A Family Affair

by A Family Affair (lit)

  "I don't know, but he wouldn't have said that if he hadn't. You can ask Felix."

  "Did he mention it again later?"

  "No, sir. Of course I didn't."

  "Had he been like that Saturday? Distraught?"

  "I don't -" Philip frowned. "No, sir, he hadn't."

  "I suggest that when opportunity offers you sit and close your eyes and try to recall everything he said yesterday. If you do that, make a real effort, you may surprise yourself. People frequently do. Will you do that?"

  "Yes, sir, but not here. I couldn't, here. I will later."

  "And tell me or Mr. Goodwin."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. We'll hope to hear from you."

  Wolfe cocked his head. "Now. Another important question. If he was killed by someone who works here, who was it? Who might have had reason to want him dead? Who feared him or bated him or might have profited by his death?"

  [23] Philip was shaking his head. "Nobody. Nobody here. Nobody anywhere."

  "Pfui. You can't know that. Obviously you can't, since someone killed him."

  He was still shaking his head. "No, sir. I mean yes, sir. Of course. But I can't believe it. That's what I thought when I heard it-who could have killed him? Why would anybody kill Pierre? He never hurt anybody, he wouldn't. Nobody hated him. Nobody was afraid of him. He was a fine man, an honest man. He wasn't perfect, he had that one fault, he bet too much on horse races, but he knew he did and he tried to stop. He didn't want to talk about it, but sometimes he did. I was his best friend, but he never tried to borrow from me."

  "Did he borrow from anyone?"

  "I don't think so. I don't think he would. I'm sure he didn't from anybody here. If he had, there would have been talk. You can ask Felix."

  Apparently the idea was that Felix knew everything.

  "Did he bet large amounts?"

  "I don't really know. He didn't like to talk about it. Once he told me he won two hundred and thirty dollars, and another time a hundred and something, I forget exactly, but he never spoke about losing."

  "How did he bet? Bookmakers?"

  "I think he used to, but I'm not sure. Then OTB. He told me when he started at OTB."

  "OTB?"

  "Yes, sir. Off-Track Betting."

  Wolfe looked at me. I nodded. The things he doesn't know, and he reads newspapers. He went back to Philip. "Of course you saw him elsewhere, not only here. Have you ever been in his home?"

  "Yes, sir. Many times. His apartment on West Fifty-fourth Street."

  "With his wife?"

  "She died eight years ago. With his daughter and [24] his father. His father had a little bistro in Paris, but he sold it and came over to live with Pierre when he was seventy years old. He's nearly eighty now."

  Wolfe closed his eyes, opened them, looked at me and then at the wall, but there was no clock. He got the tips of his vest between thumb and finger, both hands, and pulled down. He didn't know he did that, and I never mentioned it. It was a sign that his insides had decided that it was time to eat. He looked at me. "Questions? About betting?"

  "Not about the betting. One question."

  I looked at Philip. "The number on Fifty-fourth Street?"

  He nodded. "Three-eighteen. Between Ninth Avenue and Tenth."

  "There will probably be more questions," Wolfe said, "but they can wait. You have been helpful, Philip, and I am obliged. You will be here for dinner?"

  "Yes, sir, of course. Until ten o'clock."

  "Mr. Goodwin may come. Felix knows about lunch for us. Please tell him we are ready."

  "Yes, sir."

  Philip was up. "You will tell me what you find out."

  He looked at me and back at Wolfe. "I want to know. I want to know everything about it."

  Well, well. You might have thought he was Inspector Cramer. Wolfe merely said, "So do I. Tell Felix to send our lunch."

  And Philip turned and walked out without saying yes, sir, and I said, "The question is, was it you or me? He probably thinks me."

  Whenever he eats at Rusterman's, Wolfe has a problem. There's a conflict. On the one hand, Fritz is the best cook in the world, and on the other hand, loyalty to the memory of Marko Vukcic won't admit that there is anything wrong with anything served at that restaurant. So he passed the buck to me. When about a third of his portion of the baked scallops was down, he looked at me and said, "Well?"

  "It'll do," I said. "Maybe a little too much nutmeg, of course that's a matter of taste, and I suspect the [25] lemon juice came out of a bottle. The fritters were probably perfect, but they came in piles and Fritz brings them just three at a time, two to you and one to me. That can't be helped."

  "I shouldn't have asked you," he said. "Flummery. Your palate is incapable of judging the lemon juice in a cooked dish."

  Of course he was under a strain. Business is never to be mentioned at the table, but since there was no client and no prospect of a fee, this was all in the family and therefore wasn't business, and it was certainly on his mind. Also the waiter wasn't Pierre, whom he would never have again. He was some kind of Hungarian or Pole named Ernest, and he was inclined to tilt things. However, he ate, including the almond parfait, which I had suggested, and had a second cup of coffee. As for conversation, that was no problem. Watergate. He probably knew more about every angle of Watergate than any dozen of his fellow citizens, for instance the first names of Haldeman's grandparents.

  He had intended to have another talk with Felix, but as we pushed our chairs back and rose he said, "Can you have the car brought to the side entrance?"

  "Now?"

  "Yes. We're going to see Pierre's father."

  I stared at him. " 'We'?"

  "Yes. If you brought him to the office we would be interrupted. Since Mr. Cramer and the District Attorney have been unable to find us, there may already be a warrant."

  "I could bring him here."

  "At nearly eighty, he may not be able to walk. Also tile daughter may be there."

  "Parking in the fifties is impossible. There may be three or four flights and no elevator."

  "Well see. Can it be brought to the side entrance?"

  I said of course and got his coat and hat. It cer- [26] tainly was all in the family. For a client, no matter how urgent or how big a fee, it had never come to this and never would. He took the elevator in the rear and I took the one in front, since I had to tell Otto where to send the car.

  The West Fifties are a mixture of everything from the "21" Club to grimy walkups and warehouses, but I knew that block on Fifty-fourth was mostly old brownstones, and there was a parking lot near Tenth Avenue. When we were in and rolling, I suggested going to the garage and leaving the Heron, which Wolfe owns and I drive, and taking a taxi, but he thinks a moving vehicle with anyone but me at the wheel is even a bigger risk and vetoed it. So I crossed to Tenth Avenue and then uptown, and there was space at the parking lot. Only one long block to walk.

  Number 318 wasn't too bad. Some of those brownstones had been done over inside, and that one even had wooden paneling in the vestibule, and a house phone. I pushed the fourth button up, which was tagged Ducos, put the receiver to my ear, and in a minute a female voice said, "Who ees eet?"

  If it was Pierre's daughter, I thought she should have better manners, but probably she had been given a busy day by a string of city employees and journalists. It was ten minutes past three.

  "Nero Wolfe," I told her. "W-Î-L-F-E. To see Mr. Ducos. He will probably know the name. And Good-win, Archie Goodwin. We knew Pierre for years."

  "Parlez-vous franfais?"

  she said.

  I knew that much, barely. "Mr. Wolfe does," I said. "Hold it."

  I turned. "She said parly voo fransay. Here."

  He took the receiver, and I moved to make room. He didn't have to stoop quite as much as me to get his mouth at the right level. Since what he said was for me only noise, I spent the couple of minutes enjoying the idea of a homicide dick pushing that button and hear
ing parly voo fransay, and hop- [27] ing it was Lieutenant Rowcliff. Also a couple of journalists I had met, especially Bill Wengert of the Times. When Wolfe hung up the receiver, I put a hand on the inside door and, when the click sounded, pushed it open. And there was a do it-yourself elevator with the door standing open.

  If you speak French and would prefer to have a verbatim report of Wolfe's conversation with Leon Ducos, Pierre's father, I'm sorry I can't deliver. All I got was an idea of how it was going from their tones and looks. I'll report what I saw. First, at the door of the apartment it wasn't Pierre's sister. She had said good-by to fifty and maybe even sixty. She was short and dumpy, with a round face and a double chin, and she sported a little white apron, and a little white cap thing on top of her gray hair. Probably she spoke English, at least some, but she didn't look it. She took Wolfe's coat and hat and ushered us to the front room. Ducos was there in a wheelchair by a window. The best way to describe him is just to say that he was shriveled but still tough. He probably weighed thirty pounds less than he had at fifty, but what was left of him was intact, and when I took his offered hand I felt his grip. During the hour and twenty minutes we were there he didn't say a word that I understood. Probably he spoke no English at all, and that was why she had asked if I spoke French.

  In twenty minutes, even less, their tone and manner had made it plain that no blood would be shed, and I left my chair, looked around, and crossed to a cabinet with a glass door and shelves in the far comer. Most of the shelves had things like little ivory and china figures and sea shells and a wooden apple, but on one there was a collection of inscribed trophies, silver cups and a medal that might have been gold, and a couple of ribbons. The only word on them that I knew was a name, Leon Ducos. Evidently his bistro had done something that people liked. I sent my [28] eyes around, detecting. You do that in the home of a man who has just been murdered, and, as usual, nothing suggested anything. A framed photograph on a table was probably of Pierre's mother.

  The white apron appeared at a door nearby and went and said something to Ducos, and he shook his head, and as she was leaving I asked if I could use the bathroom. She showed me, down the hall, and I went, though I really had nothing much to pass but the time, and on the way back there was an open door and I entered. A good detective doesn't have to be invited. There had been no signs anywhere of a daughter, but that room was full of them. It was here. Everything in it said so, and one of the items tagged her good-the contents of a bookcase over by the wall. There were some novels and nonfiction, some of whose titles I recognized, hard covers, and some paperbacks with French titles, but the interesting shelf was the middle one. There were books by Betty Friedan and Kate Millett and four or five more I had heard of, and three by Simone de Beauvoir in French. Of course one or two of them might be on anybody's shelf, but not a whole library. I took one of them out for a look, and her name, Lucile Ducos, was on the title page, and a second one also, and was reaching for another when a voice came from behind.

  "What are you doing?"

  The white apron. "Nothing much," I said. "I couldn't join in or even understand them and saw these books as I was passing. Are they yours?"

  "No. She wouldn't want a man in here, and she wouldn't want a man handling her books."

  I won't try to spell her accent.

  "I'm sorry. Don't tell her, but of course there'll be fingerprints. I didn't touch anything else."

  "Did you say your name's Archie Goodwin?"

  "I did. It is."

  "I knew about you from him. And the radio today.

  [29] You're a detective. And a policeman wanted to know if you had been here. He told me to call a number if you came."

  "I'll bet he did. Are you going to?"

  "I don't know, I'll ask Muhsieuw Ducos."

  I can't spell Muhsieuw the way she said it.

  Evidently she wasn't going to leave me there, so I moved, on past her at the door and back to the front room. They were still jabbering, and I went and stood at another window, looking out at the traffic.

  It was a quarter past four when we were back in the Heron and rolling out of the parking lot. To Ninth Avenue and downtown. All Wolfe had said was that Ducos had told him something and we would go home and discuss it. He doesn't talk when he's walking or in the car. At the garage Tom said a dick had come a little before noon to see if the car was thereof course it had been-and another one had come around four o'clock and asked if he knew where I had gone with it. From there around the comer and half a block on Thirty-fifth Street to the brownstone, more exercise for Wolfe, and I knew why. If I had driven him home and then taken the car to the garage, somebody might be camped on the stoop.

  There wasn't. We mounted the seven steps, and I pushed the button and Fritz came, saw us through the one-way glass panel, slid the chain bolt, and opened the door, and we entered. As I hung Wolfe's coat up he asked Fritz, "Did that man come?"

  "Yes, sir. Two of them. They're up there now. Several men came, five of them not counting those two, The phone has rung nine times. Since you weren't sure about dinner, I didn't stuff the capon, so it may be a little late. It's nearly five o'clock."

  "It could have been later. Please bring beer. Milk, Archie?"

  I said no, make it gin and tonic, and we went to the office. The mail was there under a paperweight [30] on his desk, but after he got his bulk properly distributed in the chair that had been made to order for it, be shoved the mail aside, leaned back, and shut his eyes. I expected, I may even have hoped, to see his lips start moving in and out, but they didn't. He just sat. After four minutes of it, maybe five, I said, "I don't want to interrupt, but you might like to know that the daughter, whose name is Lucile, is a Women's Libber. Not just one of the herd, a real one. She has -" His eyes had opened. "I was resting. And you know I will not tolerate that locution."

  "All right, Liberationist. She has three books by Simone de Beauvoir, who you have admitted can write, in French, and a shelf full of others I have heard of, some of which you have started but didn't finish. Also she wouldn't want a man in her room. I'm talking because someone should say something, and apparently you don't want to."

  Fritz came with the tray. There's something I don't like about my taking something from a tray held by Fritz, and as he reached Wolfe's desk I went and got my gin and tonic. Wolfe opened the drawer to get the solid gold opener. When he had poured, he spoke.

  "Miss Ducos feeds facts to a computer at New York University. She usually gets home about half past five. You will see her."

  "She may not speak to men."

  I settled back in my chair. He was going to talk.

  He grunted. "She will about her father. She was attached to him but didn't want to be. Mr. Ducos is perceptive and articulate-that is, he was with me. Pierre told you that I am the greatest detective in the world. He told his father that I am the greatest gourmet in the world. His father told me that was why he had told the police nothing, and wouldn't, but he would tell me. He said that only after he teamed [31] that I speak French well. Of course that's absurd, but he doesn't know it. Most of what he told me about his son was irrelevant to our purpose, and I won't report it. Or I will, I should, if you insist."

  That sounded better than it actually was. Yes, I usually reported in full to him, frequently verbatim, but that wasn't why he was offering to. It was just that if and when he spotted the man who had killed Pierre before I did, he didn't want me to say sure, his father spoke French.

  But I kept the grin inside. "Maybe later," I said. "It can wait. Did he tell you anything relevant?"

  "He may have. He knew about Pierre's habit of betting on horse races, and they frequently discussed it. He said that Pierre never asked him for money on account of it, but that was a lie. That was one of the few points, very few, about which he was not candid. Also it is one of the points on which you may want a full report later. I mention it now only because it was in a discussion about the betting that Pierre told him about a man giving him a hundred
dollars. Last Wednesday morning, six days ago, Pierre told him that one day the preceding week-Mr. Ducos thinks it was Friday but isn't sure there had been a slip of paper left on a tray with the money by a customer, and later when he went to return it the customer had gone. And the day before, Tuesday-the day before the talk with his father-a man had given him a hundred dollars for the slip of paper."

  Wolfe turned a palm up. "That's all. But a hundred dollars for a slip of paper? Even with the soaring inflation, that seems extravagant. And another point Was the man who gave Pierre that hundred dollars the man who had left the slip of paper on the tray? Of course I tried to get the exact words used by Pierre in the talk with his father, and perhaps I did [32] -the important ones. Mr. Ducos is certain that he did not use the word rendre. Return. Give back. If he had been returning the slip to the man who had left it on the tray, a hundred dollars could have been merely exuberant gratitude, but if it was not the same man-1 don't need to descant on that."