by Rex Stout
Wolfe pushed his chair back. “I offer my profound sympathy, Miss Vassos.” Even gruffer. He arose. “I’ll leave you with Mr. Goodwin. You will give him the details.” He moved, the book in his hand.
That was him. He thought she was going to flop, and a woman off the rail is not only unwelcome, she is not to be borne. Not by him. But she caught his sleeve and stopped him. “You,” she said. “I must tell you. To my father you are a great man, the greatest man in the world. I must tell you.”
“She’ll do,” I said. “She’ll make it.”
There are few men who would not like to be told they are the greatest in the world, and Wolfe isn’t one of them. He stared down at her for five seconds, returned to his chair, sat, inserted the marker in the book and put it down, scowled at her, and demanded, “When did you eat?”
“I haven’t-I can’t swallow.”
“Pfui. When did you eat?”
“A little this morning. My father hadn’t come home and I didn’t know…”
He swiveled to push a button, leaned back, closed his eyes, and opened them when he heard a step at the door. “Tea with honey, Fritz. Toast, pot cheese, and Bar-le-Duc. For Miss Vassos.”
Fritz went.
“I really can’t,” she said.
“You will if you want me to listen. Where is the cliff?”
It took her a second to go back. “It’s in the country somewhere. I guess they told me, but I don’t-”
“When was he found?”
“Sometime this afternoon, late this afternoon.”
“You saw him at the morgue. Where, in the country?”
“No, they brought him; it’s not far from here. When I had-when I could-I came here from there.”
“Who was with you?”
“Two men, detectives. They told me their names, but I don’t remember.”
“I mean with you. Brother, sister, mother?”
“I have no brother or sister. My mother died ten years ago.”
“When did you last see your father alive?”
“Yesterday. When I got home from work he wasn’t there, and it was nearly six o’clock when he came, and he said he had been at the district attorney’s office for three hours; they had been asking him questions about Mr. Ashby. You know about Mr. Ashby, he said he told you about him when he came here. Of course I already knew about him because I work there. I did work there.”
“Where?”
“At the office. That company. Mercer’s Bobbins.”
“Indeed. In what capacity?”
“I’m a stenographer. Not anybody’s secretary, just a stenographer. Mostly typing and sometimes letters for Mr. Busch. My father got me the job through Mr. Mercer.”
“How long ago?”
“Two years ago. After I graduated from high school.”
“Then you knew Mr. Ashby.”
“Yes. I knew him a little, yes.”
“About last evening. Your father came home around six. Then?”
“I had dinner nearly ready, and we talked, and we ate, and then we talked some more. He said there was something he hadn’t told the police and he hadn’t told you, and he was going to go and tell you in the morning and ask you what he ought to do. He said you were such a great man that people paid you fifty thousand dollars just to tell them what to do, and he thought you would tell him for nothing, so it would be foolish not to go and ask you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Then a friend of mine came-I was going to a movie with her-and we went. When I got home father wasn’t there and there was a note on the table. It said he was going out and might be late. One of the detectives tried to take the note but I wouldn’t let him. I have it here in my bag if you want to see it.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Not necessary. Had your father mentioned before you left that he intended to go out?”
“No. And he always did. We always told each other ahead of time what we were going to do.”
“Had he given you no hint- Very well, Fritz.”
Fritz crossed to the red leather chair, put the tray on the little table that is always there for people to write checks on, and proffered her a napkin. She didn’t lift a hand to take it. Wolfe spoke.
“I’ll listen to more, Miss Vassos, only after you eat.” He picked up his book, opened to his page, and swiveled to put his back to her. She took the napkin. Fritz went. I could have turned to my desk and pretended to do something, but I would have been reflected to her in the big mirror on the wall back of my desk, which gives me a view of the door to the hall, and she would have been reflected to me, so I got up and went to the kitchen. Fritz was at the side table putting the cover on the toaster. As I got the milk from the refrigerator I told him, “She’s the daughter of Pete Vassos. I’ll have to scare up a bootblack. He’s dead.”
“Him?” Fritz turned. “Dieu m’en garde.” He shook his head. “Too young. Then she is not a client?”
“Not one to send a bill to.” I poured milk. “Anyhow, as you know, he wouldn’t take a paying client if one came up the stoop on his knees. It’s December, and his tax bracket is near the top. If she wants him to help and he won’t, I’ll take a leave of absence and handle it myself. You saw her face.”
He snorted. “She should be warned. About you.”
“Sure. I’ll do that first.”
I don’t gulp milk. When the glass was half empty I tiptoed out to the office door. Wolfe’s back was still turned and Elma was putting jam on a piece of toast. I finished the milk, taking my time, and took the glass to the kitchen, and when I returned Wolfe had about-faced and put the book down and she was saying something. I entered and crossed to my desk.
“… and he had never done that before,” she was telling Wolfe. “I thought he might have gone back to the district attorney’s office, so I phoned there, but he hadn’t. I phoned two of his friends but they hadn’t seen him. I went to work as usual, he goes to that building every morning, and I told Mr. Busch and he tried to find out if he was in the building, but no one had seen him. Then a detective came and asked me a lot of questions, and later, after lunch, another one came and took me to the district attorney’s office, and I-”
“Miss Vassos.” Wolfe was curt. “If you please. You have eaten, though not much, and your faculties are apparently in order. You said you must tell me, and I would not be uncivil to your father’s daughter, but these details are not essential. Give me brief answers to some questions. You said that they think your father killed himself, he jumped off. Who are ‘they’?”
“The police. The detectives.”
“How do you know they do?”
“The way they talked. What they said. What they asked me. They think he killed Mr. Ashby and he knew they were finding out about it, so he killed himself.”
“Do they think they know why he killed Mr. Ashby?”
“Yes. Because he had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced me.”
I lifted a brow. You couldn’t be much briefer than that. There wasn’t the slightest sign on her face that she had said anything remarkable. Nor was there any sign on Wolfe’s face that he had heard anything remarkable. He asked, “How do you know that?”
“What they said this afternoon at the district attorney’s office. They used that word, ‘seduced.’”
“Did you know that your father had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced you?”
“Of course not, because he hadn’t. My father wouldn’t have believed that even if Mr. Ashby had told him, or even if I had gone crazy and told him, because he would have known it wasn’t so. My father knew me.”
Wolfe was frowning. “You mean he thought he knew you?”
“He did know me. He didn’t know I couldn’t be seduced-I suppose any girl could be seduced if her head gets turned enough-but he knew if I was I would tell him. And he knew if I ever was seduced it wouldn’t be Mr. Ashby or anyone like him. My father knew me.”
“Let’s make it clear. Are you saying that Mr. Ashby had not seduced you?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Had he tried to?”
She hesitated. “No.” She considered. “He took me to dinner and a show three times. The last time was nearly a year ago. He asked me several times since, but I didn’t go because I had found out what he was like and I didn’t like him.”
Wolfe’s frown had gone. “Then why do the police think he had seduced you?”
“I don’t know, but someone must have told them. Someone must have told them lies about Mr. Ashby and me, from what they said.”
“Who? Did they name anyone?”
“No.”
“Do you know who? Or can you guess?”
“No.”
Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie?”
That was to be expected. It was merely routine. He pretends to presume that he knows nothing, and I know everything, about women, and he was asking me to tell him whether Elma Vassos had or had not been seduced by Dennis Ashby, yes or no. What the hell, I wasn’t under oath, and I did have an opinion. “They don’t go by dreams,” I said. “She’s probably right, someone has fed them a line. Say thirty to one.”
“You believe her.”
“Believe? Make it twenty to one.”
She turned her head, slowly, to look straight at me. “Thank you, Mr. Goodwin,” she said and turned back to Wolfe.
His eyes narrowed at her. “Well. Assuming you have been candid, what then? You said you must tell me, and I have listened. Your father is dead. I esteemed him, and I would spare no pains to resurrect him if that were possible. But what can you expect me to tender beyond my sympathy, which you have?”
“Why…” She was surprised. “I thought-isn’t it obvious, what they’re going to do? I mean that they’re not going to do anything? If they think my father killed Mr. Ashby on account of me and then killed himself, what can they do? That will end it, it’s already ended for them. So I’ll have to do something, and I don’t know what, so I had to come to you because my father said-” She stopped and covered her mouth with her spread fingers. It was the first quick, strong movement she had made. “Oh!” she said through the fingers. Her hand dropped. “Of course. You must forgive me.” She opened her bag, a big brown leather one, stuck her hand in, and took something out. “I should have done this before. My father never spent any of the money you paid him. This is it, all dollar bills, the bills you gave him. He said he would do something special with it some day, but he never said what. But he said-” She stopped. She clamped her teeth on her lip.
“Don’t do that,” Wolfe snapped.
She nodded. “I know, I won’t. I haven’t counted it, but it must be nearly five hundred dollars; you paid him three times a week for over three years.” She got up and put it on Wolfe’s desk and returned to the chair. “Of course it’s nothing to you, it’s nothing like fifty thousand, so I’m really asking for charity, but it’s for my father, not for me, and after all it will mean that you got your shoes shined for nothing for more than three years.”
Wolfe looked at me. I had let her in, I admit that, but from his look you might have thought I had killed Ashby and Pete and had seduced her into the bargain. I cocked my head at him. He looked at her. “Miss Vassos. You are asking me to establish your father’s innocence and your chastity. Is that it?”
“My chastity doesn’t matter. I mean that’s not it.”
“But your father’s innocence is.”
“Yes. Yes!”
Wolfe wiggled a finger at the stack of dollar bills, held by rubber bands. “Your money. Take it. It is, as you say, nothing for a job like this, and if I am quixotic enough to undertake it I don’t want a tip. I make no commitment. If I said yes or no now it would be no; it’s midnight, bedtime, and I’m tired. I’ll tell you in the morning. You will sleep here. There’s a spare bedroom, adequate and comfortable.” He pushed his chair back and rose.
“But I don’t want… I have no things…”
“You have your skin.” He frowned down at her. “Suppose this. Suppose the assumptions of the police are correct: that Mr. Ashby had in fact seduced you, that your father learned about it and killed him, and that, fearing exposure, he then killed himself; and suppose that under that burden of knowledge you go home to face the night alone. What would you do?”
“But it’s not true! He didn’t!”
“I told you to suppose. Suppose it were true. What would you do?”
“Why… I would kill myself. Of course.”
Wolfe nodded. “I assume you would. And if you die tonight or tomorrow in circumstances which make it plausible that you committed suicide, others, including the police, will make that assumption. The murderer knows that, and since his attempt to have Ashby’s death taken for suicide might have succeeded, and his attempt to have your father’s death taken for suicide apparently has succeeded, he will probably try again. If he knows you he knows that you are not without spirit, as you have shown by coming here, and you will be a mortal threat to him as long as you live. You will sleep here. I shall not be available before eleven in the morning, but Mr. Goodwin will, and you will tell him everything you know that may be useful. If I decide to help you, as a service to your father, I’ll need all the information I can get. Don’t try withholding anything from Mr. Goodwin; his understanding of attractive young women is extremely acute. Good night.” He turned to me. “You’ll see that the South Room is in order. Good night.” He went.
As the sound came of the elevator door closing the client told me, “Take the money, Mr. Goodwin. I don’t want-” She started to shake, her head dropped, and her hands came up to cover her face. It was a good thing she had fought it off until the great man had left.
3
AT A QUARTER TO ELEVEN Wednesday morning I was at my desk, typing. When I had knocked on the door of the South Room, which is on the third floor, directly above Wolfe’s room, at seven forty-five, Elma had been up and dressed. She said she had slept pretty well, but she didn’t look it. I eat breakfast in the kitchen, but Fritz wouldn’t want her to, so he served us in the dining room, and she did all right-all her orange juice, two griddle cakes, two slices of bacon, two shirred eggs with chives, and two cups of coffee. Then to the office, and for nearly an hour, from eight-forty to nine-thirty, I had asked questions and she had answered them.
Since she had started to work for Mercer’s Bobbins, Inc., two years back, their office space had doubled and their office staff had tripled. That is, their sales and executive office in the Eighth Avenue building; she didn’t know what the increase had been in the factory in New Jersey, but it had been big. It was understood by everybody that the increase had been due to the ability and effort of one man, Dennis Ashby, who had been put in charge of sales and promotion three years ago. He had boosted more than bobbins; the firm now made more than twenty items used in the garment industry.
Of the dozen members of the staff she named and described, here are some samples:
JOHN MERCER, president. There had been an office party, with cake and punch, on his sixty-first birthday in September. He had inherited the business from his father; it was generally understood that he owned most of the stock of the corporation. He spent most of his time at the factory and was at the New York office only two days a week. The firm had been about to go under when he had made Ashby vice-president and put him in charge of sales and promotion. He called the employees by their first names and they all liked him. They called him, not to his face, the Big M. He had children and grandchildren, Elma didn’t know how many. None of them was active in the business.
ANDREW BUSCH, secretary of the corporation and office manager, was in his early thirties, not married. Up to a year ago he had been merely the head bookkeeper, and when the office manager had died of old age Mercer had promoted him. He had a room of his own, but three or four times a day he would appear in the rumpus and make the rounds of the desks. (The rumpus was the big room where twenty-eight girls did the work. One of them had called it the rumpus room and it had been shortened to rum
pus.) He had instructed the stenographers that when Ashby sent for one of them she was to stop at his room and tell him where she was going, so they called him, not to his face, Paladin.
PHILIP HORAN, salesman, in his middle thirties, married, two or three children. I include him because a) he was seldom at the office before four in the afternoon but had been seen there Monday morning by one of the girls, b) he had expected to get the job Mercer had given Ashby and was known to be sore about it, and c) he had asked one of the girls, an old-timer who had been with the firm as long as he had, to find out what had happened and was happening between Ashby and Elma Vassos, and had kept after her about it.
FRANCES COX, receptionist. Elma said she was thirty, so she was probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight. I do know a few things about women. I include her because if she had seen Pete entering Ashby’s room she might have seen someone else on the move, and that might be useful.
DENNIS ASHBY, dead. He had told Elma a year back that he was thirty-eight. Had started with Mercer’s Bobbins long ago, Elma didn’t know how long, as a stock clerk. Small and not handsome. When I asked Elma to name the animal he was most like, she said a monkey. He had spent about half of his time out of the office, out promoting. He had had no secretary; when he had wanted a stenographer he had called one in from the rumpus, and he had handled his appointments himself, with the assistance of Frances Cox, the receptionist. He had kept a battery of files in his own room. The girls had called him the Menace, naturally, with his name Dennis, but also because they meant it. Elma had no knowledge of any seduction he had actually achieved, but there had been much talk.
JOAN ASHBY, the widow. I include her because the widow of a murdered man must always be included. She had once worked at Mercer’s Bobbins, but had quit when she married Ashby, before Elma had got her job there. Elma had never seen her and knew next to nothing about her. Ashby had told Elma across a restaurant table that his marriage had been a mistake and he was trying to get his wife to agree to a divorce.
