A Family Affair

by A Family Affair (lit)

  "No. One of them might have known where he could get hold of one without anybody knowing. And Igoe could probably make one himself."

  He grunted. "He is of course a menace. There is only one object on earth that frightens me: a physicist working on a new trick. Pfui. Reports?"

  "Nothing to start a crack. Orrie didn't get a glimmer at Rusterman's, and I gave him Igoe. Saul, Judd is so solid and upright and well liked that he'll probably get a monument. Fred, everybody has a good word for Vilar, but he suspects that if any of them had had enough to drink it would be a different story. Acker-" "When they call at one, tell them to come at six."

  "I already have. They aren't earning their pay and they know it. Ackerman called from Washington to warn us that we may be phoning or talking on tape. That check on your desk is for the cash box, it's low. The letter from Hewitt about a new orchid was mailed last Saturday. Six days from Long Island to Manhattan. Forty-two miles. I could walk it in one day."

  He reached for the pile of mail, glanced through it, and got up and went to the kitchen. Lunch was to be spareribs with a red-wine sauce that used eight herbs and spices, and he wanted to be sure Fritz didn't skimp on the garlic. They disagree about garlic. Montenegro vs. Switzerland.

  As a rule I keep personal matters out of these reports, but since you know that I had got to Benjamin Igoe through Lily Rowan, I should mention that I had called her twice to let her know that I had seen him and it had led to developments. That afternoon, after we had disposed of the spareribs and answered the mail and I had been to the bank to cash [98] the check, and Wolfe had gone up for his afternoon session with the orchids, I rang her again, told her that I was still out of jail, and said that I would probably be free to spend the weekend as she had suggested if I would still be welcome.

  "I'm pretty sure I could stand you for an hour," she said, "and then we'll see. Anyway I want to look at you. I just got back from lunch with Dora Bassett at her house, and she asked about you again. And she has never seen you. Have you got some kind of draw that doesn't even need wires? Electronic?"

  "No. Do me a favor. Don't even mention electronics in my hearing. I'm sick and tired of electronics. Two favors. Tell me what she asked about me."

  "Oh, don't get ideas. Nothing personal. She just asked if I had seen you and had you found out who put the bomb in Pierre's coat, but of course she didn't call him Pierre, she said 'that man' or 'that waiter.'

  I have a right to call him Pierre. As you know, I think he was the best waiter that ever fed me. He remembered that I like my fork at the right of my plate after just one time."

  But she didn't ask what or how or why or when, although she knew we were working on it. Incredible. I'd buy a pedestal and put her on it if I thought she would stay. She would either fall off or climb down, I don't know which.

  Again at six o'clock, when Wolfe came down, there was someone in the red leather chair. Saul Panzer, and Fred and Orrie were in two yellow ones. For a change we all had martinis. Fred didn't like the taste of gin but he wanted to be sociable. Wolfe would ring for beer, but he didn't, and that was a bad sign. When he skips beer, have your raincoat and rubbers handy.

  He sat and surveyed them. "Nothing?"

  They nodded. Saul said, "Never have so many done so little. You and Archie have at least looked at them."

  [99] "And seen nothing. Nothing that helps. Now. Weekends are always difficult, and don't try. Archie won't be here. Resume Monday morning. Fred, you will continue with Mr. Vilar. He's uneasy, and you may learn why. Call Archie Monday morning as usual. Orrie. How many of them have you seen?"

  "All but three. They weren't there. One busboy saw someone in that room Monday he had never seen before, but he has only been there a week and anyway he's not too bright. Also, most of them were cagey. They knew what I was after, about Pierre, and, like everybody else, they don't want to be dragged in on a murder case. It's just possible that you might get something if you saw all of them yourself, but I doubt it. I could bring them in batches."

  Of course he knew Wolfe wouldn't. Neither Saul nor Fred would have said that. Wolfe ignored it. "You may as well continue with Mr. Igoe, but call Archie Monday morning. Saul. You could see Mr. Judd himself. Should you?"

  Saul shook his head. "I doubt it. I even doubt if you should. I have covered him pretty well. You have seen him, here with the others."

  "Yes. I suppose Archie has told you that Mr. Hahn offered to pay me a hundred thousand dollars. I'll have to see him myself. I have seen Mr. Ackerman, and Mr. Urquhart is in Washington. You suggested Wednesday evening that you should see Miss Ducos."

  "I said I could give it a try. I said Archie looks like a male chauvinist and I don't."

  "Yes. See her. She feeds facts to a computer at New York University. Will she go to work tomorrow, Saturday?"

  "Probably not, I'll find out. I'll want to ask Archie about her."

  Saul turned to me. "Any suggestions?"

  "If I were a male chauvinist pig in good standing I'd say you might try raping her. As I said, she has good legs."

  "I'd like to have a try at her," Orrie told Wolfe. "And Saul would be better with Igoe. Igoe's very brainy. He's a Ph.D."

  We looked at him, surprised. He was good with women all right, we all knew that, but suggesting to Wolfe-to Wolfe, not just to me-to switch an errand from Saul to him, that was a surprise.

  Wolfe shook his head. "Saul offered first. Has Archie told you that two of them-Ackerman and Vilar have threatened to go to the District Attorney? We don't think they will, but they might, and if they do we'll have a problem. Mr. Cramer's attention will be directed at those six men, and he will learn that I have sent you to inquire about them. You will be questioned. You know the stand Archie and I have taken with both Mr. Cramer and the District Attorney. That will be futile unless you take the same stand. Tell them absolutely nothing. Stand mute. You will probably be held as material witnesses, possibly even charged with obstruction of justice. Mr. Parker will of course arrange for your release on bail. It's conceivable that eventually you'll be on trial for a felony and convicted, but I'll do everything in my power to prevent it."

  He tightened his lips, then: "I suggest an alternative. Either you stay and take the risk, or you leave the jurisdiction immediately. The country. Either Canada or Mexico. Of course, at my expense. If you go, you shouldn't delay. At once. Tonight."

  "I'll stay," Fred said. "I've got an idea about Vilar."

  "What the hell," Orrie said, "Of course we stay."

  "I won't say that," Saul said, "but I want to say something."

  He said it to Wolfe. "I'm surprised, really surprised, that you thought we might go."

  "I didn't," Wolfe said.

  Nuts. Saul knew damn well he didn't. They were all just putting on a charade.

  [101] 11 I admit that, like everybody else, I like to think that I have hunches. For instance, the time that I was in the office of the head of a Wall Street brokerage firm and he brought in four members of his staff, and after talking with them five minutes I thought I knew which one of them had been selling information to another firm, and two weeks later he confessed. Or the time a woman came and asked Wolfe to find out who had taken her emerald and ruby bracelets, and when she left I had told him she had given them to her nephew, and he had taken it on anyhow because he wanted to buy some orchid plants, and had regretted it later when he had to sue to get his fee. By the way, that was one of the reasons he thought I could size up any woman in ten minutes.

  But I'm not going to say it was a hunch I had that Saturday morning, because I don't see how it could have been. It might have been just something I had for breakfast, but I don't see how that was possible either, because Fritz had catered it as usual.

  Whatever caused it, I had it. When I am dressing and getting packed for a weekend at Lily Rowan's pad in Westchester, which she calls The Glade, I thoroughly approve of the outlook. I enjoy shaving. I think my hair looks fine, and my zipper works like a dream. I'm willing to
admit that being [102] away from him for forty-eight hours is a factor-a change is good for you-but also I would breathe some fresh air and so forth.

  But not that time. The electric shaver was too noisy. My fingers didn't like the idea of tying shoestrings. The tips of my necktie didn't want to come out even. I could go on, but that's enough to give you the idea. However, I made it. At least I didn't trip going downstairs.

  Lily was expecting me out in front with the Heron at eleven o'clock, and it was only ten-twenty-five and there was no hurry, so I put my bag down in the hall, went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was off, and to the office for a glance around. And as I was trying the knob of the safe, the phone rang. I should have left it to Fritz, but habit is habit, and I went and picked it up. "Nero Wolfe's resid-" "I want to ask you just one question."

  Lon Cohen.

  "If it can be answered yes or no, shoot."

  "It can't. Where and when did you last see Lucile Ducos alive?"

  I couldn't sink onto my chair, because it was turned wrong. I kicked it to swivel it and sat on the edge. "I don't believe it. Goddam it, I do not believe it."

  "Yeah, they always say that. Are your eyes pop-" "Quit clowning. When?"

  "Forty minutes ago. We've just got a flash. On the sidewalk on Fifty-fourth Street a few yards from the house she lived in. Shot somewhere in the middle. Freebling is there, and Bob Adams is on the way. If -" I hung up.

  And my hand started for it to pick it up again. Actually. To pick it up and ring Homicide South to ask questions. Of course I pulled it back and sat and stared at it, first with my jaw set and then with my mouth open. Then I shut my eyes and my mouth.

  [103] Then I did pick the phone up and dialed a number.

  After six rings: "Hello?"

  "Me. Good morning, only it isn't. Just as I was leaving, Lon Cohen phoned. There has been another murder, less than an hour ago. Lucile Ducos, Pierre's daughter. I'm stuck. I'm worse than stuck, I'm in up to my neck, and so is Wolfe. I hope you have a nice weekend. We don't say. I'm sorry,' so I won't say it and neither will you. I'll think of you every hour on the hour. Please think of me."

  "I don't ask if I can do anything, because if I could, you would tell me."

  "I sure would. I will."

  We hung up. I sat another three minutes, and then I got up and went and mounted the three flights to the plant rooms, taking my time. That was the third time, or maybe the fourth, I went down the aisles through those three rooms-the cool, then the moderate, then the warm-without seeing a thing. The benches could have been empty.

  In the potting room Theodore was sitting at his little desk, writing on his pad of forms, and Wolfe was standing at the long bench, inspecting something in a big pot-presumably an orchid plant, but at that moment I wouldn't have known an orchid from a ragweed. As I crossed over he turned and scowled at me and said, "I thought you had gone."

  "So did I. Lon Cohen phoned. Lucile Ducos was shot and killed about an hour ago on the sidewalk a few steps from her house. That's all Lon knew."

  "I don't believe it."

  "That's exactly what I said. I didn't either until I sat and went through the multiplication table. I beg your pardon for breaking a rule and interrupting you up here."

  "Confound it, go."

  I nodded. "Of course. Also of course Stebbins will [104] be there and will take me down. You probably won't see me for-" "No. Go to the country. Have your weekend. Tell Fritz to put the bolt on and ignore the telephone. I'll call Saul and tell him to call Fred and Orrie."

  "Uhuh. You haven't sat and thought. For you two minutes should be enough. If the white apron-the maid-if she hasn't talked, she will. They'll know we were there. They'll know she found me in Lucile's room. They'll know Lucile sat and watched me for an hour while I did Pierre's room. So I know things about her they should know, and what I know, of course you know. If I disappear for the weekend and you bolt the door and don't answer the phone, that will only make it worse. I have phoned Miss Rowan."

  Up there, when he sits it's usually on one of the stools at a bench, but there's a chair nearly big enough over in a corner, and he crossed to it. Since he hates to tilt his head to look up at someone standing, I went and got one of the heavy boxes for shipping plants in pots and brought it over and sat.

  "It's Saturday," he said.

  "Yes, sir. Parker will be somewhere playing golf, and even if I found him, judges won't be available, and Coggin almost certainly has still got those warrants. If you want to sleep in your house tonight, you have got to count ten and consider letting go. Don't scowl at me. I'm not trying to sell it, I'm not even suggesting it, I'm just telling you where I was when I finished the multiplication table. It seemed to me that even if we unloaded we could still go right on making inquiries about the commission of a capital crime on our private premises."

  He growled, "You are trying to sell it."

  "I am not. I'm game if you are. It's eleven o'clock, time to go down anyway, so come and sit in that [105] chair and lean back and shut your eyes and work your lips. Cramer may be on his way here now. If not, he soon will be, and he may actually have handcuffs. We have been getting away with murder, and you know it and he knows it. Now three murders, because if the white apron is talking he knows about that dinner and the slip of paper Pierre did not tell me about."

  He got up and walked out. Marched out. He always moves as if he weighed a twelfth of a ton instead of a seventh. When the door to the warm room had closed behind him, Theodore said, "It's always bad when you come up here."

  I concede that as an orchid man Theodore may be as good as he thinks he is, but as a boon companion -a term I once looked up because Wolfe told me it was trite and shouldn't be used-you can have him. So I didn't bother to answer, and I would have liked to leave the box there for him to put back where it belonged, but that would have been like him, not me, so I didn't. I picked it up and returned it before leaving.

  Wolfe had of course taken the elevator. When I entered the office he was standing over by the big globe, slowly turning it. Probably deciding where he wished he was, maybe with me along. I went to my desk and sat and said, "When Saul or Fred or Orrie hears the news he'll probably call, especially Saul. If so, what do I tell him?"

  He turned the globe a few inches with his back to me. "To call Monday morning."

  "He may be in the can Monday morning."

  "Then call when Mr. Parker has got him out."

  I got up and marched out. To the stairs and up to my room. One, the desire to kick his ample rump was so strong it was advisable to go where I couldn't see him, and two, what I had put on for a weekend in the country was not right for a weekend where I [106] might spend it. While I got out more appropriate items and stripped, I tried to remember a time when he had been as pigheaded as this and couldn't. Then there must be a reason, and what was it? I was still working on that and putting on one of my oldest jackets when the phone rang and I went and got it "Nero Wolfe's."

  "You there, Archie? I thought you were going-" "So did I. I got a piece of news."

  Saul Panzer. "Evidently you did too."

  "Yes. Just now on the radio. I thought you were gone and he might need something."

  "He does. He needs a kick in the ass and I was about to deliver it, so I came upstairs. I asked him what to say if you called, and he said tell you to call Monday morning."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "My god, doesn't he realize the cat's loose?"

  "Certainly. I remarked that if he wanted to sleep here tonight he'd have to unload, and he just scowled at me. What did the radio tell you?"

  "Only that she got it and the police are investigating. And that she was the daughter of Pierre Ducos. I called not only to ask if he needed something but also to report. I phoned her this morning at nine o'clock and told her that Nero Wolfe wanted me to see her and ask her a couple of questions. She said go ahead and ask them, and I said not on the phone, and she said to call her around noon. When I called at nin
e o'clock a woman answered, I suppose the one you call the white apron, and I told her my name and I was working for Nero Wolfe."

  "Good. That helps. That makes it even better. You'd better stick a toothbrush in your pocket."

  "And a couple of paperbacks to read. If I'm going to stand mute I'll have plenty of leisure."

  "Happy weekend," I said and hung up.

  [107] There's a shelf of books in my room, my property, and I went to get one-1 don't know why, since I wasn't in a mood for any book I had ever heard of -but realized that Fritz was probably wondering what the hell was going on. So I left, descended the two flights, and turned right at the bottom instead of left In the kitchen Fritz was at the big table doing something to something. Normally I would have noticed what, but not that time. AH the walls and doors on that floor are soundproofed, so I don't know why he wasn't surprised to see me. He merely asked, "Something happened?"