Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27

by Three Witnesses

  “Miss Weltz? This is Nero Wolfe. As Miss Hart told you, I’m looking into certain matters connected with the murder of Marie Willis, and would like to see you. I have some other appointments but can adjust them. How long will it take you to get to the city? … You can’t? … I’m afraid I can’t wait until tomorrow…. No, that’s out of the question…. I see. You’ll be there all afternoon? … Very well, I’ll do that.”

  He hung up and asked Miss Hart to tell me how to get to the place in Westchester. She obliged, and beyond Katonah it got so complicated that I got out my notebook. Also I jotted down the phone number. Wolfe had marched out with no amenities, so I thanked her politely and caught up with him halfway down the stairs. When we were out on the sidewalk I inquired, “A taxi to Katonah?”

  “No.” He was cold with rage. “To the garage for the car.”

  We headed west.

  III

  As we stood inside the garage, on Thirty-sixth Street near Tenth Avenue, waiting for Pete to bring the car down, Wolfe came out with something I had been expecting.

  “We could walk home,” he said, “in four minutes.”

  I gave him a grin. “Yes, sir. I knew it was coming—while you were on the phone. To go to Katonah we would have to drive. To drive we would have to get the car. To get the car we would have to come to the garage. The garage is so close to home that we might as well go and have lunch first. Once in the house, with the door bolted and not answering the phone, we could reconsider the matter of driving to Westchester. So you told her we would go to Katonah.”

  “No. It occurred to me in the cab.”

  “I can’t prove it didn’t. But I have a suggestion.” I nodded at the door to the garage office. “There’s a phone in there. Call Fritz first. Or shall I?”

  “I suppose so,” he muttered, and went to the office door and entered, sat at the desk, and dialed. In a moment he was telling Fritz who and where he was, asking some questions, and getting answers he didn’t like. After instructing Fritz to tell callers that he hadn’t heard from us and had no idea where we were, and telling him not to expect us home until we got there, he hung up, glared at the phone, and then glared at me.

  “There have been four phone calls. One from an officer of the court, one from the District Attorney’s office, and two from Inspector Cramer.”

  “Ouch.” I made a face. “The court and the DA, sure, but not Cramer. When you’re within a mile of a homicide of his he itches from head to foot. You can imagine what kind of suspicions your walking out under a subpoena would give him. Let’s go home. It will be interesting to see whether he has one dick posted out in front, or two or three. Of course he’ll collar you and you may get no lunch at all, but what the hell.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, sir. Here comes the car.”

  As we emerged from the office the brown sedan rolled to a stop before us and Pete got out and opened the rear door for Wolfe, who refuses to ride in front because when the crash comes the broken glass will carve him up. I climbed in behind the wheel, released the brake and fingered the lever, and fed gas.

  At that time of day the West Side Highway wasn’t too crowded, and north of Henry Hudson Bridge, and then on the Sawmill River Parkway, there was nothing to it. I could have let my mind roam if it had had anywhere to roam, but where? I was all for earning a little token of gratitude by jerking Leonard Ashe out from under, but how? It was so damn childish. In his own comfortable chair in his office, Wolfe could usually manage to keep his genius under control, but on the hard courtroom bench, with a perfumed woman crowded against him, knowing he couldn’t get up and go home, he had dropped the reins, and now he was stuck. He couldn’t call it off and go back to court and apologize because he was too darned pigheaded. He couldn’t go home. There was even a chance he couldn’t go to Katonah for a wild goose. When I saw in the rear-view mirror a parkway police car closing in on us from behind, I tightened my lips, and when he passed on by and shot ahead I relaxed and took a deep breath. It would have been pretty extreme to broadcast a general alarm for a mere witness AWOL, but the way Cramer felt about Wolfe it wouldn’t have been fantastic.

  As I slowed down for Hawthorne Circle I told Wolfe it was a quarter to two and I was hungry and what about him, and was instructed to stop somewhere and get cheese and crackers and beer, and a little farther on I obeyed. Parked off a side road, he ate the crackers and drank the beer, but rejected the cheese after one taste. I was too hungry to taste.

  The dash clock said 2:38 when, having followed Alice Hart’s directions, I turned off a dirt road into a narrow rutted driveway, crawled between thick bushes on both sides, and, reaching an open space, stepped on the brake to keep from rubbing a bright yellow Jaguar. To the left was a gravel walk across some grass that needed mowing, leading to a door in the side of a little white house with blue trim. As I climbed out two people appeared around the corner of the house. The one in front was the right age, the right size, and the right shape, with blue eyes and hair that matched the Jaguar, held back smooth with a yellow ribbon.

  She came on. “You’re Archie Goodwin? I’m Helen Weltz. Mr. Wolfe? It’s a pleasure. This is Guy Unger. Come this way. We’ll sit in the shade of the old apple tree.”

  In my dim memory of his picture in the paper two months back, and in the snap I had found in Bella Velardi’s drawer, Guy Unger hadn’t looked particularly like a murderer, and in the flesh he didn’t fill the bill any better. He looked too mean, with mean little eyes in a big round face. His gray suit had been cut by someone who knew how, to fit his bulgy shoulders, one a little lower than the other. His mouth, if he had opened it wide, would have been just about big enough to poke his thumb in.

  The apple tree was from colonial times, with windfalls of its produce scattered around. Wolfe glowered at the chairs with wooden slats which had been painted white the year before, but it was either that or squat, so he engineered himself into one. Helen Weltz asked what we would like to drink, naming four choices, and Wolfe said no, thank you, with cold courtesy. It didn’t seem to faze her. She took a chair facing him, gave him a bright, friendly smile, and included me with a glance from her lively blue eyes.

  “You didn’t give me a chance on the phone,” she said, not complaining. “I didn’t want you to have a trip for nothing. I can’t tell you anything about that awful business, what happened to Marie. I really can’t, because I don’t know anything. I was out on the Sound on a boat. Didn’t she tell you?”

  Wolfe grunted. “That’s not the kind of thing I’m after, Miss Weltz. Such routine matters as checking alibis have certainly been handled competently by the police, to the limit of their interest. My own interest has been engaged late—I hope not too late—and my attack must be eccentric. For instance, when did Mr. Unger get here?”

  “Why, he just—”

  “Now, wait a minute.” Unger had picked up an unfinished highball from a table next to him and was holding it with the fingertips of both hands. His voice wasn’t squeaky, as you would expect, but a thick baritone. “Just forget me. I’m looking on, that’s all. I can’t say I’m an impartial observer, because I’m partial to Miss Weltz, if that’s all right with her.”

  Wolfe didn’t even glance at him. “I’ll explain, Miss Weltz, why I ask when Mr. Unger got here. I’ll explain fully. When I went to that place on Sixty-ninth Street and spoke with Miss Hart and Miss Velardi I was insufferable, both in manner and in matter, and they should have flouted me and ordered me out, but they didn’t. Manifestly they were afraid to, and I intend to learn why. I assume that you know why. I assume that, after I left, Miss Hart phoned you again, described the situation, and discussed with you how best to handle me. I surmise that she also phoned Mr. Unger, or you did, and he was enough concerned about me to hurry to get here before I arrived. Naturally I would consider that significant. It would reinforce my suspicion that—”

  “Forget it,” Unger cut in. “I heard about you being on your way about ten minutes ago, when I go
t here. Miss Weltz invited me yesterday to come out this afternoon. I took a train to Katonah, and a taxi.”

  Wolfe looked at him. “I can’t challenge that, Mr. Unger, but it doesn’t smother my surmise. On the contrary. I’ll probably finish sooner with Miss Weltz if you’ll withdraw. For twenty minutes, say?”

  “I think I’d better stay.”

  “Then please don’t prolong it with interruptions.”

  “You behave yourself, Guy,” Helen scolded him. She smiled at Wolfe. “I’ll tell you what I think, I think he just wants to show you how smart he is. When I told him Nero Wolfe was coming you should have heard him! He said maybe you’re famous for brains and he isn’t, but he’d like to hear you prove it, something like that. I don’t pretend to have brains. I was just scared!”

  “Scared of what, Miss Weltz?”

  “Scared of you! Wouldn’t anybody be scared if they knew you were coming to pump them?” She was appealing to him.

  “Not enough to send for help.” Wolfe wouldn’t enter into the spirit of it. “Certainly not if they had the alternative of snubbing me, as you have. Why don’t you choose it? Why do you suffer me?”

  “Now that’s a question.” She laughed. “I’ll show you why.” She got up and took a step, and reached to pat him on the shoulder and then on top of the head. “I didn’t want to miss a chance to touch the great Nero Wolfe!” She laughed again, moved to the table and poured herself a healthy dose of bourbon, returned to her chair, and swallowed a good half of it. She shook herself and said, “Brrrrr. That’s why!”

  Unger was frowning at her. It didn’t need the brains of a Nero Wolfe, or even a Guy Unger, to see that her nerves were teetering on an edge as sharp as a knife blade.

  “But,” Wolfe said dryly, “having touched me, you still suffer me. Of course Miss Hart told you that I reject the thesis that Leonard Ashe killed Marie Willis and propose to discredit it. I’m too late to try any of the conventional lines of inquiry, and anyway they have all been fully and competently explored by the police and the District Attorney on one side and Mr. Ashe’s lawyer on the other. Since I can’t expect to prove Mr. Ashe’s innocence, the best I can hope to establish is a reasonable doubt of his guilt. Can you give it to me?”

  “Of course not. How could I?”

  “One way would be to suggest someone else with motive and opportunity. Means is no problem, since the plug cord was there at hand. Can you?”

  She giggled, and then was shocked, presumably at herself for giggling about murder. “Sorry,” she apologized, “but you’re funny. The way they had us down there at the District Attorney’s office, and the way they kept after us, asking all about Marie and everybody she knew, and of course what they wanted was to find out if there was anybody besides that man Ashe that might have killed her. But now they’re trying Ashe for it, and they wouldn’t be trying him if they didn’t think they could prove it, and here you come and expect to drag it out of me in twenty minutes. Don’t you think that’s funny for a famous detective like you? I do.”

  She picked up her glass and drained it, stiffened to control a shudder, and got up and started for the table. Guy Unger reached and beat her to the bottle. “You’ve had enough, Helen,” he told her gruffly. “Take it easy.” She stared down at him a moment, dropped the glass on his lap, and went back to her chair.

  Wolfe eyed her. “No, Miss Weltz,” he said. “No, I didn’t expect to drag a disclosure from you in twenty minutes. The most I expected was support for my belief that you people have common knowledge of something that you don’t want revealed, and you have given me that. Now I’ll go to work, and I confess I’m not too sanguine. It’s quite possible that after I’ve squandered my resources on it, time and thought and money and energy, and enlisted the help of half a dozen able investigators, I’ll find that the matter you people are so nervous about has no bearing on the murder of Marie Willis and so is of no use to me, and of no concern. But I can’t know that until I know what it is, so I’m going to know. If you think my process of finding out will cause inconvenience to you and the others, or worse, I suggest that you tell me now. It will—”

  “I have nothing to tell you!”

  “Nonsense. You’re at the edge of hysteria.”

  “I am not!”

  “Take it easy, Helen.” Guy Unger focused his mean little eyes on Wolfe. “Look, I don’t get this. As I understand it, what you’re after is an out for Leonard Ashe on the murder. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind telling me, did Ashe’s lawyer hire you?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “Nobody. I developed a distaste for my function as a witness for the prosecution, along with a doubt of Mr. Ashe’s guilt.”

  “Why doubt his guilt?”

  Wolfe’s shoulders went up a fraction of an inch, and down again. “Divination. Contrariety.”

  “I see.” Unger pursed his midget mouth, which didn’t need pursing. “You’re shooting at it on spec.” He leaned forward. “Understand me, I don’t say that’s not your privilege. Of course you have no standing at all, since you admit nobody hired you, but if Miss Weltz tells you to go to hell that won’t take you off her neck if you’ve decided to go to town. She’ll answer anything you want to ask her that’s connected with the murder, and so will I. We’ve told the police and the District Attorney, why not you? Do you regard me as a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He leaned back. “I first met Marie Willis about a year ago, a little more. I took her out a few times, maybe once a month, and then later a little oftener, to dinner and a show. We weren’t engaged to be married, nothing like that. The last week in June, just two weeks before her death, she was on vacation, and four of us went for a cruise on my boat, up the Hudson and Lake Champlain. The other two were friends of mine, a man and a woman—do you want their names?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that was what got me in the murder picture, that week’s cruise she had taken on my boat so recently. There was nothing to it, we had just gone to have a good time, but when she was murdered the cops naturally thought I was a good prospect. There was absolutely nothing in my relations with Marie that could possibly have made me want to kill her. Any questions?”

  “No.”

  “And if they had dug up a motive they would have been stuck with it, because I certainly didn’t kill her the evening of July fifteenth. That was a Thursday, and at five o’clock that afternoon I was taking my boat through the Harlem River and into the sound, and at ten o’clock that night I was asleep on her at an anchorage near New Haven. My friend Ralph Ingalls was with me, and his wife, and Miss Helen Weltz. Of course the police have checked it, but maybe you don’t like the way they check alibis. You’re welcome to check it yourself if you care to. Any questions?”

  “One or two.” Wolfe shifted his fanny on the board slats. “What is your occupation?”

  “For God’s sake. You haven’t even read the papers.”

  “Yes, I have, but that was weeks ago, and as I remember it they were vague. ‘Broker,’ I believe. Stockbroker?”

  “No, I’m a freewheeler. I’ll handle almost anything.”

  “Have you an office?”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “Have you handled any transactions for anyone connected with that business, Bagby Answers, Incorporated? Any kind of transaction?”

  Unger cocked his head. “Now that’s a funny question. Why do you ask that?”

  “Because I suspect the answer is yes.”

  “Why? Just for curiosity.”

  “Now, Mr. Unger.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Since apparently you had heard of me, you may know that I dislike riding in cars, even when Mr. Goodwin is driving. Do you suppose I would have made this excursion completely at random? If you find the question embarrassing, don’t answer it.”

  “It’s not embarrassing.”
Unger turned to the table, poured an inch of bourbon in his glass, added two inches of water from a pitcher, gave it a couple of swirls, took a sip, and another one, and finally put the glass down and turned back to Wolfe.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said in a new tone. “This whole business is pretty damn silly. I think you’ve got hold of some crazy idea somewhere, God knows what, and I want to speak with you privately.” He arose. “Let’s take a little walk.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t like conversing on my feet. If you want to say something without a witness, Miss Weltz and Mr. Goodwin can leave us. Archie?”

  I stood up. Helen Weltz looked up at Unger, and at me, and then slowly lifted herself from her chair. “Let’s go and pick flowers,” I suggested. “Mr. Unger will want me in sight and out of hearing.”

  She moved. We picked our way through the windfalls of the apple tree, and of two more trees, and went on into a meadow where the grass and other stuff was up to our knees. She was in the lead. “Goldenrod I know,” I told her back, “but what are the blue ones?”

  No answer. In another hundred yards I tried again. “This is far enough unless he uses a megaphone.”

  She kept going. “Last call!” I told her. “I admit he would be a maniac to jump Mr. Wolfe under the circumstances, but maybe he is one. I learned long ago that with people involved in a murder case nothing is impossible.”

  She wheeled on me. “He’s not involved in a murder case!”

  “He will be before Mr. Wolfe gets through with him.”

  She plumped down in the grass, crossed her legs, buried her face in her hands, and started to shake. I stood and looked down at her, expecting the appropriate sound effect, but it didn’t come. She just went on shaking, which wasn’t wholesome. After half a minute of it I squatted in front of her, made contact by taking a firm grip on her bare ankle, and spoke with authority.