Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 19

by Murder by the Book

  John R. Wellman forgot his manners. Without a word, he popped up, circled behind my chair, and followed Mrs. Abrams. His voice came from the hall, and then silence.

  The guests were silent too. “There’s more coffee,” I told them. “Anybody want some?”

  No takers. I spoke. “One thing Mrs. Abrams said wasn’t strictly accurate. She said I told her that the man who paid Rachel for typing the script came back and killed her. What I told her was that Rachel was killed because she had typed the script, but not that it was the man who had paid her for typing it.”

  Three of them were dabbing at their eyes with their handkerchiefs. Two others should have been.

  “You don’t know that,” Dolly Harriton challenged.

  “To prove it, no. But we like it.”

  “You’re crazy,” Helen Troy asserted.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “You said the death of Leonard Dykes was connected with these two. Did you mean the same man killed all of them?”

  “I didn’t say so, but I would for a nickel. That’s what I think.”

  “Then you’re crazy. Why should Con O’Malley kill those girls? He didn’t—”

  “Be quiet, Helen,” Mrs. Adams said sharply.

  She ignored it. “He didn’t kill—”

  “Helen, be quiet! You’re drunk.”

  “I am not drunk! I was, but I’m not now. How could anybody be drunk after listening to those two?” To me: “Con O’Malley didn’t kill Leonard Dykes on account of any manuscript. He killed him because it was Dykes that got him disbarred. Everybody—”

  She was drowned out. Half of them spoke and the other half shouted. It may have been partly to relieve the feelings that had been piled up by Wellman and Mrs. Abrams, but there was more to it than that. Both Mrs. Adams and Dolly Harriton tried to shut them up, but nothing doing. Looking and listening, I caught enough scraps to gather that a long-standing feud had blazed into battle. As near as I could make out, Helen Troy, Nina Perlman, and Blanche Duke were arrayed against Portia Liss, Eleanor Gruber, and Mabel Moore, with Sue Dondero interested but not committed, and Claire Burkhardt, the night-school wonder, not qualified for combat. Mrs. Adams and Dolly Harriton were outside.

  In one of those moments of comparative calm that even the hottest fracas will have, Blanche Duke tossed a grenade at Eleanor Gruber. “What were you wearing when O’Malley told you? Pajamas?”

  That shocked them into silence, and Mrs. Adams took advantage of it. “This is disgraceful,” she declared. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Blanche, apologize to Eleanor.”

  “For what?” Blanche demanded.

  “She won’t,” Eleanor said. She turned a white face to me. “We should all apologize to you, Mr. Goodwin.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dolly Harriton said dryly. “Since Mr. Goodwin staged this, I must admit cleverly and effectively, I hardly believe he has an apology coming. Congratulations, Mr. Goodwin.”

  “I must decline them, Miss Harriton. I haven’t congratulations coming either.”

  “I don’t care,” Eleanor insisted to me, “what you have coming. I’m going to say this. After what Blanche said to me. And what you must have heard before. Do you know who Conroy O’Malley is?”

  “Sure. I’ve been allowed to have a look at the police file on Leonard Dykes. A former member of the firm who got disbarred about a year ago.”

  She nodded. “He was the senior member. The name of the firm was O’Malley, Corrigan and Phelps. I was his secretary. Now I am Louis Kustin’s secretary. Must I say that what Blanche said, her insinuation about my relations with Mr. O’Malley, that that was pure malice?”

  “There’s no must about it, Miss Gruber. Say it if you want to, or just skip it.”

  “I do say it. It’s too bad because really I like Blanche, and she likes me. This was starting to die down, and then the police came back and stirred it up again, and now you say it was something you told them about these two girls being killed that made them come back. I’m not blaming you, but I wish you hadn’t, because—well, you saw what happened here just now. Could you hear what we said?”

  “Some.”

  “Anyway, you heard Helen say that Conroy O’Malley killed Dykes because Dykes got him disbarred. That isn’t true. O’Malley was disbarred for bribing a foreman of a jury in a civil suit. I don’t know who it was that informed the court, that never came out, but it was certainly someone connected with the other side. Of course it made a lot of talk in the office, all kinds of wild talk—that Louis Kustin had done the informing because O’Malley didn’t like him and wouldn’t make him a member of the firm, and that—”

  “Is this wise, Eleanor?” Dolly Harriton asked coldly.

  “I think so,” Eleanor said, not fazed. “He ought to understand.” She went on to me. “—and that others had done it, Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Briggs among them, for similar reasons, and that Leonard Dykes had done it because O’Malley was going to fire him. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there was talk that I had done it, I suppose because he wouldn’t buy me some new pajamas. As the months went by there wasn’t so much of it, and then Leonard Dykes got killed and it started up again. I don’t know who began it that O’Malley had killed Dykes because he found out that Dykes had been the informer to the court, but someone did, and it was worse than ever. Just a lot of wild talk. No one really knew anything. You heard Blanche ask me if I was wearing pajamas when O’Malley told me something.”

  She seemed to think she had asked a question, so I grunted an affirmative.

  “Well, what he told me, just a few weeks ago, was that he had heard that it was the jury foreman’s wife who had written the anonymous letter to the judge telling about the bribing. It isn’t likely that I was wearing pajamas because I don’t wear them in the office, and it was in the office that he told me—of course he’s no longer connected with the firm, but he comes there once in a while. The talk that O’Malley killed Dykes is simply ridiculous.”

  “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 tol
d 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.

  Chapter 10

  Ordinarily 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 o
n 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.”