave, being detained by a necessary repair to Mrs. Irwin’s garment which is being made by the maid. Mostly they merely confirm what Mrs. Arkoff has already told you, but contribute one new detail: that the suggestion to invite Mrs. Molloy came originally from Mrs. Irwin. That is interesting, even provocative, and you want to pursue it, and try to, but by then the maid has the garment repaired and Mrs. Irwin puts it on, and they leave. You leave with them, of course, going down in the elevator with them, and they go off. There you are. You have seen three of them and have only one more on your list, it’s a little after nine o’clock, and there is an hour to pass before you can see Mr. Arkoff. What do you do?”
“Nothing to it. As soon as the Irwins are out of sight I go back upstairs and see the maid.”
“Would Johnny?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then he
did. Worth testing, surely.”
“Yeah, it stings, all right. If that maid took your hundred bucks she’ll take more.” I looked at my wrist. “Ten minutes to eleven. Shall I give her a whirl now?”
“I think not. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin might be there.”
“I can phone and find out.”
“Do so.”
I got the number from the book and dialed it, and after four whirrs a female voice told me hello.
I sent my voice through my nose. “May I speak to Mrs. Irwin, please?”
“This is Mrs. Irwin. Who is this?”
I cradled it, gently, not to be rude, and turned. “Mrs. Irwin answered. I guess it will have to wait until morning. I’ll call Mrs. Molloy first and get the maid’s name. She probably knows it.”
Wolfe nodded. “It will be ticklish, and it must not be botched.”
“Right. I’ll bring her here and take her to the basement and hold matches to her toes. I have a remark. Your asking Cramer for a list of the contents of Johnny’s pockets, that was only par for a genius, but your bumping him off the trail by pretending you wanted your money back-I couldn’t have done it better myself. Satisfactory. I hope I’m not flattering you.”
“Not likely,” he grumbled, and picked up his book.
Chapter 13
THE MAID’S NAME WAS Ella Reyes. I got that from Selma Molloy on the phone at eight o’clock Friday morning, and also that she was around thirty years old, small and neat, the color of coffee with cream, and had been with the Irwins for about a year.
But I didn’t get to tackle her. Relieving Fritz of the chore of taking Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to his room, where, a mountain of yellow silk pajamas, he stood barefoot in the flood of sunshine near a window, I learned that he had shifted the line-up. Orrie Cather was to call on the man and woman who, sitting in a parked car, had seen the end of Johnny Keems. Their name and address was in the papers, as well as the fact that they agreed that the driver of the hit-and-run car had been a man, and that was about all. They had of course been questioned by old hands at it, but Wolfe wanted Orrie to get it direct.