Death Times Three SSC (17 page)

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

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

The woman didn't go with him. She was strictly modern, small and trim, in a tailored suit that had been cut and fitted by an expert, and while her face was perfectly acceptable, the main thing was her eyes. They were as close to black as eyes ever get, and they ran the show. In spite of Alec Gallant's lordly presence, as I approached the table I found myself aiming at Anita Prince's eyes.

Gallant was speaking. "What's this about Sarah Yare?"

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

"He said Nero Wolfe is making an inquiry and sent you. What kind of an inquiry? What about?"

"I don't really know." I was apologetic. "The fact is, Mr. Gallant, on this I'm just an errand boy. My instructions were to ask if you got any messages or letters from her in the past month or so, and if so, will you let Mr. Wolfe see them?"

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

She put fingers on his arm. "You gave him five minutes, Alec, and he has had only two." Her voice was

smooth and sure. The black eyes came to me. "So you don't know the purpose of Mr. Wolfe's inquiry?"

"No, Miss Prince, I don't. He tells me only what he thinks I need to know."

"Nor who hired him to make it?"

So Drew had covered the ground. "Not that either. He'll probably tell you, if you have what he wants, letters from her, and you want to know why he wants to see them."

"I have no letters from her. I never had any. I had no personal relations with Miss Yare." Her voice sharpened a little. "Though I saw her many times, my contact with her was never close. Mr. Gallant preferred to fit her himself. I just looked on. It seems--" She stopped for a word, and found it. "It seems odd that Nero Wolfe should be starting an inquiry immediately after her death. Or did he start it before?"

"I couldn't say. The first I knew, he gave me this errand this morning. This noon."

"You don't know much, do you?"

"No. I just take orders."

"Of course you do know that Miss Yare committed suicide?"

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

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

I stopped because his hand had darted to an ash tray, a big metal one that looked heavy, and since he wasn't smoking, he was presumably going to let fly with it. Anita Prince beat him to it. With her left hand she got his wrist, and with her right she got the ash

tray and moved it out of reach. It was very quick and deft.

Then she spoke, to me. "Miss Gallant is not here. Miss Thorne is busy, but you can ask Mr. Drew downstairs. You had better go."

I went. In more favorable circumstances I might have spared another five minutes for a survey of the pinups, but not then, not if I had to dodge ash trays. So I went.

That is, I started. But when I was near enough to the door to start a hand out for the knob, it suddenly swung in at me, and I had to jump back to give it room, and there was Flora Gallant.

Turning to close the door, she saw me and stopped, right against me. She backed up, then whirled to face the table.

Anita Prince spoke. "You know Mr. Goodwin, don't you? Your alibi?"

Flora didn't answer. Gallant had left his chair and was coming around the end of the table to her, and she extended her hands and he took them.

"My dear," he said. "My dear sister. Was it bad?" "It's all right," she said. "It was so long."
I "Who was it? The one that croaks like a frog?" "No, not him. There were two of them, one named Brill and one named Bowen. It was so long."

It would be, I thought, with the district attorney himself taking a hand.

"More than three hours," she said. "Most of the time it wasn't about me; it was about you and the others. I suppose because I have an alibi." Her head turned. "Yes, Anita, I know Mr. Goodwin--as you say, my alibi. Carl told me he was here asking questions."

Flora turned to me. "Well--hello."

I returned it. "Hello. If you've been answering questions for three hours, I guess you've had enough for a while, so I'll just ask--"

She cut me off. "Not here." She moved. "I don't mind you asking me questions." She was touching my arm. "But tete-a-tete." She turned to her brother. "It wasn't too bad, Alec. I'll tell you later." She stepped into the hall, and I followed, pulling the door shut.

"My room is so small," she said, "that you can't stretch your legs." She touched my arm again. "I know. You ought to see it, anyway. I'm sure you're a better detective than any of them. Come along."

Leading me along the hall toward the front, on past the elevator, nearly to the end, she opened a door, stood aside for me to enter, and followed me in.

"This was her room," she said. "When you're through asking me questions, you can go over it and maybe you can detect something. Maybe you'll find something they missed."

I glanced around. There were coats, suits, dresses, all kinds. They were on dummies scattered around--on hangers strung on a pole along a wall and piled on a big long table. Half of one wall was a mirror from floor to ceiling. At the far side of the room was a desk, with a pad and pen stand and calendar and other objects on its top, including a telephone--the one, presumably, that Wolfe and I had heard hit the floor.

Flora crossed to the desk and sat down on a chair near an end of it. "You sit in her chair," she invited me.

"It's hardly worth taking the trouble to sit," I told her. "However," I turned Bianca Voss' chair around and sat. "Only a question or two--one really. Apparently Carl Drew told you what it is."

"He said you wanted to know if we have any letters from Sarah Yare, and Nero Wolfe wants to see them. I haven't any."

"Then that answers it. It doesn't make much of a tete-a-tete, does it?"

"No."

"I get the impression that everybody around here was pretty fond of Sarah Yare. Were you?"

"Yes."

"I suppose you first met her before she--when she had the world by the tail."

"Yes."

I looked at her. Her face had full light on it from a window, and her chin was more pointed than ever, her eye rims were red, and her lips were too tight. That was nothing remarkable; after all, not only had she just returned from three hours of nagging by Brill and Bowen about a murder--murder of a woman as she occupied the chair I was sitting in--but also someone she had been fond of had just died in a very unpleasant manner. But there was something about her--I guess her eyes--that made me feel that if I went after her I would get something. The trouble was, I would be exceeding instructions, and I still didn't know what Wolfe had been doing with the phone book.

So I merely said, "Well, I guess that covers it." "Archie," she said.

"Yes, Finger?"

"You kissed me good night when you put me in the taxi."

"So I did. It's nice of you to remember."

"Would you kiss me now?"

It was a little complicated. When Wolfe is investigating a murder case for a client, and I am helping, I do not go around kissing the suspects. But we had no client, and I was working on Sarah Yare, not Bianca Voss.

Besides, if I declined, she would think I had decided there was something repellent about her, and I hadn't decided a thing about her or anyone else. So I arose. So did she, which was sensible. One on his feet and one in a chair is no way to kiss.

She drew away. "Then you still like me."

"I think I do. I could tell better after a few more." "Then I can ask you. I couldn't ask if you were not if you were my enemy. Now I can. Why are you asking all of us about Sarah Yare?"

"Because Mr. Wolfe told me to."

"Why did he tell you to?"

"I don't know."

"Or course you know. He tells you everything. Why?"

I shook my head. "No good, Finger. Either I don't know or I do know but am not saying. What's the difference? It happens that I really don't know, but it doesn't matter whether you believe that or not."

"I don't. You're lying to me. You are my enemy. You told Carl Drew that someone engaged Mr. Wolfe to make an inquiry. Who engaged him?"

"I don't know."

"Of course you know. Was it Carl Drew?"

"Don't know."

"Was it Emmy Thorne?"

"Don't know."

"Was it Anita Prince?"

"Don't know."

She grabbed my arms. I wouldn't have thought her little hands had so much muscle. Her face was right under mine, tilted up to me. "I have to know, Archie. There's a reason why I must know. What can I do? What can I do to make you tell me?"

Instructions or no instructions, that was too much. I

would find out what was biting her. "I can't tell you what I don't know," I said, "but maybe I can help. Sit down and calm down and we'll see. It's quite possible--"

The door opened. I was facing it. Flora let go of my arms and turned. A voice which I had myself frequently heard croak more or less like a frog sounded. "Huh? You?" --

It was my old friend and foe, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, of Homicide. In two steps he stopped and was glaring. Behind one of his shoulders appeared the saggy cheeks and puffy eyes of Carl Drew. Behind the other appeared an attractive display of hair about the color of white gold, a nice smooth brow, a pair of blue eyes not at all puffed, and a nose that went with them fine. The rest of her was shielded by Purley Stebbins' broad frame.

Purley took another step, and another. He probably thought a slow and measured advance would be more impressive and menacing, and, as a matter of fact, it was, or would have been if I hadn't seen it before.

"Greetings," I said.

"The scene of a murder," he said, "and you." He came to a stop an arm's length from me.

I grinned at him. "This time," I said, "you're in for a disappointment. I haven't got the answer ready for you because I'm not interested. Sorry, but my mind is elsewhere. Actually I'm just on a fishing trip." My eyes went to Carl Drew, who had approached on the left. "If that's Miss Thorne, would you mind introducing me, Mr. Drew?"

"That's me," she said. "No introduction required.

You're Archie Goodwin." Now that all of her was in view, I could see that the mouth and chin were no letdown from the other details.

"Fishing," Purley croaked. "For what?"

"Fish." I put one brow up. He thinks I do that because I know he can't, but my motives are my business. "Listen, sergeant. Don't let's start ring-around-a-rosy and end in a squat. If you demand to know why I'm poking my nose in a murder, you know darned well what you'll get, so what's the use? Even if I told you what I'm here for--and I'm not going to--you wouldn't have the faintest idea if or how it's connected with what you're here for. Neither have I. Anyhow, I'm about finished and I've had no lunch. All I want is a few words in private with Miss Thorne. . . . If you will be so good, Miss Thorne?"

"Certainly," she said. "My room is down the hall." "Just a minute," Stebbins growled. "Maybe you'd like a ride downtown." To me.

"I've already been downtown. I spent two hours at the D.A.'s office this morning."

"Did you tell them you were coming here?"

"I didn't know I was coming here. I went home, and Mr. Wolfe sent me on an errand."