Rex Stout

Murder Is No Joke

Chapter 1

I was a little disappointed in Flora Gallant when she arrived that Tuesday morning for her eleven-o’clock appointment with Nero Wolfe. Her getup was a letdown. One of my functions as Wolfe’s factotum is checking on people who phone for an appointment with him, and when I learned that Flora Gallant was one of the staff of her brother Alec’s establishment on East Fifty-fourth Street, and remembered remarks a friend of mine named Lily Rowan had made about Alex Gallant, I had phoned Lily for particulars.

And got them. Gallant was crowding two others for top ranking in the world of high fashion. He thumbed his nose at Paris and sneered at Rome, and was getting away with it. He had refused to finish three dresses for the Duchess of Harwynd because she postponed flying over from London for fittings. He declined to make anything whatever for a certain famous movie actress because he didn’t like the way she handled her hips when she walked. He had been known to charge as little as eight hundred dollars for an afternoon frock, but it had been for a favorite customer so he practically gave it away.

And so forth. Therefore when I opened the door to admit his sister Flora that Tuesday morning it was a letdown to see a dumpy middle-aged female in a dark gray suit that was anything but spectacular. It needed pressing, and the shoulders were too tight, and her waist wasn’t where it thought it was. As I ushered her down the hall to the office and introduced her to Wolfe, I was thinking that if the shoemaker’s son went barefoot I supposed his sister could too, but all the same I felt cheated.

Her conversation was no more impressive than her costume, at least at the beginning. Seated on the edge of the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe’s desk, the fingers of both hands gripping the rim of the gray leather bag on her lap, she apologized, in a low meek mumble with just a trace of a foreign accent, for asking such an important man as Nero Wolfe to give any of his valuable time to her and her troubles. That didn’t sound promising, indicating as it did that she was looking for a bargain. As she went on with it Wolfe started a frown going, and soon he cut her off by saying that it would take less of his time if she would tell him what her troubles were.

She nodded. “I know. I just wanted you to understand that I don’t expect anything for myself. I’m not anybody myself, but you know who my brother is? My brother Alec?”

“Yes. Mr. Goodwin has informed me. An illustrious dressmaker.”

“He is not merely a dressmaker. He is an artist, a great artist.” She wasn’t arguing, just stating a fact. “This trouble is about him, and that’s why I must be careful with it. That’s why I come to you, and also” — she sent me a glance and then back to Wolfe — “also Mr. Archie Goodwin, because I know that although you are private detectives, you are gentlemen. I know you are worthy of confidence.”

She stopped, apparently for acknowledgment. Wolfe obliged her. “Umph.”

“Then it is understood I am trusting you?”

“Yes. You may.”

She looked at me. “Mr. Goodwin?”

“Right. Whatever Mr. Wolfe says. I only work here.”

She hesitated, seeming to consider if that was satisfactory, decided it was, and returned to Wolfe. “So I’ll tell you. I must explain that in France, where my brother and I were born and brought up, our name was not ‘Gallant.’ What it was doesn’t matter. I came to this country in nineteen-thirty-seven, when I was twenty-five years old, and Alex only came in nineteen-forty-five, after the war was over. He had changed his name to Gallant and entered legally under that name. Within seven years he had made a reputation as a designer, and then — Perhaps you remember his fall collection in nineteen-fifty-three?”

Wolfe grunted no.

Her right hand abandoned its grip on the bag to gesture. “But of course you are not married, and you have no mistress, feeling as you do about women. That collection showed what my brother was — an artist, a true creator. He got financial backing, more than he needed, and opened his place on Fifty-fourth Street. I had quit my job four years earlier — my job as a governess — in order to work with him and help him, and had changed my name to have it the same as his. From nineteen-fifty-three on it has been all a triumph, many triumphs. I will not say I had a hand in them, but I have been trying to help in my little way. The glory of great success has been my brother’s, but I have been with him, and so have others. But now trouble has come.”

Both hands were gripping the bag again. “The trouble,” she said, “is a woman. A woman named Bianca Voss.”

Wolfe made a face. She saw it and responded to it. “No, not an affaire d’amour, I’m sure it’s not that. Though my brother has never married, he is by no means insensible to women, he is very healthy about women, but since you are worthy of confidence I may tell you that he has an amie intime, a young woman who is of importance in his establishment. It is impossible that Bianca Voss has attracted him that way. She first came there a little more than a year ago. My brother had told us to expect her, so he had met her somewhere. He designed a dress and a suit for her, and they were made there in the shop, but no bill was ever sent her. Then he gave her one of the rooms, the offices, on the third floor, and she started to come every day, and then the trouble began. My brother never told us she had any authority, but she took it and he allowed her to. Sometimes she interferes directly, and sometimes through him. She pokes her nose into everything. She got my brother to discharge a fitter, a very capable woman, who had been with him for years. She has a private telephone line in her office upstairs, but no one else has. About two months ago some of the others persuaded me to try to find out about her, what her standing is, and I asked my brother, but he wouldn’t tell me. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t.”

“It sounds,” Wolfe said, “as if she owns the business. Perhaps she bought it.”

Flora Gallant shook her head. “No, she hasn’t. I’m sure she hasn’t. She wasn’t one of the financial backers in nineteen-fifty-three, and since then there have been good profits, and anyway my brother has control. But now she’s going to ruin it and he’s going to let her, we don’t know why. She wants him to design a factory line to be promoted by a chain of department stores using his name. She wants him to sponsor a line of Alec Gallant cosmetics on a royalty basis. And other things. We’re against all of them, and my brother is too, really, but we think he’s going to give in to her, and that will ruin it.”

Her fingers tightened on the bag. “Mr. Wolfe, I want you to ruin her.”

Wolfe grunted. “By wiggling a finger?”

“No, but you can. I’m sure you can. I’m sure she has some hold on him, but I don’t know what. I don’t know who she is or where she came from. I don’t know what her real name is. She speaks with an accent, but not French; I’m not sure what it is. I don’t know when she came to America; she may be here illegally. She may have known my brother in France, during the war. You can find out. If she has a hold on my brother you can find out what it is. If she is blackmailing him, isn’t that against the law? Wouldn’t that ruin her?”

“It might. It might ruin him too.”

“Not unless you betrayed him.” She swallowed that and added hastily, “I don’t mean that, I only mean I am trusting you, you said I could, and you could make her stop and that’s all you would have to do. Couldn’t you just do that?”

“Conceivably.” Wolfe wasn’t enthusiastic. “I fear, madam, that you’re biting off more than you can chew. The procedure you suggest would be prolonged, laborious, and extremely expensive. It would probably require elaborate investigation abroad. Aside from my fee, which would not be modest, the outlay would be considerable and the outcome highly uncertain. Are you in a position to undertake it?”

“I am not rich myself, Mr. Wolfe. I have some savings. But my brother — if you get her away, if you release him from her — he is truly générlux — excuse me — he is a generous man. He is not stingy.”

“But he isn’t hiring me, and your assumption that she is galling him may be groundless.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. Not a reasonable venture. Unless, of course, your brother himself consults me. If you care to bring him? Or send him?”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” She gestured again. “You must see that isn’t possible! When I asked him about her, I told you, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He was annoyed. He is never abrupt with me, but he was then. I assure you, Mr. Wolfe, she is a villain. You are sagace — excuse me — you are an acute man. You would know it if you saw her, spoke with her.”

“Perhaps.” Wolfe was getting impatient. “Even so, my perception of her villainy wouldn’t avail. No, madam.”

“But you would know I am right.” She opened her bag, fingered in it with both hands, came out with something, left her chair to step to Wolfe’s desk, and put the something on his desk pad in front of him. “There,” she said, “that is one hundred dollars. For you that is nothing, but it shows how I am in earnest. I can’t ask her to come so you can speak with her, she would merely laugh at me, but you can. You can tell her you have been asked in confidence to discuss a matter with her and ask her to come to see you. You will not tell her what it is. She will come, she will be afraid not to, and that alone will show you she has a secret, perhaps many secrets. Then when she comes you will ask her whatever occurs to you. For that you do not need my suggestions. You are an acute man.”

Wolfe grunted. “Everybody has secrets.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but not secrets that would make them afraid not to come to see Nero Wolfe. When she comes and you have spoken with her, we shall see. That may be all or it may not. We shall see.”

I do not say that the hundred bucks there on his desk in used twenties was no factor in Wolfe’s decision. Even though income tax would reduce it to sixteen dollars, that would buy four days’ supply of beer. Another factor was plain curiosity: would she come or wouldn’t she? Still another was the chance that it might develop into a decent fee. But what really settled it was her saying. “We shall see” instead of “We’ll see” or “We will see.” He will always stretch a point, within reason, for people who use words as he thinks they should be used. So he muttered at her, “Where is she?”

“At my brother’s place. She always is.”

“Give Mr. Goodwin the phone number.”

“I’ll get it. She may be downstairs.” She started a hand for the phone on Wolfe’s desk, but I told her to use mine and left my chair, and she came and sat, lifted the receiver and dialed.

In a moment she spoke. “Doris? Flora. Is Miss Voss around? ... Oh. I thought she might have come down... No, don’t bother, I’ll ring her there.”

She pushed the button down, told us, “She’s up in her office,” waited a moment, released the button, and dialed again. When she spoke it was another voice, as she barely moved her lips and brought it out through her nose: “Miss Bianca Voss? Hold the line, please. Mr. Nero Wolfe wishes to speak with you... Mr. Nero Wolfe, the private detective.”

She looked at Wolfe and he got at his phone. Having my own share of curiosity, I extended a hand for my receiver, and she let me take it and left my chair. As I sat and got it to my ear Wolfe was speaking.

“This is Nero Wolfe. Is this Miss Bianca Voss?”

“Yes.” It was more like “yiss.” “What do you want?” The “wh” and the “w” were off.

“If my name is unknown to you, I should explain—”

“I know your name. What do you want?”

“I want to invite you to call on me at my office. I have been asked to discuss certain matters with you, and—”

“Who asked you?”

“I am not at liberty to say. I shall—”

“What matters?” The “wh” was more off.

“If you will let me finish. The matters are personal and confidential, and concern you closely. That’s all I can say on the telephone. I am sure you—”

A snort stopped him, a snort that might be spelled “Tzchaahh!” followed by: “I know your name, yes! You are scum, I know, in your stinking sewer! Your slimy little ego in your big gob of fat! And you dare to — owulggh!”

That’s the best I can do at spelling it. It was part scream, part groan, and part just noise. It was followed immediately by another noise, a mixture of crash and clatter, then others, faint rustlings, and then nothing. I looked at Wolfe and he looked at me. I spoke to my transmitter. “Hello hello hello. Hello! Hello?”

I cradled it and so did Wolfe. Flora Gallant was asking, “What is it? She hung up?”

We ignored her. Wolfe said, “Archie? You heard.”

“Yes, sir. If you want a guess, something hit her and she dragged the phone along as she went down and it struck the floor. The other noises, not even a guess, except that at the end either she put the receiver back on and cut the connection or someone else did. I don’t — Okay, Miss Gallant. Take it easy.” She had grabbed my arm with both hands and was jabbering, “What is it? What happened?” I put a hand on her shoulder and made it emphatic. “Take a breath and let go. You heard what I told Mr. Wolfe. Apparently something fell on her and then hung up the phone.”

“But it couldn’t! It is not possible!”

“That’s what it sounded like. What’s the number? The one downstairs?”

She just gawked at me. I looked at Wolfe and he gave me a nod, and I jerked my arm loose, sat at my desk, got the Manhattan book, flipped to the Gs and got the number, PL2-0330 and dialed it.

A cultured female voice came. “Alec Gallant Incorporated.”

“This is a friend of Miss Voss,” I told her. “I was just speaking to her on the phone, in her office, and from the sounds I got I think something may have happened to her. Will you send someone up to see? Right away. I’ll hold the wire.”

“Who is this speaking, please?”

“Never mind that. Step on it. She may be hurt.”

I heard her calling to someone, then apparently she covered the transmitter. I sat and waited. Wolfe sat and scowled at me. Flora Gallant stood for a good five minutes at my elbow, staring down at me, then turned and went to the red leather chair and lowered herself onto its edge. I looked at my wristwatch: 11:40. It had said 11:31 when the connection with Bianca Voss had been cut. More waiting, and then a male voice came.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“This is Carl Drew. What is your name, please?”

“My name is Watson, John H. Watson. Is Miss Voss all right?”

“May I have your address, Mr. Watson, please?”

“What for? Miss Voss knows my address. Is she all right?”

“I must have your address, Mr. Watson. I must insist. You will understand the necessity when I tell you that Miss Voss is dead. She was assaulted in her office and is dead. Apparently, from what you said, the assault came while she was on the phone with you, and I want your address. I must insist.”

I hung up, gently not to be rude, swiveled, and asked Flora Gallant, “Who is Carl Drew?”

“He’s the business manager. What happened?”

I went to Wolfe. “My guess was close. Miss Voss is dead. In her office. He said she was assaulted, but he didn’t say with what or by whom.”

He glowered at me, then turned to let her have it. She was coming up from the chair, slow and stiff. When she was erect she said, “No. No. It isn’t possible.”

“I’m only quoting Carl Drew,” I told her.

“It isn’t possible. He said that?”

“Distinctly.”

“But how—” She let it hang. She said, “But how—” stopped again, turned, and was going. When Wolfe called to her, “Here, Miss Gallant, your money,” she paid no attention but kept on, and he poked it at me, and I took it and headed for the hall. I caught up with her halfway to the front door, but when I offered it she just kept going, so I blocked her off, took her bag and opened it and dropped the bills in and closed it, handed it back, and went and pulled the door open. She hadn’t said a word. I stood on the sill and watched, thinking she might stumble going down the seven steps of the stoop, but she made it to the sidewalk and turned east, toward Ninth Avenue. When I got back to the office Wolfe was sitting with his eyes closed, breathing down to his big round middle. I went to my desk and put the phone book away.

“She is so stunned with joy,” I remarked, “that she’ll probably get run over. I should have gone and put her in a taxi.”

He grunted.

“One thing,” I remarked. “Miss Voss’s last words weren’t exactly généreux. I would call them catty.”

He grunted.

“Another thing,” I remarked, “in spite of the fact that I was John H. Watson on the phone, we’ll certainly be called on by either Sergeant Stebbins or Inspector Cramer or both. When they go into whereabouts Flora will have to cough it up for her own protection. And we actually heard it. Also we’ll have the honor of being summoned to the stand. Star witnesses.”

He opened his eyes. “I’m quite aware of it,” he growled. “Confound it. Bring me the records on Laelia gouldiana.”

No orchid ever called a genius a slimy little ego in a big gob of fat. I remarked on that too, but to myself.

Chapter 2

Sure I appreciate it,” Cramer declared. “Why shouldn’t I? Very thoughtful of you. Saves me time and trouble. So it was eleven-thirty-one when you heard the blow?”

Inspector Cramer, big and brawny with a round red face and all his hair, half of it gray, had nothing to be sarcastic about as he sat in the red leather chair at six-thirty that Tuesday afternoon, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. It was his reaction, not to the present circumstances, but to his memory of other occasions, other experiences he had undergone in that room. He had to admit that we had saved him time and trouble when I had anticipated his visit by typing out a complete report of the session with Flora Gallant that morning, including the dialogue verbatim, and having it ready for him in duplicate, signed by both Wolfe and me. He had skimmed through it first, and then read it slowly and carefully.

“We heard no blow, identifiably,” Wolfe objected. His bulk was comfortably arranged in his oversize chair back of his desk. “Mr. Goodwin wrote that statement, but I read it, and it does not say that we heard a blow.”

Cramer found the place on page four and consulted it. “Okay. You heard a groan and a crash and rustles. But there was a blow. She was hit in the back of the head with a chunk of marble, a paperweight, and then a scarf was tied around her throat to stop her breathing. You say here at eleven-thirty-one.”

“Not when we heard the groan,” I corrected. “After that there were the other noises, then the connection went, and I said hello a few times, which was human but dumb. It was when I hung up that I looked at my watch and saw eleven-thirty-one. The groan had been maybe a minute earlier. Say eleven-thirty. If a minute is important.”

“It isn’t. But you didn’t hear the blow?”

“Not to recognize it, no.”

He went back to the statement, frowning at it, reading the whole first page and glancing at the others. He looked up, at Wolfe. “I know how good you are at arranging words. This implies that Flora Gallant was a complete stranger to you, that you had never had anything to do with her or her brother or any of the people at that place, but it doesn’t say so in so many words. I’d like to know.”

“The implication is valid,” Wolfe told him. “Except as related in that statement, I have never had any association with Miss Gallant or her brother, or, to my knowledge, with any of their colleagues. Nor has Mr. Goodwin. Archie?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“Okay.” Cramer folded the statement and put it in his pocket. “Then you had never heard Bianca Voss’s voice before and you couldn’t recognize it on the phone.”

“Of course not.”

“And you can’t hear it now, since she’s dead. So you can’t swear it was her talking to you.”

“Obviously.”

“And that raises a point. If it was her talking to you, she was killed at exactly half past eleven. Now there are four important people in that organization who had it in for Bianca Voss. They had admitted it. Besides Flora Gallant, there is Anita Prince, fitter and designer, been with Gallant eight years; Emmy Thorne, in charge of contacts and promotion, been with him four years; and Carl Drew, business manager, been with him five years. None of them killed Bianca Voss at half past eleven. From eleven-fifteen on, until the call came from a man who said he was John H. Watson, Carl Drew was down on the main floor, constantly in view of four people, two of them customers. From eleven o’clock on Anita Prince was on the top floor, the workshop, with Alec Gallant and two models and a dozen employees. At eleven-twenty Emmy Thorne called on a man by appointment at his office on Forty-sixth Street, and was with him and two other men until a quarter to twelve. And Flora Gallant was here with you. All airtight.”

“Very neat,” Wolfe agreed.

“Yeah. Too damn neat. Of course there may be others who wanted Bianca Voss out of the way, but as it stands now those four are out in front. And they’re all—”

“Why not five? Alec Gallant himself?”

“All right, five. They’re all in the clear, including him, if she was killed at eleven-thirty. So suppose she wasn’t. Suppose she was killed earlier, half an hour or so earlier. Suppose when Flora Gallant phoned her from here and put you on to talk with her, it wasn’t her at all, it was someone else imitating her voice, and she pulled that stunt, the groan and the other noises, to make you think you had heard the murder at that time.”

Wolfe’s brows were up. “With the corpse there on the floor.”

“Certainly.”

“Then you’re not much better off. Who did the impersonation? Their alibis still hold for eleven-thirty.”

“I realize that. But there were nineteen women around there altogether, and a woman who wouldn’t commit a murder might be willing to help cover up after it had been committed. You know that.”

Wolfe wasn’t impressed. “It’s very tricky, Mr. Cramer. If you are supposing Flora Gallant killed her, it was elaborately planned. Miss Gallant phoned here yesterday morning to make an appointment for eleven this morning. Did she kill Miss Voss, station someone there beside the corpse to answer the phone, rush down here, and maneuver me into ringing Miss Voss’s number? It seems a little far-fetched.”

“I didn’t say it was Flora Gallant.” Cramer hung on. “It could have been any of them. He or she didn’t have to know you were going to ring that number. He might have intended to call it himself, before witnesses, to establish the time of the murder, and when your call came, whoever it was there by the phone got rattled and went ahead with the act. There are a dozen different ways it could have happened. Hell, I know it’s tricky. I’m not asking you to work your brain on it. You must know why I brought it up.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, I think I do. You want me to consider what I heard — and Mr. Goodwin. You want to know if we are satisfied that those sounds were authentic. You want to know if we will concede that they might have been bogus.”

“That’s it. Exactly.”

Wolfe rubbed his nose with a knuckle, closing his eyes. In a moment he opened them. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Cramer. If they were bogus they were well executed. At the time, hearing them, I had no suspicion that it was flummery. Naturally, as soon as I learned that they served to fix the precise moment of a murder, I knew they were open to question, but I can’t challenge them intrinsically. Archie?”

I shook my head. “I pass.” To Cramer: “You’ve read the statement, so you know that right after I heard it my guess was that something hit her and she dragged the phone along as she went down and it struck the floor. I’m not going to go back on my guess now. As for our not hearing the blow, read the statement. It says that it started out as if it was going to be a scream but then it was a groan. She might have seen the blow coming and was going to scream, but it landed and turned it into a groan, and in that case we wouldn’t hear the blow. A chunk of marble hitting a skull wouldn’t make much noise. As for supposing she was killed half an hour or so earlier, I phoned within three minutes, or John H. Watson did, and in another six or seven minutes Carl Drew was talking to me, so he must have seen the body, or someone did, not more than five minutes after we heard the groan. Was she twitching?”

“No. You don’t twitch long with a scarf as tight as that around your throat.”

“What about the ME?”

“He got there a little after twelve. With blood he might have timed it pretty close, but there wasn’t any. That’s out.”

“What about the setup? Someone left that room quick after we heard the sounds. If it was the murderer, he or she had to cradle the phone and tie the scarf, but that wouldn’t take long. If it was a fill-in, as you want to suppose, all she had to do was cradle the phone. Whichever it was, wasn’t there anyone else around?”

“No. If there was, they’re saving it. As you know, Bianca Voss wasn’t popular around there. Anyway, that place is a mess, with three different elevators, one in the store, one at the back for services and deliveries, and one in an outside hall with a separate entrance so they can go up to the offices without going through the store.”

“That makes it nice. Then it’s wide open.”

“As wide as a barn door.” Cramer stood up. To Wolfe: “So that’s the best you can do. You thought the sounds were open to question.”

“Not intrinsically. Circumstantially, of course.”

“Yeah. Much obliged.” He was going. After two steps he turned. “I don’t like gags about homicide, murder is no joke, but I can mention that Bianca Voss had you wrong. Scum. Stinking sewer. Orchids don’t smell.” He went.

Apparently he hadn’t really swallowed it that she was already dead when we heard the sounds.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Wednesday, eating breakfast in the kitchen with the Times propped up in front of me, which is routine, of course I read the account of the Bianca Voss murder. There were various details that were news to me, but nothing startling or even helpful. It included the phone call from John H. Watson, but didn’t add that he had been identified as Archie Goodwin, and there was no mention of Nero Wolfe. I admit that the cops and the DA have a right to save something for themselves, but it never hurts to have your name in the paper, and I had a notion to phone Lon Cohen at the Gazette and give him an exclusive. However, I would have to mention it to Wolfe first, so it would have to wait until eleven o’clock.

As a matter of fact, another item in the Times came closer to me. Sarah Yare had committed suicide. Her body had been found Tuesday evening in her little walk-up apartment on East Thirteenth Street. I had never written a fan letter to an actress, but I had been tempted to a couple of years back when I had seen Sarah Yare in Thumb a Ride. The first time I saw it I had a companion, but the next three times I was alone. The reason for repeating was that I had the impression I was infatuated and I wanted to wear it down, but when the impression still stuck after three tries I quit. Actresses should be seen and heard, but not touched. At that, I might have given the impression another test in a year or two if there had been an opportunity, but there wasn’t. She quit Thumb a Ride abruptly some months later, and the talk was that she was an alco and done for.

So I read that item twice. It didn’t say that it had been pronounced suicide officially and finally, since she had left no note, but a nearly empty bourbon bottle had been there on a table, and on the floor by the couch she had died on there had been a glass with enough left in it to identify the cyanide. The picture of her was as she had been when I had got my impression. I asked Fritz if he had ever seen Sarah Yare, and he asked what movies she had been in, and I said none, she was much too good for a movie.

I didn’t get to suggest phoning Lon Cohen to Wolfe because when he came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock I wasn’t there. As I was finishing my second cup of coffee a phone call came from the District Attorney’s office inviting me to drop in, and I went and spent a couple of hours at Leonard Street with an assistant DA named Brill. When we got through I knew slightly more than I had when we started, but he didn’t. He had a copy of our statement on his desk, and what could I add to that? He had a lot of fun, though. He would pop a question at me and then spend nine minutes studying the statement to see if I had tripped.

Getting home a little before noon, I was prepared to find Wolfe grumpy. He likes me to be there when he comes down from the plant rooms to the office, and while he can’t very well complain when the DA calls me on business that concerns us, this wasn’t our affair. We had no client and no case and no fee in prospect. But I got a surprise. He wasn’t grumpy; he was busy. He had the phone book open before him on his desk. He had actually gone to my desk, stooped to get the book, lifted it, and carried it around to his chair. Unheard of.

“Good morning,” I said. “What’s the emergency?”

“No emergency. I needed to know a number.”

“Can I help?”

“Yes. I have instructions.”

I sat. He wants you at his level because it’s too much trouble to tilt his head back. “Nothing new,” I said, “at the DA’s office. Do you want a report?”

“No. You will go to Alec Gallant’s place on Fifty-fourth Street and speak with Mr. Gallant, his sister, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne, and Mr. Drew. Separately if possible. You will tell each of them — You read the Times this morning as usual?”

“Certainly.”

“You will tell each of them that I have engaged to make certain inquiries about Miss Sarah Yare, and that I shall be grateful for any information they may be able and willing to furnish. I would like to see any communications they may have received from her, say in the past month. Don’t raise one brow like that. You know it disconcerts me.”

“I’ve never seen you disconcerted yet.” I let the brow down a little. “If they ask me who engaged you what do I say?”

“That you don’t know. You are merely following instructions.”

“If I ask you who engaged you what do you say?”

“I tell you the truth. No one. Or more accurately, I have engaged myself. I think I may have been hoodwinked and I intend to find out. You may be fishing where there are no fish. They may all say they have never had any association with Sarah Yare, and they may be telling the truth or they may not. You will have that in mind and form your conclusions. If any of them acknowledge association with her, pursue it enough to learn the degree of intimacy, but don’t labor it. That can wait until we bait a hook. You are only to discover if there are any fish.”

“Now?”

“Yes. The sooner the better.”

I stood up. “It may take a while if the cops and the DA are working on them, and they probably are. How urgent is it? Do you want progress reports by phone?”

“Not unless you think it necessary. You must get all five of them.”

“Right. Don’t wait dinner for me.” I went.

On the way uptown in the taxi I was using my brain. I will not explain at this point why Wolfe wanted to know if any of the subjects had known Sarah Yare, and if so how well, for two reasons: first, you have certainly spotted it yourself; and second, since I am not as smart as you are, I had not yet come up with the answer. It was underneath. On top, what I was using my brain for, was the phone book. Unquestionably it was connected with his being hoodwinked, since that was what was biting him, and therefore it probably had some bearing on the call that had been made from his office to Bianca Voss, but what could he accomplish by consulting the phone book? For that I had no decent guess, let alone an answer, by the time I paid the hackie at Fifty-fourth and Fifth Avenue.

Alec Gallant Incorporated, on the north side of the street near Madison Avenue, was no palace, either outside or in. The front was maybe thirty feet, and five feet of that was taken by the separate entrance to the side hall. The show window, all dark green, had just one exhibit: a couple of yards of plain black fabric, silk or rayon or nylon or Orlon or Dacron or cottonon or linenon, draped on a little rack. Inside, nothing whatever was in sight — that is, nothing to buy. The wall-to-wall carpet was the same dark green as the show window. There were mirrors and screens and tables and ashtrays, and a dozen or more chairs, not fancy, more to sit in than to look at. I had taken three steps on the carpet when a woman standing with a man by a table left him to come to meet me. I told her my name and said I would like to see Mr. Gallant. The man, approaching, spoke.

“Mr. Gallant is not available. What do you want?”

That didn’t strike me as a very tactful greeting to a man who, for all he knew, might be set to pay eight hundred dollars for an afternoon frock, but of course he had had a tough twenty-four hours, so I kept it pleasant. “I’m not a reporter,” I assured him, “or a cop, or a lawyer drumming up trade. I’m a private detective named Archie Goodwin, sent by a private detective named Nero Wolfe to ask Mr. Gallant a couple of harmless questions — not connected with the death of Bianca Voss.”

“Mr. Gallant is not available.”

I hadn’t heard his voice in person before, only on the phone, but I recognized it. Also he looked like a business manager, with his neat well-arranged face, his neat well-made dark suit, and his neat shadow-stripe four-in-hand. He was a little puffy around the eyes, but the city and county employees had probably kept him from getting much sleep.

“May I ask,” I asked, “if you are Mr. Carl Drew?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Then I’m in luck. I was instructed to see five different people here — Mr. Gallant, Miss Gallant, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne, and Mr. Carl Drew. Perhaps we could sit down?”

He ignored that. “See us about what?”

The woman had left us. She was in earshot if her hearing was good, but this was certainly no secret mission, with five of them on the list. “To get information,” I told him, “if you have any, about a woman who died yesterday. Not Bianca Voss. Miss Sarah Yare.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Yes. That was tragic. Information? What kind of information?”

“I don’t exactly know.” I was apologetic. “All I know is that someone has engaged Mr. Wolfe to make inquiries about her, and he sent me to ask you people if you had any messages or letters from her in the past month or so, and if so will you let him see them.”

“Messages or letters?”

“Right.”

“That seems a little— Who engaged him?”

“I don’t know.” I was not permitting my face or voice to show that I had caught sight of a fish. “If you have had messages or letters, and would like to know who wants to see them before you produce them, I suppose Mr. Wolfe would tell you. He would have to.”

“I have no messages or letters.”

I was disappointed. “None at all? I said the past month or so, but before that would help. Any time.”

He shook his head. “I never have had any. I doubt if she ever wrote a letter — that is, to anyone here — or any messages, except phone messages. She always did everything by telephone. And for the past month, longer than that, more than a year, she hasn’t been — uh — she hasn’t been around.”

“I know.” I was sympathetic, and I meant it, though not for him. “Anyway, I don’t think Mr. Wolfe would be interested in letters about clothes. I think it’s personal letters he wants, and he thought you might have known her well enough personally to have some.”

“Well, I haven’t. I can’t say I didn’t know her personally — she was a very fine customer here for two years, and she was a very personal person. But I never had a personal letter from her.”

I had to resist temptation. I had him talking, and there was no telling if or when I would get at the others. But Wolfe had said not to labor it, and I disobey instructions only when I have reason to think I know more about it than he does, and at that moment I didn’t even know why he had been consulting the phone book. So I didn’t press. I thanked him and said I would appreciate it if he would tell me when Mr. Gallant would be available. He said he would find out, and left me, going to the rear and disappearing around the end of a screen, and soon I heard his voice, but too faint to get any words. There was no other voice, so, being a detective, I figured it out that he was on a phone. That accomplished, I decided to detect whether the woman, who was seated at a table going through a portfolio, was either Anita Prince or Emmy Thorne. I voted no, arriving at it by a process so subtle and complicated that I won’t go into it.

Drew reappeared, and I met him in the middle of the room. He said that Mr. Gallant was in his office with Miss Prince and could let me have five minutes. Another fish. Certainly Drew had told Gallant what my line was, and why did I rate even five seconds? As Drew led me to an elevator and entered with me, and pushed the button marked “2,” I had to remember to look hopeful instead of smug.

The second-floor hall was narrow, with bare walls, and not carpeted. As I said, not a palace. After following Drew down six paces and through a door, I found myself in a pin-up paradise. All available space on all four walls was covered with women, drawings and prints and photographs, both black-and-white and color, all sizes, and in one respect they were all alike: none of them had a stitch on. It hadn’t occurred to me that a designer of women’s clothes should understand female anatomy, but I admit it might help. The effect was so striking that it took me four or five seconds to focus on the man and woman seated at a table. By that time Drew had pronounced my name and gone.

Though the man and woman were fully clothed, they were striking too. He reminded me of someone, but I didn’t remember who until later: Lord Byron — a picture of Lord Byron in a book in my father’s library that had impressed me at an early age. It was chiefly Gallant’s dark curly hair backing up a wide sweeping forehead, but the nose and chin were in it too. The necktie was all wrong; instead of Byron’s choker he was sporting a narrow ribbon tied in a bow with long ends hanging.

The woman didn’t go with him. She was small and trim, in a tailored suit that had been fitted by an expert, and her face was all eyes. Not that they popped, but they ran the show. In spite of Alec Gallant’s lordly presence, as I approached the table I found myself aiming at Anita Prince’s eyes.

Gallant was speaking. “What’s this? About Sarah Yare?”

“Just a couple of questions.” He had eyes too, when you looked at them. “It shouldn’t take even five minutes. I suppose Mr. Drew told you?”

“He said Nero Wolfe is making an inquiry and sent you. What about? About how she died?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. The fact is, Mr. Gallant, on this I’m just an errand boy. My instructions were to ask if you got any messages or letters from her in the past month or so, and if so will you let Mr. Wolfe see them.”

“My God.” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and shook it — a lion pestered by a fly. He looked at the woman. “This is too much. Too much!” He looked at me. “You must know a woman was assassinated here yesterday. Of course you do!” He pointed at the door. “There!” His hand dropped to the desk like a dead bird. “And after that calamity, now this, the death of my old and valued friend. Miss Yare was not only my friend; in mold and frame she was perfection, in movement she was music, as a mannequin she would have been divine. My delight in her was completely pure. I never had a letter from her.” His head jerked to Anita Prince. “Send him away,” he muttered.

She put fingers on his arm. “You gave him five minutes, Alec, and he has only had two.” Her voice was smooth and sure. The eyes came to me. “So you don’t know the purpose of Mr. Wolfe’s inquiry?”

“No, Miss Prince, I don’t. He only tells me what he thinks I need to know.”

“Nor who hired him to make it?”

So Drew had covered the ground. “No. Not that either. He’ll probably tell you, if you have what he wants, letters from her, and you want to know why he wants to see them.”

“I have no letters from her. I never had any. I had no personal relations with Miss Yare.” Her lips smiled, but the eyes didn’t. “Though I saw her many times, my contact with her was never close. Mr. Gallant preferred to fit her himself. I just looked on. It seems—” She stopped for a word, and found it. “It seems odd that Nero Wolfe should be starting an inquiry immediately after her death. Or did he start it before?”

“I couldn’t say. The first I knew, he gave me this errand this morning. This noon.”

“You don’t know much, do you?”

“No, I just take orders.”

“Of course you do know that Miss Yare committed suicide?”

I didn’t get an answer in. Gallant, hitting the table with a palm, suddenly shouted at her, “Name of God! Must you? Send him away!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gallant,” I told him. “I guess my time’s up. If you’ll tell me where to find your sister and Miss Thorne, that will—”

I stopped because his hand had darted to an ashtray, a big metal one that looked heavy, and since he wasn’t smoking he was presumably going to let fly with it. Anita Prince beat him to it. With her left hand she got his wrist, and with her right she got the ashtray and moved it out of reach. It was very quick and deft. Then she spoke, to me. “Miss Gallant is not here. Miss Thorne is busy, but you can ask Mr. Drew downstairs. You had better go.”

I went. In more favorable circumstances I might have spared another five minutes for a survey of the pin-ups, but not then, not if I had to dodge ashtrays.

In the hall, having pulled the door shut, the indicated procedure, indicated both by the situation and by Miss Prince’s suggestion, was to take the elevator down and see Drew again, but a detective is supposed to have initiative. So when I heard a voice, female, floating out through an open door, I went on past the elevator, to the door, for a look. Not only did I see, I was seen, and a voice, anything but female, came at me.

“You. Huh?”

I could have kicked myself. While, as I said, my mission couldn’t be called secret with five people on the list, certainly Wolfe had intended it to be private, and there was Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide West, glaring at me.

“Sightseeing?” he asked. Purley’s idea of humor is a little primitive. “The scene of the crime?”

I descended to his level. “Just morbid,” I told him, crossing the sill. “Compulsion neurosis. Is this it?”

Evidently it was. The room was about the same size as Alec Gallant’s, but while his had been dominated by women without clothes, this one ran to clothes without women. There were coats, suits, dresses, everything. They were on dummies, scattered around; on hangers, strung on a pole along a wall; and piled on a table. At my right one dummy, wearing a skirt, was bare from the waist up; she might have blushed if she had had a face to blush with. There was one exception: a well-made tan wool dress standing by a corner of a desk contained a woman — a very attractive specimen in mold and frame, and in movement she could have been music. Standing beside her was Carl Drew. Seated at the desk was Sergeant Purley Stebbins, with a paper in his hand and other papers on the desk. Also on the desk, at his left, was a telephone — the one, presumably, that Wolfe and I had heard hit the floor.

What I had stumbled into was obvious. Purley was examining the effects, including papers, probably the second time over, of Bianca Voss, deceased, under surveillance on behalf of Alec Gallant Incorporated.

“Actually,” I said, advancing past the immodest dummy, “this is one homicide I have no finger in. I’m on a fishing trip.” I moved my eyes. “Would you tell me, Mr. Drew, where I can find Miss Thorne?”

“Right here,” the tan wool dress said. “I am Miss Thorne.”

“I’m Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office. May I have a word with you?”

She exchanged glances with Carl Drew. Her glance told me that Drew had told her about me; and his, if I am half as bright as I ought to be, told me that if he was not on a more personal basis with her than he had been with Sarah Yare it wasn’t his fault. If he wasn’t he would like to be.

“Go ahead,” Drew told her. “I’ll stick around.” She moved toward the door, and I was following when Purley pronounced my name, my last name. He has on occasion called me Archie, but not when I suddenly appeared, uninvited, when he was working on a homicide. I turned.

“Who are you fishing for?” he demanded.

“If I knew,” I said, “I might tell you, but don’t hold your breath.” There was no point in trying to sugar him. The damage, if any, had been done the second he saw me. “See you in court.”

Emmy Thorne led me down the hall to a door, the next one, and opened it. Walking, she could have been music at that, if her heels had had any purchase. She held the door for me to enter, shut it, went to a chair behind a desk, and sat. The room was less than half the size of the others and displayed neither women nor clothes.

“Sit down,” she said. “What is this nonsense about letters from Sarah Yare?”

I took the chair at the end of her desk. “You know,” I said, “my tie must be crooked or I’ve got a grease spot. Mr. Drew resented me, and Mr. Gallant was going to throw an ashtray at me. Now you. Why is it nonsense to ask a simple question politely and respectfully?”

“Maybe ‘nonsense’ isn’t the word. Maybe I should have said ‘gall.’ What right have you to march in here and ask questions at all? Polite or not.”

“None. It’s not a right, it’s a liberty. I have no right to ask you to have dinner with me this evening, which might not be a bad idea, but I’m at liberty to, and you’re at liberty to tell me you’d rather dine at the automat with a baboon, only that wouldn’t be very polite. Also when I ask if you have any letters from Sarah Yare you’re at liberty to tell me to go climb a tree if you find the question ticklish. I might add that I would be at liberty to climb a pole instead of a tree. Have you any letters from Sarah Yare?”

She laughed. She had fine teeth. She stopped laughing abruptly. “Good Lord,” she said, “I didn’t think I would laugh for a year. This mess, what happened here yesterday, and then Sarah. No, I have no letters from her. You don’t have to climb a tree.” The laughter was all gone, and her gray eyes, straight at me, were cool and keen. “What else?”

Again I had to resist temptation. With Drew the temptation had been purely professional; with her it was only partly professional and only partly pure. Cramer had said she was in charge of contacts, and one more might be good for her.

Having resisted, I shook my head. “Nothing else, unless you know of something. For instance, if you know of anyone who might have letters.”

“I don’t.” She regarded me. “Of course I’m curious, if you want to call it that. I was very fond of Sarah, and this coming after all her trouble, naturally I’m wondering why you came here. You say Nero Wolfe is making an inquiry?”

“Yes, he sent me. I don’t know who his client is, but my guess would be that it’s some friend of Miss Yare’s.”

I stood up. “Someone else may be curious. Thank you, Miss Thorne. I’m glad I don’t have to climb a tree.”

She got up and offered a hand. “You might tell me who it is.”

“I might if I knew.” Her hand was cool and firm and I kept it for a second. “I’m sorry I interrupted you in there.” That was absolutely true. “By the way, one more liberty: is Miss Gallant around?”

She said no and came with me to the hall and left me, heading for the scene of the crime. I went the other way, to the elevator. Down on the main floor the woman was there alone, at a table with a portfolio. Not at all like Macy’s main floor. Emerging, I turned left, found a phone booth on Madison Avenue, dialed the number I knew best, got Fritz, and asked for Wolfe.

His voice came. “Yes, Archie?”

“It’s full of fish. Swarming. Sarah Yare bought her clothes there for two years and they all loved her. I’m phoning to ask about Flora Gallant. I’ve seen all the others, but Flora isn’t around. My guess is that she’s at the DA’s office. Do I stick until she comes?”

“No. Satisfactory.”

“Any further instructions?”

“No. Come home.”

Chapter 4

In the office, after a late lunch of corned-beef hash with mushrooms, chicken livers, white wine, and grated cheese, which Fritz apologized for because he had had to keep it warm too long, I gave Wolfe a full report of the fishing trip, including all dialogue. When I had finished he nodded, took in air through his nose all the way down, and let it out through his mouth.

“Very well,” he said, “that settles it. You will now go—”

“Just a minute,” I cut in. “It doesn’t settle it for me. It was bad enough up there, not knowing the score, and before I do any more going I want a little light. Why did you pick on Sarah Yare, and where did the phone book come in?”

“I have an errand for you.”

“Yeah. Will it keep for ten minutes?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then why?”

He leaned back. “As I told you this morning, I thought I might have been hoodwinked and I intended to find out. It was quite possible that that performance here yesterday — getting us on the phone just in time to hear a murder committed — was flummery. Indeed, it was more than possible. Must I expound that?”

“No. Even Cramer suspected it.”

“So he did. But his theory that Bianca Voss had been killed earlier and that another woman, not the murderer, was there beside the corpse waiting for a phone call, was patently ridiculous. Must I expound that?”

“No, unless it was a lunatic. Anyone who would do that, even the murderer, with the chance that someone might come in any second, would be batty.”

“Of course. But if she wasn’t killed at the time we heard those sounds she must have been killed earlier, since you phoned almost immediately and sent someone to that room. Therefore the sounds didn’t come from there. Miss Gallant did not dial that number. She dialed the number of some other person whom she had persuaded to perform that hocus-pocus.”

He turned a hand over. “I had come to that conclusion, or call it surmise, before I went to bed last night, and I had found it intolerable. I will not be mistaken for a jackass. Reading the Times at breakfast this morning, the item about the death of Sarah Yare, my attention was caught by the fact that she had been an actress. An actress can act a part. Also she had been in distress. Also she had died. If she had been persuaded to act that part, it would be extremely convenient — for the one who persuaded her — for her to die before she learned that a murder had been committed and she had been an accessory after the fact. Certainly that was mere speculation, but it was not idle, and when I came down to the office I looked in the phone book to see if Sarah Yare was listed, found that she was, and dialed her number. Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”

“What for? She was dead.”

“I didn’t lift the receiver. I merely dialed it, to hear it. Before doing so I strained my memory. I had to recall an experience that was filed somewhere in my brain, having reached it through my ears. As you know, I am trained to attend, to observe, and to register. So are you. That same experience is filed in your brain. Close your eyes and find it. Take your ears back to yesterday, when you were standing there, having surrendered your chair to Miss Gallant, and she was at the phone, dialing. Not the first number she dialed; you dialed that one yourself later. The second one, when, according to her, she was dialing the number of the direct line to Bianca Voss’s office. Close your eyes and let your ears and brain take you back. Insist on it.”

I did so. I got up and stood where I had stood while she was dialing, shut my eyes, and brought it back. In ten seconds I said, “Okay.”

“Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to dial it. Compare.”

The sound came of his dialing. I held my breath till the end, then opened my eyes and said positively, “No. Wrong. The first and third and fourth were wrong. The second might—”

“Close your eyes and try it again. This will be another number. Say when.”

I shut my eyes and took five seconds. “Go.”

The dialing sound came, the seven units. I opened my eyes. “That’s more like it. That was it, anyway the first four. Beyond that I’m a little lost. But in that case—”

“Satisfactory. The first four were enough. The first number, which you rejected, as I did this morning, was Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, the number of Bianca Voss’s direct line according to the phone book — the number which Miss Gallant pretended to be dialing. The second was Sarah Yare’s number, Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”

“Well.” I sat down. “I’ll be damned.”

“So it was still a plausible surmise, somewhat strengthened, but no more than that. If those people, especially Miss Gallant, could not be shown to have had some association with Sarah Yare, it was untenable. So I sent you to explore, and what you found promoted the surmise to an assumption, and a weighty one. What time is it?”

He would have had to twist his neck a whole quarter-turn to look at the wall clock, whereas I had only to lower my eyes to see my wrist. I obliged. “Five to four.”

“Then instructions for your errand must be brief, and they can be. You will go to Sarah Yare’s address on Thirteenth Street and look at her apartment. Her phone might have been discontinued since that book was issued. I need to know that the instrument is still there and operable before I proceed. If I intend to see that whoever tried to make a fool of me regrets it, I must take care not to make a fool of myself. Have I furnished the light you wanted?”

I told him it was at least a glimmer and departed on the errand. If you think I might have shown fuller appreciation of his dialing display, I beg to differ. There is no point in assuring a man that he is a genius when he already knows it. Besides, I was too busy being sore at me. I should have thought of it myself. I certainly should have caught on when I saw him with the phone book.

It was not my day. At the address of the late Sarah Yare on East Thirteenth Street I stubbed my toe again. One thing I think I’m good at is sizing up people, and I was dead wrong about the janitor of that old walk-up. He looked as if anything would go, so I merely told him to let me into Sarah Yare’s apartment to check the telephone, and the bum insisted on seeing my credentials. So I misjudged him again. I offered him a sawbuck and told him I only wanted two minutes for a look at the phone with him at my elbow, and when he turned me down I showed him a twenty. He just sneered at it. By that time we were bitter enemies, and if I had showed him a C he would probably have spit on it. The upshot was that I went back home for an assortment of keys, returned, posted myself across the street, waited nearly an hour to be sure the enemy was not peeking, and broke and entered, technically.

I won’t describe it; it was too painful. It was a hell of a dump for a Sarah Yare, even for a down-and-outer who had once been Sarah Yare. But the telephone was there, and it was working. I dialed to make sure, and got Fritz, and told him I just wanted to say hello and would be home in fifteen minutes, and he said that would please Mr. Wolfe because Inspector Cramer was there.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“When did he come?”

“Ten minutes ago. At six o’clock. Mr. Wolfe said to admit him and is with him in the office. Hurry home, Archie.”

I did so.

I got a hackie who liked to take advantages, and it took a little less than the fifteen minutes. I ascended the stoop and let myself in, not banging the door, and tiptoed down the hall and stopped short of the office door, thinking to get a sniff of the atmosphere before entering. I got it. Wolfe’s voice came.

“... and I didn’t say I have never known you to be wrong, Mr. Cramer. I said I have never known you to be more wrong. That is putting it charitably, under provocation. You have accused me of duplicity. Pfui!”

“Nuts.” Cramer had worked up to his grittiest rasp. “I have accused you of nothing. I have merely stated facts. The time of the murder was supposed to be established by you and Goodwin hearing it on the phone. Is that a fact? Those five people all have alibis for that time. One of them was here with you. Is that a fact? When I put it to you yesterday that that phone business might have been faked, that she might have been killed earlier, all I got was a runaround. You could challenge it circumstantially but not intrinsically, whatever the hell that means. Is that a fact? So that if you and Goodwin got to the witness stand you might both swear that you were absolutely satisfied that you had heard her get it at exactly half past eleven. Is that a fact? Giving me to understand that you weren’t interested, you weren’t concerned, you had no—”

“No,” Wolfe objected. “That was not broached.”

“Nuts. You know damn well it was implied. You said you had never had any association with any of those people besides what was in your statement, so how could you be concerned, with Bianca Voss dead? Tell me this, did any of them approach you, directly or indirectly, between seven o’clock yesterday and noon today?”

“No.”

“But—” He bore down on the ‘but.’ “But you sent Goodwin there today. He told Stebbins he was on a fishing trip. He talked with Drew, and Gallant, and Miss Prince, and he actually took Miss Throne from under Stebbins’ nose, took her out to talk with her. Is that a fact? And they all refused to tell what Goodwin said to them or what they said to him. That is a fact. They say it was a private matter and had nothing to do with the murder of Bianca Voss. And when I come and ask you what you sent Goodwin there for, ask you plainly and politely, you say that you will — What are you laughing at?”

It wasn’t a laugh, I just barely caught it, it was hardly even a chuckle, but all the same it could get under your skin. I knew.

“It escaped me, Mr. Cramer. Your choice of adverbs. Your conception of politeness. Pray continue.”

“All right, I asked you. And you said you will probably be ready to tell me within twenty-four hours. And what I said was absolutely justified. I did not accuse you of duplicity. You know what I said.”

“I do indeed, Mr. Cramer.” I couldn’t see Wolfe, but I knew he had upturned a palm. “This is childish and futile. If a connection is established between your murder investigation and the topic of Mr. Goodwin’s talks with those people today, it will be only because I formed a conjecture and acted on it. I hope to establish it within twenty-four hours, and meanwhile it will do no harm to give you a hint. Have you any information on the death of a woman named Sarah Yare?”

“Some, yes. Presumed a suicide, but it’s being checked. I have two men on it. What about it?”

“I suggest that you assign more men to it, good ones, and explore it thoroughly. I think we will both find it helpful. I may soon have a more concrete suggestion, but for the present that should serve. You know quite well—”

The doorbell rang. I about-faced and looked through the one-way glass panel of the front door. It wasn’t a visitor on the stoop, it was a mob. All five of them were there: Gallant, his sister, Anita Prince, Emmy Thorne, and Carl Drew. Fritz appeared from the kitchen, saw me, and stopped. I got my notebook and pen from pockets and wrote:

That phone works. The five subjects are outside wanting in.

AG

I told Fritz to stand by, tore out the sheet, entered the office and crossed to Wolfe’s desk, and handed it to him.

Wolfe read it, frowned at it for three seconds, turned his head and called, “Fritz!”

Fritz appeared at the door. “Yes, sir?”

“Put the chain-bolt on and tell those people they will be admitted shortly. Stay there.”

“Yes, sir.” Fritz went.

Wolfe looked at Cramer. “Mr. Gallant, his sister, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne, and Mr. Drew have arrived, uninvited and unexpected. You’ll have to leave without being seen. In the front room until they have entered. I’ll communicate with you later.”

“Like hell I’ll leave.” Cramer was on his feet. “Like hell they’re unexpected.” He was moving, toward the hall, his intention plain — taking over as receptionist.

“Mr. Cramer!” It snapped at his back, turning him. “Would I lie so clumsily? If they had been expected would I have let you in? Would I have sat here bickering with you? Either you leave or I do. If you admit them you’ll have them to yourself, and I wish you luck.”

Cramer was glaring. “You think I’m going to sneak out and sit on your goddam stoop until you whistle?”

“That would be unseemly,” Wolfe conceded. “Very well.” He pointed at a picture on the wall to his left behind him — a pretty waterfall. “You know about that. You may take that station, but only if you engage not to disclose yourself unless you are invited. Unequivocally.”

The waterfall covered a hole in the wall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, the hole was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. Cramer had used it once before, a couple of years ago.

Cramer stood, considering. Wolfe demanded, “Well? They’re waiting. For you or for me?”

Cramer said, “Okay, we’ll try it your way,” turned and marched to the hall, and turned left.

Wolfe told me, “All right, Archie. Bring them in.”

Chapter 5

Lord Byron, alias Alec Gallant, and the red leather chair went together fine. He sat well back, unlike most people I have seen there. Usually they are either too mad or too upset. Any of the other four probably would have been; they looked it. They were on yellow chairs that I had moved up to make a row facing Wolfe, with Emmy Thorne nearest me, then Anita Prince, then Carl Drew, then Flora Gallant. That put Flora nearest her brother, which seemed appropriate.

Wolfe was turned to Gallant. “You ask me, sir, why I sent Mr. Goodwin to ask you people about Sarah Yare. Of course I’m under no compulsion to reply, and I’m not sure that I am prepared to. Instead, I may ask why his questions, certainly not provocative, so disturbed you. Apparently they have even impelled you to call on me in a body. Why?”

“Talk,” Gallant said. “Vent. Wind.” There was an ashtray on the little table at his elbow, but not a heavy one.

Anita Prince put in, “The police have insisted on knowing why he was there, what he wanted.”

Wolfe nodded. “And you refused to say. Why?”

“Because,” Emmy Thorne declared, “it was none of their business. And we have a right to know why you sent him, whether his questions were provocative or not.” That girl was strong on rights.

Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again. “There’s no point,” he said, “in dragging this out. I’ll grant your question priority and we’ll go on from there. I sent Mr. Goodwin to see you because I suspected I had been gulled and wanted to find out; and further, because I had guessed that there was a connection between Sarah Yare, and her death, and the murder of Bianca Voss. By coming here en masse you have made that guess a conviction, if any doubt had remained.”

“I knew it,” Flora Gallant mumbled.

“Tais-toi,” her brother commanded her. To Wolfe: “I’ll tell you why we came here. We came for an explanation. We came—”

“For an understanding,” Carl Drew cut in. “We’re in trouble, all of us, you know that, and we need your help, and we’re ready to pay for it. First we have to know what the connection is between Sarah Yare and what happened to Bianca Voss.”

Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t mean that. You mean you have to know whether I have established the connection, and if so, how. I’m willing to tell you, but before I do so I must clarify matters. There must be no misunderstanding. For instance, I understand that all of you thought yourselves gravely endangered by Miss Voss’s presence. You, Miss Prince, you, Miss Thorne, and you, Mr. Drew — your dearest ambitions were threatened. Your future was committed to the success and glory of that enterprise, and you were convinced that Miss Voss was going to cheapen it, and perhaps destroy it. Do you challenge that?”

“Of course not.” Emmy Thorne was scornful. “Everybody knew it.”

“Then that’s understood. That applies equally to you, Miss Gallant, but with special emphasis. You also had a more intimate concern, for your brother. You told me so. As for you, Mr. Gallant, you are not a man to truckle, yet you let that woman prevail. Presumably you were under severe constraint. Were you?”

Gallant opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his sister, returned to Wolfe, and again opened his mouth and closed it. He was under constraint now, no doubt about that.

He forced it out. “I was under her heel.” He clamped his jaw. He unclamped it. “The police know. They found out enough, and I have told them the rest. She was a bad woman. I met her in France, during the war. We were in the Resistance together when I married her. Only afterward I learned that she was perfide. She had been a traitor to France — I couldn’t prove it, but I knew it. I left her and changed my name and came to America — and then last year she found me and made demands. I was under her heel.”

Wolfe grunted. “That won’t do, Mr. Gallant. I doubt if it has satisfied the police, and it certainly doesn’t satisfy me. In that situation you might have killed her, but surely you wouldn’t have let her take charge of your business and your life. What else was there?”

“Nothing. Nothing!”

“Pfui. Of course there was. And if the investigation is prolonged the police will discover it. I advise you to disclose it and let me get on and settle this affair. Didn’t her death remove her heel?”

“Yes. Thank God, it did.” Gallant hit the arms of the chair with his palms. “With her gone there is no evidence to fear. She had two brothers, and they, like her, were traitors, and I killed them. I would have killed her too, but she escaped me. During the war it would have been merely an episode, but it was later, much later, when I found out about them, and by then it was a crime. With her evidence I was an assassin, and I was doomed. Now she is gone, thank God, but I did not kill her. You know I did not. At half past eleven yesterday morning I was in my workshop with Miss Prince and many others, and you can swear that she was killed at that moment. That is why we came to see you, to arrange to pay—”

“Hold it, Alec.” Anita Prince headed him off. “Mr. Wolfe wants to clarify matters. Let him.”

“The cat’s head is out,” Wolfe told her, “but I had already heard it scratch. Let’s get on. I cannot swear that Bianca Voss was killed ‘at that moment.’ On the contrary, I’m sure she wasn’t, for a variety of reasons. There are such minor ones as the extraordinary billingsgate she spat at me on the phone, quite gratuitous; and her calling me a gob of fat. A woman who still spoke the language with so marked an accent would not have the word ‘gob’ so ready, and probably wouldn’t have it at all.”

He waved “gob” away. “But the major reasons are more cogent. In the first place, it was too pat. Since the complexities of nature permit a myriad of coincidences we cannot reject one offhand, but we can discriminate. That one — that the attack had come just at the moment when Miss Gallant had got Mr. Goodwin and me on the phone with her, was highly suspect. Besides, it was indiscreet to strike just then. Why not wait until she had hung up? Whoever was talking with her would certainly hear the sounds and take alarm. As I told Mr. Cramer, it was open to challenge circumstantially, though not intrinsically. However, there was another challenge, on surer ground. Miss Gallant did not dial Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, Miss Voss’s number, as she pretended. She dialed Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven, Sarah Yare’s number.”

A noise, a sort of low growl, came from the waterfall. I was farthest away, and I heard it distinctly, so it must have reached their ears too, but Wolfe’s last words had so riveted their attention that it didn’t register.

It did with Wolfe, and he added hastily, “I didn’t know that yesterday. I became certain of it only after you rang my doorbell, when Mr. Goodwin handed me this note.” He tapped it, there on his desk. “It’s first words are ‘That phone works.’ I had sent him to learn if Sarah Yare’s phone was in operation. Obviously, Miss Gallant had arranged with Miss Yare to impersonate Bianca Voss, and it is a reasonable—”

“Wait a minute.” Gallant had come forward in the red leather chair. “You can’t prove that.”

“Directly, no. Inferentially, yes.”

“And how do you know she dialed Sarah Yare’s number? You weren’t where you could see the dial, and neither was Goodwin.”

Wolfe nodded. “Evidently you have discussed it with her. You’re quite right, Mr. Gallant; we couldn’t see the dial. Nevertheless, we can supply evidence, and we think it will be persuasive. I am not—”

“What kind of evidence?”

“That’s no good, Alec.” It was Emmy Thorne, the contact girl. “You can’t push Nero Wolfe. He has his teeth in it, you can see that. You know what we decided.”

“I’m not sure,” Anita Prince objected, “that we decided right.”

“I am. Carl?”

“Yes.” Drew was chewing his lip. “I think so. Yes.”

“Flora? It’s up to you.”

“I guess so.” Flora’s voice was cracked, and she tried again. “I guess so.” A little better.

Emmy nodded. “Go ahead, Alec. You can’t push him.”

“My God.” Gallant looked at his sister, and back at Wolfe. “All right. We will pay you to help us. I will pay you. My sister is innocent and she must not suffer. It would be an offense against nature, against God Himself. She has told me all about it, and she was stupid, but she is innocent. She did arrange with Sarah Yare, as you said, but only to move you. She had read much about you and had a great opinion of your abilities. She was desperate about Bianca Voss. She knew you demanded high fees, much beyond her resources, so she conceived a plan. She would persuade you to talk with Bianca Voss on the phone, and she would get Sarah instead, and Sarah would abuse you with such violence that you would be offended and resent it, and you would be moved to act against Bianca Voss. It was stupid, yes, very stupid, but it was not criminal.”

Wolfe’s eyes, at him, were half closed. “And you want to pay me to help her.”

“Yes. When I told her you had sent your man to inquire about Sarah Yare I saw she was frightened and asked her why, and she told me. I consulted the others, and it was apparent that you knew something, and that was dangerous. We decided to come and ask you to help. My sister must not suffer.”

Wolfe’s eyes moved. “Miss Gallant. You heard your brother. Did he quote you correctly?”

“Yes!” That time it was too loud.

“You did those things? As he related them?”

“Yes!”

Wolfe returned to Gallant. “I agree with you, sir, that your sister was stupid, but you are not the one to proclaim it. You say that she arranged with Sarah Yare to abuse me on the phone, but Miss Yare didn’t stop at that. She ended by making noises indicating that she had been violently attacked, and jerked the phone off onto the floor, and made other noises, and then hung up the phone and cut the connection. Was that on her own initiative? Her own idea? Your sister’s stupidity can bow to yours if you expected me to overlook that point — or worse, if you missed it yourself.”

“I am not stupid, Mr. Wolfe.”

“Then you are devious beyond my experience.”

“Devious?”

“Rusé. Subtil.”

“No. I am not.” Gallant clamped his jaw. He released it. “Bein. Suppose, only to suppose, she arranged that too, that comedy. Suppose even that she killed Bianca Voss. Was that a crime? No; it was justice; it was the hand of God. Bianca Voss was an evil woman. She was vilaine. Are you so virtuous that you must crucify my sister? Are you a paragon? For she is in your hands, at your mercy. You know about Sarah Yare, but the police do not. You know she dialed that number, but the police do not, and they will not unless you tell them. By your word it can be that my sister was here with you at the time that Bianca Voss was killed. As I have said, I will pay you. It will be a great service from you, and it deserves payment. I will trust you. I will pay you now.”

Wolfe grunted. “That was quite a speech.”

“It was not a speech. I do not make speeches. It was an appeal to your charity. From my heart.”

“And to my cupidity.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. I am not a paragon. I am not even a steward of the law. But you have ignored two important factors: one, my self-esteem. Even if Bianca Voss deserved to die, I will not permit a murderer to take me for a simpleton. Two, another woman died too. Was Sarah Yare also evil? Was she vilaine?”

“But she — Sarah killed herself!”

“No. I don’t believe it. That’s another coincidence I reject. Granted that she may have been wretched enough for that extreme, why did she choose that particular moment? Again too pat. According to the published account, she died between ten o’clock yesterday morning and two in the afternoon, but I can narrow it a little. Since she spoke with me on the phone at eleven-thirty, she died between that hour and two o’clock. I believe that the person who killed Bianca Voss at some time prior to eleven-thirty, and arranged with Sarah Yare to enact that comedy, as you call it, went to Sarah Yare’s apartment later and killed her. Indeed, prudence demanded it. So you ask too much of my charity. If only Bianca Voss had died—”

“No!” Gallant exploded. “Impossible! Totally impossible! My sister loved Sarah! She killed her? Insane!”

“But you believe she killed Bianca Voss. You came here believing that. That was stupid too. She didn’t.”

Gallant gawked at him. Lord Byron shouldn’t gawk, but he did. So did the others. Also they made noises. Carl Drew demanded, “Didn’t? You say she didn’t?” Emmy Thorne asked coolly, “What’s this, Mr. Wolfe? A game?”

“No, madam, not a game. Nor a comedy — Mr. Gallant’s word. As a man I know said yesterday, murder is no joke.” Wolfe’s eyes went to Flora. “There was much against you, Miss Gallant, especially the fact that you dialed that other number before you dialed Sarah Yare’s, and asked someone you called Doris if Miss Voss was around. Are you too rattled to remember that?”

“No.” She was clutching the rim of her bag with both hands. “I remember.”

“Of course the reason for it was obvious, if you had killed Bianca Voss before you came here; you had to know that the body had not been found before you proceeded with your stratagem. Since you had not killed Bianca Voss, why did you make that call?”

“I wanted to make sure that she hadn’t gone out. That she was there in her office. You might call her again after I left and find out she hadn’t been there. I didn’t care if you called her and she denied she had talked to you like that. I thought you would think she was lying. I suppose that was stupid.” Her mouth worked. “How did you know I didn’t kill her?”

“You told me. You showed me. If you had devised that elaborate humbug, certainly you would have decided how to act at the moment of crisis. You would have decided to be alarmed, and shocked, and even perhaps a little dazed. But it wasn’t like that. You were utterly stunned with bewilderment. When Mr. Goodwin told us what Mr. Drew had said, what did you say? You said, ‘But how—’ And repeated it, ‘But how—’ If you had killed Bianca Voss you would have had to be a master dramatist to write such a line, and an actress of genius to deliver it as you did; and you are neither.”

Wolfe waved it away. “But that was for me. For others, for a judge and jury, I must do better, and I think I can. If you are innocent, someone else is guilty. Someone else learned of the arrangement you had made with Sarah Yare, either from you or from her, and persuaded her to add a dramatic climax. Someone else killed Bianca Voss and then established an invulnerable alibi for the crucial period. Someone else had secured the required amount of cyanide — it doesn’t take much. Someone else, having established the alibi, went to Sarah Yare’s apartment and poisoned her glass of whisky. That was done before two o’clock, and that should make it simple. Indeed, it has made it simple. Shortly before you came I learned from Mr. Cramer of the police that you arrived at your brother’s place yesterday a few minutes after noon. Since you left here at a quarter of twelve, you hadn’t had time to go first to Thirteenth Street and dispose of Sarah Yare; and you were continuously under the eyes of policemen the rest of the afternoon. That is correct?”

“Yes.” Flora’s eyes were wet but she hadn’t used a handkerchief. “I wanted to go and see what had happened to Sarah, but I was afraid — I didn’t know—”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t, madam. I also learned from Mr. Cramer that you, Mr. Gallant, you, Mr. Drew, and you, Miss Prince, were also constantly under surveillance, for hours, from the time the police arrived. That leaves you, Miss Thorne.” His eyes were narrowed at her. “You were with three men in an office on Forty-sixth Street from eleven-twenty until a quarter to twelve. You arrived at Mr. Gallant’s place, and found the police there, shortly before three o’clock. You may be able to account for the interim satisfactorily. Do you want to try?”

“I don’t have to try.” Emmy Thorne’s gray eyes were not as cool and keen as they had been when she had told me I didn’t have to climb a tree. She had to blink to keep them at Wolfe. “So it is a game.”

“Not one you’ll enjoy, I fear. Nor will I; I’m out of it now. To disclose your acquisition of the cyanide you would need for Sarah Yare; to show that you entered Bianca Voss’s room yesterday morning, or could have, before you left for your business appointment; to find evidence of your visit to Thirteenth Street after your business appointment; to decide which homicide you will be put on trial for — all that is for others. You must see now that it was a mistake — Archie!”

I was up and moving, but halted. Gallant, out of his chair and advancing, wasn’t going to touch her. His fists were doubled, but not to swing; they were pressed against his chest. He stopped square in front of her and commanded, “Look at me, Emmy.”

To do so she would have had to move her head, tilt it back, and she moved nothing.

“I have loved you,” he said. “Did you kill Sarah?”

Her lips moved but no sound came.

His fists opened for his fingers to spread on his chest. “So you heard us that day, and you knew I couldn’t marry you because I was married to her, and you killed her. That I can understand, for I loved you. But that you killed Sarah, no. No! And even that is not the worst! Today, when I told you and the others what Flora had told me, you accepted it, you allowed us to accept it, that she had killed Bianca. You would have let her suffer for it. Look at me! You would have let my sister—”

Flora was there, tugging at his sleeve, sputtering at him, “You love her, Alec, don’t hurt her now, don’t—”

Gallant jerked loose, backed up, folded his arms, and breathed; and Emmy Thorne moved. She came up out of her chair, stood rigid long enough to give Gallant a straight, hard look, shook her head, spun away from him, and headed for the door, brushing against Flora. Her route took her past Anita Prince, who tilted her head back to look up at her, and past Carl Drew, who had to pull his feet back not to trip her.

I didn’t budge, thinking I wasn’t needed, and I was right. In movement she might have been music, but if so, the music got stopped. As she made the hall and turned toward the front a hand gripped her arm — a hand that had had plenty of practice gripping arms.

“Take it easy, Miss Thorne,” Cramer said. “We’ll have to have a talk.”

“Grand Dieu,” Gallant groaned, and covered his face with his hands.

Content

Rex Stout
Murder Is No Joke

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5