Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 19 (11 page)

“Why don’t you say what you think?” Helen Troy demanded. “You think Uncle Fred killed Dykes. Why don’t you say so?”

“I’ve never said I think that, Helen.”

“But you do.”

“I do,” Blanche Duke stated, still ready to tangle.

“Who is Uncle Fred?” I asked.

Helen answered. “He’s my uncle, Frederick Briggs. They don’t like him. They think he informed on O’Malley because he wouldn’t make him a partner, and Dykes found out about it and threatened to tell O’Malley, and Uncle Fred killed Dykes to keep him from telling. You know perfectly well you think that, Eleanor.”

“I do,” Blanche repeated.

“You girls work in a law office,” Dolly Harriton said warningly, “and you should realize that gabbing in the women’s room is one thing, and talking like this to Mr.
Goodwin is quite another. Didn’t you ever hear of slander?”

“I’m not slandering anyone,” Eleanor declared, and she wasn’t. She looked at me. “The reason I tell you all this, I think you’ve wasted a lot of orchids and food and drink. Your client is Mr. Wellman, and you’re investigating the death of his daughter, and you went to all this trouble and expense because you think there was a connection between her and Leonard Dykes. That list of names he wrote that was found in his room—what if some friend was there one evening and said he was trying to choose a name to use on something he had written, and Dykes and the friend made up some names and Dykes wrote them down? There are a dozen ways it could have happened. And from what you say, that name Baird Archer is absolutely the only thing that connects Dykes with Joan Wellman and Rachel Abrams.”

“No,” I contradicted her. “There’s another. They were all three murdered.”

“There are three hundred homicides in New York every year.” Eleanor shook her head. “I’m just trying to put you straight. You got us all worked up, or Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman did, and from that row we had you might think you have started something, but you haven’t. That’s why I told you all that. We all hope you find the man that killed those girls, I know I do, but I don’t think you’ll ever do it this way.”

“Look,” Nina Perlman said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s all chip in and hire him to find out who informed on O’Malley and who killed Dykes. Then we’d know.”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Adams snapped.

Portia Liss objected. “I’d rather hire him to catch the man that killed the girls.”

“That’s no good,” Blanche told her. “Wellman has already hired him for that.”

“How much do you charge?” Nina asked.

She got no reply, not that I resented it, but because I was busy. I had left my chair and gone to the side table, where there was a large celadon bowl, and, getting a couple of sheets from my pocket notebook and tearing them into pieces, was writing on the pieces. Blanche, asking what I was doing, got no reply either until I had finished writing, put the pieces of paper in the bowl, and, carrying the bowl, returned to the table and stood behind Mrs. Adams.

“Speech,” I announced. Helen Troy did not say oyez.

“I admit,” I said, “that I have ruined the party, and I offer my regrets. If you think that I am rudely sending you home I regret that too, but it must be faced that I have doused all hope of continued revelry. I do offer a little consolation, with the permission of Mr. Wolfe. For a period of one year from date each of you will be sent upon request three orchids each month. You may request three at one time or separately, as you prefer. Specifications of color will be met as far as possible.”

There were appropriate noises and expressions. Claire Burkhardt wanted to know, “Can we come and pick them out?”

I said that might be arranged, by appointment only. “Earlier,” I went on, “it was suggested that one of you be chosen to demonstrate on my person your appreciation for this occasion. Maybe you no longer feel like it, but if you do I have a proposal. In this bowl are ten pieces of paper, and on each piece I written one of your names. I will ask Mrs. Adams to take one of the pieces from the bowl, and the one whose name is drawn will accompany me forthwith to the Bobolink, where we will dance and dally until one of us gets tired. I don’t tire easily.”

“If my name is in there you will please remove it,” Mrs. Adams ultimatumed.

“If it’s drawn,” I told her, “you can draw another. Does anyone else wish to be excused?”

Portia Liss said, “I promised to be home by midnight.”

“Simple. Get tired at eleven-thirty.” I held the bowl above the level of Mrs. Adams’ eyes. “Will you draw one, please?”

She didn’t like doing it, but it was a quick and easy way of getting the party over and done with, so after a second’s hesitation she reached up over the rim of the bowl, withdrew a slip, and put it on the table.

Mabel Moore, at her left, called out, “Sue!”

I removed the other slips and stuck them in a pocket.

Sue Dondero protested, “My lord, I can’t go to the Bobolink in these clothes!”

“It doesn’t have to be the Bobolink,” I assured her. “I guess you’re stuck, unless you want us to draw again.”

“What for?” Blanche snorted. “What do you bet they didn’t all say Sue?”

I didn’t dignify it with a denial. I merely took nine slips from my right-hand pocket and tossed them on the table. Later on in the evening there might be occasion to show Sue the nine in my left-hand pocket, those I had taken from the bowl.

O
rdinarily Fritz takes Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him at eight o’clock, but that Thursday he phoned down to say he wanted to see me before he went up to the plant rooms at nine, and I thought I might as well save Fritz a trip. So at 8:05, having catered, I pulled a chair around and sat. Sometimes Wolfe breakfasted in bed and sometimes at the table by the window. That morning the sun was shining in and he was at the table. Looking at the vast expanse of yellow pajamas in the bright sun made me blink. He never says a word if he can help it until his orange juice is down, and he will not gulp orange juice, so I gave a fair imitation of sitting patiently. Finally he put the empty glass down, cleared his throat explosively, and started spreading the half-melted butter on a hot griddle cake.

He spoke. “What time did you get home?”

“Two-twenty-four.”

“Where did you go?”

“With a girl to a night club. She’s the one. The wedding is set for Sunday. Her folks are in Brazil, and there’s no one to give her away, so you’ll have to give me away.”

“Pfui.” He took a bite of buttered griddle cake and ham. “What happened?”

“Outline or blow by blow?”

“Outline. We’ll fill in later.”

“Ten came, including a female lawyer, young and handsome but tough, and an old warhorse. They drank upstairs and wrecked only two Oncidiums. By the—”

“Forbesi?”

“No. Varicosum. By the time we descended they were genial. I sat at your place. I had warned Fritz that the soup and patties would fill them up and they would snoot the duckling, and they did. I made speeches, which were well received, but no mention of murder until coffee, when I was asked to tell them about detective work, as arranged, and obliged. I set forth our current problem. At an appropriate moment I sent for our client and Mrs. Abrams, and if you had been there you would have been stirred, though of course you wouldn’t admit it. They admitted it by wiping their eyes. By the way, Wellman had a nerve to suspect me of going too far too fast. He never met Mrs. Abrams until last evening, and he took her home. Oh, yes, I told them about finding Baird Archer’s name in Rachel Abrams’ account book, because I had to tie her in to clear the track for Mrs. Abrams. If it gets printed Cramer will yap, but it was me that found the book, and he admits I talk too much.”

“So do I.” Wolfe took a sip of steaming black coffee. “You say they were stirred?”

“Yes. Their valves opened. But all they did was start a free-for-all about who informed on O’Malley, the former senior partner, and got him disbarred for bribing a jury foreman, and about who killed Dykes. They have assorted theories, but if they have any evidence worth buying they’re saving it. One named Eleanor
Gruber, who is a looker but too busy being clever—she was O’Malley’s secretary and is now Louis Kustin’s—she undertook to straighten me out. She hates to see us waste our time trying to clinch a link between Dykes and Joan and Rachel, because there isn’t any. Nobody contradicted her. I decided to adjourn and try one at a time, having been introduced, selected one named Sue Dondero, Emmett Phelps’s secretary, and took her to a night club and spent thirty-four of our client’s dollars. The immediate objective was to get on a satisfactory personal basis, but I found an opportunity to let her know that we intend, if necessary, to blow the firm of Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs into so many little pieces that the Department of Sanitation will have us up for cluttering the streets. As I said, the wedding is Sunday. I hope you’ll like her.”

I upturned a palm. “It all depends. If one or more of them has really got a finger caught, either a firm member or an employee, I may have made a start at least. If not, Miss Gruber is not only shapely but sensible, and I may ditch Sue for her. Time will tell, unless you want to tell me now.”

Wolfe had finished with the ham, and the eggs done with black butter and sherry, and was starting the wind-up, a griddle cake with no butter but plenty of thyme honey. In the office he would have been scowling, but he would not allow himself to get into a scowling mood while eating.

“I dislike business with breakfast,” he stated.

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“You can fill in later. Get Saul and put him on the disbarment of Mr. O’Malley.”

“That was covered fairly well in the police file on Dykes. I’ve told you about it.”

“Nevertheless, put Saul on it. Put Fred and Orrie on Dykes’s associations outside that law office.”

“He didn’t have any to speak of.”

“Put them on it. We’ve made this assumption and we’ll either validate it or void it. Pursue your acquaintance with those women. Take one of them to lunch.”

“Lunch isn’t a good time. They only have—”

“We’ll argue later. I want to read the paper. Have you had breakfast?”

“No. I got up late.”

“Go and eat.”

“Glad to.”

Before I did so, I called Saul and Fred and Orrie and told them to come in for briefing. After breakfast I had that to attend to and also various office chores I had got behind on. There was a phone call from Purley Stebbins, who wanted to know how I had made out with my dinner party, and I asked him which one or ones he was tailing, or, as an alternative, which one he had on a line, but he brushed me off. I made no attempt to arrange to buy a lunch. So fast a follow-up on Sue would have been bad strategy, and a midday fifty minutes with one of the others would have given me no scope. Besides, I had had less than five hours’ sleep and hadn’t shaved.

When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven he went over the morning mail, dictated a couple of letters, looked through a catalogue, and then requested a full report. To him a full report means every word and gesture and expression, and I have learned to fill the order not only to his satisfaction but to mine. It took more than an hour. When I was through, after asking a few questions, he issued a command.

“Phone Miss Troy and take her to lunch.”

I remained calm. “I understand and sympathize,” I told him, “but I can’t oblige. You’re desperate and
therefore impulsive. I could present an overwhelming case against it, but will mention only two items: first, it’s nearly one o’clock and that’s too late, and second, I don’t feel like it. There are some things I know more about than you do, and one of them is my extractive ability with women. Take it from me, it would be hard to conceive a lousier idea than for me to invite a middle-aged lawyer’s niece with pimples to a quick bite in a crowded midtown beanery, especially since she is probably right now on a stool at a fountain lunch working on a maple-nut sundae.”

He shivered.

“I’m sorry to upset you, but maple-nut sundaes are—”

“Shut up,” he growled.

All the same, I was quite aware that it was up to me. True, Saul and Fred and Orrie were out collecting, but they were even farther away from Joan Wellman than I was, and that was some distance. If one of those ten females, or one of the other six whom I hadn’t met, had just one measly little fact tucked away that would start Wolfe’s lips pushing out and in, no one but me was going to dig it out, and if I didn’t want it to drag on into the Christmas season, only ten months away, I had better pull something.

Back in the office after lunch, Wolfe was seated at his desk, reading a book of lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, his mind a million miles from murder, and I was wandering around trying to think of something to pull, when the phone rang and I went to answer it.

A woman’s voice told me, “Mr. Corrigan would like to speak to Mr. Wolfe. Put Mr. Wolfe on, please?”

I made a face. “Get home all right, Mrs. Adams?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Mr. Wolfe is busy reading poetry. Put Corrigan on.”

“Really, Mr. Goodwin.”

“I’m stubborner than you are, and you made the call, I didn’t. Put him on.” I covered the transmitter and told Wolfe, “Mr. James A. Corrigan, the senior partner.”