by Rex Stout
He wasn’t moving. “I can’t ask you to show me your stub,” I said pointedly, “because this is merely a private house, and you weren’t invited, and my only argument is the convenience and pleasure of your host.”
He gave me a dirty look but no more words, got up, and went across to the couch. I moved Madeline Fraser to the red leather chair, which gave the other five candidates more elbow room in their semicircle fronting Wolfe’s desk. Beech, who had been standing talking to Wolfe, went and took a chair near the end of the couch. Owen had joined his boss, so I had the three gate-crashers off to themselves, which was as it should be.
Wolfe’s eyes swept the semicircle, starting at Miss Fraser’s end. “You are going to find this tiresome,” he said conversationally, “because I’m just starting on this and so shall have to cover details that you’re sick of hearing and talking about. All the information I have has come from newspapers, and therefore much of it is doubtless inaccurate and some of it false. How much you’ll have to correct me on I don’t know.”
“It depends a lot,” said Nathan Traub with a smile, “on which paper you read.”
Traub, the agency man, was the only one of the six I hadn’t seen before, having only heard his smooth low-pitched voice on the phone, when he had practically told me that everything had to be cleared through him. He was much younger than I had expected, around my age, but otherwise he was no great surprise. The chief difference between any two advertising executives is that one goes to buy a suit at Brooks Brothers in the morning and the other one goes in the afternoon. It depends on the conference schedule. The suit this Traub had bought was a double-breasted gray which went very well with his dark hair and the healthy color of his cheeks.
“I have read them all.” Wolfe’s eyes went from left to right again. “I did so when I decided I wanted a job on this case. By the way, I assume you all know who has hired me, and for what?”
There were nods. “We know all about it,” Bill Meadows said.
“Good. Then you know why the presence of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Owen, and Mr. Beech is being tolerated. With them here, and of course Miss Fraser, ninety-five per cent of the clients’ interest is represented. The only one absent is White Birch Soap.”
“They’re not absent.” Nathan Traub was politely indignant. “I can speak for them.”
“I’d rather you’d speak for yourself,” Wolfe retorted. “The clients are here to listen, not to speak.” He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and put the tips of his thumbs together. With the gate-crashers put in their places, he went on, “As for you, ladies and gentlemen, this would be much more interesting and stimulating for you if I could begin by saying that my job is to learn which one of you is guilty of murder—and to prove it. Unfortunately we can’t have that fillip, since two of the eight—Miss Shepherd and Mr. Savarese didn’t come. I am told that Mr. Savarese had an engagement, and there is a certain reluctance about Miss Shepherd that I would like to know more about.”
“She’s a nosy little chatterbox.” From Tully Strong, who had removed his spectacles and was gazing at Wolfe with an intent frown.
“She’s a pain in the neck.” From Bill Meadows.
Everybody smiled, some nervously, some apparently meaning it.
“I didn’t try to get her,” Deborah Koppel said. “She wouldn’t have come unless Miss Fraser herself had asked her, and I didn’t think that was necessary. She hates all the rest of us.”
“Why?”
“Because she thinks we keep her away from Miss Fraser.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. We try to.”
“Not from me too, I hope.” Wolfe sighed down to where a strip of his yellow shirt divided his vest from his trousers, and curled his palms and fingers over the ends of his chair arms. “Now. Let’s get at this. Usually when I talk I dislike interruptions, but this is an exception. If you disagree with anything I say, or think me in error, say so at once. With that understood:
“Frequently, twice a week or oftener, you consider the problem of guests for Miss Fraser’s program. It is in fact a problem, because you want interesting people, famous ones if possible, but they must be willing to submit to the indignity of lending their presence, and their assent by silence, if nothing more, to the preposterous statements made by Miss Fraser and Mr. Meadows regarding the products they advertise. Recently—”
“What’s undignified about it?”
“There are no preposterous statements!”
“What’s this got to do with what we’re paying you for?”
“You disagree.” Wolfe was unruffled. “I asked for it. Archie, include it in your notes that Mr. Traub and Mr. Strong disagree. You may ignore Mr. Owen’s protest, since my invitation to interrupt did not extend to him.”
He took in the semicircle again. “Recently a suggestion was made that you corral, as a guest, a man who sells tips on horse races. I understand that your memories differ as to when that suggestion was first made.”
Madeline Fraser said, “It’s been discussed off and on for over a year.”
“I’ve always been dead against it,” Tully Strong asserted.
Deborah Koppel smiled. “Mr. Strong thought it would be improper. He thinks the program should never offend anybody, which is impossible. Anything and everything offends somebody.”
“What changed your mind, Mr. Strong?”
“Two things,” said the secretary of the Sponsors’ Council. “First, we got the idea of having the audience vote on it—the air audience—and out of over fourteen thousand letters ninety-two point six per cent were in favor. Second, one of the letters was from an assistant professor of mathematics at Columbia University, suggesting that the second guest on the program should be him, or some other professor, who could speak as an expert on the law of averages. That gave it a different slant entirely, and I was for it. Nat Traub, for the agency, was still against it.”
“And I still am,” Traub declared. “Can you blame me?”
“So,” Wolfe asked Strong. “Mr. Traub was a minority of one?”
“That’s right. We went ahead. Miss Vance, who does research for the program in addition to writing scripts, got up a list of prospects. I was surprised to find, and the others were too, that more than thirty tip sheets of various kinds are published in New York alone. We boiled it down to five and they were contacted.”
I should have warned them that the use of “contact” as a verb was not permitted in that office. Now Wolfe would have it in for him.
Wolfe frowned. “All five were invited?”
“Oh, no. Appointments were made for them to see Miss Fraser—the publishers of them. She had to find out which one was most likely to go over on the air and not pull something that would hurt the program. The final choice was left to her.”
“How were the five selected?”
“Scientifically. The length of time they had been in business, the quality of paper and printing of the sheets, the opinions of sports writers, things like that.”
“Who was the scientist? You?”
“No … I don’t know …”
“I was,” a firm quiet voice stated. It was Elinor Vance. I had put her in the chair nearest mine because Wolfe isn’t the only one who likes to have things around that he enjoys looking at. Obviously she hadn’t caught up on sleep yet, and every so often she had to clamp her teeth to keep her chin from quivering, but she was the only one there who could conceivably have made me remember that I was not primarily a detective, but a man. I was curious how her brown eyes would look if and when they got fun in them again some day. She was going on:
“First I took out those that were plainly impossible, more than half of them, and then I talked it over with Miss Koppel and Mr. Meadows, and I think one or two others—I guess Mr. Strong—yes, I’m sure I did—but it was me more than them. I picked the five names.”
“And they all came to see Miss Fraser?”
“Four of them did. One of them was out of town—in
Florida.”
Wolfe’s gaze went to the left. “And you, Miss Fraser, chose Mr. Cyril Orchard from those four?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“How did you do that? Scientifically?”
“No.” She smiled. “There’s nothing scientific about me. He seemed fairly intelligent, and he had much the best voice of the four and was the best talker, and I liked the name of his sheet, Track Almanac—and then I guess I was a little snobbish about it, too. His sheet was the most expensive—ten dollars a week.”
“Those were the considerations that led you to select him?”
“Yes.”
“You had never seen or heard of him before he came to see you as one of the four?”
“I hadn’t seen him, but I had heard of him, and I had seen his sheet.”
“Oh?” Wolfe’s eyes went half shut. “You had?”
“Yes, about a month before that, maybe longer, when the question of having a tipster on the program had come up again, I had subscribed to some of the sheets—three or four of them—to see what they were like. Not in my name, of course. Things like that are done in my manager’s name—Miss Koppel. One of them was this Track Almanac.”
“How did you happen to choose that one?”
“My God, I don’t know!” Madeline Fraser’s eyes flashed momentarily with irritation. “Do you remember, Debby?”
Deborah shook her head. “I think we phoned somebody.”
“The New York State Racing Commission,” Bill Meadows offered sarcastically.
“Well.” Wolfe leaned forward to push a button on his desk. “I’m going to have some beer. Aren’t some of you thirsty?”
That called for an intermission. No one had accepted a previous offer of liquids I had made, but now they made it unanimous in the affirmative, and I got busy at the table at the far wall, already equipped. Two of them joined Wolfe with the beer, brought by Fritz from the kitchen, and the others suited their fancy. I had suggested to Wolfe that it would be fitting to have a case of Hi-Spot in a prominent place on the table, but he had merely snorted. On such occasions he always insisted that a red wine and a chilled white wine must be among those present. Usually they had no takers, but this time there were two, Miss Koppel and Traub, who went for the Montrachet; and, being strongly in favor of the way its taste insists on sneaking all over the inside of your head, I helped out with it. There is only one trouble about serving assorted drinks to a bunch of people in the office on business. I maintain that it is a legitimate item for the expense account for the clients, and Wolfe says no, that what anyone eats or drinks in his house is on him. Another eccentricity. Also he insists that they must all have stands or tables at their elbows for their drinks.
So they did.
Chapter 6
WOLFE, FOR WHOM the first bottle of beer is merely a preamble, filled his glass from the second bottle, put the bottle down, and leaned back.
“What I’ve been after,” he said in his conversational tone again, “is how that particular individual, Mr. Cyril Orchard, became a guest on that program. The conclusion from the newspaper accounts is that none of you, including Miss Shepherd and Mr. Savarese, knew him from Adam. But he was murdered. Later I’ll discuss this with you severally, but for now I’ll just put it to all of you: had you had any dealings with, or connection with, or knowledge of, Cyril Orchard prior to his appearance on that program? Other than what I have just been told?”
Starting with Madeline Fraser, he got either a no or a shake of the head from each of the six.
He grunted. “I assume,” he said, “that the police have unearthed no contradiction to any of your negatives, since if they had you would hardly be foolish enough to try to hold to them with me. My whole approach to this matter is quite different from what it would be if I didn’t know that the police have spent seven days and nights working on it. They have been after you, and they have their training and talents; also they have authority and a thousand men—twenty thousand. The question is whether their methods and abilities are up to this job; all I can do is use my own.”
Wolfe came forward to drink beer, used his handkerchief on his lips, and leaned back again.
“But I need to know what happened—from you, not the newspapers. We now have you in the broadcasting studio Tuesday morning, a week ago today. The two guests—Mr. Cyril Orchard and Professor Savarese—have arrived. It is a quarter to eleven. The rest of you are there, at or near the table which holds the microphones. Seated at one side of the narrow table are Miss Fraser and Professor Savarese; across from them, facing them, are Mr. Orchard and Mr. Meadows. Voice levels are being taken. About twenty feet from the table is the first row of chairs provided for the studio audience. That audience consists of some two hundred people, nearly all women, many of whom, devoted followers of Miss Fraser, frequently attend the broadcasts. Is that picture correct—not approximately correct, but correct?”
They nodded. “Nothing wrong with it,” Bill Meadows said.
“Many of them,” Miss Fraser stated, “would come much oftener if they could get tickets. There are always twice as many applications for tickets as we can supply.”
“No doubt,” Wolfe growled. He had shown great restraint, not telling her how dangerous she was. “But the applicants who didn’t get tickets, not being there, do not concern us. An essential element of the picture which I haven’t mentioned is not yet visible. Behind the closed door of an electric refrigerator over against the wall are eight bottles of Hi-Spot. How did they get there?”
An answer came from the couch, from Fred Owen. “We always have three or four cases in the studio, in a locked cab—”
“If you please, Mr. Owen.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I want to hear as much as I can of the voices of these six people.”
“They were there in the studio,” Tully Strong said. “In a cabinet. It’s kept locked because if it wasn’t they wouldn’t be there long.”
“Who had taken the eight bottles from the cabinet and put them in the refrigerator?”
“I had.” It was Elinor Vance, and I looked up from my notebook for another glance at her. “That’s one of my chores every broadcast.”
One trouble with her, I thought, is overwork. Script writer, researcher, bartender—what else?
“You can’t carry eight bottles,” Wolfe remarked, “at one time.”
“I know I can’t, so I took four and then went back for four more.”
“Leaving the cabinet unlocked—no.” Wolfe stopped himself. “Those refinements will have to wait.” His eyes passed along the line again. “So there they are, in the refrigerator.—By the way, I understand that the presence at the broadcast of all but one of you was routine and customary. The exception was you, Mr. Traub. You very rarely attend. What were you there for?”
“Because I was jittery, Mr. Wolfe.” Traub’s advertising smile and smooth low-pitched voice showed no resentment at being singled out. “I still thought having a race tout on the program was a mistake, and I wanted to be on hand.”
“You thought there was no telling what Mr. Orchard might say?”
“I knew nothing about Orchard. I thought the whole idea was a stinker.”
“If you mean the whole idea of the program, I agree—but that’s not what we’re trying to decide. We’ll go on with the broadcast. First, one more piece of the picture. Where are the glasses they’re going to drink from?”
“On a tray at the end of the table,” Deborah Koppel said.
“The broadcasting table? Where they’re seated at the microphones?”
“Yes.”
“Who put them there?”
“That girl, Nancylee Shepherd. The only way to keep her back of the line would be to tie her up. Or of course not let her in, and Miss Fraser will not permit that. She organized the biggest Fraser Girls’ Club in the country. So we—”
The phone rang. I reached for it and muttered into it.
“Mr. Bluff,” I told Wolfe, using one of my fifteen ali
ases for the caller. Wolfe got his receiver to his ear, giving me a signal to stay on.
“Yes, Mr. Cramer?”
Cramer’s sarcastic voice sounded as if he had a cigar stuck in his mouth, as he probably had. “How are you coming up there?”
“Slowly. Not really started yet.”
“That’s too bad, since no one’s paying you on the Orchard case. So you told me yesterday.”
“This is today. Tomorrow’s paper will tell you all about it. I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer, but I’m busy.”
“You certainly are, from the reports I’ve got here. Which one is your client?”
“You’ll see it in the paper.”
“Then there’s no reason—”
“Yes. There is. That I’m extremely busy and exactly a week behind you. Good-by, sir.”
Wolfe’s tone and his manner of hanging up got a reaction from the gate-crashers. Mr. Walter B. Anderson, the Hi-Spot president, demanded to know if the caller had been Police Inspector Cramer, and, told that it was, got critical. His position was that Wolfe should not have been rude to the Inspector. It was bad tactics and bad manners. Wolfe, not bothering to draw his sword, brushed him aside with a couple of words, but Anderson leaped for his throat. He had not yet, he said, signed any agreement, and if that was going to be Wolfe’s attitude maybe he wouldn’t.
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows went up a sixteenth of an inch. “Then you’d better notify the press immediately. Do you want to use the phone?”
“By God, I wish I could. I have a right to—”
“You have no right whatever, Mr. Anderson, except to pay your share of my fee if I earn it. You are here in my office on sufferance. Confound it, I am undertaking to solve a problem that has Mr. Cramer so nonplused that he desperately wants a hint from me before I’ve even begun. He doesn’t mind my rudeness; he’s so accustomed to it that if I were affable he’d haul me in as a material witness. Are you going to use the phone?”
“You know damn well I’m not.”
“I wish you were. The better I see this picture the less I like it.” Wolfe went back to the line of candidates. “You say, Miss Koppel, that this adolescent busybody, Miss Shepherd, put the tray of glasses on the table?”