Rex Stout

Method Three for Murder

I

When I first set eyes on Mira Holt, as I opened the front door and she was coming up the seven steps to the stoop, she was a problem, though only a minor one compared to what followed.

At the moment I was unemployed. During the years I have worked for Nero Wolfe and lived under his roof, I have quit and been fired about the same number of times, say thirty or forty. Mostly we have been merely letting off steam, but sometimes we have meant it, more or less, and that Monday evening in September I was really fed up. The main dish at dinner had been pork stewed in beer, which both Wolfe and Fritz know I can get along without, and we had left the dining room and crossed the hall to the office, and Fritz had brought coffee and Wolfe had poured it, and I had said, “By the way, I told Anderson I’d phone and confirm his appointment for tomorrow morning.”

And Wolfe had said, “No. Cancel it.” He picked up the book he was on, John Gunther’s Inside Russia Today.

I sat in my working chair and looked across his desk at him. Since he weighs a seventh of a ton he always looks big, but when he’s being obnoxious he looks even bigger. “Do you suppose it’s possible,” I asked, “that that pork has a bloating effect?”

“No indeed,” he said, and opened the book.

If I had been a camel and the book had been a straw you could have heard my spine crack. He knew darned well he shouldn’t have opened it until we had finished with coffee. I put my cup down. “I am aware,” I said, “that you are sitting pretty. The bank balance is fat enough for months of paying Fritz and Theodore and me, and buying pork and beer in car lots, and adding more orchids to the ten thousand you’ve already got. I’ll even grant that a private detective has a right to refuse to take a case with or without a reason. But as I told you before dinner, this Anderson is known to me, and he asked me as a personal favor to get him fifteen minutes with you, and I told him to come at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. If you’re determined not to work because your tax bracket is already too high, okay, all you have to do is tell him no. He’ll be here at eleven.”

He was holding the book open and his eyes were on it, but he spoke. “You know quite well, Archie, that I must be consulted on appointments. Did you owe this man a favor?”

“I do now that he asked for one and I said yes.”

“Did you owe him one before?”

“No.”

“Then you are committed but I am not. Since I wouldn’t take the job it would waste his time and mine. Phone him not to come. Tell him I have other engagements.”

So I quit. I admit that on some other occasions my quitting had been merely a threat, to jolt him into seeing reason, but not that time. When a mule plants its feet a certain way there’s no use trying to budge it. I swiveled, got my memo pad, wrote on it, yanked the sheet off, got up and crossed to his desk, and handed him the sheet.

“That’s Anderson’s number,” I told him. “If you’re too busy to phone him not to come, Fritz can. I’m through. I’ll stay with friends tonight and come tomorrow for my stuff.”

His eyes had left the book to glare at me. “Pfui,” he said.

“I agree,” I said. “Absolutely.” I turned and marched out. I do not say that as I got my hat from the rack in the hall my course was clearly mapped for the next twenty years, or even twenty hours. Wolfe owned the house but not everything in it, for the furniture in my room on the third floor had been bought and paid for by me. That would have to wait until I found a place to move it to, but I would get my clothes and other items tomorrow, and would I come for them before eleven o’clock and learn from Fritz whether a visitor named Anderson was expected, or would it be better strategy to come in the afternoon and learn if Anderson had been admitted and given his fifteen minutes? Facing that problem as I pulled the door open, I was immediately confronted by another one. A female was coming up the seven steps to the stoop.

II

I couldn’t greet her and ask her business, since it was a cinch she would say she wanted to see Nero Wolfe and I couldn’t carry on with a job I no longer held by returning to the office to ask Wolfe if he would receive a caller. Anyway I wouldn’t. I couldn’t step aside and let her enter by the door I had opened with no questions asked, since there was a possibility that she was one of the various people who had it in for Wolfe, and while I might have considered shooting him myself I didn’t want to get him plugged by a total stranger. So I crossed the sill, pulled the door shut, sidestepped to pass her, and was starting down the steps when my sleeve was caught and jerked.

“Hey,” she said, “aren’t you Archie Goodwin?”

My eyes slanted down to hers. “You’re guessing,” I said.

“I am not. I’ve seen you at the Flamingo. You’re not very polite, shutting the door in my face.” She spoke in jerks, as if she wasn’t sure she had enough breath. “I want to see Nero Wolfe.”

“This is his house. Ring the bell.”

“But I want to see you too. Let me in. Take me in.”

My eyes had adjusted enough to the poor light to see that she was young, attractive, and hypped. She had on a cap with a beak. In normal circumstances it would have been a pleasure to escort her into the front room and go and badger Wolfe into seeing her, but as things stood I didn’t even consider it. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t work here any more. I just quit. I am now on my way to bum a bed for the night. You’ll have to ring the bell, but I should warn you that in Mr. Wolfe’s present mood there’s not a chance. You might as well skip it. If your trouble is urgent you ought to—”

“I’m not in trouble.”

“Good. You’re lucky.”

She touched my sleeve. “I don’t believe it. That you’ve quit.”

“I do. Would I say so if I hadn’t? Running the risk that you’re a journalist and tomorrow there will be a front-page spread, ‘Archie Goodwin, the famous private detective, has severed his connection with Nero Wolfe, also a detective, and it is thought—”’

“Shut up!” She was close to me, gripping my arm. She let loose and backed up a step. “I beg your pardon. I seem to be… you think Nero Wolfe wouldn’t see me?”

“I don’t think. I know.”

“Anyway I want to see you too. For what I want I guess you would be better than him. I want some advice — no, not advice exactly, I want to consult you. I’ll pay cash, fifty dollars. Can’t we go inside?”

Naturally I was uplifted. Since I had left Wolfe, and since there was no other outfit in New York I would work for, my only possible program was to set up for myself, and before I even got down to the sidewalk here was a pretty girl offering me fifty bucks just for consultation.

“I’m afraid not,” I told her, “since I no longer belong here. If that’s your taxi waiting that will do fine, especially with the driver gone.” A glance had shown me that there was no one behind the wheel of the cab at the curb. Probably, having been told to wait for her, he had beat it to Al’s diner at the corner of Tenth Avenue, which was popular with hackies.

She shook her head. “I don’t—” she began, and let it hang. She glanced around. “Why not here? It shouldn’t take very long — I just want you to help me win a bet.” She moved, descended two steps, and sat on the landing, swaying a little as she bent. “Have a seat.”

We were still on Wolfe’s premises, but he rarely used the outdoors part, and after she paid me I could slip a buck under the door for rent. I sat down beside her, not crowding. I had often sat there watching the neighborhood kids at stoop ball.

“Do I pay in advance?” she asked.

“No, thanks, I’ll trust you. What’s the bet about?”

“Well…” She was squinting at me in the dim light. “I had an argument with a friend of mine. She said there were ninety-three women cab drivers in New York, and she thought it was dangerous because sometimes things happen in cabs that it takes a man to handle, and I said things like that can happen anywhere just as well as in cabs, and we had an argument, and she bet me fifty dollars she could prove that something dangerous could happen in a cab that couldn’t happen anywhere else. She thought up some things, but I made her admit they could happen other places too, and then she said what if a woman cab driver left her empty cab to go into a building for something, and when she came back there was a dead woman in the cab? She claimed that won the bet, and the trouble was I didn’t know enough about what you’re supposed to do when you find a dead body. That’s what I want you to tell me. I’m sure she’s wrong. And I’ll pay you the fifty dollars.”

I was squinting back at her. “You don’t look it,” I stated.

“I don’t look what?”

“Loony. Two things. First, the same thing could happen if she were driving a private car instead of a cab, and why didn’t you tell her that? Second, where’s the danger? She merely finds a phone and notifies the police. It would be a nuisance, but you said dangerous.”

“Oh. Of course.” She bit her lip. “I left something out. It’s not her cab. She has a friend who is a cab driver, and she wanted to see what driving a cab was like, and her friend let her take it. So she can’t notify the police because her friend broke some law when she let her take the cab, and she broke one too, driving a cab without a license, so it wouldn’t have been the same if she had been driving a private car. And the only way I can win the bet is to prove that it wouldn’t be dangerous. She doesn’t know how the dead woman got in the cab or anything about it. All she has to do is get the body out of the cab, but that might be dangerous unless she did it just right, and that’s what I want you to tell me so I won’t make some awful mistake — I mean when I tell my friend why it wouldn’t be dangerous. Things like where would she go to — to take it out of the cab, and would she have to wait until late at night, and how would she make sure there was no traces left in the cab.” She bit her lip again, and her fingers were curled to make fists. “Things like that.”

“I see.” I had stopped squinting. “What’s your name?”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to know. I’m just consulting you.” She stuck her fingers in the pocket of her jacket, a grayish number with pointed lapels that had seen wear, came out with a purse, and opened it.

I reached to snap it shut. “That can wait. I certainly wouldn’t take your money without knowing your name. Of course you can make one up.”

“Why should I?” She gestured. “All right. My name is Mira Holt. Mira with an I.” She opened the purse again.

“Hold it,” I told her. “A couple of questions. The dead woman she finds in the cab — does she recognize her?”

“No, how could she?”

“She could if she knew her when she was alive.”

“She didn’t.”

“Good. That helps. You say she left her empty cab to go into a building for something. For what?”

“Oh, just anything. I don’t know. That doesn’t matter.”

“It might, but if you don’t know you can’t tell me. I want to make it clear, Miss Holt, that I accept without question all that you have told me. Since I am a trained detective I am chronically suspicious, but you are so frank and intelligent and pleasing to look at that I wouldn’t dream of doubting you. A man who was sap enough to size you up wrong might even suspect you of feeding him a phony, and go and take a look in that taxi, but not me. I don’t even ask you where the driver is, because I assume he has gone to the corner for a ham on rye and a cuppa coffee. In short, I trust you fully. That’s understood?”

Her lips were tight. She was probably frowning, but the beak of her cap screened her brow. “I guess so.” She wasn’t at all sure. “But maybe — if that’s how you feel — maybe it would be better just to—”

“No. It’s better like this. Much better. About this situation your friend thought up and claims she won the bet, it has many aspects. You say you didn’t know enough about what you’re supposed to do when you find a dead body. First and foremost, you’re supposed to notify the police immediately. That goes for everybody, but it’s a must for a private detective — me, for instance — if he wants to keep his license. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I see.”

“Also you’re not supposed to touch the body or anything near it. Also you’re not supposed to leave it unguarded, but that’s not so important because you may have to in order to call a cop. As for your idea that all she has to do is get the body out of the cab, and where would she go to ditch it, and would she have to wait until late at night, and so on, I admit it has possibilities and I could make a lot of practical suggestions. But you have to show that it could be done without danger, and that’s too big an order. That’s what licks you. Forget it. However, your friend hasn’t won the bet. She was to produce a situation showing that a woman cab driver runs special risks as a hackie, and in this case the danger comes from the fact that she was not driving the cab. So your friend—”

“That’s no help. You know very well—”

“Shut up. I beg your pardon.”

Her fingers were curled into fists again. “You said you could make some practical suggestions.”

“I was carried away. The idea of disposing of a dead body is fascinating as long as it’s only an idea. By the way, I took one thing for granted that I shouldn’t have — that your friend specified that the woman had died by violence. If she could have died of natural causes—”

“No. She had been stabbed. There was a knife, the handle of a knife…”

“Then it’s impossible. A hackie letting someone else drive his cab is a misdemeanor, and so is driving a cab without a license, but driving off with a dead body with a knife sticking in it, and dumping it somewhere, and not reporting it — that’s a felony. Good for at least a year and probably more.”

She opened a fist to grip my arm, leaning to me. “But not if she did it right! Not if no one ever knew! I told you one thing wrong — she did recognize her! She did know her when she was alive! So she can’t—”

“Hold it,” I growled. “Give me some money quick. Pay me. A dollar bill, five — don’t sit and stare. See that police car? If it goes on by — no, it’s stopping — pay me!”

She was going to panic. She started up, but my hand on her shoulder stopped her and held her down. She opened the purse and took out folded bills without fumbling, and I took them and put them in my pocket. “Staring is okay,” I told her, not too loud. “People stare at police cars. Stay put and keep your mouth shut. I’m going to take a look. Naturally I’m curious.”

That was perfectly true. I was curious. The prowl car had stopped alongside the taxi, and a cop, not the one who was driving, had got out and circled around to the door of the taxi on his side and was opening it as I reached the sidewalk. When you have a reputation for cheek you should live up to it, so I crossed to the door on my side and pulled it open. The seat was empty, but in front of it was a spread of brown canvas held up by whatever was under it. The cop, lifting a corner of the canvas, snarled at me, “Back up, you,” and I retreated half a step, but he hadn’t said to close the door, so I had a good view when he pulled the canvas off. More light would have helped, but there was enough to see that it was a woman, or had been, and that the knife whose handle was perpendicular to her ribs was all the way in.

“My God,” I said with feeling.

“Shut that door!” the cop barked. “No, don’t touch it!”

“I already have.”

“I saw you. Beat it! No! What’s your name?”

“Goodwin. Archie Goodwin. This is Nero Wolfe’s house, and—”

“I know it is. And I know about you. Is this your cab?”

“Certainly not. I’m not a hackie.”

“I know you’re not. I mean—” He stopped. Apparently he had realized that the function of a prowl cop on finding a corpse is not to argue with onlookers. His head jerked around. “Climb out, Bill. DOA. I’ll call in.” The cop behind the wheel wiggled out, and the one in command wiggled in, and I mounted the stoop and sat down beside my client, noting that she had removed the cap and apparently had stashed it.

I kept my voice low, though it wasn’t necessary since the cop was talking on his radio. “In about eight minutes,” I said, “experts will begin arriving. They will not be strangers to me. Since as far as I know you merely came to get me to tell you how to win a bet, when they start asking questions I’ll be glad to answer them if you want to leave it to me. I’ve had practice answering questions.”

She was gripping my arm again. “You looked in. You saw—”

“Shut up, and I don’t beg your pardon. You talk too much. Even if I still lived and worked here we wouldn’t go inside because it wouldn’t be natural, with cops in a prowl car finding a corpse in a taxi parked at the curb — oh, I haven’t mentioned that, that there’s a dead woman in the taxi. I mention it now because naturally I would, and naturally I would stick around to watch developments. I’m talking to keep you from talking, since naturally we would talk. Not only have I had practice answering questions, but I know some of the rules. There are only three methods that are any good in the long run. You have strong fingers.”

“I’m sorry.” Her grip relaxed a little, but she held on. “What are the three methods?”

“One. Button your lip. Answer nothing whatever. Two. Tell the truth straight through. The works. Three. Tell a simple basic lie with no trimmings, and stick to it. If you try a fancy lie, or a mixture of truth and lies, or part of the truth but try to save some, you’re sunk. Of course I’m just talking to pass the time. In the present situation, as far as I know, there is no reason why you shouldn’t just tell the truth.”

“You said to leave it to you.”

“Yes, but they won’t. There are very few people in their jurisdiction they wouldn’t rather leave it to than me, on account of certain — here they come. We can stop talking. Naturally we would watch.”

An official car I had seen before rolled to a stop behind the prowl car, and Inspector Cramer of Homicide West climbed out.

III

If you are surprised that an inspector had come in response to a report that a corpse had been found, I wasn’t. The report had of course given the location, in front of 918 West 35th Street, and that address held memories, most of them sour, for the personnel at Homicide West, from Cramer down. A violent death that was in any way connected with Nero Wolfe made them itch, and presumably the report had included the item that Archie Goodwin was present and had stuck his nose in.

My client and I watched the routine activities from our grandstand seat. They were swift, efficient, and thorough. Traffic was detoured at the corner of Ninth Avenue. A section of the street and sidewalk was roped off to enclose the taxi. Floodlights were focused on the taxi and surroundings. A photographer took shots from various angles. Pedestrians from both directions were shunted across the street, where a crowd gathered behind the rope. Some twenty city employees, in uniform and out, were on the scene in less than half an hour after the cop had made the radio call — five of them known to me by name and four others by sight. The second floodlight had just been turned on when Cramer came around the front of the taxi, crossed to the steps and mounted the first three, and faced me. Since I was sitting, that made our eyes level.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go in. I might as well have you and Wolfe together, and this woman too. That may simplify it. Open the door.”

“On the contrary,” I said, not moving, “it would complicate it. Mr. Wolfe is in the office reading a book and knows nothing of all the excitement, and cares less. If I went in and told him you wanted to see him, and what about, you know what he would say and so do I. Nothing doing.”

“Who came here in that taxi?”

“I don’t know. I know nothing whatever about the taxi. When I came out it was there at the curb.”

“When did you come out?”

“Twenty minutes past nine.”

“Why did you come out?”

“To find a place to spend the night. I have quit my job, so if you’re determined to see Mr. Wolfe you’ll have to ring the bell.”

“You’re telling me you’ve quit?”

“Right. I don’t work here any more.”

“By God. I thought you and Wolfe had tried all the wrinkles there are, but this is a new one. Do you expect me to buy it?”

“It’s not a wrinkle. I meant it. I wouldn’t sign a pledge never to sleep here again, that depends on Mr. Wolfe’s handling of a certain problem, but when I left the house I meant it. The problem has no connection with that taxi or what’s in it.”

“Did this woman leave the house with you?”

“No. When I opened the door, coming out, she was coming up the stoop. She said she wanted to see Nero Wolfe, and when I told her I no longer worked for him, and anyway he probably wouldn’t see her, she said she guessed that for what she wanted I would be better than him. She offered to pay me fifty dollars for consultation on how to win a bet she had made, and we sat here to consult. We had been here fifteen or twenty minutes when the prowl car came along and stopped by the taxi, which had been standing there when I left the house, and naturally I was curious and went to take a look. The cop asked me my name and I told him. When he went to his radio to report I came back to my client, but we didn’t do much consulting on account of the commotion. That’s the crop.”

“Had you ever seen this woman before?”

“No.”

“What was the bet she wanted to consult about?”

“That’s her affair. She’s here. Ask her.”

“Did she come in that taxi?”

“Not to my knowledge. Ask her.”

“Did you see her get out of the taxi?”

“No. She was halfway up the stoop when I opened the door.”

“Did you see anyone get out of the taxi? Or near it?”

“No.”

“What’s her name?”

“Ask her.”

His head moved. “Is your name Judith Bram?”

That was no news for me, since my view through the open door had included the framed picture of the hackie and her name. As well as I had been able to tell in the dim light, the picture was not of my client.

“No,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Mira Holt. Mira with an I.” Her voice was clear and steady.

“Did you drive that taxi here?”

“No.”

“Did you come here in it?”

“No.”

So she had picked method three, a simple basic lie.

“Did you have an appointment to see Nero Wolfe?”

“No.”

“Where do you live?”

“Seven-fourteen East Eighty-first Street.”

“What is your occupation?”

“Modeling. Mostly fashion modeling.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes, but I don’t live with my husband.”

“What’s your husband’s name?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. “Waldo Kearns. I use my own name.”

“Are you divorced?”

“No.”

“Was that taxi here when you arrived?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t notice, but I suppose it was because it didn’t come after we sat down.”

“How did you come here?”

“I don’t think that matters.”

“I’ll decide if it matters. How did you come?”

She shook her head. “No. For instance, if somebody drove me here, or near here, you would ask him, and I might not want you to. No.”

So she also knew what “no trimmings” meant.

“I advise you,” Cramer advised her, “to tell me how you came.”

“I would rather not.”

“What was the bet you wanted to consult about?”

“That doesn’t matter either. It was a private bet with a friend.” Her head turned. “You’re a detective, Mr. Goodwin, so you ought to know, do I have to tell him about my private affairs just because I was sitting here with you?”

“Of course not,” I assured her. “Not unless he shows some connection between your private affairs and his public affairs, and he hasn’t. It’s entirely up to you whether—”

“What the devil is all this?” Nero Wolfe bellowed.

I twisted around and so did my client. The door was wide open and he was standing on the threshold, his bulk towering above us. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

Since I was merely an ex-employee and Cramer was an inspector I thought it fitting to let him reply, but he didn’t. Apparently he was too flabbergasted at seeing Wolfe actually stick his nose outdoors. Wolfe advanced a step. “Archie. I asked a question.”

I had stood up. “Yes, sir, I heard you. Miss Holt, this is Mr. Wolfe. Miss Mira Holt. When I left the house she was coming up the steps. I had never seen her before. When I told her I was no longer in your employ she said I would be better than you and asked to consult me. She had paid me. We sat down to confer. There was an empty taxi parked at the curb, no driver in it. A police car came along and stopped, and a cop found a dead body, female, in the taxi under a piece of canvas. I was there looking in when he removed the canvas. I came back up the stoop to sit with my client. We recessed our conference to watch the proceedings. Officers arrived promptly, including Inspector Cramer. When he got around to it he came and questioned us. I knew nothing about the taxi or its contents and said so. She told him she had not driven the taxi here and hadn’t come in it. She gave him her name and address and occupation, but refused to answer questions about her private affairs — for instance, what she was consulting me about. I was telling her that was entirely up to her when you appeared.”

Wolfe grunted. “Why didn’t you bring Miss Holt inside?”

“Because it’s not my house. Or my office.”

“Nonsense. There is the front room. If you wish to stand on ceremony, I invite you to use it for consultation with your client. Sitting here in this hubbub is absurd. Have you any further information for Mr. Cramer?”

“No.”

“Have you, Miss Holt?”

She was on her feet beside me. “I didn’t have any,” she said. “I haven’t got any.”

“Then get away from this turmoil. Come in.”

Cramer found his tongue. “Just a minute.” He had come on up to the stoop and was at my elbow, focused on Wolfe. “This is all very neat. Too damn neat. Goodwin says he quit his job. Did he?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Pfui. That’s egregious, Mr. Cramer, and you know it.”

“Did it have anything to do with Miss Holt or what she was coming to consult about?”

“No.”

“Or with the fact that a taxi was parked at your door with a dead body in it?”

“No.”

“Did you know Miss Holt was coming?”

“No. Nor, patently, did Mr. Goodwin.”

“Did you know the taxi was out here?”

“No. I am bearing with you, sir. You persist beyond reason. If Mr. Goodwin or I were involved in the circumstance that brought you here, or Miss Holt, would he have sat here with her, supine, awaiting your assault? You know him, and you know me. Come, Archie. Bring your client.” He turned.

I told Cramer, “I’ll be glad to type up statements and bring them down,” touched Mira Holt’s arm, and followed her inside, Wolfe having preceded us.

When I had shut the door and the lock had clicked Wolfe spoke. “Since there’s no telephone in the front room and you may have occasion to use one, perhaps the office would be better. I will go to my room.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. “But it might be still better for us to leave the back way. You may not want us here when I explain the situation. Miss Holt drove that taxi here. A friend of hers named Judith Bram is one of the ninety-three female hackies in New York, and she let Miss Holt take her cab — or maybe Miss Holt took it without Miss Bram’s knowledge. She left—”

“No,” Mira said. “Judy let me take it.”

“Possible,” I conceded. “You’re a pretty good liar. Let me finish. She left it, empty, in front of a building and went in the building for something, and when she came back there was a dead body in it, a woman, with a knife between its ribs. Either it was covered with a canvas, or she—”

“I covered it,” Mira said. “It was under that panel by the driver’s seat.”

“She’s level-headed,” I told Wolfe. “Somewhat. She couldn’t notify the police, because not only had she and her friend violated the law, but also she had recognized the dead woman. She knew her. She decided to come and consult you and me. I met her on the stoop. She told me a cockeyed tale about a bet she had made with a friend which I’ll skip. I said somewhat level-headed. I let her see that I knew she was feeding me soap but kept her from blurting it out. So I told Cramer no lies, but she did, and did a good job. But the lies won’t keep long. It’s barely possible that Judith Bram will deny that she let someone take her cab, but sooner or later—”

“I tried to phone her,” Mira said, “but she didn’t answer. I was going to tell her to say that someone stole it.”

“Quit interrupting me. Did you ever hear of fingerprints? Did you see them working on that cab? So I have a client who is in a double-breasted jam. I’ll know more about it after she tells me things. The point is, did she kill that woman? If I thought she did I would bow out quick — I would already have bowed out because it would have been hopeless. But she didn’t. One will get you ten that she didn’t. If she had—”

That interruption wasn’t words; it was her lips against mine and her palms covering my ears. If she had been Wolfe’s client I would have shoved her off quick, since that sort of demonstration only ruffles him, but she was mine and there was no point in hurting her feelings. I even patted her shoulder. When she was through I resumed.

“If she had killed her she would not have driven here with the corpse for a passenger to tell you, or even me, a goofy tale about a bet with a friend. Not a chance. She would have dumped the corpse somewhere. Make it twenty to one. Add to that my observation of her while we sat there on the stoop, and it’s thirty to one. Therefore I am keeping the fee she paid me, and I’m — by the way.” I reached in my pocket for the bills she had given me, unfolded them, and counted. Three twenties, three tens, and a five. Returning two twenties and a ten to my pocket, I offered her the rest. “Your change. I’m keeping fifty.”

She hesitated, then took it. “I’ll pay you more. Of course. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll know better after you answer some questions. One that shouldn’t wait: what did you do with the cap?”

“I have it.” She patted her front.

“Good.” I returned to Wolfe. “So we’ll be going. Thank you again for your offer of hospitality, but Cramer may be ringing the bell any minute. We’ll go out the rear, Miss Holt. This way.”

“No.” Wolfe snapped it. “This is preposterous. Give me half of that fifty dollars.”

I raised a brow. “For what?”

“To pay me. You have helped me with many problems; surely I can help you with one. I am not being quixotic. I do not accept your headstrong decision that our long association has ended, but even if it has, your repute is inextricably involved with mine. Your client is in a pickle. I have never tried to do a job without your help; why should you try to do one without mine?”

I wanted to grin at him, but he might have misunderstood. “Okay,” I said, and got a twenty from the pocket where I had put the fee, and a five from my wallet, and handed them to him. He took them, turned, and headed for the office, and Mira and I followed.

IV

Where to sit was a delicate question — not for Wolfe, who of course went to his oversized custom-built chair behind his desk, nor for the client, since Wolfe wiggled a finger to indicate the red leather chair that would put her facing him, but for me. The desk at right angles to Wolfe’s was no longer mine. I had a hand on one of the yellow chairs, to move it up, when Wolfe growled, “Confound it, don’t be frivolous. We have a job to do.”

I went and sat where I had belonged, and asked him, “Do I proceed?”

“Certainly.”

I looked at her. In good light, with the cap off, she was very lookable, even in a pickle. “I would like,” I said, “to be corroborated. Did you kill that woman?”

“No. No!”

“Okay. Out with it. This time, method two, the truth. Judith Bram is a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Did she let you take her cab?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I asked her to.”

“Why did you ask her to?”

“Because… it’s a long story.”

“Make it as short as you can. We may not have much time.”

She was on the edge of the chair, which would have held two of her. “I have known Judy three years. She was a model too, but she didn’t like it. She’s very unconventional. She had money she had inherited, and she bought a cab and a license about a year ago. She cruises when she feels like it, but she has some regular customers who think it’s chic to ride in a cab with a girl driver, and my husband is one of them. He often—”

“Your husband?” Wolfe demanded. “Miss Holt?”

“They don’t live together,” I told him. “Not divorced, but she uses her own name. Fashion model. Go ahead but keep it short.”

She obeyed. “My husband’s name is Waldo Kearns. He paints pictures but doesn’t sell any. He has money. He often calls Judy to take him somewhere, and he called last night when I was with her and told her to come for him at eight o’clock this evening, and I asked Judy to let me go instead of her. I have been trying to see him for months to have a talk with him, and he refuses to see me. He doesn’t answer my letters. I want a divorce and he doesn’t. I think the reason he doesn’t is that—”

“Skip it. Get on.”

“Well… Judy said I could take the cab, and today at seven o’clock I went to her place and she brought it from the garage, and she gave me her cap and jacket, and I drove it to—”

“Where is her place?”

“Bowdoin Street. Number seventeen. In the Village.”

“I know. You got in the cab there?”

“Yes. I drove it to Ferrell Street. It’s west of Varick, below—”

“I know where it is.”

“Then you know it’s a dead end. Close to the end is an alley that goes between walls to a little house. That’s my husband’s. I lived there with him about a year. I got there a little before eight, and turned around and parked in front of the alley. Judy had said she always waited for him there. He didn’t come. I didn’t want to go to the house, because as soon as he saw me he would shut the door on me, but when he hadn’t come at half past eight I got out and went—”

“You’re sure of the time?”

“Yes. I looked at my watch. Of course.”

“What does it say now?”

She lifted her wrist. “Two minutes after eleven.”

“Right. You went through the alley?”

“Yes, to the house. There’s a brass knocker on the door, no bell. I knocked with it, but nobody came. I knocked several times. I could hear the radio or television going inside, I could just barely hear it, so I knocked loud. He couldn’t have recognized me through a window because it was too dark and I had the cap pulled down. Of course it could have been Morton, his man as he calls him, playing the radio, but I don’t think so because he would have heard the knocker and come to the door. I finally gave up and went back to the cab, and as I was getting in I saw her. At first I thought it was a trick he had played, but when I looked closer I saw the knife, and then I recognized her, and she was dead. If I hadn’t turned around and gripped the wheel as hard as I could I think I would have fainted. I never have fainted. I sat there—”

“Who was it?”

“It was Phoebe Arden. She was the reason my husband didn’t want a divorce. I’m sure she was, or anyway one of the reasons. I think he thought that as long as he was still married to me she couldn’t expect him to marry her, and neither could anyone else. But I wasn’t thinking about that while I sat there, I was thinking what to do. I knew the right thing was to call the police, but I was driving Judy’s cab, and, what was worse, I would have to admit I knew who she was, and they would find out about her and my husband. I don’t know how long I sat there.”

“It must have been quite a while. You left the cab to go to the house at eight-thirty. How long were you gone?”

“I don’t know. I knocked several times, and looked in at the windows, and then knocked some more.” She considered. “At least ten minutes.”

“Then you were back at the cab at eight-forty, and from there to here wouldn’t take more than ten minutes, and you got here at nine-twenty. Did you sit there half an hour?”

“No. I decided to get her — to get it out of the cab. I found that canvas under the panel. I thought the best place would be somewhere along the river front, and I drove there but didn’t see a good place, and men tried to stop me twice, and once when I stopped for a light a man opened the door and when I told him I was making a delivery he almost climbed in anyway. Then I thought I would just leave the cab somewhere, anywhere, and I went to a phone booth to call Judy and tell her to say the cab had been stolen, but there was no answer. Then I thought of Nero Wolfe and you, and I drove here. I didn’t have much time to make that up about the bet, just on my way here. I knew it wasn’t much good while I was telling it.”

“So did I.” I was frowning at her. “I want you to realize one thing. I believe you when you say you didn’t kill her, but it doesn’t follow that I swallow you whole. For instance, the divorce situation. If the fact is that your husband wanted one so he could marry Phoebe Arden, and you balked, that would make it different.”

“No.” She was frowning back. “I’ve told you the truth, every word. I lied to you out there, but if I lied to you now I’d be a fool.”

“You sure would. How good a friend of yours is Judy Bram?”

“She’s my best friend. She’s a little wild, but I like her. I love her.”

“Are you sure she rates it?”

“Yes.”

“You’d better cross your fingers.” I turned to Wolfe. “Since you’re helping on this, and I fully appreciate it, our minds should meet. Do you accept it that she didn’t kill her?”

“As a working hypothesis, yes.”

“Then isn’t it likely that she was killed by someone who knew that Miss Holt would be driving the cab? Since Kearns didn’t show, taking her away from the cab, and the radio or television was on in the house?”

“Likely, but far from certain. It could have been impromptu. Or the embarrassment could have been meant for Miss Bram, not for Miss Holt.”

I returned to Mira. “How close are Judy Bram and your husband?”

“Close?” The frown was getting chronic. “They aren’t close. If you mean intimate, I doubt if Judy has ever allowed any man to be intimate. My husband may have tried. I suppose he has.”

“Could Judy have had any reason to kill Phoebe Arden?”

“Good lord, no.”

“Isn’t it possible that Judy, unknown to you, had got an idea that she would like to break the ice with your husband, and Phoebe Arden was in the way?”

“I suppose it is, if you want to say that anything is possible, but I don’t believe it.”

“You heard what I asked Mr. Wolfe and what he answered. I still like it that whoever killed her knew that you were going to drive the cab there. It’s certainly possible that Judy Bram told someone.”

“Yes, it’s possible, but I don’t believe it. Judy wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t.”

“It’s also possible that you told someone. Did you?”

Her lips twitched. Twice. Two seconds. “No,” she said.

“You’re lying. I haven’t time to be polite. You’re lying. Whom did you tell?”

“I’m not going to say. The person I told couldn’t possibly have… have done anything. Some things are not possible.”

“Who was it?”

“No, Mr. Goodwin. Really.”

I got the twenty and ten from my pocket and twenty from my wallet, got up, and went to her. “Here’s your fifty bucks,” I said. “Count me out. You can leave the back way.”

“But I tell you he couldn’t!”

“Then he won’t get hurt. I won’t bite him. But I’ve got to know everything you do or it’s no good.”

Her lips twitched again. “You would really do that? Just give me up?”

“I sure would. I will. With regrets and best wishes.”

She breathed. “I phoned a friend of mine last evening and told him. His name is Gilbert Irving.”

“Is he more than a friend?”

“No. He is married and so am I. We’re friends, that’s all.”

“Does he know your husband?”

“Yes. They’ve known each other for years, but they’ve never been close.”

“Did he know Phoebe Arden?”

“He had met her. He didn’t know her.”

“Why did you tell him about your plan to drive the cab?”

“Because I wanted to know what he thought of it. He is very — a very intelligent man.”

“What did he think of it?”

“He thought it was foolish. Not foolish exactly, useless. He thought my husband would refuse to listen to me. Honestly, Mr. Goodwin, this is foolish. There is absolutely no—”

The doorbell rang. I had taken three steps before I remembered that I no longer worked there; then, not wishing to be frivolous, I continued to the hall and took a look through the one-way glass panel of the front door. A man and a woman were there on the stoop. A glance was enough to recognize Inspector Cramer, but it took closer inspection for the woman, and I moved down the hall. Even then I wasn’t positive, since the light had been dim on the picture of the female hackie in the taxi, but I was sure enough. It was Judith Bram.

V

It was up to me, since it was my case and Wolfe was merely helping, but he had many times asked for my opinion and it wouldn’t hurt to reciprocate, so I stepped to the office door and said, “Cramer and Judy Bram. Shall I—”

“Judy!” Mira cried. “She’s here?”

I ignored her. “Shall I scoot with Miss Holt and leave them to you?”

He closed his eyes. In three seconds he opened them. “I would say no. The decision is yours.”

“Then we stick. I want to meet Judy anyhow. Sit tight, Miss Holt. Never drop a simple basic lie until it drops you.”

As I turned the bell rang again. I went to the front, put the chain bolt on, opened the door the two inches the chain allowed, and spoke through the crack. “Do you want me, Inspector?”

“I want in. Open up.”

“Glad to for you, but not for strangers. Who is the lady?”

“Her name is Judith Bram. She’s the owner and driver—”

“I want to see Mira Holt!” the lady said, meaning it. “Open the door!”

I removed the chain, but didn’t have to swing the door because she saved me the trouble. She came with it and darted down the hall. Seeing that Cramer, after her, would brush me, I stiffened to make the brush a bump, and he wobbled and lost a step, giving me time to shut the door and reach the office at his heels. When we entered Judy was sitting on the arm of the red leather chair with her arm across Mira’s shoulders, jabbering. Cramer grabbed her arm and barked at her, but she ignored him.

“—and I said yes, the cab might have still been there in front when you left, but I was sure you wouldn’t take it, and anyway—”

Cramer yanked her up and around, and as she came she swung with her free hand and smacked him in the face. There was too much of him to be staggered by it, but the sound effect was fine. She jerked loose and glared at him. Her big, brown, well-spaced eyes were ideal for glaring. I had a feeling that I had seen her before, but I hadn’t. It was just an old memory: a seventh-grade classmate out in Ohio whom I had been impelled to kiss, and she had socked me on the ear with her arithmetic. She is now married, with five children.

“That’s not advisable, Miss Bram,” Cramer stated. “Striking a police officer.” He moved, got a yellow chair, and swung it around. “Here. Sit down.”

“I’ll sit where I please.” She perched again on the red leather arm. “Is it advisable for a police officer to manhandle a citizen? When I got a hack license I informed myself about laws. Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“Then don’t touch me.” Her head swung around. “You’re Nero Wolfe? You’re even bigger.” She didn’t say bigger than what. “I’m Judy Bram. Are you representing my friend Mira Holt?”

His eyes on her were half closed. “‘Representing’ is not the word, Miss Bram. I’m a detective, not a lawyer. Miss Holt has hired Mr. Goodwin, and he has hired me as his assistant. You call her your friend. Are you her friend?”

“Yes. And I want to know. She left my place around half past seven, and about an hour later I went out to keep a date. I had left my cab out front and it wasn’t there, but I supposed—”

“Hold it,” Cramer snapped. He was on the yellow chair, and I was at my desk. “I’ll do the talking—”

She merely raised her voice. “—I supposed a man from the garage had come and got it, I have that arrangement—”

“Shut up!” Cramer roared. “Or I’ll shut you up!”

“How?” she asked.

It was a question. He had several choices: clamp his paw on her mouth, or pick her up and carry her out, or call in a couple of big strong men from out front, or hit her with a blunt instrument, or shoot her. All had drawbacks.

“Permit me,” Wolfe said. “I suggest, Mr. Cramer, that you have bungled it. The notion of suddenly confronting Miss Holt with Miss Bram was of course tempting, but your appraisal of Miss Bram’s temperament was faulty. Now you’re stuck. You won’t get the contradictions you’re after. Miss Holt would be a simpleton to supply particulars until she knows what Miss Bram has said. As you well know, that does not necessarily imply culpability for either of them.”

Cramer rasped, “You’re telling Miss Holt not to answer any questions.”

“Am I? If so, unwittingly. Now, of course, you have made it plain. It would appear that you have only two alternatives: either let Miss Bram finish her account, or remove her.”

“There’s a third one I like better. I’ll remove Miss Holt.” Cramer got up. “Come on, Miss Holt. I’m taking you down for questioning in connection with the murder of Phoebe Arden.”

“Is she under arrest?” Judy demanded.

“No. But if she doesn’t talk she will be. As a material witness.”

“Can he do that, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Yes.”

“Without a warrant?”

“In the circumstances, yes.”

“Come on, Miss Holt,” Cramer growled.

I was sitting with my jaw set. Wolfe would rather miss a meal than let Cramer or any other cop take a client of his from that office into custody, and over the years I had seen and heard him pull some fancy maneuvers to prevent it. But this was my client, and he wasn’t batting an eye. I admit that it would have had to be something extra fancy, and it was up to me, not him, but I had split the fee with him. So I sat with my jaw set while Mira left the chair and Judy jabbered and Cramer touched Mira’s arm and they headed for the door. Then I came to, scribbled on my memo pad — formerly my memo pad — tore the sheet off, and made for the hall. Cramer had his hand on the knob.

“Here’s the phone number,” I told her. “Twenty-four-hour service. Don’t forget method three.”

She took the slip, said, “I won’t,” and crossed the sill, with Cramer right behind. I noted that the floodlights and the taxi were still there before I shut the door.

Back in the office, Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed and Judy Bram was standing scowling at him. She switched the scowl to me and demanded, “Why don’t you put him to bed?”

“Too heavy. How many people did you tell that Mira was going to drive your cab to her husband’s house?”

She eyed me, straight, for two breaths, then went to the red leather chair and sat. I took the yellow one, to be closer.

“I thought you were working for her,” she said.

“I am.”

“You don’t sound like it. She didn’t drive my cab.”

I shook my head. “Come on down. Would I be working for her if she hadn’t opened up? You told her yesterday that Kearns had phoned you to call for him at eight o’clock today, and she asked you to let her go instead of you. She wanted to have a talk with him about a divorce. How many people did you tell about it?”

“Nobody. If she opened up what’s the rest of it?”

“Ask her when you see her. Did you kill Phoebe Arden?”

From the flash in her eye she would have smacked me if I had been close enough. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Get a club. Drag me by the hair.”

“Later maybe.” I leaned to her. “Look, Miss Bram. Give your temperament a rest and use your brain. I am working for Mira Holt. I know exactly where she was and what she did, every minute, from seven o’clock this evening on, but I’m not going to tell you. Of course you know that the dead body of a woman named Phoebe Arden was found in your cab. I am certain that Mira didn’t kill her, but she is probably going to be charged. I am not certain that the murderer tried to get her tagged for it, but it looks like it. I would be a fathead to tell the murderer about her movements. Wouldn’t I? Answer with your brain.”

“Yes.” She was meeting my eyes.

“Okay. Give me one good reason why I should cross you off. One you would accept if you were in my place. Mira has, naturally, but why should I?”

“Because there’s not the slightest—” She stopped. “No. You don’t know that. All right. But don’t try twisting my arm. I know some tricks.”

“I’ll keep my distance if you will. Did you kill Phoebe Arden?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“Have you any suspicions? Any ideas?”

“Yes. Or I would have if I knew anything — where and when it happened. Did Phoebe come out to the cab with Waldo Kearns?”

“No. Kearns didn’t show up. Mira never saw him.”

“But Phoebe came?”

“Not alive. When Mira saw her she was dead. In the cab.”

“Then my idea is Waldo. The sophisticated ape. You know, you’re not any too bright. If I killed her in my own cab while Mira was driving it, I already know everything you do and more. Why not tell me?”

I looked at Wolfe, who had opened his eyes off and on. He grunted. “You told her to use her brain,” he muttered.

I returned to Judy. “You certainly would know this: Mira got there before eight o’clock and parked in front. When Kearns hadn’t showed at eight-thirty she went to the house and spent ten minutes knocking and looking in windows. When she returned to the cab the dead body was in it. She never saw Kearns.”

“But my God.” Her brows were up. She turned her hands over. “All she had to do was dump it out!”

“She hasn’t got your temperament. She—”

“She drove here with it? To consult with you?”

“She might have done worse. In fact, she tried to. She phoned you, and got no answer. What’s your idea about Kearns?”

“He killed Phoebe.”

“Then that’s settled. Why?”

“I don’t know. He tried to shake her and she hung on. Or she cheated on him. Or she had a bad cold and he was afraid he would catch it. He put the body in the cab to fix Mira. He hates her because she told him the truth about himself once.”

“Did you know Phoebe well? Who and what was she?”

“Well enough. She was a widow at thirty, roaming around. I might have killed her, at that. About a year ago she started scattering remarks about me, and I broke her neck. Almost. She spent a week in a hospital.”

“Did it cure her? I mean of remark-scattering?”

“Yes.”

“We might as well finish with you. You told Mr. Wolfe Mira left your place around half past seven and about an hour later you went out to keep a date. So you might have left at a quarter after eight.”

“I might, but I didn’t. I walked to Mitchell Hall on Fourteenth Street to make a speech at a cab drivers’ meeting, and I got there at five minutes to nine. After the meeting I walked back home, and two cops were there waiting for me. They were dumb enough to ask me first where my cab was, and I said I supposed it was in the garage. When they said no, it was parked on Thirty-fifth Street, and asked me to come and identify it, naturally I went. I also identified a dead body, which they hadn’t mentioned. Is that Inspector Cramer dumb?”

“No.”

“I thought not. When he asked me if I knew Mira Holt of course I said yes, and when he asked when I last saw her I told him. Since I had no idea what had happened I thought that was safest, but I said I hadn’t told her she could take the cab and I knew she wouldn’t take it without asking me. Does that finish with me?”

“It’s a good start. How well do you know Gilbert Irving?”

That fazed her. Her mouth opened and she gawked with her big, brown, well-spaced eyes. “Are my ears working?” she demanded. “Did you say Gilbert Irving?”

“That’s right.”

“Who let him in?”

“Mira mentioned him. How well do you know him?”

“Too well. I dream about a lion standing on a rock about to spring at me, and I suspect it’s him. If my subconscious is yearning for him it had better go soak its head, because first he’s married and his wife has claws, and second, when he looks at Mira or hears her voice he has to lean against something to keep from trembling. Did she tell you that?”

“No. Who is he? What does he do?”

“Something in Wall Street, but he doesn’t look it. Why did Mira mention him?”

“Because I made her. She phoned him last evening and told him she was going to drive your cab and why. She wanted to know what he thought of it. I want to know what motive he might have for killing Phoebe Arden.”

She opened her mouth to reply, then decided to laugh instead. It was a real laugh, no giggle.

I raised a brow. “Your subconscious taking over?” I inquired.

“No.” She sobered. “I couldn’t help it. It struck me, of course Gil killed her. He couldn’t bear the thought of Mira’s husband being unfaithful to her, it was an insult to her womanhood, so he killed Phoebe. Do you blame me for laughing?”

“No. I’ll laugh too when I get around to it. Does anything else strike you? A motive for him you wouldn’t laugh at?”

“Of course not. It’s ridiculous. You’re just floundering around. Have you finished with me?”

I looked at Wolfe. His eyes were closed. “For now, yes,” I told her, “unless Mr. Wolfe thinks I skipped something.”

“How can he? You can talk in your sleep, but you can’t think.” She stood up. “What are you going to do?”

“Find a murderer and stick pins in him. Or her.”

“Not sitting here you aren’t. Don’t bother, I know the way out. Why don’t you go and tackle Wally Kearns? I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, I’ll manage.”

“Where did he take Mira?”

“Either to Homicide West, two-thirty West Twentieth, or to the District Attorney’s office, one-fifty-five Leonard. Try Twentieth Street first.”

“I will.” She turned and was off. I followed, to let her out, but she was a fast walker and I would have had to trot to catch up. When I reached the door she had it open. I stepped out to the stoop and watched her descend to the sidewalk and turn west. The floodlights and ropes and police cars were gone, and so was Judy’s cab. My wrist watch said five minutes past midnight as I went in and shut the door. I returned to the office and found Wolfe on his feet with his eyes open.

“I assumed,” I said, “that if you wanted something from her I hadn’t got you would say so.”

“Naturally.”

“Have you any comments?”

“No. It’s bedtime.”

“Yeah. Since you’re with me on this, which I appreciate, perhaps I’d better sleep here. If you don’t mind.”

“Certainly. You own your bed. I have a suggestion. I presume you intend to have a look at that place in the morning, and to see Mr. Kearns. It might be well for me to see him too.”

“I agree. Thank you for suggesting it. If they haven’t got him downtown I’ll have him here at eleven o’clock.” I made it eleven because that was his earliest hour for an appointment, when he came down from his two-hour session up in the plant rooms with the orchids.

“Make it a quarter past eleven,” he said. “I will be engaged until then with Mr. Anderson.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Didn’t you phone him not to come?”

“On the contrary, I phoned him to come. On reflection I saw that I had been hasty. In my employ, as my agent, you had made a commitment, and I was bound by it. I should not have repudiated it. I should have honored it, and then dismissed you if I considered your disregard of the rules intolerable.”

“I see. I can understand that you’d rather fire me than have me quit.”

“I said ‘if.’”

I lifted my shoulders and dropped them. “It’s a little complicated. If I have quit you can’t fire me. If I haven’t quit I am still on your payroll, and it would be unethical for me to have Miss Holt as my client. It would also be wrong for you to accept pay from me for helping me with the kind of work you are paying me to do. If you return the twenty-five to me and I return the fifty to Miss Holt, I will be deserting an innocent fellow being in a jam whom I have accepted as a client, and that would be inexcusable. It looks to me as if we have got ourselves in a fix that is absolutely hopeless, and I can’t see—”

“Confound it,” he roared, “go to bed!” and marched out.

VI

By 8:15 Tuesday morning I was pretty well convinced that Mira Holt was in the coop, since I had got it from three different sources. At 7:20 Judy Bram phoned to say that Mira was under arrest and what was I going to do. I said it wouldn’t be practical to tell a suspect my plans, and she hung up on me. At 7:40 Lon Cohen of the Gazette phoned to ask if it was true that I had quit my job with Nero Wolfe, and if so what was I doing there, and was Mira Holt my client, and if so what was she doing in the can, and had she killed Phoebe Arden or not. Since Lon had often been useful and might be again, I explained fully, off the record, why I couldn’t explain. And at eight o’clock the radio said that Mira Holt was being held as a material witness in the murder of Phoebe Arden.

Neither Lon nor the radio supplied any items that helped, nor did the morning papers. The Star had a picture of the taxi parked in front of Wolfe’s house, but I had seen that for myself. It also had a description of the clothes Phoebe Arden had died in, but what I needed was a description of the clothes the murderer had killed in. And it gave the specifications of the knife — an ordinary kitchen knife with a five-inch blade and a plastic handle — but if the answer was going to come from any routine operation like tracing the knife or lifting prints from the handle, it would be Cramer’s army who would get it, not me.

I made one phone call, to Anderson, to ask him to postpone his appointment because Wolfe was busy on a case, and he said sure, it wasn’t urgent; and, since Fritz takes Wolfe’s breakfast to his room and I seldom see him before he comes down to the office at eleven, I put a note on his desk. I wanted to make another call, to Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer, but vetoed it. For getting Mira out on bail he would have charged about ten times what she had paid me, and there was no big hurry. It would teach her not to drive a hack without a license.

At a quarter past eight I left the house and went to Ninth Avenue for a taxi, and at half past I dismissed it at the corner of Carmine and Ferrell, and walked down Ferrell Street to its dead end. There were only two alternatives for what had happened during the period — call it ten minutes — when Mira had been away from the cab: either the murderer, having already killed Phoebe Arden, had carried or dragged the body to the cab and hoisted it in, or he had got in the cab with her and killed her there. I preferred the latter, since you can walk to a cab with a live woman in much less time than you can carry her to it dead, and also since, even in a secluded spot like that and even after dark, there is much less risk of being noticed. But in either case they had to come from some place nearby.

The first place to consider was Kearns’s house, but it only took five minutes to cross it off. The alley that led to it was walled on both sides, Mira had been parked at its mouth, and there was no other way to get from the house to the street. On the left of the alley was a walled-in lumber yard, and on the right was a dingy old two-story warehouse. On inspection neither of them seemed an ideal spot for cover, but across the street was a beaut. It was an open lot cluttered with blocks of stone scattered and piled around, some rough and some chiseled and polished. A whole company could have hid there, let alone one murderer and one victim. As you know, I was already on record that Mira hadn’t killed her, but it was nice to see that stoneyard. If there had been no place to hide in easy distance… Three men were there, two discussing a stone and one chiseling, but they wouldn’t be there at eight in the evening. I recrossed the street and entered the alley, and walked through.

By gum, Kearns had a garden, a sizable patch, say forty by sixty, with flowers in bloom and a little pool with a fountain, and a flagstone path leading to the door of a two-story brick house painted white. I hadn’t known there was anything like it in Manhattan, and I thought I knew Manhattan. A man in a gray shirt and blue jeans was kneeling among the flowers, and half way up the path I stopped and asked him, “Are you Waldo Kearns?”

“Do I look it?” he demanded.

“Yes and no. Are you Morton?”

“That’s my name. What’s yours?”

“Goodwin.” I headed for the house, but he called, “Nobody there,” and I turned.

“Where’s Mr. Kearns?”

“I don’t know. He went out a while ago.”

“When will he be back?”

“I couldn’t say.”

I looked disappointed. “I should have phoned. I want to buy a picture. I came last evening around half past eight and knocked, but nothing doing. I knocked loud because I heard the radio or TV going.”

“It was the TV. I was watching it. I heard you knock. I don’t open the door at night when he’s not here. There’s some tough ones around this neighborhood.”

“I don’t blame you. I suppose I just missed him. What time did he leave last evening?”

“What difference does it make when he left if he wasn’t here?”

Perfectly logical, not only for him but for me. If Kearns hadn’t been there when Mira arrived in the cab it didn’t matter when he had left. I would have liked to ask Morton one more question, whether anyone had left with him, but from the look in his eye he would have used some more logic on me, so I skipped it, said I’d try again, and went.

There was no use hanging around because if Kearns had gone to call at the District Attorney’s office by request, which was highly probable, there was no telling when he would be back. I had got Gilbert Irving’s business address from the phone book, on Wall Street, but there was no use going there at that early hour. However, I had also got his home address, on East 78th Street, and I might catch him before he left, so I hoofed it along Ferrell Street back to civilization and flagged a taxi.

It was 9:15 when I climbed out in front of the number on 78th Street, a tenement palace with a marquee and a doorman. In the lobby another uniformed sentry sprang into action, and I told him, “Mr. Gilbert Irving. Tell him a friend of Miss Holt.” He went and used a phone, returned and said, “Fourteen B,” and watched me like a hawk as I walked to the elevator and entered. When I got out at the fourteenth floor the elevator man stood and watched until I had pushed the button and the door had opened and I had been invited in.

The inviter was no maid or butler. She might have passed for a maid in uniform, but not in the long, flowing, patterned silk number which she probably called a breakfast gown. Without any suggestions about my hat she said, “This way, please,” and led me across the hall, through an arch into a room half as big as Kearns’s garden, and over to chairs near a corner. She sat on one of them and indicated another for me.

I stood. “Perhaps the man downstairs didn’t understand me,” I suggested. “I asked for Mr. Irving.”

“I know,” she said. “He isn’t here. I am his wife. We are friends of Miss Holt, and we’re disturbed about the terrible — about her difficulty. You’re a friend of hers?” Her voice was a surprise because it didn’t fit. She was slender and not very tall, with a round little face and a little curved mouth, but her deep strong voice was what you would expect from a female sergeant. Nothing about her suggested the claws Judy Bram had mentioned, but they could have been drawn in.

“A new friend,” I said. “I’ve known her twelve hours. If you’ve read the morning paper you may have noted that she was sitting on the stoop of Nero Wolfe’s house with a man named Archie Goodwin when a cop found the body in the taxi. I’m Goodwin, and she has hired me to find out things.”

She adjusted the gown to cover a leg better. “According to the radio she has hired Nero Wolfe. She was arrested in his house.”

“That’s a technical point. We’re both working on it. I’m seeing people who might have some information, and Mr. Irving is on my list. Is he at his office?”

“I suppose so. He left earlier than usual.” The leg was safe, no exposure above the ankle, but she adjusted the gown again. “What kind of information? Perhaps I could help?”

I couldn’t very well ask if her husband had told her that Mira had told him she was going to drive Judy’s cab. But she wanted to help. I sat down. “Almost anything might be useful, Mrs. Irving. Were you and your husband also friends of Phoebe Arden?”

“I was. My husband knew her, of course, but you couldn’t say they were friends.”

“Were they enemies?”

“Oh, no. It was just that they didn’t hit it off.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Four days ago, last Friday, at a cocktail party at Waldo Kearns’s house. I was thinking about it when you came. She was so gay. She was a gay person.”

“You hadn’t seen her since?”

“No.” She was going to add something, but checked it.

It was so obvious that I asked, “But you had heard from her? A letter or a phone call?”

“How did you know that?” she demanded.

“I didn’t. Most detective work is guessing. Was it a letter?”

“No.” She hesitated. “I would like to help, Mr. Goodwin, but I doubt if it’s important, and I certainly don’t want any notoriety.”

“Of course not, Mrs. Irving.” I was sympathetic. “If you mean, if you tell me something will I tell the police, absolutely not. They have arrested my client.”

“Well.” She crossed her legs, glancing down to see that nothing was revealed. “I phoned Phoebe yesterday afternoon. My husband and I had tickets for the theater last evening, but about three o’clock he phoned me that a business associate from the West Coast had arrived unexpectedly, and he had to take him to dinner. So I phoned Phoebe and we arranged to meet at Morsini’s at a quarter to seven for dinner and then go to the theater. I was there on time, but she didn’t come. At a quarter past seven I called her number, but there was no answer. I don’t like to eat alone at a place like Morsini’s, so I waited a little longer and then left word for her and went to Schrafft’s. She didn’t come. I thought she might come to the theater, the Majestic, and I waited in the lobby until after nine, and then I left a ticket for her at the box office and went in. I would tell the police about it if I thought it was important, but it doesn’t really tell anything except that she was at home when I phoned around three o’clock. Does it?”

“Sure it does. Did she agree definitely to meet you at Morsini’s or was it tentative?”

“It was definite. Quite definite.”

“Then it was certainly something that happened after three o’clock that kept her from meeting you. It was probably something that happened after six-thirty or she would have phoned you — if she was still alive. Have you any idea at all what it might have been?”

“None whatever. I can’t guess.”

“Have you any ideas about who might have killed her?”

“No. I can’t guess that either.”

“Do you think Mira Holt killed her?”

“Good heavens, no. Not Mira. Even if she had—”

“Even if she had what?”

“Nothing. Mira wouldn’t kill anybody. They don’t think that, do they?”

Over the years at least a thousand people have asked me what the police think, and I appreciate the compliment though I rarely deserve it. Life would be much simpler if I always knew what the police think at any given moment. It’s hard enough to know what I think. After another ten minutes with her I decided that I thought that Mrs. Irving had nothing more to contribute, so I thanked her and departed. She came with me to the hall, and even picked up my hat from the chair where I had dropped it. I had yet to get a glimpse of her legs.

It was ten minutes to ten when I emerged to the sidewalk and turned left for Lexington Avenue and the subway, and a quarter past when I entered the marble lobby of a towering beehive on Wall Street and consulted the building directory. Gilbert Irving’s firm had the whole thirteenth floor, and I found the proper bank of elevators, entered one, and was hoisted straight up three hundred feet for nothing. In a paneled chamber with a thick conservative carpet a handsome conservative creature at a desk bigger than Wolfe’s told me in a voice like silk that Mr. Irving was not in and that she knew not when he would arrive or where he was. If I cared to wait?

I didn’t. I left, got myself dropped back down the three hundred feet, and went to another subway, this time the west side; and, leaving at Christopher, walked to Ferrell Street and on to its dead end and through the alley. Morton, still at work in the garden, greeted me with reserve but not coldly, said Kearns had not returned and there had been no word from him, and, as I was turning to go, suddenly stood up and asked, “Did you say you wanted to buy a picture?”

I said that was my idea but naturally I wanted to see it first, left him wagging his head, walked the length of Ferrell Street the fourth time that day, found a taxi, and gave the driver the address which might or might not still be mine. As we turned into 35th Street from Eighth Avenue, at five minutes past eleven, there was another taxi just ahead of us, and it stopped at the curb in front of the brownstone. I handed my driver a bill, hopped out, and had mounted the stoop by the time the man from the other cab had crossed the sidewalk. I had never seen him or a picture of him, or heard him described, but I knew him. I don’t know whether it was his floppy black hat or shoestring tie, or neat little ears or face like a squirrel, but I knew him. I had the door open when he reached the stoop.

“I would like to see Mr. Nero Wolfe,” he said. “I’m Waldo Kearns.”

VII

Since Wolfe had suggested that I should bring Kearns there so we could look at him together, I would just as soon have let him think that I had filled the order, but of course that wouldn’t do. So when, having taken the floppy black hat and put it on the shelf in the hall, I escorted him to the office and pronounced his name, I added, “I met Mr. Kearns out front. He arrived just as I did.”

Wolfe, behind his desk, had been pouring beer when we entered. He put the bottle down. “Then you haven’t talked with him?”

“No, sir.”

He turned to Kearns, in the red leather chair. “Will you have beer, sir?”

“Heavens, no.” Kearns was emphatic. “I didn’t come for amenities. My business is urgent. I am extremely displeased with the counsel you have given my wife. You must have hypnotized her. She refuses to see me. She refuses to accept the services of my lawyer, even to arrange bail for her. I demand an explanation. I intend to hold you to account for alienating the affections of my wife.”

“Affections,” Wolfe said.

“What?”

“Affections. In that context the plural is used.” He lifted the glass and drank, and licked his lips.

Kearns stared at him. “I didn’t come here,” he said, “to have my grammar corrected.”

“Not grammar. Diction.”

Kearns pounded the chair arm. “What have you to say?”

“It would be futile for me to say anything whatever until you have regained your senses, if you have any. If you think your wife had affection for you until she met me twelve hours ago, you’re an ass. If you know she hadn’t your threat is fatuous. In either case what can you expect but contempt?”

“I expect an explanation! I expect the truth! I expect you to tell me why my wife refuses to see me!”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I don’t even know that she has, since in your present state I question the accuracy of your reporting. When and where did she refuse?”

“This morning. Just now, in the District Attorney’s office. She won’t even talk to my lawyer. She told him she was waiting to hear from you and Goodwin.” His head jerked to me. “You’re Goodwin?”

I admitted it. His head jerked back. “It’s humiliating! It’s degrading! My wife under arrest! Mrs. Waldo Kearns in jail! Dishonor to my name and to me! And you’re to blame.”

Wolfe took a breath. “I doubt if it’s worth the trouble,” he said, “but I’m willing to try. I presume what you’re after is an account of our conversation with your wife last evening. I might consider supplying it, but first I would have to be satisfied of your bona fides. Will you answer some questions?”

“It depends on what they are.”

“Probably you have already answered them, to the police. Has your wife wanted a divorce and have you refused to consent?”

“Yes. I regard the marriage contract as a sacred covenant.”

“Have you refused to discuss it with her in recent months?”

“The police didn’t ask me that.”

“I ask it. I need to establish not only your bona fides, Mr. Kearns, but also your wife’s. It shouldn’t embarrass you to answer that.”

“It doesn’t embarrass me. You can’t embarrass me. It would have been useless to discuss it with her since I wouldn’t consider it.”

“So you wouldn’t see her?”

“Naturally. That was all she would talk about.”

“Have you been contributing to her support since she left you?”

“She didn’t leave me. We agreed to try living separately. She wouldn’t let me contribute to her support. I offered to. I wanted to.”

“The police certainly asked you if you killed Phoebe Arden. Did you?”

“No. Why in God’s name would I kill her?”

“I don’t know. Miss Judith Bram suggested that she may have had a bad cold and you were afraid you would catch it, but that seems farfetched. By the way—”

“Judy? Judy Bram said that? I don’t believe it!”

“But she did. In this room last evening, in the chair you now occupy. She also called you a sophisticated ape.”

“You’re lying!”

“No. I’m not above lying, or below it, but the truth will do now. Also—”

“You’re lying. You’ve never seen Judy Bram. You’re merely repeating something my wife said.”

“That’s interesting, Mr. Kearns, and even suggestive. You are willing to believe that your wife called you a sophisticated ape, but not that Miss Bram did. When I do lie I try not to be clumsy. Miss Bram was here last evening, with Mr. Goodwin and me, for half an hour or more; and that brings me to a ticklish point. I must ask you about a detail that the police don’t know about. Certainly they asked about your movements last evening, but they didn’t know that you had arranged with Judith Bram to call for you in her cab at eight o’clock. Unless you told them?”

Kearns sat still, and for him it is worth mentioning. With many people sitting still is nothing remarkable, but with him it was. His sitting, like his face, reminded me of a squirrel; he kept moving or twitching something — a hand, a shoulder, a foot, even his head. Now he was motionless all over.

“Say that again,” he commanded.

Wolfe obeyed. “Have you told the police that you had arranged with Miss Bram to call for you in her cab at eight o’clock last evening?”

“No. Why should I tell them something that isn’t true?”

“You shouldn’t, ideally, but people often do. I do occasionally. However, that’s irrelevant, since it would have been the truth. Evidently Miss Bram hasn’t told the police, but she told me. I mention it to ensure that you’ll tell me the truth when you recount your movements last evening.”

“If she told you that she lied.”

“Oh, come, Mr. Kearns.” Wolfe was disgusted. “It is established that her cab stood at the mouth of the alley leading to your house for more than half an hour, having come at your bidding. If you omitted that detail in your statement to the police I may have to supply it. Haven’t you spoken with Miss Bram since?”

“No.” He was still motionless. “Her phone doesn’t answer. She’s not at home. I went there.” He passed his tongue across his lower lip. I admit I have never seen a squirrel do that. “I couldn’t tell the police her cab was there last evening because I didn’t know it was. I wasn’t there.”

“Where were you? Consider that I know you had ordered the cab for eight o’clock and hadn’t cancelled the order.”

“I’ve told the police where I was.”

“Then your memory has been jogged.”

“It didn’t need jogging. I was at the studio of a man named Prosch, Carl Prosch. I went there to meet Miss Arden and look at a picture she was going to buy. I got there at a quarter to eight and left at nine o’clock. She hadn’t come, and—”

“If you please. Miss Phoebe Arden?”

“Yes. She phoned me at half past seven and said she had about decided to buy a painting, a still life, from Prosch, and was going to his studio to look at it again, and asked me to meet her there to help her decide. I was a little surprised because she knows what I think of daubers like Prosch, but I said I would go. His studio is on Carmine Street, in walking distance from my house, and I walked. She hadn’t arrived, and I had only been there two or three minutes when she phoned and asked to speak to me. She said she had been delayed and would get there as soon as she could, and asked me to wait for her. My thought was that I would wait until midnight rather than have her buy a still life by Prosch, but I didn’t say so. I didn’t wait until midnight, but I waited until nine o’clock. I discussed painting with Prosch a while, until he became insufferable, and then went down to the street and waited there. She never came. I walked back home.”

Wolfe grunted. “Can there be any doubt that it was Miss Arden on the phone? Both times?”

“Not the slightest. I couldn’t possibly mistake her voice.”

“What time was it when you left Mr. Prosch and went down to the street?”

“About half past eight. I told the police I couldn’t be exact about that, but I could about when I started home. It was exactly nine o’clock.” Kearns’s hands moved. Back to normal. “Now I’ll hear what you have to say.”

“In a moment. Miss Bram was to come at eight o’clock. Why didn’t you phone her?”

“Because I thought I would be back. Probably a little late, but she would wait. I didn’t phone her after Miss Arden phoned that she was delayed because she would be gone.”

“Where was she to drive you?”

“To Long Island. A party. What does that matter?” He was himself again. “You talk now, and I want the truth!”

Wolfe picked up his glass, emptied it, and put it down. “Possibly you are entitled to it, Mr. Kearns. Unquestionably a man of your standing would feel keenly the ignominy of having a wife in jail — the woman to whom you have given your name, though she doesn’t use it. You may know that she came to this house at twenty minutes past nine last evening.”

“I know nothing. I told you she won’t see me.”

“So you did. She arrived just as Mr. Goodwin was leaving the house on an errand and they met on the stoop. No doubt you know that Mr. Goodwin is permanently in my employ as my confidential assistant — permanently, that is, in the sense that neither of us has any present intention of ending it or changing its terms.”

Kearns was fidgeting again. I was not. He spoke. “The paper said he had left your employ. It didn’t say on account of my wife, but of course it was.”

“Bosh.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Archie?”

“Bosh,” I agreed. “The idea of quitting on account of Miss Holt never entered my head.”

Kearns hit the chair arm. “Mrs. Kearns!”

“Okay,” I conceded. “Mrs. Waldo Kearns.”

“So,” Wolfe said, “your wife’s first contact was with Mr. Goodwin. They sat on the stoop and talked. You know, of course, that Miss Bram’s cab was there at the curb with Miss Arden’s body in it.”

“Yes. What did my wife say?”

“I’ll come to that. Police came along in a car and discovered the body, and reported it, and soon there was an army. A policeman named Cramer talked with Mr. Goodwin and your wife, I went to the door and invited them to enter — not Mr. Cramer — and they did so. We talked for half an hour or so, when Mr. Cramer came with Miss Bram, and they were admitted. Mr. Cramer, annoyed by the loquacity of Miss Bram, and wishing to speak with your wife privately, took her away. You demanded the truth, sir, and you have it. I add one item, also true: since your wife had engaged Mr. Goodwin’s services, and through him mine also, what she told us was confidential and can’t be divulged. Now for—”

Kearns bounced out of the chair, and as he did so the doorbell rang. Since a man who might have stuck a knife in a woman might be capable of other forms of violence, I was going to leave it to Fritz, but Wolfe shot me a glance and I went to the hall for a look. On the stoop was a tall guy with a bony face and a strong jaw. Behind me Kearns was yapping but had drawn no weapon. I went to the front and opened the door.

“To see Mr. Wolfe,” he said. “My name is Gilbert Irving.”

The temptation was too strong. Only twelve hours ago I had seen a confrontation backfire for Cramer, when he had brought Judy Bram in to face Mira, but this time the temperament was already in the office, having a fit, and it would be interesting to see the reaction, and possibly helpful. So I told him to come in, took his Homburg and put it on the shelf beside the floppy black number, and steered him to the office.

Kearns was still on his feet yapping, but when Wolfe’s eyes left him to direct a scowl at me he turned his head. I ignored the scowl. I had disregarded another rule by bringing in a visitor without consulting Wolfe, but as far as I was concerned Mira was still my client and it was my case. I merely pronounced names. “Mr. Gilbert Irving. Mr. Wolfe.”

The reaction was interesting enough, though not helpful, since it was no news that Kearns and Irving were not pals. Perhaps Kearns didn’t actually spit at him because it could have been merely that moisture came out with his snort. Two words followed immediately. “You bastard!”

Irving must have had lessons or practice, or both. His uppercut, with his right, was swift and sure, and had power. It caught Kearns right on the button and sent him straight up a good six inches before he swayed against the corner of Wolfe’s desk.

VIII

To do him justice, Kearns handled it as well as could be expected, even better. He surprised me. He didn’t utter a peep. The desk saved him from going down. He stayed propped against it for three seconds, straightened with his hand on it for support, moved his head backward and forward twice, decided his neck was still together, and moved. His first few steps were wobbly, but by the time he reached the door to the hall they were steadier, and he made the turn okay. I went to the hall and stood, as he got his hat from the shelf and let himself out, pulling the door shut without banging it, and re-entered the office as Irving was saying, “I should beg your pardon. I do. I’m sorry.”

“You were provoked,” Wolfe told him. He gestured at the red leather chair. “Be seated.”

“Hold it.” I was there. “I guess I should beg your pardon, Mr. Irving, for not telling you he was here, and now I just beg it again. I have to tell Mr. Wolfe something that can’t wait. It won’t take long.” I went and opened the door to the front room. “If you’ll step in here.”

He didn’t like the idea. “My business is pressing,” he said.

“So is mine. If you please?”

“Your name is Archie Goodwin?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated a second, and then came, and crossed the sill, and I closed the door. Since it and the wall were soundproofed, I didn’t have to lower my voice to tell Wolfe, “I want to report. I saw his wife.”

“Indeed. Will a summary do?”

“No.” I sat. “It will for one detail, that eighty feet from where the cab was parked there is a stoneyard that would be perfect cover, you couldn’t ask for better, but you must have my talk with Mrs. Irving verbatim.”

“Go ahead.”

I did so, starting with a description of her. It had been years since he had first told me that when I described a man he must see him and hear him, and I had learned the trick long ago. I also knew how to report conversations word for word — much longer ones than the little chat I had had with Mrs. Irving.

When I had finished he asked one question. “Was she lying?”

“I wouldn’t bet either way. If so she is good. If it was a mixture I’d hate to have to sort it out.”

“Very well.” He closed his eyes. In a moment they opened. “Bring him.”

I went and opened the door to the front room and told him to come, and he entered, crossed to the red leather chair, sat, and aimed his eyes at Wolfe. “I should explain,” he said, “that I am here as a friend of Miss Mira Holt, but she didn’t send me.”

Wolfe nodded. “She mentioned your name last evening. She said you are an intelligent man.”

“I’m afraid she flatters me.” Evidently it was normal for him to sit still. “I have come to you for information, but I can’t pretend I have any special right to it. I can only tell you why I want it. When I learned on the radio this morning that Miss Holt was in custody I started downtown to see her, to offer my help, but on the way I decided that it wouldn’t be advisable because it might be misconstrued, since I am merely a friend. So I called on my lawyer instead. His name is John H. Darby. I explained the situation and asked him to see Miss Holt, and he arranged to see her and has talked with her, but she won’t tell him anything. She even refused to authorize him to arrange bail for her. She says that Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe are representing her, and she will say nothing and do nothing without their advice.”

I touched my lips with a fingertip, the lips that Mira had kissed. I was blowing the kiss back to her. Not only had she put my name first, but also she had improved on my suggestion by combining method three and method one. She was a client in a thousand. She had even turned down two offers to spring her.

“I’m not a lawyer,” Wolfe said, “and neither is Mr. Goodwin.”

“I’m aware of that. But you seemed to have hypnotized Miss Holt. With no offense intended, I must ask, are you acting in her interest or in Waldo Kearns’s?”

Wolfe grunted. “Hers. She hired us.”

I put in, “You and Kearns agree. He thinks we hypnotized her too. Nuts.”

He regarded me. “I prefer to deal with Mr. Wolfe. This is his office.”

“You’re dealing with both of us,” Wolfe told him. “Professionally we are indiscrete. What information do you want?”

“I want to know why you are taking no steps to get her released and what action you intend to take in her interest. I also want you to advise her to accept the services of my lawyer. He is highly qualified.”

Wolfe rested his palms on the chair arms. “You should know better, Mr. Irving; you’re a man of affairs. Before I gave you an inch, let alone the mile you ask for, I would have to be satisfied that your interest runs with hers.”

“Damn it, I’m her friend! Didn’t she say I am? You said she mentioned me.”

“She could be mistaken.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. For instance, I don’t even know what you have told the police.”

“Nothing. They haven’t asked me anything. Why should they?”

“Then you haven’t told them that Miss Holt told you on the phone Sunday evening that she was going to drive Judith Bram’s cab?”

It got him. He stared. He looked at me and back at Wolfe. “No,” he said. “Even if she had, would I tell the police?”

“Do you deny that she did?”

“I neither deny it nor affirm it.”

Wolfe upturned a palm. “How the devil can you expect candor from me? Do you want me to suspect that Miss Holt lied when she told us of that phone call?”

“When did she tell you?”

“Last evening. Here. Not under hypnosis.”

He considered. “All right. She told me that.”

“And whom did you tell?”

“No one.”

“You’re certain?”

“Of course I’m certain.”

“Then it won’t be easy to satisfy me. Assuming that Miss Holt fulfilled her intention and took the cab, and arrived with it at Mr. Kearns’s address at eight o’clock, and combining that assumption with the fact that at twenty minutes past nine the cab was standing in front of my house with a dead body in it, where are you? Miss Bram states that she told no one of the arrangement. Miss Holt states that she told no one but you. Is it any wonder that I ask where you are? And, specifically, where you were last evening from eight o’clock on?”

“I see.” Irving took a breath, and another. “It’s utterly preposterous. You actually suspect me of being involved in the murder of Phoebe Arden.”

“I do indeed.”

“But it’s preposterous! I had no concern whatever with Miss Arden. She meant nothing to me. Not only that, apparently whoever killed her managed to get Miss Holt involved — either managed it or permitted it. Would I do that?” He made his hands fists and raised them, shook them. “Damn it, I have to know what happened! You know. Miss Holt told you. I have to know!”

“There are things I have to know,” Wolfe said drily. “I mentioned one: your movements last evening. We have it from your wife, but I prefer it from you. That’s the rule, and a good one: get the best available evidence.”

Irving was staring again. “My wife? You have seen my wife?”

“Mr. Goodwin has. He called at your home this morning to see you, and you had gone. Your wife wished to be helpful. You know, of course, what she told him.”

“Did she tell him—” He stopped and started over. “Did she tell him about a phone call she made yesterday afternoon?”

Wolfe nodded. “And one she received. She received one from you and made one to Miss Arden.”

Irving inclined his head forward to look at his right hand. Its fingers bent, slowly, to make a fist. Apparently something about the operation was unsatisfactory, for he repeated it several times, gazing at it. At length his head came up. “My lawyer wouldn’t like this,” he said, “but I’m going to tell you something. I have to if I expect you to tell me anything. If I told you what I told my wife you would check it, and it won’t check. I know Miss Holt drove Judy Bram’s cab there last evening. I know she got there at five minutes to eight and left at ten minutes to nine. I saw her.”

“Indeed. Where were you?”

“I was in a cab parked on Carmine Street, around the corner from Ferrell Street. I suppose you know what her purpose was in driving Judy’s cab?”

“Yes. To talk with her husband.”

“I had tried to persuade her not to. Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t like it. There isn’t much that Kearns isn’t capable of. I don’t mean violence; just some trick like getting her out of the cab and going off with it. I decided to be there, and I phoned my wife that I would have to spend the evening with a business associate. I was afraid if I took my car Miss Holt might recognize it, so I got a taxi with a driver I know. Carmine Street is one-way, and we parked where we would be ready to follow when she came out of Ferrell Street. We were there when she arrived, at five minutes to eight. When she came back, nearly an hour later, she was alone. There was no one in the cab. I supposed Kearns had refused to let her drive him, and I was glad of it.”

“What then?”

“I went to my club. If you want to check I’ll give you the cab driver’s name and address. I rang Judy Bram’s number, and I rang Miss Holt’s number three or four times, but there was no answer. I supposed they were out somewhere together. And this morning I heard the radio and saw the paper.” He breathed. “I hope to heaven I won’t have to regret telling you this. If it contradicts anything she told you she’s right and I’m wrong. I could be lying, you know, for my own protection.”

I was thinking, If so you’re an expert.

Wolfe’s eyes, at him, were half closed. “It was dark. How could you know there was no one in the cab?”

“There’s a light at that corner. I have good eyes and so has the driver. She was going slow, for the turn.”

“You didn’t follow her?”

“No. There was no point in following her if Kearns wasn’t with her.”

“What would you say if I told you that Miss Holt saw you in your parked taxi as she drove by?”

“I wouldn’t believe it. When she drove by arriving I was flat on the seat. It was dark but I didn’t risk her seeing me. When she left she didn’t drive by. Carmine Street is one-way.”

Wolfe leaned back and shut his eyes, and his lips began to work. Irving started to say something, and I snapped at him, “Hold it.” Wolfe pushed his lips out and pulled them in, out and in, out and in… He was earning the twenty-five bucks I had paid him. I had no idea how, but when he starts that lip operation the sparks are flying inside his skull.

Irving tried again. “But I want—”

“Hold it.”

“But I don’t—”

“Shut up!”

He sat regarding me, not warmly.

Wolfe opened his eyes and straightened. “Mr. Irving.” He was curt. “You will get what you came here for, but not forthwith. Possibly within the hour, probably somewhat later. Tell me where I can reach you, or you may—”

“Damn it, no! I want—”

“If you please. Confound it, I’ve been yelped at enough today. Or you may wait here. That room has comfortable chairs — or one at least. Mr. Goodwin and I have work to do.”

“I don’t intend—”

“Your intentions have no interest or point. Where can we reach you?”

Irving looked at me and saw nothing hopeful. He arose. “I’ll wait here,” he said, and headed for the front room.

IX

Having turned my head to see that Irving shut the door, I turned it back again. “Fine,” I said. “We’re going to work.”

“I’m a dunce,” he said. “So are you.”

“It’s possible,” I conceded. “Can you prove it?”

“It’s manifest. Why did that policeman stop his car to look inside that cab?”

“Cops do. That’s what a prowl car is for. They saw it parked with the hackie gone, and while that’s nothing strange they thought it was worth a look. Also it was parked in front of your house. He knew it was your house. He said so.”

“Nevertheless, we are dunces not to have questioned it. I want to know if that policeman had been prompted. At once.”

“It’s a point,” I admitted. “The papers haven’t mentioned it. I doubt if Cramer would—”

“No.”

“I could try Lon Cohen.”

“Do so.”

I swiveled and dialed the Gazette number, and got Lon. Wolfe lifted his receiver to listen in. I told Lon I wanted something for nothing. He said I always did and usually got it, but if what I was after this time was an ad under “Situations Wanted” I would have to pay.

“That was just a dirty rumor,” I said. “I am permanently in Mr. Wolfe’s employ — permanently, that is, in the sense that I may still be here tomorrow. On our present job we’re shy a detail. If you’ll supply it I’ll give you something for the front page if and when. We don’t know whether the cop who stopped to uncover Phoebe Arden’s body in the taxi had been steered or was just nosy. Do you?”

“Yes, but I’m not supposed to. The DA is saving it. He may release it this afternoon. If he does I’ll call you.”

“We need it now. Not for publication, and we wouldn’t dream of quoting you. We’re just curious.”

“I’ll bet you are. I wish I got paid as much for being curious as Wolfe does. Okay. It was a dialed phone call to Canal six, two thousand. Probably a man, but it could have been a woman trying to sound like a man or the reverse. It said there was a taxi standing in front of nine-eighteen West Thirty-fifth Street with a dead woman in it. As you know, that address has been heard from before. The sergeant radioed a prowl car.”

“Has the call been traced?”

“How? Modern improvements. But you’d better ask the DA.”

“A good idea. I will. Many thanks and I won’t forget the front page.” I hung up and swiveled. “I’ll be damned. Where can we buy dunce caps? For a passerby to see it he would have had to open the door and lift the canvas.”

Wolfe’s lips were tight. “We should have done that hours ago.”

“Lon may not have known hours ago.”

“True. Even so. Get Mr. Cramer.”

I swiveled and dialed. It wasn’t as simple as getting Lon Cohen had been. Cramer was in conference and couldn’t be disturbed. I was hacking away at it when Wolfe took his phone and said, “This is Nero Wolfe. I have something that will not wait. Ask Mr. Cramer if he prefers that I deal with the District Attorney.”

In two minutes there was a bark. “What do you want?”

“Mr. Cramer?” He knew darned well it was.

“Yes. I’m busy.”

“So am I. Is it true that Miss Holt refuses to talk without advice from Mr. Goodwin or me?”

“Yes, it is, and I was just telling Stebbins to get Goodwin down here. And then I’m going—”

“If you please. Mr. Goodwin and I have decided that it is now desirable for Miss Holt to answer any questions you care to ask — or that it will be after we have had a brief talk with her. Since I must be present and I transact business only in my own office, it will be pointless for you to send for him. If you want her to talk bring her here.”

“You’re too late, Wolfe. I don’t need her to tell me that she drove that cab to your address. I already know it. Her prints are on the steering wheel and the door, and other places. You’re too late.”

“Has she admitted it?”

“No, but she will.”

“I doubt it. She’s rather inflexible. I regret having called you to the phone to no purpose. May I make a request? Don’t keep Mr. Goodwin longer than necessary. I am about to conclude a matter in which he has an interest and would like him present. I wanted Miss Holt here too, but since I’m too late I’ll have to manage without her.”

Silence. Prolonged.

“Are you there, Mr. Cramer?”

“Yes. So you’re going to conclude a matter.”

“I am. Soon afterwards Miss Holt and Mr. Goodwin and I will talk not by your sufferance but at our will.”

“Are you saying that you know who killed Phoebe Arden?”

“‘Know’ implies certitude. I have formed a conclusion and intend to verify it. It shouldn’t take long. But I’m keeping you. Could you do without Mr. Goodwin until, say, four o’clock? It’s half past twelve. By then we should have finished.”

Another silence, not quite so long. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Cramer said.

“With Miss Holt?”

“Yes.”

“Satisfactory. But not in fifteen minutes. I must get Judith Bram and Waldo Kearns. Do you know where they are?”

“Kearns is at his home. He said he would be if we wanted him again. Judith Bram is here. I’ll bring her along, and I’ll send for Kearns. Now.”

“No, people have to eat. Will you lunch with us? And Miss Holt?”

“I will not. Did you ever skip a meal in your life?”

“Many times when I was younger, by necessity. Then I suggest that you arrive with Miss Holt at two o’clock, and arrange for Miss Bram and Mr. Kearns to come at two-thirty. Will that be convenient?”

“By God. Convenient!”

A click. He was off. We hung up. I said, “Probably Irving eats too.”

“Yes. Bring him.”

I went and got him. He marched to Wolfe’s desk and demanded, “Well?”

Wolfe’s head slanted back. “I forgot, sir, when I said possibly within the hour, that lunch would interfere. It will be a little longer. I have spoken with Inspector Cramer, and he will arrive with Miss Holt at two o’clock. We shall expect you and your wife to join us at two-thirty.”

His jaw was working. “Miss Holt will be here?”

“Yes.”

“Why my wife?”

“Because she has something to contribute. As you know, she had an appointment with Miss Arden which Miss Arden did not keep. That will be germane.”

“Germane to what?”

“To our discussion.”

“I don’t want a discussion. I certainly don’t want one with a police inspector. I told you what I want.”

“And you’ll get it, sir, but the method and manner are in my discretion. I give you my assurance without qualification that I am acting solely in the interest of Miss Holt, that I expect to free her of any suspicion of complicity in the murder of Phoebe Arden, and that I shall not disclose what you have told me of your movements last evening without your prior permission. Confound it, do I owe you anything?”

“No.” His jaw was still working. “I’d rather not bring my wife.”

“We’ll need her. If you prefer, I’ll arrange for Inspector Cramer to send for her.”

“No.” He breathed. He looked at me and back at Wolfe. “All right. We’ll be here.” He wheeled and went.

X

Five of the yellow chairs were in place facing Wolfe’s desk, three in front and two behind, and Mira was in the one nearest to Cramer. I had intended the one at my end for her, but Cramer had vetoed it, and since she was his prisoner I hadn’t insisted. Of course he was in the red leather chair, and the uninvited guest he had brought along, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, was seated at his right, with his broad, burly shoulders touching the wall.

Mira looked fine, considering. Her eyes were a little heavy and the lids were swollen, and her jacket could have stood washing and ironing, and the corners of her mouth pointed down, but I thought she looked fine. Wolfe, seated behind his desk, was glowering at her, but the glower wasn’t meant for her. It was merely that he had had to tell Fritz to advance the lunch hour fifteen minutes, and then had had to hurry through the corn fritters and sausage cakes and wild-thyme honey from Greece and cheese and blackberry pie with not enough time to enjoy it properly.

“Was it bad?” he asked her.

“Not too bad,” she said. “I didn’t get too much sleep. The worst was when the morning passed and I didn’t hear from you.” Her head turned. “Or you, Mr. Goodwin.”

I nodded. “I was busy earning my fee. I wasn’t worried about you because you had promised you wouldn’t forget method three.”

“I kept my promise.”

“I know you did. I’ll buy you a drink any time you’re thirsty.”

“Get on,” Cramer growled.

“Have you been told,” Wolfe asked her, “that others will join us shortly?”

“No,” she said. “Here? Who?”

“Miss Bram, Mr. Kearns, and Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Irving.”

Her eyes widened. “Why Mr. and Mrs. Irving?”

“That will appear after they arrive. I thought you should know that they’re coming. They’ll soon be here, and we have two points to cover. First I need a question answered. When you drove away from Ferrell Street last evening, and meandered in search of a place to dispose of the corpse — don’t interrupt me — and finally drove here, did you at any time suspect that you were being followed by another car?”

Her mouth was hanging open. “But you—” she stammered. Her head jerked to me. “Did you know he was — what good did it do to keep my promise?”

“A lot,” I told her. “Yes, I knew he was. Everything is under control. Believe me. I would rather lose an arm than lose the right to ask you to promise me something. We know what we’re doing. Shall I repeat the question?”

“But—”

“No buts. Leave it to us. Shall I repeat the question?”

“Yes.”

I did so, omitting the “don’t interrupt me.”

“No,” she said.

“Proceed,” Wolfe told me.

I knew it would have been better to have her closer. She was six yards away. “This one is more complicated and more important. During that drive, from Ferrell Street to here, are you certain that another car was not following you? There are various ways of making sure of that. Did you use any of them?”

“No. I never thought of that. I was looking for a place—”

“I know you were. All we want is this: if I told you that a car was following you, all the way, what would you say?”

“I would want to know who it was.”

I wanted to go and pat her on the head, but it might have been misconstrued. “Okay,” I said. “That’s one point. The other one is simple. Tell Inspector Cramer what you told us last night, including the phone call to Gilbert Irving to tell him that you were going to drive Judy’s cab.” I looked at my wrist. “You only have fifteen minutes, so reel it off.”

“I won’t,” she said. “Not until you tell me why you’re doing this.”

“Then I’ll tell him. You’ll know why after the others get here. I’ll tell you this: someone tried to frame you for murder and this is payday. Anyway there’s not much left, now that the inspector knows you drove the cab here with the corpse in it. Would we have spilled that if we didn’t have a good hold? Go ahead.”

Wolfe put in, “Don’t interrupt with questions, Mr. Cramer. They can wait. Yes, Miss Holt?”

She still didn’t like it, not a bit, but she delivered, starting with Sunday evening. She left gaps. She didn’t say that Judy had given her permission to take the cab, merely that she had taken it, and she didn’t mention the phone call to Irving; but since I had already mentioned it that didn’t matter. The main thing was what had happened after she got to Ferrell Street with the cab, and she covered that completely; and when she got to where she and I had sat on the stoop and talked, Cramer began cutting in with questions. I will not say that he was more interested in tagging me for obstructing justice than he was in solving a murder case, since I don’t like to brag, but it sounded like it. He was firing away at her, and Sergeant Stebbins was scrawling in his notebook, when the doorbell rang and I went to answer it. It was Waldo Kearns. When I took him to the office he went to Mira, without so much as a glance for the three men, and put out a hand.

“My dear wife,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mira said.

I can’t report whether he handled that as well as he had handled the uppercut by Irving because the bell rang again and I had to leave them, to admit Judy Bram. She had an escort, a Homicide dick I only knew by sight, and he thought he was going to enter with her and I didn’t, and while we were discussing it she slipped in and left it to us. We were still chatting when a taxi stopped out front and Mr. and Mrs. Irving got out and headed for the steps. The dick had to give them room to pass, and I was able to shut the door on him without flattening his nose. Since it was quite possible that Irving’s appearance would start something I entered the office on their heels.

Nothing happened. Mira merely shot him a glance and he returned it. Kearns didn’t even glance at him. The newcomers stood while Wolfe pronounced their names for Cramer and Stebbins and told them who Cramer and Stebbins were, and then went to the two chairs still vacant, the two nearest my desk. Mrs. Irving took the one in front, with Judy between her and Mira, and her husband took the one back of her, which put him only a long arm’s length from Waldo Kearns.

As Wolfe’s eyes moved from right to left, stopping at Mira, and back again, Cramer spoke. “You understand that this is not an official inquiry. Sergeant Stebbins and I are looking on. You also understand that Mira Holt is under arrest as a material witness. If she had been charged with murder she wouldn’t be here.”

“Why isn’t she out on bail?” Judy Bram demanded. “I want to know why—”

“That will do,” Wolfe snapped. “You’re here to listen, Miss Bram, and if you don’t hold your tongue Mr. Goodwin will drag you out. If necessary Mr. Stebbins will help.”

“But why—”

“No! One more word and out you go.”

She set her teeth on her lip and glared at him. He glared back, decided she was squelched, and left her.

“I am acting,” he said, “jointly with Mr. Goodwin, on behalf of Miss Holt. At our persuasion she has just told Mr. Cramer of her movements last evening. I’ll sketch them briefly. Shortly after seven-thirty she took Miss Bram’s cab and drove it to Ferrell Street and parked at the mouth of the alley leading to Mr. Kearns’s house. She expected him to appear but he didn’t. At eight-thirty she left the cab, went through the alley to the house, knocked several times, and looked in windows. Getting no response, she returned to the cab, having been gone about ten minutes. There was a dead body in the cab, a woman, and she recognized her. It was Phoebe Arden. I will not—”

“You fat fool!” Judy blurted. “You’re a fine—”

“Archie!” he commanded.

I stood up. She clamped her teeth on her lip. I sat down.

“I will not,” Wolfe said, “go into her thought processes, but confine myself to her actions. She covered the body with a piece of canvas and drove away. Her intention was to dispose of her cargo in some likely spot, and she drove around in search of one, but found none. I omit details — for instance, that she rang the number of Miss Bram from a phone booth and got no answer. She decided she must have counsel, drove to my house, met Mr. Goodwin on the stoop, and gave him a rigmarole about a bet she had made. Since he is vulnerable to the attractions of personable young women, he swallowed it.”

I swallowed that. I had to, with Cramer sitting there.

“Now,” Wolfe said, “a crucial fact. I learned it myself less than three hours ago. Only a few minutes after Miss Holt and Mr. Goodwin met on the stoop someone phoned police headquarters to say that a taxi standing in front of this address had a dead woman in it. That is—”

“Where did you get that?” Cramer demanded.

Wolfe snorted. “Pfui. Not from you or Mr. Stebbins. That is proof, to me conclusive, that the murderer of Phoebe Arden had no wish or need for her to die. Phoebe Arden was killed only because her corpse was needed as a tool for the destruction of another person — a design so cold-blooded and malign that even I am impressed. Whether she was killed in the cab, or at a nearby spot and the body taken to the cab, is immaterial. The former is more likely, and I assume it. What did the murderer do? He, or she — we lack a neuter pronoun — he entered the cab with Phoebe Arden the moment Miss Holt disappeared in the alley, coming from their hiding place in the stoneyard across the street. Having stabbed his victim — or rather his tool — he walked up Ferrell Street and around the corner to where his car was parked on Carmine Street. Before going to his car he stood near the corner to see if Miss Holt, on returning to the cab, removed the body before driving away. If she had, he would have found a booth and phoned police headquarters immediately.”

Cramer growled, “What if Kearns had come out with Miss Holt?”

“He knew he wouldn’t. I’ll come to that. You are assuming that Kearns was not the murderer.”

“I am assuming nothing.”

“That’s prudent. When Miss Holt turned the cab into Carmine Street and drove on, he followed her. He followed her throughout her search for a place to get rid of the corpse, and on to her final destination, this house. Some of my particulars are assumption or conjecture, but not this one. He must have done so, for when she stopped here he drove on by, found a phone booth, and made the call to the police. The only other possible source of the call was a passerby who had seen the corpse in the cab as it stood at the curb, and a passerby couldn’t have seen it without opening the door and lifting the canvas.” His eyes went to Cramer. “Of course that hadn’t escaped you.”

Cramer grunted.

Wolfe turned a hand over. “If his objective was the death of Phoebe Arden, why didn’t he kill her in the stoneyard — they must have been there, since there is no other concealment near — and leave her there? Or if he did kill her there, which is highly unlikely, why did he carry or drag the body to the cab? And why, his objective reached, did he follow the cab in its wanderings and at the first opportunity call the police? I concede the possibility that he had a double objective, to destroy both Miss Arden and Miss Holt, but if so Miss Holt must have been his main target. To kill Miss Arden, once he had her in the stoneyard with a weapon at hand, was simple and involved little risk; to use her body as a tool for the destruction of Miss Holt was a complicated and daring operation, and the risks were great. I am convinced that he had a single objective, to destroy Miss Holt.”

“Then why?” Cramer demanded. “Why didn’t he kill her?”

“I can only conjecture, but it is based on logic. Because it was known that he had reason to wish Miss Holt dead, and no matter how ingenious his plan and adroit its execution, he would have been suspected and probably brought to account. I have misstated it. That’s what he did. He devised a plan so ingenious that he thought he would be safe.”

Purley Stebbins got up, circled around the red leather chair, and stood at Waldo Kearns’s elbow.

“No, Mr. Stebbins,” Wolfe said. “Our poor substitute for a neuter pronoun is misleading. I’ll abandon it. If you want to guard a murderer stand by Mrs. Irving.”

Knowing that was coming any second, I had my eye on her. She was only four feet from me. She didn’t move a muscle, but her husband did. He put a hand to his forehead and squeezed. I could see his knuckles go white. Mira’s eyes stayed fixed on Wolfe, but Judy and Kearns turned to look at Mrs. Irving. Stebbins did too, but he didn’t move.

Cramer spoke. “Who is Mrs. Irving?”

“She is present, sir.”

“I know she is. Who is she?”

“She is the wife of the man whom Miss Holt called on the phone Sunday evening to tell him that she was going to take Miss Bram’s cab, and why. Mr. Irving has stated that he told no one of that call. Either he lied or his wife eavesdropped. Mr. Irving. Might your wife have overheard that conversation on an extension?”

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

“I shall. Did you, madam?”

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

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

“I wasn’t free at all,” she said. “I told Mr. Goodwin I wanted to help, and—”

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

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

“You can’t prove any of this,” Cramer growled.

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

“Don’t answer,” Irving commanded her.

“Yes, she does,” Judy Bram said, louder than necessary.

“Thank you, Miss Bram. Apparently you can speak to the point. Then you and Miss Arden went in your car, and parked it on Carmine Street — away from the corner in the direction Miss Holt would take when, leaving, she made the turn from Ferrell Street. You walked to the stoneyard and chose your hiding spot, and when Miss Holt left the cab you went and entered it. It is noteworthy that at that point you were committed to nothing but a prank. If Miss Holt had suddenly returned, or if anyone had come close enough to observe, you would merely have abandoned your true objective — a disappointment, but no disaster. As it was, you struck. I am not a moralizer, but I permit myself the comment that in my experience your performance is without parallel for ruthlessness and savagery. It appears that Miss Arden was not merely no enemy of yours; she was your friend. She must have been, to join with you in your impish prank; but you needed her corpse for a tool to gratify your mortal hatred for Miss Holt. That was—”

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

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

“No. It’s love. He wants her.”

“Was his wife aware of it?”

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

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

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

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

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

“There’s nothing at all I can prove,” Wolfe said. “I have merely exposed the naked truth; it is for you, not me, to drape it and arm it with the evidence the law requires. For that you are well equipped; surely you need no suggestions from me; but, item, did Mrs. Irving get her car from the garage yesterday evening? What for? If to drive to a restaurant and then to a theater, in itself unlikely, where did she park it? Item, the knife. If she conceived her prank only after her husband phoned to cancel their engagement, which is highly probable, she hadn’t time to contrive an elaborate and prudent plan for getting a weapon. She either bought one at a convenient shop, or she took one from her own kitchen; and if the latter her cook or maid will have missed it and can identify it. Her biggest mistake, of course, was leaving the knife in the body, even with the handle wiped clean; but she was in a hurry to leave, she was afraid blood would spurt on her, and she was confident that she would never be suspected of killing her good friend Phoebe Arden. Other items—”

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

“Take it easy,” Purley said. “Just take it easy.”

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

XI

Yesterday I drove Mira and Judy to Idlewild, where Mira was to board a plane for Reno. Judy and I had tossed a coin to decide whether the trip would be made in the Heron sedan which Wolfe owns and I drive, or in Judy’s cab, and I had won. On the way back I remarked that I supposed Kearns had agreed to accept service for a Reno divorce because now it wouldn’t leave him free to marry Phoebe Arden.

“No,” Judy said. “Because his wife was a witness in a murder trial and that wouldn’t do.”

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

“No,” she said. “Only now I’m not sure who it is. It could even be you.”

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

“No,” Judy said. “They’ll wait at least a year. Gil Irving will always be a gentleman.”

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

Content

Rex Stout
Method Three for Murder

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