by Rex Stout
When Wolfe asked her, not too grumpily, what he could do for her, she opened her bag and got out two pieces of paper. The bag was of soft green suede, the same as the jacket she wore over a dark green woolen dress, and also the cocky little pancake tilted to one side of her head. It was an ensemble if I ever saw one.
“This,” she said, “is just a clipping of your advertisement.” She returned it to the bag. “This is a check made out to you for five hundred dollars.”
“May I see it, please?”
“I don’t—not yet. It has my name on it.”
“So I would guess.”
“I want to ask you—some things before I give you my name.”
“What things?”
“Well, I—about the boy. The boy I asked to get a cop.” Her voice wouldn’t have been bad at all, in fact I might have liked it, if it hadn’t been so jumpy. She was getting more nervous instead of less. “I want to see him. Will you arrange for me to see him? Or it would be—just give me his name and address. I think perhaps that would be enough for the five hundred dollars—I know you charge high. Or I might want—but first tell me that.”
Wolfe invariably kept his eyes, when they were open, directly at the person he was talking to, but it had struck me that he was giving this visitor a specially keen inspection. He turned to me. “Archie. Please look closely at the scratch on her cheek.”
I got up to obey. She had alternatives: sit and let me look, cover her face with her hands, or get up and go; but before she had time to choose I was there, bending over, with my eyes only a foot from her face.
She started to say something, then checked it as I straightened up and told Wolfe, “Made with something with a fine sharp point. It could have been a needle, but more likely a small scissors point.”
“When?”
“The best guess is today, but it could have been yesterday I suppose. Not possibly three days ago.” I stayed beside her.
“This is impudent!” she blurted. She left the chair. “I’m glad I didn’t tell you my name!” She couldn’t sweep out without sweeping through me.
“Nonsense.” Wolfe was curt. “You couldn’t possibly have imposed on me, even without the evidence of the scratch, unless you had been superlatively coached. Describe the boy. Describe the other occupants of the car. What time did it happen? What did the boy say? Exactly what did he do? And so on. As for your name, that is no longer in your discretion. Mr. Goodwin takes your bag, by force if necessary, and examines its contents. If you complain, we are two to one. Sit down, madam.”
“This is contemptible!”
“No. It’s our justifiable reaction to your attempt to humbug us. You are not under duress, but if you go you leave your name behind. Sit down and we’ll discuss it, but first the name.”
She may have been over-optimistic to think she could breeze into Nero Wolfe’s office and fool him, but she wasn’t a fool. She stood surveying the situation, all signs of nervousness gone, came to a conclusion, opened her bag, and got out an object which she displayed to Wolfe. “My driving license.”
He took it and gave it a look and handed it back to her, and she seated herself. “I’m Laura Fromm,” she said, “Mrs. Damon Fromm. I am a widow. My New York residence is at Seven-forty-three East Sixty-eighth Street. Tuesday, driving a car on Thirty-fifth Street, I told a boy to get a cop. I gathered from your advertisement that you can direct me to the boy, and I will pay you for it.”
“So you don’t admit this is an imposture.”
“Certainly not.”
“What time of day was it?”
“That’s not important.”
“What was the boy doing when you spoke to him?”
“Neither is that.”
“How far away was the boy when you spoke to him, and how loudly did you shout?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to answer any questions about it. Why should I?”
“But you maintain that you were driving the car and told the boy to get a cop?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re in a pickle. The police want to question you about a murder. On Wednesday a car ran over the boy and killed him. Intentionally.”
She gawked. “What?”
“It was the same car. The one you were driving Tuesday when the boy spoke to you.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. Then she got words out. “I don’t believe it.”
“You will. The police will explain to you how they know it was the same car. There’s no question about it, Mrs. Fromm.”
“I mean the whole thing—you’re making it up. This is—worse than contemptible.”
Wolfe’s head moved. “Archie, get yesterday’s Times.”
I went for it to the shelf where the papers are kept until they’re a week old. Opening it to page eight and folding it, I crossed and handed it to Laura Fromm. Her hand was shaking a little as she took it, and to steady it while she read she called on the other hand to help hold it.
She took plenty of time for the reading. When her eyes lifted, Wolfe said, “There is nothing there to indicate that Peter Drossos was the boy you had accosted on Tuesday, but you don’t need to take my word for that. The police will tell you about it.”
Her eyes darted back and forth, from Wolfe to me and back again, and then settled on me. “I want—could I have some gin?”
She had let the newspaper drop to the floor. I picked it up and asked, “Straight?”
“That will do. Or a Gibson?”
“Onion?”
“No. No, thank you. But double?”
I went to the kitchen for the ingredients and ice. As I stirred I was thinking that if she was hoping for any cooperation from Wolfe it was too bad she had asked for gin, since in his book all gin drinkers were barbarians. That was probably why, when I took the tray in and put it on the little table beside her chair, he was leaning back with his eyes closed. I poured and served. First she swigged it, then had a few sips, and then swigged again. Meanwhile she kept her eyes lowered, presumably to keep me from looking in through them to watch her mind work.
Finally she emptied the glass the second time, put it on the tray and spoke. “A man was driving the car when it struck the boy.”
Wolfe opened his eyes. “The tray, Archie?”
The smell of gin, especially with lunch only half an hour away, was of course repulsive. I took the vile object to the kitchen and returned.
“… but though that isn’t conclusive,” Wolfe was saying, “since in a man’s clothes you could pass for a man if you avoided scrutiny, I admit it is relevant. Anyhow, I am not assuming that you killed the boy. I tell you merely that by being drawn to me by that advertisement, and coming rigged in those earrings and that bogus scratch, you have put your foot in it, and if you stick to it that you were driving that car on Tuesday you will have fully qualified as a feeble-minded donkey.”
“I wasn’t.”
“That’s better. Where were you Tuesday afternoon from six-thirty to seven?”
“At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons. It lasted until after seven. It was one of the causes my husband was interested in, and I am going on with it.”
“Where were you Wednesday afternoon from six-thirty to seven?”
“What has that—oh. The boy was—yes. That was day before yesterday.” She paused, not for long. “I was having cocktails at the Churchill with a friend.”
“The friend’s name, please?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I know it is. Almost as ridiculous as that scratch on your cheek.”
“The friend’s name is Dennis Horan. A lawyer.”
Wolfe nodded. “Even so you are in for some disagreeable hours. I doubt if you have been willfully implicated in murder. I have had some experience watching faces, and I don’t think your shock on hearing of the boy’s death was feigned; but you’d better get your mind arranged. You’re going to get it. Not from me. I don’t ask wh
y you tried this masquerade, because I’m not concerned, but the police will be insistent about it. I won’t attempt to hold you here for them; you may go. You will hear from them.”
Her eyes were brighter and her chin was higher. It doesn’t take gin long to get in a kick. “I don’t have to hear from them,” she said with assurance. “Why do I?”
“Because they’ll want to know why you came here.”
“I mean why do you have to tell them?”
“Because I withhold information pertinent to a crime only under dictation by my interest.”
“I haven’t committed any crime.”
“That’s what they’ll want you to establish, but that won’t satisfy their curiosity.”
She looked at me, and I returned it. I may not be a Nero Wolfe at reading faces, but I too have had some experience at it, and I swear she was sizing me up, trying to decide if there was any way of lining me up with her in case she told Wolfe to go sit on a tack. I made it easy for her by looking manly, staunch and virtuous, but not actually hostile. I saw it on her face when she gave me up. Leaving me as hopeless, she opened the green suede bag, took from it a leather fold and a pen, opened the fold on the little table, and bent over it to write. Having written, she tore a small blue rectangle of paper from the fold and left her chair to put it in front of Wolfe on his desk.
“That’s a check for ten thousand dollars,” she told him.
“I see it is.”
“It’s a retainer.”
“For what?”
“Oh, I’m not trying to bribe you.” She smiled. It was the first time she had shown any reaction resembling a smile, and I gave her a mark for it. “It looks as if I’m going to need some expert advice, and maybe some expert help, and you already know about it, and I wouldn’t want—I don’t care to consult my lawyer, at least not now.”
“Bosh. You’re offering to pay me not to tell the police of your visit.”
“No, I’m not.” Her eyes were shining but not soft. “All right, I am, but not objectionably. I am Mrs. Damon Fromm. My husband left me a large fortune, including a great deal of New York real estate. I have position and responsibilities. If you report this to the police I would arrange to see the Commissioner, and I don’t think I would be abused, but I would much rather not. If you’ll come to my home at noon tomorrow, I’ll know what—”
“I don’t go to people’s homes.”
“Oh yes, you don’t.” She frowned, but only for an instant. “Then I’ll come here.”
“At noon tomorrow?”
“No, if it’s here, eleven-thirty would be better because I have a one-o’clock appointment. Until then you will not report my coming today. I want to—I must see someone. I must try to find out something. Tomorrow I will tell you all about it—no, I won’t say that. I’ll say this: if I don’t tell you all about it tomorrow you will inform the police if you decide you have to. If I do tell you I will need your advice and I will probably need your help. That’s what the retainer is for.”
Wolfe grunted. His head turned. “Archie. Is she Mrs. Damon Fromm?”
“I would say yes, but I won’t sign it.”
He went to her. “Madam, you tried one imposture and abandoned it only under pressure; this could be another. Mr. Goodwin will go to a newspaper office and look at pictures of Mrs. Damon Fromm, and phone me from there. Half an hour should do it. You will stay here with me.”
She smiled again. “This is ridiculous.”
“No doubt. But under the circumstances, not unreasonable. Do you refuse?”
“Of course not. I suppose I deserve it.”
“You don’t object?”
“No.”
“Then it isn’t necessary. You are Mrs. Fromm. Before you leave, an understanding and a question. The understanding: my decision whether to accept your retainer and work for you will be made tomorrow; you are not now my client. The question: do you know who the woman was who drove that car Tuesday and spoke to the boy?”
She shook her head. “Make your decision tomorrow, that’s all right, but you won’t report this visit before then?”
“No. That’s understood. The question?”
“I’m not going to answer it now because I can’t. I don’t really know. I expect to answer it tomorrow.”
“But you think you know?” Wolfe insisted.
“I won’t answer it.”
He frowned at her. “Mrs. Fromm. I must warn you. Have you ever seen or heard of a man named Matthew Birch?”
She frowned back. “No. Birch? No. Why?”
“A man of that name was run over by a car and killed Tuesday evening, and it was the same car as the one that killed Peter Drossos Wednesday. Since the car itself cannot be supposed ruthless and malign, someone associated with it must be. I am warning you not to be foolhardy, or even imprudent. You have told me next to nothing, so I don’t know how imminent or deadly a doom you may be inviting, but I admonish you: beware!”
“The same car? Killed a man Tuesday?”
“Yes. Since you didn’t know him you are not concerned, but I urge you to be discreet.”
She sat frowning, “I am discreet, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Not today, with that silly sham.”
“Oh, you’re wrong! I was being discreet! Or trying to.” She got the leather fold and pen from the table, returned them to her bag, and closed it. She stood up. “Thank you for the gin, but I wish I hadn’t asked for it. I shouldn’t have.” She offered a hand.
Wolfe doesn’t usually rise when a woman enters or leaves the office. That time he did, but it was no special tribute to Laura Fromm or even to the check she had put on his desk. It was lunchtime, and he would have had to manipulate his bulk in a minute anyway. So he was on his feet to take her hand. Of course I was up, ready to take her to the door, and I thought it was darned gracious of her to give me a hand too, after the way I had repulsed her with my incorruptible look. I nearly bumped into her when, preceding me to the door, she suddenly turned to say to Wolfe, “I forgot to ask. The boy, Peter Drossos, was he a displaced person?”
Wolfe said he didn’t know.
“Could you find out? And tell me tomorrow?”
He said he could.
There was no car waiting for her in front. Apparently the parking situation had compelled even Mrs. Damon Fromm to resort to taxis. When I returned to the office Wolfe wasn’t there, and I found him in the kitchen, lifting the lid from a steaming casserole of lamb cutlets with gammon and tomatoes. It smelled good enough to eat.
“One thing I admit,” I said generously. “You have damn good eyes. But of course pretty women’s faces are so irresistible to you that you resented the scratch and so you focused on it.”
He ignored it. “Are you going to the bank after lunch to deposit Mr. Corliss’s check?”
“You know I am.”
“Go also to Mrs. Fromm’s bank and have her check certified. That will verify her signature. Fritz, this is even better than last time. Satisfactory.”
Chapter 5
Before noon the next day, Saturday, I had plenty of dope on our prospective client. To begin with, five minutes spent in the Gazette morgue, by courtesy of my friend Lon Cohen, settled it that she was Mrs. Damon Fromm. She was good for somewhere between five million and twenty million, and since it was unlikely that we would ever want to bill her for more than a million or two, I didn’t go any further into that. Her husband, who had been about twice her age, had died two years ago of a heart attack, leaving her the works. No children. She was born Laura Atherton, of a Philadelphia family of solid citizens, and had been married to Fromm seven years when he died.
Fromm had inherited a small pile and had built it into a mountain, chiefly in the chemical industry. His contributions to various organizations had caused an assortment of chairmen and chairladies and executive secretaries, upon news of his death, to have a deep and decent interest in the terms of his will, but except for a few modest bequests everything had gone to his widow. Howe
ver, she had carried on with the contributions, and had also been generous with her time and energy, with special attention to Assadip, which was the cable code for the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons, and the way it was usually spoken of by people who were thrifty with their breath.
If I give the impression that I had spent many hours on a thorough job of research, I should correct it. A quarter of an hour with Lon Cohen, after consulting the Gazette’s morgue, gave me all of the above except one item, which I got at our bank. There was no danger of Lon blatting around that Nero Wolfe was getting briefed on Mrs. Damon Fromm, since we had given him at least as many breaks on stories as he had given us on scuttlebutt.
At a quarter to twelve Saturday morning Wolfe was at his desk and I was standing at his elbow, rechecking with him the expense account of the job for Corliss (not his name), the hardware manufacturer (not his line). Wolfe thought he had found a twenty-dollar error in it, and it was up to me to prove he was wrong. It turned out to be a draw. Twenty dollars that I had charged against Orrie Cather should have been charged against Saul Panzer, which put me one down, but that made no difference in the grand total, which made us even. As I gathered up the sheets and crossed to the filing cabinet I glanced at my wrist. One minute to twelve.
“Twenty-nine minutes after eleven-thirty,” I remarked. “Shall I phone her?”
He muttered no, and I went to the safe for the checkbook, to take care of some household bills, while Wolfe flipped the radio switch at his desk for the twelve-o’clock news. As I sat filling in the stubs my ears heard and I half listened:
“The coming Bermuda conference of the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and France, which has been rendered somewhat doubtful by the fall of Premier Mayer, will probably be proceeded with as arranged. It is thought that Mayer’s successor will be established in office in time to take the third place at the table.
“There is speculation in Tokyo that the three-day interval in the Korean truce negotiations granted at the request of the United Nations Command was intended to permit further consultation among representatives of the United Nations powers in the United States and at the Tokyo headquarters of General Mark W. Clark, the United Nations commander.