I nodded. "A dozen possibilities. And if it was the same man, why did Pierre wait four days to return it? Or why didn't he just give it to Felix and ask him to mail it to him? I like it. Is that the crop?"
"Yes. Of course other things that Mr. Ducos told me might possibly repay inquiry, but this was much the most likely."
He turned his head to look at the clock. "Nearly two hours to dinner. If you go now?"
"I doubt it. Felix, I suppose, and maybe some of the waiters, but Philip is by far the best bet, and you know how it is in the kitchen at this hour, especially for a sauce man. Also I had four hours' sleep and I'm not -" The doorbell. I went to the hall for a look, stepped back in, and said, "Cramer."
He made a noise. "How the devil-was he across the street?"
"No, but someone was and phoned. Naturally."
"You'll have to stay."
He rarely uses breath to say things that are obvious, but of course that was. I went and slid the bolt and swung the door open.
Inspector Cramer of Homicide South has been known to call me Archie. He also has been known to pretend he doesn't remember my name, and that time maybe he really didn't. He marched on by, to the office door and in, and when I got there he was saying, "... and every goddam minute from the time you woke up until now. You and Goodwin. And you'll sign it."
Wolfe was shaking his head, tilted back. "Pfui," he said.
[33] "Don't phooey me! Of all the-" "Shut up!"
Cramer gawked. He had heard Wolfe tell a hundred people to shut up, and I had heard him tell a thousand, including me, but never Cramer. He didn't believe it.
"I don't invite you to sit," Wolfe said, "or to remove your coat and hat, because I am going to tell you nothing. No, I retract that. I do tell you that I know nothing about the death of Pierre Ducos except what Mr. Goodwin has told me, and he has told Mr? Stebbins everything he told me. Beyond that I shall tell you absolutely nothing. Of course I had to permit examination of that room by qualified men, and I left instructions to admit them. They are still up there. If we are taken in custody as material witnesses, by either you or the District Attorney, we'll stand mute. Released on bail, we'll still stand mute. I am going to learn who killed that man in my house. I doubt if you can and I hope you don't, except from me when I'm ready to tell you."
Wolfe aimed a straight finger at him, up at his face, another first. "If I sound uncivil, I do not apologize. I am in a rage and out of control. Whether you have warrants or not, arrest us now and take us; let's get that over with. I have a job to do."
He extended his arms, stretched out, the wrists together for handcuffs. Beautiful. I would have loved to do it too, but that would have been piling it on.
If Cramer had had cuffs in his pocket he might actually have used them, judging from the look on his big red face. Knowing Wolfe as well as he did, what could he do? His mouth opened and closed again. He looked at me and back at Wolfe. "Out of control," he growled. "Balls. You out of control. I know one thing. I know-" "Oh! We didn't know you were here. Inspector."
Two men were there at the door, a tall rangy one [34] and a broad bulky one with only one arm. Of course I should have heard them; my ears must have been more eager to hear what Cramer would say than I realized. When he turned to face them they saluted, but he didn't return it.
"It took you long enough," he said.
"Yes, sir. It was a job. We didn't know you were here. We -" "I came to see why it took so damn long. Did you -No. You can tell me in the car."
He was moving. They sidestepped to let him by and followed him out. I stayed put. Experts wouldn't need help opening a door. When the sound came of the front door opening and closing, I went for a look down the hall, came back, and said, "What a break for him. He couldn't have left without us. He ought to move them up a peg. Of course it was a break for us too, with you out of control."
"Grrrh," he said. "Sit down."
[35] 4 At ten o'clock that evening I was standing by a reading lamp, flipping through the pages of a book entitled Les Sauces du Monde. Going through a room trying to find something doesn't take long if you're after a diamond necklace or an elephant tusk or a gun. But if it's a twenty-dollar bill, anything at all that could be between the pages of a book without bulging it, that takes time if there are books in the room. For the Library of Congress, I would say 2748 years.
Most of the forty-some books on shelves in Pierre Ducos's room were about cooking. What I was after didn't have to be a piece of paper, but that was the most likely, since I wanted something, anything, that could lead to either the man who had left the slip of paper on the tray or the one who had paid a C for it. One item that had seemed possible was a notebook I found in a drawer that had lists of names on several pages, but Lucile Ducos had told me they were the names of men who gave big tips. She said Pierre hadn't been good at remembering names and he had written them down for twenty years.
I hadn't been in her room. When, arriving, I had told her grandfather, with her as interpreter, that I wanted to take a look in Pierre's room, and why, I [36] had got the impression that she didn't like it, but he had got emphatic and it took. I had also got the impression that she was staying with me to see if I took anything and if so what. Getting impressions from her wasn't difficult, beginning with the impression that it didn't matter whether I had two legs or four legs, or whether I wore my face in front or behind. But she mattered-I mean to her. Her face, which wasn't bad at all, was well cared for, also her nice brown hair, and the cut and hang of her light-brown dress were just right. It was hard to believe she went to all that trouble just for the mirror.
She was seated in an easy chair the other side of the reading lamp. When I did the last book and put it back on the shelf, I turned to her and said, "I suppose you're right, if he put something somewhere it would be in this room. Have you remembered anything he said?"
"No."
"Have you tried to?"
"I told you I knew I couldn't because he hadn't said anything."
Her voice had a little too much nose. I looked down at her. Up to a few inches above her knees, she had good legs. A pity. I decided to try another approach. "You know. Miss Ducos," I said, "I have tried to be polite and sympathetic, I really have. But I wonder why you don't give a damn who killed your father. That doesn't seem very-well, natural."
She nodded. "You would. You think I should be weeping and wailing or maybe doing a Medea. Bullshit, I was a good daughter, good enough. Of course I give a damn who killed him, but I don't think you're going to find out the way you're going at it, all this about a man who gave him some money for a piece of paper. Or if you do, it won't be by nagging me to remember something that didn't happen."
"What would you suggest? How would you do it?"
[37] "I don't know. I'm not a great detective like Nero Wolfe. But you say what killed him was a bomb put in his pocket by someone. Who put it there? I'd find out where he was yesterday and who he saw. That would be the first thing I would do."
I nodded. "Sure. And have your toes tramped on by a few dozen homicide experts who are doing just that. If he can be tagged that way, they'll get him without any help from Nero Wolfe. Of course one person your father saw yesterday was you. I haven't asked you about your relations with him, and I'm not going to, because the cops certainly have. And they're asking around about you. You were at the District Attorney's office five hours, you said, so you know how that is. They know all about people killing their fathers. Also, of course they asked you if there was anyone who might have wanted him dead. What did you say?"
"I said no."
"But someone did want him dead."
She sneered. I admit I didn't like her, but I'm not being unfair. She sneered. "I knew you'd say that," she said. "They did too, and it's not only obvious, it's dumb. Somebody might have thought his coat belonged to someone else."
"Then you think it was just a mistake?"
"I didn't say I think it. I said it might have been."
"Didn
't your grandfather tell you what Nero Wolfe told him your father told me?"
"No. He never tells me anything. He thinks women haven't any brains. You probably do too."
I wanted to say that I merely thought some women were a little shy on brains, present company not excepted, but I skipped it. I said, "Your father told me that a man was going to kill him, so it wasn't a mistake. Also it wasn't you, since you're not a man. So let's go back. Evidently your father didn't agree with your grandfather about women, because your grand- [38] father told Mr. Wolfe that your father often asked your advice about things. That's why I think he might have told you something about a man who gave him a hundred dollars for a slip of paper."
"He never asked my advice. He just wanted to see what I would say."
I gave up. I wanted to ask her what the difference was between asking her advice and wanting to see what she would say, just to see what she would say, but we were expecting company at the office at eleven o'clock or soon after and I should be there. So I gave up on her, and I had finished the job on the room, since it wasn't likely that he had pried up a floorboard or taken the back off a picture frame. I will concede that she had fairly good manners. She went to the hall with me and opened the door and told me good night. Apparently Mr. Ducos and the white apron had both gone to bed.
It was ten after eleven when I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone, found the bolt wasn't on so I didn't need help to get in, and went to the office. Wolfe would be deep in either a book or a crossword puzzle, but he wasn't. In one of my desk drawers I keep street maps of all five New York boroughs, and he had them, with Manhattan spread out covering his desk blotter and then some. To my knowledge it was the first time he had ever given it a look. It might be supposed that I wondered what he was after, but I didn't because I had learned long ago that wondering what a genius was after was a waste of time. If it really meant anything, which I doubted, he would tell me when he felt like it. As I swiveled my chair and sat to face him, he started folding it up, his fingers quick and nimble and precise, as they always were. Of course they had a lot of practice up in the plant rooms, from nine to eleven mornings and two to four afternoons, but that day he hadn't been there at all [39] As he folded he spoke. "I was calculating distances -the restaurant, and Pierre's home, and here. He arrived here at ten minutes to one. Where had he been? Where had his coat been?"
"I'll have to apologize," I said, "to his daughter. I told her that if that kind of detecting will do it they won't need your help. Does it look that bad?"
"No. As you know, I prefer not to read when I may be interrupted at any moment. What did she tell you?"
"Nothing. It's possible she has nothing to tell, but I don't believe it. She sat for an hour with her eye on me while I went over Pierre's room, to make sure I didn't pinch a pair of socks. She's an anomaly-I think that's the word I want. Or make-" "It isn't. A person can't be an anomaly."
"All right, she's a phony. A woman who has those books with her name in them wants men to stop making women sex symbols, and if she really wants them to stop she wouldn't keep her skin like that, and her hair, and blow her hard-earned pay on a dress that sets her off. Of course she can't help her legs. She's a phony. Since Pierre said it was a man, I admit she probably didn't put the bomb in his pocket, but I would buy it that he told her about the slip of paper and showed it to her, and she knows who killed him and is going to put the squeeze on him, or try to. And she'll get killed and well have that too. I suggest that we put a tail on her. If you have other plans for me, get Fred or Orrie, or maybe even Saul. Do you want it verbatim?"
"Do I need it?"
"No."
"Then just the substance."
I crossed my legs. "First she interpreted for me with her grandfather while I asked for permission to take a look at Pierre's room, and the other points you [40] wanted covered. Of course she could have hashed that-with an interpreter you never know for sure. Then she went with me-" The doorbell rang, and I got up and went. We had expected Philip around eleven and Felix a little later, but they were both there. And from the look on their faces, they weren't speaking. They spoke to me as I let them in and took their coats, but apparently not to each other. In the office, when they were seated after being greeted by Wolfe's most exaggerated nod, a full half-inch-of course Felix in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe's desk-Philip sat stiff with no mouth showing on his dark-skinned square face because his lips were pressed so tight, and Felix didn't really sit, he just got his rump on the edge of the chair and blurted, "I kept Philip there, Mr. Wolfe, because he lied to me. As you know, I-" "If you please."
Of course Felix had often heard that tone when Wolfe had been his boss as trustee. "You're upset. I suppose you've had a hard day, but so have I. I'll have beer. Brandy for you?"
"No, sir. Nothing."
"Philip?"
Philip shook his head. I detoured around him on my way to the kitchen. When I came back, Felix was sitting, not perching, and was talking: ". . . eight of them. They kept coming and going all afternoon and evening. I got their names. It was the worst day we have ever had since the day Mr. Vukcic died. The first two came just at the end of lunch, three o'clock, and it never stopped, right on through dinner. It was terrible. Everybody, even the dishwasher. The main thing with them was the dump room-you know, Mr. Vukcic called it that, so we do-the room in the back where the men leave their things. They took everybody there, one at a time, and asked about Pierre's coat. What is it about Pierre's coat?"
"You'll have to ask them."
The foam in the glass [41] had reached the right level, and Wolfe picked it up and drank. "You have me to thank for the day they gave you. Because he was killed here, in my house. But for that it would be mere routine for them. Did they arrest anyone?"
"No, sir. I thought one of them was going to arrest me. He said he knew there was something special between you and Pierre, and Mr. Goodwin too, and he said I must know about it. He told me to get my coat and hat, but then he changed his mind. He was the same with-" "His name was Rowcliff."
"Yes, sir."
Felix nodded. "It may be true that you know everything. Mr. Vukcic told me that you thought you did. That man was the same with Philip because I told him that he was Pierre's best friend."
He looked at Philip, not as a friend, and went back to Wolfe. "Philip may have lied to him, I don't know, I know he lied to me. You remember what Mr. Vukcic told Noel that time when he fired him. He told him it wasn't because he stole a goose, anyone might steal a goose, it was because he lied about it. He said he could keep it a good restaurant even if some of them stole things sometimes, but not if anybody lied to him, because he had to know what happened. I always remember that and I will not permit them to lie to me, and they know it. If I don't know what happened, it won't be a good restaurant. So when the last one left, I took Philip upstairs and told him I had to know everything about Pierre that he knew, and he lied. I have learned to tell when one of them is lying. I'm not as good at it as Mr. Vukcic was, but I can nearly always tell. Look at him."
We looked. Philip looked back at Felix and unglued his mouth to say, "I told you I was lying. I admitted it."
"You did not. That's another lie."
Philip looked at Wolfe. "I told him I was leaving [42] something out because I couldn't remember. Isn't that admitting it, Mr. Wolfe?"
"It's a nice point," Wolfe said. "It deserves discussion, but I think not here and now. You were leaving out something that Pierre had done or said?"
"Yes, sir. I admitted I couldn't remember it."
Wolfe grunted. "This afternoon I asked you to try to recall everything he said yesterday, and you said you would but you couldn't do it at the restaurant. Now you admit there was something you can't remember?"
"It wasn't that, Mr. Wolfe. It wasn't what he said yesterday."
"Nonsense. A rigmarole. You're wriggling. Do you want me to form the conjecture that you killed him? Do you or don't you want the murderer exposed and p
unished? Do you or don't you know something that might help to identify him? You said you wept when you learned he was dead. Did you indeed?"
Philip's mouth was closed, clamped again. His eyes closed. He shook his head several times, slow. He opened his eyes, turned his head to look at Felix, turned it back and on around to look at me, and back again to Wolfe, and spoke. "I want to talk to you alone, Mr. Wolfe."
Wolfe turned to Felix. "The front room, Felix. As you know, it's soundproofed."
"But I want-" "Confound it, it's past midnight. I'll tell you later, or I won't. Certainly he won't, I'm spent, and so are you."
I got up and crossed to open the door to the front room, and Felix came. I stuck my head in to see that the door to the hall was closed, shut that one, and returned to my desk. As I sat, Philip said, "I said alone, Mr. Wolfe. Just you."
A Family Affair Page 4