Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 31

by Champagne for One

  “Have you dismissed your taxi?”

  “Yes. I thought that was better.”

  “It was. How many men are in the taxi tailing you?”

  “Two.”

  “Then they mean it. Okay, so do we. First, have a Coke or something to give me time to get a car—say, six or seven minutes. Then take a taxi to Two-fourteen East Twenty-eighth Street. The Perlman Paper Company is there on the ground floor.” I spelled Perlman. “Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go in and ask for Abe and say to him, ‘Archie wants some more candy.’ What are you going to say to him?”

  “Archie wants some more candy.”

  “Right. He’ll take you on through to Twenty-seventh Street, and when you emerge I’ll be there in front, either at the curb or double-parked, in a gray Heron sedan. Don’t hand Abe anything, he wouldn’t like it. This is part of our personalized service.”

  “What if Abe isn’t there?”

  “He will be, but if he isn’t don’t mention candy to anyone else. Find a booth and ring Mr. Wolfe.”

  I hung up, scribbled “Laidlaw” on my pad, tore the sheet off, and got up and handed it to Wolfe. “He wants to see you quick,” I said, “and needs transportation. I’ll be back with him in half an hour or less.”

  He nodded, crumpled the sheet, and dropped it in his wastebasket; and I wished the trio luck on their mother hunt and went.

  At the garage, at the corner of Tenth Avenue, I used the three minutes while Hank was bringing the car down to go to the phone in the office and ring the Perlman Paper Company, and got Abe. He said he had been wondering when I would want more candy and would be glad to fill the order.

  The de-tailing operation went fine, without a hitch. Going crosstown on Thirty-fourth Street, it was a temptation to swing down Park or Lexington to Twenty-eighth, so as to pass Number 214 and see if I recognized the two in the taxi, but since they might also recognize me I vetoed it and gave them plenty of room by continuing to Second Avenue before turning downtown, then west on Twenty-seventh. It was at the rear entrance on Twenty-seventh that the Perlman Paper Company did its loading and unloading, but no truck was there when I arrived, and I rolled to the curb at 2:49, just nineteen minutes since Laidlaw had phoned, and at 2:52 here he came trotting across the sidewalk. I opened the door and he piled in.

  He looked upset. “Relax,” I told him as I fed gas. “A tail is a trifle. They won’t go in to ask about you for at least half an hour, if at all, and Abe will say he took you to the rear to show you some stock, and you left that way.”

  “It’s not the tail. I want to see Wolfe.” His tone indicated that his plan was to get him down and tramp on him, so I left him to his mood. Crossing town, I considered whether there was enough of a chance that the brownstone was under surveillance to warrant taking him in the back way, through the passage between buildings on Thirty-fourth Street, decided no, and went up Eighth Avenue to Thirty-fifth. As usual, there was no space open in front of the brownstone, so I went on to the garage and left the car, and walked back with him. When we entered the office I was at his heels. He didn’t have the build to get Wolfe’s bulk down and trample on it without help, but after all, he was the only one of the bunch, as it stood then, who had had dealings with Faith Usher that might have produced a motive for murder, and if a man has once murdered you never know what he’ll do next.

  He didn’t move a finger. In fact, he didn’t even move his tongue. He stood at the corner of Wolfe’s desk looking down at him, and after five seconds I realized that he was too mad, or too scared, or both, to speak, and I took his elbow and eased him to the red leather chair and into it.

  “Well, sir?” Wolfe asked.

  The client pushed his hair back, though he must have known by then that it was a waste of energy. “I may be wrong,” he croaked. “I hope to God I am. Did you send a note to the District Attorney telling him that I am the father of Faith Usher’s child?”

  “No.” Wolfe’s lips tightened. “I did not.”

  Laidlaw’s head jerked to me. “Did you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Have you told anybody? Either of you?”

  “Plainly,” Wolfe said, “you are distressed and so must be indulged. But nothing has happened to release either Mr. Goodwin or me from our pledge of confidence. If and when it does you will first be notified. I suggest that you retire and cool off a little.”

  “Cool off, hell.” The client rubbed the chair arms with his palms, eyeing Wolfe. “Then it wasn’t you. All right. When I left here this morning I went to my office, and my secretary said the District Attorney’s office had been trying to reach me, and I phoned and was told they wanted to see me immediately, and I went. I was taken in to Bowen, the District Attorney himself, and he asked if I wished to change my statement that I had never met Faith Usher before Tuesday evening, and I said no. Then he showed me a note that he said had come in the mail. It was typewritten. There wasn’t any signature. It said, ‘Have you found out yet that Edwin Laidlaw is the father of Faith Usher’s baby? Ask him about his trip to Canada in August nineteen fifty-six.’ Bowen didn’t let me take it. He held on to it. I sat and stared at it.”

  Wolfe grunted. “It was worth a stare, even if it had been false. Did you collapse?”

  “No! By God, I didn’t! I don’t think I decided what to do while I sat there staring at it; I think my subconscious mind had already decided what to do. Sitting there staring at it, I was too stunned to decide anything, so I must have already decided that the only thing to do was refuse to answer any questions about anything at all, and that’s what I did. I said just one thing: that whoever sent that note had libeled me and I had a right to find out who it was, and to do that I would have to have the note, but of course they wouldn’t give it to me. They wouldn’t even give me a copy. They kept at me for two hours, and when I left I was followed.”

  “You admitted nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Not even that you had taken a trip to Canada in August of nineteen fifty-six?”

  “No. I admitted nothing. I didn’t answer a single question.”

  “Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. “Highly satisfactory. This is indeed welcome, Mr. Laidlaw. We have—”

  “Welcome!” the client squawked. “Welcome!”

  “Certainly. We have at last goaded someone to action. I am gratified. If there was any small shadow of doubt that Miss Usher was murdered, this removes it. They have all claimed to have had no knowledge of Miss Usher prior to that party; one of them lied, and he has been driven to move. True, it is still possible that you yourself are the culprit, but I now think it extremely improbable. I prefer to take it that the murderer has felt compelled to create a diversion, and that is most gratifying. Now he is doomed.”

  “But good God! They know about—about me!”

  “They know no more than they knew before. They get a dozen accusatory unsigned letters every day, and have learned that the charges in most of them are groundless. As for your refusal to answer questions, a man of your standing might be expected to take that position until he got legal advice. It’s a neat situation, very neat. They will of course make every effort to find confirmation of that note, but it is a reasonable asumption that no one can supply it except the person who sent the note, and if he dares to do so we’ll have him. We’ll challenge him, but we’ll have him.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “However, we shall not merely twiddle our thumbs and wait for that. I have thirty minutes. You told me Wednesday morning that no one on earth knew of your dalliance with Miss Usher; now we know you were wrong. We must review every moment you spent in her company when you might have been seen or heard. When I leave, at four o’clock, Mr. Goodwin will continue with you. Start with the day she first attracted your notice, when she waited on you at Cordoni’s. Was anyone you knew present?”

  When Wolfe undertakes that sort of thing, getting someone to recall every detail of a past experience, he is worse than a housewife
bent on finding a speck of dust that the maid overlooked. Once I sat for eight straight hours, from nine in the evening until daylight came, while he took a chauffeur over every second of a drive, made six months before, to New Haven and back. This time he wasn’t quite that fussy, but he did no skipping. When four o’clock came, time for him to go up and play with the orchids, he had covered the episode at Cordoni’s, two dinners, one at the Woodbine in Westchester and one at Henke’s on Long Island, and a lunch at Gaydo’s on Sixty-ninth Street.

  I carried on for more than an hour, following Wolfe’s modus operandi more or less, but my pulse wasn’t pounding from the thrill of it. It seemed to me that it could have been handled just as well by putting one question: “Did you at any time, anywhere, when she was with you, including Canada, see or hear anyone who knew you?” and then make sure there were no gaps in his memory. As for chances that they had been seen but he hadn’t known it, there had been plenty. Aside from restaurants, he had had her in his car, in midtown, in daylight, seven times. The morning they left for Canada he had parked his car, with her in it, in front of his club, while he went in to leave a message for somebody.

  But I carried on, and we were working on the third day in Canada, somewhere in Quebec, when the doorbell rang and I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass and saw Inspector Cramer of Homicide.

  I wasn’t much surprised, since I knew there had been a pointer for them if they were interested enough; and just as Laidlaw’s subconscious had made his decision in advance, mine had made mine. I went to the rack and got Laidlaw’s hat and coat, stepped back into the office, and told the client, “Inspector Cramer is here looking for you. This way out. Come on, move—”

  “But how did—”

  “No matter how.” The doorbell rang. “Damn it, move!”

  He came, and followed me to the kitchen. Fritz was at the big table, doing something to a duck. I told him, “Mr. Laidlaw wants to leave the back way in a hurry, and I haven’t time because Cramer wants in. Show him quick, and you haven’t seen him.”

  Fritz headed for the back door, which opens on our private enclosed garden if you want to call it that, whose fence has a gate into the passage between buildings which leads to Thirty-fourth Street. As the door closed behind them and I turned, the doorbell rang. I went to the front, not in a hurry, put the chain bolt on, opened the door to the two-inch crack the chain allowed, and spoke through it politely.

  “I suppose you want me? Since you know Mr. Wolfe won’t be available until six o’clock.”

  “Open up, Goodwin.”

  “Under conditions. You know damn well what my orders are: no callers admitted between four and six unless it’s just for me.”

  “I know. Open up.”

  I took that for a commitment, and he knew I did. Also it was conceivable that some character—Sergeant Stebbins, for instance—was on his way with a search warrant, and if so it would take the edge off to admit Cramer without one. So I said, “Okay, if it’s me you want,” removed the bolt, and swung the door wide; and he stepped in, marched down the hall, and entered the office.

  I shut the door and went to join him, but by the time I arrived he wasn’t there. The connecting door to the front room was open, and in a moment he came through and barked at me, “Where’s Laidlaw?”

  I was hurt. “I thought you wanted me. If I had—”

  “Where’s Laidlaw?”

  “Search me. There’s lot of Laidlaws, but I haven’t got one. If you mean—”

  He made for the door to the hall, passing within arm’s length of me en route.

  The rules for dealing with officers of the law are contradictory. Whether you may restrain them by force or not depends. It was okay to restrain Cramer from entering the house by the force of the chain bolt. It would have been okay to restrain him from going upstairs if there had been a locked door there and I had refused to open it, but I couldn’t restrain him by standing on the first step and not letting him by, no matter how careful I was not to hurt him. That may make sense to lawyers, but not to me.

  But that’s the rule, and it didn’t matter that he had said he knew our rules before I let him in. So when he crossed the hall to the stairs I didn’t waste my breath to yell at him; I saved it for climbing the three flights, which I did, right behind him. Since he was proving that in a pinch he had no honor and no manners, it would have been no surprise if he had turned left at the first landing to invade Wolfe’s room, or right at the second landing to invade mine, but he kept going to the top, and on in to the vestibule.

  I don’t know whether he is off orchids because Wolfe is on them, or is just color blind, but on the few occasions that I have seen him in the plant rooms he has never shown the slightest sign that he realizes that the benches are occupied. Of course in that house his mind is always occupied or he wouldn’t be there, and that could account for it. That day, in the cool room, long panicles of Odontoglossums, yellow, rose, white with spots, crowded the aisle on both sides; in the tropical room, Miltonia hybrids and Phalaenopsis splashed pinks and greens and browns clear to the glass above; and in the intermediate room the Cattleyas were grandstanding all over the place as always. Cramer might have been edging his way between rows of dried-up cornstalks.

  The door from the intermediate room to the potting room was closed as usual. When Cramer opened it and I followed him in, I didn’t stop to shut it but circled around him and raised my voice to announce, “He said he came to see me. When I let him in he dashed past me to the office and then to the front room and started yapping, ‘Where’s Laidlaw?’ and when I told him I had no Laidlaw he dashed past me again for the stairs. Apparently he has such a craving for someone named Laidlaw that his morals are shot.”

  Theodore Horstmann, at the sink washing pots, had twisted around for a look, but before I finished was twisted back again, washing pots. Wolfe, at the potting bench inspecting seedlings, had turned full around to glare. He had started the glare at me, but by the time I ended had transferred it to Cramer. “Are you demented?” he inquired icily.

  Cramer stood in the middle of the room, returning the glare. “Someday,” he said, and stopped.

  “Someday what? You will recover your senses?”

  Cramer advanced two paces. “So you’re horning in again,” he said. “Goodwin turns a suicide into a murder, and here you are. Yesterday you had those girls here. This morning you had those men here. This afternoon Laidlaw is called downtown to show him something which he refuses to discuss, and when he leaves he heads for you. So I know he has been here. So I come—”

  “If you weren’t an inspector,” I cut in, “I’d say that’s a lie. Since you are, make it a fib. You do not know he has been here.”

  “I know he hopped a taxi and gave the driver this address, and when he saw he was being followed he went to a booth and phoned, and took another taxi to a place that runs through the block, and left by the other street. Where would I suppose he went?”

  “Correction. You suppose he has been here.”

  “All right, I do.” He took another step, toward Wolfe. “Have you seen Edwin Laidlaw in the last three hours?”

  “This is quite beyond belief,” Wolfe declared. “You know how rigidly I maintain my personal schedule. You know that I resent any attempt to interfere with these two hours of relaxation. But you get into my house by duplicity and then come charging up here to ask me a question to which you have no right to an answer. So you don’t get one. Indeed, in these circumstances, I doubt if you could put a question about anything whatever that I would answer.” He turned, giving us the broad expanse of his rear, and picked up a seedling.

  “I guess,” I told Cramer sympathetically, “your best bet would be to get a search warrant and send a gang to look for evidence, like cigarette ashes from the kind he smokes. I know where it hurts. You’ve never forgotten the day you did come with a warrant and a crew to look for a woman named Clara Fox and searched the whole house, including here, and didn’t find h
er, and later you learned she had been in this room in a packing case, covered with osmundine that Wolfe was spraying water on. So you thought if you rushed up before I could give the alarm you’d find Laidlaw here, and now that he isn’t you’re stuck. You can’t very well demand to know why Laidlaw rushed here to discuss something with Wolfe that he wouldn’t discuss downtown. You ought to take your coat off when you’re in the house or you’ll catch cold when you leave. I’m just talking to be sociable while you collect yourself. Of course Laidlaw was here this morning with the others, but apparently you know that. Whoever told you should—”

  He turned and was going. I followed.

  Chapter 11

  At five minutes past six Saul Panzer phoned. That was routine; when one or more of them are out on a chore they call at noon, and again shortly after six, to report progress or lack of it and to learn if there are new instructions. He said he was talking from a booth in a bar and grill on Broadway near Eighty-sixth Street. Wolfe, who had just come down from the plant rooms, did him the honor of reaching for the phone on his desk to listen in.

  “So far,” Saul reported, “we’re only scouting. Marjorie Betz lives with Mrs. Elaine Usher at the address on Eighty-seventh Street. Mrs. Usher is the tenant. I got in to see Miss Betz by one of the standard lines, and got nowhere. Mrs. Usher left Wednesday night, and she doesn’t know where she is or when she’ll be back. We have seen two elevator men, the janitor, five neighbors, fourteen people in local shops and stores, and a hackie Mrs. Usher patronizes, and Orrie is now after the maid, who left at five-thirty. Do you want Mrs. Usher’s description?”

  Wolfe said no and I said yes simultaneously. “Very well,” Wolfe said, “oblige him.”

  “Around forty. We got as low as thirty-three and as high as forty-five. Five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds, blue eyes set close, oval face, takes good care of good skin, hair was light brown two years ago, now blonde, wears it loose, medium cut. Dresses well but a little flashy. Gets up around noon. Hates to tip. I think that’s fairly accurate, but this is a guess with nothing specific, that she has no job but is never short of money, and she likes men. She has lived in that apartment for eight years. Nobody ever saw a husband. Six of them knew the daughter, Faith, and liked her, but it has been four years since they last saw her and Mrs. Usher never mentions her.”