by Rex Stout
He turned a hand over. “I had come to that conclusion, or call it surmise, before I went to bed last night, and I had found it intolerable. I will not be mistaken for a jackass. Reading the Times at breakfast this morning, the item about the death of Sarah Yare, my attention was caught by the fact that she had been an actress. An actress can act a part. Also she had been in distress. Also she had died. If she had been persuaded to act that part, it would be extremely convenient-for the one who persuaded her-for her to die before she learned that a murder had been committed and she had been an accessory after the fact. Certainly that was mere speculation, but it was not idle, and when I came down to the office I looked in the phone book to see if Sarah Yare was listed, found that she was, and dialed her number. Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”
“What for? She was dead.”
“I didn’t lift the receiver. I merely dialed it, to hear it. Before doing so I strained my memory. I had to recall an experience that was filed somewhere in my brain, having reached it through my ears. As you know, I am trained to attend, to observe, and to register. So are you. That same experience is filed in your brain. Close your eyes and find it. Take your ears back to yesterday, when you were standing there, having surrendered your chair to Miss Gallant, and she was at the phone, dialing. Not the first number she dialed; you dialed that one yourself later. The second one, when, according to her, she was dialing the number of the direct line to Bianca Voss’s office. Close your eyes and let your ears and brain take you back. Insist on it.”
I did so. I got up and stood where I had stood while she was dialing, shut my eyes, and brought it back. In ten seconds I said, “Okay.”
“Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to dial it. Compare.”
The sound came of his dialing. I held my breath till the end, then opened my eyes and said positively, “No. Wrong. The first and third and fourth were wrong. The second might-”
“Close your eyes and try it again. This will be another number. Say when.”
I shut my eyes and took five seconds. “Go.”
The dialing sound came, the seven units. I opened my eyes. “That’s more like it. That was it, anyway the first four. Beyond that I’m a little lost. But in that case-”
“Satisfactory. The first four were enough. The first number, which you rejected, as I did this morning, was Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, the number of Bianca Voss’s direct line according to the phone book-the number which Miss Gallant pretended to be dialing. The second was Sarah Yare’s number, Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”
“Well.” I sat down. “I’ll be damned.”
“So it was still a plausible surmise, somewhat strengthened, but no more than that. If those people, especially Miss Gallant, could not be shown to have had some association with Sarah Yare, it was untenable. So I sent you to explore, and what you found promoted the surmise to an assumption, and a weighty one. What time is it?”
He would have had to twist his neck a whole quarter-turn to look at the wall clock, whereas I had only to lower my eyes to see my wrist. I obliged. “Five to four.”
“Then instructions for your errand must be brief, and they can be. You will go to Sarah Yare’s address on Thirteenth Street and look at her apartment. Her phone might have been discontinued since that book was issued. I need to know that the instrument is still there and operable before I proceed. If I intend to see that whoever tried to make a fool of me regrets it, I must take care not to make a fool of myself. Have I furnished the light you wanted?”
I told him it was at least a glimmer and departed on the errand. If you think I might have shown fuller appreciation of his dialing display, I beg to differ. There is no point in assuring a man that he is a genius when he already knows it. Besides, I was too busy being sore at me. I should have thought of it myself. I certainly should have caught on when I saw him with the phone book.
It was not my day. At the address of the late Sarah Yare on East Thirteenth Street I stubbed my toe again. One thing I think I’m good at is sizing up people, and I was dead wrong about the janitor of that old walk-up. He looked as if anything would go, so I merely told him to let me into Sarah Yare’s apartment to check the telephone, and the bum insisted on seeing my credentials. So I misjudged him again. I offered him a sawbuck and told him I only wanted two minutes for a look at the phone with him at my elbow, and when he turned me down I showed him a twenty. He just sneered at it. By that time we were bitter enemies, and if I had showed him a C he would probably have spit on it. The upshot was that I went back home for an assortment of keys, returned, posted myself across the street, waited nearly an hour to be sure the enemy was not peeking, and broke and entered, technically.
I won’t describe it; it was too painful. It was a hell of a dump for a Sarah Yare, even for a down-and-outer who had once been Sarah Yare. But the telephone was there, and it was working. I dialed to make sure, and got Fritz, and told him I just wanted to say hello and would be home in fifteen minutes, and he said that would please Mr. Wolfe because Inspector Cramer was there.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“When did he come?”
“Ten minutes ago. At six o’clock. Mr. Wolfe said to admit him and is with him in the office. Hurry home, Archie.”
I did so.
I got a hackie who liked to take advantages, and it took a little less than the fifteen minutes. I ascended the stoop and let myself in, not banging the door, and tiptoed down the hall and stopped short of the office door, thinking to get a sniff of the atmosphere before entering. I got it. Wolfe’s voice came.
“… and I didn’t say I have never known you to be wrong, Mr. Cramer. I said I have never known you to be more wrong. That is putting it charitably, under provocation. You have accused me of duplicity. Pfui!”
“Nuts.” Cramer had worked up to his grittiest rasp. “I have accused you of nothing. I have merely stated facts. The time of the murder was supposed to be established by you and Goodwin hearing it on the phone. Is that a fact? Those five people all have alibis for that time. One of them was here with you. Is that a fact? When I put it to you yesterday that that phone business might have been faked, that she might have been killed earlier, all I got was a runaround. You could challenge it circumstantially but not intrinsically, whatever the hell that means. Is that a fact? So that if you and Goodwin got to the witness stand you might both swear that you were absolutely satisfied that you had heard her get it at exactly half past eleven. Is that a fact? Giving me to understand that you weren’t interested, you weren’t concerned, you had no-”
“No,” Wolfe objected. “That was not broached.”
“Nuts. You know damn well it was implied. You said you had never had any association with any of those people besides what was in your statement, so how could you be concerned, with Bianca Voss dead? Tell me this, did any of them approach you, directly or indirectly, between seven o’clock yesterday and noon today?”
“No.”
“But-” He bore down on the ‘but.’ “But you sent Goodwin there today. He told Stebbins he was on a fishing trip. He talked with Drew, and Gallant, and Miss Prince, and he actually took Miss Throne from under Stebbins’ nose, took her out to talk with her. Is that a fact? And they all refused to tell what Goodwin said to them or what they said to him. That is a fact. They say it was a private matter and had nothing to do with the murder of Bianca Voss. And when I come and ask you what you sent Goodwin there for, ask you plainly and politely, you say that you will-What are you laughing at?”
It wasn’t a laugh, I just barely caught it, it was hardly even a chuckle, but all the same it could get under your skin. I knew.
“It escaped me, Mr. Cramer. Your choice of adverbs. Your conception of politeness. Pray continue.”
“All right, I asked you. And you said you will probably be ready to tell me within twenty-four hours. And what I said was absolutely justified. I did not accuse you of duplicity. You know what I said.”
“Some, yes. Presumed a suicide, but it’s being checked. I have two men on it. What about it?”
“I suggest that you assign more men to it, good ones, and explore it thoroughly. I think we will both find it helpful. I may soon have a more concrete suggestion, but for the present that should serve. You know quite well-”
The doorbell rang. I about-faced and looked through the one-way glass panel of the front door. It wasn’t a visitor on the stoop, it was a mob. All five of them were there: Gallant, his sister, Anita Prince, Emmy Thorne, and Carl Drew. Fritz appeared from the kitchen, saw me, and stopped. I got my notebook and pen from pockets and wrote:
That phone works. The five subjects are outside wanting in. AG
I told Fritz to stand by, tore out the sheet, entered the office and crossed to Wolfe’s desk, and handed it to him.
Wolfe read it, frowned at it for three seconds, turned his head and called, “Fritz!”
Fritz appeared at the door. “Yes, sir?”
“Put the chain-bolt on and tell those people they will be admitted shortly. Stay there.”
“Yes, sir.” Fritz went.
Wolfe looked at Cramer. “Mr. Gallant, his sister, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne, and Mr. Drew have arrived, uninvited and unexpected. You’ll have to leave without being seen. In the front room until they have entered. I’ll communicate with you later.”
“Like hell I’ll leave.” Cramer was on his feet. “Like hell they’re unexpected.” He was moving, toward the hall, his intention plain-taking over as receptionist.
“Mr. Cramer!” It snapped at his back, turning him. “Would I lie so clumsily? If they had been expected would I have let you in? Would I have sat here bickering with you? Either you leave or I do. If you admit them you’ll have them to yourself, and I wish you luck.”
Cramer was glaring. “You think I’m going to sneak out and sit on your goddam stoop until you whistle?”
“That would be unseemly,” Wolfe conceded. “Very well.” He pointed at a picture on the wall to his left behind him-a pretty waterfall. “You know about that. You may take that station, but only if you engage not to disclose yourself unless you are invited. Unequivocally.”
The waterfall covered a hole in the wall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, the hole was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. Cramer had used it once before, a couple of years ago.
Cramer stood, considering. Wolfe demanded, “Well? They’re waiting. For you or for me?”
Cramer said, “Okay, we’ll try it your way,” turned and marched to the hall, and turned left.
Wolfe told me, “All right, Archie. Bring them in.”
Chapter 5
LORD BYRON, ALIAS Alec Gallant, and the red leather chair went together fine. He sat well back, unlike most people I have seen there. Usually they are either too mad or too upset. Any of the other four probably would have been; they looked it. They were on yellow chairs that I had moved up to make a row facing Wolfe, with Emmy Thorne nearest me, then Anita Prince, then Carl Drew, then Flora Gallant. That put Flora nearest her brother, which seemed appropriate.
Wolfe was turned to Gallant. “You ask me, sir, why I sent Mr. Goodwin to ask you people about Sarah Yare. Of course I’m under no compulsion to reply, and I’m not sure that I am prepared to. Instead, I may ask why his questions, certainly not provocative, so disturbed you. Apparently they have even impelled you to call on me in a body. Why?”
“Talk,” Gallant said. “Vent. Wind.” There was an ashtray on the little table at his elbow, but not a heavy one.
Anita Prince put in, “The police have insisted on knowing why he was there, what he wanted.”
Wolfe nodded. “And you refused to say. Why?”
“Because,” Emmy Thorne declared, “it was none of their business. And we have a right to know why you sent him, whether his questions were provocative or not.” That girl was strong on rights.
Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again. “There’s no point,” he said, “in dragging this out. I’ll grant your question priority and we’ll go on from there. I sent Mr. Goodwin to see you because I suspected I had been gulled and wanted to find out; and further, because I had guessed that there was a connection between Sarah Yare, and her death, and the murder of Bianca Voss. By coming here en masse you have made that guess a conviction, if any doubt had remained.”
“I knew it,” Flora Gallant mumbled.
“Tais-toi,” her brother commanded her. To Wolfe: “I’ll tell you why we came here. We came for an explanation. We came-”
“For an understanding,” Carl Drew cut in. “We’re in trouble, all of us, you know that, and we need your help, and we’re ready to pay for it. First we have to know what the connection is between Sarah Yare and what happened to Bianca Voss.”
Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t mean that. You mean you have to know whether I have established the connection, and if so, how. I’m willing to tell you, but before I do so I must clarify matters. There must be no misunderstanding. For instance, I understand that all of you thought yourselves gravely endangered by Miss Voss’s presence. You, Miss Prince, you, Miss Thorne, and you, Mr. Drew-your dearest ambitions were threatened. Your future was committed to the success and glory of that enterprise, and you were convinced that Miss Voss was going to cheapen it, and perhaps destroy it. Do you challenge that?”
“Of course not.” Emmy Thorne was scornful. “Everybody knew it.”
“Then that’s understood. That applies equally to you, Miss Gallant, but with special emphasis. You also had a more intimate concern, for your brother. You told me so. As for you, Mr. Gallant, you are not a man to truckle, yet you let that woman prevail. Presumably you were under severe constraint. Were you?”
Gallant opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his sister, returned to Wolfe, and again opened his mouth and closed it. He was under constraint now, no doubt about that.
He forced it out. “I was under her heel.” He clamped his jaw. He unclamped it. “The police know. They found out enough, and I have told them the rest. She was a bad woman. I met her in France, during the war. We were in the Resistance together when I married her. Only afterward I learned that she was perfide. She had been a traitor to France-I couldn’t prove it, but I knew it. I left her and changed my name and came to America-and then last year she found me and made demands. I was under her heel.”
Wolfe grunted. “That won’t do, Mr. Gallant. I doubt if it has satisfied the police, and it certainly doesn’t satisfy me. In that situation you might have killed her, but surely you wouldn’t have let her take charge of your business and your life. What else was there?”
“Nothing. Nothing!”
“Pfui. Of course there was. And if the investigation is prolonged the police will discover it. I advise you to disclose it and let me get on and settle this affair. Didn’t her death remove her heel?”
“Yes. Thank God, it did.” Gallant hit the arms of the chair with his palms. “With her gone there is no evidence to fear. She had two brothers, and they, like her, were traitors, and I killed them. I would have killed her too, but she escaped me. During the war it would have been merely an episode, but it was later, much later, when I found out about them, and by then it was a crime. With her evidence I was an assassin, and I was doomed. Now she is gone, thank God, but I did not kill her. You know I did not. At half past eleven yesterday morning I was in my workshop with Miss Prince and many others, and you can swear that she was killed at that mo
ment. That is why we came to see you, to arrange to pay-”
“Hold it, Alec.” Anita Prince headed him off. “Mr. Wolfe wants to clarify matters. Let him.”
“The cat’s head is out,” Wolfe told her, “but I had already heard it scratch. Let’s get on. I cannot swear that Bianca Voss was killed ‘at that moment.’ On the contrary, I’m sure she wasn’t, for a variety of reasons. There are such minor ones as the extraordinary billingsgate she spat at me on the phone, quite gratuitous; and her calling me a gob of fat. A woman who still spoke the language with so marked an accent would not have the word ‘gob’ so ready, and probably wouldn’t have it at all.”
He waved “gob” away. “But the major reasons are more cogent. In the first place, it was too pat. Since the complexities of nature permit a myriad of coincidences we cannot reject one offhand, but we can discriminate. That one-that the attack had come just at the moment when Miss Gallant had got Mr. Goodwin and me on the phone with her, was highly suspect. Besides, it was indiscreet to strike just then. Why not wait until she had hung up? Whoever was talking with her would certainly hear the sounds and take alarm. As I told Mr. Cramer, it was open to challenge circumstantially, though not intrinsically. However, there was another challenge, on surer ground. Miss Gallant did not dial Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, Miss Voss’s number, as she pretended. She dialed Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven, Sarah Yare’s number.”
A noise, a sort of low growl, came from the waterfall. I was farthest away, and I heard it distinctly, so it must have reached their ears too, but Wolfe’s last words had so riveted their attention that it didn’t register.
It did with Wolfe, and he added hastily, “I didn’t know that yesterday. I became certain of it only after you rang my doorbell, when Mr. Goodwin handed me this note.” He tapped it, there on his desk. “It’s first words are ‘That phone works.’ I had sent him to learn if Sarah Yare’s phone was in operation. Obviously, Miss Gallant had arranged with Miss Yare to impersonate Bianca Voss, and it is a reasonable-”
