by Rex Stout
“You don’t have to. You can have your meals in your room, and it’s a nice room. I’m not asking you, lady, I’m telling you. Fifty hours ago I had to swallow hard to keep from having personal feelings about you, and I don’t want to do it again, as I would have to if you were found with your skull battered. I’m perfectly willing to help get your guy out to you alive, but not to your corpse. This specimen has killed Molloy, and Johnny Keems, and now Ella Reyes. I don’t know his reason for killing her, but he might have as good a one for killing you, or think he had, and he’s not going to. Go pack a bag, and step on it. We’re in a hurry.”
I’ll be damned if she didn’t start to reach out a hand to me and then jerk it back. The instinct of a woman never to pass up an advantage probably goes back to when we had tails. But she jerked it back.
She stood up. “I think this is foolish,” she said, “but I don’t want to die now.” She left me.
Another improvement. It hadn’t been long since she had said she might as well be dead. She reappeared shortly with a hat and jacket on and carrying a brown leather suitcase. I took the case, and we were off.
To save time I intended to explain the program en route in the taxi, but I didn’t get to. After I had told the hackie, “City Mortuary, Four hundred East Twenty-ninth,” and he had given us a second look, and we had started to roll, she said she wanted to ask me a question and I told her to shoot.
She moved closer to me to get her mouth six inches from my ear, and asked, “Why did Peter try to get away with the gun in his pocket?”
“You really don’t know,” I said.
“No, I-How could I know?”
“You might have figured it out. He thought your fingerprints were on the gun and he wanted to ditch it.”
She stared. Her face was so close I couldn’t see it. “But how could-No! He couldn’t think that! He couldn’t!”
“If you want to keep this private, tone it down. Why couldn’t he? You could. Sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander. You are now inclined to change your mind, but you have been worked on. He hasn’t been in touch as you have, so I suppose he still thinks it. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Peter thinks I killed Mike?”
“Of course. Since he knows he didn’t. Goose is right.”
She gripped my arm with both hands. “Mr. Goodwin, I want to see him. I’ve got to see him now !”
“You will, but not where we’re going and not now. And for God’s sake don’t crumple on me at this point. Steady the nerves and stiffen the spine. You’ve got a job to do. I should have stalled and saved it for later, but you asked me.”
So when the cab stopped at the curb in front of the morgue I hadn’t briefed her, and, not caring to share it with the hackie, I told him to wait, with the suitcase as collateral, helped her out, and walked her down to the corner and back. Uncertain of the condition of her wits after the jolt I had given her, I made darned sure she had the idea before going inside.
Since I was known there, I had considered sending her in alone, but decided not to risk it. In the outer room I told the sergeant at the desk, whose name was Donovan, that my companion wanted to view the body of the woman which had been found behind a lumber pile. He put an eye on Mrs. Molloy.
“What’s her name?”
“Skit it. She’s a citizen and pays her taxes.”
He shook his head. “It’s a rule, Goodwin, and you know it. Give me a name.”
“Mrs. Alice Bolt, Churchill Hotel.”
“Okay. Who does she think it is?”
But that, as I knew, was not a rule, so I didn’t oblige. After a brief wait an attendant who was new to me took us through the gate and along the corridor to the same room where Wolfe had once placed two old dinars on the eyes of Marko Vukcic’s corpse. Another corpse was now stretched out on the long table under the strong light, with its lower two-thirds covered with a sheet. At the head an assistant medical examiner whom I had met before was busy with tools. As we approached he told me hello, suspended operations, and backed up a step. Selma had her fingers around my arm, not for support, but as part of the program. The head of the object was on its side, and Selma stooped for a good view at a distance of twenty inches. In four seconds she straightened up and squeezed my arm, two little squeezes.
“No,” she said.
It wasn’t in the script that she was to hang onto my arm during our exit, but she did, out to the corridor and all the way to the gate and on through. In the outer corridor I broke contact to cross to the desk and tell Donovan that Mrs. Bolt had made no identification, and he said that was too bad.
On the sidewalk I stopped her before we got in earshot of the hackie and asked, “How sure are you?”
“I’m positive,” she said. “It’s her.”
Crossing town on 34th Street can be a crawl, but not at that time of day. Selma leaned back with her eyes closed all the way. She had had three severe bumps within the hour: learning that her P.H. thought she had killed her husband, taking it that he hadn’t, and viewing a corpse. She could use a recess.
So when we arrived at the old brownstone I took her up the stoop and in, told her to follow me, and, with the suitcase, mounted one flight to the South Room. It was too late for sunshine, but it’s a nice room even without it. I turned on the lights, put the suitcase on the rack, and went to the bathroom to check towels and soap and glasses. She sank into a chair. I told her about the two phones, house and outside, said Fritz would be up with a tray, and left her.
Wolfe was in the dining room, staving off starvation, with Saul Panzer doing likewise, and Fritz was standing there.
“We have a house guest,” I told them. “Mrs. Molloy. With luggage. I showed her how to bolt the door. She doesn’t feel like eating with people, so I suppose she’ll have to get a tray.”
They discussed it. The dinner dish was braised pork filets with spiced wine, and they hoped she would like it. If she didn’t, what? It was eight o’clock, and I was hungry, so I left it to them and went to the kitchen and dished up a plate for myself. By the time I returned the tray problem had been solved, and I took my place, picked up my knife and fork, and cut into a filet.
I spoke. “I was just thinking, as I dished this pork, about the best diet for a ballplayer. I suppose it depends on the player. Take a guy like Campanella, who probably has to regulate his intake-”
“Confound you, Archie.”
“What?” I raised my brows. “No business talk at the table is your rule, not mine. But to change the subject, just for conversation, the study of the human face under stress is absolutely fascinating. Take, for instance, a woman’s face I was studying just half an hour ago. She was looking at a corpse and recognizing it as having belonged to a person she knew, but she didn’t want two bystanders to know that she recognized it. She wanted to keep her face deadpan, but under the circumstances it was difficult.
“That must have been interesting,” Saul said. “You say she recognized it?”
“Oh, sure, no question about it. But you gentlemen continue the conversation. I’m hungry.” I forked a bite of filet to my mouth.
It was a tough day for rules. Still another one got a dent when, the dessert having been disposed of, we went to the office for coffee, but that happened fairly often.
I reported, in detail as usual, but not in full. Certain passages of my talk with Mrs. Molloy were not material, and neither was the fact that she had started to put out a hand to me and jerked it back. We discussed the situation and the outlook. The obvious point of attack was Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Irwin, but the question was how to attack. If they denied any knowledge of the reason for their maid’s absence, and if, told that she had been murdered, they denied knowledge of that too, what then? Saul and I did most of the talking. Wolfe sat and listened, or maybe he didn’t listen.
But the only point in keeping the identity of the corpse to ourselves was to have first call on the Irwins and Arkoffs, and if we weren’t going to call we might as well let the cop
s take over. Of course they were already giving the lumber pile and surroundings the full routine, and putting them on to the Irwins and Arkoffs wouldn’t help that any, but someone who knew what the medical examiner gave as the time of death should at least ask them where they were between this hour and that hour Thursday night. That was only common politeness.
When Fritz came to bring beer and reported that Mrs. Molloy had said she liked the pork very much but had eaten only one small piece of it, Wolfe told me to go and see if she was comfortable. When I went up I found that she hadn’t bolted the door. I knocked and got a call to enter, and did so. She was on her feet, apparently doing nothing. I told her if she didn’t care for the books on the shelf there were a lot more downstairs, and asked if she wanted some magazines or anything else. While I was speaking the doorbell rang downstairs, but with Saul there I skipped it. She said she didn’t want anything; she was going to bed and try to sleep.
“I hope you know,” she added, “that I realize how wonderful you are. And how much I appreciate all you’re doing. And I hope you won’t think I’m just a silly goose when I ask if I can see Peter tomorrow. I want to.”
“I suppose you could,” I said. “Freyer might manage it. But you shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the widow of the man he’s still convicted of murdering. Because there would be a steel lattice between you with guards present. Because he would hate it. He still thinks you killed Molloy, and that would be a hell of a place to try to talk him out of it. Go to bed and sleep on it.”
She was looking at me. She certainly could look straight at you. “All right,” she said. She extended a hand. “Good night.”
I took the hand in a professional clasp, left the room, pulling the door shut as I went, and went back down to the office to find Inspector Cramer sitting in the red leather chair and Purley Stebbins on one of the yellow ones, beside Saul Panzer.
Chapter 16
AS I CIRCLED AROUND Saul and Purley to get to my desk Cramer was speaking.
“… and I’m fed up! At one o’clock yesterday afternoon Stebbins phoned and told Goodwin about Johnny Keems and asked him if Keems was working for you, and Goodwin said he would have to ask you and would call back. He didn’t. At four-thirty Stebbins phoned again, and Goodwin stalled him again. At nine-thirty last evening I came to see you, and you know what you told me. Among other things-”
“Please, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe might have been gently but firmly stopping a talky brat. “You don’t need to recapitulate. I know what has happened and what was said.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. All right, I’ll move to today. At five-forty-two this afternoon Saul Panzer is waiting at the morgue to view a body when it arrives, and he views it, and beats it. At seven-twenty Goodwin shows up at the morgue to view the same body, and has a woman with him, and he says they can’t identify it and goes off with the woman. He gives her name as Mrs. Alice Bolt-Mrs. Ben Bolt, I suppose-and her address as the Churchill Hotel. There is no Mrs. Bolt registered at the Churchill. So you’re up to your goddam tricks again. You not only held out on us about Keems for eight hours yesterday, you held out on me last night, and I’m fed up. Facts connected with a homicide in my jurisdiction belong to me, and I want them.”
Wolfe shook his head. “I didn’t hold out on you last night, Mr. Cramer.”
“Like hell you didn’t!”
“No, sir. I was at pains to give you all the facts I had, except one, perhaps-that despite Peter Hays’s denial we had concluded he is Paul Herold. But you took care of that, characteristically. Knowing, as you did, that James R. Herold was my client, you notified him that you thought you had found his son and asked him to come and verify it, omitting the courtesy of even telling me you had done so, let alone consulting me in advance. Considering how you handle facts I give you, it’s a wonder I ever give you any at all.”
“Nuts. I didn’t notify James R. Herold. Lieutenant Murphy did.”
“After you had told him of your talk with me.” Wolfe flipped a hand to push it aside. “However, as I say, I gave you all the facts I had relevant to your concern. I reported what had been told me by Mr. and Mrs. Arkoff and Mr. and Mrs. Irwin. And I made a point of calling to your attention a most significant fact-more than significant, provocative-the contents of Johnny Keems’s pockets. You knew, because I told you, these things: that Keems left here at seven-thirty Wednesday evening to see the Arkoffs and Irwins, with a hundred dollars in his pocket for expenses; that during his questioning of the Irwins their maid had been present, and the questioning had been cut short by the Irwins’ departure; and that only twenty-two dollars and sixteen cents had been found on his body. I gave you the facts, as of course I should, but it was not incumbent on me to give you my inference.”
“What inference?”
“That Keems had spent the hundred dollars in pursuance of his mission, that the most likely form of expenditure had been a bribe, and that a probable recipient of the bribe was the Irwins’ maid. Mr. Goodwin got the maid’s name, and a description of her, from Mrs. Molloy, and Mr. Panzer went to see her and couldn’t find her. He spent the day at it and was finally successful. He found her at the morgue, though the identification was only tentative until Mrs. Molloy verified it.”
“That’s not what Goodwin told Donovan. He said she couldn’t make an identification.”
“Certainly. She was in no condition to be pestered. Your colleagues would have kept at her all night. I might as well save you the trouble of a foray on her apartment. She is in this house, upstairs asleep, and is not to be disturbed.”
“But she identified that body?”
“Yes. Positively. As Miss Ella Reyes, the Irwins’ maid.”
Cramer looked at Stebbins, and Stebbins returned it. Cramer took a cigar from his pocket, rolled it between his palms, and stuck it in his mouth, setting his teeth in it. I have never seen him light one. He looked at Stebbins again, but the sergeant had his eyes on Wolfe.
“I realize,” Wolfe said, “that this is a blow for you and you’ll have to absorb it. It is now next to certain that an innocent man stands convicted of murder on evidence picked up by your staff, and that’s not a pleasant dose-”
“It’s far from certain.”
“Oh, come, Mr. Cramer. You’re not an ass, so don’t talk like one. Keems was working on the Molloy murder, and he was killed. He made a contact with Ella Reyes, and she was killed-and by the way, what money was found on her, if any?”
Cramer took a moment to answer, because he would have preferred not to. But the newspaper boys probably already had it. Even so, he didn’t answer, he asked, and not Wolfe, but me.
“Goodwin, the hundred you gave Keems. What was it?”
“Five used tens and ten used fives. Some people don’t like new ones.”
His sharp gray eyes moved. “Was that it, Purley?”
“Yes, sir. No purse or handbag was found. There was a wad in her stocking, ten fives and five tens.”
Wolfe grunted. “They belong to me. And speaking of money, here’s another point. I suppose you know that I learned that Molloy had rented a safe-deposit box under an alias, and a man named Patrick A. Degan was appointed administrator of the estate, and in that capacity was given access to the box. The safe-deposit company had to have a key made. When Mr. Degan opened the box, with Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Parker present, it was found to contain three hundred and twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and forty dollars in currency. But-”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Mr. Degan will doubtless confirm it for you. But the point is, where is Molloy’s key to that box? Almost certainly he carried it on his person. Was it found on his corpse?”
“Not that I remember.” Cramer looked at Stebbins. “Purley?”
Stebbins shook his head.
“And Peter Hays, caught, as you thought, red-handed. Did he have it?”
“I don’t think so. Purley?”
“No, sir. He had k
eys, but none for a safe-deposit box.”
Wolfe snorted. “Then consider the high degree of probability that Molloy was carrying the key and the certainty that it was not found on him or on Peter Hays. Where was it? Who took it? Is it still far from certain, Mr. Cramer?”
Cramer put the cigar in his mouth, chewed on it, and took it out again. “I don’t know,” he rasped, “and neither do you, but you sure have stirred up one hell of a mess. I’m surprised I didn’t find those people here-the Arkoffs and Irwins. That must be why you were saving the identification, to have a crack at them before I did. I’m surprised I didn’t find you staging one of your goddam inquests. Are they on the way?”
“No. Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Panzer and I were discussing the situation. I don’t stage an inquest, as you call it, until I am properly equipped. Obviously the question is, where did Keems go and whom did he see after he talked with the maid? The easiest assumption is that he stayed at the Irwins’ apartment until they came home, but there is nothing to support it, and that sort of inquiry is not my metier. It is too laborious and too inconclusive, as you well know. Of course your men will now question the doorman and elevator man, but even if they say that Keems went up again shortly after he left Wednesday night with the Irwins, and didn’t come down until after the Irwins returned, what if the Irwins simply deny that he was there when they came home-deny that they ever saw or heard of him again after they left?”
Wolfe gestured. “However, I am not deprecating such inquiry-checking of alibis and all the long and intricate routine-only I have neither the men nor the temper for it, and you have. For it you need no suggestions from me. If, for example, there is discoverable evidence that Keems returned to the Arkoffs’ apartment after talking with Ella Reyes, you’ll discover it, and you’re welcome to. I’m quite willing for you to finish the job. Since you don’t want two unsolved homicides on your record you’ll use all your skills and resources to solve them, and when you do you will inevitably clear Peter Hays. I’ve done my share.”