by Rex Stout
"Certainly. You're going to show me that room. The car's waiting." "I'm afraid this isn't a good time, Mrs. Yeager. After what has happened. Sit down and I'll tell you why." "You can tell me in the car. You said yesterday you'd take me as soon as you got a chance." "I know. I tried to get you on the phone at ten 172 Rex Stout o'clock last evening but couldn't. You weren't at home?" "Certainly I was. My son and daughter were here, and some friends." She moved. "Come on." "Damn the torpedoes!" I told her back. She whirled. For a lump she whirled well. "What did you say?" "I said damn the torpedoes. That may be your attitude, but it's not Mr. Wolfe's or mine. I came to tell you why we can't go there now. Since the janitor of that house had a daughter, and last night--" "I know about that. I told you on the phone. She was murdered." "Right. And it seems likely that she was murdered by the person who murdered your husband. Incidentally, you may remember that Mr. Wolfe suggested the possibility that you killed your husband, so he thinks it's also possible that you killed Maria Perez. That's why I asked if you were at home last evening. Were you here with your son and daughter and friends all evening? Up to midnight?"
"Yes. I said yesterday, it was years ago that I felt like killing him. You're not complete fools, are you?" "Not complete, no. All right, you didn't kill him. Or her. Some day I'll be glad to take you to see that room, but not now. It's too risky. A girl who lived there has been murdered, and at any time, day or night, a policeman or assistant district attorney may be there to ask questions of her parents or some of the tenants. There may be a man on the outside to keep an eye on the house. If either you or I was seen entering or inside that house, let alone ^ --^1 Too Many Clients 173 both of us, good-by. Good-by not only to the job Aiken hired Wolfe for, but also to the one you hired him for. Another thing, you are probably still being followed around." "They wouldn't dare." "Wouldn't they, though. They did, didn't they? We'll have to postpone it. The room will keep." "Are you going to take me there or not?" "Not now. Not today." "I thought so. There is no such room." "Oh yes there is. I've seen it. Several times." "I don't believe it." Her sharp little eyes were slanted up to mine. "Benedict Aiken invented it, or Nero Wolfe did, or you did. You've been making a fool of me. I suspected it yesterday, and now I know it. Get out of my house. I'm going to call the District Attorney." I was observing an interesting fact, that two chins can look fully as determined as one. I couldn't possibly talk her out of it, and there was no use trying. I made one stab at it. "You're looking at me, Mrs. Yeager. Our eyes are meeting. Do I look like a liar?" "Yes." "Okay, then you'll have to be shown. You say your car's waiting. With a chauffeur?" "Certainly." "Nothing doing. If this house is covered he wouldn't even have to follow to find out where we went unless the chauffeur is a hero. We'll leave together, that doesn't matter, and walk to Second Avenue. You'll wait at the corner, and when I come in a taxi you'll get in. I'll show you whether there's such a room or not." 174 Rex Stout The sharp little eyes were suspicious. "Is this another trick?" "Why ask me, since I'm a liar? Sure, I'm kidnaping you. In my circle we call it a snatch." It took her four seconds to decide. "All right, come on," she said, and moved. Out on the sidewalk she stopped to speak to the chauffeur standing beside a black Lincoln, and then went with me to the corner. From there on I took the standard routine precautions, going uptown a block to get a taxi, and picking her up at the corner. I had the hackie do turns until I was sure we were unaccompanied and then drop us on Madison Avenue in the Seventies. When he was out of sight I flagged another taxi, told the driver 82nd and Amsterdam, and when we got there told him to crawl the block to Columbus. At Columbus, having seen no sign of a city employee, I told him to take 81st Street back to Amsterdam and stop at the corner . There I paid him off and took Mrs. Yeager into a drugstore and, since she suspected tricks, I had her come along to the phone booth and stand at my elbow while I dialed a number and talked. What she heard: "Mrs. Perez? This is Archie Goodwin. I'm in a drugstore around the corner. I hope we're still friends? . . . Good. Has a policeman been there? . . . You didn't? Good. . . . No, that's all right, taking you downtown and having you sign a statement was normal, they always do. Is anyone there now? . . . Okay. I'm coming there with a woman, we'll be there in two minutes, and I'm taking her up in the elevator. We won't be there long. I may phone you this evening, or I may drop in. ... No, but I hope there soon will be. ... Absolutely. I'm your detective." Too Many Clients 175 As I hung up Mrs. Yeager demanded, "Who was that?" "The mother of the girl who was murdered last night. Since you didn't kill her there's no conflict of interest. Let's go." We walked the block to 82nd, around the corner, on to Number 156, and in at the basement door. There was no one in the hall, and the door of Maria's room was shut. At the elevator I used the second key and we entered. Not being a psychologist or a sociologist, I wouldn't know how a middle-aged widow with a double chin is supposed to react on entering a bower that her husband had used for extramarital activities, but whatever the pattern is I'll give any odds you name that Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager didn't follow it. When I switched on the lights she took a couple of steps, stopped, moved her head slowly around to the right, moved it back more slowly and to the left, and turned to face me. "I apologize," she said. "Accepted," I said. "Forget it." She took a few more steps, stopped for another look around, and turned again. "No bathroom?" I believe it only because I heard it. You haven't that privilege. "Sure," I said, "at the far end. The kitchen's at this end." I pointed. "That gold push plate is on the door." I swung my arm around. "There where the silk is tucked; it's a curtain. Drawers behind it." That ended the conversation, though her inspection took more than half an hour. First she took in the pictures, not collectively, one by one, moving along, tilting her head back for the high ones. No comment. When she slid the curtain aside and Kawg'ws'-: 176 Rex Stout began opening drawers I went to a chair and sat. She took nothing out of the drawers and didn't poke in them. She stooped over for a close look at the carpet. She examined the upholstery on the chairs and couches. She twisted her neck up and around to survey the indirect-lighting installation. She pulled the top of the bed coverlet down to see the linen and put it neatly back again. She was in the kitchen a good five minutes, and in the bathroom longer. She did the bathroom last, and when she came out she got her stole from the couch where she had put it, and spoke. "Do you believe that Julia McGee came here to take dictation?" "No." I rose. "Do you?" "Certainly not. Why do you think the person who killed my husband killed that girl?" "It's complicated. But it's not just a guess." "Where's her mother? I want to speak to her." "Better not, right now." I was moving toward the elevator, and she was coming. "It hit her pretty hard. Some other day." I pushed the button, the elevator door opened, and we entered Just to get it straight for my own satisfaction, I have tried to figure exactly where we were when the doorbell rang in the basement. We must have been either entering the elevator or on our way down. Anyhow, I didn't hear it, so we emerged below and started up the hall. When we were about halfway to the front Mrs. Perez came out of a door ahead on the right, the one she and Maria had come out of when her husband called her my first time there, went to the street door, and opened it. As I say, I hadn't heard the doorbell, so I supposed she was going out. But she wasn't. Mrs. Yeager and I Too Many Clients 177 were right there when Sergeant Purley Stebbins said, "Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Perez, but--" saw us, and stopped. A mind can do crazy things. Mine, instead of instantly tackling the situation, took a tenth of a second to tell me how lucky I was that Stebbins hadn't been already inside and with Mrs. Perez in the hall when we stepped out of the elevator. That helped a lot, to know I was lucky. "You?" Stebbins said. He crossed the sill. "And you, Mrs. Yeager?" "We were just leaving," I said. "Having had a talk with Mrs. Perez." "What about?" "About her daughter. I suppose you know that Mrs. Yeager has hired Mr. Wolfe to find out who killed her husband. She told Cramer yesterday. She has some detective instincts herself. When she read in the paper today that a girl named Maria Perez had been murdered, shot in the head, and she had lived in this street,
in the block where Yeager's body had been found, and her body had been taken somewhere and dumped just as Yeager's had been, she got the idea that there was some connection between the two murders. Mr. Wolfe thought it was possible, and so did I. Mrs. Yeager's idea was that Maria Perez might have seen the murderer dumping Yeager's body in the hole, maybe from the sidewalk as she was coming home, or maybe even from inside, from a window. Of course there were difficulties, but Mr. Wolfe thought it wouldn't hurt for me to have a talk with Maria's mother or father, and Mrs. Yeager wanted to come along. It would be a coincidence if you came with the same idea just as we were leaving. Wouldn't it?" r} .'--x11^'?*^ w 178 Rex Stout As I was reeling it off I knew how bad it was. First, because it was full of holes, and second, because it wasn't me. When Stebbins barked at me a question like "What about?" my natural answer would be "The weather" or something similar, and he knew it. It was against all precedent for me to oblige with a long, detailed explanation, but I had to, for Mrs. Yeager and Mrs. Perez. It was probably up the flue anyway, but there was a chance that they would catch on and help me save the pieces. Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought. I knew so much about that house and that room that I didn't sufficiently consider that Stebbins knew nothing whatever about it, that Homicide and the DA had been assuming for three days that Yeager had been killed elsewhere and brought and dumped in that hole because it was convenient, and they had absolutely no reason to connect him with that house. And Mrs. Yeager came through like an angel. She couldn't have done better if I had spent an hour priming her. She offered a hand to Mrs. Perez and said in exactly the right tone, "Thank you, Mrs. Perez. We have both lost someone dear to us. I have to go, I'm late now. We didn't intend to keep you so long and it was very kind of you. I'll phone you later, Mr. Goodwin, or you call me." The door was standing open, and out she went. I could have kissed her on both chins. Stebbins was eying me as if he would like to kick me on both butts, but that was only normal. "What did you ask Mrs. Perez and what did she tell you?" he demanded. He was hoarse, but that was normal too. Wolfe and I both have that effect on him, Wolfe more than me. Too Many Clients 179 It was a good question. The way I had sketched it, we had come to ask Mrs. Perez about her daughter's whereabouts and movements Sunday night, and presumably she had told us; and I had no idea where Maria had been Sunday night. An excellent question. So I reverted to type. "What do you suppose I asked her? I wanted to know if it was possible that her daughter had seen someone dumping Yeager's body in that hole and climbing in to put the tarp over him. As for what she said, get the best evidence. She's here. Ask her." "I'm asking you." Stebbins is not a fool. "And I'm reserving my answer. I don't owe Mrs. Perez anything, but she has a right to decide for herself what she wants to say for the official record. Mrs. Yeager and I were merely people. You're a cop." And by gum Mrs. Perez came through too. Not as grand a performance as Mrs. Yeager's, but plenty good enough. "What I told him was just the truth," she told Stebbins. "If my daughter saw anything like that Sunday she would tell me, so she didn't." "Was she home all evening?" "Yes. Two of her friends came and they watched television." "What time did the friends come?" "It was about eight o'clock." "What time did they leave?" "Right after eleven o'clock. Right after a program they like every Sunday night." "Did your daughter go out with them?" "No." "Did she leave the house at all that evening?" t "No." m 180 Rex Stout "Are you sure?" She nodded. "I'm sure. We always knew where she was." "You didn't know last night. And any time during the night, Sunday night, she could have gone to the front room and looked out through the window. Couldn't she?" "Why would she? Why would she do that?" "I don't know, but she could." Stebbins turned. "All right, Goodwin, I'll ride you downtown. You can tell the inspector about it." "About what? What is there to tell?" He stuck his chin out. "Look, you. Monday afternoon you began checking on a man that was already dead, two hours before the body was found. When the inspector goes to see Wolfe he finds the widow there, and he gets the usual crap. The widow has hired Wolfe to find out who killed her husband, which may not be against the law but it's against the policy of the New York Police Department. And I come here investigating not that murder but another one, and by God here you are, you and the widow, here in the house where that girl lived, talking with her mother. So you're coming downtown or you're under arrest as a material witness." "Am I under arrest?" "No. I said or." "It's nice to have a choice." I got a quarter from my pocket, flipped it in the air, caught it, and looked at it. "I win. Let's go." It suited me fine to get him away from Mrs. Perez and out of that house. As I mounted the three steps to the sidewalk I was thinking how different pounds J Too Many Clients 181 it would be if he had come thirty seconds sooner or we had left the bower thirty seconds later. As I climbed in the PD car I yawned, thoroughly. Having had less than three hours' sleep, I had been needing a good healthy yawn all day but had been too busy. FR1;Chapter 15 Six hours later, at one-thirty in the morning, I was sitting in the kitchen, putting away black bread (made by Fritz), smoked sturgeon, Brie cheese, and milk, and reading the early edition of Friday's Times, which I had picked up on my way home from the District Attorney's office. I was about pooped. The day had been fairly active, and the evening, an hour with Cramer and four hours with a couple of assistant DAs, had been really tough. It's a strain to answer a thousand questions put by experts when you know that: a) you have to keep a wall between two sets of facts, the ones they already know and the ones you hope to God they never will know; b) you're making a record that may hook you on a charge you can't possibly dodge; and c) one little slip could spill the soup. Of all the sessions I have had at Homicide West and the DA's office, that was the worst. There had been only two letups, when they called time out for ten minutes for me to eat an inedible ham sandwich and a pint of Grade IF milk, and when I announced, around ten o'clock, that they could Too Many Clients 185 ing, and got my orange juice. At 10:56 I finished my second cup of coffee, thanked Fritz for the bacon and apricot omelet, went to the office, and started opening the mail. The sound came of the elevator and Wolfe entered, said good morning, went to his desk, and asked if there was any word from Hewitt about the Lycaste deucatissima. True to form. Granting that he knew they hadn't tossed me in the can as a material witness, since I was there, and that I had nothing urgent to report, since I wouldn't have waited until eleven o'clock, he might at least have asked how long they had kept me. Slitting envelopes, I said there was nothing from Hewitt. "How long did they keep you?" he asked. "Only three hours more after I phoned. I got home a little after one." "It must have been rather difficult." "There were spots. I refused to sign a statement."
