A Right To Die (9 page)

“Nobody.” The crease in her chin and a half was deeper because her jaw was set. “I told you, I took it at the switchboard.”

“Did you mention it to anyone?”

“No.”

“It came at five-fifteen. Did you write the message on the slip immediately?”

“Yes. I would be leaving in a few minutes.”

“When did you take the message to Mr. Whipple’s room?”

“When I left. Just before I left.”

“Could anyone have seen it there at the switchboard, on your desk or table?”

“No. There was nobody there until just before I left, and then I had it in my hand.”

“Was anyone in Mr. Whipple’s room when you went there with it?”

“No.”

“You put it on his desk in plain sight?”

“Of course. So he would see it. Under a paperweight.”

Wolfe’s eyes went to the executive director. “Mr. Henchy. Dunbar Whipple told me that the conference ended a little after six o’clock. Is that correct?”

Henchy nodded. “Five or ten minutes after six.”

“Was anyone here present, besides you, at the conference?”

“Yes. Mr. Ewing, Mr. Faison, and Mr. Oster.”

“Did any of you four leave the room after half past five, before the conference ended?”

Adam Ewing exploded. “This is poppycock! You grilling us!”

Wolfe regarded him. “I believe, sir, you are in charge of what is called ‘public relations’ for your organization. Surely it is in its interest, if Dunbar Whipple is innocent, to have the murderer exposed and dealt with as soon as possible. You don’t want it to be someone now in this room, and neither do I. I have contributed to the Rights of Citizens Committee-how much, Archie?”

“Fifty dollars a year for the past seven years.” I slanted a glance at Miss Tiger to see if she was impressed. Apparently not.

“But that telephone call is a vital point, and if Miss Brooke made it I must know who might have learned about it. Mr. Oster, I told you that if you wished to object to anything I say, you have a tongue. Do you object to this?”

“No,” the lawyer said. “I think it’s immaterial, but this isn’t a courtroom.”

“It may be immaterial. Shall I repeat the question, Mr. Henchy?”

“No. I’ll answer for myself. I was in the room continuously until the conference ended.”

“I wasn’t,” Cass Faison said. I had him in profile, and the light glancing off his black cheek gave it a high gloss. “I had an appointment and left about a quarter to six.”

“Did you enter Mr. Whipple’s room?”

“No. I want to say, I doubt if Dunbar Whipple killed her, not with a club like that, but if he did I hope he gets the chair. Whoever killed Susan Brooke, whether he’s here in this room or not, I hope he gets it.”

“So do I,” Ewing snapped. “We all do.” He aimed his sharp brown eyes at Wolfe. “If Oster doesn’t object, I don’t. I was out of the room for a few minutes, to go to the men’s room, and it may have been after five-thirty. I don’t know. I didn’t enter Whipple’s room, and I knew nothing about the phone call or message.”

“Then I need not grill you. Mr. Oster, if you don’t object, you were at the conference?”

“Yes. Like Mr. Henchy, continuously. I learned about the phone call from Miss Jordan the next morning.”

“Miss Kallman. Did you enter Mr. Whipple’s room during the specified period?”

“I wasn’t there.” She put her glass down on the stand between her chair and Maud Jordan’s. “I wasn’t at the office much. I was usually out most of the day. I was that day.” All past tense, though Henchy had told me she was staying on. Probably immaterial.

“Were you with Miss Brooke that afternoon?”

“No. I was in Brooklyn, seeing some people. She had a five-o’clock meeting with some students at NYU.”

“When did you last see her?”

“That morning at the office. We often met there, especially Mondays to plan for the day. But I think I should tell you-” She stopped.

“Yes?”

“I told the police. I often phoned her in the evening, if there was anything to report or ask about. That morning she told me she would be at the Wadsworth number that evening, and about half past eight, a little after half past, I dialed that number, but there was no answer.”

“The number of the apartment on One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street?”

“Yes.”

Wolfe grunted. “The police probably assume she hadn’t arrived. I assume she was dead. Then you didn’t know of her call to the office at five-fifteen?”

“No.”

“You, Miss Tiger?”

Now it was in order to look at her straight, and that was a relief. I had never seen a package, anywhere, more glomable. With my eyes, which are good, free to stick, I decided that her long lashes were home-grown. She told Wolfe, in a tight low-pitched voice, “I saw the message. There on his desk. When I took some letters for him to sign.”

Wolfe’s eyes, on her, were precisely the same as when they were on Maud Jordan. Yet he’s a man. “Indeed,” he said. “Then you might as well tell me where you spent the next three hours.”

She didn’t object. “I was there until half past six, with the letters he had signed. Then I ate something in a restaurant. Then I went home and studied.”

“Studied?”

“Economics. I ‘m going to be an economist. Do you know where I live?”

“No. Where?”

“In that same building on One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street. I have a room on the fourth floor. When Susan Brooke wanted to find an apartment in Harlem she asked me if I knew of any, and that one on the third floor happened to be vacant. If I had known&

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“You were in your room alone that evening?”

“Yes. From eight o’clock on. For a while the police thought I killed her. I didn’t. I never left the room, even after the police came. They wanted to take me somewhere to be questioned, but I refused to go unless they arrested me, and they didn’t. I know the rights of a citizen. I went to the district attorney’s office the next day. I want to ask you something. I have asked Mr. Oster but I’m not sure he’s right, and I want to ask you. If a person says she committed a murder she can’t be convicted just because she says she did it. There has to be some evidence. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll be a witness and say I killed her. Mr. Oster says I would be cross-examined and discredited, but I don’t believe it. I can answer any question they ask me. Then he wouldn’t be convicted, and I couldn’t be. Isn’t that true?”

Wolfe’s lips were tight. He took a deep breath. Henchy and Oster both said something, but he ignored them. He took another breath. “You deserve a frank answer, madam. You are either a female daredevil or a jenny. If you killed her you would be risking disaster; if you didn’t kill her, you would be inviting derision. If you killed her, I advise you to say nothing to anyone, particularly me; if you didn’t, help me find the man who did. Or woman.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Then don’t be a lackwit. Is that apartment on the third floor directly below your room?”

“No, it’s in the rear. I’m at the front.”

“Did you hear any unusual sounds that evening between eight and nine o’clock?”

“No. The first unusual sounds were after the police came.”

“I presume Mr. Whipple knew that you lived there, on the floor above. He told me that he stayed in the apartment until the police arrived-more than half an hour after he discovered the body. It might be thought that at that crisis the impulse to confer with an associate, a friend, so near at hand, would be irresistible. But he didn’t?”

“No, he didn’t. I’m glad he didn’t.”

“Why glad?”

“Because I know-I think I would have gone down and put my fingerprints on the club.”

“Pfui. You think he would have let you?”

“He wouldn’t have known. He would have stayed in my room.”

“Then I’m as glad as you are that he didn’t go to you. This job is knotty enough without that. Archie, the giasses are empty.”

As I went to the bar for a bottle of beer and took it to him, a couple of them made remarks that can be skipped, and Miss Kallman got up to help. They all took refills except Miss Tiger. Her glass was still two-thirds full, with the ice gone, but she didn’t even want more ice. By the time the others had been served, Henchy had downed most of his refill, and I put the bourbon bottle on the stand between him and Oster, and he emptied his glass, picked up the bottle, and poured. It was twelve-year-old Big Sandy, which is worth stealing a little time for. As for me, I went to the kitchen and got a glass of milk. I would like to be loyal to Miss Tiger and say that what she didn’t want I didn’t want, but the truth is that ever since the time I missed an important point because I had had four martinis to be sociable I have limited myself to one dose when I’m working. When I returned to the office with the milk, Oster was speaking:

“& so I didn’t object, but it was immaterial. What does it matter who knew of the phone call or the message'Say I saw the message on Whipple’s desk. I would know that he probably wouldn’t be at the apartment until nine o’clock, but I would also know that Susan wouldn’t either. Therefore I wouldn’t go there at eight o’clock, to see her or kill her before Whipple came. Therefore it’s immaterial.”

Wolfe nodded and put his glass down. “Obviously, if it were that simple, but it isn’t. The telling point is that if you saw the message you knew it was fairly certain that Whipple wouldn’t arrive until around nine o’clock. During the two hours between six and eight you might have learned-no matter how, there are various possibilities-that Miss Brooke had changed her plans and would get there earlier. You might even have met her, by design or accident, and gone to the apartment with her on some pretext.”

“Possible.” Oster pursed his lips, considering it, then jerked his chin up, and I thought he had decided to take charge. But he only said, “Are you going to ignore the fact that someone besides Miss Tiger knew about the message?”

“No. I was keeping that for later, but if you want it now& ” Wolfe’s eyes went right. “He means you, of course, Miss Jordan. You left the office at five-thirty. How did you spend the next three hours?”

There was a flash in her eyes that I didn’t know she had. “I didn’t spend it killing anybody,” she snapped.

“Good. Nor, I hope, at any other mischief. You must have told the police; why not tell me'Miss Tiger did.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you. What I told them. I stopped at three places on the way home to buy some things-a book, and stockings, and cream and bread and pickles-and went home and cooked my supper, and ate it, and read the book until I went to bed.”

“What book?”

“_The Group._ By Mary McCarthy.”

Wolfe made a face. He had read two chapters and ditched it. “Where do you live?”

“I have a little apartment on Forty-seventh Street near Lexington Avenue. I’m alone in the world.”

“At least you’re aware of it. Many people aren’t. Now, madam, a point we haven’t dealt with yet. What is your feeling about a Negro marrying a white woman?”

The flash again. “That’s none of your business.”

“My personal business, no. But it’s of urgent concern to me as the man hired by Mr. Whipple to find out who killed Susan Brooke. If you have a reason to refuse to answer, I-“

“I have no reason. It’s impertinent, that’s all. Everyone at the ROCC knows how I feel about it, and other people too. Anyone has a right to marry anyone. It’s a right. Marrying the woman of your choice or the man of your choice is a God-given right.”

“Then you didn’t resent the relationship between Mr. Whipple and Miss Brooke?”

“It was none of my business. Except I thought if she married him all her money would be devoted to the cause, and that would be wonderful.”

“We all thought that,” Cass Faison said. “Or nearly all.”

“Not me,” Adam Ewing said. “I’m the exception. From the public-relations viewpoint, I thought it would be unwise. I knew it would be. I can say here exactly how I feel, I’ve said it to bigger crowds than this, and some of them mixed. Sex and money are at the bottom of all the opposition to civil rights, just as they’re at the bottom of everything else. Black and white marrying is like a red rag to a bull.” He gestured. “But I wouldn’t kill a woman to stop it. I’m not a killer. Let the opposition do the killing.”

“I’m an exception too,” Beth Tiger said. “I didn’t think it would be wonderful.”

“You agree with Mr. Ewing?”

“That’s not it. I just say I didn’t think it would be wonderful. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“Miss Kallman?”

Rae Kaliman shook her head but didn’t open her mouth.

“Does that mean you disapproved?”

“No. It means I said to Susan what I had to say. She was the only one I had any right to say it to, and she’s dead. The police couldn’t drag it out of me, and neither can you.”

“Then I won’t try. Mr. Henchy?”

He cleared his throat. If I had been with him on the bourbon, I would have had to clear mine twice. “On the whole, I approved. Marriage is a very personal matter, but insofar as the interests of the organization were concerned I was in agreement with Mr. Faison. I thought the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. In my position I must be realistic. Miss Brooke was a very wealthy woman.” He reached for his glass.

“And you, Mr. Oster?”

The lawyer cocked his head. “You know, Wolfe, I’m sitting here taking it in. I’m giving you all the rope you want. But asking me how I feel about a Negro marrying a white woman-how remote can you get'I’ll send you a copy of a magazine with an article I wrote four years ago. Every civilized strain of mankind on earth is the result of interbreeding. Evidently nature approves of it, so I do. I’m not going to indict nature.”

“You had no special feeling about this particular instance?”

“Certainly not.”

Wolfe poured beer, emptying the bottle. He put it down and looked left and right. “I admit,” he said, “that much of what has been said has probably been a waste of time. I hope it has, for in spite of Miss Jordan’s conviction I will not discard the guess that the telephone call was not made by Miss Brooke. I like it; its attractions are many and manifest.” His eyes settled on my assistant bartender. “Miss Kailman, you said that Miss Brooke had a five-o’clock meeting that day. Do you know where it was to be held?”