Rex Stout

Kill Now — Pay Later

1

That Monday morning Pete didn’t give me his usual polite grin, contrasting the white gleam of his teeth with the maple-syrup shade of the skin of his square leathery face. He did give me his usual greeting, “Hi-ho, Mr. Goodwin,” but with no grin in his voice either, and he ignored the established fact that I expected to take his cap and jacket and put them on the rack. By the time I turned from shutting the door he had dropped his jacket on the hall bench and was picking up his box, which he had put on the floor to free his hands for the jacket.

“You’re an hour early,” I said. “They going barefoot?”

“Naw, they’re busy,” he said, and headed down the hall to the office. I followed, snubbed; after all, we had been friends for more than three years.

Pete came three days a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — around noon, after he had finished his rounds in an office building on Eighth Avenue. Wolfe always gave him a dollar, since it was a five-minute walk for him to the old brownstone on West 35th Street, and I only gave him a quarter, but he gave my shoes as good a shine as he did Wolfe’s. None better. I never pretended to keep busy while he was working on Wolfe because I liked to listen. It was instructive. Wolfe’s line was that a man who had been born in Greece, even though he had left at the age of six, should be familiar with the ancient glories of his native land, and he had been hammering away at Pete for forty months. That morning, as Wolfe swiveled his oversized chair, in which he was seated behind his desk, and Pete knelt and got his box in place, and I crossed to my desk, Wolfe demanded, “Who was Eratosthenes and who accused him of murder in a great and famous speech in four-oh-three B.C.?”

Pete, poising his brush, shook his head.

“Who?” Wolfe demanded.

“Maybe Pericles.”

“Nonsense. Pericles had been dead twenty-six years. Confound it, I read parts of that speech to you last year. His name begins with L.”

“Lycurgus.”

“No! The Athenian Lycurgus hadn’t been born!”

Pete looked up. “Today you must excuse me.” He tapped his head with the edge of the brush. “Empty today. Why I came early, something happened. I go in a man’s room, Mr. Ashby, a good customer, two bits every day. Room empty, nobody there. Window wide open, cold wind coming in. Tenth floor. I go and look out window, big crowd down below and cops. I go out to hall and take elevator down, I push through crowd, and there is my good customer, Mr. Ashby, there on the sidewalk, all smashed up terrible. I push back out of crowd, I look up, I see heads sticking out of windows, I think it’s no good going up to customers now, they will be looking out of windows, so I come here, that’s why I come early, so today you must excuse me, Mr. Wolfe.” He lowered his head and started the brush going.

Wolfe grunted. “I advise you to return to that building without delay. Does anyone know you were in his room?”

“Sure. Miss Cox.”

“She saw you enter?”

“Sure.”

“How long were you in his room?”

“Maybe one minute.”

“Did Miss Cox see you leave?”

“No, I go out another door to the hall.”

“Did you push him out the window?”

Pete stopped brushing to raise his head. “Now, Mr. Wolfe. In God’s name.”

“I advise you to return. If a crowd had already gathered when you looked out the window, and if Miss Cox can fix the exact time you entered the room, you are probably not vulnerable, but you may be in a pickle. You should not have left the premises. The police will soon be looking for you. Go back at once. Mr. Goodwin’s shoes can wait till Wednesday — or come this afternoon.”

Pete put the brush down and got out the polish. “Cops,” he said. “They’re all right, I like cops. But if I tell a cop I saw someone—” He started dabbing polish on. “No,” he said. “No, sir.”

Wolfe grunted. “So you saw someone.”

“I didn’t say I saw someone, I only said what if I told a cop I did? Did they have cops in Athens in four-oh-three B.C.?” He dabbed polish.

That took the conversation back to the ancient glories of Greece, but I didn’t listen. While Pete finished with Wolfe and then shined me, ignoring Wolfe’s advice, I practiced on him. The idea that a detective should stick strictly to facts is the bunk. One good opinion can sometimes get you further than a hundred assorted facts. So I practiced on Pete Vassos for that ten minutes. Had he killed a man half an hour ago? If the facts, now being gathered by cops, made it possible but left it open, how would I vote? I ended by not voting because I would have had to know about motive. For money, no, Pete wouldn’t. For vengeance, that would depend on what for. For fear, sure, if the fear was hot enough. So I couldn’t vote.

An hour later, when I walked crosstown on an errand to the bank, I stopped at the corner at Eighth Avenue for a look. The smashed-up Mr. Ashby had been removed, but the sidewalk in front of the building was roped off to keep the crowd of volunteer criminologists from interfering with the research of a couple of homicide scientists, and three cops were dealing with the traffic. Looking up, I saw a few heads sticking out of windows, but none on the tenth floor, which was third from the top.

The afternoon Gazette is delivered a little after five o’clock at the old brownstone on West 35th Street which is owned and lived in and worked in — when he works — by Nero Wolfe, and when we have no important operation going it’s a dead hour in the office. Wolfe is up in the plant rooms on the roof with Theodore for his four-to-six afternoon session with the orchids, Fritz is in the kitchen getting something ready for the oven or the pot, and I am killing time. So when the Gazette came that day it was welcomed, and I learned all it knew about the death of Mr. Dennis Ashby. He had hit the sidewalk at 10:35 A.M. and had died on arrival. No one had been found who had seen him come out of the window of his office on the tenth floor, but it was assumed that that was where he had come from, since the receptionist, Miss Frances Cox, had spoken with him on the phone at 10:28, and no other nearby window had been open.

If the police had decided whether to call it accident or suicide or murder they weren’t saying. If anyone had been with Ashby in the room when he left by the window, he wasn’t bragging about it. No one had gone to the room after 10:35, when Ashby had hit the sidewalk, for some fifteen minutes, when a bootblack named Peter Vassos had entered, expecting to give Ashby a shine. A few minutes later, when a cop who had got Ashby’s name from papers in his pocket had arrived on the tenth floor, Vassos had departed. Found subsequently at his home on Graham Street on the Lower East Side, Manhattan, he had been taken to the district attorney’s office for questioning.

Dennis Ashby, thirty-nine, married, no children, had been vice-president of Mercer’s Bobbins, Inc., in charge of sales and promotion. According to his business associates and his widow, he had been in good health and his affairs had been in order, and he had had no reason to kill himself. The widow, Joan, was grief-stricken and wouldn’t see reporters. Ashby had been below average in stature, 5 feet 7, 140 pounds. That bit, saved for the last, was a typical Gazette touch, suggesting that it would be no great feat to shove a man that size through a window, so it had probably been murder, and buy the Gazette tomorrow to find out.

At six o’clock the sound came from the hall of the elevator groaning its way down and jolting to a stop, and Wolfe entered. I waited until he had crossed to his desk and got his seventh of a ton lowered into the oversized chair to say, “They’ve got Pete down at the DA’s office. Apparently he didn’t go back to the building at all, and they—”

The doorbell rang. I got up and stepped to the hall, switched on the stoop light, saw a familiar brawny figure through the one-way glass, and turned. “Cramer.”

“What does he want?” Wolfe growled. That meant let him in. When Inspector Cramer of Homicide South is not to be admitted, with or without reason, Wolfe merely snaps, “No!” When he is to be admitted but is first to be riled, again with or without reason, Wolfe says, “I’m busy.” As for Cramer, he has moods too. When I open the door he may cross the sill and march down the hall without a grunt of greeting, or he may hello me man to man. Twice he has even called me Archie, but that was a slip of the tongue. That day he let me take his hat and coat, and when I got to the office he was in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk, but not settled back. That chair has a deep seat, and Cramer likes to plant his feet flat on the floor. I have never seen him cross his legs. He told Wolfe this wouldn’t take long, he just wanted a little information to fill in, and Wolfe grunted.

“About that man that came this morning to shine your shoes,” Cramer said. “Peter Vassos. What time did he get here?”

Wolfe shook his head. “You should know better, Mr. Cramer. You do know better. I answer questions only when you have established their relevance to your duty and to my obligation, and then at my discretion.”

“Yeah.” Cramer squeezed his lips together and counted three. “Yeah. Never make it simple, no matter how simple it is, that’s you. I’m investigating what may have been a murder, and Peter Vassos may have done it. If he did, he came straight to you afterwards. I know, he’s been coming more than three years, three times a week, to shine your shoes, but today he came early. I want to know what he said. I don’t have to remind you that you’re a licensed private detective, you’re not a lawyer, and communications to you are not privileged. What time did Vassos come this morning and what did he say?”

Wolfe’s brows were up. “Not established. ‘May have’ isn’t enough. A man can get through a window unaided.”

“This one didn’t. Close to certain. There was a thing on his desk, a big hunk of polished petrified wood, and it had been wiped. A thing like that on a man’s desk would have somebody’s prints or at least smudges, and it didn’t. It had been wiped. And at the back of his head, at the base of his skull, something smooth and round had hit him hard. Nothing he hit when he landed could have done that, and nothing on the way down. This hasn’t been released yet, but it will be in the morning.”

Wolfe made a face. “Then your second ‘may have.’ Supposing that someone hit him with that thing and then pushed him out the window, it couldn’t have been Mr. Vassos, by his account. A woman, a Miss Cox, saw him enter Mr. Ashby’s room; and within seconds after entering, finding no one there, he looked out the window and saw a crowd gathered below. If Miss Cox can set the time within—”

“She can. She does. But Vassos might have been in there before that. He could have entered by the other door, direct from the outer hall. That door was kept locked, but he could have knocked and Ashby let him in. He hit Ashby with that thing, killed him or stunned him, dragged or carried him to the window and pushed him out, left by that door, went down the hall and entered the anteroom and spoke to Miss Cox, went to Mercer’s room and gave him a shine, went to Busch’s room and gave him a shine, went to Ashby’s room by the inner hall, speaking to Miss Cox again, looked out of the window or didn’t, left by the door to the outer hall he had used before, took the elevator down and left the building, decided he had better come and see you, and came. What did he say?”

Wolfe took a deep breath. “Very well. I won’t pretend that I’m not concerned. Aside from the many pleasant conversations I have had with Mr. Vassos, he is an excellent bootblack and he never fails to come. He would be hard to replace. Therefore I’ll indulge you. Archie. Report to Mr. Cramer in full. Verbatim.”

I did so. That was easy, compared to some of the lengthy and complicated dialogues I have had to report to Wolfe over the years. I got my notebook and pen and shorthanded it down as I recited it, so there would be no discrepancy if he wanted it typed and signed later. Since I was looking at the notebook I couldn’t see Cramer’s face, but of course his sharp gray eyes were fastened on me, trying to spot a sign of a skip or stumble. When I came to the end, Pete’s departure, and tossed the notebook on my desk, he looked at Wolfe.

“You advised him to go back there at once?”

“Yes. Mr. Goodwin’s memory is incomparable.”

“I know it is. He’s good at forgetting too. Vassos didn’t go back. He went home and we found him there. His account of his conversation with you agrees with Goodwin’s, only he left something out or Goodwin put something in. Vassos says nothing about telling you he saw someone.”

“He didn’t You heard it. It was an if — what if he told a cop he saw someone.”

“Yeah. Like for instance, if he told a cop he saw someone going into Ashby’s room by the hall door, would that be a good idea, or not? like that?”

“Pfui. You’re welcome to your conjectures, but don’t expect me to rate them. I’m concerned; I have said so; it would be a serious inconvenience to lose Mr. Vassos. If he killed that man a jury would wonder why. So would I.”

“We’re not ready for a jury.” Cramer stood up. “But we’ve got a pretty good guess at why. Granting that Goodwin has reported everything Vassos said today, which I don’t, what about other days? What has Vassos ever said about Ashby?”

“Nothing.”

“He has never mentioned his name?”

“No. Archie?”

“Right,” I said. “Not before today.”

“What has he ever said about his daughter?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said.

“Correction,” I said. “What Pete talked about wasn’t up to him. Mr. Wolfe kept him on the ancient glories of Greece. But one day more than two years ago, in June nineteen fifty-eight, when Mr. Wolfe was upstairs in bed with the flu, Pete told me his daughter had just graduated from high school and showed me a picture of her. Pete and I would know each other a lot better if it wasn’t for ancient Greece.”

“And he has never mentioned his daughter since?”

“No, how could he?”

“Nuts. Greece.” Cramer looked at Wolfe. “You know what I think? I think this. If you know Vassos killed Ashby, and you know why, on account of his daughter, and you can help nail him for it, you won’t. If you can help him wriggle out of it, you will.” He tapped Wolfe’s desk with a finger. “Just because, by God, you can count on him to come and shine your shoes, and you like to spout to him about people nobody ever heard of. That’s you.” His eyes darted to me. “And you.” He turned and tramped out.

2

It was exactly twenty-eight hours later, Tuesday evening at half past ten, that I went to answer the doorbell and saw, through the one-way glass of the front door, a scared but determined little face bounded at the sides by the turned-up collar of a brown wool coat and on top by a fuzzy brown thing that flopped to the right. When I opened the door she told me with a single rush of breath, “You’re Archie Goodwin I’m Elma Vassos.”

It had been a normal nothing-stirring day, three meals, Wolfe reading a book and dictating letters in between his morning and afternoon turns in the plant rooms, Fritz housekeeping and cooking, me choring. It was still in the air whether I would have to find another bootblack. According to the papers the police had tagged Ashby’s death as murder, but no one had been charged. Around one o’clock Sergeant Purley Stebbins had phoned to ask if we knew where Peter Vassos was, and when I said no and started to ask a question he hung up on me. A little after four Lon Cohen of the Gazette had phoned to offer a grand for a thousand-word piece on Peter Vassos, a dollar a word, and another grand if I would tell him where Vassos was. I declined with thanks and made a counter offer, my autograph in his album if he would tell me who at Homicide or the DA’s bureau had given him the steer that we knew Vassos. When I told him I had no idea where Vassos was he pronounced a word you are not supposed to use on the telephone.

I usually stick to the rule that no one is to be ushered to the office when Wolfe is there without asking him, but I ignore it now and then in an emergency. That time the emergency was a face. I had been in the kitchen chinning with Fritz. Wolfe was buried in a book, we had no case and no client, and to him no woman is ever welcome in that house. Ten to one he would have refused to see her. But I had seen her scared little face and he hadn’t, and anyway he hadn’t done a lick of work for more than two weeks, and it would be up to me, not him, to find another bootblack if it came to that So I invited her in, took her coat and put it on a hanger, escorted her to the office, and said, “Miss Elma Vassos. Pete’s daughter.” Wolfe closed his book on a finger and glared at me. She put a hand on the back of the red leather chair to steady herself. It looked as if she might crack, and I took her arm and eased her into the chair. Wolfe transferred the glare to her, and there was her face. It was a little face, but not too little, and the point was that you didn’t see any of the details, eyes or mouth or nose, just the face. I have supplied descriptions of many faces professionally, but with her I wouldn’t know where to begin. I asked her if she wanted a drink, water or something stronger, and she said no.

She looked at Wolfe and said, “You’re Nero Wolfe. Do you know my father is dead?” She needed more breath.

Wolfe shook his head. His lips parted and closed again. He turned to me. “Confound it, get something! Brandy. Whisky.”

“I couldn’t swallow it,” she said. “You didn’t know?”

“No.” He was gruff. “When? How? Can you talk?”

“I guess so.” She wasn’t any too sure. “I have to. Some boys found him at the bottom of a cliff. I went and looked at him — not there, at the morgue.” She set her teeth on her lip, hard, but it didn’t change the face. She made the teeth let go. “They think he killed himself, he jumped off, but he didn’t. I know he didn’t.”

Wolfe pushed his chair back. “I offer my profound sympathy, Miss Vassos.” Even gruffer. He arose. “I’ll leave you with Mr. Goodwin. You will give him the details.” He moved, the book in his hand.

That was him. He thought she was going to flop, and a woman off the rail is not only unwelcome, she is not to be borne. Not by him. But she caught his sleeve and stopped him. “You,” she said. “I must tell you. To my father you are a great man, the greatest man in the world. I must tell you.”

“She’ll do,” I said. “She’ll make it.”

There are few men who would not like to be told they are the greatest in the world, and Wolfe isn’t one of them. He stared down at her for five seconds, returned to his chair, sat, inserted the marker in the book and put it down, scowled at her, and demanded, “When did you eat?”

“I haven’t — I can’t swallow.”

“Pfui. When did you eat?”

“A little this morning. My father hadn’t come home and I didn’t know...”

He swiveled to push a button, leaned back, closed his eyes, and opened them when he heard a step at the door. “Tea with honey, Fritz. Toast, pot cheese, and Bar-le-Duc. For Miss Vassos.”

Fritz went.

“I really can’t,” she said.

“You will if you want me to listen. Where is the cliff?”

It took her a second to go back. “It’s in the country somewhere. I guess they told me, but I don’t—”

“When was he found?”

“Sometime this afternoon, late this afternoon.”

“You saw him at the morgue. Where, in the country?”

“No, they brought him; it’s not far from here. When I had — when I could — I came here from there.”

“Who was with you?”

“Two men, detectives. They told me their names, but I don’t remember.”

“I mean with you. Brother, sister, mother?”

“I have no brother or sister. My mother died ten years ago.”

“When did you last see your father alive?”

“Yesterday. When I got home from work he wasn’t there, and it was nearly six o’clock when he came, and he said he had been at the district attorney’s office for three hours, they had been asking him questions about Mr. Ashby. You know about Mr. Ashby, he said he told you about him when he came here. Of course I already knew about him because I work there. I did work there.”

“Where?”

“At the office. That company. Mercer’s Bobbins.”

“Indeed. In what capacity?”

“I’m a stenographer. Not anybody’s secretary, just a stenographer. Mostly typing and sometimes letters for Mr. Busch. My father got me the job through Mr. Mercer.”

“How long ago?”

“Two years ago. After I graduated from high school.”

“Then you knew Mr. Ashby.”

“Yes. I knew him a little, yes.”

“About last evening. Your father came home around six. Then?”

“I had dinner nearly ready, and we talked, and we ate, and then we talked some more. He said there was something he hadn’t told the police and he hadn’t told you, and he was going to go and tell you in the morning and ask you what he ought to do. He said you were such a great man that people paid you fifty thousand dollars just to tell them what to do, and he thought you would tell him for nothing, so it would be foolish not to go and ask you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Then a friend of mine came — I was going to a movie with her — and we went When I got home father wasn’t there and there was a note on the table. It said he was going out and might be late. One of the detectives tried to take the note but I wouldn’t let him. I have it here in my bag if you want to see it.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not necessary. Had your father mentioned before you left that he intended to go out?”

“No. And he always did. We always told each other ahead of time what we were going to do.”

“Had he given you no hint — Very well, Fritz.”

Fritz crossed to the red leather chair, put the tray on the little table that is always there for people to write checks on, and proffered her a napkin. She didn’t lift a hand to take it. Wolfe spoke.

“I’ll listen to more, Miss Vassos, only after you eat.” He picked up his book, opened to his page, and swiveled to put his back to her. She took the napkin. Fritz went I could have turned to my desk and pretended to do something, but I would have been reflected to her in the big mirror on the wall back of my desk, which gives me a view of the door to the hall, and she would have been reflected to me, so I got up and went to the kitchen. Fritz was at the side table putting the cover on the toaster. As I got the milk from the refrigerator I told him, “She’s the daughter of Pete Vassos. I’ll have to scare up a bootblack. He’s dead.”

“Him?” Fritz turned. “Dieu m’en garde.” He shook his head. “Too young. Then she is not a client?”

“Not one to send a bill to.” I poured milk. “Anyhow, as you know, he wouldn’t take a paying client if one came up the stoop on his knees. It’s December, and his tax bracket is near the top. If she wants him to help and he won’t, I’ll take a leave of absence and handle it myself. You saw her face.”

He snorted. “She should be warned. About you.”

“Sure. I’ll do that first.”

I don’t gulp milk. When the glass was half empty I tiptoed out to the office door. Wolfe’s back was still turned and Elma was putting jam on a piece of toast I finished the milk, taking my time, and took the glass to the kitchen, and when I returned Wolfe had about-faced and put the book down and she was saying something. I entered and crossed to my desk.

“... and he had never done that before,” she was telling Wolfe. “I thought he might have gone back to the district attorney’s office, so I phoned there, but he hadn’t. I phoned two of his friends but they hadn’t seen him. I went to work as usual, he goes to that building every morning, and I told Mr. Busch and he tried to find out if he was in the building, but no one had seen him. Then a detective came and asked me a lot of questions, and later, after lunch, another one came and took me to the district attorney’s office, and I—”

“Miss Vassos.” Wolfe was curt “If you please. You have eaten, though not much, and your faculties are apparently in order. You said you must tell me, and I would not be uncivil to your father’s daughter, but these details are not essential. Give me brief answers to some questions. You said that they think your father killed himself, he jumped off. Who are ‘they’?”

“The police. The detectives.”

“How do you know they do?”

“The way they talked. What they said. What they asked me. They think he killed Mr. Ashby and he knew they were finding out about it, so he killed himself.”

“Do they think they know why he killed Mr. Ashby?”

“Yes. Because he had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced me.”

I lifted a brow. You couldn’t be much briefer than that There wasn’t the slightest sign on her face that she had said anything remarkable. Nor was there any sign on Wolfe’s face that he had heard anything remarkable. He asked, “How do you know that?”

“What they said this afternoon at the district attorney’s office. They used that word, ‘seduced.’ ”

“Did you know that your father had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced you?”

“Of course not, because he hadn’t My father wouldn’t have believed that even if Mr. Ashby had told him, or even if I had gone crazy and told him, because he would have known it wasn’t so. My father knew me.”

Wolfe was frowning. “You mean he thought he knew you?”

“He did know me. He didn’t know I couldn’t be seduced — I suppose any girl could be seduced if her head gets turned enough — but he knew if I was I would tell him. And he knew if I ever was seduced it wouldn’t be Mr. Ashby or anyone like him. My father knew me.”

“Let’s make it clear. Are you saying that Mr. Ashby had not seduced you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Had he tried to?”

She hesitated. “No.” She considered. “He took me to dinner and a show three times. The last time was nearly a year ago. He asked me several times since, but I didn’t go because I had found out what he was like and I didn’t like him.”

Wolfe’s frown had gone. “Then why do the police think he had seduced you?”

“I don’t know, but someone must have told them. Someone must have told them lies about Mr. Ashby and me, from what they said.”

“Who? Did they name anyone?”

“No.”

“Do you know who? Or can you guess?”

“No.”

Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie?”

That was to be expected. It was merely routine. He pretends to presume that he knows nothing, and I know everything, about women, and he was asking me to tell him whether Elma Vassos had or had not been seduced by Dennis Ashby, yes or no. What the hell, I wasn’t under oath, and I did have an opinion. “They don’t go by dreams,” I said. “She’s probably right, someone has fed them a line. Say thirty to one.”

“You believe her.”

“Believe? Make it twenty to one.”

She turned her head, slowly, to look straight at me. “Thank you, Mr. Goodwin,” she said and turned back to Wolfe.

His eyes narrowed at her. “Well. Assuming you have been candid, what then? You said you must tell me, and I have listened. Your father is dead. I esteemed him, and I would spare no pains to resurrect him if that were possible. But what can you expect me to tender beyond my sympathy, which you have?”

“Why...” She was surprised. “I thought — isn’t it obvious, what they’re going to do? I mean that they’re not going to do anything? If they think my father killed Mr. Ashby on account of me and then killed himself, what can they do? That will end it, it’s already ended for them. So I’ll have to do something, and I don’t know what, so I had to come to you because my father said—” She stopped and covered her mouth with her spread fingers. It was the first quick, strong movement she had made. “Oh!” she said through the fingers. Her hand dropped. “Of course. You must forgive me.” She opened her bag, a big brown leather one, stuck her hand in, and took something out. “I should have done this before. My father never spent any of the money you paid him. This is it, all dollar bills, the bills you gave him. He said he would do something special with it some day, but he never said what But he said—” She stopped. She clamped her teeth on her lip.

“Don’t do that,” Wolfe snapped.

She nodded. “I know, I won’t I haven’t counted it, but it must be nearly five hundred dollars; you paid him three times a week for over three years.” She got up and put it on Wolfe’s desk and returned to the chair. “Of course it’s nothing to you, it’s nothing like fifty thousand, so I’m really asking for charity, but it’s for my father, not for me, and after all it will mean that you got your shoes shined for nothing for more than three years.”

Wolfe looked at me. I had let her in, I admit that, but from his look you might have thought I had killed Ashby and Pete and had seduced her into the bargain. I cocked my head at him. He looked at her. “Miss Vassos. You are asking me to establish your father’s innocence and your chastity. Is that it?”

“My chastity doesn’t matter. I mean that’s not it.”

“But your father’s innocence is.”

“Yes. Yes!”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at the stack of dollar bills, held by rubber bands. “Your money. Take it. It is, as you say, nothing for a job like this, and if I am quixotic enough to undertake it I don’t want a tip. I make no commitment If I said yes or no now it would be no; it’s midnight, bedtime, and I’m tired. I’ll tell you in the morning. You will sleep here. There’s a spare bedroom, adequate and comfortable.” He pushed his chair back and rose.

“But I don’t want... I have no things...”

“You have your skin.” He frowned down at her. “Suppose this. Suppose the assumptions of the police are correct: that Mr. Ashby had in fact seduced you, that your father learned about it and killed him, and that, fearing exposure, he then killed himself; and suppose that under that burden of knowledge you go home to face the night alone. What would you do?”

“But it’s not true! He didn’t!”

“I told you to suppose. Suppose it were true. What would you do?”

“Why... I would kill myself. Of course.”

Wolfe nodded. “I assume you would. And if you die tonight or tomorrow in circumstances which make it plausible that you committed suicide, others, including the police, will make that assumption. The murderer knows that, and since his attempt to have Ashby’s death taken for suicide might have succeeded, and his attempt to have your father’s death taken for suicide apparently has succeeded, he will probably try again. If he knows you he knows that you are not without spirit, as you have shown by coming here, and you will be a mortal threat to him as long as you live. You will sleep here. I shall not be available before eleven in the morning, but Mr. Goodwin will, and you will tell him everything you know that may be useful. If I decide to help you, as a service to your father, I’ll need all the information I can get. Don’t try withholding anything from Mr. Goodwin; his understanding of attractive young women is extremely acute. Good night.” He turned to me. “You’ll see that the South Room is in order. Good night.” He went.

As the sound came of the elevator door closing the client told me, “Take the money, Mr. Goodwin. I don’t want—” She started to shake, her head dropped, and her hands came up to cover her face. It was a good thing she had fought it off until the great man had left.

3

At a quarter to eleven Wednesday morning I was at my desk, typing. When I had knocked on the door of the South Room, which is on the third floor, directly above Wolfe’s room, at seven forty-five, Elma had been up and dressed. She said she had slept pretty well, but she didn’t look it I eat breakfast in the kitchen, but Fritz wouldn’t want her to, so he served us in the dining room, and she did all right — all her orange juice, two griddle cakes, two slices of bacon, two shirred eggs with chives, and two cups of coffee. Then to the office, and for nearly an hour, from eight-forty to nine-thirty, I had asked questions and she had answered them.

Since she had started to work for Mercer’s Bobbins, Inc., two years back, their office space had doubled and their office staff had tripled. That is, their sales and executive office in the Eighth Avenue building; she didn’t know what the increase had been in the factory in New Jersey, but it had been big. It was understood by everybody that the increase had been due to the ability and effort of one man, Dennis Ashby, who had been put in charge of sales and promotion three years ago. He had boosted more than bobbins; the firm now made more than twenty items used in the garment industry.

Of the dozen members of the staff she named and described, here are some samples:

JOHN MERCER, president There had been an office party, with cake and punch, on his sixty-first birthday in September. He had inherited the business from his father; it was generally understood that he owned most of the stock of the corporation. He spent most of his time at the factory and was at the New York office only two days a week. The firm had been about to go under when he had made Ashby vice-president and put him in charge of sales and promotion. He called the employees by their first names and they all liked him. They called him, not to his face, the Big M. He had children and grandchildren, Elma didn’t know how many. None of them was active in the business.

ANDREW BUSCH, secretary of the corporation and office manager, was in his early thirties, not married. Up to a year ago he had been merely the head bookkeeper, and when the office manager had died of old age Mercer had promoted him. He had a room of his own, but three or four times a day he would appear in the rumpus and make the rounds of the desks. (The rumpus was the big room where twenty-eight girls did the work. One of them had called it the rumpus room and it had been shortened to rumpus.) He had instructed the stenographers that when Ashby sent for one of them she was to stop at his room and tell him where she was going, so they called him, not to his face, Paladin.

PHILIP HORAN, salesman, in his middle thirties, married, two or three children. I include him because a) he was seldom at the office before four in the afternoon but had been seen there Monday morning by one of the girls, b) he had expected to get the job Mercer had given Ashby and was known to be sore about it, and c) he had asked one of the girls, an old-timer who had been with the firm as long as he had, to find out what had happened and was happening between Ashby and Elma Vassos, and had kept after her about it.

FRANCES COX, receptionist. Elma said she was thirty, so she was probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight I do know a few things about women. I include her because if she had seen Pete entering Ashby’s room she might have seen someone else on the move, and that might be useful.

DENNIS ASHBY, dead. He had told Elma a year back that he was thirty-eight. Had started with Mercer’s Bobbins long ago, Elma didn’t know how long, as a stock clerk. Small and not handsome. When I asked Elma to name the animal he was most like, she said a monkey. He had spent about half of his time out of the office, out promoting. He had had no secretary; when he had wanted a stenographer he had called one in from the rumpus, and he had handled his appointments himself, with the assistance of Frances Cox, the receptionist. He had kept a battery of files in his own room. The girls had called him the Menace, naturally, with his name Dennis, but also because they meant it Elma had no knowledge of any seduction he had actually achieved, but there had been much talk.

JOAN ASHBY, the widow. I include her because the widow of a murdered man must always be included. She had once worked at Mercer’s Bobbins, but had quit when she married Ashby, before Elma had got her job there. Elma had never seen her and knew next to nothing about her. Ashby had told Elma across a restaurant table that his marriage had been a mistake and he was trying to get his wife to agree to a divorce.

ELMA VASSOS. One point: when I asked her why she had gone to dinners and shows with a married man she said, “I told my father he had asked me, and he told me to go. He said every girl is so curious about married men she wants to be with one somewhere, and she does, and I might as well go ahead and have it over with. Of course, my father knew me.”

As for Monday morning, Elma had been in Busch’s room from nine-forty to ten-fifteen, taking dictation from him, and then in the rumpus with the crew. About half past eleven John Mercer had entered with a man, a stranger, and called them together, and the man had asked if any of them had been in Ashby’s room that morning, or had seen anyone entering or leaving it, and had got a unanimous no; and then Mercer had told them what had happened.

Even with my extremely acute understanding of attractive young women, I didn’t suspect that she was holding out on me, except maybe on one detail, near the end, when I asked who she thought had lied to the cops about her and Ashby. She wouldn’t name anyone even as a wild guess. I told her that was ridiculous, that any man or woman alive, knowing that someone or ones of a group had smeared him, would darned well have a notion who it was, but nothing doing. If any of them had it in for her she didn’t know it, except Ashby, and he was dead.

At a quarter of eleven I was at my desk typing that part, nearly finished, when the house phone buzzed and I turned and got it Wolfe rarely interrupts himself in the plant rooms to buzz me. Since he eats breakfast in his room and goes straight up to the roof, I hadn’t seen him, so I said good morning.

“Good morning. What are you doing?”

“Typing my conference with Miss Vassos. The substance. Not verbatim. About done.”

“Well?”

“Nothing startling. Some facts that might help. As for believing her, it’s now fifty to one.”

He grunted. “Or better. What could conceivably have led her to come to me with her story if it weren’t true? Confound it. Where is she?”

“In her room. Of course she isn’t going to work.”

“Has she eaten? A guest, welcome or not, must not starve.”

“She won’t. She ate. She phoned the DA’s office to ask when she can have the body. She’ll do.”

“The account in the Times supports her conclusion that the police assume that her father killed Ashby and committed suicide — not, of course, explicitly. You have read it?”

“Yes. So has she.”

“But the Times may be wrong, and certainly she may be. It’s possible that Mr. Cramer is finessing, and if so we can leave it to him. You’ll have to find out. Conclusively.”

“Lon Cohen may know.”

“That won’t do. You’ll have to see Mr. Cramer. Now.”

“If he’s finessing he won’t show me his hand.”

“Certainly not. It will take dexterity. Your intelligence, guided by experience.”

“Yeah. That’s me. I’ll go as soon as I finish typing this — five minutes. You’ll find it in your drawer.” I hung up, beating him to it.

It took only three minutes. I put the original in his desk drawer and the carbon in mine, went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was leaving, got my coat from the hall rack, and departed. It’s a good distance for a leg-stretcher from the old brownstone to Homicide South, but my brain likes to take it easy while I’m walking and I had to consult it about approaches, so I went to Ninth Avenue and flagged a taxi.

The dick at the desk, who was not my favorite city employee, said Cramer was busy but Lieutenant Rowcliff might spare me a minute, and I said no thank you and sat down to wait. It was close to noon when I was escorted down the hall to Cramer’s room and found him standing at the end of his desk. As I entered he rasped, “So your client bought a one-way ticket. Want to see him?”

It seldom pays to prepare an approach. It depends on the approachee. The frame of mind he was in, it was hopeless to try smoothing him, so I switched. “Nuts,” I said offensively. “If you mean Vassos, he wasn’t a client, he was just a bootblack. You owe Mr. Wolfe something and he wants it Elma Vassos, the daughter, slept in his house last night.”

“The hell she did. In your room?”

“No. I snore. She came and fed him a line that her life was in danger. Whoever killed Ashby and her father, she didn’t know who, was going to kill her. Then the morning paper has it different Not spelled out, but it’s there, that Vassos killed Ashby and when you started breathing down his neck he found a cliff and jumped off. So you knew about it when you came to see Mr. Wolfe Monday, you knew then about Ashby and Elma Vassos. Why didn’t you say so? If you had, when she came last night she wouldn’t have got in. So you owe him something. When he turns her out he wants to make a little speech to her, and he wants to know who gave you the dope on her and Ashby. Off the record, and you won’t be quoted.”

He threw his head back and laughed. Not an all-out laugh, just a ha-ha. He stretched an arm to touch my chest with a forefinger. “Slept in his house, huh? Wonderful! I’d like to hear his speech, what will he call her? Not trollop or floozy, hell have some fancy word for it And he has the nerve — on out, Goodwin.”

“He wants to know—”

“Nuts. Beat it.”

“But dammit—”

“Out.”

I went; and since there was now nothing to work the brain on, I walked back to 35th Street Wolfe was at his desk with the book he was on, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by Shirer. A tray on his desk held beer bottle and a glass, and beside it was the report I had typed of my talk with Elma. I went to my desk and sat, and waited until he finished a paragraph and looked up.

“We’ll have to bounce her,” I said “You will. I would prefer to marry her and reform her, but Cramer would take my license away. Do you want it in full?”

He said yes, and I gave it to him. At the end I said, “As you see, it didn’t take any dexterity. The first thing he said, ‘So your client bought a one-way ticket,’ was enough. He is not finessing. You can’t blame him for laughing, since he honestly believes that you have a floozy for a house guest. As for his refusing to name—”

“Shut up.”

I leaned back and crossed my legs. He glowered at me for five seconds, then closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them. “It’s hopeless,” he said through his teeth.

“Yes, sir,” I agreed. “I suppose I could disguise myself as a bootblack and take Pete’s box and try to—”

“Shut up! I mean it’s intolerable. Mr. Cramer cannot be permitted to flout...” He put the book down without marking his place, which he never did. “There’s no way out I could have shined my shoes myself. I considered this possibility after reading your report, and here it is. Get Mr. Parker.”

I didn’t have to look at the book for the number of Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer. I turned to the phone and dialed it, and got him, and Wolfe lifted his receiver.

“Good morning, sir. Afternoon. I need you. I am going to advise a young woman who has consulted me to bring actions against a corporation and five or six individuals, asking for damages, say a million dollars from each of them, on account of defamatory statements they have made. Slander, not libel, since as far as I know the statements have been made orally and not published. She is here in my house. Can you come to my office?... No, after lunch will do. Three o’clock? Very well, I’ll expect you.”

He hung up and turned to me. “We’ll have to keep her. You will go with her to her home to get whatever she needs — not now, later. Mr. Cramer expects me to turn her out, does he? Pfui. She would be dead within twenty-four hours, and that would clean the slate for him. Tell Fritz to take her lunch to her room. I will not be rude to a guest at my table, and the effort to control myself would spoil the meal.”

4

I asked Parker once how many law books he had in his office, and he said about seven hundred. I asked how many there were in print in the English language, and he said probably around ten thousand. So I suppose you can’t expect to give a lawyer an order for a lawsuit the way you give a tailor an order for a suit of clothes. But they sure do make a job of it. Parker came on the dot at three, and they barely got it settled in time for Wolfe to keep his afternoon date with the orchids. At three minutes to four Wolfe got to his feet and said, “Then tomorrow as early as may be. You’ll proceed as soon as Archie phones you that he has explained the matter to Miss Vassos.”

Parker shook his head. “The way you operate. You actually haven’t mentioned it to her?”

“No. It would have been pointless to mention it until I learned if it was feasible.”

Wolfe went to the hall to take the elevator to the roof, Parker went along, and I went to hold his coat and let him out. Then I mounted two flights to the South Room and knocked on the door, heard a faint “Come in,” and did so. Elma was sitting on the edge of the bed running her fingers through her hair. “I guess I fell asleep,” she said. “What time is it?”

I would have been willing to help her with the hair. Any man would; it was nice hair. “Four o’clock,” I said. “Fritz says you ate only two of his Creole fritters. You don’t care for shrimps?”

“I’m sorry. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t blame him, I’m a nuisance.” She sighed, deep.

“That’s not it. He suspects any woman who enters the house of wanting to take it over.” I pulled a chair around and sat. “There have been developments. I went to see a cop, an inspector named Cramer, and you’re right. They think your father killed Ashby and then himself. You are now Mr. Wolfe’s client That stack of bills in the safe is still your property, but I have taken a dollar from it as a retainer. Do you approve?”

“Of course — but take all of it. I know it’s nothing...”

“Skip it That’s no inducement for him. And don’t thank him. He would rather miss a meal than have anyone think he’s a softy, that he would wiggle a finger to help anyone. Don’t even hint at it. The idea is that Cramer has flouted him, his word, and therefore he will make a monkey of Cramer, and I admit that that may be the main point So he has to prove that your father didn’t kill Ashby, and the only way he can do that is to find out who did. The question is how. He would have to send me to that building to go over the set-up and see people, and to invite some of them to come to his office, since he never leaves the house on business, but he can’t expect the impossible even of me. They would toss me out, and they wouldn’t come. So he must—”

“Some of the girls might come. And Mr. Busch might.”

“Not enough. We need the ones who wouldn’t. So he must drop a bomb. You are going to sue six people for damages, a million dollars each. Slander. He was going to have you sue the corporation too, but the lawyer vetoed it. The lawyer is preparing the papers and will go ahead as soon as you phone him to. His name is Nathaniel Parker and he’s good. It isn’t expected that any of the cases will ever get to a court or that you will collect anything, that’s not the idea. The idea is that the fur will begin to fly. Do you want to consult anybody before you tell Parker to go ahead? Do you know a lawyer?”

“No.” Her fingers were clasped tight. “Of course I’ll do anything Mr. Wolfe says. Who are the six people?”

“One, John Mercer. Two, Andrew Busch. Three, Philip Horan. Four, Frances Cox. Five, Mrs. Ashby. Six, Inspector Cramer. Anything Cramer says in his official capacity is privileged, but there’s a point of law. He may have said something to a reporter, and he told me you’re a floozy, or implied it. At least it will be a threat to get him on the witness stand under oath and ask him who told him what about you and Ashby, and just having him summoned will be a pleasure for Mr. Wolfe and you might as well humor him. You’re not listening.”

“Yes, I am. I don’t think I–Can’t you leave Mr. Busch out?”

“Why should we?”

“Because I don’t think he said anything like that about me. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

“Neither did some of the others, probably. It’s even conceivable that none of those five did. This is only to get in there, to get at them.”

She nodded. “I know, I understand that, but I wouldn’t want Mr. Busch to think that I think he might slander me. If what you want — if Mr. Wolfe wants to talk to him, I’m pretty sure he would come if I asked him.”

I eyed her. “There seems to be an angle you didn’t mention this morning. When you told me about Busch you didn’t say he would come if you whistled.”

“I’m not saying it now!” She was indignant. “All I’m saying, he’s a nice man, and he’s decent, and he wouldn’t do that!”

“Have you seen much of him out of the office?”

“No. After Mr. Ashby, I decided I wouldn’t make any dates with any man in the office, married or not.”

“Okay, we’ll exclude Busch, with the understanding that you’ll produce him if and when we need him.” I got up. “We’ll go down to the office and phone Parker, and then we’ll go and get whatever you want for an indefinite stay. It may be two days and it may be two months. When Mr. Wolfe—”

“Stay here two months? I can’t!”

“You can and will if necessary. If you got killed it would be next to impossible for Mr. Wolfe to get back at Cramer, and that would sour him for good and he would be unbearable. If you want to do things to your face and hair, not that I see anything wrong with them, I’ll be down in the office.” I went.

Waiting to call Parker until she came down, since he would want to hear his client’s voice as evidence that she existed, I had a notion to buzz the plant rooms and ask Wolfe if he wanted to see Andrew Busch at six o’clock, but since he would probably have insisted on Busch getting a summons along with the others I decided against it I’m a softy. Elma came down much sooner than most girls would have after a nap, and I dialed and got Parker, told him it was all set but that Busch was to be crossed off, and put Elma on. He asked her if he was to proceed on her behalf as he had been instructed by Wolfe, and she said yes, and that was it I told her I had another call to make, dialed the number of the Gazette, got Lon Cohen, and asked him if his offer of a grand for a piece on Pete Vassos was still open. He said he’d have to see the piece first.

“We haven’t got time to write it,” I said. “We’re busy. But if you want something for nothing, Miss Elma Vassos, his daughter, has engaged the services of Nero Wolfe, the famous private detective, and is staying at his house, and is not accessible. On his advice, she has engaged Nathaniel Parker, the famous counselor, to bring an action against five people: John Mercer, Philip Horan, Frances Cox, Mrs. Dennis Ashby, and Inspector Cramer of the NYPD. She is asking for a million dollars for damages for slander from each of them. They will be served tomorrow, probably in time for your first edition. I’m giving you this, exclusive, on instructions from Mr. Wolfe. Parker has been told that you’ll probably be phoning him for confirmation, and you’ll get it Yours truly. See you in court.”

“Wait a minute, hold it! You can’t just—”

“Sorry, I’m busy. No use calling back because I won’t be here. Print now, pay later.”

I hung up and went to the kitchen to tell Fritz we were leaving, and by the time I got to the hall rack Elma had her hat and coat on. Since her place was downtown we went to Eighth Avenue for a taxi. She was all right at walking. Walking with a girl, you can tell pretty well if you’d want to dance with her. Not if she keeps step, she may not have the legs for that, but if she naturally stays with you without doing a barnacle.

Another mark for her, she didn’t apologize for the neighborhood she lived in as the cab turned into Graham Street and stopped in front of Number 314. At that, it wasn’t as bad in the December dark as it would have been in daylight; no street is. Dirt doesn’t look so dirty. But I must say the vestibule she led me into would have appreciated some attention, and when she used her key and we entered, the inside was no better. She said, “Up three flights,” and went to the stairs, and I followed. I admit I thought she was overdoing it a little. She might at least have said something like, “When I got a job I thought we ought to move, but my father didn’t want to,” just casually. Not a word.

On the third landing she started down the hall toward the rear, stopped after a couple of steps, and said, “Why, the light’s on!”

I was at her elbow. I whispered, “Which door?” She pointed to the right, to where a strip of light showed through the crack at the bottom of a door. I whispered, “Is there a bell?” and she whispered back, “It isn’t working.” I went to the door and knocked on it, and after a short wait it opened, and facing me was a man about my height with a broad flat face and a lot of tousled brown hair.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Where’s Miss Vassos?” he said. “Are you a police— Oh! Thank God!”

Elma was there. “But you — how did you — this is Mr. Busch, Mr. Goodwin.”

“I seem to be...” he let it hang, apparently undecided how he seemed to be. He looked at me and back at her.

“I’ll trade you even,” I said. “I’ll tell you why I’m here if you’ll tell me why you’re here. I came to carry a bag of clothes and accessories for Miss Vassos. She is staying at Nero Wolfe’s house on Thirty-fifth Street. My name is Archie Goodwin and I work for him. Your turn.”

“Nero Wolfe the detective?”

“Right.”

He went to her. “You’re staying at his house?”

“Yes.”

“You were there last night and today?”

“Yes.”

“I wish you had let me know. I came here from the office, I just got here. I was here last night I got the janitor to let me in; he’s worried too. I was afraid you might — I’m glad to see — I thought perhaps...”

“I guess I should have phoned,” she said.

“Yes, I wish you had; then at least I would have known...”

He didn’t sound much like Paladin. Or even an office manager. “If you don’t mind,” I said, “Miss Vassos would like to come in and pack a bag. She has hired Nero Wolfe to find out who killed Dennis Ashby, and she’ll stay at his house until he does. Of course, since you think her father killed Ashby, I don’t suppose—”

“I don’t think her father killed Ashby.”

“No? Then why did you tell the police that he had found out that Ashby had seduced her?”

He hauled off and swung at me. He meant well, but was so slow that I could have landed a poke while he was still on his backswing. Elma was quicker, jumping between us. He was going through with it anyhow, looping around her, and he would finally have reached the target if I had moved my head eight inches to the left and waited till he got there, but instead I caught his wrist and jerked it down and gave it a twist. That twist hurts, but he didn’t squeak. Elma, between us, turned to face me, protesting, “I told you he wouldn’t!”

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“Okay, you can come along for a talk with Nero Wolfe. You can carry her bag. If there are two, we’ll each take one. Go ahead, Miss Vassos, I won’t let him hurt me. If he gets me down I’ll yell.”

She slipped in past him. Busch looked at his wrist and felt at it, and I told him it might swell a little. He turned and went inside, and I followed. It was a medium-sized room, very neat, good enough chairs and nice plain rugs, a TV set in a corner, magazines on a table, shelves with books. A framed picture on top of the book shelves looked familiar and I crossed over, and darned if it wasn’t Wolfe on the cover of Tick magazine. That had been more than a year ago. I allowed myself a healthy grin as I thought of how Sergeant Stebbins, or anyone else from Homicide, had felt when he came to have a look at the home of a murderer and found a picture of Nero Wolfe in a place of honor. I would have liked to take it and show it to Wolfe. I had heard him quote what someone said, that no man is a hero to his valet, but apparently he could be to his bootblack.

When Elma came out of an inner room with a suitcase and a small bag, Busch, who had put his overcoat on, went to relieve her of the load. I looked at my watch: five fifty-five. Wolfe would be down from the plant rooms by the time we got there.

“I’ll take one,” I offered. “Better give the wrist a rest.”

“The wrist’s all right,” he said, trying not to set his jaw.

A hero.

5

There can be such a thing as too damn much self-control. I should have resigned that day, for the forty-third time, when Wolfe glared at me and said, “I won’t see him.” It was inexcusable, being childish in front of a client. Leaving Busch in the front room, I had gone with Elma to the office, explained why I had told Parker to leave Busch out, reported the episode at Graham Street, said that I had checked with the janitor on the way out and he had admitted that he had let Busch into the Vassos apartment, and asked if he wanted Elma present while he talked with Busch; and he said, “I won’t see him.” Top that. He knew he was going to have to see a bunch of them and he was paying a lawyer to pull a stunt that would make them come, but that would be tomorrow and this was today and he was reading a book, and I hadn’t phoned to warn him. I should have walked out on him, but there was Elma, so I merely said, “He can have my room and I’ll sleep here on the couch.”

His eyes narrowed at me. He knew I meant it and that I wouldn’t back down, and that it was his fault for starting it in front of a witness. If I had just sat and met his gaze it would have had to end either by his firing me or my quitting, so I arose, said I would take Miss Vassos’ luggage up to her room, shook my head no at her on my way to the hall, picked up the bag and suitcase, mounted the two flights, put them in the South Room, returned to the landing, and stood and listened.

That simplified it for him. With me there it would have been impossible; with me gone, all he had to do was to get her to say that it might help if he talked to Busch. Which he did. I could hear the voices, though not the words, for three minutes; then nothing; and then voices again, including Busch’s. I descended. Of course I kept my eyes straight ahead as I entered and crossed to my desk, detouring around Busch, who was in one of the yellow chairs that had been drawn up to face Wolfe’s desk. Wolfe was talking.

“... and I intend to do so. I’m not obliged to account for the springs of my interest Call it pique. Mr. Vassos kept my shoes presentable and never failed me; it won’t be easy to replace him; and whoever deprived me of his services will be made to regret it Let’s consider you, since you’re here. Discovered by Mr. Goodwin and Miss Vassos in her apartment, you affected concern for her welfare. Real concern, or assumed?”

Busch was sitting straight and stiff, his palms on his knees. “I don’t have to account to you either,” he declared, louder than necessary. “How do I know what you’re going to do?”

“You don’t But you will. I won’t debate it. Go. You’ll be back.”

I gritted my teeth. He was taking the trick after all. He was putting him out, with a dodge that tied my tongue. If there had been a cliff handy I would have pushed him off. But it didn’t work. Busch looked at Elma, who was in the red leather chair. That turned his head so I couldn’t see his face, but there must have been a question on it, for she answered it.

“He’s going to do what he says, Mr. Busch. He’s going to make a monkey of an inspector named Cramer. If he wants you to tell him anything — and if you want to—”

“I want— Will you marry me?”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“Will you marry me?”

She stared, speechless.

“Effective, Mr. Busch,” Wolfe growled. His dodge wasn’t going to work. “For establishing briefly and cogently that your concern is real, admirable. Then you don’t believe that Miss Vassos was seduced by Mr. Ashby?”

“No. I know she wasn’t.”

“You told Mr. Goodwin that you don’t know who told the police that she had been.”

“I don’t.”

“But you knew that someone had.”

“I didn’t exactly know. I knew that the police thought that, or suspected it, from questions they asked me.”

“Was that why you were so concerned for Miss Vassos’ welfare that you went to her home last night and persuaded the janitor to let you in and repeated the performance today?”

“It was partly that, but I would have done that anyway. Yesterday she was worried about her father because he hadn’t come home, and I tried to find out if he was in the building. Then last night the news came that he was dead, his body had been found. I phoned her home and there was no answer, and I went there, and there was no word from her today, and the police didn’t know where she was, so I went again. I know what you’re getting at, you want to know if I was there waiting for her because I was worried about her or because I wanted to kill her. Because someone must want to kill her, someone must have lied about her to her father and then lied to the police.”

Wolfe nodded. “You’re assuming that her father believed the lie and killed Ashby and then killed himself.”

“No, I’m not. I only know he might have. I haven’t seen her, I haven’t had a chance to talk with her. I could talk with her about this all right From the way I’m talking to you, you probably think I’m a pretty good talker, that I don’t have any trouble speaking my piece, but I’ve been wanting for more than a year to tell her how I feel, that I know how wonderful she is, that there’s no girl on earth like her, that I have never—”

“Yes. You established that point by asking her to marry you. She has probably grasped it As you will no doubt hear from her when you get a chance, she is certain that her father would not have believed such a lie about her, so he did not kill Ashby, so he did not kill himself. Therefore I need to know as much as possible about people’s movements at the critical times. According to the medical examiner as reported in the paper, Peter Vassos landed at the bottom of that cliff and died between ten o’clock and midnight Monday evening. Since Miss Vassos certainly won’t marry you if you killed her father, let’s eliminate you. Where were you those two hours?”

“I was at home. I went to bed about eleven o’clock.”

“You live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You have no alibi. A man with an alibi is suspect ipso facto. Now for Mr. Ashby. Where were you at ten thirty-five Monday morning?”

“In my room. My office.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I’ve gone over this with the police. Miss Vassos had been there taking letters, but she left about a quarter past ten. Pete came about a quarter to eleven and gave me a shine. In between those two times I was alone.”

“You didn’t leave your room?”

“No.”

“Was the door open and did you see anyone pass?”

“The door was open, but my room is at the end of the hall. I never see anyone pass.”

“Then you can’t help much. But you do corroborate Mr. Vassos’ account of his movements. If he came to your room at ten forty-five, shined your shoes, and went straight to Mr. Ashby’s room, he entered it about ten fifty-two. He arrived here at three minutes past eleven. Do you know where he had been just before coming to you?”

“Yes, he had been in Mr. Mercer’s room, giving him a shine.”

“And before that?”

“I don’t know. That’s what the police wanted to know. They think he had already been in Ashby’s room, that he went in by the other door and killed him.”

“Did they tell you that?”

“No, but it was obvious from their questions — about him and about that other door.”

“Does your room also have a door into the outer hall?”

“No. Ashby’s is the only one.”

Wolfe turned his head to look up at the wall clock. Half an hour till dinnertime. He looked at Busch. “Now, sir. As I told you at the beginning, I have concluded that Mr. Vassos did not kill Mr. Ashby, and I intend to find out who did and expose him. On this perhaps you can help. Who is safe or satisfied or solvent because Ashby is dead? Cui bono?”

“I don’t get — Oh.” Busch nodded. “Of course. That’s Latin. The police asked me too, but not like that. I told them I didn’t know, and I don’t. I saw very little of Ashby personally, I mean outside of business. I knew his wife when she worked there, her name was Snyder then, Joan Snyder, but I’ve only seen her a couple of times since she married Ashby two years ago. The way you put it, safe or satisfied or solvent because he’s dead — I don’t know.”

“What about people in the office?”

“Nobody liked him. I didn’t. I don’t think even Mr. Mercer did. We all knew he had saved the business, he was responsible for its success, but we didn’t like him. I had complaints from the girls about him. They didn’t like to go to his room. A few months ago one girl quit on account of him. When I took it up with Mr. Mercer he said Ashby had the defects of his qualities, that when he wanted something he never hesitated to go after it, and that was why the corporation’s income was ten times what it had been four years ago. But when I say nobody liked him maybe I ought to say except one.” His eyes went to Elma and back to Wolfe.

“Miss Vassos?”

“Good Lord, no.” He was shocked. “Because I looked at her? I just happened — I just wanted to. Miss Cox, Frances Cox, the receptionist. Ashby wouldn’t have a secretary, and Miss Cox did the things for him that a secretary does, appointments and so on, except stenography. Maybe she liked him; I suppose she must have. There was a lot of office gossip about them, but you can’t go by office gossip. If an office manager took all the gossip seriously he’d go crazy. Only one day last spring Ashby’s wife — I told you she was Joan Snyder when she worked there — she came and asked me to fire her.”

“To fire Miss Cox?”

“Yes. She said she was a bad influence on her husband. I had to laugh, I couldn’t help it — a bad influence on Dennis Ashby. I told her I couldn’t fire her, and I couldn’t. Ashby had had her salary raised twice without consulting me.”

Wolfe grunted. “Another name Miss Vassos has mentioned. Philip Horan. Since he’s a salesman, I presume he worked under Ashby?”

“Yes.”

“He had expected to get the promotion that Ashby had got?”

“Yes.”

“And he resented it?”

“Yes.”

“Then Ashby’s death is no bereavement for him?”

“No.”

“You are suddenly laconic. Have I touched a nerve?”

“Well... I thought Phil Horan deserved to get that job, and I still think so.”

“And he’ll get it now?”

“I suppose he will.”

“I won’t ask if he might have killed Ashby to get it; you’re partial and would of course say no.” Wolfe looked up at the clock. “Have you ever sat at table with Miss Vassos, had a meal with her?”

“I don’t see what bearing that has on—”

“None, but it’s a civil question. Have you?”

“No. I asked her twice, but she declined.”

“Then it was foolhardy to ask her to marry you. You can’t know what a woman is like until you see her at her food. I invite you to dine with us. There will be chicken sorrel soup with egg yolks and sherry, and roast quail with a sauce of white wine, veal stock, and white grapes. You will not be robbing us; there is enough.”

I didn’t catch his response because I was commenting to myself. The rule no business at meals was strictly enforced, but I would have to work right through the soup and quail on to the cheese and coffee, as an expert, taking Busch in. When he left I would be asked if his concern for Miss Vassos was real or phony, yes or no. If I couldn’t say, some good grub would have been wasted.

It was wasted.

6

The fur started to fly, the first flurry, a little after two Thursday afternoon, when Parker phoned while we were eating lunch — Elma with us — to say that he had just had a talk with an attorney representing John Mercer, Philip Horan, and Frances Cox. He had called before noon to say that all five of them had been served. He had told the attorney that his client, Elma Vassos, had retained him and told him to bring the actions after she had been advised to do so by Nero Wolfe, who was investigating the situation for her; that he was satisfied that his client had a valid complaint but he wouldn’t discuss it with the opposing counselor until the investigation had progressed further; that after careful consideration he felt that it would probably be impossible to arrive at a settlement without a court trial; and that he would of course report the conversation to his client, who was staying at Nero Wolfe’s house. I returned to the dining room and relayed it to Wolfe, who would not interrupt a meal to speak on the phone, and he muttered, “Satisfactory.”

The next flurry came two hours later, from the widow. Wolfe had gone up to the plant rooms, and Elma had gone with him to look at the orchids. Not that he had thawed any; he had got the notion that she was working on me and the less we were alone together the better. The phone rang and I answered it “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“I want to talk to Elma Vassos.” A woman’s voice, peevish.

“Your name, please?”

“Oh, indeed. Is she there?”

“Not in the room, but I can get her. If you don’t mind giving me your name?”

“I don’t mind a bit Joan Ashby. Don’t bother to get her; you’ll do, if you’re Archie Goodwin. I’ve just been talking to that lawyer, Parker, and he told me she’s at Nero Wolfe’s house. I told him if she wants to sue me for a million dollars she can go right ahead, and I thought I might as well tell her too. He said he would prefer to speak with my attorney, and I said that would be fine if I had one. What would I pay an attorney with? Tell Elma Vassos if she gets some of those millions from those others I would deeply appreciate it if she would pay some of my husband’s debts, and then maybe I could eat. I’d like to see her at that, I’d like to see the one that got him killed.”

“Why don’t you, Mrs. Ashby? Come, by all means. It’s not far, if you’re at home. The address is—”

“I know the address, but I’m not coming. When I went out this morning, from the bunch of reporters and photographers on the sidewalk waiting for me you might think I was Liz Taylor. I’d like to see her, but not enough to face that gang again. Just tell her all she gets out of me wouldn’t buy her a subway token. If she wants—”

“She’d like to see you too.”

“I’ll bet she would.”

“She really would. She said so last night Why don’t I take her there? We can be there in twenty minutes. You’ve lost a husband, and she has lost a father. It would do you both good.”

“Sure. We can swap tears. Come ahead, but bring your own hankies. I use paper towels.”

She hung up. I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, got Wolfe, and reported. He growled, “She’s probably lying about the debts, and bluffing. I’ll send Miss Vassos down at once. Don’t bring that wretch back with you.”

“But you wanted to see all of them.”

“Not that one. Not unless it becomes imperative. Pfui. You will judge. Your intelligence guided by experience.”

When Elma came — down the stairs, not in the elevator — I was waiting for her in the hall with my coat on. When I told her it might be a little hard to take, judging from Mrs. Ashby on the phone, she said she could stand it if I could, and when, after we got a taxi on Ninth Avenue and were crawling crosstown, I gave her the conversation verbatim, she said, “She sounds awful, but if he left a lot of debts — Of course that doesn’t matter, since we don’t expect to get anything...”

The number on East 37th Street, which had been in the papers, was between Park and Lexington. If there were any journalists on post they weren’t visible, but daylight was gone, nearly five o’clock. Pushing the button marked Ashby in the vestibule, getting a voice asking who is it, and telling the grill our names, I pushed the door when the click came, and we entered. It was a small lobby, aluminum-trim modern, and the elevator was a do-it-yourself. I pushed the “3” button, we were lifted and emerged on the third floor, and there was the widow, leaning against the jamb of an open door.

“Double wake,” she said. “I just thought that up.” She focused on us as we approached. “I thought up another one too. My husband liked what the ads said, go now, pay later. Eat now, pay later. I thought up kill now, pay later. I like it. I hope you like it.” She didn’t move.

It had been fairly obvious on the phone that she was tight, and she must have had another go. Under control and in order, she could have been a fine specimen, with big dark eyes and a wide warm mouth, but not at the moment. Elma had started to offer a hand but changed her mind. I said distinctly, “Mrs. Ashby, Miss Vassos. I’m Archie Goodwin. May we come in?”

“You’re a surprise,” she told Elma. “You’re so little. Not teeny, but little. He liked big girls, like me, only he made exsheptions. You’ve got a nerve, suing me for a million dollars. I ought to be suing you for what he spent on you. Did he give you a gold flower with a pearl in the middle? You haven’t got it on. There was one in a Jensen box when I went there that morning, the day he got killed. Kill now, pay later. I like it. I hope you like it.” She fluttered a hand. “Thank you for coming, thank you very much. I just wanted to look at you. My God, you’re little.”

I was smiling at her, a broad, friendly smile. “About that gold flower with a pearl in the middle, Mrs. Ashby. That you saw on his desk Monday morning. You didn’t expect Miss Vassos to be wearing that, did you?”

“Certainly not. They’ve got that one, the police. I told them I saw it there and they said they had it.” Her eyes went back to Elma, with an effort. “Of course you’ve got one. They all got one. Eighty bucks at Jensen’s, sometimes more.”

Elma parted her lips to say something, but I got in ahead. “I suppose your husband was in his room when you were there Monday morning, Mrs. Ashby? What time was it?”

“It was ten o’clock.” She grinned at me. “You’re a detective.” She pointed a wobbly finger at me. “Answer yes or no.”

“Yes, but I’m not a cop.”

“I know, I know. Nero Wolfe. Look here, if I’m high I know it. I know what I said and what I signed. I went there that morning at ten o’clock, and I knocked on the door, and he opened it, and I went in, and he gave me forty dollars, and I came out, and I went and bought a pair of shoes with the forty dollars because the accounts at the stores had been stopped.” She straightened up, swaying a little, reached and caught the edge of the door, backed up, and swung the door shut with a loud slam.

I could have stuck a foot in to stop it, but didn’t bother. The shape she was in, it would have taken more than intelligence guided by experience to sort her out, and I already had a better fact than I had expected to get, that she had been in Ashby’s room Monday morning and the cops knew it. Of course they had checked it, and if the clerk who sold her the shoes had confirmed her timetable she was out. Maybe. I followed Elma to the elevator.

In the taxi Elma said nothing until it stopped at Fifth Avenue for a red light, then turned her head to me and blurted, “It’s so ugly!”

I nodded. “Yeah. I told you she’d be hard to take, but I had to have a look at her. That kill now, pay later, that’s okay, but the trouble is who does the paying?”

“Did she kill him?”

“Pass. She says he left her nothing but debts.”

“It’s so ugly. I don’t want to sue her. Couldn’t we stop it, I mean for her?”

I patted her shoulder. “Quit fussing. The damage has been done, and whoever gets it now has got it coming. You came and asked Mr. Wolfe for something and you’re going to get it, so relax. You have just convinced me, absolutely, that you never went very far with Ashby. Knowing you were going to meet Mrs. Ashby, you put your lipstick on crooked. Not that I had any real doubt, but that settles it.”

She opened her bag and got out her mirror.

Paying the hackie at the curb in front of the old brownstone, mounting the stoop with Elma, and using my key, I was surprised to find that the chain bolt was on, since it was only five-thirty and Wolfe would still be up in the plant rooms. I was starting my finger to the button when the door opened and Fritz was there; he must have been in the hall on the lookout. He had his finger to his lips, so I kept my voice low to ask as we entered, “Company?”

He took Elma’s coat and put it on a hanger as I attended to mine, then turned. “Three of them, two men and a woman, in the office. Mr. Mercer, Mr. Horan, and Miss Cox. The door is closed. I don’t like this, Archie, I never do, you know that, having to watch people—”

“Sure. But if they brought a bomb it won’t go off till they leave.” I didn’t bother about my voice since the office was soundproofed, including the door. “When did they come?”

“Just ten minutes ago. Mr. Wolfe said to tell them to come back in an hour, but they insisted, and he said to put them in the office and stay in the hall. I told him I was making glace de viande, but he said one of them is a murderer. I want to do my share, you know that, Archie, but I can’t make good glace de viande if I have to be watching murderers.”

“Certainly not. But he could be wrong. It’s possible that Miss Vassos and I have just been interviewing the murderer, who is plastered.” I turned to Elma. “This could be even uglier, so why don’t you go up to your room? If you’re needed later we’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Mr. Goodwin,” she said and headed for the stairs. Fritz made for the kitchen, and I followed. He went to the big table, which was loaded with the makings of meat glaze, and, after getting the milk from the refrigerator and pouring a glass, I went to the small table against the wall, where the house phone was, and buzzed the plant rooms.

“Yes?”

“Me. Miss Vassos has gone to her room and I’m in the kitchen. Report on Mrs. Ashby.” I gave it to him. “So it’s just as well I wasn’t supposed to bring her; I would have had to carry her up the stoop. Notice that I didn’t pry it out of her that she was there Monday morning, she tossed it in. Verdict reserved. Any instructions about the company in the office?”

“No.”

“Do you want me up there?”

“No. I’ve been interrupted enough.” He hung up.

The genius. If he had a program beyond a fishing party, which I doubted, I could guess my part as we went along. I finished the milk, taking my time, and went to the alcove in the hall and slid the panel, uncovering the hole. On the alcove side the hole is an open rectangle; on the office side it is hidden by a picture of a waterfall which you can see through from the alcove.

John Mercer, president of Mercer’s Bobbins, Inc., was leaning back in the red leather chair, patting the chair arms with his palms. His white hair was thin but still there, and he looked more like a retired admiral than a bobbin merchant Fritz had put yellow chairs in front of Wolfe’s desk for the other two. They were talking in the low voices people use in a doctor’s waiting room, something about a phone call that had or hadn’t come from some customer. Philip Horan was broad-shouldered and long-armed, with a long bony face and quick-moving brown eyes. Frances Cox was a big girl, a real armful, but her poundage was well distributed. Nothing about her smooth smart face suggested that she had been through three tough days, though she must have been. I stayed at the hole, sizing them up, until the sound came of the elevator, then rounded the corner to the office door, opened it, and stayed there as Wolfe entered. He crossed to his desk, stood, and sent his eyes around. He fixed them on Mercer and spoke.

“You are John Mercer?”

“I am.” It came out hoarse, and Mercer cleared his throat “Miss Frances Cox. Mr. Philip Horan. We want—”

Wolfe cut him off. “If you please.” I had gone to my desk, and he sent me a glance. “Mr. Goodwin.” He stayed on his feet. “I question the propriety of this, Mr. Mercer. Miss Vassos has brought an action at law against you three, and communication should be between her counselor and yours. I’m a detective, not a lawyer.”

Mercer had straightened up. “Your attorney told mine that you had told Miss Vassos to bring the action.”

“I did.”

“And that she’s here in your house.”

“She is. But you’re not going to see her.”

“Isn’t that a little high-handed?”

“No. It’s merely circumspect She has resorted to the law to right a wrong; let the lawyers do the talking.”

“But her lawyer won’t talk! He says he won’t discuss it until you have gone further with the investigation!”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down. “Very well. Then what are you doing here? Did your attorney tell you to come?”

“No. We’re here to tell you there’s nothing to investigate. Have you seen the afternoon paper? The Gazette?”

“No.”

“It’s on the front page. Inside are pictures of us and Inspector Cramer, and you. That kind of sensational publicity is terrible for a respectable business firm, and it’s outrageous. All we’ve done, we’ve answered the questions the police asked us, investigating a murder, and we had to. What is there for you to investigate?”

“A murder. Two murders. In order to establish the ground for Miss Vassos’ action for slander I need to learn who killed Mr. Ashby and Mr. Vassos. It seems discreet and proper for Miss Vassos’ attorney to decline to discuss it with your attorney until I have done so.”

“But that’s ridiculous! Who killed Ashby and Vassos? You learn that? The police already have! My attorney thinks it’s just a blackmailing trick, and I think he’s right!”

Wolfe shook his head. “He’s wrong; attorneys often are. He doesn’t know what I know, that the police have not identified the murderer. The point is this: whoever killed those men is almost certainly responsible for the defamation of Miss Vassos’ character, and I’m going to expose him. The actions brought by her are merely a step in the process, and manifestly a potent one, for here you are, you and Miss Cox and Mr. Horan, and it is highly likely that one of you is the culprit.”

Mercer gawked at him. “One of us?”

“Yes, sir. That’s my working hypothesis, based on a supportable conclusion. You may reject it with disdain and go, or you may stay and discuss it, as you please.”

“You don’t mean it. You can’t mean it!”

“I can and do. That’s what I’m going to investigate. The only way to stop me would be to satisfy me that I’m mistaken.”

“Of course you’re mistaken!”

“Satisfy me.”

Mercer looked at Philip Horan and Frances Cox. They looked back and at each other. Miss Cox said, loud, “It is blackmail.” Horan said, “We should have brought the lawyer.” Miss Cox said, “He wouldn’t come.” Mercer looked at Wolfe and said, “How do you expect us to satisfy you?”

Wolfe nodded. “That’s the question.” He sat, brought the chair forward, and swiveled. “Conceivably you can, and speedily; there’s only one way to find out Mr. Horan. Did Mr. Vassos ever shine your shoes?”

The doorbell rang. I got up and detoured around the yellow chairs to the hall, and switched on the stoop light. There facing me, his blunt nose almost touching the glass, was Inspector Cramer. From the expression on his big round red face, he hadn’t come to bring the million dollars.

7

It was sometimes necessary, when we had company, to use an alias when announcing a caller who might or might not be welcome, and any name with two Ds in it meant Cramer. I stepped into the office and said, “Mr. Judd.”

“Ah?” Wolfe cocked his head at me. “Indeed.” His brows went up. He turned to the company. “It’s a question. Mr. Cramer of the police is at the door. Shall we have him join us? What do you think?”

They just looked. Not a word.

“I think not,” Wolfe said, “unless you want him.” He pushed his chair back and rose. “You will excuse me.” He headed for the door. I stepped aside to let him by and followed him to the front. He slipped the bolt in, opened the door the two inches the chain would allow, and spoke through the crack. “I’m busy, Mr. Gamer, and I don’t know when I’ll be free. Miss Frances Cox, Mr. John Mercer, and Mr. Philip Horan are with me. I came to tell you instead of sending Mr. Goodwin because it seemed—”

“Open the door!”

“No. I wouldn’t object to your presence while I talk with these people, but you would—”

“I want to see Elma Vassos. Open the door.”

“That’s it.” Wolfe turned his head, and so did I, at a noise from behind. Philip Horan’s head was sticking out at the office door. Wolfe turned back to the crack. “That’s the point Miss Vassos will not see you. As I have said before, a citizen’s rights vis-à-vis an officer of the law are anomalous and nonsensical. I can refuse to let you into my house, but once I admit you I am helpless. You can roam about at will. You can speak to anyone you choose. I dare not touch you. If I order you to leave you can ignore me. If I call in a policeman to expel an intruder I am laughed at So I don’t admit you — unless you have a warrant?”

“You know damn well I haven’t Elma Vassos has filed a complaint against me at your instigation, and I’m going to discuss it with her.”

“Discuss it with her attorney.”

“Bah. Nat Parker. You call the tune and he plays it. Are you going to open this door?”

“No.”

“By God, I will get a warrant.”

“On what ground? I advise you to watch the wording. You can’t claim the right to enter my house in search of evidence. Evidence of what? You can’t charge an attempt to obstruct justice; if you say I’m hindering an official investigation, I ask what investigation? Not of the death of Dennis Ashby; from the published accounts and from what you said to Mr. Goodwin yesterday morning, I understand that that is closed. As for a warrant to search my house for Miss Vassos, that’s absurd. In your official capacity you can assert no right to see her or touch her. She has violated no law by bringing a civil action against you. I advise—”

“She’s a material witness.”

“Indeed. In what matter? The People of the State of New York versus Peter Vassos for the murder of Dennis Ashby? Pfui. Peter Vassos is dead. Or have you abandoned that theory? Do you now think that the one who killed Ashby is still alive? If so, who are the suspects and how can Miss Vassos be a material witness against one or more of them? No, Mr. Cramer; it’s no good; I’m busy; the cold air rushes through this crack; I’m shutting the door.”

“Wait a minute. You know damn well she can’t get me for damages.”

“Perhaps not But there’s a good chance she can get you put under oath and asked who told you that she had improper relations with Dennis Ashby. Mr. Goodwin asked you that yesterday and you were amused. Offensively. Will you tell me now, not for quotation?”

“No. You know I won’t Are you saying that she didn’t? That Vassos didn’t kill Ashby?”

“Certainly. That’s why I got those people here. That’s what I’m going to discuss with them. The actions brought—”

“Damn it, Wolfe, open the door!”

“I’m shutting it If you change your mind about answering my question, you know my phone number.”

Cramer has his points. Knowing that it would be silly to try to stop the door with his foot, since Wolfe and I together weigh 450 pounds, he didn’t. Knowing that if he stood there and shook his fist and made faces we would see him through the one-way glass, he didn’t He turned and went Wolfe and I about-faced. Horan was no longer peeking; he had stepped into the hall and was standing there. As we approached he turned and moved inside, and as we entered the office he was speaking.

“It was Inspector Cramer. Wolfe shut the door on him. He’s gone.”

Frances Cox said, loud, “You don’t shut the door on a police inspector.”

“Wolfe does. He did.” Horan was back in his chair. Wolfe and I went to ours. Wolfe focused on Horan.

“To resume. Did Peter Vassos ever shine your shoes?”

Horan’s quick-moving eyes darted to Mercer, but the president was frowning at a corner of Wolfe’s desk and didn’t meet them. They went back to Wolfe. “No, he didn’t. I suppose what you’re getting at is did I tell Vassos about Ashby and his daughter? I didn’t. I have never seen Vassos. I understand he always came around ten-thirty, and I am never there at that time. I’m out calling on customers. I was there Monday morning and was with Ashby a few minutes, but I left before ten o’clock.”

Wolfe grunted. “Your observed presence there Monday morning is immaterial. Anyone could have got into Ashby’s room unobserved by the door from the hall, including you. I’m not after—”

“Then why pick on us, if anyone could have got in?”

“I have two reasons: a weaker one, the attack on Miss Vassos’ character, and a stronger one, which I reserve. I’m not after who told Vassos about Ashby and his daughter; I don’t think anybody did; I’m after who told the police. Did you?”

“I answered their questions. I had to.”

“You know better than that if you’re not a nincompoop. You did not have to. Telling them even about yourself and your movements was at your discretion; certainly you were under no compulsion to jabber about others. Did you?”

“I don’t jabber. What I told the police is on record. Ask them.”

“I have. You just heard me ask Mr. Cramer. You have more than once asked a female employee of your firm to find out about the relations between Mr. Ashby and Miss Vassos. What did she tell you?”

“Ask her.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Ask her.”

“I hope I won’t have to.” Wolfe’s eyes went right. “Miss Cox. What terms were you on with Mr. Vassos?”

“I wasn’t on any terms with him.” Her head was up and her chin was pushing. It was a nice chin when she left it to itself. “He was the bootblack.”

“He was also the father of one of your fellow employees. Of course you knew that.”

“Certainly.”

“Did you like him? Did he like you?”

“I never asked him. I didn’t like him or dislike him. He was the bootblack, that’s all.”

“Affable exchanges even with a bootblack are not unheard of. Did you speak much with him?”

“No. Hardly any.”

“Describe the customary routine. He would appear in the anteroom where you were stationed, and then?”

“He would ask me if it was all right to go in. He always went to Mr. Mercer’s room first. If someone was in with Mr. Mercer, it depended on who it was. Sometimes he wouldn’t want to be disturbed, and Pete would go to Mr. Busch first. Mr. Busch’s room is across the hall from Mr. Mercer’s.”

“Are the two doors directly opposite?”

“No. Mr. Mercer’s door comes first on the left. Mr. Busch’s door is nearly at the end of hall on the right.”

“After he had finished with Mr. Mercer and Mr. Busch, Mr. Vassos would go to Mr. Ashby?”

“Yes, but that took him past the reception room and he would ask me on his way. If Mr. Ashby had an important customer with him he wouldn’t want Pete butting in.”

“Are there any others in that office whom Mr. Vassos served?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“Was the routine followed on Monday morning?”

“Yes, as far as I know. When Pete came there was no one in with Mr. Mercer and he went on in. Then later he came and put his head around the corner and I nodded, and he went on to Mr. Ashby’s room.”

“How much later?”

“I never timed it. About fifteen minutes.”

“Did you see him enter at Mr. Ashby’s door?”

“No, it’s down the other hall. Anyway, I couldn’t see him enter any of the doors because my desk is in a corner of the reception room.”

“What time was it when he put his head around the corner and you nodded him on to Mr. Ashby’s room?”

“It was ten minutes to eleven, or maybe eight or nine minutes. The police wanted to know exactly, but that’s as close as I could come.”

“How close could you come to the truth about Mr. Ashby and Miss Vassos?”

It took her off balance, but only for two seconds, and she kept her eyes at him. She raised her voice a little. “You think that’s clever, don’t you?”

“No. I’m not clever, Miss Cox. I’m either more or less than clever. What did you tell the police about Mr. Ashby and Miss Vassos?”

“I say what Mr. Horan said. Ask them.”

“What did you tell them about Mr. Ashby and yourself? Did you tell them that you and he were intimate? Did you tell them that Mrs. Ashby once asked an officer of the corporation to discharge you because you were a bad influence on her husband?”

She was smiling, a corner of her mouth turned up. “That sounds like Andy Busch,” she said. “You don’t care who you listen to, do you, Mr. Wolfe? Maybe you’re less than clever.”

“But I’m persistant, madam. The police let up on you because they thought their problem was solved; I don’t, and I won’t. I shall harass you, if necessary, beyond the limit of endurance. You can make it easier for both of us by telling me now of your personal relations with Mr. Ashby. Will you?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“There will be.” Wolfe left her. He swiveled to face John Mercer in the red leather chair. “Now, sir. I applaud your forbearance. You must have been tempted a dozen times to interrupt and you didn’t. Commendable. As I told you, the only way to stop me would be to satisfy me that I’m mistaken, and Mr. Horan and Miss Cox have made no progress. I invite you to try. Instead of firing questions at you — you know what they would be — I’ll listen. Go ahead.”

When Mercer had finished his study of the corner of Wolfe’s desk he had turned his attention not to Wolfe, but to his salesman and receptionist. He had kept his eyes at Horan while Wolfe was questioning him, and then at Miss Cox, and, since I had him full-face past the profiles of the other two, I didn’t have to be more than clever to tell that his immediate worry wasn’t how to satisfy Wolfe but how to satisfy himself. And from his eyes when he moved them to Wolfe, he still wasn’t sure. He spoke.

“I want to state that I shouldn’t have said that my attorney thinks this is a blackmailing trick and I agree with him. I want to retract that. I admit it’s possible that Miss Vassos has persuaded you — that you believe she has been slandered and you’re acting in good faith.”

Wolfe said, “Ummf.”

Mercer screwed his lips. He still wasn’t sure. He unscrewed them. “Of course,” he said, “if it’s just a trick, nothing will satisfy you. But if it isn’t, then the truth ought to. I’m going to disregard my attorney’s advice and tell you exactly what happened. It seems to me—”

Two voices interrupted him. Horan said, “No!” emphatically, and Miss Cox said, “Don’t, Mr. Mercer!”

He ignored them. “It seems to me that’s the best thing to do to stop this — this publicity. I told the police about Miss Vassos’ — uh — her association with Mr. Ashby, and Mr. Horan and Miss Cox corroborated it. All three of us told them. It wasn’t slander. You may be right that we weren’t legally compelled to tell them, but they were investigating a murder, and we regarded it as our duty to answer their questions. According to my attorney, if you go on with it and the case gets to court, it will be dismissed.”

Wolfe’s palms were flat on his desk. “Let’s make it explicit. You told the police that Miss Vassos had been seduced by Mr. Ashby?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know that? I assume that you hadn’t actually witnessed the performace.”

“Spontaneously? Voluntarily?”

“No. I asked him. There had been complaints about his conduct with some of the employees, and I had been told specifically about Miss Vassos.”

“Told by whom?”

“Mr. Horan and Miss Cox.”

“Who had told them?”

“Ashby himself had told Miss Cox. Horan wouldn’t say where he had got his information.”

“And you went to Ashby and he admitted it?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Last week. Wednesday. A week ago yesterday.”

Wolfe closed his eyes and took in air, through his nose, all the way down, and let it out through his mouth. He had got more than he had bargained for. No wonder the cops and the DA had bought it. He took on another load of air, held it a second, let it go, and opened his eyes. “Do you confirm that, Miss Cox? That Ashby himself told you he had seduced Miss Vassos?”

“Yes.”

“Who told you, Mr. Horan?”

Horan shook his head. “Nothing doing. I didn’t tell the police and I won’t tell you. I’m not going to drag anyone else into this mess.”

“Then you didn’t regard it as your duty to answer all their questions.”

“No.”

Wolfe looked at Mercer. “I must consult with Miss Vassos and her attorney. I shall advise her either to withdraw her action, or to pursue it and also to prefer a criminal change against you three, conspiracy to defame her character — whatever the legal phrase may be. At the moment I don’t know which I shall advise.” He pushed back his chair and arose. “You will be informed, probably by her attorney through yours. Meanwhile—”

“But I’ve told you the truth!”

“I don’t deny the possibility. Meanwhile, I am not clear about the plan of your premises, and I need to be. I want Mr. Goodwin to inspect them. I wish to discuss the situation with him first, and it is near the dinner hour. He’ll go after dinner, say at nine o’clock. I presume the door will be locked, so you will please arrange for someone to be there to let him in.”

“Why? What good will that do? You said yourself that anyone could have got into Ashby’s room by the other door.”

“It’s necessary if I am to be satisfied. I need to understand clearly all the observable movements of people — particularly of Mr. Vassos. Say nine o’clock?”

Mercer didn’t like it, but he wouldn’t have liked anything short of an assurance that the heat was off or soon would be. The others didn’t like it either, so they had to lump it. It was agreed that one of them would meet me in the lobby of the Eighth Avenue building at nine o’clock. They left together, Miss Cox with her chin up, Mercer with his down, and Horan with his long bony face even longer. When I returned to the office after letting them out, Wolfe was still standing, scowling at the red leather chair as if Mercer were still in it.

I said emphatically, “Nuts. Mercer and Miss Cox are both quoting a dead man, and Horan’s quoting anonymous. They’re all double-breasted liars. I now call her Elma. If she passes Busch up I’ll probably put in a bid myself after I find out if she can dance.”

Wolfe grunted. “Innocence has no contract with bliss. Confound it, of course she’s innocent, that’s the devil of it. If she had misbehaved as charged, and as a result her father had killed that man and then himself, she wouldn’t have dared to come to me unless she’s a lunatic. There is always that possibility. Is she deranged?”

“No. She’s a fine sweet pure fairly bright girl with a special face and good legs.”

“Where is she?”

“In her room.”

“I’m not in a mood to sit at table with her. Tell Fritz to take up a tray.”

“I’ll take it up myself, and one for me. She’ll want to know how you made out with them. After all, we’ve got her dollar.”

8

Every trade has its tricks. If he’s any good a detective gets habits as he goes along that become automatic, one of them being to keep his eyes peeled. As I turned the corner of Eighth Avenue at 8:56 that Thursday evening I wasn’t conscious of the fact that I was casing the neighborhood; as I say, it gets automatic; but when my eye told me that there was something familiar about a woman standing at the curb across the avenue I took notice and looked. Right; it was Frances Cox in her gray wool coat and gray fur stole, and she had seen me. As I stopped in front of the building I was bound for she beckoned, and I crossed over to her. As I got there she spoke.

“There’s a light in Ashby’s room.”

I rubbernecked and saw the two lit windows on the tenth floor. “The cleaners,” I said.

“No. They start at the top and they’re through on that floor by seven-thirty.”

“Inspector Cramer. He’s short a clue. Have you got a key?”

“Of course. I came to let you in. Mr. Mercer and Mr. Horan are busy.”

“With the lawyer?”

“Ask them.”

“The trouble with you is you blab. Okay, let’s go up and help Cramer.”

We crossed the avenue and entered. It was an old building and the lobby looked it, and so did the night man sprawled in a chair, yawning. He gave Miss Cox a nod as we entered the elevator, and on the way up she asked the operator if he had taken anyone to the tenth floor and he said no. When we got out she pointed to a door across the hall to the left and said, “That’s Ashby’s room.”

There were two doors in range across the hall, the one she had pointed to, six paces to the left, and one six paces to the right with the number 1018 and below it MERCER’S BOBBINS, INC., and below that ENTRANCE. I asked if that was the reception room, and she said yes.

“This takes generalship,” I said. “If we both go through the reception room and around, he hears us and ducks out this way. This door can be opened from the inside?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll stick here. Maybe you’d better get the elevator man to go in and around with you. He might get tough.”

“I can take care of myself. But I’m not taking orders from you.”

“Okay, I’ll get the elevator man.”

“No.” Her chin was stiff again — too bad, for it was a nice chin. She moved. As she headed for the door to the right I told her back, not loud, “Don’t try to stalk him. Let your heels tap.”

As I went to the door on the left and put my back to the wall, near its edge that would open, I was regretting that I had disregarded one of my personal rules, made some years back when I had spent a month in a hospital, that I would never go on an errand connected with a murder case without having a gun along. When you’re just standing and listening, your mind skips around. For instance, what if Ashby had been in with a narcotics ring, and he kept bobbins full of heroin in the files in his room, and one or more of his colleagues had come Monday and bumped him, and they had come back to look for bobbins, and they now emerged with hardware? Or, for instance, what if a competitor, knowing that Ashby was responsible for Mercer’s Bobbins taking over his customers, had got desperate and decided to put an end—

The door opened, and the opener, not seeing me, was coming out backward, pulling the door shut, easy. I put my hand in the small of his back and pushed him back in, not too easy, and followed him. He stumbled but managed to recover without going down. Frances Cox’s voice came. “Oh, it’s you!”

I spoke. “This is getting monotonous, Mr. Busch. A door opens, and there you are. Are you surprising me, or am I surprising you?”

“You dirty double-crosser,” Andrew Busch said. “I can’t handle you, I know that, I found that out. I wish to God I could, and Nero Wolfe too. You lousy rat”. He started for the door, not the one to the outer hall, the one where Miss Cox was standing.

“Wrong number,” I said. “I didn’t know who I was shoving. We don’t owe you anything; we’re working for Elma Vassos.” He had turned and I had approached. “As for my being with Miss Cox, I wanted to have a look around and someone had to let me in. That’s why I’m here. As I asked you once before, why are you here?”

“Go to hell. I think you’re a damn liar and a rat.”

“You’re wrong, but I can’t right you now. Of course you were looking for something, and if you found it I want to know what it is. I’m going over you. As you say, you can’t handle me, but that’s no disgrace. I’m bigger and stronger, and you’re an office manager and I’m a pro. Stand still, please.” I moved behind him.

I frisked him. Since he hadn’t been expecting visitors it wasn’t necessary to have him take off his shoes, but I made sure that he had no paper or other object on him that he might have found in that room. He didn’t. Miss Cox had moved away from the door and stood and watched, saying nothing. Busch stood stiff, stiff as stone. When I stepped back and said, “Okay, I guess you hadn’t found it,” he walked to the door, the inner one, and on out, without a word.

I looked around. Everything seemed to be in order; not even a drawer or a file was standing open. It was an ordinary executive office, nothing special, except that most of one wall was lined with filing cabinets. There was no hunk of polished petrified wood on the desk; it was probably still at the police laboratory. I went to the door Busch had left by, crossed the sill, turned right, stepped nine paces to a door on the right, turned through it, and was in the reception room. Miss Cox was at my heels. Facing me was the door to the outer hall with MERCER’S BOBBINS, INC. on it. To the right of it were chairs. The wall on the left was lined with shelves displaying Mercer’s Bobbins products. Near the corner at the right were a desk and a switchboard. On the chair nearest the door was Andrew Busch, sitting straight and stiff, his palms on his knees.

“I’m an officer of this corporation,” he said. “I belong here. You don’t.”

I couldn’t dispute that, so I ignored it and turned to Miss Cox. “That’s your desk?”

“Yes.”

“Where are Mercer’s and Busch’s rooms?”

She showed me, and I went for a look. It was like this: When you entered the reception room from the outer hall the desk and switchboard were near the far left corner, and at the far right corner was the door into the inner hall Passing through that door, if you turned left you went down a short stretch of hall with only one door in it, Ashby’s, on the left; if you went straight ahead you were in a longer hall with a window at the end, and you came to Mercer’s door first, on the left, and then Busch’s door farther on, on the right. So, as Miss Cox had said, she could see none of the doors from her desk. Another habit a detective forms is looking in drawers and cupboards and closets, on the principle that you sometimes find things you’re not even looking for, and I would have pottered around a little in Mercer’s and Busch’s rooms, and Ashby’s too, if Miss Cox hadn’t been tagging along. I made a rough plan of the layout on a sheet of paper she furnished on request, folded it and put it in my pocket, and went to the chair where I had put my hat and coat.

“Just a minute,” Andrew Busch said. He stood up. “Now I’m going to search you.”

“I’ll be damned. You are?”

“I am. If you’re taking something I want to know what it is.”

“Good for you.” I dropped my coat on the chair. “I’ll make a deal. Tell me what you were after in Ashby’s room and I’ll let you finger me if you don’t tickle.”

“I don’t know. I was going through his files. I thought I might find something that would give me an idea who killed him. I’m for Elma Vassos, and I think you’re lying when you say you are. You came here with her.” He aimed a finger at Frances Cox. “She’s a liar too. She lied to the police.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No. But I know her.”

“Watch it. She’ll sue you for slander. Did you find anything helpful in Ashby’s files?”

“No.”

“Since you’re an officer of the corporation, why did you scoot to the hall when you heard footsteps?”

“Because I thought it was her. I was coming back in this way and see what she was up to.”

“Okay. You’re wrong about Nero Wolfe and me, but time will tell. Frisking me will be easier with my hands up.” I put them up. “If you tickle, the deal’s off.”

He wasn’t as clumsy as you would expect, and he didn’t miss a pocket. He even flipped through my notebook. With some practice he would have made a good dipper. When he was through he said all right and returned to his chair and I put on my coat and went to the door; and there was Miss Cox with her coat and stole on. Evidently she was seeing me out of the building. Not a word had passed between her and Busch since she had said, “Oh, it’s you,” and no more than necessary between her and me. I opened the door and followed her through, and at the elevator she pressed the button, touched my sleeve with fingertips, and said, “I’m thirsty.” in a voice I hadn’t thought she had in her. It was unquestionably a come-on.

“Have a heart,” I said. “First Busch is suddenly a bulldog, and now you’re suddenly a siren. I’m being crowded.”

“Not you.” The same voice. “I’m no siren. It’s just that I’ve realized what you’re like — or what you may be like. I’m curious, and when a girl’s curious... I only said I’m thirsty. Aren’t you?”

I put a fingertip under her nice chin, tilted her head back, and took in her eyes. “Panting,” I said, and the elevator came.

An hour and ten minutes later, at a corner table at Charley’s Grill, I decided I had wasted seven dollars of Wolfe’s money, including tip. Her take-off had been fine, but she hadn’t maintained altitude. After only a couple of sips of the first drink she had said, “What was that about asking Andy Busch once before why he was here? Where? I didn’t know you had met”. I don’t mind being foxed by an expert, it’s how you learn; but that was an insult I hung on, quenching her thirst with Wolfe’s money and no expense account for a client’s bill, as long as there was a chance of getting something useful out of her, and then put her in a taxi and gave my lungs a dose of fresh cold December air by walking home. It was eleven-thirty as I mounted the seven steps of the stoop; Wolfe would probably be in bed.

He wasn’t. There were voices in the office as I put my coat and hat on the rack — voices I recognized, and the click of my typewriter. I proceeded down the hall and entered. Wolfe was at his desk. Elma was at my desk, typing. Saul Panzer was in the red leather chair, and Fred Durkin was in one of the yellow ones. I stood. No one had a glance for me. Wolfe was speaking.

“... but the sooner the better, naturally. It must be conclusive enough for me, and through me for the police, but not necessarily for a judge and jury. You will phone every hour or so whether or not you have got anything; one of you may need the other. Archie will be out much of the day; he will be with Miss Vassos arranging for the burial of her father and attending to it; but the usual restrictions regarding nine to eleven in the morning and four to six in the afternoon will not apply. Call as soon as you have something to report I want to settle this matter as soon as possible. Whatever you must disburse can’t be helped, but it will be my money; it will not be billed to anyone. Have that in mind. Archie. Give them each five hundred dollars.”

As I went and opened the safe and pulled out the cash reserve drawer I was remarking to myself that that sounded more lavish than it actually was, since it would be deductible as business expense. Even if they shelled it all out the net loss would be less than two Cs of the grand. Of course there would also be their pay — ten dollars an hour for Saul Panzer, the best free-lance operative this side of outer space, and seven-fifty an hour for Fred Durkin, who wasn’t in Saul’s class but was way above average.

By the time I had it counted, in used fives, tens, and twenties, Saul and Fred were on their feet, ready to go, the briefing apparently finished. As I handed them the lettuce I told Wolfe I had a sketch of the Mercer’s Bobbins office if that would help them, and he said it wouldn’t I said it might be useful for them to know that I had found Andrew Busch in Ashby’s room, hoping, according to him, to find something that would give him an idea about who killed Ashby, and Wolfe said it wasn’t Evidently I had nothing to contribute except my services as an escort for Saul and Fred to the door, opening it, and closing it after them, which I supplied, with appropriate exchanges between old friends and colleagues. When I returned to the office, Wolfe was out of his chair but Elma was still at the typewriter. I handed him the sketch, and he looked it over.

He handed it back. “Satisfactory. Who let you in?”

“Miss Cox. Shall I report, or have you gone on ahead with Saul and Fred?”

“Report.”

I did so, and he listened, but when I had finished he merely nodded. No questions. He told me Miss Vassos was typing the substance of a conversation she had had with him, said good night, and went out to his elevator. Elma turned to say she was nearly through and did I want to read it, and I took it and sat in the red leather chair. It was four pages, double-spaced, not margined my way, but nice and clean, no erasing or exing out, and it was all about her father — or rather, what her father had told her at various times about his customers at Mercer’s Bobbins, and one who hadn’t been a customer, Frances Cox. Apparently he had told her a lot, part fact and part opinion.

DENNIS ASHBY. Pete hadn’t thought much of him except as a steady source of a dollar and a quarter a week. When Elma had told him that Ashby was responsible for pulling the firm out of the hole it had been in, Pete had said maybe he had been lucky. I have already reported his reaction when Elma told him that Ashby had asked her to dinner and a show, and now add that he said that if she got into trouble with such a man as Ashby she was no daughter of his anyway.

JOHN MERCER. Not as steady a customer as Ashby, since he spent part of his days at the factory in Jersey, but Pete was all for him. A gentleman and a real American. However, Elma said, her father had been very grateful to Mercer because he had given her a good job just because Pete asked him to.

ANDREW BUSCH. Pete’s verdict on Busch had varied from week to week. Before Elma had started to work there he had — But what’s the use? This was what Elma saw fit to report of what her father had said about a man who had asked her to marry him just yesterday. That affects a girl’s attitude. What she had put in was probably straight enough, but what had she left out?

PHILIP HORAN. Nothing. Elma corroborated Horan. Pete had never shined Horan’s shoes and had probably never seen him.

FRANCES COX. I got the feeling that Elma had toned it down some, but even so it was positively thumbs down. The general impression was that Miss Cox was a highnose and a female baboon. Evidently she had never turned siren on him.

“I don’t see what good this is,” Elma said as we collated the original and carbons. “He asked me a thousand questions about what my father said about them.”

“Search me,” I told her. “I just work here. If it comes to me in a dream, I’ll tell you in the morning.”

9

At the moment, half past three Friday afternoon, that Saul Panzer was finding what Pete Vassos had scrawled on a rock with his finger dipped in his blood, I was at the curb in front of a church on Cedar Street, Greek Orthodox, getting into a rented limousine with Elma Vassos and three friends of hers. The hearse, with the coffin in it, was just ahead, and we were going to follow it to a cemetery somewhere on the edge of Brooklyn. I had offered to drive us in the sedan, which was Wolfe’s in name but mine in practice, but no, it had to be a black limousine. I had asked Elma if she wanted the stack of dollar bills from the safe, but she said she would pay for her father’s funeral with her own money, so apparently she had some put away.

I wouldn’t have been jolly even if it had been a wedding instead of a funeral, with Saul and Fred somewhere doing something, I had no idea where or what, and me spending the day convoying, on her personal errands, a girl on whom I had no designs, private or professional. The idea, according to Wolfe when I had gone up to his room at eight-thirty A.M. for instructions, was that it would be risky to let her go anywhere unattended. If I would prefer, I could get an operative to escort her and I could stay in the office to stand by. He knew damn well what I would prefer, to join Saul and Fred, and I knew damn well, he wouldn’t be blowing $17.50 an hour plus expenses if he hadn’t had a healthy notion that he was going to get something for it. But we had had that argument time and again, and there would have been no point in repeating it, especially when he was at breakfast.

So I spent the day bodyguarding, and it didn’t help much that the body I was guarding was 110 pounds of attractive female with a sad little face. I have nothing against sympathy when my mind is free, but it wasn’t. It was with Saul and Fred, and that was very frustrating because I didn’t know where they were. No doubt Elma’s friends got the impression that I was a fish.

When we finally got back to Manhattan and the friends had been dropped off at their addresses, and the rented limousine stopped in front of the old brownstone, it was after six o’clock. Elma paid the driver. Mounting the stoop with her and finding that the door wasn’t bolted, I knew that at least nothing had blown up, but, stepping inside, I saw that someone had blown in. There on the hall rack were objects that I recognized: a brown wool cap, a gray hat, a blue hat, and three coats. As I took Elma’s coat I told her, “Go up and lie down. There’s company in the office. Inspector Cramer, Saul Panzer, and Fred Durkin.”

“But what — why are they...”

“The Lord only knows, or maybe Mr. Wolfe does. You’re all in. If you want—”

Her look stopped me. She was facing the door. I turned. There on the stoop was John Mercer, with a finger on the bell button, with Frances Cox and Philip Horan behind him. I told Elma to beat it and waited until she had turned up the stairs to open the door.

So Wolfe thought he had it. I wondered, as I let them in and took their things and sent them to the office. More than once I had seen him risk it when all he had hold of was the tip of the tail, even with a big fee at stake, and with no intake but a dollar bill already spent and then some — he could be trying it with no hold at all He knew I was home, since Saul had appeared at the office door when the bell had rung and had seen me admitting the guests, and I had a notion to go to the kitchen and sit down with a glass of milk. If I joined the party I would be merely a spectator, and it might be a bum show. But while I was considering it another guest appeared on the stoop. Andrew Busch. I had the door open before he pressed the button. Since I had crossed him off and I thought Wolfe had too, his coming meant there would be a real showdown, all or nothing, so I took him to the office and followed him in. And found that it was the full cast: Joan Ashby was on the couch at the left of my desk, with a mink coat, presumably not paid for, draped on her shoulders. Cramer was in the red leather chair. Saul and Fred were over by the big globe. Mercer, Horan, and Miss Cox were on yellow chairs in a row facing Wolfe’s desk, and there was a vacant one waiting for Busch. As I circled around the chairs Wolfe told Busch he was late, and Busch said something, and, as I sat, Cramer said he wanted Elma Vassos there.

Wolfe shook his head. “You are here by sufferance, Mr. Cramer, and you will either listen or leave, as agreed. As I told you on the phone, you can’t expect to interfere in your official capacity, since you have closed your investigation of the only death by violence in your jurisdiction that these people are connected with. Or you had closed it. You agreed to listen or leave. Do you want to leave?”

“Go ahead,” Cramer growled, “But Elma Vassos ought to be here.”

“She’s at hand if needed.” Wolfe’s eyes left him. “Mr. Mercer. I told you on the phone that if you would bring Miss Cox and Mr. Horan I thought we could come to an understanding about the actions Miss Vassos has brought It seemed desirable for Mrs. Ashby and Mr. Busch to be present, and I asked them to come. I’m on better ground than I was yesterday. Then I only knew that Mr. Vassos had not killed Dennis Ashby; now I know who did. I’ll tell you briefly—”

Cramer cut in. “Now I’m here officially! Now you’re saying you can name a murderer! How did you know Vassos hadn’t killed Ashby?”

Wolfe glared at him. “I have your word. Listen or leave.”

“I’ll listen to your answer to my question!”

“I was about to give it.” Wolfe turned to the others. “I was saying, I’ll tell you briefly how I knew that Miss Vassos came to me Tuesday evening to engage my services. She said that someone had lied to the police about her; that the police were persuaded that she had been seduced by Ashby and her father had found out about it and had killed Ashby and then himself; that none of that was true; that her father had told her I was the greatest man in the world; that she wanted to hire me to discover and establish the truth; and in payment she would give me all the dollar bills, some five hundred, I had paid her father for shining my shoes over a period of more than three years.”

He turned a palm up. “Very well. If she had in fact misbehaved, and if her misbehavior had been responsible for her father’s committing murder and suicide, what on earth could possibly have impelled her to come to me — the greatest man in the world to her father, and therefore a man not to be hoodwinked — and offer me what was for her a substantial sum to learn the truth and expose it? It was inconceivable. So I believed her.”

He turned his hand back over. “But I won’t pretend that I was moved to act by the dollar bills, by the pathos of Miss Vassos’ predicament, or by a passion for truth and justice. I was moved by pique. Monday afternoon, the day before Miss Vassos came, Mr. Cramer had told me that I was capable of shielding a murderer in order to avoid the inconvenience of finding another bootblack; and the next day, Wednesday, he told Mr. Goodwin that I had been beguiled by a harlot and ejected him from his office. That’s why—”

“I didn’t eject him!”

Wolfe ignored it. “That’s why Mr. Cramer is here. I could have asked the district attorney to send someone, but I preferred to have Mr. Cramer present.”

“I’m here and I’m listening,” Cramer rasped.

Wolfe turned to him. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass over the actions at law I advised Miss Vassos to bring; that was merely a ruse to make contact I needed to see these people. I already had a strong hint about the murderer. So had you.”

“If you mean a hint about somebody besides Vassos, you’re wrong. I hadn’t.”

“You had. I gave it to you, half of it, or Mr. Goodwin did, when he reported verbatim my conversation with Mr. Vassos Monday morning. He said he saw someone. He said that he had only said what if he told a cop he saw someone, but it was obvious that he actually had seen someone. Also he told his daughter that evening that there was something he hadn’t told either me or the police, and he was going to come and tell me in the morning and ask me what he ought to do; and he wouldn’t tell his daughter what it was. Surely that’s a strong hint.”

“Hint of what?”

“Then he knew, or thought he knew, who had killed Ashby. Where and when he had seen someone can only be conjectured, but it is highly probable that he had seen someone leaving Ashby’s room. Not entering; you know the times involved as well as I do, or better; he must have seen him leaving, at a moment which made it likely that he had been in that room when Ashby left it by the window. And it was someone whom he did not want to expose, for whom he had affection or regard, or who had put him under obligation. There I have the advantage of you. Mr. Vassos and I had formed the habit, while he was shining my shoes, of discussing the history of ancient Greece and the men who made it, and I knew the bent of his mind. He was tolerant of violence and even ferocity, and the qualities he most strongly contemned were ingratitude and disloyalty. That was, of course, not decisive, but it helped.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. “So. The person, call him X, whom Mr. Vassos had seen in compromising circumstances and who was probably the murderer, was one who had earned his affection, his high regard, his gratitude, or his loyalty.” He left Cramer and surveyed the others. “Was it one of you? That was the point of my questions yesterday afternoon when you were here, and of a discussion I had with Miss Vassos last evening. It isn’t necessary to elaborate; as you know, only one of you qualifies. You, Mr. Mercer. You fit admirably; Mr. Vassos owed you gratitude for giving his daughter a job. By which door were you leaving Ashby’s room when he saw you, the one to the outer hall or the other?”

“Neither one.” Wolfe had telegraphed the punch, and Mercer had got set. “You’re not intimating that I killed Dennis Ashby. Are you?”

“I am indeed.” Wolfe turned to Cramer. “The question of which door isn’t vital, but the inner one is more likely. You are of course familiar with the arrangement. If Mr. Mercer left by the door to the outer hall after killing Ashby, he would have had to get back in through the reception room and would have been seen by Miss Cox and anyone else who happened to be there. The other way, there was a good chance of being seen by no one, and he was seen only by Mr. Vassos, who had just entered the reception room and been nodded in by Miss Cox.”

“You say,” Cramer growled. “So far, damn little. I’m still listening.”

Wolfe nodded. “I thought it proper to explain what directed my attention to Mr. Mercer. After my talk last evening with Miss Vassos I called in Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin. You know them. Mr. Goodwin wouldn’t be available today. There was a possibility that Mr. Mercer was not the only likely candidate, that there was someone in another office in that building who qualified — whom Mr. Vassos would have been reluctant to expose and who might have had a motive for killing Ashby. Mr. Durkin’s job—”

“Did Mercer have a motive?”

“I’ll come to that. Confound it, don’t interrupt! Mr. Durkin’s job was to explore that possibility, and he has spent the day at it. No negative can be established beyond question, but he found no one who met the specifications; and he got some suggestive information. On the sixth floor of that building is a firm which is the chief competitor of Mercer’s Bobbins, and its president told Mr. Durkin that Ashby’s death was a blow to him because he had been discussing with him the possibility of Ashby’s coming to his firm and they had been approaching agreement on terms. It could be that that man had been so harassed by a competitor that he had killed him, but he fails the other test. He had never had his shoes shined by Mr. Vassos. Only two people in that office had, and only occasionally, and neither of them had put him under any obligation of affection or gratitude or loyalty.”

Wolfe took a breath. His eyes stayed at Cramer. “Before calling on Mr. Panzer, I’ll dispose of Miss Vassos. Your information about her came from three sources, and probably you would have tested them further if her father had not died as he did outside your jurisdiction, but even so you are open to a charge of nonfeasance. Miss Cox and Mr. Mercer gave Ashby as their source, and he was dead. Were they lying? Mercer’s reason for lying is of course manifest, since he had himself killed both Ashby and Mr. Vassos. As for Miss Cox, Ashby may have boasted to her of a feather he had not in fact gathered, or she may be a born liar, or she— Pfui. She’s a woman. Pry it out of her when you have nothing better to do. As for—”

“I still believe it,” Frances Cox said, loud. Her chin was thrust forward.

Wolfe didn’t give her a glance. “As for Mr. Horan, you know, of course, that he coveted Ashby’s job. He has refused to name the source of his information. He may have been lying, or he may have himself been misled. That’s immaterial now; I’ll move to what is material. Saul?”

Saul Panzer got up, went to Mercer’s chair, and stood behind it, facing Cramer. There was nothing about him to catch the eye; he looked just ordinary, but people who had dealt with him knew better, and Cramer was one of them.

“My job,” he said, “was to check on John Mercer for Monday evening. Mr. Wolfe’s theory was that he knew Vassos had seen him leaving Ashby’s room that morning, and that evening he phoned him and arranged to meet him. They met, and Mercer had a car, and he drove across the river to Jersey and to a place he knew about. He slugged Vassos with something, stunned him, or killed him, and pushed him over the edge of the cliff. That was the theory, and—”

“To hell with the theory,” Cramer snapped “What did you get?”

“I was lucky. I couldn’t start at Mercer’s end, for instance at the garage where he kept his car, because I had no in. So I went to Graham Street to try to find someone who had seen Vassos leaving the house that evening. You know how that is, Inspector, you can spend a week at it and come out empty, but I was lucky. Within an hour I had it Mr. Wolfe has told me to keep the details for later, since Mercer is here and listening, but I have the names and addresses of three people who saw Vassos get into a car at the corner of Graham Street and Avenue A Monday evening a little before nine o’clock. There was only one person in the car, the man driving it, and they can describe him. Then I—”

“Did you describe him for them?”

“No. I’m dry behind the ears, Inspector. Then I wasted an hour trying to pick up the car this side of the river. That was dumb. I got my car and drove to Jersey and spent two hours trying to pick up the car at that end. That wasn’t dumb, but I didn’t hit I found a law officer I know, a state man, and he went with me to the cliff. After looking around at the top and finding nothing useful, but it ought to be gone over right, we climbed down to where Vassos’s body was found. That should be gone over too, better than it has been, but we found one thing that shouldn’t have been missed by a Boy Scout Vassos hadn’t been dead when Mercer pushed him over. He died after he reached the bottom, and before he died he dipped his finger in his blood and printed M, E, R, C, on a rock. It wasn’t very distinct, and there was more blood around, but it should have been noticed. It’s still there and being protected. The state man is a good officer, and it will be there. I went to a phone and called Mr. Wolfe and he told me to come in. Of course I had already reported what I had found at Graham Street.”

Cramer had come forward in his chair. “Did you and the state man climb down together?” he demanded.

Saul smiled. His smile is as tender as he is tough, and it helps to make him the best poker player I know. “That would have been dumb. Inspector. With blood four days old? How could I? Jab myself in the leg and use some of mine, nice and fresh? And it might not match.”

“I want the names and addresses of those three people.” Cramer stood up. “And I want to use the phone.”

“No,” Wolfe snapped. “Not until you have taken Mr. Mercer into custody. Look at him. If he is allowed to walk out of here, he might do anything. Besides, I haven’t finished. After getting a report from Mr. Durkin this afternoon, I phoned Mrs. Ashby.” He looked at her. “Will you tell Mr. Cramer what you told me, madam?”

I didn’t turn to see her, back of me on the couch, because that would have taken my eyes away from Mercer. But I heard her. “I told you that my husband hadn’t decided whether to leave Mercer’s Bobbins or not He had told Mr. Mercer that he would stay if he got fifty-one per cent of the stock of the corporation, and if he didn’t get it he would go to another firm. Just last week he told him he had to know by the end of the month.”

“He told me the same thing,” Frances Cox said, loud. “He said if he left he wanted to take me with him. I’ve thought all along that probably Mr. Mercer killed him.” She was a real prize, that Cox girl. She was going on. “But I didn’t say so because I had no real—”

Mercer stopped her. His idea was to stop her by getting his fingers around her throat, but he didn’t quite make it because Saul was there. But he was fast enough and strong enough, in spite of his age, to make a stir. Cramer came on the bound, Joan Ashby let out a scream, Horan scrambled up, knocking his chair over, and of course I was there. And for the first time in my life I saw a man frothing at the mouth, and I wouldn’t care to see it again. The line of foam seeping through Mercer’s lips, as Saul pinned him from behind, was exactly the color of his hair.

“All right, Panzer,” Cramer said. “I’ll take him.”

I looked away and became aware that we were shy a guest Andrew Busch had disappeared. He didn’t know which room was Elma’s, and he would probably barge into Wolfe’s room, so I went out to the stairs and on up, two steps at a time. At the first landing a glance showed me that the door of Wolfe’s room was closed, so I kept going. At the second landing the door of the South Room was standing open, and I went to it. Elma, over by a window, saw me, but Busch’s back was to me. He was talking.

“... so it’s all right, everything’s all right, and that Nero Wolfe is the greatest man in the world. I’ve already asked you if you’ll marry me, so I won’t ask you again right now, but I just want to say...”

I turned and headed for the stairs. He may have been a good office manager, but as a promoter he had a lot to learn. The darned fool was standing ten feet away from her. That is not the way to do it.

Content

Rex Stout
Kill Now — Pay Later

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