Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 12

by Too Many Women

  One bird told me to my teeth, “I knew Kerr Naylor twenty years, Goodwin, and I never knew him to tell a lie. I don’t know you at all!”

  That specimen had been riding me from the start and I was developing an attitude toward him. His age was about halfway between mine and the founders, he was by far the best-dressed man in the room, he had a wide mouth with full lips, and he loved to interrupt people. I had a retort on its way to the tongue, but old George Naylor got in ahead.

  “Nonsense! Kerr was an inveterate liar from the time he was a baby!”

  That didn’t set the best-dressed man back any. “Of course,” he told me, “Kerr Naylor is dead. But you’re not!” His tone implied that that was regrettable.

  “I keep a list,” I said, “of the people who call me a liar. What’s your name?”

  He smiled at me condescendingly with his wide mouth.

  “You’re too old to hit,” I conceded, standing up. “But I know a trick that’s supposed to make dumb animals talk, and it would be fun to try—”

  “His name’s Ferguson,” a wiry little guy with a mustache tossed in. He had a dry look and a dry voice and was as crisp as Melba toast. “Sit down, Goodwin. Emmet Ferguson. He’s a lawyer and owns most of a bank and has been trying for ten years to have Kerr Naylor made president of this company. The last time the vote went against him nine to five, and—”

  “Is this proper?” an indignant voice demanded. “With an outsider—”

  “If you had made Kerr president,” old George Naylor declared, “I would have come down here and kicked him out myself! He was my son, but he couldn’t have run this business!”

  “He wanted to bad enough,” the wiry little guy muttered.

  I had sunk back into my chair and was trying to convey the impression that I wasn’t present, hoping they would go on with the family quarrel, which seemed interesting. They did, long enough for me to infer that the reason Kerr Naylor had refused to be an officer of the company was because he was holding out for top billing, namely president. Apparently the Board, which of course had the say formally, had been a solid two to one for Pine, but at that Kerr Naylor had had five votes. I wondered which side Cecily had been on and how much weight old George Naylor had been able to pull. About all I got was the general idea, for Pine, presiding, stopped it before long and told me to proceed.

  With the question of who was a liar, Kerr Naylor or me, out of the way, or anyhow tabled, I was permitted to continue without many interruptions. I covered the ground adequately, right up to the end, but still omitting details which I thought they could get along without, such as the recent developments concerning Hester Livsey. When I was through they asked questions, with the best-dressed man furnishing more than his share, until Pine put in:

  “We’ve been at this over two hours, gentlemen, and it’s time we reached some decisions. The first question is what to do about Nero Wolfe. Goodwin, if we instruct Wolfe to continue this investigation, and extend it to include the death of Mr. Naylor, what could he do?”

  Half of them started to talk. Pine tapped with his gavel and asserted the authority of the chair:

  “Let Goodwin tell us.”

  I looked around at them, giving an extra half a second to Emmet Ferguson. “Mr. Wolfe could catch the murderer,” I stated, “if that’s what you want. He—”

  “Why not the police?” Ferguson asked offensively. “That’s their job.”

  “I am not,” I told the table, “going to argue with Babble-mouth Ferguson. Shall I go on?”

  The wiry little guy threw back his head and laughed. Someone said, “Shut up, Emmet, or we’ll be here all day.”

  “It all depends,” I said. “If you think something about it is hotter than you like it, call Mr. Wolfe off immediately. If you would just as soon have the murderer caught but don’t really give a damn, let the cops do it, you would be wasting your money on Mr. Wolfe and he comes high. If you feel that you owe it to yourselves or to anyone else to make sure that the job isn’t muffed, and if you suspect that: it may require something more than good standard detective work, you need Mr. Wolfe no matter what it costs. As to—”

  “You weren’t asked for a sales talk,” Ferguson sneered. “You were asked—”

  I merely lifted my voice. “As to what Mr. Wolfe could do, I don’t know. Nobody ever knows what Mr. Wolfe can do on a case until after he has done it. I could tell you what he has done, but it would take a week, and anyhow most of you have probably already heard some of it.”

  “I move,” the wiry little guy said, “that we authorize the president to engage Nero Wolfe—”

  The gavel sounded. “Wait a minute.” Pine addressed me, “Goodwin, will you step out to the reception room and wait there?”

  I glanced at my wrist. “I’m late for an appointment.”

  “We all are,” someone growled.

  Pine said it wouldn’t take long, and I left.

  Judging from the customers distributed around on the chairs in the reception room, some of them looking as if they were running short on patience, the appointments were piling up. One of them I recognized, an Assistant District Attorney, and I wondered which one of the gang in the Board Room he was waiting for. I fully expected to be kept there on my fundament for half an hour or more, and was debating whether to drop down to the lobby and tell Hester Livsey I was held up, when the executive sentinel arrived with word that I was wanted. Evidently they had agreed with Pine that it was time to can the talk and make some decisions. Unless what they had decided was to ask me more questions.

  But no, they had executed. As I approached the table Pine spoke to me.

  “Goodwin, we wish to instruct Nero Wolfe to extend his investigation to include the death of Mr. Kerr Naylor. Do you need a letter?”

  “No, not with all these witnesses. Then it’s a straight murder job, and you might as well take me off the company payroll, with the understanding that I can come and go in the stock department. I assume we get co-operation?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Okay. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Wolfe will be expecting you at his office at six o’clock today.”

  The best-dressed man goggled at me and his mouth came open. He was speechless. The wiry little guy threw his head back and laughed.

  “What for?” Pine asked.

  “Skip it,” I said graciously. “Mr. Wolfe can get in touch with him. How did the vote go?”

  “The vote?”

  “On hiring Mr. Wolfe.”

  “That’s an improper question, Goodwin, and you know it. I’ve told—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Pine, it’s far from improper.” I sent my eyes around the table. “In a murder investigation, gentlemen, nothing is improper, and that’s the hell of it for everybody concerned. I told you that I don’t know what Mr. Wolfe will do, but I know what he’ll ask me, and one of his first questions will be who voted not to hire him. If you had let me stay in the room—”

  “The vote,” the wiry little guy said, “was eleven to four. Those voting no were Ferguson, Wyatt, Volk, and Thomas. The chair of course did not vote, but his remarks indicated that he was for it. My name is Armstrong.”

  “Much obliged. Now I’ll keep that appointment.”

  26.

  At the far side of the executive reception room were a couple of phone booths, and I dived into one of them on my way through and dialed a number. Ordinarily when I’m not there Fritz answers, but that time it was Wolfe himself.

  “Where the devil are you?” he demanded. “It’s eight minutes past eleven!”

  I didn’t resent it because I knew he wasn’t being critical. He regards going from one place to another place in New York City as being one of the most hazardous feats a man can undertake, and he was worried about me.

  “I have,” I declared importantly, “just left a directors’ meeting. You were hired to investigate Naylor’s death by a vote of eleven to four, and I would greatly appreciate it as a personal favor if you will manage to frame a heel na
med Emmet Ferguson for it. When you see him you’ll agree with me. I’ll be there with Miss Livsey in fifteen minutes.”

  Late as I was, I had no fear that Hester would have got tired waiting for me. She wanted that fact. And I was right. She was standing, looking uneasy, patient, and beautiful, by the mailbox on the William Street side of the lobby. But as I approached she turned her head to say something to a man there at her elbow, and I was thrown off my stride for an instant as I recognized the man. It was Sumner Hoff, with his hat and coat on.

  I stopped in front of them and spoke to her. “I’m sorry to be so late, but I was detained upstairs. This way’s best for a taxi—”

  “You know Mr. Hoff,” she said. “He’s going with us.”

  I had expected that on account of his hat and coat. I looked down my nose at him. “Come ahead. If Mr. Wolfe decides you’re not welcome I’ll know how to handle it since you showed me last week.”

  “I’ll do the handling,” he snapped.

  “Well, don’t be rough with me,” I said plaintively.

  When we found a taxi, which was easy at that time of day, he helped Hester in and then followed her, planting himself in the middle and leaving me the near corner, so he would be between us. That’s the right idea, brother, I thought, don’t forget the good old stock department motto, protect your woman. It was gratifying to see that although he was a civil engineer and therefore an aristocrat he didn’t set himself up above the others but stuck to the code. Frankly, considering his imminent double chin, it seemed to me that Hester was running low on knights, but it was quite possible he had some good points I hadn’t noticed.

  At our destination he kept it plain that he was doing the handling—out of the taxi, up the stoop, through the door, and down the hall to the office. I hoped he wouldn’t mind that I took the initiative to do the introducing.

  “You may remember,” I told Wolfe, “that last Thursday a person named Sumner Hoff, when I entered his office in a friendly manner, told me to get out and called me a goddam snoop. This is him. It might be thought he came to apologize, but no. He came along, he says, to do the handling.”

  “Indeed.” Wolfe reached to pour beer. “Sit down, Miss Livsey. Sit down, Mr. Hoff. Will you have some beer?”

  They accepted the chairs but not the beer. Wolfe, who thinks foam is fine for the upper lip, was drinking, so I filled in, as I lowered myself into my chair.

  “I might add that if you prefer to speak with Miss Livsey privately I would have no objection to performing an engineering operation on Hoff and removing him.”

  “No, thank you.” Wolfe put his glass down, wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, and leaned back. “Perhaps later.” He looked at Hoff and told him, “Handle it.”

  “I will,” Hoff said aggressively, “when I know what it is.”

  “Ah. You must have extraordinary resources, to be prepared for all conceivable phenomena. I have been engaged by the firm you work for to investigate the death of Mr. Naylor. I tell you that so you’ll know what I’m doing.” Wolfe’s eyes went to Hester. “Miss Livsey, I believe you told a policeman at Westport that you knew nothing about Mr. Naylor and that your association with him was restricted to your role as an obscure employee in his department. Is that correct?”

  “Don’t answer him,” Hoff snapped, starting to handle it.

  “Certainly I’ll answer,” Hester said. She was in the red leather chair, facing the window. “I’ll answer that. Those weren’t my words, but it amounted to that, yes. Mr. Goodwin told me that you had learned a certain fact about Mr. Naylor and me, and that if I came here you would tell me what it was. What—”

  “There is no such fact,” Hoff snapped, “and we want to know what you’re talking about!”

  Wolfe pointed a finger. “That door,” he said, “leads to what we call the front room. The wall and door are soundproofed. I suppose, Mr. Hoff, you’d better go in there.”

  “Oh, no. I’m staying here.”

  Protect your woman.

  “Nonsense. Even if you weren’t flabby Mr. Goodwin could put you anywhere I told him to. Archie. If Mr. Hoff interrupts again remove him, I don’t care where.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Without ceremony.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You keep still, Sumner,” Hester admonished him. “All I want is what Mr. Goodwin asked me to come for,” she told Wolfe. “There can’t be any fact about Mr. Naylor and me. What is it?”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Naylor, Miss Livsey?”

  “Don’t ans—” Hoff began. I had started for him before he finished the first syllable. He didn’t bite it off, the words just stopped coming, and I saw to my regret that I would never have the pleasure of plugging him. He wasn’t up to it. There might be occasion for shoving him or bundling him, but he would never rate a real sock. I sat down again.

  Anyhow, Hester didn’t obey. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I saw him at the office some time Friday, but I didn’t notice and I don’t remember.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “Not at the office. At six-thirty-eight Friday afternoon you met him at the corner of First Avenue and Fifty-second Street, walked back and forth with him over an hour, and parted from him at seven-forty-one at Second Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. What were you talking about?”

  Hester was wide-eyed. “That isn’t so,” she asserted in a loud voice, unnecessarily loud.

  “No? What did I get wrong?”

  “All of it’s wrong. It isn’t so.”

  “You didn’t see Mr. Naylor after office hours on Friday?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  So far so good. Obviously her talk with Naylor had been about something she didn’t want to broadcast, and naturally she would deny it as long as that seemed feasible. I had not yet reported to Wolfe on her awful fumble that morning in her office, and I saw no need for it now, since he had the high card and all he had to do was play it.

  “It’s no good, Miss Livsey,” Wolfe said. “Abandon it. I have a witness.”

  “You can’t have,” she declared. “You can’t have a witness to my being with Mr. Naylor where you said, because I couldn’t have been there, because I was somewhere else. Friday afternoon I left the office at five o’clock and went to Grand Central Station and went to the soda fountain on the lower level and had a sundae. I had intended to catch a train to Westport, but at the office that day Mr. Hoff had said he wanted to talk with me about something and we had made an appointment. We met there at the soda fountain at six o’clock. We talked there a while and then went upstairs to the waiting-room and talked some more. He persuaded me to go to the theater with him and take a later train to Westport. By that time it was too late to eat in a restaurant and make it to the theater, so we ate in that big cafeteria near the station on Forty-second Street. Then we had bad luck and couldn’t get seats for the show we wanted to see and we went to a movie instead—The Best Years of Our Lives. Then I caught the eleven-fifty-six to Westport. Then the next day, Saturday, Mr. Hoff—he knew where I was—he came to Westport and said it was my duty to co-operate with the authorities, so I came to New York and went to the District Attorney’s office and told them what I have told you and answered their questions. So when you say you have a witness—well, I’d like to know who the witness is.”

  I was thinking to myself savagely, you will, my beautiful little liar, you’ll know all right. But I only felt it; I didn’t look it. I kept my face deadpan.

  Wolfe didn’t. He looked concerned and apologetic. “It seems,” he said, “that you had facts for me, not me for you. I do have a witness, Miss Livsey, but manifestly a mistaken one. Of course you certify all this, Mr. Hoff?”

  “I do,” Hoff said emphatically.

  “Then that settles it. I owe you an apology, Miss Livsey, which is a rare debt for me to incur. As for my witness—I wonder if you’ll do me a favor. Will you send me a photograph of yourself—a good one, as recent as possible?”

  �
��Why—” Hester hesitated.

  “Certainly,” Hoff agreed for her. “I don’t know what for, but certainly she will.”

  “Good. I’ll appreciate it. Today, if possible, by messenger collect. The witness may have an idea of going to the police, and there’s no use getting them more confused than they are already.” Wolfe was out of his chair. “Good day, Miss Livsey. Good day, Mr. Hoff. Thank you for coming.”

  I went to the hall with them. At the door Hester told me, offering a hand, “I’m sorry if I was impolite this morning, Mr. Goodwin. I guess I was upset.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I told her eyes. “You were nervous. Everybody in the neighborhood of a murder gets nervous, sometimes even the murderer himself.”

  I returned to the office, resumed my chair, and sat and glared at Wolfe as he opened a fresh bottle, poured, waited until the foam was exactly a quarter of an inch below the rim of the glass, and drank. He put the glass down empty and used his tongue on his upper lip first and then his handkerchief. When company was present he omitted the tongue part.

  “Superficially neat,” he muttered at me, “but they’re a pair of idiots.”

  “Enravished,” I said, “is no word for it. I’m absolutely nuts about her. Did you notice that she even named the movie they went to? She left out the kind of sundae she had. That was an oversight. One thing you didn’t know about, but I doubt it would have mattered, all I told her was that you had a fact you wanted to ask her about, and she was so anxious to know which fact that she nearly lost her pants. There was a time when the mere thought of her pants would have made my heart beat. Anyhow, our fact isn’t the only one, I’ll guarantee that. What do we do now, feed her to the animals?”

  “No.” Wolfe was grim. “I doubt if Mr. Cramer could shake them. Even if he could, she sat there and told me that preposterous lie and I will not tolerate it. What about Saul? Did he look twice?”

  “No. Not a chance. He spotted her himself and said yes, and with Saul you know how good that is. Even if she has a twin, it was her. Also, as I told you, he spotted Sumner Hoff.” I snorted. “Protect your woman.”