“That’s it!” She was delighted. “That’s the kind of thing!”
“Sure. Tell ’em that. Now we’ve got to consider the cops. Stebbins is a cop, and they won’t want it hung on him. They’ve had one cop killed here today already. They’ll try to tie this up with that. I know how they work, I know them only too well. They’ll try to make it that somebody here killed Wallen, and he found out that you knew something about it so he tried to kill you. They may even think they have some kind of evidence—for instance, something you were heard to say. So we have to be prepared. We have to go back over it. Are you listening?”
“Certainly. What do I say when the reporters ask me if I’m going to go on working here? Couldn’t I say I don’t want to desert Mr. Fickler in a time of trouble?”
It took control to stay in that chair. I would have given a good deal to be able to get up and walk out, go to Purley and Cramer at their eavesdropping posts, tell them she was all theirs and they were welcome to her, and go on home. But at home there were the guests locked in the front room, and sometime, somehow, we had to get rid of them. I looked at her charming enchanting comely face, with its nice chin and straight little nose and the eyelashes, and realized that the matter would be approached from her angle or not at all.
“That’s the ticket,” I said warmly. “Say you’ve got to be loyal to Mr. Fickler. That’s the main thing to work on, how to handle the reporters. Have you ever been interviewed before?”
“No, this will be the first, and I want to start right.”
“Good for you. What they like best of all is to get the jump on the police. If you can tell them something the cops don’t know they’ll love you forever. For instance, the fact that Stebbins crowned you doesn’t prove that he’s the only one involved. He must have an accomplice here in the shop, or why did Wallen come here in the first place? We’ll call the accomplice X. Now listen. Sometime today, some time or other after Wallen’s body was found, you saw something or heard something, and X knew you did. He knew it, and he knew that if you told about it—if you told me, for example—it would put him and Stebbins on the spot. Naturally both of them would want to kill you. It could have been X that tried to, but since you say you saw Stebbins reflected in the glass we’ll let it go at that for now. Here’s the point: if you can remember what it was you saw or heard that scared X, and if you tell the reporters before the cops get wise to it, they’ll be your friends for life. Now for God’s sake don’t miss this chance. Concentrate. Remember everything you saw and heard here today, and everything you did and said too. Even if it takes us all night we’ve got to work it out.”
She was frowning. “I don’t remember anything that would scare anybody.”
“Don’t go at it like that. It was probably some little thing that didn’t seem important to you at all. We may have to start at the beginning and go over every—”
I stopped on account of her face. The frown had left it, and she was looking past me, not seeing me, with an expression that told me plainly, if I knew her half as well as I thought I did, what was going on inside. I snapped at her, “Do you want the reporters hating you? Off of you for good?”
She was startled. “Of course not! That would be awful!”
“Then watch your step. This has got to be all wool. A girl with a fine mind like you, so much imaginaton, it would be a cinch for you to be creative, but don’t. They’ll double-check everything you say, and if they find it’s not completely straight you’re ruined. They’ll never forgive you. You’ll never need a manager.”
“But I can’t remember anything like that!”
“Not right off the bat, who could? Sometimes a thing like this takes days, let alone hours.” Her hand was right there, and I patted it. “I guess we’d better go over it together, right straight through. That’s the way Nero Wolfe would do it. What time did you get to work this morning?”
“When I always do, a quarter to nine. I’m punctual.”
“Were the others already here?”
“Some were and some weren’t.”
“Who was and who wasn’t?”
“My Lord, I don’t know. I didn’t notice.” She was resentful. “If you’re going to expect me to remember things like that we might as well quit, and you wouldn’t be a good manager. When I came to work I was thinking of something else. A lot of the time I am thinking of something else, so how would I notice?”
I had to be patient. “Okay, we’ll start at another point. You remember when Wallen came in and spoke with Fickler and went to Tina’s booth and talked with her, and when Tina came out Fickler sent Philip in to him. You remember that?”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
“Guesses won’t get us anywhere. Just recall the situation, where you all were when Philip came back after talking with Wallen. Where were you?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I’m not saying you noticed, but look back. There’s Philip, coming around the end of the partition after talking with Wallen. Did you hear him say anything? Did you say anything to him?”
“I don’t think Philip was this X,” she declared. “He is married, with children. I think it was Jimmie Kirk. He tried to make passes at me when I first came, and he drinks, you can ask Ed about that, and he thinks he’s superior. A barber being superior!” She looked pleased. “That’s a good idea about Jimmie being X, because I don’t have to say he really tried to kill me. I’ll try to remember something he said. Would it matter exactly when he said it?”
I had had enough, but a man can’t hit a woman when she’s down, so I ended it without violence.
“Not at all,” I told her, “but I’ve got an idea. I’ll go and see if I can get something out of Jimmie. Meanwhile I’ll send a reporter in to break the ice with you, from the Gazette probably. I know a lot of them.” I was on my feet. “Just use your common sense and stick to facts. See you later.”
“But Mr. Goodwin! I want—”
I was gone. Three steps got me out of the booth, and I strode down the aisle and around the end of the partition. There I halted, and it wasn’t long before I was joined by Cramer and Purley. Their faces were expressive. I didn’t have to ask if they had got it all.
“If you shoot her,” I suggested, “send her brain to Johns Hopkins, if you can find it.”
“Jesus,” Purley said. That was all he said.
Cramer grunted. “Did she do it herself?”
“I doubt it. It was a pretty solid blow to raise that lump, and you didn’t find her prints on the bottle. Bothering about prints is beneath her. I had to come up for air, but I left you an in. Better pick a strong character to play the role of reporter from the Gazette.”
“Send for Biatti,” Cramer snapped at Purley.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “he can take it. Now I go home?”
“No. She might insist on seeing her manager again.”
“I wouldn’t pass that around,” I warned them. “How would you like a broadcast of her line on Sergeant Stebbins? I’d like to be home for dinner. We’re having fresh pork tenderloin.”
“We would all like to be home for dinner.” Cramer’s look and tone were both sour. They didn’t change when he shifted to Purley. “What about it? Is the Vardas pair still all you want?”
“They’re what I want most,” Purley said doggedly, “in spite of her getting it when they weren’t here, but I guess we’ve got to spread out more. You can finish with them here and go home to dinner, and I suppose we’ve got to take ’em all downtown. I’m not sold that the Stahl girl is unfurnished inside her head, and we know she’s capable of using her hands, since only three months ago she pushed a full-grown man out of his own car into a ditch and drove off. No matter how hard he was playing her, that’s quite a stunt. I still want to be shown she couldn’t have used that bottle on herself and I don’t have to be shown that she could have used the scissors on Wallen if she felt like it. Or if she performed with the bottle to have something to tell reporters about, the Vardase
s are still what I want most. But I admit the other if is the biggest one. If some one here conked her, finding out who and why comes first until we get the Vardases.”
Cramer stayed sour. “You haven’t even started.”
“Maybe that’s a little too strong, Inspector.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We were on the Vardases, but we didn’t clear out of here, we kept close. Then when we found the Stahl girl and brought her to she shut the valve and had to see Goodwin. Even so, I wouldn’t say we haven’t made a start with the others. Ed Graboff plays the horses and owes a bookie nine hundred dollars, and he had to sell his car. Philip Toracco went off the rails in 1945 and spent a year in a booby hatch. Joel Fickler has been seen in public places with Horny Gallagher, and while that don’t prove—”
Cramer cut in to shoot at me, “Is Fickler a racket boy?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Blank. I’ve never been anything but a customer.”
“If he is we’ll get it.” Purley was riled and didn’t care who knew it. “Jimmie Kirk apparently only goes back three years, and he has expensive habits for a barber. Tom Yerkes did a turn in nineteen thirty-nine for assault, beat up a guy who took his young granddaughter for a fast weekend, and he is known for having a quick take-off. So I don’t think you can say we haven’t even started. We’ve got to take ’em all downtown and get through, especially about last night, sure we do. But I still want the Vardases.”
“Are all alibis for last night being checked?” Cramer demanded.
“They have been.”
“Do them over, and good. Get it going. Use as many men as you need. And not only alibis, records too. I want the Vardas pair as much as you do, but if the Stahl girl didn’t use that bottle on herself, I also want someone else. Get Biatti here. Let him have a try at her before you take her down.”
“He’s not on duty, Inspector.”
“Tell them to find him. Get him here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Purley moved. He went to the phone at the cashier’s counter. I went to the one in the booth at the end of the clothes rack and dialed the number I knew best. Fritz answered, and I asked him to buzz the extension in the plant rooms, since it was still a few minutes short of six o’clock.
“Where are you?” Wolfe demanded. He was always testy when interrupted up there.
“At the barber shop.” I was none too genial myself. “Janet was sitting in her booth and got hit on the head with a bottle of oil. They have gone through the routine and are still at the starting line. Her condition is no more critical than it was before she got hit. She insisted on seeing me, and I have had a long intimate talk with her. I can’t say I made no progress, because she asked me to be her manager, and I am now giving you notice, quitting at the end of this week. Aside from that I got nowhere. She’s one in a million. I would love to see you take her on. I have been requested to stick around. I’m willing, but I advise you to tell Fritz to increase the grocery orders until further notice.”
Silence. Then, “Who is there?”
“Everybody. Cramer, Purley, squad men, the staff. They quit letting customers in after Janet got rapped. The whole party will be moved downtown in an hour or so, including Janet. Everyone is glum, including me.”
“No progress whatever has been made?”
“Not as far as I know, except what I told you, I am now Janet’s manag—”
“Pfui.” Silence. In a moment, “Stay there.”
The connection went.
I left the booth. Neither Purley nor Cramer was in sight. Only one flatfoot was at the door, and the throng outside in the corridor was no longer a throng, merely a knot, and a small one. I moseyed toward the rear, with the line of empty barber chairs on my left and the row of waiting chairs against the partition on my right. Fickler was there, and three of the barbers—Ed being the missing one now—with dicks in between. They weren’t interested in me at all, and I made no effort to try to change their attitude.
The chair on the left of the magazine table was empty, and I dropped into it. Apparently no one had felt like reading today, since the same New Yorker was on top and the two-weeks-old Time was still on the shelf below. I would have been glad to employ my mind analyzing the situation if there had been anything to analyze, but there was no place to start, and after sitting a few minutes I became aware that I was trying to analyze Janet. Of course that was even more hopeless, and I mention it only to show you the condition I was in. But it did look as if Janet was the key, and in that case the thing to do was to figure some way of handling her. I sat and worked on that problem. There must be some practical method of digging up from her memory the fact or facts that we had to have. Hypnotize her, maybe? That might work. I was considering suggesting it to Cramer when I became aware of movement over at the door and lifted my eyes.
The flatfoot was blocking the entrance to keep a man fully twice his weight from entering, and was explaining the situation.
The man let him finish and then spoke. “I know, I know.” His eyes came at me over the flatfoot’s shoulder, and he bellowed, “Archie! Where’s Mr. Cramer?”
VI
I GOT up and made for the door in no haste or jubilation. There have been times when the sight and sound of Wolfe have given me a lift, but that wasn’t one of them. I had told him on the phone that I would love to see him take Janet on, but that had been rhetorical. One would get him ten he couldn’t make a dent in her.
“Do you want in?” I asked.
“What the devil,” he roared, “do you suppose I came for?”
“Okay, take it easy. I’ll go see—”
But I didn’t have to go. His first bellow had carried within, and Cramer’s voice came from right behind me. “Well! Dynamite?”
“I’ll be damned,” Purley, there too, growled.
The flatfoot had moved aside, leaving it to the brass, and Wolfe had crossed the sill. “I came to get a haircut,” he stated and marched past the sergeant and inspector to the rack, took off his hat, coat, vest, and tie, hung them up, crossed to Jimmie’s chair, the second in the line, and got his bulk up onto the seat. In the mirrored wall fronting him he had a panorama of the row of barbers and dicks in his rear, and without turning his head he called, “Jimmie! If you please?”
Jimmie’s dancing dark eyes came to Cramer and Purley, there by me. So did others. Cramer stood scowling at Wolfe. We all held our poses while Cramer slowly lifted his right hand and carefully and thoroughly scratched the side of his nose with his forefinger. That attended to, he decided to sit down. He went, not in a hurry, to the first chair in the line, the one Fickler himself used occasionally when there was a rush, turned it to face Wolfe, and mounted. He spoke.
“You want a haircut, huh?”
“Yes, sir. As you can see, I need one.”
“Yeah.” Cramer turned his head. “All right, Kirk. Come and cut his hair.”
Jimmie got up and went past the chair to the cabinet for an apron. Everybody stirred, as if a climax had been reached and passed. Purley strode to the third chair in the line, Philip’s, and got on it. That way he and Cramer had Wolfe surrounded, and it seemed only fair for me to be handy, so I detoured around Cramer, pulled Jimmie’s stool to one side, and perched on it.
Jimmie had Wolfe aproned, and his scissors were singing above the right ear. Wolfe barred clippers.
“You just dropped in,” Cramer rasped. “Like Goodwin this morning.”
“Certainly not.” Wolfe was curt but not pugnacious. There was no meeting of eyes, since Cramer had Wolfe’s profile straight and Wolfe had Cramer’s profile in the mirror. “You summoned Mr. Goodwin. He told me on the phone of his fruitless talk with Miss Stahl, and I thought it well to come.”
Cramer grunted. “Okay, you’re here. You won’t leave your place on business for anybody or any fee, but you’re here. And you’re not going to leave until I know why, without any such crap as murderers in your front room.”
“Not as short behin
d as last time,” Wolfe commanded.
“Yes, sir.” Jimmie had never had as big or attentive an audience and he was giving a good show. The comb and scissors flitted and sang.
“Naturally,” Wolfe said tolerantly, “I expected that. You can badger me if that’s what you’re after, and get nowhere, but I offer a suggestion. Why not work first? Why don’t we see if we can settle this business, and then, if you still insist, go after me? Of would you rather harass me than catch a murderer?”
“I’m working now. I want the murderer. What about you?”
“Forget me for the moment. You can hound me any time. I would like to propose certain assumptions about what happened here today. Do you care to hear them?”
“I’ll listen, but don’t drag it out.”
“I won’t. Please don’t waste time challenging the assumptions; I don’t intend to defend them, much less validate them. They are merely a basis of exploration, to be tested. The first is this, that Wallen found something in the car, the car that had killed two women—no, I don’t like it this way. I want a direct view, not reflections. Jimmie, turn me around, please.”
Jimmie whirled the chair a half-turn, so that Wolfe’s back was to the mirrored wall, also to me, and he was facing those seated in the chairs against the partition, with Cramer on his right and Purley on his left.
“That right, sir?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
I spoke up. “Ed isn’t here.”
“I left him in the booth,” Purley rumbled.
“Get him,” Wolfe instructed. “And Miss Stahl, where is she?”
“In her booth, lying down. With her head.”
“We want her. She can sit up, can’t she?”
“I don’t know. God only knows.”
“Archie. Bring Miss Stahl.”
He had a nerve picking on me, with an inspector and a sergeant and three dicks there, but I postponed telling him so and went, as Purley went for Ed. In the booth Janet was still on her back on the chairs, her eyes wide open. At sight of me she fired immediately.
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