The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 3)

by Robert Goldsborough

  “I assume you’re going to try Mr. Potter next?” he asked.

  “Oh, I thought I might. Why?”

  Wolfe’s reply was to dip his head slightly, which passes for a nod. It also was his way of indicating that he’d be listening in, too. Surprisingly, Potter answered himself, which forced me to adjust my opinion of him upward at least slightly. However, his reaction when he found out who was calling made me cancel the adjustment.

  “My God,” the president said, “I really didn’t think you’d have the gall to persist.”

  “Just following orders,” I said.

  There was a silence of several seconds. “All right,” he snapped, “hold on while I check my book.” Another silence, this one lasting a half-minute. When he came back on the line, he sounded pleased with himself. “Let’s see…on the twenty-third, I had a breakfast with the chairman of the English Department…a ten-o’clock meeting with the provost to go over the schedule of activities for Homecoming…lunch at the Union Building with several members of Prescott’s New York City Alumni Club. At three P.M., I was interviewed—for well over an hour, at that—by a reporter from University Management magazine who is doing a series of profiles of presidents of major schools. I went home about five, as I remember, to change for a banquet at the same place you stayed, the Prescott Inn. Cocktails were at seven, dinner at eight. It kicked off a campaign to raise funds for a new field house. The one we have was built more than forty years ago and holds only four thousand for basketball games.”

  “Truly a pity,” I said. “What time was the dinner over?”

  “Oh…probably ten-fifteen, something like that. I went straight home from there.”

  “You drove?”

  “Mr. Goodwin, Prescott, unlike New York, is a genuinely safe place, day or at night, despite your employer’s attempts to turn a tragic accident into a murder. I walked home. My house is only four blocks from the Prescott Inn.”

  “Were you alone?”

  A deep breath. “Yes, I was alone. And I recall that my wife was still up reading when I got home. Can we end this interrogation now, Mr. Goodwin? I think I’ve been generous enough with my time and patience.”

  I was about to thank him when Wolfe signaled me. “Mr. Wolfe would like to say something to you,” I said. “Hold the line.”

  Before Potter could protest, Wolfe was talking. “I appreciate your time and patience, but I am going to presume further on your good nature. I would like to meet Leander Bach.”

  “Then I suggest you call him for an appointment,” Potter said sharply. “His office is in Manhattan, as you probably know.”

  “I am aware of that, but I am hoping you will intercede for me.”

  “Why on earth should I?”

  “As I said when we talked yesterday, in the matter of Mr. Markham’s death, our interests—the university’s and mine—should coincide. We both seek the truth.”

  “I don’t see how Leander could possibly be of any help to you. Despite the animosity he and Hale Markham felt toward each other, I’m not even sure they ever met.”

  “You’re very likely correct on both counts,” Wolfe conceded. “Nevertheless, I feel a conversation with him could prove to be helpful.”

  Another deep breath on Potter’s end. “All right, I’ll call him and tell him you want to see him. But I assure you I won’t prejudice him in your favor. I still don’t approve of what you’re doing.”

  “Your candor is admirable, sir,” Wolfe said. “Will you phone him today?”

  “Yes, right now! Good-bye!” Potter banged down his receiver.

  “Pretty rude for a university president,” I observed, hanging up, too, and swiveling to face Wolfe. “I don’t think I’ll bequeath any of the Goodwin family fortune to that field house. What do you think seeing the tycoon will accomplish?”

  “Perhaps nothing,” he said, lifting his shoulders slightly and then dropping them. “But at least Mr. Bach will be prepared for our call. And if he’s as curious by nature as I suspect, he’ll want to know what we are up to.”

  “So a call to Bach is the next order of business?”

  “One of them. You said that when the Prescott police interrupted you in Mr. Markham’s house earlier this week, you had been there only a few minutes. Am I correct that you feel a need to return?”

  “It’s been on my mind,” I admitted. “I was going to suggest it this morning, but I wanted to get you back here as quickly as possible. I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “I appreciate your solicitude,” Wolfe said. “And I also appreciate that this will make a third trip to that place for you in a single week.” The very thought drove him to pour the second bottle of beer into his empty glass.

  “All in the line of duty. After all, as you yourself said a few minutes ago, I am the quintessential man of action, remember? This time, though, I’m going to take Cortland with me to Markham’s house, as a buffer against that group of lads who comprise Prescott’s finest.”

  Wolfe reached for his book. “I was going to suggest that myself, of course,” he said.

  Of course.

  SIXTEEN

  SATURDAY MORNING AT QUARTER PAST eight, I once again was piloting the Mercedes north up the Henry Hudson Parkway. As much as I enjoy being behind the wheel, this was starting to get tiresome, but I wasn’t about to complain; after all, the project had been my idea, and Wolfe was at work, or at least giving orders.

  After Wolfe’s “suggestion” that I might want to run up to Prescott and finish going through Markham’s house, I called Cortland and got a cool reception: He was still in a sulk about being treated like a suspect, but he softened when I told him what I wanted to do.

  “By all means, you should come and see the house again. This time, we can take my car. The police recognize it, and if they happen to drive by, they’re not likely to stop.”

  I told him that sounded good and that I’d be at his place no later than ten. I also kept calling Greenbaum at home, and finally got him on the fifth try. If Cortland’s initial reaction to me had been chilly, Greenbaum’s was positively glacial, and he never did thaw out. He said his calendar had no evening notation for September twenty-third and that he probably spent it at home with his wife.

  “Would you have left at any time?” I asked.

  “Mr. Goodwin, I leave the house every night,” he said, pronouncing each word deliberately. “I have a dog. His name is Alonzo, and he is a Collie. I invariably take him for a walk, and we’re never gone for less than half an hour, usually from about ten-thirty to eleven. The exercise is good for both of us. We walk all over the campus and, yes, sometimes we go through the Old Oaks—I even passed Hale on his walk once about six or eight months ago when I was with Alonzo and we said hello to each other. Did I see Hale on the night he fell into the Gash? No. Did I see anything suspicious that night? No. How do I know that? Because I surely would have remembered it the next day when I heard what happened to Hale. Now I have posed the questions you were going to ask me and I have answered them. Good evening, Mr. Goodwin.” He slammed down his receiver harder than he had to, but then maybe receiver banging is good therapy—everyone seemed to be doing it.

  The other noteworthy event of Friday afternoon involved Leander Bach. Wolfe waited until just before his four o’clock session with the orchids to call, presumably giving Potter a chance to prepare Bach for the experience. I dialed the number of his office in the Pan Am Building while Wolfe picked up his receiver. Getting through the main switchboard to the executive suite was easy enough, and when a crisp female voice answered “Mr. Bach’s office,” Wolfe took over. “This is Nero Wolfe. I would like to speak to Mr. Bach. I believe Mr. Potter of Prescott University told him I would be calling.”

  “May I ask what this is about?” she responded.

  Wolfe frowned. “I am investigating the death of Mr. Hale Markham.”

  “Hold the line please,” she said, somewhat less crisply than before.

  “Yes, may I help you? I am Mr. B
ach’s executive assistant.” It was another female voice, this one also crisp, but with a slight southern tinge. Wolfe took a deep breath and repeated what he had told the first line of defense. “Please hold for a moment,” she said.

  The moment turned out to be thirty-five seconds. At this rate, Wolfe would be late for his elevator ride to the roof and Theodore would be working on an ulcer wondering what calamity could possibly cause a rupture in the precious schedule. Just when it looked like Wolfe was going to hang up and stomp out of the office, another voice came on the line.

  “This is Bach. Mr. Wolfe?”

  “Yes, sir. I had asked Mr. Potter to inform you I would be calling.”

  “Haven’t heard from Keith today,” the hoarse voice responded. “No matter. I know who you are, of course. What the hell, everybody does. Through the years I’ve read about you Lord knows how many times. What’s this about an investigation into that buzzard Markham’s death? What’s to investigate?”

  “There is reason to believe Mr. Markham’s fall was not accidental.”

  “Eh? Well, I can guess there’s a truckload of people who’ve considered wringing Markham’s neck, but I hardly think they’d carry out the real thing. What do you want from me? I never met the man, and I can’t say I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “I would like to talk to you about Mr. Markham,” Wolfe said. “I think your perspective would be helpful.”

  “Even though I never met him? Oh, hell, all right, I’ll go along with this, if only to meet you. Can you come to my office Monday morning? I don’t much like talking on the phone. I’m a face-to-face guy.”

  “I share your distaste for the telephone, sir. I make it a practice not to leave my home, however. Would it be possible for you to come here?”

  “The reclusive genius bit, eh? I guess I’ve read about that, too. Hell, yes, I’ll come—why not? But I have a practice that you should be aware of, too, and it’s hard-and-fast: I never go anywhere to a meeting without my personal assistant, Miss Carswell. She was the one you spoke to before I came on the line. If I come to see you, she comes as well.”

  “I have no objections, sir. Let us agree on a time.”

  The upshot was that Bach and the indispensable Miss Carswell would come to the brownstone Sunday night at nine. That, coupled with the Saturday swing up to Prescott, effectively canceled my plans to spend the weekend with Lily at her hideaway in Dutchess County. But she’s used to cancellations from me, and she’s done some canceling herself through the years. Our relationship is the kind that calls for understanding and flexibility, and we both have lots of that, at least where the other is concerned. “I’ll try to enjoy myself up there alone,” she had told me on the phone Friday when I called to bow out. “Just remember, I may not invite you to the country again until…oh, say, next weekend.”

  “I humbly accept and hereby vow to annihilate my eccentric and irascible employer if he dares to find chores for me that will conflict,” I said, sealing our date.

  I was thinking about Lily and her luxurious retreat overlooking the Hudson when the town of Prescott snuck up on me. I cruised along the picture-postcard streets, following the directions Cortland had given to his residence, which turned out to be a small white frame bungalow with green shutters just a block off the main stem and not far from the police station where I had so recently been a jewel on the cushion of Prescott police hospitality. I parked at the curb and bounded up the creaking steps to his door, giving the bell a punch.

  “Ah, you’re right on time, as I fully expected you would be,” he said with one of his thin smiles, squinting at the sunlight as he leaned out the front door. “I suggested taking my car when you called, but it’s only three blocks and the weather’s nice—you may want to walk it instead.”

  I said I needed the exercise, so while I locked the Mercedes, Cortland went back inside for a book, then we were off down the shady streets of a town I was beginning to feel I knew. The stubby professor, this time in a corduroy sportcoat, puffed to keep up with me, and less than ten minutes later, we were on Markham’s block of Clinton, which was as quiet as the other time I’d been there. “Hale loved this house,” Cortland told me as we went up the front walk. “Said it was a haven for him from what he called the maelstrom of academe. I thought that after Lois died, he’d probably want to move out and take a smaller place, maybe an apartment, but he seemed perfectly content to stay here.”

  “Did he ever entertain?” I asked as Cortland unlocked the door.

  “Almost never. Oh, maybe once every two years or so he’d have a group of graduate students over in the spring for an end-of-the-term party—beer and hamburgers, that sort of thing. Nothing elaborate, mind you. But overall, Hale wasn’t much for socializing.”

  “Except for Elena Moreau and Gretchen Frazier?”

  Cortland’s ears turned red. “He used to escort Elena to various functions, yes, but as I told you before, he was five decades older than the Frazier girl,” he said reprovingly. “And besides, Hale would never have permitted himself to become entangled with a student.”

  “It’s happened before. And after all, she is an attractive young scholar.”

  Cortland looked at me as if I were depraved, something Lily has been convinced of for years. “We’re here,” he said, pointedly changing the subject. “Start wherever you want to and take as long as you want. If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit in the living room and read. If I get in your way, feel free to ask me to move.”

  “Fair enough. Who has been in here since Markham died?”

  “Only me, and the cleaning woman. She used to work twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays I think, when Hale was alive, but now, I’ve asked her to come only every other week to dust and such.”

  “No realtors?”

  “No.” Cortland shook his head. “Although since they’ve learned I’m executor, several have called me endeavoring to obtain the listing. I’ve temporized, though, by saying any decision on selling the place will have to wait until Christina, his niece, comes to town.”

  “Has anything been moved out?”

  “No, I haven’t touched a thing, other than the article I mentioned to you, the one he’d written for that magazine, which wanted to go ahead and publish it posthumously.”

  “So you said. Okay, I’m going to start in his office area—that’s where I was when the police came.”

  Cortland told me to be his guest, and he slouched in one of the easy chairs in the living room with his book while I went out to the sun porch–turned–office. It looked just the same as when I’d been so rudely interrupted by Nevins and Amundsen day before yesterday.

  I sat in the comfortable, high-backed swivel chair and had a look at Markham’s terminal. It was set up to take two floppy disks, but both disk drives were empty, so I didn’t even bother turning the thing on. On the table, though, there was a holder with some three dozen disks in it. I pulled a batch out and shuffled through them; they were labeled everything from NOTES ON BURKE BOOK to CHECKING ACCOUNT to ELECTRIC BILLS to HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES. “Did Markham keep his whole life on the computer?” I said, turning in the direction of the living room.

  “He most certainly did,” Cortland answered, getting up and coming over to stand in the doorway. “Four years ago, he didn’t even own a computer, but he started experimenting with one in the office over at school one day and he became addicted. Hale was extremely meticulous in everything he undertook, and the computer permitted him to be even more so. He was obsessive about his record keeping.”

  “Maybe not such a bad thing,” I said. “If you don’t have any objection, I’d like to take the whole batch of disks home and run them through my machine. I’ll bring everything back intact.”

  “No objection at all, but I really doubt you’ll find anything worthwhile. Please be particularly careful with the disk with the book notes on it. Hale was in the early stages of researching a new biography of Edmund Burke, and I’m optimistic I can be successful in persuading the publis
her to allow me to complete it.”

  I told him to have no fear and started in on the rest of the house while he went back to his reading. There may be somebody in the world better at combing a place than I am, but I have yet to meet that somebody, although I admit that Saul Panzer comes close. The whole operation took me more than three hours, including the bookcases, of which there were sets in the living room, the office, and the master bedroom upstairs. I went through dresser drawers, nightstands, photo albums, stacks of old bills, file drawers of correspondence—all of it professional—storage boxes of clothes, and a basement that was cleaner than most kitchens. And nowhere did I find anything remotely helpful. Cortland popped in on me every so often to monitor my progress, but otherwise kept busy with his book, which was as fat as a dictionary and looked to be about as juicy. “I’ll say this for Markham,” I told him as we were getting ready to leave, “he was one well-ordered guy, or else he had the world’s best cleaning woman.”

  “Some of both, I suppose” was his answer. “As I said earlier, Hale was extremely fastidious about his record keeping, and that sense of order and neatness carried over into everything he did. He was the antithesis of the absentminded professor stereotype, as you’ve obviously gathered.” He grimaced. “Indeed, he often scoffed at me for my own untidiness. Have you made any significant discoveries?”

  “No, and I seriously doubt there’s anything in here, either,” I said, gesturing to the box of disks I was carrying, “but I can’t afford to ignore them, and as long as they work in our PC, I can avoid tying up any more of your time. What about Markham’s office at the school?”