Rex Stout

Invitation to Murder

1

The neat little man resented it. He was hurt. “No, sir,” he protested, “you are wrong. It is not what you called it, sordid familial flimflam. It is perfectly legitimate for me to inquire into anything affecting the disposal of the fortune my father made, is it not?”

Weighing rather less than half as much as Nero Wolfe, he was lost in the red leather chair three steps from the end of Wolfe’s desk. Comfortably filling his own outsized chair behind the desk, Wolfe was scowling at the would-be client, Mr. Herman Lewent of New York and Paris. I, at my desk with notebook and pen, was neutral, because it was Friday and I had a weekend date, and if Lewent’s job was urgent and we took it, good-by weekend.

Wolfe, as usual when solicited, was torn. He hated to work, but he loved to eat and drink, and his domestic and professional establishment in the old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street, including the orchids in the plant rooms on the roof, had an awful appetite for dollars. The only source of dollars was his income as a private detective, and at that moment, there on his desk near the edge, was a little stack of lettuce with a rubber band around it. Herman Lewent, who had put it there, had stated that it was a thousand dollars.

Nevertheless Wolfe, who hated to work and was torn, demanded, “Why is it legitimate?”

Lewent was small all over. He was slim and short, his hands and feet were tiny, and his features were in scale, with a pinched little mouth that had no room at all for lips. Also he was old enough to have started to shrink some and show creases. Still I would not have called him a squirt. When his quick little gray eyes met yours straight, as they did, you had the feeling that he knew a lot of the answers and could supply good guesses on the ones he hadn’t worked out.

He was still resenting Wolfe but holding it in. “I came to you,” he said, “because this is a very delicate matter, and the combination you have here, you and Mr. Goodwin, may be able to handle it. So I’m prepared to suffer your rudeness. The inquiry is legitimate because it was my father who made the fortune — in mining, mostly copper mining. My mother died when I was a child, and I never learned how to behave myself. I have never learned, and I am now too old to. A few months ago I had three mistresses, one in Paris, one in Toulouse, and one in Rome, and one of them tried to poison me.”

I gave him an eye and decided to believe nothing he said. He just wasn’t built for it.

He was proceeding. “I am no longer wild; I’m too old; but I was wild when young. Though my father didn’t approve of me and finally refused to see me, he didn’t let me starve — in fact, he was fairly generous. But when he died — I was thirty-six then; that was twenty years ago — he left everything to my sister, Beryl, with a request that she consider my needs. She did so, up to a point, until she died a year ago. She was born knowing how to behave, my sister was. I was abroad when she died — I have lived mostly abroad — but of course I flew over for the funeral.”

He shrugged like a Frenchman, or anyhow not like an American. “Out of all the millions she had inherited from our father, she left me nothing. Not a cent, not a sou. It all went to her husband, Theodore Huck, with a request that he consider my needs, worded exactly like the request in my father’s will. As I said, my sister knew how to behave. I had a talk with Huck and suggested that it would be simpler to transfer a lump sum to me — say a million or even half a million — but he thought not. He said he knew what Beryl’s wishes were and felt bound to carry them out, and he agreed to send me the same amount she had been sending the last two years, a thousand dollars a month. I didn’t do what I should have done.”

He wanted a question, and Wolfe obliged. “What should you have done?”

“I should have killed him. He sat there in his wheelchair — his arteries have gone bad, and he can’t walk — he sat there in my father’s house, the owner of it, and he said he would send me a thousand a month from the money my father had made. It was an invitation to murder. If I had killed him, with due precaution of course, under my sister’s will I would have received for the rest of my life an annual income of some forty thousand dollars. The idea did occur to me, but I’m no good at all with any kind of intricacy, and though I have never learned how to behave, my instinct of self-preservation is damned keen.”

He gestured. “That’s what brought me here, that instinct. If for any reason this creature, this brother-in-law, this Theodore Huck in a wheelchair, stopped considering my needs, I would shortly die of starvation. I am incapable of sustaining life, even my own — especially my own. So when, at my rooms in Paris, I received a communication warning me of possible danger, I took a plane to New York. My brother-in-law made me welcome at my father’s house — damned gracious of him — and I’ve been there nearly two weeks now, and I’m stumped, and that’s why I’m here. There are three—”

He stopped abruptly, aimed the quick little gray eyes at me, sent them back to Wolfe, and said, “This is confidential.”

Wolfe nodded. “Things discussed in this room usually are. Your risk, sir.”

“Well.” He screwed his pinched little mouth, making it even smaller. He shrugged. “Well. I think the warning I got was valid. There are three women in that house with him, besides the cook and maids: the housekeeper, Mrs. Cassie O’Shea, who is a widow; a nurse, Miss Sylvia Marcy; and a so-called secretary, Miss Dorothy Riff. They’re all after him, and I think one of them is getting him, but I don’t know which one and I can’t find out. The trouble is, I have developed a formula for getting on terms with women, but in this case I can’t use it and I’m lost. I need to know as soon as possible which one of those women is landing my brother-in-law.”

Wolfe snorted. “So you can intervene? With your formula?”

“Good God, no.” Lewent was shocked. “It would be a damned nuisance, and anyway there would soon be another one and I would have time for nothing else. Also I would like to get back to Europe before the holidays. I merely want to engage her sympathetic interest. I want to secure her friendship. I want to make absolutely certain that she will be permanently well disposed toward me after she lands Huck. That will take me three weeks if it is Miss Marcy or Miss Riff, four if it is Mrs. O’Shea. It is not a sordid familial flimflam. It’s a perfectly legitimate inquiry. Isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Wolfe conceded. “But it’s fantastic.”

“Not at all. It’s practical and damned sensible. My income for the rest of my life depends entirely on the goodwill of my brother-in-law. If he marries, especially if he marries a woman considerably younger than he is, how long will his goodwill last — twelve thousand dollars’ worth, year after year — if his wife hasn’t got it too?”

Wolfe grunted. “What precisely would be my engagement?”

“To find out as soon as possible which one of them is hooking him.” Lewent aimed a thumb at the little stack he had put on Wolfe’s desk. “That thousand dollars is yours, succeed or fail, but it will have to cover everything because it’s all I can afford. It might seem hardly worth your while, but actually, since you never leave this house on business, it will take little of your time and talent. The work will be done by Mr. Goodwin, and you have to pay his salary anyhow, and the expense will be negligible — taxi fares to and from my father’s house on Sixty-ninth Street, now owned by Theodore Huck. I know something of Goodwin’s record and prowess, and one trip, one day, might be all he would require — with consultation with you, of course. He can go up there with me now.”

I didn’t throw him a kiss. I can take a compliment raw, with no chaser, as well as the next one, but I hope I have learned how to behave, and I had a weekend date.

Wolfe’s scowl had deteriorated to a mild frown. “You say you received a warning. From whom?”

“From Paul Thayer, Huck’s nephew. Huck lets him live there in the house. He’s as useless as I am — he composes music that no one will listen to. He hopes to inherit some of my father’s money from Huck, and he got alarmed and wrote me.”

“What alarmed him?”

“Some little things and one big thing. A man with cases came from Tiffany’s and was with Huck in his study for nearly an hour. That could mean only one thing: Huck was buying something expensive for a woman — one of those three.”

“Why? There are other women.”

Lewent shook his head. “Not for Huck. He can’t walk, and he hasn’t been out of the house more than two or three times since my sister died. No woman ever comes to see him. It’s one of those three. You might think Paul or I could discover which one, but it’s not so simple. He has his meals in his room or his study, and we see very little of him. Paul has tried approaching the women on it, and I have made a few little efforts in that direction myself, but it’s a delicate business.”

“Make friends with all three of them.”

“It couldn’t be done. They’re too jealous of one another.”

“Wait until you see one of them wearing the gift from Tiffany’s. That will settle it.”

“It would settle me too. It would be too damned obvious. None of them is a numskull.”

“But,” Wolfe objected, “it will be equally obvious if she is flushed by Mr. Goodwin — in consultation with me.”

“I don’t expect him to flush her. I don’t want him to.” Lewent slid forward on the smooth leather seat. “My God, can’t you find out things without people knowing it? I couldn’t take Goodwin into that house to cross-examine them about their relations with Huck, even if I wanted to. It is my father’s house, but Huck owns it. We’ll have to use a subterfuge, especially for Goodwin to talk with Huck. I just decided—”

He was stopped by a noise from Wolfe — an explosive noise, half grunt and half snort. It was meant for a stopper. Lewent’s quick little gray eyes widened in startled inquiry. “What’s the matter?”

“You.” Wolfe was mildly disgusted. “I might conceivably engage to pry into the amatory designs of a wealthy widower if I were hard put and the bait was spectacular, but as it is you’re wasting your time. And mine. Good day, sir.”

It sounded positively final. Lewent’s pinched little mouth worked from side to side and up and down. “You mean you won’t do it.”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t think you would, but I thought I’d try it that way.” He clasped his hands together. “So here goes. Now this is confidential.”

“You said that before.”

“I know I did, but this is different. My sister died here in New York, at my father’s house, of ptomaine poisoning from something she ate. Huck cabled me in Paris, and I flew home for the funeral, as I said. I never had any suspicions about it until two things happened. First, Odelette, my mistress in Toulouse, tried to poison me when she was mad with jealousy, showing me that anyone may commit murder if the motive is good enough; and second, I was warned by Paul Thayer that Huck was being bagged by one of these women. That started me thinking, and I went to a library and read up on ptomaines. Those women were all present when my sister was poisoned. I believe that one of them murdered her.”

“On what evidence?”

“None. I believe that she already had Huck or was sure she could get him. I’ve been here nearly two weeks, and I firmly believe that, but what can I do? I don’t even dare ask any questions of anyone. Of course the police would laugh at me. Naturally I thought of you, but the most I could scrape up was a thousand dollars, and that’s small change for you, so I decided to try to get you started on it by not mentioning murder and just saying what I wanted — well, you heard me.”

He gestured. “I want to head her off, and I think maybe I can if I can find out which one it is.”

“How will you head her off without evidence?”

“That’s up to me. Leave that to me, if once I know her. For an absolutely legitimate purpose, I want to pay in advance for a thousand dollars’ worth of Goodwin’s time and talent and consultation with you as required. Ten hours of Goodwin and ten minutes of you? Whatever it is, I want to buy it.”

Abruptly Wolfe rolled his chair back and arose. “I have an important phone call to make,” he told Lewent, “and will leave you with Mr. Goodwin. Since, as you say, the work will be done by him, I won’t be needed, even for the decision whether to take the job.”

He marched across to the door to the hall and was gone, but not, as I knew, to make a phone call. Not wanting to refuse to take money, but not caring to shoulder the blame for spoiling my weekend for the sake of a measly grand, he was putting it up to me. As for him, he would go to the kitchen, open a bottle of beer, and make suggestions to Fritz about preparations for lunch. As for me, I was stuck. If I shooed Lewent out it would be months before I could again open my trap to ride Wolfe for turning down jobs. So I got the little stack which the little man had put on Wolfe’s desk, counted it, and found that it was twenty fifties.

“Okay,” I told him, “I’ll give you a receipt. First I think our approach to Huck will stand some discussion. Do you agree?”

He did, and I sat, and we discussed.

2

Lewent’s father’s house of granite, on Sixty-ninth Street between Fifth and Madison, had apparently not had its face washed since little Herman had been born there back in the nineteenth century, but inside there had unquestionably been changes. For one thing, the self-service elevator was so modern and so large that I guessed it had been installed since the present owner had been condemned to a wheelchair on account of his bum arteries.

Though Lewent had insisted that we should delay the operation until Theodore Huck’s lunch hour was past, and therefore it was after two o’clock when we arrived and were let in by a female viking who could have carried Herman around in her apron, I was still nursing the hope that I might earn the grand that day and evening and have my weekend. So when the viqueen had taken our hats I wasted no time for a glance at the luxuries of the big entrance hall as Lewent led the way to the elevator. We left it one flight up and turned right down the hall, which was some narrower but longer than the one downstairs. I was surprised at the thickness of the rugs in a mansion whose master did all his moving in a wheelchair.

The surprise left when we entered a large high-ceilinged room at the rear of the house and I saw the wheelchair. He could have parked it in a trailer camp and lived in it if it had had a roof. The seat was roomy enough for Nero Wolfe. At the sides were shelves, trays and compartments. A large metal box at the rear, low, was presumably a motor housing. A fluorescent light was attached to the frame at Huck’s left, shining on a magazine Huck was reading.

Lewent said, “This is Mr. Goodwin, as I phoned you,” and turned and went.

Theodore Huck said nothing. Tossing the magazine on a table nearby, he pressed a button, and the footrest of the chair came up, smoothly, until his legs, which were under a large plaid shawl, were straight and horizontal. He pressed another button, and the chair’s back receded until he was half reclining. He pressed another button, and the part of his legs were on began to move from side to side, not very gently. He closed his eyes. I lowered myself onto a chair and did a sweeping take of the room, which was his study, with the parts of the wall left visible by pictures and rows of books showing old wood panels, and then went back to him. The upper half of him was perfectly presentable for a guy his age, with a discernible waistline, good broad shoulders, a face with all features in proportion and correctly placed, and his full share of hair that had been dark but was now mostly gray. I had plenty of time to take him in, for he stayed put for a good five minutes, with his legs going from side to side on the moving frame. Finally the motion stopped, he pressed buttons, his legs went down and his torso up, and he reached to pull the edge of the plaid shawl above his hips.

He looked at me, but I couldn’t meet him because he seemed to be focusing about a foot below my chin. “I do that sixteen times a day,” he said. “Every hour while I’m awake. It helps a little. A year ago I could barely stand, and now I can take five or six steps. Your name’s Goodwin?”

“Right.”

“My brother-in-law said you wanted to see me.”

I nodded. “That’s not strictly accurate, but it will do. He wanted me to see you. My name’s Archie Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe, the detective, and your—”

“Oh! You’re that Goodwin?”

“Right. Your brother-in-law called at Mr. Wolfe’s office today and wanted to engage his services. He says that his sister—”

A door off to the right opened, and a young woman my age came stepping in, with papers in her hands. She was fair, with gray-green eyes, and as a spectacle there wasn’t a thing wrong with her, at a glance. Halfway across to the wheelchair she stopped and inquired, “Will you sign the letters now, Mr. Huck?”

“Later, Miss Riff.” He was a little crisp. “Later will do.”

“You said — I thought perhaps—”

“There’s no hurry.”

“Very well. I’m sorry if I interrupted.”

She turned and was gone, closing the door behind her so gently that there was no noise at all. I asked Huck, “That was Dorothy Riff?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I was telling you. Mr. Lewent says his sister promised him that in case of her death he would get a substantial sum. That was about a year before she died, and he is certain she would not have failed to arrange to keep her promise.”

Huck was shaking his head. “He heard her will read, and he saw it.”

“He says she told him she wouldn’t put it in her will because that would have violated a promise she had made her father. He thinks she left it in someone’s care for him — not you, he says, for you would have followed her instructions fully and promptly. He suspects it was Miss Riff or Miss Marcy or Mrs. O’Shea, and he wants Mr. Wolfe to investigate the matter, but he says it can be investigated only with your knowledge and consent, and that’s why he asked you to see me. Also Mr. Wolfe thought—”

Another door swung open, this time the one by which Lewent and I had entered from the hall, and another female was with us. On a guess she was somewhat younger than Dorothy Riff, but it was hard to tell with her nurse’s uniform setting off her big dark eyes and dark brown hair. Stopping for no questions, she crossed to a cabinet, got out a glass, a thermos carafe, and a bottle of Solway’s twenty-year liqueur striped-label scotch, put on ounce from the bottle and two ounces from the carafe into the glass, no ice, and went and handed it to Huck and got thanked.

She asked him in a low, cooing voice, “Everything under control?”

“Fine.”

“Your two-thirty exercise?”

“Of course.”

She left us, having given me just one swift glance. When the door was closed again Huck spoke. “This is medicine for me every two hours, but will you have some?”

“No, thanks. That was Sylvia Marcy?”

“Yes. You were saying that Mr. Wolfe thought—”

I resumed. “He thought that before I talk with the three women — with your permission, of course — you might be willing to let us have your opinion on a few points. For instance, do you think it likely that your wife made some such arrangement as Mr. Lewent suspects? Can you recall ever hearing her say anything hinting at such a thing? Her accounts for the months before she died — say a year — do they show a withdrawal of any unusual amount, either cash or securities? And most important, Mr. Wolfe thinks, which of those three women would your wife have been most likely to choose for such a purpose?”

Huck may have thought he was looking straight at me, but if so his aim was still low. “My brother-in-law has never mentioned this to me,” he said stiffly.

I nodded. “He says he was afraid of offending you. But now, since a year has passed and it is evident that all you have for him is the request in your wife’s will that his needs be considered, he feels that the matter should be looked into, so far as it can be without any inconvenience or embarrassment to you.”

“How could it embarrass me?”

“I don’t know. You’re a very wealthy man, and Miss Riff and Miss Marcy and Mrs. O’Shea work for you and live in your house, and I suppose Mr. Lewent thought you might not like my asking them an assortment of leading questions.”

“Miss Riff doesn’t live here.”

“The other two do?”

“Yes.”

“Do you regard them all as upright and trustworthy?”

“Yes.”

“This might help. Are you yourself so certain of the character of any one of them that you would eliminate her entirely from consideration in a matter of this kind?”

He twisted and stretched an arm to put his medicine glass on the table, and, turning back to me, was opening his mouth to reply when the door to the hall opened again and we had another visitor. This time I wasn’t sure. There had been no question about the secretary or nurse the moment they appeared, but I had not expected to see the housekeeper in a gay figured dress, white and two shades of blue. Also, though she was a little farther along than the other two, she was by no means a crone. She had medium brown hair and deep blue eyes, and there was a faint touch of hip-swinging in her walk. She came as for a purpose, straight to the front of the wheelchair, bent over from the hips, and tucked in the edge of the shawl around Huck’s feet. I watched Huck’s eyes. They went to her, naturally, but they seemed more preoccupied than pleased.

She straightened up and spoke. “All right, sir?”

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. O’Shea.”

“Any orders?”

“No, nothing.”

She wheeled a quarter-turn to face me, and did a take. Her look was too brief to be called deliberate, but there sure was nothing furtive about it. I thought I might as well let her have a grin, but before my muscles reacted to deliver it she was through and was on her way. From the rear the hip-swing was more perceptible than from the front. As I viewed it I reflected that they had certainly wasted no time in giving a stranger a once-over. Entering and ascending with Lewent, I had had sight, sound, or smell of none of them, but now all three had galloped in before I had been with Huck more than fifteen minutes. If they were too jealous for a mutual intelligence pact it must have been radar.

When the door was shut again Huck spoke. “You asked some questions. I think it very unlikely that my wife made any such arrangement as you describe. She certainly never hinted at it to me. As far as I know, during the last year of her life she made no withdrawal of cash or securities not accounted for, but I’ll be glad to tell the accountants to check it. Although I do not accuse my brother-in-law of fabrication, I strongly suspect that he grossly misunderstood something my wife said to him. However, since he has consulted Nero Wolfe and you are here, I’m willing to humor him, the poor devil. Do you want to see them separately or together?”

“Together for a start.”

“How long will it take? You’ll finish today?”

“I hope to. I want to, but I don’t know.”

He regarded me, started to say something, decided not to, and pressed a button. Instantly the shebang leaped forward like a bronco out of a chute, missing my feet by maybe eight inches with one of its big balloon tires as it swept by. Huck was steering with a lever. Stopping beside the door to the hall, he reached for the knob and pulled the door wide, and the chair circled and passed through. I was on my feet and following when his bellow came.

“Herman! Come down here!”

I know now what had put the whole household on the alert — Paul Thayer, Huck’s nephew, had let it out that I was Nero Wolfe’s Archie Goodwin — but I didn’t know then, and it was a little spectacular to see them coming at us from all directions — Dorothy Riff from a door on that floor, Mrs. O’Shea up the stairs from below, and Lewent and Sylvia Marcy down the stairs from above — none of them bothering with the elevator. They stopped flurrying when they saw Huck sitting composed in his chair and me standing beside him at graceful ease, and approached in no apparent agitation.

Lewent standing was exactly the same height as Huck sitting. He asked as he came, “You want me, Theodore?”

The girls were closing in.

“Yes, I do,” Huck told his brother-in-law. “Mr. Goodwin has described the situation to me, and I want you to hear what I say to Mrs. O’Shea and Miss Marcy and Miss Riff.” His eyes moved to his womenfolk. “I suppose you have heard of a private detective named Nero Wolfe. Mr. Lewent went to see him this morning and engaged him to investigate something, and he has sent Mr. Goodwin here to make inquiries. Mr. Goodwin wishes to question you three ladies. You will answer at your discretion, as you please and think proper. That’s all I have to say. I want to make it clear that I am imposing no restriction on what Mr. Goodwin asks or what you answer, but I also wish you to understand that this is a private inquiry instigated by Mr. Lewent, and you are free to judge for yourselves what is fitting and relevant.”

I didn’t care for it a bit. You might have thought he knew what I was there for and was making damn sure I wouldn’t get it. Not by a flicker of an eyelash had he given any ground for a decent guess as to which one had him hooked.

3

They took me up in the elevator, two flights, to a room they called the sewing room. The name must have been a carry-over from bygone days, as there was no sign of sewing equipment or supplies in sight. Mrs. O’Shea was going to seat us around a table, but I wanted it more informal and got it staged with her and me in easy chairs facing a couch on which the other two were comfortable against cushions.

They were good listeners all right. I took my time about getting to the point, since there was no question about having my audience. I told of Lewent’s coming to Wolfe’s office. I touched upon his childhood and young manhood, with no mother, not making it actually maudlin. I admitted he had been irresponsible. I told of his having been left out of his father’s will. Miss Riff’s gray-green eyes, and Miss Marcy’s dark eyes, and Mrs. O’Shea’s deep blue ones, all concentrated on me, were pleasantly stimulating and made me rather eloquent but not fancy. I told of the promise Lewent’s sister had made him a year before her death — which was, of course, pure invention — of his conviction that she had kept it, and his suspicion that a substantial sum in cash or securities had been entrusted by her to someone to be given to him. I added that he thought it possible that the trustee was one of the women there present, and would they mind answering a few questions?

Mrs. O’Shea stated that Lewent was a frightful little shrimp. Miss Marcy said it was utterly ridiculous. Miss Riff, with her nose turned up, asked, “Why a few questions? You can ask us one, did Mrs. Huck give any of us anything to give to her brother, and we say no, and that settles it.”

“It does for you,” I conceded. “But as Mr. Huck told you, I’m here to investigate, and that’s no way to do it. For instance, what if I were investigating something really tough, like a suspicion of murder? What if Lewent suspected that one of you poisoned his sister so you could marry Huck?”

“That’s more like it,” Miss Marcy said approvingly, with the coo still in her voice.

“Yeah. But then what? I ask if you did it, and you say no, and that settles it? Hardly. I ask plenty, about your relations with Mr. and Mrs. Huck and one another, and about your movements and what you saw and heard, not only the day she died, but a week, a month, a year. You can answer or refuse to answer. If you answer, I check you. If you refuse, I check you double.”

“Ask me something,” Miss Marcy offered.

“To be suspected of murder,” Miss Riff declared, “would at least be exciting. But a thing like this, and from Herman Lewent—” She shivered elegantly. “No, really.”

“Okay.” I was sociable. “But don’t think I’m not going to grill you, because that’s what I came for. First, though, I’d like to have your reaction to a little idea of my own. It seems to me that if Mrs. Huck wanted to leave something for her brother like that, the logical person for her to leave it with would have been her husband. Lewent is sure she didn’t, because he says Huck is an honest man and would have turned it over. Which may satisfy Lewent, but not me. Huck could be entirely too honest. He could figure that in leaving a gob of dough for her brother his wife was ignoring her father’s wishes, and that was wrong, and he wouldn’t go through with it. I think that’s quite possible, but you ladies know him better than I do. What kind of a man is he? Do you think he might do that?”

No reply. Nor was there any exchange of glances. I insisted, “What do you think, Mrs. O’Shea?”

She shook her head, with a corner of her mouth turned up. “That’s no kind of question to ask.”

“We work for Mr. Huck, you know,” Sylvia Marcy cooed.

“He’s a very fine man,” Dorothy Riff declared. “Very, very fine. That’s why one of us poisoned Mrs. Huck so she could marry him. What is she waiting for? It’s been a year.”

I upturned a palm. “That’s only common sense. You have to watch your step on a thing like that, and besides, that might not have been the motive. In fact, here’s one I like better: Mrs. Huck handed her a real bundle, say a hundred grand, to be given to Lewent if and when Mrs. Huck died. But as the months went by and Mrs. Huck stayed perfectly healthy, good for another twenty or thirty years, our heroine got impatient and acted. Of course she is now in a pickle. She has the hundred grand, but even after a year has passed she doesn’t dare to start spending it.”

Mrs. O’Shea permitted herself a refined snort. “It wouldn’t surprise me if that Lewent creature actually believed that rot.” Her tone was chilly, and her deep blue eyes were far from warm. “Mr. Huck said you would ask us question and we would answer as we please and think proper. Go ahead.”

I stuck with them for an hour. I have had chores that were far more disagreeable, but none less fruitful. There were assorted indications that there was no love lost among them, and various hints that Huck was not regarded solely as a source of wages by any of them, but to pick one for Lewent at the end of the hour I would have had to use eeny, meeny, miny, mo. I was disappointed in me. Deciding that I had made a mistake to bunch them, I arose, thanked them for their patience and co-operation, said that I would like to talk with each of them singly a little later, asked where I would be apt to find Lewent, and was told that his room was on the floor below us, two flights up from the ground and one up from Huck’s study. Sylvia Marcy offered to show me and preceded me out and down the stairs. She had cooed throughout. It was a pleasant and even a musical coo, but what the hell. If I had been, like Huck, exposed to it continually, after a couple of days I would either have canned her or sent for a justice of the peace to perform a ceremony.

To my knock Lewent opened the door of his room and invited me in. For the first four paces his room was only a narrow hall, as rooms frequently are in big old houses where bathrooms have been added later, but then it widened to a spacious chamber. He asked me to sit, but I declined, saying I had had a warming-up session with the suspects and would like to meet Paul Thayer, Huck’s nephew, if he was available. He said he would see, and left the room, me following, mounted two flights of stairs, which put us on the floor above the sewing room, and went down a hall and knocked on a door. A voice within told us to enter.

The room was comparatively small, and no inch was being wasted. There was a single bed, a grand piano, two small chairs, and a few tons of books and portfolios on shelves and tables and stacked on the floor. Thayer, who was about my age and built like a bull, thought he would bust my knuckles as we shook, and then decided not to when I reacted. I had told Lewent on the way up that it might be better if I had Thayer to myself, and he had agreed, so he left us. Thayer flopped on the bed, and I took a chair.

“You sure have bitched it up,” he stated.

“Yeah? How?”

He waved a hand. “Do you know anything about music?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t put it in musical terms. Your idea of busting in with the fantasy of one of them sequestering a bale of kale intended for Lewent is sublimely cuckoo.”

“That’s a pity. I offered it as a substitute for Lewent’s fantasy of one of them poisoning your aunt.”

He threw his head back and haw-hawed. He was chock full of gusto. When he could speak he said, “Not my aunt really — yes, I suppose she was, since my Uncle Theodore married her. She died in great pain, and I was strongly affected by it. I couldn’t eat properly for weeks. But the idea of one of those gals giving her poison — absolutely, you know, Herman the Midget is an imp of prodigious fancy! Dear God, such witless malice! Nevertheless, I am his staunch ally. He and I are one. Would you like to know how ardently I covet a few of the Lewent millions, now in the grasp of my Uncle Theodore?”

I told him I would love to, but he didn’t hear me. He bounced to his feet, strode to the piano bench and sat, held his hands poised above the keyboard with the fingers spread, and tilted his head back with his eyes closed. Suddenly down his hands went, both to his left, and the air was split with a clap of thunder. Other claps and rumblings followed; then his hands started working their way to the right, and there was screeching and squealing. Abruptly it stopped, and he whirled to face me.

“That’s how I covet that money. That’s how I feel.”

“Bad,” I said emphatically.

“Don’t I know it. Say I had five million. With the income from it I could put a thirty-piece orchestra on the air an hour a week in a dozen key cities, playing the music of the future. I have some of it already written. If you think I’m touched, you’re damn right I’m touched! So were Beethoven and Bizet touched, in their day. And the recordings. Dear God, the recordings I’ll make! I mean I would make. Instead of reveling in that paradise, here I am. I spoke of millions. Would you like to hear the actual facts of my personal financial status?”

He turned and bent his head over the keyboard, and started two fingers of his right hand dancing over the black keys. He kept in one octave and touched so delicately that with my head cocked I could barely hear the faint discordant jangle. It set my teeth on edge, and I raised my voice. “I could lend you a buck.”

He stopped. “Thanks. I’ll let you know. Of course I eat here, so I won’t starve. Would you care for a comment from Miss Marcy?”

He used both hands this time, and what came out was no jangle but a very pretty running coo. It was Miss Marcy to a T, with her variations and changes of pace, and he did it without any sign of a tune.

“Check,” I said when he stopped. “I’d know her with my eyes shut. Beautiful.”

“Thanks. Did Lewent tell you that I’m infatuated with Miss Riff?”

“No. Are you?”

“Oh, yes. If I played that for you, how I feel about Miss Riff, you’d be overcome, though I admit she isn’t. That’s why I wrote Lewent to come, because I was afraid she was going for my uncle, and I still am, I’m shivering with terror. And now, between you, you and he have bitched it up.”

I told him that I disagreed and explained why. For one thing, I said, Lewent felt that getting the three suspects stirred up against him would not handicap him but help him. As soon as we found out which one it was he was going to start working on her, and he much preferred hostility to indifference as a base to start from. Thayer argued the point, but it was hard to hear him because he kept accompanying himself on the piano, and I requested him to move back to the bed, which he did. After more talk I decided I was wasting my time, since he couldn’t furnish even a respectable guess on the question I was supposed to get answered, so I left him and moseyed back downstairs.

On the landing one flight down a maid in uniform with lipstick an inch thick gave me a sidewise glance, and I thought of wrangling her into the sewing room and pumping her, but decided to reserve it. On the floor below that I was tempted. Off to the right was the door to Lewent’s room, and the big door straight ahead, which had been widened to admit the wheelchair, as Lewent had informed me, led to Huck’s room. I could go and knock on it and, if I got a response, enter and ask him something. If there was no response, I could enter and take a look. A man who has been properly trained can do a lot of looking in five minutes, and it might be something quite simple, like a picture or a note in a drawer between shirts. But I reserved that too and descended another flight.

That was the floor Huck’s study was on, but I couldn’t use him at the moment, and there was no sight or sound of anyone, so I continued my downward journey and was on the ground floor. No one was in sight there either, but a sound came through where a door was standing half open, and I went and passed in. I have a habit of not making an uproar when I move. On a TV screen a man and woman were glaring at each other, with her breathing hard and him saying something. On a chair with her back to me sat Mrs. O’Shea, sipping a liquid from a glass and looking at the TV. I stepped across to a chair not far from her, sat, and focused on the screen. She knew I was there, certainly, but gave no sign. For some twenty minutes we sat and watched and listened to the story unfold. When it ended and the commercial started she went and turned it off.

“Good reception,” I said appreciatively.

She eyed me. “You have your full share of gall, don’t you? Did you want to see me?”

“I thought we might have a little private talk.”

“Not now. I’ll be busy in the kitchen for half an hour.”

“Then later. By the way, Mr. Lewent invited me to stay for dinner, but under the circumstances I think I should ask you if it will be inconvenient.”

“Mr. Lewent is Mr. Huck’s guest, and if he invited you — of course. Mr. Huck eats in his room.”

I told her yes, I knew that, and she left. In a moment I followed. Thinking it advisable to let Lewent know that he had invited me to stay for dinner, I went back up two flights of stairs and to his door, and knocked. No result. I knocked louder, and still no result. As I stood there the door of the elevator, ten paces down the hall, slid open, and out came the wheelchair. Huck, seeing me, stopped his vehicle and called, “You still here?”

“Yes, sir. If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I?”

He touched a button, and off it scooted, to the door of his room. He opened it and rolled through, and the door swung shut. I looked at my wristwatch, lifting it to close range in the dim light; it was two minutes past five. Thinking that Lewent might be taking a nap, I knocked again and, getting no response, I gave it up and went back to the stairs, descended, left the house, walked to Madison and down a block to a drugstore, went into a phone booth, and dialed a number.

Wolfe answered. I reported. “No progress. No nothing, except that if you get sick I’ve got a line on a nurse that can coo it out of you. I will not be home to dinner, God help me. I am calling to tell you that and to consult you.”

“What about?”

“My brain. It must be leaking or I would never have let myself in for this.”

He grunted and hung up. I dialed another number, got Lily Rowan, and told her I had decided I’d rather stay home and do crossword puzzles than keep my weekend date with her. She finally wormed it out of me that I was stuck on a case, if you could call it that, and said she would hold her breath until I rang her again.

Back at the house, admitted by the viqueen, I asked her where Miss Riff was. She didn’t know. Miss Marcy? She didn’t know. Mr. Lewent? She didn’t know. I thanked her warmly and made for the stairs, wondering where the hell the client had got to. Probably sound asleep, and I resented it. On the third floor I knocked good and loud on his door, waited five seconds, turned the knob, and entered. I darned near walked on him. He was lying just inside, barely clear of the swing of the door, flat on his back, with one leg bent a little and the other one straight. I closed the door, squatted, unbuttoned his vest, and got a hand inside his shirt. Nothing. His head was at a queer angle. I slipped my fingertips under it, and at the base of the skull, or rather where there should have been a base, there was no resistence to pressure at all. The smashed edge of the skull was halfway up. But I couldn’t feel any break in the skin, and there was no blood on my fingers.

I stood up and looked down at him, with my hands shoved in my pants pockets and my jaw set. After enough of that I stepped to where the little hall ended and the room proper began, and sent my eyes around slowly and thoroughly. Then I went and knelt by Lewent’s head, with my knees spread, gripped his shoulders, and raised his torso till it was erect. There was nothing under him. I had a good look at the back of his head, then let him back down as before, got up and went and took his ankles and lifted his legs, and made sure there was nothing under that half of him. I moved to the door, held my ear to the crack for ten seconds, heard nothing, opened it and slipped through and pulled it shut, headed for the stairs, descended to the ground floor, and, no one appearing, let myself out.

At the drugstore on Madison Avenue I got dimes for a half-dollar before I went to the phone booth.

4

When Wolfe heard my voice on the phone he was peevish on principle, since I’m not supposed to disturb him when he is up in the plant rooms, and this was the second time in twenty minutes. I was peevish too, but not on principle.

“Hold it,” I told him. “I am about to ask a favor. Twenty minutes ago I reported no progress, but I was wrong. We can’t possibly disappoint our client, because he’s dead. Murdered.”

“Pfui.”

“No phooey. I’m telling you — from a booth in a drugstore. I found the body, and I want to ask a favor.”

“Mr. Lewent is dead?”

“Yes. In order to ask the favor I’ll have to lead up to it — not a full report, but the high spots.”

“Go ahead.”

I did. I gave him no conversations verbatim, but described the cast of characters and the setting, and covered movements and events up to opening the door of Lewent’s room. At that point I got particular.

“It would stand some questions,” I told him. “The first ten feet inside the door it’s not a room at all, merely a passage less than four feet wide. Beyond that is the room proper. The body is in that passage, diagonal, with the feet toward the door. When the door is opened wide its edge comes within ten inches of Lewent’s right foot. There’s a runner the length of the passage, an Oriental, not fastened down, and it’s in place. The body’s on it, of course. There is nothing disarranged in either the room or the passage. Everything is just as it was when I was there an hour earlier.”

“Except Mr. Lewent.” Wolfe’s tone was dry and disgusted.

“Yeah. He was hit in the back of the head at the base of the skull with something heavy and hard enough to smash the whole bottom of the skull. The thing was comparatively smooth, because the skin is not broken, only bruised. No blood. I am not a laboratory, but on a bet there was only one blow and it came from beneath, traveling upward. The weapon is not in the passage—”

“Under him.”

“No. I lifted him and put him back. Nor is it open to view in the room. Won’t that stand some questions?”

“It will indeed. No doubt the police will ask them.”

“I’m coming to that. I was not seen entering that room or leaving it. I might as well come on home, or, better still, go and keep my weekend date, if it weren’t for one thing — the grand Lewent paid us. I’ve only been here three hours, and I doubt if I’ve been earning three hundred and and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents an hour, considering what’s happened. Our client may not have been one of nature’s top products, but to come here to do a job for him and just fiddle around while someone croaked him and then find his corpse is not my idea of a masterpiece. I don’t like it. I won’t like the remarks that will occur to Cramer and Stebbins if I phone the cops to say that Mr. Wolfe has had a client murdered while my back was turned and will they please come and take over. Nor will you.”

“I won’t hear them. Is there an alternative?”

“Yes. That’s the favor I’m asking. My feelings are hurt.”

“Naturally.”

“I resent the assumption that it is perfectly okay to kill a client of yours practically in my presence. I want to ram that assumption down somebody’s throat. I had already told Mrs. O’Shea that I am staying for dinner, and I ask your permission to do so. One of those people is stretched good and tight, waiting for the body to be found, and if I’m half as good as I think I am I’ll see it or hear it or feel it. Anyhow I want to try.”

“How sure are you that you’re clear?”

“Completely. For a hair of my head on a rug, or a fingerprint, I was in there before. As for being seen, not a chance. I will mention that if you feel you owe Lewent some return for what he paid us, for which I could cite a couple of precedents, we’re more likely to deliver this way than with the cops in command. And of course I can find the body any time I want to if that seems to be called for.”

He grunted. “You won’t be home to dinner.”

I told him no and hung up, and sat a while, getting my mind arranged. The probability of the murderer’s giving himself away while under the suspense of waiting for someone to find the body would be reduced by about nine-tenths if any word or look of mine aroused a suspicion that I already knew. Or would it? It might be better. Finally I left the booth, walked back to the house and rang the bell, and was admitted by the viqueen. She was as stolid as ever, so presumably there had been no discovery while I was out. As I started for the stairs down to the kitchen, intending to find Mrs. O’Shea, my name was called, and I turned to see Dorothy Riff coming through a door.

“I was looking for you.” she said.

“I went out to phone Mr. Wolfe. What time do you go home?”

“I usually leave around six, but today...” She fluttered a hand. “I told Mr. Huck I’d stay until you’re through.” She glanced around. “This isn’t very private, is it? Let’s go in here.”

She led the way into the room where I had watched the TV with Mrs. O’Shea, and through an arch into a larger room where a table toward one end was set with six places. She was telling me, “Since Mrs. Huck died we eat in here mostly, only I’m not often here for dinner. Sit down. We’ll have cocktails later, upstairs with Mr. Huck.”

We sat, not at the table. She was saying, “I was Mrs. Huck’s secretary for four years, and when she died Mr. Huck kept me. He depends on me a lot. I wish you’d tell me something.”

“Practically anything,” I assured her. “Name it.”

“Well — Mr. Huck feels sure that his brother-in-law is trying to blackmail him, and so do I. What do you think?”

Her gray-green eyes were at mine, intent, earnestly wanting to know what I thought. She couldn’t possibly have been that free of guile, so I realized she was pretty good. “I’m afraid,” I told her, “you’ll have to fill in some. Usually a man knows whether he’s being blackmailed or not without telling his good-looking secretary to ask a brainy detective what he thinks. Look out or you’ll have your fingers in a hard knot and they won’t come loose.”

She jerked her fingers apart, extended a hand as if to touch me in appeal, and then took it back without reaching me.

“I wish we could talk just like two people,” she said hopefully. “I wish I knew how to ask you to help me.”

“Nothing could be simpler. Help you what?”

“With Mr. Huck.” Her eyes were holding mine. “I said he depends on me, and he always has, but now I don’t know. Your coming here like this has made him suspicious. He knows that his nephew, Paul Thayer, is friendly with Mr. Lewent, and he thinks Paul and I are friends, and I think he suspects we are in a plot to blackmail him. He hasn’t said so, but I think he does, and you know that isn’t true. Why can’t you tell me exactly how it stands, exactly what Mr. Lewent is after, and then possibly I can suggest something? I know Mr. Huck so well. I know how his mind works. Whatever it is you’re after for Mr. Lewent, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make me lose a good job by getting Mr. Huck suspicious of me. Would you?”

“I should say not.” I was emphatic. “But you said you agree with Huck, you feel sure that Lewent is trying to blackmail him. Since Lewent is our client, that hurts me, and I think we ought to clear it up. How about coming with me to ask Lewent and see what he has to say?”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

She hesitated a moment, then stood up. “Come on.”

In the hall we turned to the stairs instead of the elevator, and began the ascent. By the time we were up one flight, halfway, I had decided how to back out of it and postpone the discovery until I had had a chance to see a few more faces. But I didn’t have to do any backing. When we reached the second landing and I turned to her, she had already stopped, and was standing, straight and stiff, her head tilted back a little for her eyes to slant up at me.

“No,” she said.

“No what?”

“It wouldn’t do any good. I can’t! I can’t talk with that man.” A shiver ran over her. “He gives me the creeps! I don’t want you—” She broke off, caught her lower lip with her teeth, and turned and headed along the hall toward the door to Huck’s room. She didn’t run, but she sure didn’t loiter. When she reached the door she knocked, and, without waiting for an invitation, opened, entered, and shut the door. I moved noiselessly on the thick carpet, got to the wide door and put an ear to the crack, and heard a faint murmur of voices, much too low to catch any words. I stayed put, hoping for more decibels if they got agitated, and was still at the crack when a sound from above warned me. I was standing at the elevator door and had pressed the button by the time feet and shapely calves had come into sight on the stairs.

It was Sylvia Marcy. At the foot, instead of turning toward the next flight down, she turned my way and approached, with the intention, as I thought, of switching on the coo, but I was wrong. She did not merely toss me a glance, she kept her eyes straight at my face as she advanced, and even swiveled her head to prolong it until she was nearly even with me, but she kept right on going and uttered no sound. I could have stuck out a foot and tripped her as she passed. She went to the door to Huck’s room, knocked, and entered without waiting. By then the elevator had stopped at my level, and I pulled the door open, stepped in, and pushed the button marked B.

Down in the basement I found the kitchen and walked in. It was big and clean and smelled good. An inmate I had not see before, a plump little woman with extra chins, was at a table peeling mushrooms, and Mrs. O’Shea was across from her, sorting slips of paper.

I spoke as I approached. “I should have told you, Mrs. O’Shea, I doubt if Mr. Lewent will show up for dinner. From what he said when he asked me to stay, I think he feels that under the circumstances it would be better if he were not there.”

She went on with the slips a moment before she looked up to reply. “Very well. You were going to talk with me.”

“I got sidetracked.” I glanced at the cook. “Here?”

“As well here as anywhere.”

I parked half of my fundament on the edge of the table. She resumed with the slips of paper, distributing them in piles, and as I watched her arm and hand in quick, deft movement I considered whether they could have struck the blow that killed Lewent, though my mind might easily have been better occupied, since actually a ten-year-old could have done it with the right weapon and the right frame of mind.

“From what you said earlier upstairs.” I remarked, “I got the impression that you feel sorry for Mr. Lewent — in a way.”

She compressed her lips. “Mr. Lewent is a thoroughly immoral man. And this trouble he’s making — he deserves no sympathy from anyone.”

“Then my impression was wrong?”

“I didn’t say that.” She sent the deep blue eyes straight at me, and they were much too cold to show sorrow for anyone or anything whatever. “Frankly, Mr. Goodwin, I am not interested in your impressions. I speak with you at all only because Mr. Huck asked us to.”

“And I speak with you, Mrs. O’Shea, only because the man whose father built this house thinks he’s been rooked and has hired me to find out. That doesn’t interest you either?”

“No.” She resumed with the slips of paper.

I eyed her. My trouble with her, as with the rest of them, was that it would take some well-chosen leading questions to jostle her loose, and all the best questions were out of bounds as long as Lewent was supposed to be still breathing.

“Look,” I said, “suppose we try this. It’s been more than two hours since I talked with you ladies up in the sewing room. Have you discussed the matter with Mr. Lewent? If so, when and where, and what was said?”

She sent me a sharp sidewise glance. “Ask him.”

“I intend to, but I want—”

I got interrupted. A door in the kitchen’s far wall was standing open, and through it, rolling almost silently on rubber tires, came a large cabinet of stainless steel. It was more than four feet high, its top reaching almost to the shoulders of Paul Thayer, who was behind it, pushing it. He rolled it across to the neighborhood of Mrs. O’Shea’s chair and halted it.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Just a bum wire, and I put in a new one. At your service. Invoice follows.”

“Thank you, Paul.” She had clipped the slips of paper together and was putting them in a drawer. “I’m glad you got it fixed. Mr. Goodwin is staying for dinner, so I suppose you’ll bring him up for cocktails. Harriet, don’t forget about the capers. Mr. Huck will not have it without the capers.”

The plump little woman said she knew it, and Mrs. O’Shea left us, with, I noticed, the hip-swing in action, so it hadn’t been a special demonstration for Huck.

I turned to Paul Thayer. “Lewent asked me to stay for dinner, but he’s going to skip it, so do you think I rate a cocktail?”

“Sure, it’s routine.” He was matter-of-fact. “It was started by my aunt a couple of years ago when his legs went bad, and he has kept it up. How goes it? Have you spotted her?”

“Not to paste a label on.” I aimed a thumb at the cabinet. “What’s this, a dishwasher?”

“Hell no, a chow wagon. Designed by my aunt and made to order. Plug it in any outlet.”

“It’s quite a vehicle.” I moved to it. “Mr. Wolfe ought to have one for breakfast in his room. May I take a look?”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ve got to wash my hands.”

He went to the sink and turned on a faucet. I opened the door of the cabinet. There was room enough inside for breakfast for a family, with many grooves for the shelves so that the spaces could be arranged as desired. I slid a couple of them out and in, tapped the walls, and inspected the thermostat.

“Very neat,” I said admiringly. “Just what I want for my ninetieth birthday.”

“I’ll remember and send you one.” He was patting his hands with a paper towel.

“Do so.” I neared him. “Tell me something. Did Lewent say anything — uh — disagreeable about Miss Riff to you this afternoon?”

He squinted at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just asking. Did he?”

“No. I haven’t seen Lewent this afternoon, not since he brought you up to my room and left us. Now I’ve answered, why did you ask?”

“Something someone said. Forget it.”

“Who said what?”

I shook my head. “Later. If you don’t want to forget it, I’ll save it for after dinner. We’ll be late for cocktails.”

He tossed the paper towel at a wastebasket, missed it, growled something, went and picked it up and dropped it in, told me to come on, and led the way to the elevator.

The provision for drinks in Huck’s room, which was large and lush with luxury, was ample and varied. They were on a portable bar near the center of the room, and alongside it was Huck in his wheelchair, freshly shaven, his hair brushed with care, wearing a lemon-colored shirt, a maroon bow tie, and a maroon jacket. Also the plaid woolen shawl that had covered his lower half had been replaced by a maroon quilted one. The room was lit softly but well enough, with lamps around — one of them a rosy silk globe at the end of a metal staff clamped to the frame of Huck’s chair. As Thayer and I approached, Huck greeted us.

“Daiquiri as usual, Paul? And you, Mr. Goodwin?”

Having spotted a bottle of Mangan’s Irish in the collection, I asked for that. Huck poured it himself, and Sylvia Marcy passed it to me. She had changed from her nurse’s uniform to a neat little number, a dress of exactly the same color as Huck’s shirt, as well as I could tell in that light; but she hadn’t changed her coo. Mrs. O’Shea stood off to one side, sipping something on the rocks, and Dorothy Riff was there by the bar with a half-emptied long one. With my generous helping of Mangan’s, I backed off a little and looked and listened. I have good eyes and ears, and they have had long training under the guidance of Nero Wolfe, but I couldn’t see a movement or hear a word or tone that gave the faintest hint that one of them knew a body with a crushed skull was lying only fifty feet away, waiting to be found. They talked and got refills and laughed at a story Huck told. It was a nice little gathering, not hilarious, but absolutely wholesome.

At the end Huck made it more wholesome still. Mrs. O’Shea was starting to leave, and he called to her, and when she rejoined us he leaned over to reach a low rack at the side of his chair. Coming up with three little boxes bearing the name of Tiffany, he addressed the females.

“I’m sure you know, you three, that if it weren’t for you my life would be miserable, crippled as I am. It is you who make it not merely bearable, but pleasant, really pleasant, and I’ve been thinking how I can show my appreciation.”

He tapped the top box with a finger. “I was going to give these to you next Wednesday, my birthday, but I decided to do it today on account of Mr. Goodwin. His mission here, at the instance of my brother-in-law, is an imputation against you that I feel is utterly unjustified. Mr. Lewent is my wife’s brother and so must be humored to the limit of tolerance; he was born in this house, and I will never challenge his right to live here and die here; but I want you to know that I have complete confidence in you, all three of you, and to make that as emphatic as possible I’m making this little presentation in the presence of Mr. Goodwin. Mrs. O’Shea?”

He extended a hand with one of the boxes, and the housekeeper stepped up and took it.

“Miss Riff?”

She took hers.

“Miss Marcy?”

She took hers.

As they got their eyes on their loot there were exclamations and expressions of delight. Sylvia Marcy let out a running broad coo that would have brought tears to my eyes if I hadn’t been so busy using them.

“They’re good timekeepers too,” Huck, said, beaming.

Without being too vulgar I managed to get enough of a look to see that the presents were all wristwatches, apparently just alike, and if the red stones were Burma rubies Sylvia’s coo was no exaggeration. Paul Thayer, looking flabbergasted, poured rum into his glass and gulped it down. Mrs. O’Shea, her little box clasped tightly in her hand, hustled from the room, and in a moment I heard the faint hum of the elevator. Before long I heard it again, and the wide door of the room opened and Mrs. O’Shea reappeared, pushing the stainless steel portable oven on rubber tires; it was nearly as tall as she was, and much bigger around. Miss Marcy moved the bar away, and Mrs. O’Shea put the oven there, beside Huck’s chair.

“I’ll just serve the soup?” she suggested.

“Now you know,” Huck reproached her, “I’d rather do it myself.” He swung a shelf of the chair around to make a table, and reached to a rack attached to the oven for a napkin.

There was a general movement toward the door, and I joined it. In the hall Thayer and I were in the rear, and he muttered at me, “The damn old goat’s got a caliph complex. All three of ’em!”

Going to the stairs to descend, we passed within a few feet of the door to Lewent’s room. As far as I could tell, no one gave it a glance.

5

At ten minutes to eight, with the meal nearly over for the five of us at table, I said I didn’t care for coffee, which wasn’t true, excused myself on a pretext, and went up to the third floor, opened the door of Lewent’s room, and entered.

I had decided to discover the body. They had all been agreeable enough at dinner, except Thayer, who was sulking about something, but it was plain that they were humoring me only because Huck had said his brother-in-law must be humored. No one said or did anything that gave me the slightest feeling of a hunch, and as dessert was being served and I took them in — Thayer scowling, and Mrs. O’Shea cold and cocky, and Dorothy Riff smirking at her new wristwatch, and Sylvia Marcy smiling at me like a sympathetic nurse — I had a strong feeling that it would be gratifying to arrange, for each of them, a prolonged interview with a cop, especially a good Homicide man. Also I had to admit that I had got nowhere with my idea of investigating a murder without disclosing that there had been one.

But now, in the narrow passage with the door closed, looking down at the corpse, I was doubling up my fists and setting my jaw. I would never have claimed that I was such a holy terror as a sleuth that no one had better risk a misdemeanor within a mile of me, but someone in this house had certainly had one hell of a nerve to perform on Wolfe’s client like that with me wandering all over the premises. He looked pitiful there on the floor, and even smaller than when he was on his feet and breathing. I was more than willing for the performer to get tagged, the sooner the better, but not by a horde of city employees with me off in a corner being grilled by Lieutenant Rowcliff. On the other hand, at my rate of progress for the past two and a half hours, I would reach first base about a week from Tuesday.

I listened at the door a minute, opened it, passed through, and pulled it shut. I stood. There was no sight, sound, or smell of man or woman. I went to the stairs and started down quietly, which was no feat on the carpeted treads. At the bottom I stood again. Sounds of voices came up from the floor below, where dinner had been served, so they were still at the table. I headed down the hall for the door to Huck’s study.

It was dark in there, but I closed the door before groping for the wall switch. It gave me light from ceiling fixtures, plenty, and I crossed to Huck’s desk, which was actually two desks with an alley between them for his wheelchair, so that when he maneuvered into the alley he had desk space on both sides. There were three phones on the left, one a house phone and the other two labeled with their numbers, but the numbers were different. One of them was the number listed in the phone book, and I moved it forward, since it was the one I wanted to use, no matter how many extensions were on it. Needing two props, I looked around. One of them, exactly what I wanted, was on the other desk — a paperweight, a heavy ball of green marble with a segment sliced off to give it a base. For the other, there were hundreds of books available, and any of them would do. I would have liked to do some experimenting to find out how thick a book to use and how hard to hit it to get the effect I wanted, but under the circumstances it was not advisable. I got one about an inch thick, too intent on my program to notice the title, put it flat on the other desk, not the one the phone was on, lifted the receiver and dialed a number, and took the paperweight in my right hand.

Fritz answered, and I told him I was sorry to interrupt Wolfe’s dinner if he wasn’t finished, but I had to ask him something. After a wait his gruff voice came.

“Yes, Archie?”

I gave it pace and urgency. “I’m in Huck’s study, and there may be someone on an extension, but I can’t help it. If I call the cops now there’ll be hell to pay, because — no, it’s too long to explain. You absolutely refuse to leave the house on business, okay, but what about Saul? I need him. If you can get Saul—”

I cut myself off by bringing the paperweight down on the book and emitting the kind of sharp little agonized grunt a man may emit when he is solidly and accurately conked, and I let the receiver drop to the desk with a clatter. Also I collapsed onto the floor with enough racket to reach the transmitter, but not enough, I hoped, to alarm Huck up above or the quartet down below. Then I got back onto my feet and stood regarding the receiver lying on the table. That was a question I had left open. It might seem more natural for the cracker of my skull to replace the receiver, but if Wolfe dialed the number I certainly didn’t want extensions ringing all over the place, and this way he would get a busy signal. So I let it lie.

It was now a matter of timing. Wolfe could conceivably try dialing the number, fail to get it, and shrug it off, but I doubted it. He was tough, but not that tough. He could phone the cops to please come and feel my pulse, but he never would, not after okaying my postponement of reporting a homicide. Then he would come himself, which was of course the idea, and I wanted to be at the door to let him in, but I did not want to leave the study at once, with the receiver out of its cradle. Two minutes would surely see him out of the house and on his way, but I would allow ten. I put the paperweight back, returned the book to its place on a shelf, and spent the rest of the time gazing at my watch. At the end of the tenth minute I replaced the receiver, left the room, and went down a flight to the entrance hall.

Dorothy Riff was there with her hat on, putting on her coat. If I had been thirty seconds later I would have been minus a member of the cast. She shot me a glance but offered no converse. I asked her courteously, “You’re not leaving us?”

“Yes.” She was brusque. “I’m going home. Any objection?”

“Yes.” I was brusque too.

“Oh?” She cocked an eye. “You have?”

I nodded. “I’ve decided that you folks are too genteel for me. I’m the type that sticks thumbs in people’s eyes, and this is the wrong setting for it. I have phoned Mr. Wolfe to tell him that, and he agrees, and he’s on his way up here. He will particularly want to speak with you, since it was you who suggested that his client is a blackmailer, so if you don’t mind waiting?”

She was frowning. “Nero Wolfe coming here?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

I waved a hand. “To detect.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, I won’t try to sell you on it. Seeing is believing, and seeing him you can believe anything. I have appointed myself doorman, to let no one out, and to let him in.”

“That’s silly. I can go if I please.”

“Sure you can. If you think Huck would like that.”

She opened her mouth, shut it again, turned and made for the stairs, and flew up. As she did so Paul Thayer emerged from a door on the right, from the room where the TV was, followed by Mrs. O’Shea and Sylvia Marcy. They came on, Thayer demanding, “What’s all the powwow? Where’s Miss Riff?”

I said I had told her that Wolfe was on his way to join us, and she had gone up to tell Huck. The news did not visibly impress Mrs. O’Shea, but Sylvia cooed something appreciatively, and Thayer backed off, lowering his chin and gazing at me from under his heavy brows. He had no question or comment, but the two women did. Mrs. O’Shea stated that she had always thought that professional detectives caused more trouble than they cured, and now she was sure of it. Miss Marcy said she would love to be asked questions by Nero Wolfe, even if it wasn’t something dreadful like murder, only her mind wasn’t very quick and she hoped he wouldn’t get her tangled up about some little thing.

A buzzer sounded, and I went and opened the door, and Wolfe stepped in.

He gave me a piercing glance, swept his eyes around to take in the others, returned to me, and muttered, “Well?”

“Miss Marcy,” I said. “Mrs. O’Shea. Mr. Thayer. This is Mr. Wolfe.”

He inclined his head a quarter of an inch. “How do you do.” Again to me, louder and plainer, “Well?”

“There’s an elevator,” I told him, “which makes it simple. We all take it. You and I get off on the next floor and go to the study, and I explain the situation. The others go to Mr. Huck’s room on the floor above and tell him we;ll be up shortly, if that’s how you would like to handle it. If otherwise, you send me up with a message. Perfectly simple. Your coat and hat?”

He let me take them. Putting them on a chair and making for the elevator, with them following, I heard Sylvia cooing something at him but didn’t catch it. One flight up Wolfe and I got out, and I led the way down the hall to the study, opened the door, and stood aside for him. When I turned from closing the door he was facing me.

“Well?” he growled.

“Yes, sir. May I show you?”

I crossed to the desks and got between them. “I used this phone.” I touched it. “I put a book here.” I tapped the spot. “After dialing the number I took this in my right hand.” I picked up the paperweight. “At an appropriate moment I hit the book with it, grunted, let the receiver fall to the table, and dropped on the floor.”

That was one of the two or three times, possibly four, that I have seen him speechless. He didn’t even glare. He looked around, saw no chair that appealed to him, went to a couch against a wall, sat, and buttressed himself by spreading his arms and putting his palms flat on the couch.

“I forwent salad, cheese, and coffee,” he said, “and came at once.”

“Yes, sir. I fully appreciate it. I can—”

“Shut up. You regard my rule not to leave my house on a business errand as one of the stubborn poses of a calculated eccentricity. It is no such luxury; it is merely a necessity for a tolerable existence. Without such a rule a private detective is the slave of all the exigencies of his neighbors, and in New York there are ten million of them. Are you too headstrong to understand me?”

“No. But I can—”

“Shut up.” He had relaxed enough to tighten his lips and glare. He shook his head. “No. Talk.”

I moved a chair and planted it in front of him, knowing that he disliked tilting his head to look up at people. When I sat I was close enough to keep my voice down almost to a whisper. “I’m fairly sure this room isn’t wired for sound,” I said, “and that there’s no one hiding in here, but we don’t have to bellow. I would like to tell you what has happened in the last three hours. It will take seven minutes.”

“I’m here,” he growled. “Talk.”

I did so, going overtime some, but not much. There was a pained and peevish look on his face throughout, but I could tell by his eyes that he was listening. Having covered the events, such as they were, I proceeded to cover me.

“When I left the dinner table and went upstairs,” I declared, “I fully intended to glance in at the corpse and call the cops. But as I stood looking down at him I realized that I would have to call you first to tell you what I was going to do, and I didn’t want to call you from here. I needed instructions. When the cops came, if I told them what Lewent had hired us to do, and the inmates here told them what I had said he had hired us to do, I would be in the middle of another of those goddam tangles that have been known to keep me on a straight-backed-chair in the DA’s office for ten hours running. You would be in it too. I had to ask you to consider that and decide it, and I didn’t want to leave here to go out to phone.”

He grunted, not sympathetically.

“After all,” I submitted, “no bones are broken, except Lewent’s skull. You can tell me what to do and say, and go back home and have your salad and cheese and coffee. After you’re safely outside I’ll go up to our client’s room to ask him something and will be horrified to find him dead, and will rush to notify the household and call the police. As for the thousand bucks he paid you, surely he would admit that you have earned it by coming up here to tell me how to manage things so that his death will cause us as little inconvenience as possible.”

He eyed me. It was precisely the kind of situation that would normally have called for an outraged roar, in the privacy of his office, but here he had to hold it.

“Poppycock,” he muttered bitterly. “You know quite well what you have done and are doing, and so do I. The police, and especially Mr. Cramer, would never believe that you would dare to trick me into coming here for anything less than murder, and they know that without a trick I wouldn’t come at all. So I’ll have to discuss murder with these people. Is there a decent chair in Mr. Huck’s room?”

“Yeah, one that will do, but don’t expect to like it.”

“I won’t.” He stood up. “Very well. Let’s go.”

6

The chair problem in Huck’s room required a little handling. After Wolfe had been introduced to Huck and Dorothy Riff, and Huck assented, without enthusiasm, to Wolfe’s desire to discuss the affairs of his client Herman Lewent, there remained the fact that Paul Thayer was occupying the only chair that could take Wolfe without squeezing, and Thayer, who was still sulking, paid no attention to my polite hint. When I asked him to move and even said please, he gave me a dirty look as he complied.

As Wolfe sat and turned his head from left to right and back again, taking them in, and they focused on him, I was not utterly at ease because I had slid out from under the responsibility. He had said he would have to discuss murder with them, and in the heat of his resentment at my having foxed him into taking a two-mile taxi ride he might regard it as funny to manage it so that I would have not less to explain to the cops, but more.

Huck spoke. “I have explained to Mr. Goodwin that I tolerated his intrusion out of deference to my brother-in-law.” His tone wasn’t very deferential. “But now your barging in — frankly, Mr. Wolfe, there is a limit to my forbearance.”

Wolfe nodded. “I don’t blame you, sir. I return your candor and confess that the fault is Mr. Goodwin’s. On account of a defect in his make-up he has botched his errand here so badly that I was compelled to intervene. When he phoned me, twice, some four hours ago, not from this house, I suspected that he had been so thoroughly bewitched by one of these women that his mental processes were in suspense. It hits him like that. When later he phoned again, this time from your study, my fear was verified, and I was even able to identify the witch.”

He looked straight at Mrs. O’Shea, then at Miss Riff, then at Miss Marcy, but got no return because they were all looking at me. I didn’t mind, provided he was now willing to call it even.

He was going on. “Plainly there was no other alternative, so I came to supersede him; and now that I am here I refuse to employ the puerile stratagem that Mr. Lewent and Mr. Goodwin were determined to try. They should have known that their pretended concern about a large sum left secretly by Mr. Lewent’s sister with one of you to be passed to him at her death — they should have known that none of you would take it seriously.” He looked at Huck. “You, sir, even assumed that it was merely a blackmailing device, didn’t you?”

“I thought it possible.” Huck, being a millionaire, was giving no ground for a suit for slander. “You say it was a stratagem?”

“Yes.” Wolfe flipped a hand. “Let’s dismiss it. Slithering around looking for cracks is not to my taste. I’d much rather be forthright and tell you straight that I came here to discuss murder.”

There were noises, but not explosive. Paul Thayer’s head jerked up. My private reaction was absolutely unfavorable. Since he had blurted it out, a call to the police was in order right now, and exactly where would I be?

“Murder?” Huck was disbelieving his ears. “Did you say murder?”

“Yes, sir, I did.” Wolfe was at a disadvantage. Working on an audience in his office, it wasn’t difficult to keep all the faces in view, but there they made almost half a circle, with Huck in his wheelchair in the center, and Wolfe had to keep turning his head and moving his eyes. “There’s no point,” he declared, “in going on with the rigmarole started by Mr. Goodwin. I much prefer the directness and vigor of Mr. Lewent’s original suggestion when he called at my office this morning to hire me. He suggested that Mr. Goodwin should come here and tell you that he, Lewent, suspected that one of these three women had murdered his sister, poisoned her, and that he had engaged me to investigate. I now propose—”

This time the noises could be called explosions, especially the one contributed by Mrs. O’Shea. Also she moved. She bounced out of her chair and started for the door, and when Wolfe sharply demanded where she was going and she didn’t stop, I dived across and headed her off. White-faced, she ordered me, “Get out of my way! The dirty little rat!”

I held the pass. Wolfe’s voice came. “If you’re going for Mr. Lewent, madam, I beg you to consider. He came to me and paid me money because he lacked the spunk to tackle this himself. You can drag him in here, and the three of you can screech and scratch, but what good will it do? I’m willing to try to work this out, but not in pandemonium.”

She turned and took a step.

“You should all realize,” Wolfe told them, “what the situation is. You may think that this notion of Mr. Lewent’s is preposterous, that he is in effect deranged, but that doesn’t dispose of it or him. If he clings to it and speaks of it, it can become extremely ugly for all of you. Suing him for slander might settle him, but it wouldn’t settle the stench. From the fact that he chose me to investigate for him, and from his paying me in advance what was for him a substantial sum, I assume that he has high regard for my sagacity, judgment, and integrity. If I am convinced that his suspicions are baseless and unmerited, I think I can persuade him to abandon them; and it may be that you can convince me here and now. Do you want to try?”

Paul Thayer threw his head back and haw-hawed. It didn’t go over as well as it had when he and I were together in his room. They all looked at him, not admiringly, and when he subsided they transferred the looks to Theodore Huck. He was regarding Wolfe thoughtfully.

“I am wondering,” he said, “if it would help for me to have a talk with my brother-in-law.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Sylvia Marcy said so positively that everyone glanced at her in surprise. Immediately she cooed. “I just mean,” she cooed, “that he’s a case. He is definitely a case.”

Huck looked at Dorothy Riff. “What do you think?”

She didn’t hesitate. The gray-green eyes were alert and determined. “I would like to know what it would take to convince Mr. Wolfe.” She looked at him.

“That depends,” Wolfe told her. “If, for instance, the source of the poison that killed Mrs. Huck has been satisfactorily established, and if none of you was connected with in in any way, I would be well on the road to conviction. According to Mr. Lewent, it was ptomaine, and all of you were on the premises at the time. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Good God,” Paul Thayer protested, “you don’t really mean it! You’re actually going to ask us?”

“I’ll ask you, Mr. Thayer, since you are not suspected by Mr. Lewent. Where did Mrs. Huck die? Here?”

Thayer looked at Huck. “What about it, Uncle Theodore? Do you want me to play?”

Huck nodded slowly. “I suppose so. Yes.”

“Whatever you say.” Thayer looked at Wolfe. “My aunt died in this house, in her bed, just about a year ago.”

“Were you here?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it. Just tell it, and I’ll ask questions as required.”

“Well.” Thayer cleared his throat. “It was my uncle’s birthday, and there was a little celebration here in this room. We were all here, we who are here now, and a few other people, four or five — old friends of my aunt and uncle. Do you want to know who they were?”

“Later, perhaps. Now just the event.”

“We had drinks and things, and afterward a buffet dinner served in this room, plenty of wine — my aunt liked wine, and so does Uncle Theodore — finishing up with champagne, and some of us were fairly high, including me. In fact I finally got slightly objectionable, so my aunt said, and I left before the party broke up and went up to my room and made music. Did you ever play the piano while you were lit?”

Wolfe said no.

“Try it sometime. By the way, will you kindly tell me something? Why did one of these women poison my aunt? What for?”

“Speaking for Mr. Lewent, because she was on intimate terms with your uncle and wanted to marry him. Where there is room for a deed there is always room for a motive. That can—”

“You dare!” Mrs. O’Shea blazed. She was back in her chair.

“No, madam, I don’t. I am only trying to learn if there is any cause for daring. Go on, Mr. Thayer?”

Thayer shrugged. “At some hour I quit making music and went to bed. In the morning I was told that my aunt had died, and the way it was described to me — it was quite horrible.”

“Who described it?”

“Miss Marcy, and Mrs. O’Shea some.”

Wolfe’s eyes moved. “You saw it then, Miss Marcy?”

“Yes, I did.” She was not cooing. “To say that one of us poisoned her, that’s terrible.”

“I agree. What did you see?”

“I was sleeping on the floor above this, and so was Mrs. Huck. She came and got me up; she was in great pain and didn’t want to disturb her husband. I got her back to bed and called a doctor — it was after midnight — and I got Mrs. O’Shea, but there wasn’t much we could do until the doctor came. It was a question about telling Mr. Huck — he couldn’t even go in the room where she was, because the door was too narrow for his chair, but of course we had to tell him. She died about eight o’clock.”

Wolfe went to Huck. “Naturally there was some inquiry — a death under those circumstances.”

“Certainly.” Huck was curt.

“Was there an autopsy?”

“Yes. It was ptomaine.”

“Was the source identified?”

“Not by analysis.” A spasm ran over Huck’s face. He was having a little trouble with the controls. “Before dinner there had been a large assortment of hors d’oeuvres, and among them was a kind of pickled artichoke which my wife was very fond of. No one else had taken any of them, and apparently she had eaten them all, since there were none left. Since no one else was ill, it was assumed that the ptomaines, which were definitely present, had been in the artichokes.”

Wolfe grunted. “I’m not a ptomaine scholar, but this afternoon I looked them up a little. Do you know how thoroughly the possibility of the presence of a true alkaloid was excluded?”

“No. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Isn’t ptomaine an alkaloid?” Dorothy Riff asked.

“Yes,” Wolfe conceded, “but cadaveric. However, for that there is the record. You were here the night of Mrs. Huck’s death, Miss Riff?”

“I was here for the party. I left around eleven o’clock.”

“Did you know that she was fond of pickled artichokes?”

“We all did. It was a kind of standing joke.”

“How did you know that ptomaines are alkaloids?”

She flushed a little. “When Mrs. Huck died I read up about them.”

“Why? Was there something about her death or about the artichokes that made you suspect something?”

“No! Of course not!”

Wolfe’s head went right and left. “Did any of you suspect that Mrs. Huck’s death was not accidental?”

He got a unanimous negative with no abstentions, but he insisted, “Have any of you felt, at any time, that the possibility of foul play was insufficiently explored?”

Unanimous again. Mrs. O’Shea snapped, “Why should we feel that if we didn’t suspect anything?”

Wolfe nodded. “Why indeed?” He leaned back, cleared his throat, and looked judicious. “I am impressed, naturally, by the total absence of any currents of mistrust among you. Three women like you — young, smart, alive to opportunity, inevitably competitive in a household like this — are ideal soil for the seeds of suspicion if there are any around, but evidently none have sprouted in you. That is more than indicative, it is almost conclusive, and I could not expect, here in an hour or so, to reach the haven of certainty. It would be unreasonable to challenge you to convince me utterly; the law itself assumes innocence until guilt is demonstrated; and that leaves us only with the question, how much is it worth to you to have me employ my talent and energy to persuade Mr. Lewent that his suspicions are unfounded, and to keep him persuaded? Shall we say one hundred thousand dollars?”

They were unanimous again, this time with gasps. Miss Riff, quickest to find words, cried, “I told you it was blackmail!”

Wolfe showed them his palms. “If you please. I am indifferent to what you call it, blackmail or brigandage, but it would be childish for you to suppose I would perform so great a service for you as a benefaction. My spring of philanthropy is not so torrential. The sum I named would surely not be exorbitant. I’ll be considerate on details; I don’t even insist on an IOU; it will be sufficient if Mr. Huck will state, all of us hearing him, that he guarantees payment of the full amount to me within one month. With one provision, which I insist on, that no word of this arrangement ever reaches Mr. Lewent. On that I must have explicit and firm assurance. I require the guarantee from Mr. Huck because I know he is good for it and I know nothing of the financial status of any of the rest of you, and of course it is to his interest as well as yours that Mr. Lewent should be persuaded that his suspicions are unfounded.”

He took them in. “Well?”

“It’s blackmail,” Miss Riff said firmly.

Paul Thayer muttered, “Lewent picked a lulu when he picked you.”

Miss Marcy and Mrs. O’Shea were silent. They were looking at Huck, obviously wanting a lead. Huck, his head cocked to one side, was frowning at Wolfe, studying him, as if in doubt whether he had heard correctly.

He spoke. “What makes you think,” he asked, “that you can manage my brother-in-law?”

“Mainly, sir, my self-conceit. I undertake it, and I too am financially responsible. You guarantee to pay, and I guarantee to deliver. You guarantee to pay me one hundred thousand dollars within one month, and I guarantee that Mr. Lewent will not again accuse any person here present of serious misconduct prior to this moment; and if he does so I forfeit the entire amount paid me.”

“Is there a time limit to your guarantee?”

“No.”

“Then I accept it. I guarantee to pay you one hundred thousand dollars within one month, as consideration for the guarantee you have given, as stated by you. Is that satisfactory?”

“Perfectly. Now the provision. It is understood by all of you that no word of this arrangement is ever to get to Mr. Lewent. You agree that you will give him no hint of it either directly or indirectly. To indicate your agreement please raise your hands.”

Mrs. O’Shea’s hand went up first, then Miss Marcy’s, then Miss Riff’s. Wolfe asked, “Mr. Huck?”

“I thought it unnecessary. Certainly I agree.”

“Mr. Thayer?”

With all eyes on him, Paul Thayer looked highly uncomfortable. He glanced at his uncle. “Oh, nuts,” he said, and raised both hands as high as they would go.

“Then that’s settled.” Wolfe made a face. “Now I must go to work, and I must have your help. First I’ll speak with Mr. Lewent privately, but it may be that after a preliminary I’ll want to bring him in here for a brief colloquy. So you will please remain here a while — not long, I think.” He got to his feet. “Archie, you said Mr. Lewent is in his room on this floor?”

I was a little tardy answering and moving because I was trying to see all their faces at once as they heard that we were going for Lewent. But Wolfe repeated my name, and I was up and with him, detouring around him to get to the door and open it. I led the way to Lewent’s room, opened that door too, and, entering, flipped the wall switch for light and then stepped over Lewent’s legs to get out of the way for Wolfe to come in. He did so and shut the door and stood looking down at his client.

“Lift him so I can see the back of his head.”

That was no great strain, considering the size of the corpse and the fact that it was fairly stiff by then. When Wolfe finished his inspection and straightened up, I lowered it to the rug again, to its former position.

“As you know,” Wolfe said, “it is regarded as undesirable to leave a corpse unguarded, especially when violence is indicated. I’ll stay here. You will go and tell them what we have found, instructing them to remain together in Mr. Huck’s room, and then call the police.”

“Yes, sir. Call from Huck’s rooms or go down to the study?”

“Either. As you choose.”

“When the cops go into details with me, does my memory fail me anywhere besides my one trip to this room?”

“No. Everything else as it was.”

“Including the way I got up here?”

“Yes. Confound it, go.”

I went.

7

It had been twenty minutes to ten when Wolfe and I had left the gathering in Huck’s room to go and have a talk with our client. It was a quarter past twelve, more than two and a half hours later, that we were in Huck’s room again with a gathering — the same cast of characters with a few additions.

Meanwhile some two dozen highly trained city employees, including a deputy police commissioner and two assistant district attorneys, had put on an expert performance in the house that Herman Lewent’s father had built and that Herman had after all managed to die in. I witnessed very little of the performance, since for most of the 155 minutes I was up in the sewing room answering questions and explaining previous answers, but I knew it was expert because I had seen most of them in action before. In one way at least it was too damn expert to suit me, because at a couple of points I wouldn’t have minded a chance to exchange a few words with Wolfe, but I wasn’t allowed to. We were expertly kept apart, and I had no sight or sound of him between nine-forty-five, when I left him guarding the corpse, and twelve-fifteen, when Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who has called me Archie eight times over the years in fits of absent-mindedness, came up to the sewing room for me and escorted me down to Huck’s room.

It was the same cast of characters, but they were visibly the worse for wear. Huck himself, in his chair, still in the maroon tie and jacket, looked so pooped that I was surprised the official brass wasn’t showing more consideration for a guy in his bracket whose bum legs gave them such a good excuse. It seemed likely that Paul Thayer had shown some temperament which required a little handling, since his tie was crooked and his hair mussed and a dick was standing at his elbow. On the whole the three women were apparently taking it a little better than the men, but they were by no means jaunty. Mrs. O’Shea sat stiff, her cold blue eyes directed at Inspector Cramer, who was seated near Wolfe. She didn’t bother to glance at Purley and me as we entered. And damned if Miss Riff and Miss Marcy weren’t holding hands! They were side by side on a couch, sharing it with Assistant DA Mandelbaum and Deputy Police Commissioner Boyle.

I had to hand it to Wolfe. He had the big chair he had had before, and this time I hadn’t been there to nab it for him. And he didn’t look fagged. As I came into range and caught his eye, I thought, oh-oh, here we go. I knew that look well. He was about to make some fur fly, or thought he was.

He snapped at me, “Archie!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sit down. I have told Mr. Cramer I want to go home, and as an inducement have offered some comments on this affair, insisting on your presence. You have of course answered all questions and given all the information you have.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So have I. Move your chair — it obstructs my view of Mr. Thayer. That’s better. Mr. Cramer, I could have done this much earlier — indeed, immediately after your arrival — but you were not then ready to listen, and besides, there was the possibility that your men would uncover something that would weaken or even negate my assumptions. I don’t know that they haven’t, so I need to ask a few questions.”

Inspector Cramer’s round red face was not sympathetic. He rasped, “You didn’t say you had questions, you said you had comments. You practically said you know who killed Lewent.”

“I do, unless you know better. That’s all my questions are for. Are you ready to charge anyone?”

“No.”

“Have you found a weapon that satisfies you?”

“No.”

“Have you any evidence that would contradict an assumption that Lewent was killed elsewhere and his body was transported to his room and dumped there?”

“No.”

“Have you evidence pointing to any other place in this house as the spot where he was killed?”

“No.”

“Have you for any reason, evidential or speculative, excluded any of these people from suspicion?”

“No.”

Boyle cut in from the couch. “How long do you intend to let this go on, Inspector?”

“You could have stopped it before it started,” Wolfe said dryly. “But here’s a comment. It is close to unbelievable that Lewent was killed where he was found. From such a blow he died instantly, and surely it was not struck in that narrow passage, particularly since it was moving upward at the moment of impact. With no sign of any struggle, with no displacement of the rug even, I can’t believe that such a blow could be struck—”

“Skip it,” Cramer growled. “Neither can we.”

“You think he was killed elsewhere?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know where?”

“No.”

Mandelbaum exploded, “What do you think this is, Wolfe, twenty questions?”

Wolfe ignored him. “My second comment. If he was killed elsewhere, why was the body moved? Because the murderer didn’t want it found where it was. How was it moved? That’s the real question. For vertical transport there was the elevator, but to and from the elevator, how? Was it dragged? That would leave marks, and of course you have looked for them. Have you found any?”

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t dragged. Carried? By whom? None of these women would be up to it. Lewent was undersized, but he weighed more than a hundred pounds. By Mr. Huck? It has been established that his legs will take him, with no burden, only a few steps. Then Mr. Thayer? He’s all we have left, but why? That’s another question I must ask you, Mr. Cramer. Why did Mr. Thayer kill Mr. Lewent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you even a decent surmise?”

“At present no.”

“Neither have I. But there’s another reason for excluding him, at least provisionally — that he’s not a lunatic. Only a lunatic would carry the body of a man he had just murdered up and down these halls at that time of day, with so great a probability of being seen. No, I think we may conclude that the body was neither dragged nor carried. It only remains—”

“By God!”

That was me. It popped out. It is not often that I let myself interrupt Wolfe when he has steam up and is rolling, but that time it hit me so hard that I didn’t even know I was speaking. Eyes came to me, and Wolfe turned his head to inquire, “What is it, Archie?”

I shook my head. “I’ll save it.”

“No, we’re through saving. What is it?”

“Nothing much, only that I suddenly realized that I actually saw the murderer in the act of transporting the corpse. I stood and looked straight at him while he was moving it, and we exchanged words. I don’t like to brag, but don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I think it likely—”

“This is one hell of a time to realize it,” Sergeant Stebbins blurted at me.

“I suggest,” Wolfe told him, “that you post yourself near Mr. Huck. He could have almost anything hidden around that chair, especially under that quilt, and I don’t—”

“Just a minute, Wolfe.” Mandelbaum had left the couch and was marching. “If you have any evidence against anyone, including Mr. Huck, we want to hear it or see it first.”

“This is the man,” Huck said in a voice not very steady, “who tried to extort one hundred thousand dollars from me!”

“And succeeded,” Wolfe declared. “I’m by no means sure I couldn’t collect, though—”

He stopped, startled. So was I, and the others. Purley Stebbins, who knew Wolfe from away back, had quietly moved to Huck’s chair, at his right elbow, and all of a sudden Huck had jerked his head around and snarled at him in a spasm of fury, “Get away!” It was such a nasty snarl that Mandelbaum, also startled, forgot about Wolfe to stare at Huck. Purley, who had been snarled at by experts in his day, was unmoved.

“I offered comments, not evidence,” Wolfe reminded them. “Here is one regarding the location and nature of the wound on Mr. Lewent’s head, and the direction of the blow. Suppose I am Mr. Huck; here I am in my wheelchair, in my study. It is shortly before five in the afternoon, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Lewent, is with me. I have decided that he must die because I believe that he is a deadly menace to me. He has engaged Nero Wolfe, a detective who does not waste his time or talent on inanities, to start an investigation in my household on a pretext so absurd that it is manifestly a fake. I not only know that my wife would not have left a sum of money secretly to be given to her brother; I also know that he knows she would not have done that. In addition, Wolfe’s assistant, Goodwin, in talking with my secretary and housekeeper and nurse, has dwelt on the possibility that one of them poisoned my wife, pretending that he is merely being facetious. One of them has told me about it. You might check that detail by inquiry.”

“We have,” Cramer admitted. “It was Miss Riff.”

“Good. So I am convinced that my brother-in-law has become suspicious about his sister’s death and therefore mortally threatens me. For the purpose of this comment, let us say the threat is possible disclosure of the fact that I poisoned his sister — my wife — by putting toxic material into a dish of artichokes. The inducement, which I realized, was inheritance of her wealth, amounting to millions. By the way, I don’t suppose Mr. Huck can prove that Mr. Lewent did not come to his study between four and five o’clock?”

“No. He sent Miss Riff for him about half-past four. He says Lewent was with him about ten minutes and then left.”

“Was Miss Riff present?”

“No. She left the house on an errand.”

Wolfe nodded. “Good again. And in fairness to you, Mr. Cramer and gentlemen, it should be said that I have had one big advantage which you lacked. You haven’t seen Mr. Huck propel himself in that vehicle, have you?”

They said no.

“I haven’t either, but I have heard Mr. Goodwin describe the operation and was impressed. It was my memory of that description that put me on the path of these comments. At present Mr. Huck does not look as if he would care to demonstrate his machine, but you can manage that later. To go back: I am now Mr. Huck, here in my chair in my study, shortly before five o’clock.” Wolfe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wadded it in his right hand. “This is a paperweight, a heavy ball of green marble with a segment sliced off. Actually it isn’t in my hand, not quite yet; I merely have it ready, here on a shelf of my chair, holding down some papers. Archie, you are Mr. Lewent. Stand there in front of me, please — of course you could be either standing or sitting. A little closer would be more natural. Now I lift the paperweight with my right hand, and with my left pick up a paper to show you, but it slips from my fingers and falls to the floor. It’s quite likely that before sending for you I practiced dropping that paper. Of course you bend over to retrieve it for me — that would be automatic, with me a cripple — and when you do so I strike with the paperweight.”

I bent over, and he tapped me on the nape. I wasn’t in the mood to ham it by dropping dead, but it didn’t seem fitting to straighten up immediately, so I compromised by sinking to a knee.

“God save us,” muttered Mrs. O’Shea, and there was no other sound. Wolfe went on. “In our relative positions, me sitting and you stooping, the impact would be upward on your skull. I must now move as fast as my disability will permit. Twenty seconds is enough to satisfy me that no second blow is needed; you are dead. I am sound and strong from the hips up, and in another twenty seconds I have you lifted and draped over my legs and covered with the shawl that I am never without. I push a button and grasp the lever, and off we go. I must dump you on another floor. It is a risk, certainly, but I must take it.”

“Evidence, damn it,” Mandelbaum growled.

“By all means,” Wolfe conceded, “and the sooner the better. You might start by learning if the paperweight fits the dent in the skull; I think you’ll find that it does. Examine the plaid shawl that was used for a shroud; you may find hairs of Lewent’s head. You had already concluded that the murder was not committed in Lewent’s room; I challenge you to explain how the body was transported if not on Mr. Huck’s chair. I confess it is a pity that the day was dying and the light in the hall was dim when Mr. Goodwin stood at the door of Lewent’s room and saw Mr. Huck, in his chair, emerge from the elevator and head for his room. Mr. Goodwin has sharp eyes, and in better light he would probably have noticed that the hump under the shawl was larger than it should have been. Of course his presence forced Mr. Huck to retreat to his own room with his cargo temporarily, but Mr. Goodwin left almost at once — left the house to phone me — and Mr. Huck finished the transport. That must have been the hardest part for him, since the door to Lewent’s room was too narrow for his chair.”

Wolfe tilted his head to Mandelbaum, who was still standing. “But I like this for evidence. To me, in fact, this alone is absolutely conclusive. You have questioned all of us at length, and you know what was said in this room immediately prior to the discovery of the body. You know that in the presence of five witnesses I extorted from Mr. Huck a promise to pay me a large sum of money — for what? For my reciprocal promise that Mr. Lewent would not again pester any of them with accusations! It is inconceivable that Mr. Huck could be such an ass as to agree to any such bargain if he had thought Lewent was still alive. Word of it, from Mr. Thayer if no one else, was sure to reach Lewent, and he, thinking I had betrayed him by taking a bribe from the enemy, would have had his suspicions redoubled instead of stilled.”

Wolfe shook his head. “No. Unquestionably Huck knew then that Lewent was dead; that certainty struck me the moment I saw the corpse. Not only that; by agreeing to my preposterous proposal Huck was confessing to his guilt. He thought I was blackmailing him, and, momentarily at least, he thought he had to submit. I had tackled him before witnesses, and he would have to get me alone to find out how much I knew and how I might be dealt with. But for the terror of his guilt, he would have scorned me as a witling; when I made my proposal and demand, he would have sent for his brother-in-law and denounced me to him. Instead — but you know what he did, and look at him now.”

Most of those present did look at him, but three did not, and it went to show how men’s minds work. The three were Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum, Deputy Police Commissioner Boyle, and Inspector Cramer. They, three high-ranking officers of the law, were gazing resentfully and indignantly, not at the murderer who had just been exposed, but at the man who had exposed him. Not that you could blame them much. They would have to charge Huck and take him, that was clear, but they were by no means ready for a judge and jury; and Huck had enough dough to hire the ten best lawyers in town.

Cramer rose to his feet, shot a glance to his right to make sure Sergeant Stebbins was standing by, and moved to plant himself in front of Wolfe.

“Yeah, look at him now,” he growled, “and look at you! You and your helpful comments! That bargain you offered him — you say it’s inconceivable that he could have been such an ass as to agree to it if he had thought Lewent was still alive. Okay, but what about you? It’s also inconceivable that you could have been such an ass as to offer it if you had thought Lewent was still alive. God knows I could call you plenty of things, but not an ass. That stunt Goodwin pulled to get you up here — don’t try to tell me he would have pulled it, or that you would have come, if you hadn’t both known Lewent had been murdered! I want a comment on that!”

“Pfui,” Wolfe said mildly. “Don’t you think you have enough on your hands without—”

He stopped to watch a performance, and this time it went to show how women’s minds work. Mrs. O’Shea was on her feet and moving, slowly as if in a trance, toward her employer, with tears streaming from her eyes and down her cheeks and her arms crossed on her chest. She stopped three steps short of him.

“This is from heaven,” she said, in so low a voice that she could barely be heard. “The terror in my heart — oh, God, so long! You lied to me, and somewhere in me I knew it all the time! She did find out about us — she found out and told you so, and you killed her. Thank heaven, oh, thank heaven—”

Inspector Cramer was there and had her elbow. Another woman’s mind was working too. Sylvia Marcy left the couch, walked across through the group to the wheelchair, and placed an object on Theodore Huck’s lap, on top of the maroon quilt. It was after she had moved away and started for the door that I saw what the object was — a wristwatch with a ring of red stones, maybe rubies.

I can’t report on the fate of the other two gifts whose presentation had been precipitated by my presence. Months have passed, and only last week a jury convicted Theodore Huck of first-degree murder, but as far as I know Mrs. O’Shea and Miss Riff still have their watches.

Content

Rex Stout
Invitation to Murder

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