Three at Wolfe's Door

by Rex Stout

  Irving's hand left his forehead. He lowered it slowly until it touched his knee. I had him in profile. A muscle at the side of his neck was twitching. "To say that she might," he said slowly and precisely, as if he only had so many words and didn't want to waste any, "isn't saying that she did. You have made a shocking accusation. I hope--" He stopped, leaving it to anybody's guess what he hoped. He blurted, "Ask her!"

  "I shall. Did you, madam?"

  "No." Her deep, strong voice needed more breath behind it. "Your accusation is not only shocking, it's absurd. I told Mr. Goodwin what I did last evening. Hasn't he told you?"

  "He has. You told him that your husband had been prevented by a business emergency from keeping a dinner and theater engagement with you, and you had phoned Phoebe Arden to go in his stead, and she agreed. When she didn't appear at the restaurant you rang her number and got no answer, and then went to another restaurant to eat alone, presumably one where you are not known and plausibly would not be remembered. After waiting for her at the theater until after nine o'clock you left a ticket for her at the box office and went in to your seat. That sounds impressive, but actually it leaves you free for the period that counts, from half past seven until well after nine o'clock. Incidentally, it was a mistake to volunteer that account of your movements, so detailed and precise. When Mr. Goodwin reported it to me I marked you down as worthy of attention."

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  3 at Wolfe's Door

  "I wasn't free at all," she said. "I told Mr. Goodwin I wanted to help, and--"

  "Don't talk," her husband commanded the back of her head. "Let him talk." To Wolfe: "Unless you're through?"

  "By no means. I'll put it directly to you, madam. This is how you really spent those hours. You did phone Phoebe Arden yesterday afternoon, but not to ask her to join you at dinner and the theater. You told her of Miss Holt's plan to drive Miss Bram's cab in an effort to have a talk with her husband, and you proposed a prank. Miss Arden would arrange that Mr. Kearns would fail to appear, and if he didn't, Miss Holt would certainly leave the cab to go to his house to inquire. Whereupon you and Miss Arden, from your concealment in the neighboring stoneyard, would go and enter the cab, and when Miss Holt returned she would find you there, to her discomfiture and even consternation."

  "You can't prove any of this," Cramer growled.

  "No one ever can, since Miss Arden is dead." Wolfe's eyes didn't leave Mrs. Irving. He went on, "I didn't know Miss Arden, so I can't say whether she agreed to your proposal from mere caprice or from an animus for Miss Holt, but she did agree, and went to her doom. The program went as planned, without a hitch. No doubt Miss Arden herself devised the stratagem by which Mr. Kearns was removed from the scene. But at this point I must confess that my case is not flawless. Certainly you would not have been so witless as to let anyone have a hand in your deadly prank either a cab driver or your private chauffeur. Do you drive a cart1"

  "Don't answer," Irving commanded her.

  "Yes, she does," Judy Bram said, louder than necessary.

  "Thank you, Miss Bram. Apparently you can speak to the point Then you and Miss Arden went in your car, and parked it on Carmine Street--away from the corner in the direction Miss Holt would take when, leaving, she made the turn from Ferrell Street. You walked to the stoneyard and chose your hiding spot, and when Miss Holt left the cab you went and entered it. It is noteworthy that at that point you were committed to nothing but a prank. If Miss Holt had suddenly returned, or if anyone had come close enough to observe, you would merely have abandoned

  Method Three for Murder 1-2.1

  your true objective--a disappointment, but no disaster. As it was, you struck. I am not a moralizer, but I permit myself the comment that in my experience your performance is without parallel for ruthlessness and savagery. It appears that Miss Arden was not merely no enemy of yours; she was your friend. She must have been, to join with you in your impish prank; but you needed her corpse for a tool to gratify your mortal hatred for Miss Holt. That was--"

  "Her hatred for Miss Holt," Cramer said. "You assume that too?"

  "No indeed. That is established. Miss Bram. Speaking of Gilbert Irving, you said that when he looks at Miss Holt or hears her voice he has to lean against something to keep from trembling. You didn't specify the emotion that so affects him. Is it repugnance?"

  "No. It's love. He wants her."

  "Was his wife aware of it?"

  "Yes. Lots of people were. You only had to see him look at her."

  "That is not true," Irving said. "I am merely Miss Holt's friend, that's all, and I hope she is mine."

  Judy's eyes darted at him and returned to Wolfe. "He's only being a husband because he thinks he has to. He's being a gentleman. A gentleman doesn't betray his wife. I was wrong about you. I shouldn't have called you a fat fool. I didn't know--"

  Cramer cut in, to Wolfe. "All right, if that isn't established it can be. But it's about all that's established. There's damn little you can prove. Do you expect me to charge a woman with murder on your guess?"

  You don't often hear a sergeant disagree with an inspector in public, but Purley Stebbins--no, I used the wrong word. Not hear, see. Purley didn't say a word. All he did was leave his post at Kearns' elbow and circle around Irving to stand beside Mrs. Irving, between her and Judy Bram. Probably it didn't occur to him that he was disagreeing with his superior; he merely didn't like the possibility of Mrs. Irving's getting a knife from her handbag and sticking it in Judy's ribs.

  "There's nothing at all I can prove," Wolfe said. "I have merely exposed the naked truth; it is for you, not me, to drape it and arm it with the evidence the law requires. For that you are well

  122 3 fl* Wolfe's Door

  equipped; surely you need no suggestions from me; but, item, did Mrs. Irving get her car from the garage yesterday evening? What for? If to drive to a restaurant and then to a theater, in itself unlikely, where did she park it? Item, the knife. If she conceived her prank only after her husband phoned to cancel their engagement, which is highly probable, she hadn't time to contrive an elaborate and prudent plan for getting a weapon. She either bought one at a convenient shop, or she took one from her own kitchen; and if the latter her cook or maid will have missed it and can identify it. Her biggest mistake, of course, was leaving the knife in the body, even with the handle wiped clean; but she was in a hurry to leave, she was afraid blood would spurt on her, and she was confident that she would never be suspected of killing her good friend Phoebe Arden. Other items--"

  Mrs. Irving was up, and as she arose her husband did too, and grabbed her arm from behind. He wasn't seizing a murderer; he was being a gentleman and stopping his wife from betraying herself. She jerked loose, but then Purley Stebbins had her other arm in his big paw.

  "Take it easy," Purley said. "Just take it easy."

  Mira's head dropped and her hands came up to cover her face, and she started to shake. Judy Bram put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Go right ahead, Mi, don't mind us. You've got it coming." Waldo Kearns was sitting still, perfectly still. I got up and went to the kitchen, to the extension, and dialed the Gazette number. I thought I ought to be as good at keeping a promise as Mira had been.

  XI

  Yesterday I drove Mira and Judy to Idlewild, where Mira was to board a plane for Reno. Judy and I had tossed a coin to decide whether the trip would be made in the Heron sedan which Wolfe owns and I drive, or in Judy's cab, and I had won. On the way back I remarked that I supposed Kearns had agreed to accept

  Method Three for Murder 123

  service for a Reno divorce because now it wouldn't leave him free to marry Phoebe Arden.

  "No," Judy said. "Because his wife was a witness in a murder trial and that wouldn't do."

  A little later I remarked that I supposed she had stopped dreaming about a lion standing on a rock about to spring at her.

  "No," she said. "Only now I'm not sure who it is. It could even be you."

  A little later I remarked that
if the state of New York carried out its program for Mrs. Irving, who was in the death house at Sing Sing, I supposed Mira would get back from Reno just in time for a wedding.

  "No," Judy said. "They'll wait at least a year. Gil Irving will always be being a gentleman."

  Three supposes and all wrong. And still men keep on marrying women.

  THE RODEO MURDER

  Cal Barrow was standing at the tail end of the horse with his arm extended and his fingers wrapped around the strands of the rope that was looped over the horn of the cowboy saddle. His gray-blue eyes--as much of them as the half-closed lids left in view--were straight at me. His voice was low and easy, and noise from the group out front was coming through the open door, but I have good ears.

  "Nothing to start a stampede," he said. "I just wanted to ask you how I go about taking some hide off a toad in this town." To give it as it actually sounded I would have to make it, "Ah jist wanted to ask yuh how Ah go about takin' some hide off a toad," but that's too complicated, and from here on I'll leave the sound effects to you if you want to bother.

  I was sliding my fingertips up and down on the polished stirrup strap so that observers, if any, would assume that we were discussing the saddle. "I suppose," I said, "it's a two-legged toad." Then, as a brown-haired cowgirl named Nan Karlin, in a pink silk shirt open at the throat and regulation Levis, came through the arch and headed for the door to the terrace, lifting the heels of her fancy boots to navigate the Kashan rug that had set Lily Rowan back fourteen thousand bucks, I raised my voice a little so she wouldn't have to strain her ears if she was curious. "Sure," I said, rubbing the leather, "you could work it limber, but why don't they make it limber?"

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  But I may be confusing you, since a Kashan carpet with a garden pattern in seven colors is no place for a horse to stand, so I had better explain. The horse was a sawhorse. The saddle was to go to the winner in a roping contest that was to start in an hour. The Kashan, 19 X 34, was on the floor of the living room of Lily Rowan's penthouse, which was on the roof of a ten-story building on 63rd Street between Madison and Park Avenues, Manhattan. The time was three o'clock Monday afternoon. The group out on the terrace had just gone there for coffee after leaving the dining room, where the high point of the meal had been two dozen young blue grouse which had come from Montana on man-made wings, their own having stopped working. As we had moseyed through the living room on our way to the terrace Cal Barrow had got me aside to say he wanted to ask me something private, and we had detoured to inspect the saddle.

  When Nan Karlin had passed and was outside, Cal Barrow didn't have to lower his voice again because he hadn't raised it. "Yeah, two legs," he said. (Make it "laigs.") "I got to ask somebody that knows this town and I was thinking this bozo Goodwin is the one to ask, he's in the detective business here and he ought to know. And my friend Harvey Greve tells me you're okay. I'm calling you Archie, am I?"

  "So it was agreed at the table. First names all around."

  "Suits me." He let go of the rope and gripped the edge of the cantle. "So I'll ask you. I'm a little worked up. Out where I live I wouldn't have to ask nobody, but here I'm no better'n a dogie. I been to Calgary and Pendleton, but I never come East before for this blowout. Huh. World Series Rodeo. From what I see so far you can have it."

  He made it "roe-day-oh" with the accent on the "day." I nodded. "Madison Square Garden has no sky. But about this toad. We're supposed to go out with them for coffee. How much of his hide do you need?"

  "I'll take a fair-sized patch." There was a glint in his eye. "Enough so he'll have to lick it till it gets a scab. The trouble is this blamed blowout, I don't want to stink it up my first time

  The Rodeo Murder 12,7

  here, if it wasn't for that I'd just handle it. I'd get him to provoke me."

  "Hasn't he already provoked you?"

  "Yeah, but I'm leaving that out. I was thinking you might even like to show him and me something. Have you got a car?"

  I said I had.

  "Then when we get through here you might like to take him and me to show us some nice little spot like on the river bank. There must be a spot somewhere. It would be better if you was there anyhow because if I kinda lost control and got too rough you could stop me. When I'm worked up I might get my teeth on the bit."

  "Or I could stop him if necessary."

  The glint showed again. "I guess you don't mean that. I wouldn't like to think you mean that."

  I grinned at him, Archie to Cal. "What the hell, how do I know? You haven't named him. What if it's Mel Fox? He's bigger than you are, and Saturday night at the Garden I saw him bulldog a steer in twenty-three seconds. It took you thirty-one."

  "My steer was meaner. Mel said so himself. Anyway it's not him. It's Wade Eisler."

  My brows went up. Wade Eisler couldn't bulldog a milk cow in twenty-three hours, but he had rounded up ten million dollars, more or less, and he was the chief backer of the World Series Rodeo. If it got out that one of the cowboy contestants had taken a piece of his hide it would indeed stink it up, and it was no wonder that Cal Barrow wanted a nice little spot on a river bank. I not only raised my brows; I puckered my lips.

  "Ouch," I said. "You'd better let it lay, at least for a week, until the rodeo's over and the prizes awarded."

  "No, sir. I sure would like to, but I got to get it done. Today. I don't rightly know how I held off when I got here and saw him here. It would be a real big favor, Mr. Goodwin. Here in your town. Will you do it?"

  I was beginning to like him. Especially I liked his not shoving by overworking the "Archie." He was a little younger than me,

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  but not much, so it wasn't respect for age; he just wasn't a fudger.

  "How did he provoke you?" I asked.

  "That's private. Didn't I say I'm leaving that out?"

  "Yes, but I can leave it out too. I don't say I'll play if you tell me, but I certainly won't if you don't. Whether I play or not, you can count on me to leave it out--or keep it in. As a private detective I get lots of practice keeping things in."

  The gray-blue eyes were glued on me. "You won't tell anyone?"

  "Right."

  "Whether you help me or not?"

  "Right."

  "He got a lady to go to his place last night by telling her he was having a party, and when they got there there wasn't any party, and he tried to handle her. Did you see the scratch on his cheek?"

  "Yes, I noticed it."

  "She's not very big, but she's plenty active. All she got was a little skin off her ear when her head hit a corner of a table."

  "I noticed that too."

  "So I figure he's due to lose a bigger--" He stopped short. He slapped the saddle. "Now, damn it, that's me every time. Now you know who she is. I was going to leave that out."

  Til keep it in. She told you about it?"

  "Yes, sir, she did. This morning."

  "Did she tell anyone else?"

  "No, sir, she wouldn't. I got no brand on her, nobody has, but maybe some day when she quiets down a little and I've got my own corral . . . You've seen her on a bronc."

  I nodded. "I sure have. I was looking forward to seeing her off of one, closer up, but now of course I'll keep my distance. I don't want to lose any hide."

  His hand left the saddle. "I guess you just say things. I got no claim. I'm a friend of hers and she knows it, that's all. A couple of years ago I was wrangling dudes down in Arizona and she was snapping sheets at the hotel, and we kinda made out together and I guess I come in handy now and then. I don't mind coming in handy as long as I can look ahead. Right now I'm a friend of hers and that suits me fine. She might be surprised to know how I--"

  The Rodeo Murder 129

  His eyes left me and I turned. Nero Wolfe was there, entering from the terrace. Somehow he always looks bigger away from home, I suppose because my eyes are so used to fitting his dimensions into the i
nteriors of the old brownstone on West 35th. There he was, a mountain coming at us. As he approached he spoke. "If I may interrupt?" He allowed two seconds for objections, got none, and went on. "My apologies, Mr. Barrow." To me: "I have thanked Miss Rowan for a memorable meal and explained to her. To watch the performance I would have to stretch across that parapet and I am not built for it. If you drive me home now you can be back before four o'clock."

  I glanced at my wrist. Ten after three. "More people are coming, and Lily has told them you'll be here. They'll be disappointed."

  "Pfui. I have nothing to contribute to this frolic."

  I wasn't surprised; in fact, I had been expecting it. He had got what he came for, so why stick around? What had brought him was the grouse. When, two years back, I had returned from a month's visit to Lily Rowan on a ranch she had bought in Montana, (where, incidentally, I had met Harvey Greve, Cal Barrow's friend), the only detail of my trip that had really interested Wolfe was one of the meals I described. At that time of year, late August, the young blue grouse are around ten weeks old and their main item of diet has been mountain huckleberries, and I had told Wolfe they were tastier than any bird Fritz had ever cooked, even quail or woodcock. Of course, since they're protected by law, they can cost up to five dollars a bite if you get caught.

  Lily Rowan doesn't treat laws as her father did while he was piling up the seventeen million dollars he left her, but she can take them or leave them. So when she learned that Harvey Greve was coming to New York for the rodeo, and she decided to throw a party for some of the cast, and she thought it would be nice to feed {tern young blue grouse, the law was merely a hurdle to hop over. Since I'm a friend of hers and she knows it, that will do for that I will add only a brief report of a scene in the office on the ground floor of the old brownstone. It was Wednesday noon. Wolfe, at his desk, was reading the Times. I, at my desk, finished a phone call, hung up, and swiveled.

  130 3 at Wolfe's Door

  "That's interesting," I said. "That was Lily Rowan. As I told you, I'm going to a roping contest at her place Monday afternoon. A cowboy is going to ride a horse along Sixty-third Street, and other cowboys are going to try to rope him from the terrace of her penthouse, a hundred feet up. Never done before. First prize will be a saddle with silver trimmings."