Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02

by The League of Frightened Men

  I put my notebook down and reached for it. My practice was to answer calls by saying crisp but friendly, “Hello, this is the office of Nero Wolfe.” But this time I didn’t get to finish it. I got about three words out, but the rest of it was stopped by an excited voice in my ear, excited but low, nearly a whisper, fast but trying to make it plain:

  “Archie, listen. Quick, get it, I may be pulled off. Get up here as fast as you can—Doc Burton’s, Ninetieth Street. Burton’s croaked. The lop got him with a gat, pumped him full. They got him clean, I followed him—”

  There were noises, but no more words. That was enough to last a while, anyway. I hung up and turned to Wolfe. I suppose my face wasn’t very placid, but the expression on his didn’t change any as he looked at me. I said, “That was Fred Durkin. Paul Chapin has just shot Dr. Burton and killed him. At his apartment on Ninetieth Street. They caught him red-handed. Fred invites me up to see the show.”

  Wolfe sighed. He murmured, “Nonsense.”

  “Nonsense hell. Fred’s not a genius, but I never saw him mistake a pinochle game for a murder. He’s got good eyes. It looks like tailing Chapin wasn’t such a bad idea after all, since it got Fred there on the spot. We’ve got him—”

  “Archie. Shut up.” Wolfe’s lips were pushing out and in as fast as I had ever seen them. After ten seconds he said, “Consider this, please. Durkin’s conversation was interrupted?”

  “Yeah, he was pulled off.”

  “By the police, of course. The police take Chapin for murdering Burton; he is convicted and executed, and where are we? What of our engagements? We are lost.”

  I stared at him. “Good God. Damn that cripple—”

  “Don’t damn him. Save him. Save him for us. The roadster is in front? Good. Go there at once, fast. You know what to do, get it, the whole thing. I need the scene, the minutes and seconds, the participants—I need the facts. I need enough of them to save Paul Chapin. Go and get them.”

  I jumped.

  Chapter 17

  I kept on the west side as far as Eighty-sixth Street and then shot crosstown and through the park. I stepped on it only up to the limit, because I didn’t want to get stopped. I felt pretty good and pretty rotten, both. She had cracked wide open and I was on my way, and that was all sweetness and light, but on the other hand Fred’s story of the event decorated by Wolfe’s comments looked like nothing but bad weather. I swung left into Fifth Avenue, with only five blocks to go.

  I pulled up short of the Burton number on Ninetieth Street, locked the ignition and jumped to the sidewalk. There were canopies and entrances to big apartment houses all around. I walked east. I was nearly to the entrance I was headed for when I saw Fred Durkin. From somewhere he came trotting toward me. I stopped, and he jerked his head back and started west, and I went along behind him. I followed him to the corner of Fifth, and around it a few feet.

  I said, “Am I poison? Spill it.”

  He said, “I didn’t want that doorman to see you with me. He saw me getting the bum’s rush. They caught me phoning you and kicked me out.”

  “That’s too bad. I’ll complain at headquarters. Well?”

  “Well, they’ve got him, that’s all. We followed him up here, the town dick and me, got here at seven-thirty. It was nice and private, without Pinkie. Of course we knew who lived here, and we talked it over whether we ought to phone and decided not to. We decided to go inside the lobby, and when the hall flunky got unfriendly Murphy—that’s the town dick—flashed his badge and shut him up. People were going and coming, there’s two elevators. All of a sudden one of the elevator doors bangs open and a woman comes running out popeyed and yells where’s Dr. Foster, catch Dr. Foster, and the hall flunky says he just saw him go out, and the woman runs for the street yelling Dr. Foster, and Murphy nabs her by the arm and asks why not try Dr. Burton, and she looks at him funny and says Dr. Burton’s been shot. He turns her loose and jumps for the elevator, and on the way up to the fifth floor discovers that I’m in it with him. He says—”

  “Come on, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Okay. The door of Burton’s apartment is open. The party’s in the first room we go into. Two women is there, one of them whining like a sick dog and jiggling a telephone, and the other one kneeling by a guy laying on the floor. The lop is sitting in a chair looking like he’s waiting his turn in a barber shop. We got busy. The guy was dead. Murphy got on the phone and I looked around. A gat, a Colt automatic, was on the floor by the leg of a chair next to a table in the middle of the room. I went over and gave Chapin a rub to see if he had any more tools. The woman that was kneeling by the meat began to heave and I went and got her up and led her away. Two men came in, a doctor and a house guy. Murphy got through on the phone and came over and slipped some irons on Chapin. I stayed with the woman, and when a couple of precinct cops came loping in I took the woman out of the room. The woman that had gone for Dr. Foster came back, she came running through the place and took the other woman away from me and took her off somewhere. I went into another room and saw books and a desk and a telephone, and called you up. One of the precinct men came snooping around and heard me, and that’s when I left. He brought me downstairs and gave me the air.”

  “Who else has come?”

  “Only a couple of radios and some more precinct guys.”

  “Cramer or the D.A. office?”

  “Not yet. Hell, they don’t need to bother. A package like that, they could just have it sent parcel post.”

  “Yeah. You go to Thirty-fifth Street and tell Fritz to feed you. As soon as Wolfe has finished his dinner, tell him about it. He may want you to get Saul and Orrie—he’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll have to phone my wife—”

  “Well, you got a nickel? Beat it.”

  He went downtown, towards Eighty-ninth, and I went around the corner and east again. I approached the entrance; I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t crash it, though I didn’t know anyone up there. Just as I was under the canopy a big car came along and stopped quick, and two men got out. I took a look, then I got in the way of one of them. I grinned at him:

  “Inspector Cramer! This is luck.” I started to walk along in with him.

  He stopped. “Oh! You. Nothing doing. Beat it.”

  I started to hand him a line, but he got sharp. “Beat it, Goodwin. If there’s anything up there that belongs to you I’ll save it for you. Nothing doing.”

  I fell back. People were gathering, there was already quite a crowd, and a cop was there herding them. In the confusion I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard the little passage between Cramer and me. I faded away, and went to where I had parked the roadster. I opened up the back and got out a black bag I kept a few things in for emergencies; it didn’t look just right, but good enough. I went back to the entrance and pushed through the line while the cop was busy on the other side, and got through the door. Inside was the doorman and another cop. I stepped up to them and said, “Medical Examiner. What apartment is it?” The cop looked me over and took me to the elevator and said to the boy, “Take this gent to the fifth floor.” Inside, going up, I gave the black bag a pat.

  I breezed into the apartment. As Durkin had said, the party was right there, the first room you entered, a big reception hall. There was a mob there, mostly flatfeet and dicks standing around looking bored. Inspector Cramer was by the table listening to one of the latter. I walked over to him and said his name.

  He looked around, and seemed surprised. “Well, in the name of—”

  “Now listen, inspector. Just a second. Forget it. I’m not going to steal the prisoner or the evidence or anything else. You know damn well I’ve got a right to curiosity and that’s all I expect to satisfy. Have a heart. My God, we’ve all got mothers.”

  “What have you got in that bag?”

  “Shirts and socks. I used it to bring me up. I’d just as soon have one of your men take it down to my car for me.”

  He grunted. “Leave it here on the table,
and if you get in the way—”

  “I won’t. Much obliged.”

  Being careful not to bump anyone, I got back against the wall. I took a look. It was a room 17 × 20, on a guess, nearly square. One end was mostly windows, curtained. At the other end was the entrance door. One long wall, the one I was standing against, had pictures and a couple of stands with vases of flowers. In the other wall, nearly to the corner, was a double door, closed, leading of course to the apartment proper. The rest of that wall, about ten feet of it, had curtains to match those at the end, but there couldn’t have been windows. I figured it was closets for wraps. The light was from the ceiling, indirect, with switches at the double door and the entrance door. There was one large rug, and a good-sized table in the middle. Near where I stood was a stand with a telephone and a chair.

  There were only four chairs altogether. In one of them, at the end of the table, Paul Chapin was sitting. I couldn’t see his face, he was turned wrong. At the other end of the table Doc Burton was on the floor. He just looked dead and fairly comfortable; either he had landed straight when he fell or someone had stretched him out, and his arms were neatly along his sides. His head was at a funny angle, but they always are until they’re propped up. Looking at him, I thought to myself that Wolfe had had him down for seven thousand bucks, and now he’d never have that to worry about again along with a lot of other things. From where I was I couldn’t see much blood.

  A few details had happened since I arrived. There had been phone calls. One of the dicks had gone out and come back in a couple of minutes with an Assistant Medical Examiner; apparently there had been difficulty downstairs. I hoped he wouldn’t take my bag by mistake when he went. They buzzed around. Inspector Cramer had left the room by the double door, to see the women I supposed. A young woman came in from outside and made a scene, but all in all she did pretty well with it, since it appeared that it was her father that had been croaked. She had been out somewhere, and she took it hard. I’ve often observed that the only thing that makes it a real hardship to have dealings with stiffs is the people that are still living. This girl was the kind that makes your throat clog up because you see how she’s straining to fight it back in and you know she’s licked. I was glad when a dick took her away, in to her mother.

  I moseyed around to get a slant at the cripple. I went around the table and got in front of him. He looked at me, but there wasn’t any sign of his being aware he had ever seen me before. His stick was on the table beside him, and his hat. He had on a brown overcoat, unbuttoned, and tan gloves. He was slouched over; his hands were resting on his good knee, fastened with the bracelets. There was nothing in his face, just nothing; he looked more like a passenger in the subway than anything else. His light-colored eyes looked straight at me. I thought to myself that this was the first piece of real hundred per cent bad luck I had ever known Nero Wolfe to have. He had had his share of bad breaks all right, but this wasn’t a break, it was an avalanche.

  Then I remembered what I was there for, and I said to myself that I had gone around for two days pretending to hunt Andrew Hibbard knowing all the time it was hopeless, and Hibbard was at that moment eating scallops and arguing psychology with Wolfe. And until Wolfe himself said finish for that case one way or the other, hopeless was out. It was up to me to dig up a little hope.

  I got against the wall again and surveyed the field. The medical guy was done. There was no telling how long Cramer would be with the women, but unless their tale was more complicated than it seemed likely to be there was no reason why it should be very long. When he returned there would probably be no delay in removing the stiff and the cripple, and then there would be nothing to keep anybody else. Cramer wouldn’t be apt to go off and leave me behind, he’d want me for company. Nor could I see any reason why he would leave anyone behind, except a dick out in the hall maybe and possibly one downstairs, to keep annoyance away from the family.

  That was the way it looked. I couldn’t go back to Wolfe with nothing but a sob story about a poor cripple and a dead man and a grief-stricken daughter. I wandered around again to the other side of the table, to the other wall where the curtains were. I stood with my back to the curtains. Then I saw my bag on the table. That wouldn’t do, so I went over and got it, casually, and went back against the curtains again. I figured the chances were about fifty to one against me, but the worst I could get was an escort to the elevator. Keeping my eyes carelessly on the array of dicks and flatfeet scattered around, I felt behind me with my foot and found that back of the curtains the floor continued flush, with no sill. If it was a closet it was built into the wall and I had no idea how deep it was or what was in there. I kept my eyes busy; I had to pick an instant when every guy there had his face turned; at least not right on me. I was waiting for something, and luck came that time; it happened. The phone rang, on the stand by the other wall. Having nothing to occupy them, they all turned involuntarily. I had my hand behind me ready to pull the curtain aside, and back I went, and let the curtain fall again, with me behind.

  I had ducked going in, in case there happened to be a hat shelf at the usual height, but the shelf was further back; the closet was all of three feet deep and I had plenty of room. I held my breath for a few seconds, but heard none of the bloodhounds baying. I eased the black bag onto the floor in a corner and got behind what felt like a woman’s fur coat. One thing there had been no help for: the cripple had seen me. His light-colored eyes had been right at me as I backed in. If he should decide to open his trap I hoped he would find something else to talk about.

  I stood there in the dark, and after a while wished I had remembered to bring an oxygen tank. To amuse me I had the voices of the dicks outside, but they were low and I couldn’t pick out many words. Somebody came in, some woman, and a little later a man. It was all of half an hour before Cramer returned. I heard the double door opening, close to my curtain, and then Cramer handing out orders. He sounded snappy and satisfied. A dick with a hoarse voice told another one, right in front of me, to carry Chapin’s stick and he’d help him walk; they were taking him away. There were noises, and directions from Cramer, about removing the corpse, and in a couple of minutes heavy feet as they carried it out. I was hoping to God that Cramer or someone else hadn’t happened to hang his coat in my closet, but that wasn’t likely; there had been three or four piled on the table. I heard a voice telling someone to go ask for a rug to put over the soiled place where Burton had been, and Cramer and others shoving off. It sounded like there were only two left, after the guy came back with the rug; they were kidding each other about some kind of a girl. I began to be afraid Cramer had spotted them to stay for some reason or other, but pretty soon I heard them going to the door, and it opened and closed.

  I’d been in the closet long enough as far as my lungs were concerned, but I thought it was just possible one was still inside the main apartment, and I waited five minutes, counting. Then I pulled the edge of the curtain a little and took a slant. I opened it up and stepped out. Empty. All gone. The double doors were closed. I went over and turned the knob and pushed, and walked through. I was in a room about five times the size of the reception hall, dimly lit, furnished up to the hilt. There was a door at the far end and a wide open arch halfway down one side. I heard voices from somewhere. I went on in a ways and called:

  “Hello! Mrs. Burton!”

  The voices stopped, and there were footsteps coming. A guy appeared in the arch, trying to look important. I grinned inside. He was just a kid, around twenty-two, nice and handsome and dressed up. He said, “We thought you had all gone.”

  “Yeah. All but me. I have to see Mrs. Burton.”

  “But he said … the Inspector said she wouldn’t be bothered.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to see her.”

  “She’s lying down.”

  “Tell her just a few questions.”

  He opened his mouth and shut it, looked as if he thought he ought to do something, and turned and beat it. In a min
ute he came back and nodded me along. I followed.

  We went through a room and a sort of a hall and into another room. This was not so big, but was better lit and not so dolled up. A maid in uniform was going out another door with a tray. A woman was sitting on a couch, another woman in a chair, and the daughter I had seen in the reception hall was standing behind the couch. I walked over there.

  I suppose Mrs. Loring A. Burton wasn’t at her best that evening, but she could have slipped a few more notches and still have been in the money. A glance was enough to show you she was quite a person. She had a straight thin nose, a warm mouth, fine dark eyes. Her hair was piled in braids at the back, pulled back just right for you to see her temples and brow, which maybe made most of the effect; that and the way she held her head. Her neck knew some artist’s trick that I?ve seen many a movie star try to copy without quite getting it. It had been born in her spine.

  With her head up like that I could see it would take more than a murdered husband to overwhelm her into leaving decisions to daughters and so on, so I disregarded the others. I told her I had a few confidential questions to ask and I’d like to see her alone. The woman in the chair muttered something about cruel and unnecessary. The daughter stared at me with red eyes. Mrs. Burton asked:

  “Confidential to whom?”

  “To Paul Chapin. I’d rather not …” I looked around.

  She looked around too. I saw that the kid wasn’t the son and heir after all, it was the daughter he was interested in, probably had it signed up. Mrs. Burton said, “What does it matter? Go to my room—you don’t mind, Alice?”

  The woman in the chair said she didn’t, and got up. The kid took hold of the daughter’s arm to steer her, by golly he wasn’t going to let her fall and hurt herself. They went on out.

  Mrs. Burton said, “Well?”

  I said, “The confidential part is really about me. Do you know who Nero Wolfe is?”

  “Nero Wolfe? Yes.”

  “Dr. Burton and his friends entered into an agreement—”