“Possibly, but he could have ordered me out and called a cop if he had to. It’s just a comment; maybe it was because he likes problems, or maybe he thought it would be good for her. More than a comment, a conclusion: if they’re out, they have no idea who is in. She said she couldn’t even try to guess, and I believe her. She’s no good at covering. When I pulled an obvious little dodge, saying that it might have been Orrie who was paying the rent, it wasn’t only her expression, she actually shook her head. Later she said she didn’t know who, but she does. What the hell, so do we.”
“If Orrie was candid.”
“He was. He had the lid off. For comments, I have saved the best for the last. Isabel’s other life. The circle.”
He grunted. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“That expands it. That was to be expected, as soon as you learned that her relations with her sister were restricted. A woman who eats by sufferance, without a contract, would of course prefer not to eat alone. You laugh?”
“I do. Most men wouldn’t put it all on eating. All right, so we have a circle too—as expected. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Godalmighty. I suggest again that we consider Avery Ballou.”
“I am considering him. I wanted first—no matter. We’ll discuss it in the morning after you see Orrie.” He reached for the transcript.
Chapter 6
Where you go to see a man in custody in Manhattan depends partly on why he’s there. It can be a precinct station, a room in the City Prison, a room in the District Attorney’s office, or the paddock. I don’t know how many cops call it the paddock, but Sergeant Purley Stebbins does. It is a bare, smelly room about twelve yards long, split along the center by a steel grill which extends from the middle of a wide wooden counter up to the ceiling, and there are a dozen or so wooden chairs strung along each side of the counter, the same kind of chairs for the visitors and visitees. Democracy.
Seated on one of the chairs on the visitors’ side at ten minutes past ten Tuesday morning, I was not chipper. I had supposed I would see Orrie in a room at the DA’s office until Parker had phoned to say it would be the City Prison, and then I had taken it for granted it would be in a room. But I had been escorted to the paddock, and there I was, with four other visitors spread along the line, the nearest one, a middle-aged fat woman with red eyes, only seven feet away. I would have liked to think they were merely showing what they thought of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but I didn’t. They had decided that Orrie Cather was a murderer, though they hadn’t charged him yet, and were taking no chances. Try to make them eat it.
A door opened in the back wall, the other side of the grill and counter, and Orrie entered, cuffed, with a dick right behind. The dick steered him to a chair opposite me, watched him sit, said, “Fifteen minutes,” and went back to the wall, where another dick was standing. My eyes and Orrie’s met as well as they could through the grill. The rims of his were puffy. He had once admitted to me that he brushed his hair ten minutes every morning, but he hadn’t that morning.
“It could be bugged,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. His cuffed hands were on the counter. “Too risky. Too big a stink.”
“Well, all we can do is keep it low. Parker has told you that Mr. Wolfe and Saul and Fred and I have decided that you didn’t kill her and we’re on it.”
“Yeah, I knew he’d have to. I’m not his Archie Goodwin, but even me he’d have to.”
“I prefer to regard myself as my Archie Goodwin, but we won’t go into that now. I have a couple of questions, but Parker says you wanted to see me. Well?”
“I want you to do me a favor, Archie, a big favor. I want you to see Jill Hardy and tell her—”
“I’ve already seen her. She came to the office yesterday morning, don’t interrupt, and we had a talk. I didn’t know how much you had told her about Isabel Kerr, so I—”
“I have never told her anything about Isabel Kerr. She didn’t know there was an Isabel Kerr. Goddammit, what did you tell her?”
“Same as you, nothing. Of course that’s the favor you were going to ask, and it’s already done. I told her that the cops thought you killed her, and we thought you didn’t, and we were going to investigate, and we knew nothing about Isabel Kerr. Now I have—”
“You’re wonderful, Archie. Wonderful.”
“Put it in writing and I’ll frame it. I have questions, and we haven’t much time. Have you opened up at all?”
“No. I’m a dummy.”
“Stay that way. As you know, Parker agrees. What have they got? We know they got your license and the other objects, since you didn’t get them and I didn’t, and your prints, and her diary, but is that—”
“Her diary?”
“Yeah. You didn’t know she kept one?”
“My God, no.”
“She did, and they have it, so Cramer says. He didn’t say what’s in it. Probably you are, but we want your opinion on another point: would she put his name in it? The name I had to pry out of you.”
“Oh.” He looked at it a few seconds. “I see. That might be a point. I don’t think she would. Of course she had the diary stashed, but even so I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t. She was too cagey. It’s more than just an opinion. I say no.”
I looked at my wrist. Six minutes to go. “Now the question. How many people knew about you and her?”
“Nobody.”
“Nuts. You can’t know that.”
“As far as I know, nobody. You’ve heard me blow, Archie, but you never heard me blow about her. After just a few times with her she scared me. I had had women cotton to me before, but she was hipped. I liked her all right, she was good all right, but she was hipped. After we got started we were never together anywhere except her place. She wanted it that way, and that suited me. But I completely misjudged her. I told her about meeting Jill, you know, just that I had met an airline stewardess, and then like a damn fool I thought I could ease her along to the idea that since I wasn’t her only contact she couldn’t expect to be my only contact. Then I got hipped, for the first time in my life. On Jill. And she—I’ve told you how she took it. She was absolutely going to marry me herself, for God’s sake. I told her my income was about half of what he was spending on that setup, and she said just a room and bath would do us even after the baby came. That kind of crap. I don’t for a minute believe there was going to be a baby, and even if there was, whose would it be? I’m answering your question. I told nobody about her, and I doubt if she told anyone about me.”
“But she told you about other people, didn’t she?”
“Some, yes. You know, just talk, sure.”
“Which one of them killed her? Who had a reason to?”
He nodded. “Naturally I’ve thought about it. If she ever said a single damn thing about anyone that might give a hint I can’t dig it up. I realize that there’s only one way you can spring me, and God knows I wish I could give you a steer, but I swear I can’t. Sure, she told me about people, men who made passes at her, women she liked and some she didn’t like, but I have gone over it and over it and came up with nothing. I know you have to start somewhere, and that’s the other thing, besides Jill, I wanted to tell you. The woman she liked best, and saw the most of, is a night-club singer named Julie Jaquette. Her real name is Amy Jackson. She was at the Ten Little Indians week before last and may still be there. She would probably be the best bet. Have you got anything yet? Anything at all?”
“No. Did you ever meet the sister, Stella Fleming?”
“No. Isabel talked about her. She said that when we were married not only would she be happy, her sister would be too. I was supposed to get a kick out of that, making two women happy at once.”
“You should have. Did she ever mention—” I stopped because we were about to be interrupted. The dick was coming. He touched Orrie on the shoulder, which was unnecessary, and said time was up. I raised my voice. “What’s your name?”
He looked down his nose at me.
“My name?”
“Yes. Your personal name.”
“My name is William Flanagan.”
“Another William.” I rose. “I’m going to report you for brutality. Mr. Cather is merely detained as a material witness. You didn’t have to grab his shoulder.” I turned and headed for the door, and the dick who had brought me in joined me as I reached for the knob.
William Flanagan hadn’t stopped anything important; I had only been going to ask if Isabel had ever mentioned Dr. Gamm.
In the taxi, going uptown, I touched bottom. I had hoped to get some little lead out of Orrie, at least a glimmer, but as we turned west at 35th Street I realized that I was going over how he had looked and what he had said for indications about him, which was plain silly, since he was supposed to be definitely out. Of course the trouble was that the only way to get something out of your mind is to get something else in. The idea that Orrie might have conked Isabel Kerr with that ashtray had popped into my head as soon as I saw the dent in her skull, and it was going to stay there, no matter what, until I had an X or Y to substitute for Orrie; and after three days and nights there was still no X or Y anything like good enough. If you say, even so, I shouldn’t have been considering Orrie because we had barred him, you’re perfectly right but you don’t know much.
To show how I was taking it, when I entered the office I did not open the top left drawer of my desk to get the pad on which I enter items for my weekly expense account. The $3.75 cab fare would be on me. Wolfe had told us the undertaking was his, but until we brought him something he would have nothing to undertake, and he had no corner in self-esteem. Since it was only a couple of minutes past eleven, he had just come down from the plant rooms and was taking a look at the mail. When he found there was nothing interesting, no checks and no lists from orchid collectors, he pushed it aside and said good morning. I said it wasn’t, and to prove it gave him a verbatim report of my talk with Orrie, ending with the comment that he had better take on the next one himself, since I had got nowhere with the three I had tackled, Jill Hardy and the Flemings.
“Anyway,” I said, “it’s a man. I admit that Julie Jaquette would probably be too much for you, but she can wait until you have had a go at Avery Ballou.”
He frowned. “Dr. Gamm.”
I frowned back. “You can’t put it off forever. As you know, I agree with you on jobs like divorce evidence, they’re too grubby. Any job is apt to be if the main point is who has been, or is, or will be, sleeping with whom. But while it’s true that Ballou was probably not paying her rent so he could read poetry to her, that presumably sex was a factor, that’s not the main point and you can ignore it. You can pretend that he might have killed her because she snickered when he pronounced a word wrong.”
His lips were tight. He breathed three times before he said, “Very well. Bring him.”
I nodded. “Okay, but I don’t know when or how. I looked him up a little last night. He is not only president of the Federal Holding Corporation, he’s also a director of nine other big outfits. He has a house on Sixty-seventh Street, one at Rhinebeck, and one at Palm Beach. He’s fifty-six years old. He has one married son and two married daughters. I would have to call the bank to learn the size of his stack, and we don’t want to advertise that you have any curiosity about him, but it—”
“I said bring him.”
“I heard you. I am explaining that it wouldn’t be advisable to tell the receptionist at his office, and the underling she would pass me to, that a private detective named Nero Wolfe wants to consult him about a matter that is too confidential for any ears but his. Phoning would be even worse. Therefore I must arrange something, and Julie Jaquette will have to be postponed.”
He grunted. “Any word from Saul?”
“He phoned at nine o’clock. Fred was with him and they were proceeding. He’ll call around one.”
“Pfui. A prodigy on a treadmill. Take him off. Give him Miss Jaquette. He will get names from her, and Fred will help with them.” He reached for the mail. “Your notebook. This letter from that ass in Paris will have to be answered.”
Chapter 7
At four o’clock that afternoon I stood in the marble lobby of a forty-story financial castle in Wall Street, across from the row of elevators that were marked “32-40.” I was equipped. In my head was a picture of Avery Ballou, acquired from a back number of Fortune magazine at the New York Public Library, and in my pocket was a card. It was like the card I had given William the elevator man—my name in the middle and Nero Wolfe’s name and address and phone number in smaller type at the bottom—but I had added something. Typewritten below my name was the information: “There was a diary in the pink bedroom and the police have it.” It filled the space neatly.
I may have been overdoing it. It was conceivable that not only Ballou’s wife and family, but also some of his friends, and even some of the Federal Holding Corporation personnel, knew how he had spent some of his evenings. But it was likely that they didn’t. Some of the adjectives about him in Fortune were “astute,” “aloof,” “conventional,” and “scrupulous.” I don’t swallow printed adjectives whole, but if that batch was only half right it was going to be ticklish. So I spent a hundred minutes down in the lobby instead of going up to the thirty-fourth floor. Anyhow it was better than the upstairs hall at 2938 Humboldt Avenue, especially from five o’clock on, when every elevator unloaded a flock of wrens, a pleasing sight. I know that the wrens who lay eggs don’t flock, but if they used elevators instead of wings they would have to.
I had looked at my watch at 5:38, and it was two minutes later that Avery Ballou showed. Of those who had been with him in the elevator, one man stayed with him as they went down the lobby, talking. I followed, six steps back, hoping they would separate, and they did, out on the sidewalk. The man went toward Broadway, and Ballou just stood there. I approached, faced him, offered the card, and said, “This will interest you, Mr. Ballou. Is there enough light?”
For a second I thought he was going to snub it, and so did he, but he looked at my face, the manly honest face that had launched a thousand cards, took it, tilted it for better light, and focused on it. I had plenty of time to size him up. His dark gray coat had set him back three Cs, possibly four, and his dark gray hat around forty bucks. His head was the right size for his big solid frame, and his face was a little seamy but had no sag. It still didn’t say when he finished with the card, stuck it in his pocket, and looked at me.
“Interest me?” he asked.
I nodded. “Of course this is no place to discuss it. The best place for that is Nero Wolfe’s office. He knows even more than the police do about that pink bedroom and about the man they’re holding, and about you. The best time would be now. That’s really all I have to say, I’m just the messenger boy. But you have to admit it was considerate of me not to go up to the thirty-fourth floor and give somebody that card to take in.”
He turned his head, clear around—to see if there was a cop handy? No. A Rolls-Royce town car had pulled up and stopped, and the uniformed chauffeur was getting out. Ballou turned back to me and asked, “Where is it?”
“West Thirty-fifth Street. Nine-thirty-eight.”
“Have you a car?”
“Not here.”
“If you ride with me you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
“Right. I’ve said my piece.”
He stepped to the Rolls and got in, and I followed, and the driver shut the door and got in behind the wheel. As we moved, Ballou told him we would make a stop and gave him the address. As we stopped for a light at the corner I was thinking that it was the first time I had ever delivered a murder suspect to the old brownstone in his own Rolls-Royce. The rest of the way, since we were not speaking, I concentrated on how it handled, and decided it was a little smoother than the Heron but not quite as fast on the take.
It was after six when we got there, so Wolfe would be down. While I am not as childish as he is about showing off, I like to do things r
ight, so after attending to Ballou’s hat and coat, and mine, in the hall, I went to the office door, stepped in, announced, “Mr. Ballou,” and moved aside. He entered, stopped, glanced around, and asked, “Is this room bugged?”
“Confound it,” Wolfe said, “it will soon be impossible to converse anywhere about anything. I can give you my word of honor that what we say will not be recorded, and do, but though I know what my word is worth, you don’t.” He pointed to the vase. “The microphone could even be in there, but it isn’t.”
Ballou had taken the card from his overcoat pocket and had it in his hand. He showed it. “What is this about a pink bedroom and a diary?”
Wolfe turned a hand over. “That’s obvious. A device to get you here. But not bogus, factual. The bedroom is pink, as you know, since you have spent many hours in it; and Miss Kerr did keep a diary; and the police have it.” He motioned at the red leather chair. “Please be seated; eyes are better at a level.”
“I have never spent an hour in a pink bedroom.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I know something of your reputation. I know you are capable of elaborate maneuvers, and apparently you intended to involve me in one. I wanted to tell you, don’t try it.”
Wolfe shook his head. “No good, Mr. Ballou. The question is not whether I know of your association, over a three-year period, with Miss Kerr, nor is it what evidence I have at hand to support my knowledge. The question is, can public disclosure of it be prevented, and if so, how? That is the question for you. For me the question is, did you kill that woman? If you did, I’m going to establish it and you’re doomed. If you didn’t, I have no desire to expose your association with her, and it may never transpire. It is not overweening to say that that issue depends chiefly on how candid you are with me.”
Ballou turned his head as I crossed behind him to my desk. He regarded me as I sat, looked at Wolfe, moved to the red leather chair, got himself comfortably seated, taking his time, and told Wolfe, “I’m listening.”
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