Wolfe swiveled to have him straight front. “Some of this may be news to you, but some may not. You know, of course, that a man named Orrie Cather is in custody as a material witness, but he will be charged with homicide at any moment. I have assumed, on sufficient ground, that he is innocent. Mr. Cather has worked for me, on occasion, for years, and I am under an incumbency. If I am to satisfy it I must now violate a confidence. Mr. Cather had been on intimate terms with Miss Kerr for about a year. He visited her frequently at her apartment with the pink bedroom, at times when she knew you would not come, and there were traces there of his presence and the intimacy, not visible to you but discoverable by a search. The police found them, and that’s why they have him. Do you wish to comment?”
“I’m listening.” From Ballou’s face you might have thought he was merely hearing a proposition to hold something.
“Miss Kerr told Mr. Cather many things about you, her provider, but naturally did not tell you about him, her Strephon. Apparently she also put him in her diary, but not you. If you were there, you would have been visited before now by a policeman or the District Attorney. Have you been?”
“I’m listening.”
“That won’t do. I need to know, and it doesn’t commit you. Has anyone called on you?”
“No.”
“Have you had any indication whatever that your name might be a factor in the murder of Isabel Kerr?”
“No.”
“Then it isn’t in the diary. I know only one thing about the diary, that the police found it in Miss Kerr’s apartment. A policeman, an inspector, told Mr. Goodwin that they had it. I know nothing of its contents except, now, that it doesn’t name you, and that’s fortunate. It’s probable that the District Attorney will not charge Mr. Cather with murder until he learns who was paying for that apartment; that would be dictated by prudence. You hope he never learns, and I would be just as well satisfied.”
Wolfe cocked his head. “That’s the point, Mr. Ballou. If Mr. Cather is brought to trial, you’re in for it. He will take the stand, he will speak, and he will certainly name you; and the dogs will be loose. There may be a chance, even a good one, that if the murderer in fact is exposed and tried, and convicted, your name will never be divulged; but if Mr. Cather is tried, it will inevitably be divulged. Assuming his innocence as I do, I don’t want him to be tried, and neither do you, now that I have described the situation. We have a common interest, and I expect you to help me pursue it—to identify the man who killed Isabel Kerr. If you refuse, I shall of course assume that you killed her, and if you didn’t I would waste much valuable time, and that would be a pity. Have I made it clear?”
Ballou’s face looked seamier, but that was all; there was still no sag. He took a deep breath, rubbed his brow with a palm, and said, “Could I have a drink?” I rose and said certainly, name it, because that was quicker than ringing for Fritz, and he said gin on the rocks with lemon peel, and I went to the kitchen. Fritz shaved slivers of lemon peel while I got the gin and a glass and a bowl of ice cubes. When I reentered the office the red leather chair was empty; Ballou was over by the globe, slowly twirling it with a fingertip. As I put the tray on the stand he came, sat, put one ice cube in the glass, poured gin, twisted two pieces of lemon peel and dropped them in, and stirred. When I was back in my chair he was still stirring. Finally he picked up the glass, took two medium sips, and put it down.
“Yes,” he said. “You have made it clear.”
Wolfe opened his eyes and grunted.
“Obviously,” Ballou said, “I’m in a trap. I can’t check a single thing you have said. I did want a drink, I always have one as soon as I get home, but what I had to have was a little time to consider. I have decided that the probability is that the facts are as you have given them, partly because I don’t see what you could possibly expect to gain by inventing them. The only alternative is to walk out, and I can’t risk it. I have a question: when did Miss Kerr—when did that man, Cather, first learn my name?”
Wolfe turned. “Do we know, Archie?”
“No, sir.” To Ballou: “I can find out, if it’s important.”
“Could it have been as long as four months ago?”
“Certainly.”
“I would like to know. It may not be important now, but I would like to know.” He got the glass and took a sip. “I have nothing to say to your guess that I killed Miss Kerr except that I didn’t. Would a man in my position, of my standing—No, that wouldn’t impress you. To me the idea is simply fantastic. You say you expect me to help you identify the man who killed her. If Cather didn’t, and if the facts are as you say, I certainly want to, but how?”
“First you,” Wolfe said. “Where were you Saturday morning?”
“I was at home all morning and until about three o’clock. We had guests for lunch.”
“If pressed, could you account for every half-hour from eight o’clock to noon?”
“I think so. There were phone calls.”
“Could your wife?”
“Why the devil should she?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Don’t start that. You have held your poise admirably; don’t spoil it. I don’t drag your wife in, circumstances do. Did she know of your association with Miss Kerr?”
“No.”
“How sure are you?”
“Completely. I have taken great precautions.”
Wolfe frowned. “You see how difficult it is. It may be highly desirable for Mr. Goodwin or me to see your wife, but with what excuse, without involving you? It must be managed somehow, and Mr. Goodwin—”
“It will not be managed! You will not see my wife!”
“Your poise. As you said, you’re in a trap; don’t thrash about. If it wasn’t you or your wife, who was it? I must have a fact, a hint, a name. You spent many intimate hours with her. You may have to spend hours with me. She told you of places she went and people she knew. Tell me.”
A muscle on Ballou’s neck was twitching. “I insist, I insist, that my wife is not to be disturbed. You expect to be paid, naturally. I never ‘thrash about.’ How much?”
Wolfe nodded. “Naturally for you. Men with money always assume there is no other medium of exchange. I am engaged on behalf of Mr. Cather, and you can’t hire me or pay me. I am coercing you, certainly, but only to get information. We shall disturb your wife only if it is requisite. From you I want all the facts, all—”
The phone rang. I turned and got it. “Nero Wolfe’s—”
“Saul, Archie. I’m—”
“Hold it.” I put it down and moved, to the hall and on to the kitchen, and took the phone.
“We have company. Okay, shoot.”
“You’re going to have more company. I’m licked. I have met my match. Julie Jaquette. I would give a week’s pay to know if you could have handled her. The trouble is partly that Nero Wolfe’s a celebrity, so she says, but mostly it’s the orchids. If he will show her his orchids she’ll tell him all about Isabel Kerr. She won’t tell me a damn thing. Nothing.”
“Well, well. It might have taken me a whole ten minutes.”
“Go soak it. I said a week’s pay. She—”
“Where are you?”
“A booth on Christopher Street. The one at the Ten Little Indians had a line waiting. She’s working. She’ll be off until eight and then from nine-ten to ten-fifteen.”
“Then it’s simple. Bring her at nine-ten.”
“Like hell it’s simple.” It clicked and he was gone.
I don’t expect you to believe me when I report the first words I heard as I re-entered the office, but you have a right to know why we got about as little from Avery Ballou as Saul had got from Julie Jaquette. The words, uttered by Ballou, were, “Rudyard Kipling.” As I crossed to my desk my head kept turning to have my eyes on him. As I sat, Wolfe asked him, “The poems?”
“Mostly the poems,” Ballou said, “but some of the stories too. And Robert Service and Jack London. A little of some others, but of th
ose three, Kipling and Service and London, I had complete sets there, bound in leather. There’s something I have wanted to ask about, but haven’t, and you would know. Can they get my fingerprints from those bindings? The leather isn’t smooth, it’s rippled.”
Wolfe’s head turned. “Archie?”
“Probably not,” I told Ballou, “from rippled leather, but your prints must be on other surfaces there. Are they on file anywhere?”
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down. “Then on that you can only abide. But this isn’t easy to believe, Mr. Ballou, that you spent ten hours or more a week there, five hundred hours a year for three years, and Miss Kerr never spoke of how she spent the other—let’s see—nearly twenty-five thousand hours. The places she went, the people she saw.”
“I have told you,” Ballou said, “under coercion. Except for physical intimacy there was no sharing of experience. But I did not read those poems and stories just to hear myself. I did not impose them on her. She understood them and enjoyed them, and we discussed them. You realize that I am not enjoying this. This is the first time in my life that I have wanted to tell a man to go to hell and can’t.”
“I still find it hard to believe. Did she never speak of her sister?”
“Yes. Speak of her, yes, but casually and rarely.”
“You didn’t know that her sister strongly disapproved of her association with you?”
“No. I don’t know it now.”
“She did and does. Did Miss Kerr never mention this name: Julie Jaquette?”
“I don’t think so. If she did it was only casual and I don’t remember it.”
“Remarkable. You were with her, close, frequently, for a period of three years. I wanted and expected names, and you have supplied three: Jack London, Robert Service, and Rudyard Kipling.” Wolfe pushed his chair back. “A question: why did you want to know when Mr. Cather first learned your name?”
“Oh … I was curious.”
“You said it may not be important now. When would it have been important, and why?”
“I meant important to me, not to you, not for what you are trying to do. What are you going to do? You say I can’t hire you or pay you, but why not? There’s no conflict between Gather’s interest and mine, as you tell it. Ten thousand now as a retainer? Twenty thousand?”
“No.” Wolfe rose. “I’m committed.” He walked out.
Chapter 8
At a quarter past nine we were back in the office and Fritz had taken the coffee things out; so, though I didn’t know it yet, the stage was set for one of the most impressive floor shows the old brownstone has ever seen. After letting Ballou out I had gone to the kitchen and told Wolfe about Saul’s phone call. Of course he would have enjoyed the onion soup and Kentucky burgoo more if I had waited, but it would have created an atmosphere if I had sprung it on him with the coffee. The question was which could stand it best, appetite or digestion, and it takes a lot to make a serious dent in his appetite.
It is true that digestion was getting it too. He had drunk more coffee than usual, emptying the pot, and now that it was gone, and I was there—I’m usually out on Tuesday evenings—he was making a stab at continuing the dinner conversation, which had been mostly about Viet Nam, but just then he wasn’t really interested in Viet Nam. He was going to tackle not only a woman, which was bad enough, but also a night-club singer, which was preposterous. A hell of a way to spend an evening. When the doorbell rang he glared at me, though he should have saved it for Saul, and I told him so as I got up to go.
Even through the one-way glass, as I approached the door, she took the eye. She was two inches taller than Saul, and if the coat was real sable it must have taken at least a hundred sables. As she entered she gave me a dazzling three-inch smile, and another one when I turned after hanging her coat up. Saul was trying not to grin. She took my arm and asked, “Where is he, Archie?” in a rich cuddly voice, and she kept the arm down the hall and into the office, but then she broke away, danced to the middle of the room and faced Wolfe’s desk, let her handbag fall to the floor, and burst into song:
“Big man, go-go,
Big man, go big,
Talk big, act big,
Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove big!
Go-go-go-go-go-go,
Big man, big man,
Be big, do big,
Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove big,
Go!”
She extended two long, bare, well-shaped arms to him and said, “Now the orchids. Show me!”
It was impressive. So, I admit, was Wolfe. He was giving her exactly the same scowl I have often seen him give a crossword puzzle that had him stumped. He switched the scowl to me and demanded, “Did you suggest this?”
“No,” she said. “Nobody ever suggests anything to me; they don’t have to. Now the orchids, big man. Go!”
“Miss Jackson,” he said.
“Not here,” she said. “I’m Julie Jaquette.”
“Not here,” he said. “It’s conceivable that long ago, in different circumstances, I might have appreciated your performance, but not here and—”
“It’s not a performance, man, it’s me.”
“I don’t believe it. The creature who pranced in here and mouthed that doggerel couldn’t possibly eat or sleep or read or write—or love. Are you capable of love?”
“Ha! Am I!”
Wolfe nodded. “You see? One minute ago you would have said, ‘Am I, man.’ We’re making progress. As for your wish to see my orchids, that can easily be gratified. Either Mr. Panzer or Mr. Goodwin can take you to them at a suitable hour, perhaps tomorrow. Now we have other business, and little time. Do you want the man who killed Isabel Kerr to be exposed and punished?”
“Yes, damn him, I do. I do, man.”
Wolfe made a face. “Don’t revert. I too want him exposed, because that’s the only feasible way to get a man who is in custody released. Orrie Cather. Miss Kerr may have told you of him.”
She stared down at him from her five feet nine. “Are you sick?” she demanded.
“No. I am sour, but I’m not sick. If you think Mr. Cather killed her, you’re wrong, he didn’t, and I’m going to find out who did. Did you?”
Saul and I were standing between her and the door. She turned to us and said distinctly, “You rat.”
“Not guilty,” Saul said. “You made it plain right away that you thought he killed her. You also made it plain—”
“You said Nero Wolfe wanted me to help nail him.”
“I did not. I merely said he wanted you to help. You also made it plain that you would tell me nothing.”
She glanced around, went to my chair at my desk, sat, and eyed Wolfe. It would have been quite a lifting job for both of us, so I went to the red leather chair and Saul moved up one of the yellow ones.
“So you think you’re going to bounce him,” she said. “Because he works for you. Nuts. Tell me how.”
Wolfe shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t know. Manifestly you are satisfied that he’s guilty, and of course you have told the police why, but it hasn’t fully satisfied them. He is being held only as a material witness. If you care to, try to satisfy me. Why are you so sure?”
“Damn it, I warned her,” she said.
“You warned her that Mr. Cather would kill her?”
“No, but I warned her there was no telling what he would do. I suppose you know he wanted to marry another girl?”
“Yes.”
“So it was an ungodly mess, the kind people get into when a screw gets loose. They had a perfect setup, the damn fools. Whoever was paying her bills, she never told me who it was, he had a place with her in it whenever he needed a change, and you couldn’t beat that. She had the place to herself most of the time, and she had a man who did her good, and you couldn’t beat that. He had a woman who suited him, ready for him nearly any time, for nothing, and you couldn’t beat that. A perfect setup. But she decides she has g
ot to marry him, and he decides he has got to marry some other dame, and even she has got a good job—an airline stewardess. You know that?”
“Yes.”
“So she could stay loose too if she had any brains. None of them had any brains. I warned Isabel she had better deal him out, he had the sweat up and might do anything, but she wouldn’t listen. She put the sting on him, and he killed her. When people’s brains quit working, just go somewhere else. But he killed her, and now he’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“You have told the police all this?”
“I sure have.”
“What if he didn’t kill her?”
“Nuts.”
Wolfe regarded her. Since his eyes were used to seeing me when they aimed at that chair, he had to adjust. “Do you ever gamble?” he asked her. “Do you like to bet?”
“That’s a silly question. Who doesn’t?”
“Good. Saul, what odds will you give Miss Jackson that Orrie Cather didn’t kill Isabel Kerr?”
Saul didn’t hesitate. “Ten to one.” He got his wallet from a pocket and took bills out. “A hundred to ten.”
“She may not have it. Will you—”
“I always have it.” She opened her bag, which she had put on my desk after picking it up from the floor, where she had dropped it while performing. “But who settles it?”
“The District Attorney,” Saul said. “A hundred to ten that he isn’t even tried. All right for Archie Goodwin to hold it?”
“No. Nero Wolfe.” She got up and handed Wolfe a bill, and Saul went with his. Wolfe checked Saul’s, five twenties, opened a drawer, and dropped them in. She went back to my chair, put her bag on my desk, and told Wolfe, “Now tell me why I have just lost ten bucks.”
He shook his head. “That must await the event. I merely wished to demonstrate that we are acting on a conclusion, not a conjecture. Do you have animus for Mr. Cather?”
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