“Just a minute,” Andrew Busch said. He stood up. “Now I’m going to search you.”
“I’ll be damned. You are?”
“I am. If you’re taking something I want to know what it is.”
“Good for you.” I dropped my coat on the chair. “I’ll make a deal. Tell me what you were after in Ashby’s room and I’ll let you finger me if you don’t tickle.”
“I don’t know. I was going through his files. I thought I might find something that would give me an idea who killed him. I’m for Elma Vassos, and I think you’re lying when you say you are. You came here with her.” He aimed a finger at Frances Cox. “She’s a liar too. She lied to the police.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No. But I know her.”
“Watch it. She’ll sue you for slander. Did you find anything helpful in Ashby’s files?”
“No.”
“Since you’re an officer of the corporation, why did you scoot to the hall when you heard footsteps?”
“Because I thought it was her. I was coming back in this way and see what she was up to.”
“Okay. You’re wrong about Nero Wolfe and me, but time will tell. Frisking me will be easier with my hands up.” I put them up. “If you tickle, the deal’s off.”
He wasn’t as clumsy as you would expect, and he didn’t miss a pocket. He even flipped through my notebook. With some practice he would have made a good dipper. When he was through he said all right and returned to his chair and I put on my coat and went to the door; and there was Miss Cox with her coat and stole on. Evidently she was seeing me out of the building. Not a word had passed between her and Busch since she had said, “Oh, it’s you,” and no more than necessary between her and me. I opened the door and followed her through, and at the elevator she pressed the button, touched my sleeve with fingertips, and said, “I’m thirsty.” in a voice I hadn’t thought she had in her. It was unquestionably a come-on.
“Have a heart,” I said. “First Busch is suddenly a bulldog, and now you’re suddenly a siren. I’m being crowded.”
“Not you.” The same voice. “I’m no siren. It’s just that I’ve realized what you’re like—or what you may be like. I’m curious, and when a girl’s curious … I only said I’m thirsty. Aren’t you?”
I put a fingertip under her nice chin, tilted her head back, and took in her eyes. “Panting,” I said, and the elevator came.
An hour and ten minutes later, at a corner table at Charley’s Grill, I decided I had wasted seven dollars of Wolfe’s money, including tip. Her take-off had been fine, but she hadn’t maintained altitude. After only a couple of sips of the first drink she had said, “What was that about asking Andy Busch once before why he was here? Where? I didn’t know you had met”. I don’t mind being foxed by an expert, it’s how you learn; but that was an insult I hung on, quenching her thirst with Wolfe’s money and no expense account for a client’s bill, as long as there was a chance of getting something useful out of her, and then put her in a taxi and gave my lungs a dose of fresh cold December air by walking home. It was eleven-thirty as I mounted the seven steps of the stoop; Wolfe would probably be in bed.
He wasn’t. There were voices in the office as I put my coat and hat on the rack—voices I recognized, and the click of my typewriter. I proceeded down the hall and entered. Wolfe was at his desk. Elma was at my desk, typing. Saul Panzer was in the red leather chair, and Fred Durkin was in one of the yellow ones. I stood. No one had a glance for me. Wolfe was speaking.
“… but the sooner the better, naturally. It must be conclusive enough for me, and through me for the police, but not necessarily for a judge and jury. You will phone every hour or so whether or not you have got anything; one of you may need the other. Archie will be out much of the day; he will be with Miss Vassos arranging for the burial of her father and attending to it; but the usual restrictions regarding nine to eleven in the morning and four to six in the afternoon will not apply. Call as soon as you have something to report I want to settle this matter as soon as possible. Whatever you must disburse can’t be helped, but it will be my money; it will not be billed to anyone. Have that in mind. Archie. Give them each five hundred dollars.”
As I went and opened the safe and pulled out the cash reserve drawer I was remarking to myself that that sounded more lavish than it actually was, since it would be deductible as business expense. Even if they shelled it all out the net loss would be less than two Cs of the grand. Of course there would also be their pay—ten dollars an hour for Saul Panzer, the best free-lance operative this side of outer space, and seven-fifty an hour for Fred Durkin, who wasn’t in Saul’s class but was way above average.
By the time I had it counted, in used fives, tens, and twenties, Saul and Fred were on their feet, ready to go, the briefing apparently finished. As I handed them the lettuce I told Wolfe I had a sketch of the Mercer’s Bobbins office if that would help them, and he said it wouldn’t I said it might be useful for them to know that I had found Andrew Busch in Ashby’s room, hoping, according to him, to find something that would give him an idea about who killed Ashby, and Wolfe said it wasn’t Evidently I had nothing to contribute except my services as an escort for Saul and Fred to the door, opening it, and closing it after them, which I supplied, with appropriate exchanges between old friends and colleagues. When I returned to the office, Wolfe was out of his chair but Elma was still at the typewriter. I handed him the sketch, and he looked it over.
He handed it back. “Satisfactory. Who let you in?”
“Miss Cox. Shall I report, or have you gone on ahead with Saul and Fred?”
“Report.”
I did so, and he listened, but when I had finished he merely nodded. No questions. He told me Miss Vassos was typing the substance of a conversation she had had with him, said good night, and went out to his elevator. Elma turned to say she was nearly through and did I want to read it, and I took it and sat in the red leather chair. It was four pages, double-spaced, not margined my way, but nice and clean, no erasing or exing out, and it was all about her father—or rather, what her father had told her at various times about his customers at Mercer’s Bobbins, and one who hadn’t been a customer, Frances Cox. Apparently he had told her a lot, part fact and part opinion.
DENNIS ASHBY. Pete hadn’t thought much of him except as a steady source of a dollar and a quarter a week. When Elma had told him that Ashby was responsible for pulling the firm out of the hole it had been in, Pete had said maybe he had been lucky. I have already reported his reaction when Elma told him that Ashby had asked her to dinner and a show, and now add that he said that if she got into trouble with such a man as Ashby she was no daughter of his anyway.
JOHN MERCER. Not as steady a customer as Ashby, since he spent part of his days at the factory in Jersey, but Pete was all for him. A gentleman and a real American. However, Elma said, her father had been very grateful to Mercer because he had given her a good job just because Pete asked him to.
ANDREW BUSCH. Pete’s verdict on Busch had varied from week to week. Before Elma had started to work there he had—But what’s the use? This was what Elma saw fit to report of what her father had said about a man who had asked her to marry him just yesterday. That affects a girl’s attitude. What she had put in was probably straight enough, but what had she left out?
PHILIP HORAN. Nothing. Elma corroborated Horan. Pete had never shined Horan’s shoes and had probably never seen him.
FRANCES COX. I got the feeling that Elma had toned it down some, but even so it was positively thumbs down. The general impression was that Miss Cox was a highnose and a female baboon. Evidently she had never turned siren on him.
“I don’t see what good this is,” Elma said as we collated the original and carbons. “He asked me a thousand questions about what my father said about them.”
“Search me,” I told her. “I just work here. If it comes to me in a dream, I’ll tell you in the morning.”
9
At the moment, half past three Friday afternoon, that Saul Panzer was finding what Pete Vassos had scrawled on a rock with his finger dipped in his blood, I was at the curb in front of a church on Cedar Street, Greek Orthodox, getting into a rented limousine with Elma Vassos and three friends of hers. The hearse, with the coffin in it, was just ahead, and we were going to follow it to a cemetery somewhere on the edge of Brooklyn. I had offered to drive us in the sedan, which was Wolfe’s in name but mine in practice, but no, it had to be a black limousine. I had asked Elma if she wanted the stack of dollar bills from the safe, but she said she would pay for her father’s funeral with her own money, so apparently she had some put away.
I wouldn’t have been jolly even if it had been a wedding instead of a funeral, with Saul and Fred somewhere doing something, I had no idea where or what, and me spending the day convoying, on her personal errands, a girl on whom I had no designs, private or professional. The idea, according to Wolfe when I had gone up to his room at eight-thirty A.M. for instructions, was that it would be risky to let her go anywhere unattended. If I would prefer, I could get an operative to escort her and I could stay in the office to stand by. He knew damn well what I would prefer, to join Saul and Fred, and I knew damn well, he wouldn’t be blowing $17.50 an hour plus expenses if he hadn’t had a healthy notion that he was going to get something for it. But we had had that argument time and again, and there would have been no point in repeating it, especially when he was at breakfast.
So I spent the day bodyguarding, and it didn’t help much that the body I was guarding was 110 pounds of attractive female with a sad little face. I have nothing against sympathy when my mind is free, but it wasn’t. It was with Saul and Fred, and that was very frustrating because I didn’t know where they were. No doubt Elma’s friends got the impression that I was a fish.
When we finally got back to Manhattan and the friends had been dropped off at their addresses, and the rented limousine stopped in front of the old brownstone, it was after six o’clock. Elma paid the driver. Mounting the stoop with her and finding that the door wasn’t bolted, I knew that at least nothing had blown up, but, stepping inside, I saw that someone had blown in. There on the hall rack were objects that I recognized: a brown wool cap, a gray hat, a blue hat, and three coats. As I took Elma’s coat I told her, “Go up and lie down. There’s company in the office. Inspector Cramer, Saul Panzer, and Fred Durkin.”
“But what—why are they …”
“The Lord only knows, or maybe Mr. Wolfe does. You’re all in. If you want—”
Her look stopped me. She was facing the door. I turned. There on the stoop was John Mercer, with a finger on the bell button, with Frances Cox and Philip Horan behind him. I told Elma to beat it and waited until she had turned up the stairs to open the door.
So Wolfe thought he had it. I wondered, as I let them in and took their things and sent them to the office. More than once I had seen him risk it when all he had hold of was the tip of the tail, even with a big fee at stake, and with no intake but a dollar bill already spent and then some—he could be trying it with no hold at all He knew I was home, since Saul had appeared at the office door when the bell had rung and had seen me admitting the guests, and I had a notion to go to the kitchen and sit down with a glass of milk. If I joined the party I would be merely a spectator, and it might be a bum show. But while I was considering it another guest appeared on the stoop. Andrew Busch. I had the door open before he pressed the button. Since I had crossed him off and I thought Wolfe had too, his coming meant there would be a real showdown, all or nothing, so I took him to the office and followed him in. And found that it was the full cast: Joan Ashby was on the couch at the left of my desk, with a mink coat, presumably not paid for, draped on her shoulders. Cramer was in the red leather chair. Saul and Fred were over by the big globe. Mercer, Horan, and Miss Cox were on yellow chairs in a row facing Wolfe’s desk, and there was a vacant one waiting for Busch. As I circled around the chairs Wolfe told Busch he was late, and Busch said something, and, as I sat, Cramer said he wanted Elma Vassos there.
Wolfe shook his head. “You are here by sufferance, Mr. Cramer, and you will either listen or leave, as agreed. As I told you on the phone, you can’t expect to interfere in your official capacity, since you have closed your investigation of the only death by violence in your jurisdiction that these people are connected with. Or you had closed it. You agreed to listen or leave. Do you want to leave?”
“Go ahead,” Cramer growled, “But Elma Vassos ought to be here.”
“She’s at hand if needed.” Wolfe’s eyes left him. “Mr. Mercer. I told you on the phone that if you would bring Miss Cox and Mr. Horan I thought we could come to an understanding about the actions Miss Vassos has brought It seemed desirable for Mrs. Ashby and Mr. Busch to be present, and I asked them to come. I’m on better ground than I was yesterday. Then I only knew that Mr. Vassos had not killed Dennis Ashby; now I know who did. I’ll tell you briefly—”
Cramer cut in. “Now I’m here officially! Now you’re saying you can name a murderer! How did you know Vassos hadn’t killed Ashby?”
Wolfe glared at him. “I have your word. Listen or leave.”
“I’ll listen to your answer to my question!”
“I was about to give it.” Wolfe turned to the others. “I was saying, I’ll tell you briefly how I knew that Miss Vassos came to me Tuesday evening to engage my services. She said that someone had lied to the police about her; that the police were persuaded that she had been seduced by Ashby and her father had found out about it and had killed Ashby and then himself; that none of that was true; that her father had told her I was the greatest man in the world; that she wanted to hire me to discover and establish the truth; and in payment she would give me all the dollar bills, some five hundred, I had paidher father for shining my shoes over a period of more than three years.”
He turned a palm up. “Very well. If she had in fact misbehaved, and if her misbehavior had been responsible for her father’s committing murder and suicide, what on earth could possibly have impelled her to come to me—the greatest man in the world to her father, and therefore a man not to be hoodwinked—and offer me what was for her a substantial sum to learn the truth and expose it? It was inconceivable. So I believed her.”
He turned his hand back over. “But I won’t pretend that I was moved to act by the dollar bills, by the pathos of Miss Vassos’ predicament, or by a passion for truth and justice. I was moved by pique. Monday afternoon, the day before Miss Vassos came, Mr. Cramer had told me that I was capable of shielding a murderer in order to avoid the inconvenience of finding another bootblack; and the next day, Wednesday, he told Mr. Goodwin that I had been beguiled by a harlot and ejected him from his office. That’s why—”
“I didn’t eject him!”
Wolfe ignored it. “That’s why Mr. Cramer is here. I could have asked the district attorney to send someone, but I preferred to have Mr. Cramer present.”
“I’m here and I’m listening,” Cramer rasped.
Wolfe turned to him. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass over the actions at law I advised Miss Vassos to bring; that was merely a ruse to make contact I needed to see these people. I already had a strong hint about the murderer. So had you.”
“If you mean a hint about somebody besides Vassos, you’re wrong. I hadn’t.”
“You had. I gave it to you, half of it, or Mr. Goodwin did, when he reported verbatim my conversation with Mr. Vassos Monday morning. He said he saw someone. He said that he had only said what if he told a cop he saw someone, but it was obvious that he actually had seen someone. Also he told his daughter that evening that there was something he hadn’t told either me or the police, and he was going to come and tell me in the morning and ask me what he ought to do; and he wouldn’t tell his daughter what it was. Surely that’s a strong hint.”
“Hint of what?”
“Then he knew, or thought he knew, who had killed Ashby. Where and when he had se
en someone can only be conjectured, but it is highly probable that he had seen someone leaving Ashby’s room. Not entering; you know the times involved as well as I do, or better; he must have seen him leaving, at a moment which made it likely that he had been in that room when Ashby left it by the window. And it was someone whom he did not want to expose, for whom he had affection or regard, or who had put him under obligation. There I have the advantage of you. Mr. Vassos and I had formed the habit, while he was shining my shoes, of discussing the history of ancient Greece and the men who made it, and I knew the bent of his mind. He was tolerant of violence and even ferocity, and the qualities he most strongly contemned were ingratitude and disloyalty. That was, of course, not decisive, but it helped.”
Wolfe wiggled a finger. “So. The person, call him X, whom Mr. Vassos had seen in compromising circumstances and who was probably the murderer, was one who had earned his affection, his high regard, his gratitude, or his loyalty.” He left Cramer and surveyed the others. “Was it one of you? That was the point of my questions yesterday afternoon when you were here, and of a discussion I had with Miss Vassos last evening. It isn’t necessary to elaborate; as you know, only one of you qualifies. You, Mr. Mercer. You fit admirably; Mr. Vassos owed you gratitude for giving his daughter a job. By which door were you leaving Ashby’s room when he saw you, the one to the outer hall or the other?”
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