Three for the Chair

by Rex Stout

  “No.”

  Evidently he didn’t feel like chatting. I went over to the confreres, still in a group, and told them, “If you folks want to discuss our ignominy, don’t mind me. You might even say something helpful.”

  “Where’s the body?” Steve Amsel asked.

  “Room thirty-eight, down the hall.”

  “What killed him?”

  “His necktie around his throat. I suppose he could have done it himself, but you know how that is. I prefer not, and he might have been calmed down first with a heavy brass ashtray. There was one there on the floor.”

  “You and Wolfe came last this morning,” Harland Ide stated. “Did you see him on the way?”

  I grinned at him. “Now look,” I objected. “We’ll get enough of that from the cops. Have a heart. We’re fellow members of a professional association. You would grill me?”

  “Not at all,” he said stiffly. “I merely thought that if that room is between here and the elevator, and the door was open, you might have seen him, possibly even spoken with him. I certainly did not intend –”

  He was interrupted. The door opened and a man entered, a big broad-shouldered ape with not enough features to fill up his big round face. He shut the door, stood, and counted us, with his lips moving, and then pulled a chair over by the door and sat. He had nothing to say.

  Again that bunch of pros disappointed me. They knew quite well that the presence of the dick had no bearing on their freedom to converse, and as for being discreet, one glance at his mug should have made it plain that he lacked the mental machinery to register and report anything he heard, granting he could hear. But they clammed up, and stayed clammed for a good half an hour. Just to see, I made a few tries at starting some discourse, but nothing doing. The ladies had gone back to their corner, and I tried them too, and got the impression that Sally would have been willing to relieve the tension with a little give and take, but as for Dol Bonner, definitely not, and she was the boss.

  I had just glanced at my wrist watch and seen ten minutes past one when the door opened again. This time there were two of them. The one in front was a six-footer with a long narrow phiz and grizzled hair. He stopped three paces in, sent his eyes around, and told us, “I’m Leon Groom, chief of detectives of the City of Albany.”

  He paused, for applause maybe, but didn’t get it. His facial expression was superior, and so was his tone of voice, which was natural under the circumstances. Not often does a chief of detectives get to address an audience composed exclusively of private eyes, a breed they would like to blackball, and not only that, we were all from the big town, which made us mud.

  He resumed. “You have been told that there has been a death by violence in a room on this floor, and you’re being detained for questioning. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin will come with me. Now. The rest of you will shortly be taken, one at a time, to view the body.” He aimed a thumb at his companion “This man will ask you what kind of sandwiches you want and they’ll be brought to you. On the City of Albany. You’re Theodolinda Bonner?”

  “Yes.”

  “A policewoman will be here before long, in case a search of your persons is required.”

  “With consent,” Steve Amsel said offensively.

  “Certainly with consent. Nero Wolfe? Come along, you and Archie Goodwin.”

  Wolfe got up and headed for the door, saying, as he passed me, “Come, Archie.” I was on his payroll, and he wasn’t going to have other people giving me orders.

  III

  THERE WERE THREE MEN in the hall, one in his own clothes, looking important, and two in uniform guarding an empty meat basket near the door of room thirty-eight, looking bored. Inside the room were three more – scientists, two with fingerprint outfits and one with a camera. They took time out to look as Groom, having told us to touch nothing, convoyed Wolfe around the table to the corpse. Except that its legs had been straightened and its necktie removed, it hadn’t changed much. Wolfe frowned down at it.

  Groom asked him, “Do you identify him?”

  “No,” Wolfe declared. “I don’t know who he is. I do, however, recognize him as a man I saw one day last April when he called on me, gave his name as Otis Ross, and engaged my services. I learned later that he was not Otis Ross – at least not the Otis Ross he had claimed to be. Mr. Goodwin, who saw him not once but nine times, has already stated that he is that man.”

  “I know. Is that still your opinion, Goodwin?”

  “Not an opinion.” If Wolfe could correct his choice of words so could I. “Conviction. He’s that man – or was.”

  “Then we can – oh, by the way.” He turned to the table, pointed to an object on it, and asked one of the scientists, “Are you through with this ashtray, Walsh?”

  “All done, Captain. Got it.”

  “Then you can help a little, Goodwin, if you don’t mind. Just an experiment. Take it and hold it the way you would to hit a man on the head with it. Just naturally, without thinking.”

  “Sure,” I said, and reached to get it. Jiggling it, I would have said at least a pound and probably more. “There would be two ways, both good. Either take it by the rim, like this, that would be best if you had room and time to swing” – I swung to show him – “or, with a big mitt and long fingers like mine, just cup it, like this, and you could either swing or hook or jab.” I performed a healthy jab, then transferred the tray to my left hand, got out my handkerchief with my right, and started wiping the brass with plenty of pressure.

  “Not so good,” Groom said. “Your slapstick may go over big down where you belong, but here in the City of Albany we don’t appreciate it. It won’t buy you a thing.”

  “What would?” I demanded. “What did you want me to do, refuse to touch it?” I finished the rubbing and put the tray back on the table.

  “Come along,” he said, and moved. We followed him out and down the hall nearly to the end, where he opened a door and stood aside for us to pass. This was a corner room with windows on two sides, and it sported a couple of rugs. Seated at a desk with a window behind him was Albert Hyatt, talking on the phone. A man with big ears and a scar on his cheek came toward us and asked Groom how he wanted the chairs. So Wolfe and I would face the window, naturally. By the time Hyatt finished on the phone we were disposed, with Wolfe and me side by side and the man with ears at a little table nearby, with a notebook in front of him and a pen ready.

  Hyatt stood up and invited Groom to come and take the desk, and Groom said no thanks and kept his chair on this side of it, facing us. He focused on Wolfe. “Mr. Hyatt has let me read your statement. Your statement to the secretary of state regarding wiretapping. He has also told me what you said to him this morning – merely a repetition of parts of the statement. Do you now want to change it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you want to add anything to it?”

  “That depends. If I am under suspicion of murder, or if Mr. Goodwin is, I wish to add something. Are we under suspicion?”

  “Put it this way. You’re not charged. You’re being held for questioning, by police authority, to learn if you have any knowledge of the murder of a man with whom you admit you have been associated, and against whom you had a grievance. You did have a grievance?”

  “I did indeed. I wish to make a further statement.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was summoned by the secretary of state to appear at this address in Albany at ten o’clock this morning. At six o’clock this morning I left my house in New York, in my car, with Mr. Goodwin driving. We stopped once en route, to eat something we had with us, and for coffee. We arrived at this address shortly before ten o’clock and entered the building, were directed to room forty-two on the third floor, went straight there, speaking to no one, and I remained there until I was taken to see Mr. Hyatt. Mr. Goodwin was out of the room briefly, with Miss Sally Colt, to go for coffee. I have not at any time seen or spoken to – what am I to call that creature?”

  “The mu
rdered man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call him your client.”

  “I prefer not to, in this context. I’ve had other clients. With regard to the man who called on me last April and told me he was Otis Ross, and hired me to do a job as described in my statement to the secretary of state, I have never seen him or had any communication with him, or known anything of his whereabouts, since April thirteenth, nineteen-fifty-five. My next knowledge of him was when, after leaving the room with Mr. Hyatt this morning, Mr. Goodwin returned almost immediately to tell me that he was lying dead in a nearby room. My next sight of him was a few minutes ago, when I was taken to that room and saw him dead. I had not known that he was on the premises. It is inane to pile up negatives. I have no knowledge whatever of his death or of his movements prior to his death. Beyond the facts given in my statement to the secretary of state, I have no knowledge of any nature that might be of help in the investigation of this murder.”

  Wolfe considered a moment. “There, Mr. Groom. I don’t see what good can come of questions, but certainly you can try.”

  “Yeah, I can always try.” Groom looked at me, and I thought it was my turn, but he went back to Wolfe. “You say you entered this building this morning shortly before ten o’clock. How much before?”

  “Of my own knowledge, I don’t know. I don’t carry a watch. But as we entered Mr. Goodwin remarked that it was five minutes to ten. He claims that he never allows his watch to be more than thirty seconds off.”

  “What time was it when you got to room forty-two?”

  “I don’t know. I can only estimate. I would say that it took us four minutes, to the elevator, up to the third floor, and down the hall to the room. That would make it one minute to ten.”

  “What if one or more of the others say that you arrived in the room about a quarter past ten?”

  Wolfe eyed him. “Mr. Groom. That question is pointless and you know it. As a menace it is puerile. As a mere hypothesis it is flippant. And if one of them does say that you know how many issues it will raise, including his candor. Or more than one – even all of them. If you want your question answered as you put it, either his timepiece was wrong or his memory is at fault or he lies.”

  “Yeah.” Apparently Groom was hard to rile. He shifted to me. “Naturally you corroborate everything Wolfe has said. Do you?”

  “Naturally,” I told him.

  “Yes or no. Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Including the time of your arrival at this building?”

  “Yes. Nine-fifty-five.”

  He got up and stepped to me. “Let’s see your watch.”

  I twisted my arm around and pushed the shirt cuff back, and he took a look, then looked at his own, then back at mine. He told the man at the table, “Put it that I found Goodwin’s watch twenty seconds slow,” and returned to his chair.

  “You may wonder,” he said, “why I didn’t take you two separately. Because it would have been a waste of time. From what I know of your reputations and records and how you work, I figured that if you had fixed up a story the chance of my getting you to cross was so slim that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Also Mr. Hyatt wanted to go to lunch, and I wanted him with us, and you might as well know why.” He turned. “Will you tell them what you told me, Mr. Hyatt?”

  Hyatt’s strand of hair was back in place again. He was leaning forward with his elbows on the desk. “You mean about this morning?” he asked Groom.

  “Yes. Just that.”

  “Well, I got here early, a little before nine o’clock. One of my staff, Tom Frazer, was already here. We were here at this desk together, going over papers, getting ready for those who were to appear today, when the girl phoned me that a man wanted to see me about something that he said was urgent and confidential, he wouldn’t say what. He gave the name of Donahue, which meant nothing to me. I didn’t want him interrupting in here, so I went out front to get rid of him and found him on a bench in the hall. He wouldn’t talk in the hall, so I took him to the nearest empty room, room thirty-eight. He was a middle-aged man, about my height, brown hair and eyes –”

  “They’ve seen him,” Groom put in.

  “Oh.” Hyatt was fussed. “So they have. He said his name was William A. Donahue and he wanted to make a deal. He said he knew who was due to appear before me today, and that Nero Wolfe was one of them, and that he had got cold feet and wanted to get from under. His terms. Must I give the whole conversation, Captain? We talked for some twenty minutes.”

  “The substance will do. The main points.”

  “There was only one main point, actually. He floundered around a good deal, but this was the gist of it. In connection with a venture he was engaged in, he didn’t say what, he had procured some wiretapping operations, one of them through Nero Wolfe, for which he had paid Wolfe two thousand dollars. When the scandal started – he called it the big stink – and Broady was arrested and indicted, he had decided New York was too hot for him and had left the state. When he learned recently that this inquiry was to be held by the secretary of state, and that all private detectives were to be questioned, he had become alarmed, particularly on account of Nero Wolfe. Wolfe had abruptly called off the tap he had handled for him, and they had had a row, and Wolfe had it in for him. He knew how tricky Wolfe was, and now that he had been summoned – am I confusing you with my pronouns?”

  He was looking at Wolfe, so Wolfe replied. “Not at all. Go on.”

  “ – And now that Wolfe had been summoned, he knew he would try to wriggle out of it somehow or other, and that he – Donahue – would get hooked for something worse than procurement of illegal wiretapping. So he wanted to make a deal with me. If I would use my influence with the district attorney to go easy with him on the wiretapping charges, he would give me a full account of the operation, under oath, and would testify in court as required. I asked him if Wolfe had known the tap was illegal, and he said yes. I asked him if Donahue was his real name, and if he had given that name to Wolfe, and he said yes. I asked him for further information about himself, and he wouldn’t give me any until and unless I agreed to his proposal – except one item, that in New York he had lived at the Hotel Marbury. I told him I couldn’t make such a deal offhand, I’d have to think it over a little, and told him to wait there in the room and left him there, and came back to this room and –”

  “What time was it then?” Groom asked.

  “It was half past nine, a minute or two after. I don’t keep my watch as close to the dot as Goodwin does, but it’s fairly accurate.” He looked at his wrist. “I’ve got one-forty-two.”

  “You’re three minutes fast.”

  “Then it was about exactly nine-thirty when I returned to this room.” He went back to Wolfe. “I looked, of course, to see how much time I had. The hearing was supposed to begin at ten. I thought it was important enough to consult the secretary of state about it, so I called his office, but was told that he was in New York for a conference and his secretary didn’t know where I could reach him at that hour. I phoned the office of the district attorney of New York County and got Assistant DA Lambert, a friend of mine, and told him I wanted an emergency police report on a William A. Donahue who had lived last spring at the Hotel Marbury, as quickly as possible. At a quarter past ten I had had no word, and I tried to get the executive deputy secretary of state on the wire, but he wasn’t in his office. I told Tom Frazer all about it, and –”

  Groom stopped him. “I think that’ll do. You didn’t go back to room thirty-eight to see Donahue.”

  “No. I had told him it would take an hour or more, possibly two. When no report had come from New York at eleven o’clock – none has come yet – I decided to get Wolfe and Donahue face to face and see what happened, and I went to the hearing room and sent for Wolfe and Goodwin.” Hyatt looked at his watch. “I’m late for a lunch appointment.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Groom looked at Wolfe. “You want to ask Mr. Hyatt anything?”

 
Wolfe had his legs crossed, as usual when he was on a chair too small for him and without arms. He uncrossed them and put his palms on his knees. “Just a question or two. You will remember, Mr. Hyatt, that you told me that you personally credited my story. Why did you tell me that?”

  “Because I meant it.”

  “You had already talked with this Donahue.”

  “Yes, but I hadn’t believed him. I know something of your record and standing, and I knew nothing whatever of his. On the simple issue of veracity I preferred you, at least tentatively.”

  “Do you still credit my story?”

  “Well …” Hyatt looked at Groom and back at Wolfe. “Under the present circumstances I’m afraid my personal opinion is neither relevant nor cogent.”

  “I suppose not. One other thing. This Donahue said he had procured some wiretapping operations. Plural. Did he mention any names other than mine?”

  “Yes, he mentioned others, but he concentrated on you throughout the conversation.”

  “What other names did he mention?”

  “Just a minute,” Groom cut in. “I don’t think that’s called for. We won’t keep you any longer, Mr. Hyatt.”

  “I want to know,” Wolfe insisted, “if that man mentioned the names of any of the others summoned here today.”

  He had to keep on wanting. Hyatt looked at Groom, Groom shook his head, and Hyatt got up and went. Wolfe crossed his legs again, and also his arms, but the props weren’t right. He never was as impressive when he was on a chair that allowed portions of his fundament to lap over at the edges of the seat. When the door had closed behind the special deputy of the secretary of state, Groom spoke. “I wanted you to hear that direct from Mr. Hyatt. It’s neater that way. Do you want to change your statement now? Or add to it? Of course Donahue’s dead, but we’ve got his track and we know where to dig. You know how that is.”

  “Yes, I know.” Wolfe grunted “I like to talk, Mr. Groom, but not to no purpose. As for changing my statement, I might improve its diction or its punctuation, but materially, no. As for adding to it, I might make a few footnotes, as for instance that that man lied when he told Mr. Hyatt that he had given me his name as Donahue, and that I knew that the tap was illegal, but they are already implicit in the statement. I do have a request to make. I now have his name, at least the name he gave Mr. Hyatt, and the name of the hotel where he lived at the time he called on me. I can be of no use to you here. I have absolutely nothing for you; and if I am permitted to return to New York at once I shall devote all my talents and resources to the exposure of his background, his activities, his connections with –”