Leaving, I took the door along, pulling it shut gently until the lock clicked.
By the time I got home it was after six and Wolfe should have been down from the plant rooms, but he wasn’t. I went to the kitchen, where Fritz was arranging two plump ducklings on the rack of a roasting pan, asked what was up, and was told that Wolfe had descended from the roof but had left the elevator one flight up and gone to his room. That was unusual but not alarming, and I proceeded with another step of the preparations for the meeting. When I got through the table at the end of the couch in the office was ready for business: eight brands of whisky, two of gin, two of cognac, a decanter of port, cream sherry, armagnac, four fruit brandies, and a wide assortment of cordials and liqueurs. The dry sherry was in the refrigerator, as were the cherries, olives, onions, and lemon peel, where they would remain until after dinner. As I was arranging the bottles I caught myself wondering which one the murderer would fancy, but corrected it hastily to wallet thief, since we weren’t interested in the murder.
At six-thirty I thought I’d better find out if Wolfe had busted a shoestring or what, and, mounting a flight and tapping on his door and hearing him grunt, entered. I stopped and stared. Fully dressed, with his shoes on, he was lying on the bed, on top of the black silk coverlet. Absolutely unheard of.
“What have you got?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” he growled.
“Shall I get Doc Vollmer?”
“No.”
I approached for a close-up. He looked sour, but he had never died of that. “Miss Frazee is coming,” I told him. “She was holding a press conference. Do you want to hear about it?”
“No.”
“Excuse me for disturbing you,” I said icily, and turned to go, but in three steps he called my name and I halted. He raised himself to his elbows, swung his legs over the edge, got upright, and took a deep breath.
“I’ve made a bad mistake,” he said.
I waited.
He took another breath. “What time is it?”
I told him twenty-five to seven.
“Two hours and a half and dinner to eat. I was confident that this development would of itself supply me with ample material for an effective stratagem, and I was wrong. I don’t say I was an ass. I relied overmuch on my ingenuity and resourcefulness, though on the solid basis of experience. But I did make a mistake. Various people have been trying to see me all afternoon, and I have declined to see them. I thought I could devise a stroke without any hint or stimulant from them, but I haven’t. I should have seen them. Oh, I can proceed; I am not without expedients; I may even bring something off; but I blundered. Just now you asked me if I wanted to hear about Miss Frazee, and I said no. That was fatuous. Tell me.”
“Yes, sir. As I said, she was holding a press conference. When I got there—”
The sound of the doorbell came up and in to us. I lifted my brows at Wolfe. He snapped at me, “Go! Anybody!”
Chapter 17
It was Vernon Assa. He wasn’t as much of a misfit for the red leather chair as Mrs. Wheelock, at least he was plump, and his deep tan went well with the red, but he was much too short. I have surveyed a lot of people in that chair, and there has only been one who was exactly right for it. I must tell about him some time.
You might have thought, after what had just been said upstairs, that Wolfe would have been spreading butter on the caller, but he wasn’t. When he came down, after brushing his hair and tucking his shirt in, he crossed to his chair, sat, and said brusquely, “I can spare a few minutes, Mr. Assa. What can I do for you?”
Assa looked at me. I thought he was going to start the old routine about seeing Wolfe privately, but apparently he only wanted something attractive to look at while he got his words collected. I remembered that at the first visit of the LBA bunch he had been the impatient one, snapping at Hansen to get on and telling Wolfe he was wasting time, but now he seemed to feel that deliberation was better.
He looked at Wolfe. “About the meeting this evening. You’ll have to call it off.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe cocked his head. “Under what compulsion?”
“Well … it’s obvious. Isn’t it?”
“Not to me. I’m afraid you’ll have to elaborate.”
Assa shifted in the chair. I had noticed that he seemed to be having trouble getting comfortably adjusted. “You realize,” he said, “that our main problem is solved, thanks to you. The problem that brought us to you last Wednesday in a state of panic. There was no chance of finishing the contest without confusion and some discord after what happened to Dahlmann, and the wallet gone, but as it looked when we came to you we were headed for complete disaster, and you have prevented it. Hansen is certain that legally we are in the clear. With the contestants receiving the answers as they have, and it won’t do Miss Frazee any good to deny she got them, if we repudiate those verses and replace them with others, as of course we will, our position would be upheld by any court in the land. There is still serious embarrassment, but that couldn’t be helped. You have rescued the contest from utter ruin by a brilliant stroke and are to be congratulated.”
“Mr. Assa.” Wolfe’s eyes, on him, were half closed. “Are you speaking for my client, the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa, or for yourself?”
“Well … I am a member of the firm, as you know, but I came here on my own initiative and responsibility.”
“Do your associates know you’re here and what for?”
“No. I didn’t want to start a long and complicated discussion. I decided to come only half an hour ago. Your meeting starts at nine, and it’s nearly seven now.”
“I see. And you are assuming that I sent the answers to the contestants—or had them sent.”
Assa passed his tongue over his lips. “I didn’t put it baldly like that, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Goodwin is in your confidence anyway. It was impossible to figure why one of the contestants would have sent them, if he had killed Dahlmann and got them from the wallet, and that leaves only you.”
“Not impossible,” Wolfe objected. “Not if he found to his dismay that in the situation he had created they were worse than useless to him.”
Assa nodded. “I considered that, of course, but still thought it impossible. Another reason I didn’t mention my coming to my associates was that I realize you can’t acknowledge what you did to save us. I don’t expect you to acknowledge it even to me, and you certainly wouldn’t if one or two of them had come along, especially Hansen. We wouldn’t want you to acknowledge it anyhow, because we’ve hired you, and the legal position would probably be that we did it ourselves, and that would be disastrous. So you see why I didn’t put it baldly.”
“Thank you for your forbearance,” Wolfe said drily. “But why must the meeting be called off?”
“Because it can’t do any good and may do harm. What good can it do?”
Wolfe’s eyes were still half closed. “It can help me to earn a fee. I accepted Mr. Hansen’s definition of my job: ‘to find out who took the wallet and got the paper.’ It remains to be performed.”
“It doesn’t have to be performed, not now, since the contest problem is solved. You’ve earned your fee and you’ll get it.”
“You’ve admitted, Mr. Assa, that you’re speaking only for yourself.”
The red tip of his tongue showed again, flicking his lips. “I’ll guarantee the fee,” he said.
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not acceptable. My responsibility is to my client, and his reciprocal responsibility, to pay me, is not transferable. As for canceling the meeting, that’s out of the question. If such a request came unanimously from Messrs. Buff, O’Garro, Hansen, Heery—and you, and cogent reasons were given, I might consider it, but would probably refuse. As it is, I won’t even consider it.”
Assa looked at me. He glanced at the refreshment table, came back to me, and said, “There’s a bottle of Pernod there. That’s my drink. Could I have some?”
I said
certainly and asked if he wanted ice, and he said no. I took him the Pernod and an Old-Fashioned glass, and he poured two fingers as plump as his own, and darned if he didn’t toss it off as if it were a jigger of bourbon. I’m not a Pernod drinker, but there is such a thing as common sense. Not only that, he poured again, this time only one finger, and then, without taking a sip, put the glass down on the little table at his elbow, beside the bottle.
He swallowed a couple of times for a chaser. “That’s a highhanded attitude, Mr. Wolfe,” he said. He paused to collect more words. “Frankly, I don’t see what you expect to accomplish. You’ll get your fee, and from our standpoint, as far as the contest is concerned, it no longer matters who got the wallet. Of course it may still be a factor in the murder, but you weren’t hired to investigate the murder. That’s up to the police. Why do you insist on this meeting?”
“To finish my job. What I engaged to do.”
“But you’re more apt to undo what you’ve already done. The police know now—they were told on your advice—that you have had a copy of the answers in your possession since last Wednesday. How far the discretion of the police can be trusted I don’t know, but it’s conceivable that one or more of the contestants have learned about it, and if so, God only knows what would happen at the meeting. You might even find yourself backed into a corner where you had to admit you had mailed the answers to them, and LBA would be responsible, and we’d be in a deeper hole than ever.”
“You would indeed,” Wolfe conceded. “But if that’s your fear, dismiss it. There will be no such admission by me.”
“What will there be?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I would. I have formed certain conjectures and I intend to explore them. That’s what the meeting is for, and I shall not abandon it.”
Assa regarded him in silence, steadily, for a full half a minute. At length he broke it. “When your man Goodwin came to our office on Friday and got the word for you to go ahead, he wanted it unanimous. He polled us, and I voted yes with the others. Now I don’t, so it’s no longer unanimous. I ask you to suspend operations until I have conferred with my associates—say until tomorrow noon. I not only ask you, I direct you.”
Wolfe was shaking his head. “I’m afraid I can’t oblige you, Mr. Assa. Time’s important now, now that the spark has been struck and the fire started. It’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“To stop.”
Assa’s eyes dropped. He gazed at his right palm, saw nothing there to encourage him, tried the left, and there was nothing there either. “Very well,” he said, and arose, in no haste, and started for the door. Considering the turn things had taken, I wouldn’t have been astonished if Wolfe had told me to fasten onto him and lock him in the front room until nine o’clock, but he didn’t, so I got up and followed the guest into the hall. I didn’t resent his not thanking me for holding his topcoat and opening the door, since he was obviously preoccupied.
Back in the office, I stood and looked down at Wolfe. “I suppose,” I observed, “it doesn’t matter who struck the spark as long as it caught.”
“Yes. Get Mr. Cramer.”
I sat at my desk and dialed. It was a bad time of day to get Cramer ordinarily, but when something big was stirring, or refusing to stir, he sometimes ate at his desk instead of going home for what he called supper. That was one of the times. From the way he growled at me, it was very much one of the times.
Wolfe took it. “Mr. Cramer? I thought you might be interested in a meeting at my office this evening. We’re going to discuss the Dahlmann case. It will—”
“Who’s going to discuss it?”
“Everyone concerned—that is, everyone I know about. It will of course be confined to the theft of the wallet, since that’s what I’m investigating, but it will inevitably touch upon points that affect you, so I’m inviting you to come—as an observer.”
Silence. Cramer could have been chewing a bite of a corned beef sandwich, or he could have been chewing what he had heard.
“What have you got?” he demanded.
“For myself, a reasonable expectation. For you, the possibility of a suitable disclosure. Have I ever wasted your time on frivolity?”
“No. Not on frivolity. There’s no use asking you on the phone…. Stebbins will be there in ten minutes.”
“No, sir. Nor you. I need a little time to arrange the inside of my head, and my dinner will be ready shortly. The meeting will be at nine o’clock.”
“I’ll bring Stebbins with me.”
“By all means. Do so.”
We hung up.
“You know darned well,” I said, “that Purley will bring handcuffs, and he hates to take them back empty—”
I stopped because he was leaning back and closing his eyes, and his lips were starting to move, pushing out and then in, out and in…. He was working at last. I went across the hall for two more chairs.
Chapter 18
If a successful party is one where everybody comes, there was no question about that one. In fact, some came too early. Gertrude Frazee showed up at eight-thirty-five, when Wolfe and I were still in the dining room, and I was having coffee in the office with her when Philip Younger arrived, and a minute later Talbott Heery. Patrick O’Garro and Oliver Buff came together, and almost on their heels Professor Harold Rollins. When Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins got there it was still ten minutes short of nine. They wanted to see Wolfe immediately, of course, and I took them to the dining room and shut them in there with him. Back at the front door, I opened it for Vernon Assa, who was still in no frame of mind to thank anybody for anything, and then for Susan Tescher, of Clock magazine. I had been sort of hoping to see Mr. Tite himself, but all she had along was Mr. Hibbard, the tall and skinny one. It was nine on the dot when Mrs. Wheelock appeared, and not more than thirty seconds later here came Rudolph Hansen. Not only did everybody come, they all beat the bell except Hansen, and he just shaved it.
I went to glance in at the office door and saw that Fritz had things under control at the refreshment table. Evidently they had all been thirsty, or else they didn’t want to talk and were drinking instead. Pleased that the party was starting well, I crossed to the dining room to tell Wolfe we had a full house and were set for his entrance, but, entering, I shut the door and stood. Cramer, sitting with his big rough fist tapping the table, was reading Wolfe the riot act, with Purley standing behind his shoulder looking satisfied. I approached. What seemed to be biting Cramer was that he did not intend to let Wolfe call a meeting of murder suspects and expect him, Cramer, to sit and take it in like a goddam stenographer (Cramer’s words, not mine; I have known at least three stenographers who were absolutely—anyway, I have known stenographers).
I had heard Cramer lose that argument with Wolfe some twenty times. What he wanted was the moon. He wanted, first, to know in advance exactly what Wolfe was going to say, which was ridiculous because most of the time Wolfe didn’t know himself. Second, he wanted it understood that he would be free to take over at any point, bound by no commitment, whereas Wolfe demanded a pledge that the proceedings would be left to him short of extreme provocation, such as gunplay or hair pulling. Since it was a cinch that Cramer wouldn’t have been there at all if he hadn’t thought Wolfe had something he badly needed, he might as well have given up on that one for good, but he never did. All he accomplished that Monday evening was holding up the start of the meeting by a quarter of an hour. I cut in on the squabble to announce that the audience was ready and waiting, and then went to the office.
A few details needed attention. Miss Frazee had copped the red leather chair, which was reserved for Inspector Cramer, and I had to talk her into moving. Buff and Hansen were in a huddle at the wall end of the couch, where Wolfe would have to look through me to see them, and I got them to transfer to chairs, Buff stopping on the way for a refill of his highball glass. Hibbard was seated beside Miss Tescher in the front row, and when I asked him to move to the rear I
thought he was going to speak at last, but he controlled it and went without a word. Vernon Assa bothered me. He was standing backed up against the far wall, staring straight ahead, an Old-Fashioned glass in his hand, presumably holding Pernod. When I went to him he turned his eyes on me and I didn’t like them. He could have been high, too high, but when I suggested that he come and take a chair he said in a perfectly good voice that he was all right where he was. As I turned to leave him Wolfe and Cramer and Stebbins entered.
Wolfe walked across to his desk. Cramer stood a moment taking in the crowd and then went to the red leather chair and sat. I had put a chair for Purley against the wall, so he would be facing the audience, and he didn’t need to be told it was his. The talking had stopped, and all eyes went to Wolfe as he rested his clasped hands on the desk and moved his head from left to right and back again.
He took a breath. “Ladies and gentlemen. I must first explain the presence of Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department. He is here by invitation, not to—”
Two sounds came almost simultaneously from the rear of the room—first from a throat, part gurgle and part scream, and then a bang as something hit the floor. Everybody jerked around by reflex, so we all saw Vernon Assa stagger toward us with the fingers of both hands clutching at his mouth, and then he went down. By the time he touched the floor I was there, but Purley Stebbins was right behind me, and Cramer behind him, so I dived back to my desk for the phone and dialed Doc Vollmer’s number. At the second buzz he answered and I told him to come on the jump. As I hung up Cramer called to me to get a doctor and I told him I had one. He stood up, saw Susan Tescher and Hibbard crossing the sill into the hall, and sang out, “Get back in here!” He came to me. “I’ll call downtown. Put ’em all in the dining room and stay there with ’em. Understand? No gags.” He was at the phone.
I looked around. They were behaving pretty well, except Susan Tescher and her silent partner, who had apparently had the notion of fading. There had been no shrieks. Wolfe was sitting straight, his lips pressed tight, his eyes narrowed to slits. He didn’t meet my glance. O’Garro and Heery and Hansen had gone to the prostrate Assa, but Purley, kneeling there, had ordered them back. I went to the doorway to the hall and turned.
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