“Oh?” Remmers said. “Well, I’m aware from the papers that Mr. Wolfe has a strong interest in the death of Mr. Stevens, and I was hoping to make an appointment to see him today.”
“Precisely what I was going to talk to you about. Mr. Wolfe would like to see you, too. And as you may be aware, he doesn’t leave his office on business. Would it be possible for you to be here this morning? Say, at eleven-fifteen?”
“Yes, that would be no problem at all. I assume your address is correct as shown in the directory?” I said it was and hung up, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. It was only nine o’clock, and already I was batting two-for-two on the day’s instructions. Or was it zero-for-two? I hadn’t done a damn thing so far except answer calls. Maybe our strategy should be just to sit and wait for the phone to ring.
I called Wolfe in the plant rooms.
“Well?” He always sounds disgusted when he’s interrupted up there.
“Just reporting in. I’ve talked to Cohen, and Remmers will be here at eleven-fifteen.”
“Satisfactory,” he growled, hanging the phone up harder than he needed to.
I went back to the kitchen and had at least five bites of breakfast before the doorbell rang. “Whoever it is, tell them there’s nobody home,” I said to Fritz. “Tell them Wolfe and I have quit because of the pressure and have started a mink ranch up in Nova Scotia. Tell them anything that comes into your mind.”
He disappeared down the hall and was back a few moments later. “Archie, it is Inspector Cramer. I didn’t open the door, but he looks very determined.”
I pushed the plate of sausage links and buckwheat cakes away. “Fritz, this wasn’t meant to be eaten. Okay, I’ll go and try to handle the inspector. But I’m still not home to any reporters.”
Through the one-way panel, I could see that Cramer indeed looked determined. I cracked the door as far as the chain allowed. “We’re not open for business yet,” I said through the opening.
“Balls!” Cramer shot back. “I know Wolfe’s up playing with his flowers, but you’ll do. This is important.”
“I’m flattered you’d come all the way up here to see me,” I said, swinging open the door. With his usual manners, Cramer brushed by me and into the office without bothering to take his overcoat off, and he headed straight for the red leather chair. I followed and, since my own desk is across the room from where he’d plopped down, I sat behind Wolfe’s. “I’m only half his weight,” I conceded, “but this chair has strange and wondrous powers. Whenever I sit in it, I feel transformed, as if all the truths of the universe are within my grasp.”
“I know I’ve said it before, but by God, you’ll clown your way to the grave,” Cramer snarled, jamming an unlit cigar into his mouth. “Listen, Archie, this is serious, or I wouldn’t be here.” Whenever he calls me Archie, I know he’s being earnest, or making a pretense of it, so I put on a somber face.
Cramer leaned forward, resting an elbow on the corner of the desk. “Now, I know Wolfe got Milner out on bond—don’t interrupt. Parker won’t tell us anything more than that he’s representing Milner, and that’s his right, but I know damn well that whenever I find Nathaniel Parker involved in anything big in this town, Wolfe’s there as well. Okay, so Milner’s out, and that’s his right, too. I don’t know what Wolfe’s game is, but I’ll tell you this, Archie: He’s playing with a loaded grenade this time.” Cramer jabbed a finger in my direction and went on. “We’ve got Milner cold, and if Wolfe’s trying to drum up business by convincing that Radovich girl that somebody else did it—”
“Come on, Inspector. I know you and Mr. Wolfe have gone to the mat plenty through the years, and that you’ve accused each other of everything from incompetence and bad faith to high treason and murder, but he has never tried to manufacture business without a solid reason, and you know it. The problem is that you’ve got a weak suspect.”
“Weak?” Cramer slapped the arm of his chair. “Point one,” he said, holding out a finger. “Milner and Stevens got into it over Maria Radovich backstage at the concert hall. Half a dozen people heard it, and they all say Stevens insulted and humiliated Milner. Point two, Milner was the only person who entered Stevens’s apartment the night of the murder—he was positively identified by the hallman. Point three, we found Milner’s prints four places in the apartment, including the library. Point four, Milner admits he was in the apartment. And point five, he has no alibi whatever for his whereabouts at any time during the evening of the murder, up to the moment my men arrested him coming home to his place in Queens. And you call that weak?”
“Did you find his prints on those notes Stevens got?” I asked.
“No, although everybody else’s were on them,” Cramer said with a scowl. “Stevens’s own, of course, and Maria Radovich’s—and yours. But he probably had the presence of mind to wear gloves when he printed them.”
“But he didn’t have the presence of mind to wear gloves in Stevens’s apartment?”
“I can’t answer for his actions,” Cramer said, raising his voice, “but I do know there’s enough on him now to put him away. I also know the pressure to clean up the case is coming all the way from Albany, and if Wolfe gets the least bit out of line on this one, his license is gone like that.” Cramer snapped his fingers. “And yours too. You damn near lost it on the Cather thing, you know. Someday I’ll tell you why you didn’t.
“Look, Archie”—Cramer leaned forward and lowered his voice—“I like you, in spite of everything in the past. And I even kind of like Wolfe, although I can’t talk to him without blowing up; that’s why I came at this hour. I can reason with you—at least I think I can. I’m telling you that the commissioner and the D.A. are really watching Wolfe on this one. They’d like nothing better than an excuse to lift his license. As a friend, I’m asking you to talk Wolfe out of going on with this. Yeah, I know you’ll say you don’t have any influence over him, but we both know damn well that he listens to you. Don’t let him make a fool of himself on this one.”
“Inspector, as a friend I’m telling you that even if I did have the kind of influence over Wolfe you think I do, I wouldn’t try to whistle him off, and for a very simple reason: I don’t think Gerald Milner killed Stevens either.”
Cramer stood up and threw his cigar at the wastebasket. It went in for the first time I can remember, and he headed for the hall. “I tried,” he said as he opened the front door. “Just don’t say I didn’t try.” I started to answer, but he’d already slammed the door, and by the time I looked through the panel, he was climbing into the unmarked car that had been waiting at the curb.
12
I FINALLY DID GET THROUGH breakfast and the Times, but didn’t have much time for general housekeeping chores in the office before Wolfe came down. By eleven-oh-one, though, when I heard the sound of the elevator, I had managed to dust, empty wastebaskets, and make a little progress on the germination records.
“We had a visitor after I talked to you on the house phone,” I told Wolfe when he was settled in the chair that I had occupied an hour earlier. His face asked the question. “Inspector Cramer popped in to wish us a pleasant day,” I went on. “Actually, he wasn’t as interested in our having a nice day as he was that we quit the case. Seems the drive to get this one cleaned up fast is coming from all quarters, including the governor’s office. If you want it verbatim, I can just about work it in before Remmers arrives,” I said, looking at my watch.
“No, just the essentials,” Wolfe said, riffling through the stack of mail I’d put on his blotter. I fed it to him fast, including Cramer’s hint that he’d saved our licenses in the Cather mess. There was nothing in the mail to hold his interest, so Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes during my recitation, grimacing occasionally at a comment of Cramer’s.
“Pfui,” he said when I was finished. “Mr. Cramer obviously came here at the insistence of others, probably the commissioner or the district attorney. It wasn’t a fishing expedition, since the inspector didn�
��t seem interested in any other suspects we might have. They’re putting all their chips on Mr. Milner, to use one of your phrases. And they don’t want—” The doorbell rang.
“He’s sure prompt,” I said, nodding toward the wall clock, which read eleven-fifteen. “By the way,” I added, clearing my throat, “you should know that I didn’t call Remmers—he called us. He wanted to see you.”
“Indeed. Bring him in.”
Standing on the stoop, Jason Remmers looked just like his pictures on the society pages—tall, at least six-three, lean, long-faced, and very, very distinguished. “Mr. Remmers,” I said, opening the door, “I’m Archie Goodwin. Please come in.”
“Thank you,” he said, offering a large hand with a strong grip. I took his homburg and black cashmere overcoat in the front hall and ushered him into the office. “Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Remmers,” I said. Wolfe stayed seated, nodding his head, and Remmers, apparently aware of his host’s aversion to handshakes, didn’t offer a paw. “It’s a privilege to meet you, Mr. Wolfe,” he said in his baritone. “I’ve read and heard so much about you and this office. I never thought I’d get here, and I only wish the circumstances were more pleasant,” he said, settling into the red leather chair.
“Unfortunately,” Wolfe said, “most of the people who come here do so because of less-than-happy circumstances. I understand that you had wanted to see me?”
Remmers crossed one long leg over the other and fingered a cuff of his six-hundred-dollar custom-made gray pinstripe. “Yes, as I told Mr. Goodwin on the telephone, I’ve learned from the papers that you’re interested in Milan Stevens’s murder. Also, my friend Mr. Bristol, the police commissioner, told me last night that you posted the bond for Gerald Milner.”
“That’s not technically correct,” Wolfe said. “Mr. Milner’s bond was posted by an attorney named Nathaniel Parker.”
Remmers nodded and smiled. “All right; I’ve heard about your fondness for precise speech. In any event, Mr. Bristol led me to believe that you were instrumental in getting Milner released.”
“That’s only conjecture on the commissioner’s part,” Wolfe said. “Assuming it to be true, however, why are you here? Did Mr. Bristol ask you to come and dissuade us from further investigation?”
Remmers’s face showed surprise. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he did. But that’s not why I came. I’m chairman of the Symphony, and as you might imagine, these last two days have been sad and traumatic for everyone connected with the orchestra. They have been particularly so for me, as I was the one most responsible for Mr. Stevens coming to the Symphony.”
Remmers paused and looked at Wolfe, who nodded slightly. “Anyway, despite the police feeling that they’ve found the murderer, I’m not convinced—and I told Dick Bristol as much. Perhaps Mr. Milner is the guilty one, although that would surprise me greatly. I’d feel much more comfortable if you, as well as the police, arrived at that conclusion.” Remmers leaned forward in the chair. “Mr. Wolfe, all this is a long-winded way of saying I want to hire you to investigate the murder, regardless of how the commissioner feels about it. I know your fees are high, but I’m prepared to entertain any reasonable amount. I, not the Symphony, would be paying you.”
“Mr. Remmers, as you would learn if you were to read the edition of the Gazette that will soon be on the streets, I already have a client in this case, Maria Radovich.”
“Yes, Bristol seemed to be aware of that when I talked to him last night. But I’m sure I can pay a higher fee than she; or, if you prefer, perhaps an arrangement can be worked out for us to become co-clients.”
Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir, that wouldn’t work, and you know it. In the first place, your interests and Miss Radovich’s may not totally coincide. Second, in the course of my investigation, I may uncover information detrimental either to you or to the orchestra.”
“Such as?” Remmers said with a slight smile.
“It may be that you are the murderer,” Wolfe said.
Remmers didn’t blink. “If I were, I would hardly be trying to hire the most astute detective in New York, would I?”
“There’s precedent for such a move,” Wolfe answered. “Some years ago, a man engaged Mr. Goodwin and me to find out who killed an employee of the firm of which he was an officer. I found the murderer—it was our client.”
“Yes, now that you mention it, I recall the case. In any event, I’m sure I’m not as clever as that murderer probably was, but I guess I see your point. And the important thing to me is that you are working on the murder. I can promise you full cooperation from the Symphony, at least as far as my authority extends.”
Wolfe nodded. “Now we come to the reason why I had also wanted to see you, sir. I was going to request just such cooperation. For starters, you said you weren’t convinced of Mr. Milner’s guilt. Why?”
Remmers considered the question. “I admit I don’t know Gerald Milner awfully well—he’s only been with the Symphony a couple of years or so. But I’ve talked to him on occasion at receptions and such—I try to make it a point to meet everyone in the orchestra—and it’s difficult for me to picture him being even the least bit scheming, let alone violent. The orchestra is made up of a great many disparate personalities, as you can appreciate, and his is among the mildest—perhaps ‘meekest’ is a better word—of them all.”
“The meek and mild have wreaked a great deal of destruction through the ages,” Wolfe said.
“Certainly, and it may indeed be that Milner is one of those,” Remmers conceded. “But I simply don’t believe it.”
“Do you have someone else to suggest?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it. There were a number of people who found it, well … difficult to get along with Milan Stevens. He was rigid and unbending, as you probably have heard, and a lot of people who had to work with him were put off by his attitude and personality.”
“Including you?”
“I guess I was a special case. I brought him here from London two years ago—two-and-a-half, actually—and he felt a debt to me because of that. Besides, as chairman I don’t get very involved in the day-to-day operations of the orchestra, so Stevens and I didn’t really have occasion to clash.”
“But he collided with others at a high level?”
Remmers smiled ruefully. “Yes, indeed. For instance, he and Charles Meyerhoff, the managing director, were openly hostile to each other. Charlie felt the orchestra’s morale was even worse than it had been under the previous conductor, and that the choice of repertoire made us seem like a glorified Boston Pops.”
Wolfe looked puzzled, and Remmers picked up on it. “That is, under Stevens, the Symphony was playing music that appealed to the greatest numbers, rather than music that was necessarily of the highest caliber, or music that was more adventuresome.”
“Was this true?”
“That’s a subjective judgment,” Remmers answered, “although there’s no question that the Symphony programs the last two seasons have run more heavily toward Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Brahms, and so forth, the popular composers.”
“Did you agree with Mr. Meyerhoffs position on the orchestra’s morale?” Wolfe asked.
“Not at first,” Remmers said. “Charlie tends to be a griper by nature—never satisfied, never happy. So when he initially came to me complaining about Stevens’s Prussian approach, I shrugged it off as just another example of his pessimistic outlook. Besides, one of the big reasons we brought Milan in was to reestablish discipline in the orchestra. For a number of years, the Symphony had been without a strong music director, and this was reflected in the quality of the playing. At first, I was delighted to hear about the new strictness.”
“But your opinion changed?”
“Yes,” Remmers said. “After the first year, I began to realize that Milan was alienating a number of people with his approach, and during the second year, it seemed as if almost everyone was being alienated by his policies, his brusqueness, his inflexi
bility.”
“Did you talk to him about this?” Wolfe asked.
“Lord, yes, numerous times. I tried to explain that we needed discipline without intimidation, and he would always insist that this was his way of operating, that it had been successful in London, Vienna, and other places. But each time, our conversations ended with him saying he would try to be more understanding and easier to get along with.
“Unfortunately, his good intentions never seemed to last long, and Meyerhoff would be back griping to me. In the last few months, Charlie started saying he was going to quit, that he couldn’t take the fighting and tension and what he felt was the overpopularization of the repertoire. He said he couldn’t function when we had a music director who wanted to be the general manager as well.”
“But you were able to keep Mr. Meyerhoff in the fold?” Wolfe asked.
“Barely. For the last eight months or so, my main function has been peacemaker, rather than fund-raiser and civic representative of the Symphony, which is what I’m supposed to be. It’s been rough,” he said, running a hand across his chin.
“Are you suggesting by all this that Mr. Meyerhoff might have killed Milan Stevens?”
Remmers jerked upright. “Oh no, no, not necessarily. There were others who probably disliked Milan every bit as much as he did. To name two, Dave Hirsch, the associate conductor, and Donald Sommers, the principal flutist.”
Wolfe shifted uneasily. He hadn’t rung for beer, and I knew why. “What were the causes of their animus toward Mr. Stevens?”
“Well, Hirsch had been associate conductor under the previous music director and seemed to think he was the logical choice at the time we brought in Stevens. But it was explained to him that he wasn’t even being considered for the post. Off the record, he just hasn’t got the presence or the depth for the job. Anyway, he’s resented Stevens from day one, and it’s gotten worse. Milan didn’t delegate much responsibility, so Hirsch was doing less than he had before. And to make matters worse, Hirsch had composed a symphony that he would dearly love to have premiered by the orchestra. But Stevens told him he didn’t find its caliber high enough for the Symphony. Since then, they’ve barely been on speaking terms. I’ve been expecting Hirsch to come in any day and tell me he’s quitting after the current season.”
Murder in E Minor Page 9
