Over My Dead Body

by Over My Dead Body (lit)

  “I’ll be engaged for some time. Do you need to see me alone?”

  That seemed to stump him. He frowned and took a quick survey of the crowd. “Perhaps not,” he decided. “It’s only . . . about that statute requiring the registration of agents of foreign principals.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well—it is necessary to make sure that you understand the requirements.”

  “I think I do understand them.”

  “Perhaps. Section 5 of the Act says, ‘Any person who wilfully fails to file any statement required to be filed under this Act, or, in complying with the provisions of this Act, makes a false statement of a material fact, or wilfully omits to state any material fact required to be stated therein, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or imprisonment for not more than two years, or both.’”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “Perhaps. Another section of the Act defines an agent of a foreign principal to mean any individual, partnership, association or corporation who acts or engages as agent or representative for a foreign principal, and a foreign principal is defined to mean the government of a foreign country, a person domiciled abroad, or any foreign business, partnership, association, corporation, or political organization.”

  “Say it again.”

  He repeated it.

  Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I need to register under the Act. I am agent for a young woman named Neya Tormic. She is foreign. But she is not a business, partnership, association, corporation, or political organization, nor is she at present domiciled abroad.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Right there.”

  The G-man looked at Neya; in fact, he studied her. Then he switched to Wolfe and studied him. Finally he slowly shook his head. “I don’t know either,” he declared. “It’s a situation I haven’t met. I’ll have to get an opinion from the Attorney-General. I’ll let you know.”

  He bowed with perfect aplomb, turned, and departed.

  I tittered.

  Cramer threw up both hands, pawed the air, and headed for the door. Half-way across he turned to announce, “I heard every word of that and I don’t believe it. If I had on a phonograph record and played it all day I still wouldn’t believe it. And in spite of that, I believe in law enforcement. Come on, Stebbins. Bring that glove and that thing. Miss, there’ll be a man at your apartment at 8.30 in the morning to bring you to my office. You’ll be there?”

  She said she would, and he went out with the sergeant at his heels.

  Wolfe poured beer and drank. I covered a yawn.

  Neya Tormic asked, with her forehead wrinkled, “Was it silly of me to admit it like that? I thought—it seemed to be the only thing I could do.”

  Wolfe wiped his lips, leaned back, and looked at her. “Anyhow, it was one thing to do, and you did it. Was it the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Faber’s story, which you have confirmed, and which gives you both an alibi, also true?”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize, I suppose, that without that alibi you would probably now be under arrest, charged with murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that Ludlow was an agent of the British Government?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that Faber is an agent of the German Government?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a government agent, or is Miss Lovchen?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who killed Ludlow?”

  “No.”

  “Have you any idea?”

  “No.”

  His eyes darted aside. “Did you kill Ludlow, Miss Lovchen?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you any idea who did?”

  “No, sir.”

  Wolfe sighed. “Now. Take those others. Mr and Mrs Miltan, Driscoll, Gill, Barrett, Miss Reade, Madame Zorka. Do you know whether they were involved with Ludlow, either politically or personally?”

  Neya’s eyes shifted to Carla and then returned to Wolfe. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then spoke. “I don’t know how much involved. They all knew each other. We haven’t been there very long ourselves.”

  “Did you first meet Ludlow and Faber at Miltan’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you learn they were government agents?”

  “Why . . . they told me.”

  “Indeed. Just told you to make conversation?”

  “They . . . well, they told me.” She smiled at him. “Under certain conditions—I mean, a man is apt to tell a girl things if the conditions are such that he feels like it.”

  “Were you intimate with Mr Ludlow? Are you intimate with Mr Faber?”

  “Oh, no.” Her nose seemed to go up. “Not intimate.”

  “Yet they told you—never mind. You say you are not a government agent. Are you a political agent? Did you come to this country on a political mission?”

  “No.”

  “Did you, Miss Lovchen?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re both lying.”

  They stared at him. Neya’s chin went up. Carla’s eyes narrowed, which left them still wide enough for ordinary purposes.

  Wolfe snapped, “As an intriguante, Miss Lovchen, you are incredibly maladroit. Twice since you entered this room you have glanced at the place on the bookshelves where my copy of United Yugoslavia stands. I know you put that paper there. I’ve removed it and put it somewhere else.”

  Neya merely continued to stare, but Carla jumped up, with her face white, and started to sputter at him, “But I—I only meant—”

  “I know.” He showed her a palm. “You only meant to leave it there a while for safe keeping. It’s even safer where I put it. The reason I mention it—”

  “Where is it?” Neya Tormic’s eyes were two épées going through him and her tone was a dagger whizzing at him. She was up and at the edge of his desk in one swift movement that reminded me of the lunge Miltan had made with his championship sticker to show me how it was done. She threw the dagger again at short range: “Where is it?”

  She turned, because Carla was up too and had grabbed her arm. She shook herself loose, but Carla seized her elbow again and told her sharply, “Neya—Neya! Sit down! Neya—you know—”

  Neya spouted a torrent at her that I would have had no symbols for if I had been at my notebook. Carla returned it, but not in a torrent; she was cool and controlled.

  Wolfe said, “I understand Serbo-Croat.”

  They both said, “Oh!”

  He nodded. “I used to knock around. I did some work for the Austrian Government when I was too young to know better. And I was in your country in 1921, and adopted a daughter—”

  “I want that paper.”

  “I know you do, Miss Lovchen. But I won’t even discuss it, let alone return it to you, unless you children sit down and behave yourselves. None of this jumping up and cater-wauling; I don’t like it; besides, it won’t do you any good. Sit down!”

  They sat.

  “That’s better. I mentioned that paper only to show you how I knew you were lying when you said you aren’t in this country on a political mission—and by the way, I suppose you lied to the police too? Of course you did. Now that the paper’s been mentioned—where did you get it, Miss Lovchen?”

  “I . . .” She fingered her skirt. “I got it.”

  “Where and how? Is it yours?”

  “I stole it.”

  Neya snapped. “You did not! I stole it myself!”

  Wolfe shrugged. “Split the honours. Who did you steal it from?”

  “From the person who had it.”

  “From the Princess Vladanka Donevitch?”

  “I won’t tell you.”

  “Good. That’s better than trying to lie. Is the princess in New York now?”

  “I won’t tell you anything about that paper.”

  “You are in danger. You are actua
lly in peril of your life. Faber’s unsupported alibi is the only thing between you and an indictment for murder. Do you want my assistance in the removal of that danger?”

  “Yes.” It looked for an instant as if she were going to smile at him, but she didn’t. “Yes,” she repeated, “I do.”

  “Are you prepared to pay me—my usual fee? Several thousand dollars, for instance?”

  “My God, no.” She glanced at Carla and back at him. “But . . . I might.”

  “But when you sent Miss Lovchen here in the first place, you expected me to help you because you are my adopted daughter, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I thought you might feel—”

  “I carry this fat to insulate my feelings. They got too strong for me once or twice and I had that idea. If I had stayed lean and kept moving around I would have been dead long ago. You are aware that I have no proof that you are my daughter. You sent Miss Lovchen here with that record of adoption bearing my signature. Another paper. Did you steal that too?”

  Carla ejaculated something indignant. Neya was on her feet, with her eyes flashing. “If you think I did that, there’s no use—”

  “I don’t think you did that. I just don’t know. I asked you to stop jumping up. Please sit down, Miss Tormic. Thank you. I used to be idiotically romantic. I still am, but I’ve got it in hand. I thought it romantic, when I was a boy, twenty-five years ago, to be a secret agent of the Austrian Government. My progress towards maturity got interrupted by the World War and my experience with it. War doesn’t mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread. Pfui! After the war I was still lean and I moved around. In Montenegro I assumed responsibility for the sustenance and mental and physical thrift of a three-year-old orphan girl by adopting her. I did something else there, too, which advanced my maturity, but that has nothing to do with you. I saw that girl’s ribs. The something else I did finished Montenegro for me, and I left the girl, I thought, in good hands, and returned to America.”

  Wolfe leaned back and let his lids down a little. “You go on from there, please.”

  Neya said, “You left me in Zagreb with Pero Brovnik and his wife.”

  “That’s right. Your name?”

  “My name was Anna. When I was eight years old they were arrested as revolutionaries and shot. I don’t remember that very well, but I know all about it.”

  “Yes.” Wolfe looked grim. “And for three years the money I continued to send to Zagreb was appropriated by someone in Brovnik’s name, and when I got suspicious and went over there, in spite of the fact that I was no longer lean, I got nowhere. I couldn’t find the girl. I got no satisfaction about the money. I got put in jail, and the American Consul got me out and I was given ten hours to leave the country.” He made a face. “I have not been in Europe, or in jail, since. Where were you?”

  “I was eleven years old then.”

  “Yes. I can add. Where were you?”

  She looked at him a while before she spoke. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You’ll either tell me that or march on out of here and not come back. And I have the paper which you stole and your friend left in my book for safekeeping. Now don’t start cater-wauling.”

  Carla said, “Tell him, Neya.”

  “But, Carla! then he’ll know

  “Tell him!”

  “And tell the truth,” Wolfe advised, “or I’ll know that, and I’ll know it even better after I’ve cabled Europe.”

  She told him. “When the Brovniks were arrested I was sent to an institution. A year later I was taken out by a woman named Mrs Campbell.”

  “Who was she?”

  “She was the English secretary of Prince Peter Donevitch.”

  “What did she want with you?”

  “She visited the institution and she took a liking to me. My ribs didn’t show then. She wanted to adopt me, but she couldn’t, legally, on account of you.”

  “Why didn’t she communicate with me?”

  “Because . . . her connexion with Prince Donevitch. The kind of friends you had had in Yugoslavia, like the Brovniks. They knew you would make trouble, and they didn’t want trouble from an American.”

  “No. You can’t take an American out and shoot him. So she just stole the money I sent for three years.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She died four years ago.”

  “Where did you go then?”

  “I continued to live there.”

  “With Donevitch?”

  “In that house.”

  “Did young Prince Stefan live there?”

  “Yes, he—he and his sisters.”

  “And his wife?”

  “After—of course. When he was married, two years ago.”

  “Were you treated as one of the family?”

  “No.” She hesitated and then said more emphatically, “No, I wasn’t.”

  Wolfe turned abruptly to Carla Lovchen and snapped at her, “Are you Stefan’s wife—the Princess Vladanka?”

  Her eyes popped open, “Me? Boga ti! No!”

  “You had that paper which you put in my book.”

  Neya said, “I told you I stole that paper. I don’t always lie.”

  “Where did you steal it—Zagreb or New York?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you about that paper. Not even—no matter what you do.”

  He grunted. “Your secret political mission. I know. Die first. I used to play that silly dirty game myself. But since you lived in the same house with the Princess Vladanka, you must know her pretty well. Are you and she friends?”

  “Friends?” Neya’s forehead showed a crease. “No.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “She is clever, beautiful, selfish, and treacherous.”

  “Indeed. What does she look like?”

  “Well . . . she is tall. Her arms move like snakes. Her face is like this.” Neya described an oval with her fingers. “Her eyes are as black as mine—sometimes blacker.”

  “Is she in Zagreb now?”

  “She was when I left. It was said she was going to Paris to see old Prince Peter and then to America.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She looked straight at him. “Sometimes it is necessary to lie. There are some things I can’t tell.”

  “Ha, over your dead body. The curlicues of some old bandit’s trade mark engraved on your heart, and what do you get out of it? When do you expect to finish this political errand you’re working on?”

  She looked at him, at Carla, back at him, and said nothing. “Come, come,” he insisted impatiently. “I merely ask when. Is the end in sight?”

  “I think so,” she admitted. “I think it will be . . . tomorrow.”

  “It’s past midnight. Do you mean this day?”

  “Yes. But I must have that paper. You have no right to keep it. When that imbecile, that Driscoll, made the trouble about his diamonds being stolen, I thought the police might come and search everything, even my room where I live. I thought of you, the American who had adopted me when I was a baby. I had brought the record of adoption with me when I left Zagreb; Mrs Campbell had given it to me before she died. So Carla and I decided the paper would be safer with you than anywhere else, and we decided how to do it so she could easily get it again. Then you refused to help me and she had to return and let you know who I am.” She stopped and smiled at him, but she was so anxious that the effort was a little cock-eyed. “I must have that paper now! I must!”

  “We’ll see. You admit you stole it. So you expect to accomplish your mission this day.”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize, of course, that the police won’t let you leave New York until they’re satisfied their murder case is solved.”

  “But I . . . you said yourself my alibi—”

  “That doesn’t solve the case. Don’t you do anything silly. If you do complete your errand, don’t try sneaki
ng aboard a ship disguised as a Nereid. Who is Madame Zorka?”

  They both stared at him in surprise.

  “Well?” Wolfe demanded. “You know her, don’t you?”

  Carla laughed. It sounded quite natural, as though something really had struck her as funny. Neya said:

  “Why . . . she’s nobody. She’s a dressmaker.”

  “So I understand. Where did she get that name—the name of the daughter of King Nikita of Montenegro.”

  “But Queen Zorka has been dead—”

  “I know that. Where did this dressmaker get the name?”

  Carla laughed again. “She must have found it in a book.”

  “Who is she?”

  Neya shrugged and upturned her palms. “We know nothing about her.”

  Wolfe eyed them a moment and then sighed. “All right. It’s late and you ought to be in bed, since you have to get up early to visit Mr Rowcliff. That smile ought to help with him. When you are through there, come here, and I’ll see you at eleven o’clock and give you that paper.”

  “I want it now!”

  “You can’t have it now. It isn’t here. I will—”

  Neya jumped up. “What did you—where is it?”

  “Stop screaming at me. It’s safe. I’ll give it to you at eleven o’clock. Sit down—no, don’t bother to sit down; you’re going. Remember, now, don’t do anything silly. As for you, Miss Lovchen, I would advise you to do nothing whatever except eat and sleep. I say that on account of your performance yesterday when you hid that paper in my book—asking Mr Goodwin if I had read it and did I study and was he reading it. Unbelievable!”

  Carla flushed. “I thought . . . I was casual—”

  “Good heavens! Casual? I still suspect you meant us to find it, though I can’t imagine what for. Well, good-night. By the way, Miss Tormic, about your being my client. I’ll return that adoption paper to you in the morning along with the other; it seems likely that it belongs to you; but I am cautious and sceptical and I don’t like misunderstandings. You are my client only so long as it remains established that you are the girl whose ribs I saw in 1921. I am your protector, but if it turns out that you have duped me on that, I shall be your enemy. I don’t like to be fooled.”

  “I doubt if I could fool you if I wanted to.” She met his eye and suddenly smiled at him. “You can feel my ribs if you want to, but as for looking at them—”