Ellery Queen's Champions of Mystery vol. 33 (1977)

by Ellery Queen

  Cramer stood at arm’s length from the T-man. A muscle in the side of his neck was twitching. “That’s evidence in a murder case,” he said. “I have a court order for it.”

  “So have I,” Leach said. “From a Federal court.” He put the bills in the bag, taking his time, and tucked the bag under his arm. “If you’ll send a man to our office he’ll be allowed to examine it, Inspector. We are always ready to cooperate with the local authorities.”

  He moved, detouring around Cramer. Cramer wheeled and followed him, and I stepped aside to let them by. As Cramer passed he gave me a glare that would have withered a lesser man. I didn’t cooperate by going to open the door because I wasn’t sure I could keep my face straight, and when they were out and the door had closed I quit trying. A whoop had wanted out the second Cramer produced the paper, and now I let it come. I laughed so loud and so long that Fritz appeared at the kitchen door to ask what had happened.

  There was no point in disturbing Wolfe in the plant rooms, so I let it wait until he came down at eleven o’clock. He never whoops, but when I reported and showed him the court orders he allowed himself an all-out chuckle and there was a twinkle in his eye. He said it was just as well he hadn’t been present, since Cramer would probably have accused him of staging it, and I agreed. I said I was glad the stuff was out of the house, and he agreed.

  Calls came from Saul and Fred and Orrie during the next half-hour. Nothing promising. Orrie had spoken with Max Eder, the janitor of the building, and three other tenants. Fred had bought a squirrel and a kangaroo and had spent an hour in the workroom in the rear of the shop. Saul hadn’t been inside the building that contained the Mushroom Theater. From the outside it looked as if it might collapse if you leaned against it. He had spent the two hours covering the neighborhood.

  When I relayed the reports to Wolfe, who was doing a crossword puzzle in the London Observer, all I got was a grunt. I had about decided that it was time to go to work on him when the doorbell rang and I went to answer it.

  It was our lawyer and our client. I hadn’t told him to bring her. I was in no mood for her, and Wolfe certainly wasn’t. All I could tell her was that Wolfe either had an inkling or hadn’t, and he was spending her money at the rate of fifty bucks an hour. I went and opened the door but occupied the threshold.

  “Greetings,” I said heartily. “This is a relief! I’m sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Hattie, but Mr. Parker did his best. You’ll take her home, Nat? I’m tied up here.”

  “Don’t call me Hattie,” she said, “until I find what you’re up to.”

  “I brought her here,” Parker said, “because she insisted.” He looked harassed. “I’ll be going. I’ve canceled two appointments and I’m late for another one.” He went.

  “Every time I come here,” Hattie said, “there you stand. What good does it do to open the door if you fill it up?”

  I stood aside and she entered. She took off the gray woolen gloves and stuck them in her coat pocket, and unbuttoned her coat. I certainly would have been no good if I hadn’t helped her off with the coat, so I did, and put it on a hanger. By the time I had it on the rack she was at the office door, entering, and by the time I got to the office she was in the red leather chair and Wolfe was glowering at her.

  “About that lawyer,” she said. “I’m not going to pay him too, and I told him so. When I told Buster I could pay forty-two thousand dollars that includes everything.”

  Wolfe looked at me. I nodded. “All right. I told you I was under a spell. I scaled it down.”

  He looked at her. “Very well, madam, I’ll pay the lawyer. You came to tell me that?”

  “I told you before not to madam me. First I want to see that counterfeit money, then I’ll know I can trust you. Show it to me.”

  Wolfe looked at me. I have seen him handle many a crisis, but that was too tough for him. “Archie?” he said.

  I opened my desk drawer, took out three sheets of paper, and went and handed her one of them. “A cop named Cramer brought that,” I said. “Signed by a judge, ordering us to give him the bills and the wrapper. Cramer knows Mr. Wolfe and me and doesn’t like us. When he handed me that he sneered.”

  “I thought so. You’re no good. So you—”

  “Wait a minute. We had been afraid that would happen. The cop was too late.” I handed her another paper. “A man had already come with that, signed by a Federal judge, and I had turned the money over to him, so the cop was out of luck. I don’t say we had arranged it, but facts are facts. The cop was so sore he marched out without a word.” I handed her the third paper. “That’s the receipt the man signed.”

  She hadn’t even glanced at any of the documents. She handed them back. “I wish I had been here,” she said.

  “So do I, Miss Annis. You would have enjoyed it.”

  “Call me Hattie.”

  “With pleasure.” I returned the papers to the drawer and sat. “Did you have a hard night?”

  “Not too hard. There was a couch and I got some naps, but the woman that stayed with me wouldn’t turn the lights out, and every two hours they came back and started in again. Cops are too mean to live, and they’re too dumb. They might have known I wouldn’t speak to a cop.”

  “Didn’t you speak at all?”

  “No. Didn’t I say I wouldn’t?”

  “Not a word?”

  “No. The worst part was I was hungry. They brought some stuff twice last night and again this morning, but of course I wouldn’t touch it. I don’t know what kind of drug they had in it, something to make me talk.”

  “You haven’t eaten at all?”

  “Of course not.”

  Wolfe grunted. “That’s ridiculous. We have a spare room that is comfortable. Mr. Goodwin will take you to it, and my chef will take you a tray. After your fast you should eat with caution. Have you a preference?”

  She cocked her head. “You bet I have, Falstaff. Let the lady enjoy herself. I know about your chef. How about some lamb kidneys bourguignonne?”

  Wolfe doesn’t flabbergast easy, but that did it. “That would take time, mad—Miss Annis. At least two hours.”

  “I don’t mind, I’ll take a nap. Is there a bathroom?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then I can wash the smell of the cops off. But the other thing I want to know, what about the reward? We want that reward.”

  “That’s problematical. I’ll keep it in mind. We have a more urgent matter to deal with. After you are refreshed—”

  “What matter?”

  “The job you hired me for. Investigation of the murder committed in your house.”

  “I hired you to make the cops eat dirt, and you already have. The one named Cramer, is he a big one with a big red face and little blue eyes like a pig?”

  “Pigs’ eyes are not blue. Otherwise the description fits.”

  “Then you’ve already made him eat dirt. I wish I had been here. He was the first one in my room when they busted the door. That’s part of your job, to make them pay for that door. The murder, that’s their job. I’m surprised it was Tammy Baxter because I thought a counterfeiter would have more clothes, but of course when somebody came for the package and it wasn’t there he thought she had taken it and he killed her, but she should have known I had it because I told her yesterday morning—”

  The phone rang and I swiveled and got it. A female said that Mr. Mandel wanted to speak to me, and after a wait he came on.

  “Goodwin? Mandel of the District Attorney’s office. I want to see you. How soon can you be here?”

  “Twenty minutes. If necessary.”

  “It’s necessary. It’s ten minutes past twelve. I’ll expect you at twelve thirty. Right?”

  I told him yes, traffic permitting, hung up, and arose. “The D.A.’s office,” I announced. “I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner. You don’t need me anyway, you understand each other so well.”

  I left them.

  They kept me at 155 Leonard Street five
and a half hours. All I got out of it was two corned beef sandwiches, a piece of blueberry pie, and two glasses of milk, on the house, eaten at the desk of Assistant D.A. Mandel. What they got out of it was doubtful. In addition to Mandel, I had conversations with another Assistant D.A. named Lindstrom, two detectives attached to the D.A.’s office, and District Attorney Macklin himself.

  Over the years I have been suspected of a lot of things by various authorities, from corrupting a cop by buying him a drink to complicity in a murder, and that day they added a new one to the list. None of them came right out with it, but what was really biting them was their suspicion that I was in collusion with the United States government.

  Of course they covered other aspects of the case, all of them and thoroughly, but what they concentrated on was the package of phony lettuce. That was all the D.A. himself asked me about, and he put it to me point-blank: did I know the money was counterfeit? I told him point-blank: no, and felt better; it’s always a relief to get a lie off your chest. He said of course I was lying, that I would have been a nitwit not to suspect it. I said it didn’t matter now anyway, since the Secret Service had it, and he blew his top.

  I admit it’s hard to believe that he actually thought I had disposed of evidence in a murder case by arranging for Leach to beat Cramer to it, but I suppose a D.A. has as much right to be a damfool as the people who voted for him.

  It was a quarter past six when I left the building and flagged a taxi. By the time it turned into 35th Street I had decided that I wouldn’t wait until after dinner to go for Wolfe. He was too darned lazy to live. Since, thanks to me, Hattie had told him that he had already made Cramer eat dirt, he would consider that no matter what happened or didn’t happen he could send her a bill for a modest hunk of the forty-two thousand, say five grand, and why should he strain his brain? She was out on bail as a material witness and in no real danger. We had got rid of the contraband. There was no great hurry. Nuts, I decided. He had to be poked. As I mounted the stoop and put my key in the door I was choosing my opening remark from three I had hatched.

  But I didn’t get to use it. The rack in the hall was so crowded with coats that I had to squeeze mine between two that I recognized—Inspector Cramer’s and Saul Panzer’s. Cramer’s voice was raised in the office, and it was hoarse, as it always was when he was in a huff. As I reached the office door he was saying, “—not just to hear you spout! If you’ve got something let’s have it!”

  Wolfe, seated behind his desk with his fingers laced at the summit of his middle mound, had sent his eyes to me. “Ah,” he said. “Satisfactory. I was concerned.”

  Sure he was. The bigger the audience the better when he is staging a scene. Before I headed for my desk I glanced around: Cramer in the red leather chair, Sergeant Stebbins at his right; Paul Hannah and Noel Ferris on chairs facing Wolfe’s desk; Raymond Dell and Albert Leach, the T-man, behind them; and Martha Kirk and Hattie Annis on the couch to the left of my desk. Saul Panzer was over by the big globe. As I circled around Leach and Dell, Wolfe was speaking.

  “You know quite well I have something, Mr. Cramer, or you wouldn’t have come. As I told you on the phone I had a stroke of luck, but I had invited it; and I knew where to send the invitation. True, I sent it to three addresses—an East Side tenement, a shop on First Avenue, and a building on Bowie Street which housed the theater—but my expectation was centered on the last place.

  “When my expectation was realized I was faced with the question whether to notify you or to notify Mr. Leach; and preferring not to choose, I asked you both to come and to bring Miss Kirk, Mr. Dell, Mr. Ferris, and Mr. Hannah. Miss Annis, my client, was here. I thought the first three had a right to be present; as for Mr. Hannah, since he is both a counterfeiter and a murderer, you and Mr. Leach will—”

  “That’s a lie,” Hannah said, and was rising, but Leach, behind him, grabbed his arm. Hannah jerked, but Leach held on. “Who the hell are you?” Hannah demanded, and with his free hand Leach got his leather fold from his pocket and flipped it open, and by then Stebbins was there.

  “Are you arresting him?” Stebbins asked.

  “No, are you?” Leach asked.

  “Nobody’s arresting me,” Hannah said.

  “Sit down, Hannah,” Cramer growled. He looked at Wolfe. He had seen Wolfe perform before, and Leach hadn’t. Not only had he heard Wolfe say that Hannah was a counterfeiter and a murderer, but also he saw the expression on Wolfe’s face, and he certainly knew that face. He left his chair, put his hand on Hannah’s shoulder, and said, “You’re under arrest as a material witness in the murder of Tamiris Baxter. All right, Sergeant,” and returned to his chair. Stebbins stood at Hannah’s left and Leach stood at his right.

  “That’s prudent, Mr. Cramer,” Wolfe said, “since I have conclusive evidence. Up to three hours ago I had merely a surmise. Talking with these people last evening, I got nothing but faint intimations. Miss Kirk? Unlikely. She attended a ballet school regularly, she exercised an hour every morning, and she received a monthly remittance from her father, all of which could be checked. Mr. Dell? Also unlikely. He had paid no room rent for three years. Mr. Ferris? Possibly, but with a reservation. His statement that two of the agencies he called at yesterday would corroborate him made it improbable that he had followed Miss Annis here yesterday morning.”

  “So what?” Cramer rasped.

  “So my attention centered on Mr. Hannah. He had lived there only four months. He had paid for his room every week. He had almost certainly lied when he said Miss Baxter had told him that a man had twice followed her to the door. Miss Baxter was an agent of the Secret Service of the Treasury Department, and she—”

  “Who said so?” Leach demanded.

  “No one. Mr. Goodwin inferred it. You have carried discretion to an extreme, Mr. Leach, in concealing the interest of your organization in the occupants of that house, but you will soon agree that it is no longer needed. So I did not believe Miss Baxter had told Mr. Hannah that. Finally, Mr. Hannah’s account of his movements yesterday left him completely free up to noon. He could have followed Miss Annis here and, when she left without entering, back to her house. He could have stolen a parked car and, when she left her house a second time, tried to run it over her, but since it failed, that is of little consequence.”

  “There’s damn little consequence in anything you’ve said,” Cramer growled.

  Wolfe nodded. “I’m only explaining why my attention centered on Mr. Hannah. I could indulge in speculation—for instance, why did he kill Miss Baxter there, and then? Had she seen him try to kill Miss Annis with the car, and confronted him when he returned to the house? But you can speculate as well as I can, Cramer, and it will be your job, not mine, to screw a confession out of him.”

  “I’ve got nothing to confess,” Hannah said. “You’re going to regret this. You’re going to regret it good.”

  “I think not, Mr. Hannah.” Wolfe’s eyes went to Leach, standing, and then to Cramer, sitting. “So when I sent three men to those addresses, with the invitations to luck, I sent Saul Panzer to the Mushroom. Mr. Panzer leaves less to luck than any man I know. He phoned four times to report progress. The third time, around three o’clock, he asked for reinforcements and I sent them. The fourth time, less than two hours ago, I told him to come and I phoned you gentlemen. Saul, will you be good enough to describe the situation?”

  Since Saul was over by the big globe, all but Wolfe and Stebbins and me had to twist their necks. “Just the situation?” Saul asked.

  “Lead up to it briefly.”

  “Yes, sir. The first two hours I covered the neighborhood, but got no lead, so I went inside the building. I didn’t tell the superintendent what I was after, just that I wanted to look around for something, and the way he reacted and the way he accepted forty dollars for his trouble, I decided he was honest. He showed me around the theater and the basement and the second floor. The third floor is occupied by a job-printing shop with two presses and the other
equipment you would expect. He told the two men there what I had suggested, that I was an insurance underwriters’ inspector looking for violations.

  “From the way the men looked I decided I was hot, and I told the superintendent I would have to give the shop a good look and it would take a while, and he left. When I started looking behind things on shelves they jumped me and I had to get rough and pull my gun. I didn’t shoot, but I had to knock one of them out. There was a phone on a table, and I rang you and asked you to send Fred and Orrie to help me search the place. You said they would be calling in soon, and you would—”

  “That’s far enough,” Wolfe said. “And now?”

  “They’re still there. In behind stacks of paper on one of the shelves there are eight stacks of new twenty-dollar bills. In a compartment in the back of a cupboard are four engraver’s plates that were probably used to make the bills. The two men are on the floor with their hands and feet tied. I don’t know their names. There’s only one chair in the room and Fred Durkin is sitting on it, or he was when I left, and Orrie Cather was sitting on a pile of paper. One of the men has a lump on the side of his head where I hit him with my gun, but he’s not hurt much. I gave the superintendent another twenty dollars. That’s the situation.”

  Paul Hannah had started to rise, but hands on his shoulders had stopped him—Stebbins on the left and Leach on the right of him.

  “You might add one detail,” Wolfe told Saul. “The name one of them mentioned.”

  “Yes, sir. That was after Fred and Orrie came and we had them tied and we found the plates. One of them said to the other one, ‘I told you Paul would squeal. I told you we ought to clear out.’ Do you want the rest of it?”

  “That will do for now. You will of course report in full to Mr. Cramer and Mr. Leach.” Wolfe’s head moved. “As you see, gentlemen, I was faced with a dilemma, since he was both a counterfeiter and a murderer. Preferring not to choose, I asked you both to come, and I leave the question of priority to you. Since Mr. Cramer has him under arrest—”