by Rex Stout
My impulse was to go after him. I stood and considered it. He had done it in style, his style, waiting to toss it at me until we were outside, with the nearest row of desks and personnel so close that I would have had to take only two short steps to touch the rayon shoulder of a dark-haired beauty with magenta lipstick. She was looking at me, now that the big boss had departed, and so were others in that sector, enjoying a good view of the bloodhound. I made a face at them collectively, and, deciding not to go after Naylor because I wasn’t sure I could keep from strangling him, I opened the door of Hoff s room and went in.
He looked up, got me at a glance, and barked at me. “Get out!” I shut the door and surveyed. He had a nice big room. As for him, it might have been expected that the man who had plugged Waldo Moore in the jaw for romantic reasons, and was a civil engineer into the bargain, would be well designed and constructed, but no. There was heft to him, but he would be pudgy before many years passed and also he would have two chins. He didn’t get up and start for me or pick up anything to throw; he simply told me to get out. I approached his desk, offering reasonably, “I will if you’ll tell me why.” “Get out of here!” He meant every word he said. “You goddam snoop! And stay out!” For one thing, with a man in that frame of mind the chances of having a friendly and fruitful conversation are not very good, and for another, I was there at that time only because I had told Naylor on the spur of the moment that I had an appointment with him. I hated to pass up an opportunity for a cutting remark, two or three of which were ready for my tongue simultaneously, but the look on his face indicated that he would like nothing better than for me to try to stay, so he could add some remarks of his own. Therefore I outwitted him by pivoting on my heel and getting out, just as he said.
Back in my own room, I stood at the window and examined Kerr Naylor’s latest card, top and bottom. I had a notion to go down to a booth and phone Wolfe, but it was past four o’clock and he would be up in the plant rooms until six, and he never liked to be asked to use his brain when he was up there, so I rejected it.
Instead, I put some paper in the typewriter and put the same head on it as on my report to Naylor-Kerr, Inc., the day before. I sat a few minutes making up my mind how to word it and then hit the keys: Mr. Kerr Naylor came to my office at 3:25 p.m. He talked of irrelevant matters for some time, and then he told me that he knows who killed Waldo Moore. He said that was all he could say, because “it is neither proper nor safe to accuse a person of murder without communicable evidence to support the charge.” He told me to tell Mr. Wolfe he was sorry. I would have tried to get him not to wait until Monday to go to see Mr. Wolfe, but he left and went to his room, and in view of his attitude and manner I thought it would be useless to go after him.
I had a couple of other items to add, regarding Ben Frenkel and Sumner Hoff, filling a page, but it seemed pretty skimpy for a full day’s work. Still liking the idea that someone might be curious enough, or scared enough, to take a look at my folders, I had made a second carbon, and I disposed of it as I had the day before, putting it on top of the other one inside the third folder from the top, and deploying tobacco crumbs in the same spots. By the time that was all arranged it was four-thirty. I went out and took an elevator to the thirty-sixth, and told the receptionist, Miss Abrams, that I had no appointment with Pine but would like to have one minute with him to hand him something. She said he was in a meeting and wouldn’t be free for an hour or more. I thought if Pine could trust her I could too, got an envelope from her and put the report in it and sealed it and left it with her for Pine.
On the way back to the stock department I had a bright idea. I still hadn’t seen Gwynne Ferris. If a unit of personnel could waylay me on Wednesday, why couldn’t I return the compliment on Thursday? Not by waylaying, but through channels. I would wait until I saw her to decide whether to invite her to Rusterman’s or take her home with me and let Wolfe do some work.
But I didn’t see her. Using my phone, I was told by the head of the reserve pool that he was sorry, but Miss Ferris had so much in her book that she would have to stay overtime, and he would greatly appreciate it if I could wait till morning. I told him sure.
I knocked off with the bunch, at quitting time, and going down in the elevator I couldn’t complain of lack of attention. Some stared at me openly, some glanced when they thought I wasn’t looking, and some used the corner-of-the-eye technique, but for each and all I was certainly it.
CHAPTER Sixteen
Wolfe was reading three books at once. He had been doing that, off and on, all the years I had been with him, and it always annoyed me because it seemed ostentatious. The three current items were The Sudden Guest by Christopher La Farge, Love from London by Gilbert Gabriel, and A Survey of Symbolic Logic by C.
I. Lewis. He would take turns with them, reading twenty or thirty pages in each at a time. In the office after dinner that evening he sat at his desk, having a wonderful time with his literary ring-around-a-rosy.
I had already, before dinner, reported to him on the day’s events, and presumably he had listened, but he had not asked a single question or made a single comment. For table conversation business was of course taboo, but it might have been supposed that with digestion proceeding under control and according to plan he would have one or two suggestions to offer. Not so.
I was at my own desk, cleaning and oiling my arsenal-two revolvers and an automatic. When he finished the second heat with A Survey of Symbolic Logic, dogeared it, put it down, and reached for Love from London, I inquired respectfully, “Where’s Saul?” “Saul?” You might have thought he was trying to decide whether I meant Saul of Tarsus or Saul Soda. “Oh. It seemed pointless to waste a client’s money. Did you want him for something? I believe he’s working on a forgery case for Mr.
Bascom.” “So I’m doing a solo. Shall I go up and start catching up on sleep, or would you care to pretend we both earn money?” “Archie.” He picked up the book. “I do not propose to start sorting out chaos.
At present this case is merely a guggle of unintelligible babel. If Mr. Naylor killed Mr. Moore, it is quite possible that he will carry his joke too far. If he didn’t, and he knows that someone else did, the same comment can be made. If neither, the corporation is spending money foolishly but we are not stockholders. We’ll probably know more about it after my talk with Mr. Naylor Monday evening. Until then it would be futile to bother my head about it.
Besides, you don’t really want me to. You are wallowing in clover, with hundreds of young women accessible, unguarded, and utterly at your mercy.” “I do not,” I said, closing the drawer where I kept the arsenal and getting to my feet, “like clover.” I walked to the door to the hall, where I turned. “It is not my mercy they’re at. And if I stick my foot in something down there that you have to pull it out of, don’t blame me.”
CHAPTER Seventeen
At nine-thirty-five A.M. Friday, the next morning, I stood in front of the filing cabinet in my room in the Naylor-Kerr stock department, gazing down into the drawer I had opened with a feeling of real satisfaction. Not only were the tobacco crumbs nowhere visible, but the edge of the Thursday report was a good half inch down from the Wednesday report, and I had left them precisely even.
I enjoyed the satisfied feeling for a few seconds and then could have kicked myself. Thursday I had brought paraphernalia with me, but had taken it home again, not wanting to leave it around, and this morning I hadn’t brought it.
That cost me an extra forty minutes. I closed the drawer and locked it. Down on the street I had no trouble finding a taxi, since it was the time of day that the carriage trade gets to work in that part of town. At Wolfe’s house I popped in and right out again, with the cab waiting, and no encounter with Wolfe since his morning hours in the plant rooms are from nine to eleven, and headed back for William Street.
I would have liked to lock my door, since the custom there was to enter without knocking, but there was no key, so I barricaded it by shoving the
desk against it. With the folders from the drawer carefully and lovingly transported to the desk, I opened my kit and started to work. It was like picking peaches off a tree with all the branches loaded. Any schoolboy could have harvested that crop.
Within twenty minutes I had three dozen beauts, some on the slick cardboard of the top folder, a few on the second, more on the third, and a whole flock on the coated stock of the two reports.
My feeling of satisfaction had tapered off a little. The total bulk of curiosity out in the arena, not to mention the two rows of offices, regarding me and my activities, would easily have filled a ten-ton truck, and common curiosity has led people into more complicated and perilous ventures than sneaking into a room and looking over the contents of a filing cabinet. But even at the biggest discount I was doing something, getting something you could see and show around, instead of hopping around bobbing the chin.
The next step, presumably, was to acquire additional equipment, preferably at wholesale, and proceed to take the prints of everyone on the floor. Granted that they would all be eager to co-operate, it would keep me busy for four or five eight-hour days, working alone. That had drawbacks. I went and stooped for the phone, having deposited it on the floor when I moved the desk, and told it I wished to speak to Mr. Pine.
It took a while to get him. When he was on I said, “I need an answer to a question I don’t like to ask anyone else. I know some of the big corporations have adopted the custom of getting fingerprints of all their employees, and I wonder if Naylor-Kerr is one of them. Is it?” “Yes,” he said, “we started that during the war. Why?” “I’d like to have permission to take a look at them. I mean go over them.” “What for?” “Someone has been monkeying around my room, nosing into my papers, and it would be fun to know who.” “That seems a little farfetched, doesn’t it? By the way, I got that report. It will be discussed at a meeting of some of the executives this afternoon. And Mr.
Hoff insisted on seeing me; he just left a few minutes ago. He says your presence is demoralizing the whole department. Damn it, I tell you frankly, I could run a car over Mr. Naylor myself. At least you have prodded him along a little. Perhaps you should have a talk with Mr. Hoff whether he likes it or not.” “I’d love to. What about the fingerprints?” “Certainly, if you think it’s worth the trouble. See Mr. Gushing and tell him I said so.” Mr. Gushing was the assistant vice-president who had introduced me around when I started to work. I got him on the phone. It might have been expected that he would show some curiosity as to what a personnel expert expected to accomplish by inspecting fingerprints, but he didn’t, so evidently the news of my real status had got beyond the stock department. He was anxious to please, even to the extent of sending me a boy with an empty carton and a supply of tissue paper for the safe transport of my specimens.
I wasn’t left alone with the prints, which were filed in a locked cabinet of their own in a room on the thirty-fifth floor. A middle-aged woman with dyed brown hair and a flat chest who had apparently eaten onions for breakfast never got more than ten feet from me. She had an uncertain moment when I sent for the boy and asked him to bring me sandwiches and milk, but she fielded it nicely by phoning a pal to come and relieve her for a lunch period.
I knew what I was doing, but was by no means an expert, and I had to go slow if I didn’t want to miss it and have to start all over again. I had the advantage of having an ample collection of good specimens, but even so it was a long uphill climb. A couple of times during the afternoon the onion eater offered to help, but I politely declined, with my eyes smarting and my neck developing a crick.
It was well past four o’clock when I rang the bell. Even before I put it under the magnifying glass I knew that was it, and five minutes with the glass, comparing it with a dozen of the best specimens on the folders and reports, settled it good enough for any jury. Either I had let out a grunt of triumph or my manner had betrayed me, for the onion eater came to my elbow and asked: “Found what you were after, didn’t you?” Not to waste a lie I told her yes, which was feasible since my hand was covering the name on the card. When she had backed off again I returned the card to the file, closed the drawer, repacked my stuff in the carton with the tissue paper, told her I was through for the day and was grateful for the pleasant hours I had spent with her, and went back to the thirty-fourth floor and my office with the carton under my arm. I put the carton on the floor between the window and the desk, which was back in place, got the head of the reserve pool on the phone, and asked him: “How about Miss Gwynne Ferris? Can I see her now?” “I’m afraid not.” He was apologetic. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Truett, but she still has a lot-” “Excuse me,” I broke in. “I’m sorry too, but so have I got a lot. I have asked for her three times now, and of course if I have to go to Mr. Naylor or Mr.
Pine-” “Not at all! Certainly not! I didn’t know it was important!” “It may be.” “Then I’ll send her right in! She’ll be there right away!” I told him I appreciated it, hung up, arose to move the visitor’s chair to a better position at the end of the desk, and resumed my seat. The door was closed. I was idly considering getting up to open it, to save her the trouble, when it swung open itself and she entered, shut the door behind her, and approached.
I haven’t Wolfe’s stock excuse, over three hundred pounds to manipulate, for not rising to my feet when a caller enters the room, and besides, I am not a lout.
But that time I was glued to my chair at least three seconds beyond the courtesy limit, until after she had asked in a sweet musical voice: “Did you want me? I’m Gwynne Ferris.” It was the non-speller who had rested her lovely fingers on my knee before I had been in the place an hour.
CHAPTER Eighteen
The psychological moment had passed for rising on the entrance of a lady, so I skipped it and told her, “There’s a chair. C-H-A-I-R. Sit down. D-O-W-N.” She did so gracefully, with no flutter, got one knee over the other with the nylons nearly parallel, the twentieth-century classic pose, gave the ordained tug to the hem of her green woolen skirt, covering an additional sector of knee the width of a matchstick, and smiled at me both with her pretty red lips and her clear blue eyes.
“This is Friday,” I stated. “So this is your fifth and last day here. Huh?” “Well-” She looked demure.
“I am naturally magnanimous,” I went on, “and how would you like to spell that one? And I don’t mind a little kidding, some of my best friends are kidders, including me. Besides, my suddenly sitting on the corner of your desk and firing questions at you about Waldo Moore must have given you a jolt, considering that you had been-well, I don’t want to be outspoken about it-say you and he had been propinquitous. P-R-O-P-I-” “Don’t spell it,” she said, with her voice a little less musical and not at all sweet. “Just tell me what it means. If it means what I think it does it’s a lie and I know who told you.” “Prove it. Who?” “Hester Livsey. And you believed her! You wouldn’t stop to consider my reputation, a girl’s reputation, oh no, that wouldn’t matter! Not if Hester Livsey told you, because she’s a section head’s secretary and she wouldn’t lie, oh no! What did she say? Exactly what words did she say?” I was shaking my head. “Nope. Bad guess. Miss Livsey hasn’t mentioned you, and anyhow I want no part of the idea that a section head’s secretary never tells a lie.” I looked at her as man to woman. “Why don’t I forget that anyone has told me anything, and let you straighten me out? You did know Moore, didn’t you?” “Certainly, everybody did.” Her voice was back to normal. It changed as often and as fast as the weather. “No matter what a girl’s character was she stood a fat chance of not knowing him!” “Yeah, I understand he was very sociable. Did you go out with him much?” “No, not-” She bit that off. A tiny wrinkle appeared on her lovely smooth forehead. “Oh, he took me to a couple of shows, that was about all. Once we were out in his car, out on Long Island, and there was an accident and I got a little cut on a part of my body. Of course everyone heard about that.” “I’ll bet they did. But yo
u weren’t especially intimate with him?” “Good lord no, intimate? I should say not!” “Then I suppose his death wasn’t a particularly hard blow for you.” “No, I scarcely noticed it.” She caught herself up. “Of course I don’t mean-I mean, I noticed it. But more on account of my character than on account of him.
What I mean about my character, I mean I don’t like death. I just don’t like it, no matter who it is.” I nodded. “I feel the same way about it. You mean it would have been a much harder blow if it had been, for instance, Ben Frenkel.” She jerked her chin up, and, as though it had been synchronized, her skirt simultaneously jerked itself back above the knee. She demanded, “Who the hell mentioned Ben Frenkel?” “I did. Just now. He came to see me yesterday and we had a talk. Isn’t he a friend of yours?” “We’re not intimate,” she said defiantly. “Did he say we are?” “No no, he’s not that kind of guy. I was just using him as an illustration of how little you noticed the death of Moore. What’s your opinion of this gossip that’s going around, about Moore being murdered?” “I think it’s terrible and I won’t listen to it. Gossip is so cheap!” “But of course you’ve heard it?” “Mighty little. I just won’t listen!” “Aren’t you interested? Or curious? I thought intelligent women were curious about everything, even murder.” She shook her angelic head. “Not me. I guess it isn’t a part of my character.” “That’s funny. It really surprises me, because when I found out it was you who came in here on the sly and went through that cabinet, and looked through my folders, and read my reports about Moore, I said to myself, sure, I might have expected that, all it means is that Gwynne Ferris is a beautiful and intelligent young woman who got so curious about it that she couldn’t resist the temptation.
