Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27

by Three Witnesses

  I took a step toward him—that was involuntary—then wheeled and went and closed the door to the hall, and returned. At a glance, from the description Caroline had given me, it was Sidney Karnow. He was dressed, but without a jacket or tie. I squatted and slipped a hand inside his shirt and held my breath; nothing doing. I picked a few fibers from the rug and put them over his nostrils; they didn’t move. I got the lashes of his right eye between finger and thumb and pulled the lid partly down; it came stiffly and didn’t want to go back. I lifted his hand and pressed hard on the fingernail, and then removed the pressure; it stayed white. Actually I was overdoing it, because the temperature of the skin of his chest had been enough.

  I stood up and looked down at him. It was unquestionably Karnow. I looked at my wristwatch and saw 7:22. Through the open door beyond him I could see the glitter of bathroom tiles and fittings, and, detouring around his outstretched arm, I went and squatted again for a close-up of two objects on the floor. One was a GI sidearm, a .45. I didn’t touch it. The other was a big wad of bathtowels, and I touched it enough to learn, from a scorched hole and powder black, that it had been used to muffle the gun. I had seen no sign on the body of a bullet’s entrance or exit, and to find it I would have had to turn him over, and what did it matter? I got erect and shut my eyes to think. It is my habit, long established, when I open doors where I haven’t been invited, to avoid touching the knob with my fingertips. Had I followed it this time? I decided yes. Also, had I flipped the light switch with my knuckle? Again yes. Had I made prints anywhere else? No.

  I crossed to the switch and used my knuckle again, got out my handkerchief to open the door and pull it shut after me, took an elevator down to the lobby floor, found a phone booth and dialed a number. The voice that answered belonged to Fritz. I told him I wanted Wolfe.

  He was shocked. “But Archie, he’s at dinner!”

  “Yeah, I know. Tell him I’ve been trapped by cannibals and they’re slicing me, and step on it.”

  It was a full two minutes before Wolfe’s outraged voice came. “Well, Archie?”

  “No, sir. Not well. I’m calling from a booth in the Churchill lobby. I left the clients in the bar, went up to Karnow’s room, found the door unlocked, and entered. Karnow was on the floor, dead, shot with an army gun. The gun’s there, but it wasn’t suicide, the gun was muffled with a wad of towels. How do I earn that five grand now?”

  “Confound it, in the middle of a meal.”

  If you think that was put on, you’re wrong. I know that damn fat genius. That was how he felt, and he said it, that’s all.

  I ignored it. “I left nothing in the room,” I told him, “and I had no audience, so we’re fancy free. I know it’s hard to talk with your mouth full, but—”

  “Shut up.” Silence for four seconds, then: “Did he die within the past ninety minutes?”

  “No. The skin on his chest has started to cool off.”

  “Did you see anything suggestive?”

  “No. I was in there maybe three minutes. I wanted to interrupt your dinner. I can go back and give it a whirl.”

  “Don’t.” He was curt. “There’s nothing to be gained by deferring the discovery. I’ll have Fritz notify the police anonymously. Bring Mr. Aubry and Mrs. Karnow—have they eaten?”

  “They may be eating now. I told them to.”

  “See that they eat, and then bring them here on a pretext. Devise one.”

  “Don’t tell them?”

  “No. I’ll tell them. Have them here in an hour and ten minutes, not sooner. I’ve barely started my dinner —and now this.”

  He hung up.

  After crossing the lobby and proceeding along one of the long, wide, and luxurious corridors, near the entrance to the Tulip Bar I was stopped by an old acquaintance, Tim Evarts, the first assistant house dick, only they don’t call him that, of the Churchill. He wanted to chin, but I eased him off. If he had known that I had just found a corpse in one of his rooms and forgot to mention it, he wouldn’t have been so chummy.

  The big room was only half filled with customers at that hour. The clients were at a table over in a corner, and as I approached and Aubry got up to move a chair for me I gave them both a mark for good conduct. Presumably they were on the sharpest edge of anxiety to hear what I was bringing, but they didn’t yap or claw at me.

  When I was seated I spoke to their waiting faces. “No answer to my knock. I’ll have to try again. Meanwhile let’s eat.”

  I couldn’t see that their disappointment was anything but plain, wholesome disappointment.

  “I can’t eat now,” Caroline said wearily.

  “I strongly advise it,” I told her. “I don’t mean a major meal, but something like a piece of melon and a sturgeon sandwich? We can get that here. Then I’ll try again, and if there’s still no answer we’ll see. You can’t stick around here all night.”

  “He might show up any minute,” Aubry suggested. “Or he might come in and leave again. Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed up there?”

  “Not on an empty stomach.” I was firm. “And I’ll bet Mrs.— What do I call you?”

  “Oh, call me Caroline.”

  “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten for a week. You may need some energy, so you’d better refuel.”

  That was a tough half-hour. She did eat a little, and Aubry cleaned up a turkey sandwich and a hunk of cheese, but she was having a hard time to keep from showing that she thought I was a cold-blooded pig, and Aubry, as the minutes went by, left no doubt of his attitude. It was pretty gloomy. When my coffee cup was empty I told them to sit tight, got up and went out and down the corridor to the men’s room, locked myself in a cubicle against the chance that Aubry might appear, and stayed there a quarter of an hour. Then I returned to the bar and went to their table and told them, “No answer. I phoned Mr. Wolfe, and he has an idea and wants to see us right away. Let’s go.”

  “No,” Caroline said.

  “What for? Aubry demanded.

  “Look,” I said, “when Mr. Wolfe has an idea and wants me to hear it, I oblige him. So I’m going. You can stay here and soak in the agony, or you can come along. Take your pick.”

  From their expressions it was a good guess that they were beginning to think that Wolfe was a phony and I was a slob, but since their only alternative was to call the deal off and start hunting another salesman for their line, they had to string along. After Aubry paid the check we left, and in the corridor I steered them to the left and around to an exit on a side street, to avoid the main lobby, because by that time some city employees had certainly responded to Fritz’s anonymous phone call to headquarters, and from remarks they had made I had learned that the Aubrys were known at the Churchill. The doorman who waved up a taxi for us called them by name.

  At the house I let us in with my key, and, closing the door, shot the chain bolt. As I escorted them down the hall to the office a glance at my wrist told me it was 8:35, so I hadn’t quite stretched it to the hour and ten minutes Wolfe had specified, but pretty close. He emerged from the door to the dining room, which is across the hall from the office, stood there while we filed in, and then followed, the look on his face as black as the coffee he had just been sipping. After crossing to his desk and lowering his overwhelming bulk into his chair, he growled at them, “Sit down, please.”

  They stayed on their feet. Aubry demanded, “What’s the big idea? Goodwin says you have one.”

  “You will please sit down,” Wolfe said coldly. “I look at people I’m talking to, especially when I suspect them of trying to flummox me, and my neck is not elastic.”

  His tone made it evident that what was biting him was nothing trivial. Caroline sidled to the red leather chair and sat on its edge. Aubry plopped on the yellow one and met Wolfe’s level gaze.

  “You suspect?” he asked quietly. “Who? Of What?”

  “I think one of you has seen and talked with Mr. Karnow—today. Perhaps both of you.”

  “What makes you thin
k so?”

  “I reserve that. Whether and when I disclose it depends on you. While complete candor is too much to expect, it should at least be approximated when you’re briefing a man for a job you want done. When and where did you see Mr. Karnow, and what was said?”

  “I didn’t. I have never seen him. I told you that. What’s the idea of this?”

  Wolfe’s head moved. “Then it was you, madam?”

  Caroline was staring at him, her brow creased. “Are you suggesting that I saw my—that I saw Sidney Karnow today?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, I didn’t! I haven’t seen him at all! And I want to know why you’re suggesting that!”

  “You will.” Wolfe rested his elbows on the chair arms, leaned forward, and gave her his straightest and hardest look. She met it. He turned his head to the right and aimed the look at Aubry, and had it met again.

  The doorbell rang.

  Fritz was in the kitchen doing the dishes, so I got up and went to the hall and flipped the switch of the light out on the stoop and took a look through the one-way glass panel of the front door. What I saw deserved admiration. Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West knew that that panel was one-way glass and he was visible, but he wasn’t striking a pose; he just stood there, his big broad pan a foot away from the glass, to him opaque, a dick doing his duty.

  I went and opened the door and spoke through the two-inch crack which was all the chain bolt would allow. “Hello there. It wasn’t me, honest.”

  “Okay, comic.” His deep bass was a little hoarse, as usual. “Then I won’t take you. Let me in.”

  “For what?”

  “I’ll tell you. Do you expect me to talk through this damn crack?”

  “Yes. If I let you in you’ll tramp right over me to bust in on Mr. Wolfe, and he’s in a bad humor. So am I. I can spare you ten seconds to loosen up. One, two, three, four—”

  He cut me off. “You were just up at the Hotel Churchill. You left there about a half an hour ago with a man named Paul Aubry and his wife, and got into a taxi with them. Where are they? Did you bring them here?”

  “May I call you Purley?” I asked.

  “You goddam clown.”

  “All right, then, I won’t. After all these years you should know better. Eighty-seven and four-tenths percent of the people, including licensed detectives, who are asked impertinent questions by cops, answer quick because they are either scared or ignorant of their rights or anxious to cooperate. That lets me out. Give me one reason why I should tell you anything about my movements or any companions I may have had, and make it good.”

  Silence. After a moment I added, “And don’t try to avoid giving me a shock. Since you’re Homicide, someone is dead. Who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Huh-uh. I won’t try to guess because I might guess the right one and I’d be in the soup.”

  “I want to be around when you are. Sidney Karnow was killed in his room at the Churchill this afternoon. He had been reported dead in Korea and had just turned up alive, and had learned that his wife had married Paul Aubry. As if I was telling you anything you don’t know.”

  He couldn’t see my face through the crack, so I didn’t have to bother about managing it. I asked, “Karnow was murdered?”

  “That’s the idea. He was shot in the back of the head.”

  “Are you saying I knew about it?”

  “Not so far. But you knew about the situation, since you were there with Aubry and the woman. I want ‘em, and I want ‘em now, and are they here? If not, where are they?”

  “I see,” I said judiciously. “I admit you have given me a reason. Be seated while I go take a look.” I pushed the door shut, went back to the office and crossed to my desk, took a pencil and my memo pad, and wrote:

  Stebbins. Says K. murdered. We were seen leaving hotel. Asks are they here and if not where.

  I got up to hand it to Wolfe, and he took it in with a glance and slipped it into the top drawer of his desk. He looked at Caroline and then at Aubry. “You don’t need me,” he told them. “Your problem has been solved for you. Mr. Karnow is dead.”

  They gawked at him.

  “Of course,” he added, “you now have another problem, which may be even thornier.”

  Caroline was stiff, frozen. “I don’t believe it,” Aubry said harshly.

  “It seems authentic,” Wolfe declared. “Archie?”

  “Yes, sir. Sergeant Stebbins of Homicide is out on the stoop. He says that Karnow was murdered, shot in the back of the head, this afternoon in his room at the Churchill. Mr. Aubry and Mrs. Karnow were seen leaving the hotel with me, and he wants to know if they’re here, and if not, where? He says he wants them.”

  “Good God,” Aubry said. Caroline had let out a gasp, but no word. She was still rigid.

  Her lips moved, and I thought she asked, “He’s dead?” but it was too low to be sure.

  Wolfe spoke. “So you have another problem. The police will give you a night of it, and possibly a week or a month. Mr. Stebbins cannot enter this house without a search warrant, and if you were my clients I wouldn’t mind letting him wait on the stoop while we considered the matter, but since the job you gave me is now not feasible I am no longer in your hire. I have on occasion welcomed an opportunity to plague the police, but never merely for pastime, so I must bid you good evening.”

  Caroline had left her chair and gone to Aubry with her hands out, and he had taken them and pulled her to him. Evidently the ban was off.

  “However,” Wolfe continued, “I have a deep repugnance to letting the police take from my house people who have been moved to consult me and who have not been formally charged with a crime. There is a back way out, leading to Thirty-fourth Street, and Mr. Goodwin will take you by it if you feel that you would like a little time to discuss matters.”

  “No,” Aubry said. “We have nothing to run from. Tell him we’re here. Let him in.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “Not in my house, to drag you out. You’re sure you don’t want to delay it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Archie, will you please handle it?”

  I arose, told them, “This way, please,” and headed for the door, but stopped and turned when I heard Caroline find her voice behind me.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, barely loud enough for me to get it. She was standing facing Aubry, gripping his lapels. “Paul, don’t you think—shouldn’t we ask Mr. Wolfe—”

  “There’s nothing to ask him.” Aubry was up, with an arm across her shoulders. “I’ve had enough of Wolfe. Come on, Caro mia. We don’t have to ask anybody anything.”

  They came and followed me into the hall. As Aubry was getting his hat from the rack I opened the door, leaving the chain bolt on, and spoke to Purley. “What do you know, they were right here in the office. That’s a break for you. Now if—”

  “Open the door!”

  “In a moment. Mr. Wolfe is peevish and might irritate you, so if you’ll remove yourself, on down to the sidewalk, I’ll let them out, and they are yours.”

  “I’m coming in.”

  “No. Don’t even think of it.”

  “I want you too.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. I’ll be along shortly. Twentieth Street?”

  “Now. With me.”

  “Again no. I have to ask Mr. Wolfe if there’s anything we wouldn’t want to bother you with, and if so what. Where do I go, Twentieth Street?”

  “Yes, and not tomorrow.”

  “Right. Glad to oblige. The subjects are here at my elbow, so if you’ll just descend the steps—and be careful, don’t fall.”

  He muttered something I didn’t catch, turned, and started down. When he was at the bottom of the seven steps I removed the bolt, swung the door open, and told our former clients, “Okay. In return for the sandwiches and coffee, here’s a suggestion. Don’t answer a single damn question until you have got a lawyer and talked with him. Even if—”

&n
bsp; I stopped because my audience was going. Aubry had her arm as they crossed the stoop and started down. Not wishing to give Purley the pleasure of having me watch him take them, I shut the door, replaced the bolt, and returned to the office. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed.

  “I’m wanted,” I told him. “Do I go?”

  “Of course,” he growled.

  “Are we saving anything?”

  “No. There’s nothing to save.”

  “The letters from Karnow to his wife are in my desk. Do I take them and turn them over?”

  “No. They are her property, and doubtless she will claim them.”

  “Did I discover the body?”

  “Certainly not. To what purpose?”

  “None. Don’t worry if I’m late.”

  I went to the hall for my hat and beat it.

  III

  Since I wasn’t itching to oblige Homicide, and it was a pleasant evening for a walk, I decided to hoof it the fifteen blocks to Twentieth Street, and also to do a little chore on the way. If I had done it in the office Wolfe would have pulled his dignity on me and pretended to be outraged, though he knew as well as I did that it’s always desirable to get your name in the paper, provided it’s not in the obituary column. So I went to a phone booth in a drugstore on Tenth Avenue, dialed the Gazette number, asked for Lon Cohen, and got him.

  “Scrap the front page,” I told him, “and start over. If you don’t want it I’ll sell it to the Times. Did you happen to know that Paul Aubry and his wife, Mrs. Sidney Karnow to you, called on Nero Wolfe this afternoon, and I went somewhere with them, and brought them back to Mr. Wolfe’s office, and fifteen minutes ago Sergeant Purley Stebbins came and got them? Or maybe you don’t even know that Karnow was murd—”

  “Yeah, I know that. What’s the rest of it? Molasses you licked off your fingers?”