Too Many Women nwo-12

by Rex Stout

  “Now, Ben, honey.” When she put appeal in her voice it could have been used for a welding torch. “You know that isn’t so, haven’t I told you? He’s just being malicious.” She put pressure on him. “Sit down and don’t even hear things like that.” His knees started to give, she maintained the pressure, and he was back in his chair.

  She returned to hers and told Cramer, “There was a lot of malicious talk about me and Waldo Moore, and this is what I get for it. I know better than to lose my temper over those kind of things any more. I just ignore it.” So Cramer’s nastiness had paid no dividend. He shifted his ground and asked, “Why were you so anxious to know what Goodwin was reporting about Moore’s death?” “Goodwin? What Goodwin?” “Truett,” I explained. “Me. My name’s Goodwin.” “Oh! I’m glad you told me. Then you were sailing under false-” “I asked you,” Cramer rasped, “why you were so anxious to know what he had found out about Moore’s death.” “I wasn’t anxious. Not at all.” “Then why did you sneak into his room and go through his papers?” “I didn’t!” She looked at me reproachfully. “Did you tell him that? After I explained that I thought you might still be waiting for me, and you were gone, and I thought perhaps you had left some work-” “Yeah,” Cramer cut her off, “I’ve heard that before. You’re sticking to that, are you?” “Why, it’s the truth!” She was marvelous when she was showing forbearance in the face of injustice being done her. So marvelous that I would have liked to cut her into thin slices and broil her.

  Cramer gazed at her. “Listen to me. Miss Ferris,” he said in a different and calmer tone. “That sort of thing was okay as long as it was just a matter of investigating a death that might have been an accident that took place months ago. As long as that was all it amounted to there was nothing wrong especially about your not telling the truth when Goodwin asked why you looked at his papers. But now it’s different, now we know it was murder, and that’s what I’m telling you, it was murder. That changes the whole thing, doesn’t it? Don’t you want to help? If you’re not involved in it yourself, and I don’t think you are, shouldn’t you help out by telling us why you did that?” “What is all this,” Frenkel demanded, evidently on speaking terms again, “about her looking at papers? What papers?” He got no reply.

  Gwynne appealed to Cramer, “I have to tell the truth, don’t I? It wouldn’t help for me to tell a lie, would it?” Cramer gave up and exploded at her, “Who did you tell about it?” “About what?” “What you saw in that report! About Naylor saying he knew who killed Moore! Who did you tell?” “Let me see.” The frown appeared on her forehead. She had to think hard. “One of the girls, which one was it, and I mentioned it to one of the men too-it was-no, it wasn’t Mr. Henderson-” She looked at Cramer apologetically. “I guess I can’t remember.” Deputy Commissioner O’Hara strode into the room. It was his office.

  Cramer arose and said grimly, “We’ll go to another room to finish our talk, Miss Ferris. We’re through with you for now, Mr. Frenkel, but we may need you at any time. Keep us informed where you are.” O’Hara said, “You’re Archie Goodwin? I want to talk with you.” I’ve already told about that.

  CHAPTER Twenty-Two

  As I said, I didn’t get out of bed Saturday until nearly noon. My face was no longer in a condition to cause boys on the street to make comments, but it took me longer than usual to shave, and also my movements under the shower were a little cautious and deliberate. So by the time I got downstairs Fritz was about ready to dish up lunch. Because I didn’t feel like breaking my fast with Rognons aux Montagnes, which is lamb kidneys cooked with broth and red wine, not to mention assorted spices, and because Wolfe would not permit talk of business during a meal, and because I wanted to look at the morning papers and couldn’t if I sat at the table with him, I ate in the kitchen. Fritz, who understands me, had fresh hot oatmeal ready, the chill off my bottle of cream, the eggs waiting for the pan, the ham sliced thin for the broiler, the pancake batter mixed, the griddle hot, and the coffee steaming. I made a pass as if to kiss him on the cheek, he kept me off with a twenty-inch pointed knife, and I sat down and started the campaign against starvation with the Times propped up in front of me.

  After lunch, or breakfast, depending on which room you ate in, I went to the office and before long Wolfe joined me. From the expression on his face I gathered that coolness was absent from our relationship until the next one, now that he had surrendered on the typewriter, but if he thought I was going to reciprocate by surrendering on the new car he should have known me better.

  However, I decided not to bring it up immediately after his lunch. He got adjusted in his made-to-order chair behind his desk and asked: “What have they decided about Mr. Naylor? Death by misadventure?” “No, sir. They think someone tried to hurt him. At that, Cramer shows signs of having a noodle. He can discover nothing on Thirty-ninth Street, or in that neighborhood, that would account for Naylor being there. Also, he refuses to believe that Naylor obligingly lay on the pavement, and lay still so the driver of the car could make the wheels hit exactly the same spots, his head and legs that had been hit on Moore. He concludes that Naylor was killed somewhere else, probably a blow or blows on the head, that the body was taken to Thirty-ninth Street in the car and deposited on the pavement and the car driven over it, and that the car wheels smashing the head obliterated the mark or marks of the blow or blows that killed him. The scientists are going over the inside of the car with microscopes for evidence that the body was carried in it. Cramer doesn’t say so out loud, but he’s wishing to God he had done likewise with the car that killed Moore.” “Has anyone been arrested?” “Not up to six o’clock, when I left. Deputy Commissioner O’Hara wanted to arrest me, but Cramer needed me. I was very helpful.” “Does Mr. Cramer still think you lied in your report to Mr. Pine?” “No, but O’Hara does. I admit I lied to him. I told him that you’re just a front here and the real brains of this business is a skinny old woman with asthma that we keep locked in the basement.” Wolfe sighed and leaned back. “I suppose you’d better tell me all about it.” I did so. Assuming that he wanted everything, I gave it to him, including not only facts but also a few interpretations and some personal analysis. It was obvious, I explained, that Cramer was now taking my word for gospel, since he had concentrated on the units of personnel I had told him about, though he had also used the police file on the death of Waldo Moore as a reference work, and doubtless they were all in that. I interpreted Gwynne Ferris by remarking that her broadcasting of the news she got from my filing cabinet might have been a highly intelligent cover for intentions and plans of her own, or it might have been merely promiscuous chin pumping, and I refused to commit myself until I had known her much longer-a minimum of five years. Whichever it was, the result was the same: assuming that Naylor had been finished off because of his announcement that he knew who had killed Moore, everyone was eligible. Up to six o’clock, when I had left, neither elimination nor spotlighting had even got a start, although Cramer had his whole army going through the routine-collecting alibis, tracing the movements of people, including Naylor, trying to find witnesses of events on Thirty-ninth Street, Ninety-fifth Street, Forty-eighth Street, and other vital spots, and all the rest of it. They had found no one who would admit seeing Kerr Naylor after he left the building on William Street Friday afternoon, or any knowledge of him. That was interesting, because it left it that Gwynne Ferris and I were the last people who had seen him alive. It had been around half-past five when he had walked in on us in my room at Naylor-Kerr to tell me I was a liar. Everybody else had left for the day, and none of the elevator boys remembered taking him down. One of O’Hara’s strongest convictions had been that Naylor and I had left the building together, and I had merely shrugged it off. It’s a waste of time trying to extract a conviction from an Irishman.

  When I was empty, both of facts and of annotations, I observed, “One thing to consider, you know what we were hired for, to establish the manner of Moore’s death. Remember your lett
er to Pine? Well, that seems to be established, anyhow as far as the cops are concerned. So have we still got a client? If we go on wearing out your muscles and my brains, do we get paid?” Wolfe nodded. “That occurred to me, naturally. I telephoned Mr. Pine this morning, and he seems a little uncertain about it. He says there will be a directors’ meeting Monday morning and he’ll let us know. By the way, his wife came to see me this morning.” “What! Cecily? Up and around before noon? What did she want?” “I haven’t the slightest idea. Possibly she knows, but I don’t. I suspect she’s hysterical but manages somehow to conceal it. Her ostensible purpose was to learn exactly what her brother said to you his last three days. She wanted it verbatim and she wanted to pay for it. How the devil that woman has any money left, with her passion for getting rid of it, is a mystery. She asked me to tell you that the baseball tickets will reach you Thursday or Friday. She also wanted to know if you are taking care of your face.” He wiggled a finger at me.

  “Archie. That woman is a wanton maniac. It would be foolhardy to accept baseball tickets-” The doorbell rang.

  “If it’s her again,” Wolfe commanded me in quick panic, “don’t let her in!” It wasn’t. I went to the hall, to the front door, and opened up, and was confronted by one of the faces I like best, Saul Panzer’s.

  “What the hell,” I asked as he entered and hung his cap on the rack, “did you trip up on Bascom’s forgery and have to solicit?” Saul is always businesslike, never frolicsome, but now he was absolutely glum.

  He didn’t even return my grin.

  “Mr. Wolfe?” he asked.

  “In the office. What bit you?” He went ahead and I followed. Saul never sits in the red leather chair, not on account of any false modesty that he doesn’t rate it, but because he doesn’t like to face a window. Having the best pair of eyes I know of, not even excepting Wolfe, he likes to give them every advantage. He picked his usual perch, a straight-backed yellow chair not far from mine, and spoke to Wolfe in a gloomy tone.

  “I believe this is about the worst I’ve ever done for you. Or for anybody.” “That could still be true,” Wolfe said handsomely, “even if you had done well.

  You said on the phone that you lost him. Did he know he was being followed? What happened?” “It wasn’t that bad,” Saul asserted. “It isn’t often that a man spots me on his tail, and I’m sure he didn’t. Of course he might have, but we can’t ask him now.

  Anyhow, he was walking west on Fifty-third Street, uptown side, between First and Second Avenues-” “Excuse me,” I put in. “Shall I go upstairs and take a nap or would you care to invite me to join you?” “He was following Mr. Naylor,” Wolfe informed me.

  It was nothing new for Wolfe to take steps, either on his own or with one or more of the operatives we used, without burdening my mind with it. His stated reason was that I worked better if I thought it all depended on me. His actual reason was that he loved to have a curtain go up revealing him balancing a live seal on his nose. I had long ago abandoned any notion of complaining about it, so I merely asked: “When?” “Yesterday. Last evening. Go ahead, Saul.” Saul resumed. “I was across the street and thirty paces behind. He had been walking, off and on, for two hours, and there was nothing to indicate he was ready to quit. There was no warning, such as keeping an eye to the rear for a taxi coming. He did it as if he got the idea all of a sudden. A taxi rolled past me, and just as it got even with him he yelled at it, and the driver made a quick stop, and he ducked across to it and hopped in, and off it went. I was caught flat-footed. I ran after it to the corner, Second Avenue, but the light was green and it went on through. There was no taxi for me in sight, so I kept on running, but either he had told his driver to step on it or the driver liked to get places.” Saul shook his head. “I admit it looks as if he was on to me, but I don’t believe it. I think he took a sudden notion. I don’t especially mind losing one, we all lose them sometimes, but just three hours before he murdered! That’s what gets me. Even say it was bad luck, if my luck’s gone I might as well quit. At the time, of course, not knowing he would be dead before midnight, I wasn’t much upset. I tried some leads I had, his chess club and a couple of other places, but didn’t get a smell. I went home and went to bed, thinking to try him again this morning. As soon as I saw the morning paper I phoned you, and you told me-”

  “Never mind what I told you,” Wolfe said crisply. So he was getting up another charade, I thought. He asked Saul, “What time was it?” “It was eight-thirty-four when I quit running, so it was eight-thirty, maybe one minute one way or the other, when he got his taxi.” “Get Mr. Cramer, Archie.” I tried to fill the order but couldn’t, because Cramer was not to be had. He was probably home asleep after a hard night and morning, though no one was indelicate enough to tell me so. I was offered a captain and my choice of lieutenants, but turned them down and got Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Wolfe took it.

  “Mr. Stebbins? How are you? I have some information for Mr. Cramer. At half-past eight last evening, Friday, Mr. Kerr Naylor stopped a taxicab on Fifty-third Street between First and Second Avenues. He got in the cab and it proceeded westward, through Second Avenue and beyond. He was alone. – If you please, let me finish.” He consulted a slip of paper that Saul had handed him. “It was a Sealect cab, somewhat dilapidated, and its number was WX one-nine-seven-four-four-naught. That’s right. How the devil would I know the driver’s name? Isn’t that enough for you?-If you please. This information can be depended on, I guarantee it, but I have not, and shall not have, anything to add to it. Nonsense. If the driver denies it, bring him to me.” I was thinking that at least I was no longer the last one to see Naylor alive, though it was no great improvement since the honor had been transferred to Saul.

  It would be nice when they hauled in the taxi driver and took it entirely out of the family.

  “What happened,” Wolfe asked Saul, “before you lost him? You got him at William Street?” Saul nodded. “Yes, sir. He left the building at five-thirty-eight, walked to City Hall Park, bought an evening paper, and sat on a bench in the park and read it until a quarter past six. Then he went to Brooklyn Bridge, took the Third Avenue El, and got off at Fifty-third Street. He seemed now to be in a hurry, he walked faster. At First Avenue and Fifty-second Street he met a girl who was apparently expecting him. A young woman. They walked together west on Fifty-second Street, talking. At Second Avenue they turned right, and turned right again on Fifty-third Street and walked back to First Avenue. There they turned left, and again left on Fifty-fourth Street, and back to Second Avenue.

  They were talking all the time. They kept that up for a solid hour, walking back and forth on different streets, talking. I couldn’t tell whether they were arguing or what. If they were, they never raised their voices enough for me to hear any words.” “You heard no words at all?” “No, sir. If I had got close enough I would have been spotted.” “Were they friends? Lovers? Enemies? Did they embrace or shake hands?” “No, sir. I don’t think they liked each other, from their manner, and that’s all I can say. They met at six-thirty-eight and parted at seven-forty-one, at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Second Avenue. The woman started downtown on Second Avenue. Naylor walked east on Fifty-seventh Street, stopped at a fruitstand around the corner on First Avenue and bought a bag of bananas, walked east to the Drive and sat on a bench, and ate nine bananas, one right after the other.” Wblfe shuddered. “Enough to kill a man.” “Yes, sir. He took his time at it, and then started walking again. He didn’t hurry, not much more than a stroll, and at Fifty-fifth Street he started the crosstown promenade again, over to Second Avenue, back on Fifty-fourth to First Avenue, and west again on Fifty-third. By that time I was expecting him to keep it up until he hit the Battery, and maybe I got careless. Anyhow, it was on Fifty-third that he suddenly flagged a taxi and I lost him.” Saul shook his head. “And he was on his way to get killed. Goddam the luck.” Saul never swore.

  Wolfe heaved a sigh. “Not your fault. Satisfactory. The woman?
” “Yes, sir. She was twenty-three or four, five-feet-five, hundred and eighteen pounds, wearing a light brown woolen coat over a tan woolen skirt or maybe dress, a dark brown hat with a white cloth flower, and brown pumps without open toes. Brown hair and I think brown eves, but I’m not sure. Good figure and good posture and walks with a swing but not exaggerated. Hair soft and fine. Face more long than round, with oval chin. Features regular, nothing to fasten on, light complexion, attractive. Her back was to me nearly all the time, so that’s as good as I can do with the face. What I could see of her legs curved down well to narrow ankles.” Wolfe turned to me. “Well, Archie?” Anywhere else, with anyone else, I would have stalled to get a little time for consideration, and would have had no difficulty. But this was Nero Wolfe and Saul Panzer.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Her name is Hester Livsey.” “Good. Week-ending in Connecticut? Told the Westport police that she knows nothing of Mr. Naylor and her association with him was remote?” “Yes, sir.” “Get Mr. Cramer-or Mr. Stebbins.”