“Not wasting any time, is she?” I snapped, and Fritz said something about only being a message-taker. When Wolfe came down at six and settled in behind his desk, I told him about the call. The reaction was a shrug and a request to turn down the thermostat. “A damn good idea!” I said, standing up. “A little less heat might stimulate some mental activity around here—God knows we could use it. Maybe if I open a couple of windows too, we’ll—”
“Archie, shut up. You’re prattling. What would you have me do? Buy advertising time on television? Or erect a billboard on Times Square? Like good fishermen, we have put out our lines. And also like good fishermen, we need to exercise some patience.”
“What do you know about fishing?” I snarled as I turned the heat down. “You haven’t dropped a hook in the water since the invention of the reel.” There was more to our conversation, but that’s enough to give you the flavor, and also an indication of why there wasn’t much talking at the dinner table, despite Wolfe’s attempts to start a discussion on what New York would be like today if the Dutch hadn’t got muscled out by the English a few centuries back. It was also quiet in the office after dinner, and when the phone rang, I almost knocked over my coffee cup reaching for the receiver.
I expected Saul’s voice, or possibly Fred’s, but it was Hitchcock. “Hallo, I’ve got a little bit for you,” he said as I motioned Wolfe to pick up his instrument. “It’s quite late here, you know, but I just got a call back from Frankfurt, and I knew you were anxious. First off, I should tell you that the chap from Italy was no help. Seems Stevens’s years there were most uneventful. And I could find nothing here in London, either, except for some general grumblings that he was a strict taskmaster. But as to Munich,” he said, “my associate in Frankfurt tells me there was one untoward incident. Happened about fifteen years ago, he can get the exact date if you like. It seems a young oboe player in the Munich orchestra named Wald, Willy Wald, was dismissed by Stevens, and rather summarily, at that. Anyway, the young man was killed in a motorcar crash less than a week later. He was alone in the car, and it went off a cliff in the Bavarian Alps for no apparent reason. The authorities ruled it an accident, but there was speculation in the press at the time about suicide. Rather nasty, as you can imagine.
“Stevens defended himself by saying that Wald hadn’t been playing well enough to remain in the orchestra. The business got a good bit of publicity for a few days, but according to my Frankfurt friend, it blew over, and Stevens went on to conduct in Munich for several more seasons. I’m not sure this is of any help to you, but you said you wanted anything beyond the ordinary.”
“Quite so,” Wolfe said, “and I thank you for robbing from your sleep to report this. Anything else?” Hitchcock said there wasn’t, and we signed off.
“Well, is that what you were expecting?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Wolfe said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers over his belly. He stayed that way for several minutes, then blinked his eyes and reached for his book. I started to say something, but the phone rang.
This time, it was Fred. “Archie, I’ve gotta go home now, or all hell will break loose with Fanny. I’ve had hookers laugh at me and swear at me and try to do business with me, but no luck on what we’re looking for. I’m whipped.”
I cupped the mouthpiece, telling Wolfe that Fred wanted to pack it in for the night, and he nodded. “Okay, make for home; maybe tomorrow will be better,” I said, hanging up. “Who am I kidding?” I told Wolfe. “Tomorrow will be more of the same, and we all know it. Let me go and talk to Hubbard; if there was a hooker around the building that night, I’ll find out.”
“No,” Wolfe said, shaking his head. “We can always do that later, if necessary. Maybe Saul will bring us news.”
But Saul didn’t. At eleven-twenty, he called in and said he’d talked to more than three dozen entrepreneurs of the street, without success. “But I want to keep at it, Archie. Ask Mr. Wolfe to give us some more time.”
“Oh, he will,” I said, watching Wolfe coax the last few drops of beer out of his glass. “In fact, I think he may give you another month if you want it. Well, it’s his money—enjoy yourself.” Saul hung up, and I told Wolfe the day’s excitement had been too much for me, that I was going up to bed. He looked up, nodded, and rang for more beer.
19
TUESDAY WAS A XEROX OF Monday: snow, although now just flurries; Wolfe at his desk reading and ignoring me; and Saul and Fred somewhere out there searching for a woman who might or might not exist. I clipped my nails, shined three pairs of shoes, changed the ribbon in my typewriter, and took two suits to the cleaners. Maria called just after lunch, and I told her we had several lines out. She was back staying with Lily, although she said she could face the apartment now and might move back tomorrow. I suggested she stay put for a few more days.
“The company does Lily good,” I said. “Gives her somebody to spout off to about why the Democrats are God’s chosen people.” Maria laughed for the first time since I’d met her, and it sounded nice. I told her that if she felt up to it, I’d take her and Lily to Rusterman’s that night for a quiet dinner in one of the small rooms upstairs. She said thanks, but Jerry was coming over and they just wanted to be alone and maybe would take a walk. Not to be totally spurned, I got Lily to the phone and made a date for the two of us. Lily Rowan rarely says no to a dinner invitation.
She was oozing questions about our progress, and I told her that I didn’t think we were doing so hot. “But I haven’t been that candid with Maria,” I said, “so please don’t make a liar out of me when you talk to her. We haven’t got forever on this, although Wolfe’s acting like it. The D.A.’s office may move slowly sometimes, but on this one they’ll be trying for a fast wrap-up. I guess I would too, in their place.”
At a table upstairs in Rusterman’s, Lily eyed me over her wineglass. “M’love, are you absolutely convinced that Milner didn’t do it?”
“Aren’t you?” I asked back, doing my eyebrow trick. “You’ve had plenty of time to observe him the last few days. Do you think he’s a killer?”
She shook her head and smiled. “I really don’t, and I like to think that intuition of mine that you talk about so much really works. But who else have you got?”
“You’ll have to ask my boss about that. For all I know right now, he thinks it’s a suicide, that Stevens had a triple-jointed right arm and stabbed himself in the back.”
That was enough business talk for the evening, and Lily knew it, so we drifted into other areas, such as who was divorcing whom in her crowd and why. That was hardly a favorite topic of mine, but Lily was so entertaining that for one stretch of at least six minutes, I didn’t think once about the murder. Finally, though, she must have noticed me sneaking peeks at my watch, and for the second time in a week she suggested we should be going. “I know you’re busting to be back at your desk, Escamillo. Just promise me that when you bust the case wide open—how I love that phrase—you’ll let me be one of the first to know.” I promised I would, and then dropped her off at her place in a taxi, arriving home myself at just after ten-thirty.
If I didn’t know about Wolfe’s obsession with meal schedules, I would have sworn he hadn’t moved since I left. He was in the same position with the same book and the tray with two beer bottles and a glass in the same place on the desk. It even seemed like the beer in the glass was at the same level. “Anybody call?” I asked, dropping into my chair. “Saul? Fred? The mayor? The president?”
“Nobody,” Wolfe said. “Was your meal good?”
I told him it was adequate, and he nodded. After Marko Vukcic’s death, Wolfe had been trustee of Rusterman’s for many years and had paid close attention to the cuisine and the operation. He also had made it a practice to dine there regularly, though he would have preferred being at home. Since the end of his role as trustee, he felt—and I agreed—that the quality of the food had dropped off, although for my money it was still the best spot in town for di
nner if you didn’t count an old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth.
“We had flounder tonight,” Wolfe said, keeping his eyes on the book. “It was superb.” He was getting back for my needling in the afternoon.
“Happy to hear it,” I said. “They call fish brain food, don’t they? Any results yet? At the rate we’re moving, Milner will be doing life before we decide whether to take Saul and Fred off the job of interviewing filles de joie.”
Wolfe set his book down and looked at me. “Where did you learn that idiom? I salute your literacy, if not your pronunciation.”
“Let me translate for you,” I said. “It means—”
“I’m aware of what it means,” Wolfe said with a scowl. “As to the translation …” The sentence trailed off and he leaned back slowly in his chair, closing his eyes. I started to say something but checked myself. He sat that way without moving for quite a while, about five minutes, while I watched him, waiting.
Then it happened. At first, it was just a twitch, but soon the rhythm started. His lips began pushing out and in, out and in. I stayed still, but even if I’d said something, he wouldn’t have heard it. When he’s like this, no one and nothing short of a nuclear explosion can reach him. Because I’ve got a thing for timing, I looked at my watch when it started, then went to the liquor cabinet, poured a brandy, and settled in at my desk.
Forty-three minutes and two brandies later, Wolfe opened his eyes, taking several deep breaths. “Bah, I’ve been wearing blinders,” he announced. “The truth has been screaming like a banshee from the housetops, but I’ve kept my ears plugged and my mind closed. The road has been littered with signs, and I’ve ignored them all. Get Saul. Get Fred. Call them off. This has been needlessly prolonged.”
Perhaps by now you’ve figured it out too, but I hadn’t. When Lily first read this, she said she realized what had happened about the same time Wolfe did, but I told her—as I have in the past—that when you’re in the middle of things, the truth isn’t as easy to spot as when you’re paging through a manuscript. And besides, by the time Lily read this, she already knew how the story ended.
I asked Wolfe for some answers, and just as I did, the phone rang; it was Saul. “Archie, I’ve got her,” he said. “She’s right outside the phone booth and scared silly. Does Mr. Wolfe want to see her?”
“Saul,” I told Wolfe, cupping the phone. “Good things seem to be coming in bunches. He says he has the lady you’re looking for, and he wants to know if he should bring her over.”
Wolfe nodded grimly. “Yes, Saul, come ahead,” I told him. “Have you heard from Fred? … Well, if you happen to see him, call him in.” I hung up and swiveled to Wolfe. “Okay, I think I’m beginning to get a glimmer now. Let me tell you where I am, and you can plug the holes.”
For the next twenty minutes, Wolfe did fill some holes, although by then I was starting to add a few things up myself. When the doorbell rang, I went to the hall and could see that she was a redhead, all right, and not very happy. When I swung the door open, Saul introduced her simply as Mindy, and after I took both their coats, they trooped into the office.
Through the years, Wolfe has reluctantly questioned a lot of women, but this was the capper. Mindy was wearing a tight maroon sweater, beige miniskirt, and knee-high white spike-heeled boots, not to mention the long red hair that tumbled down over her shoulders. I put her in the red leather chair, and Saul took one of the yellow chairs.
“I ran into her on Fifth near Sixty-seventh,” Saul told Wolfe. “She didn’t seem interested in talking about anything except business at first. Then when I asked about whether she ever worked up in the Seventies, she started to walk away, swearing at me. I grabbed her, though, and told her I wasn’t with the police, but that I knew a lot of them and might turn her in if she didn’t help. Right, Mindy?”
She cursed and turned to me. “What’s the bit, anyway? Who’s the fat guy? I haven’t given anybody a hassle. To hell with this.” She rose to go, but Saul put a firm hand on her shoulder, and she sat back down. He looked at Wolfe and went on: “Anyway, I got her to tell me that she was up there Wednesday night. With Hubbard. I said that if she didn’t talk to me, it would be worse with the police.”
Wolfe considered Mindy. “Madam, I can’t guarantee you protection, that’s true; but it’s safe to say your chances are better if you come forth voluntarily.”
“But you’re not a cop, right?” Mindy said, uncrossing her legs and sitting up straight in the chair.
“Correct,” Wolfe said. “However, you’re in a spot. We know who you are, and if we report you to the police, it will be far worse than if you admit you spent a portion of last Wednesday night with Mr. Thomas Hubbard.” Wolfe was playing a weak hand; we didn’t in fact have her name—none of us had seen any identification yet. But she was jumpy and knew she couldn’t get out of the house easily. She licked her lips and looked at me with what she thought must have been an appealing expression, but all she got in return was a noncommittal smile.
She turned back to Wolfe and Saul again; the game was over. I poured a brandy and handed it to her, and she took a sip before Wolfe started in. This time, she opened up. Her name was Mindy Ross, from Pennsylvania, and she was twenty-three. She said she’d been in what she called her “current line of work” for eighteen months, all of it in New York. She answered each of Wolfe’s questions about Wednesday night, and her description of what had happened was just as Wolfe had been telling me when Saul called.
If he was feeling smug, Wolfe didn’t show it, though he had every right to be. “Archie, Miss Ross will be staying with us tonight. Show her to the South Room and explain our alarm system to her.”
“Wait a damn minute,” Mindy spat. “Nobody said anything about stayin’ overnight. I’ve got to be out—”
“You don’t have to be anywhere,” Wolfe snapped. “You will stay at least through tomorrow. And you will probably have to make do with men’s pajamas, but if you wish, some fresh clothing can be purchased for you in the morning.”
I was standing next to Mindy now. She looked up at me and then at Wolfe and back at me again. She swore softly and stood, letting me direct her up the stairs to the room on the third floor behind mine where Milner had been the most recent guest. “This is the place,” I said. “We weren’t expecting a guest, but I think you’ll find things in order. Mr. Brenner is the closest to you in size in the house, so I’ll get a pair of pajamas and a robe from him. I’ll also see that you get breakfast in your room, say, at eight-thirty.
“Now, as to what Mr. Wolfe mentioned: When I go to bed, I hit a switch that turns on alarms in this house. One of them is just outside your door, so that if you try to step out into the hall …” I gestured with both hands to show the futility of such a move. “And even if you got out of your room, you wouldn’t know how to open the front door—it’s got a special lock. Any questions?”
She had slumped down on the bed, and was sitting there looking like she was about to cry. The hard facade was gone. “Geez, what’s gonna happen? I wasn’t lookin’ for any trouble. I’ve had enough problems with the cops, I don’t need this.” I said something I thought would be comforting, but it didn’t help, so I walked out and closed the door behind me.
Back in the office, Saul had poured himself a brandy, and he and Wolfe were talking. “Plotting for tomorrow?” I said, sliding into my chair.
“Yes, I was just telling Saul that I want everyone here tomorrow night at nine, including him and Fred. We’ll also need Miss Radovich,
Mr. Milner, Mrs. Forrester-Moore, and all those people from the Symphony that we’ve talked to, including of course Mr. Remmers. And the hallman, Mr. Hubbard. I’ve asked Saul to bring him here; can you arrange for the rest to be present?”
“All in a day’s work.” I shrugged. “I suppose you’ll want Cramer, too?”
Wolfe nodded. “I’ll call him myself and suggest he bring Sergeant Stebbins.”
For another half-hour Wolfe sketched the plan for t
omorrow. We were interrupted once, by Fred calling in to report. I told him Saul had found our woman, and that he should stop by in the morning for a fill-in on the evening’s schedule. “Well, it’s been nice working for Mr. Wolfe again,” he said, “but Fanny’s going to be awfully happy when this one’s over.”
“Believe me, it’s almost over,” I said, hanging up and turning back to Wolfe.
20
IT WASN’T HARD FOLLOWING THROUGH on my assignments Wednesday morning. I started with Jason Remmers and got him at home. “Mr. Wolfe has an important announcement about the Stevens murder,” I said into the phone. “He asks if you could be in his office at nine tonight, and he wonders if you could ask Misters Meyerhoff, Hirsch, and Sommers to come again, as well.” Actually, Wolfe had asked me to get all the orchestra people, but I figured they’d take more from Remmers. He said he could make it that night, and that he’d call me back on the others. “It’s extremely important that everyone be there,” I stressed before we hung up.
Next was Lucinda. “You told me the other day that you always wanted to meet Nero Wolfe,” I said when she answered. “Now’s your chance. He thought you might like to be here at a gathering at nine tonight; it’s to do with Mr. Stevens’s murder.”
“Oh, Archie, I already have plans,” she said. “Do you know what he’s going to say?” I told her I didn’t have the foggiest idea. “Well … if you really want me to be there, all right, I’ll cancel my engagement. For you, Archie.” I said Wolfe and I both appreciated it, and that we’d see her at nine.
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