Death Times Three SSC (26 page)

"With me?"

"With all of you. I have a little problem to settle. Do you suppose they can be roused?"

"I'll see. I don't know if Ray . . . I'll see."

Paul Hannah asked if I had had breakfast and I said yes but I could use a cup of coffee if there was any to spare, and he headed for the rear. I followed, but detoured into the parlor to put my coat and hat on the sofa. As I entered the kitchen Hannah was at the range pouring coffee. "I guess," he said, "I'm a misfit as an actor. I have always liked to get up in the morning and I can't break the habit. What's the problem you want to settle?"

I could have told him he would also have to do something about his chubby cheeks, but didn't. "Nothing much," I said. "Probably nothing at all. Pumpkin pie?"

He nodded. "Another habit, pie for breakfast. My favorites are mince and lemon meringue, but they didn't have any yesterday. Have a piece?" I said no, thanks, and he changed the subject. "What do you think of Clement Brod?"

That was a challenge. When anyone asks what you think of somebody you never heard of, the game is to place him without letting on. You can nearly always win if you play it right, and that time it was a cinch. Without a single fumble I had learned that Clement Brod was a well-off young man in his twenties who had had a book of poems published, had written an off-beat play called Do As Thou Wilt, had worn a beard for a year but shaved it off, and owned a Jaguar, by the time Hannah had finished his second piece of pie and third cup of coffee; and I would soon have been an authority on Brod if we hadn't been interrupted. The four of them arrived together--Tammy Baxter, Martha Kirk, Noel Ferris, and Raymond Dell. The girls were dressed for anybody and their faces and hair had been attended to. Ferris had combed his hair but was in shirt sleeves and no tie. Dell's marvelous white mane was tousled and his costume was an ancient blue dressing gown with spots on it. As he entered he boomed: "Monstrous! Flagitious!"

"There's plenty of coffee," Hannah said. "Kippers, anyone?"

Noel Ferris stretched, yawned, muttered, "Give me the sun," and came and sat. Martha Kirk went and got cups. Tammy Baxter said, "You have made history, Mr. Goodwin," and pulled up a chair. Dell sank onto one where it was, took an orange from the pocket of his gown, and started peeling it.

"I apologize," I told them. "I don't know what 'flagitious' means, in fact I didn't know it was pronounced like that, but I admit it's monstrous. My excuse is that I wanted to get here before any of you went out."

"More coffee?" Martha Kirk asked me. Looking up at her, from an angle, the dimple seemed a little off-center, but it wasn't.

"I believe I will, thanks." I wanted to be one of them.

"It had better be good," Noel Ferris drawled. His lazy brown eyes were only half open. "Good heavens! I hope you're not going to evict us?"

I would have liked to tell him it would be a pleasure to evict a man who answered the phone by asking who is this. "No," I said, "for that I would need a badge and I'm strictly private." I took a sip of coffee. "I just want to settle a little matter. Why I phoned yesterday and asked for Miss Annis, I had seen her and talked with her. She had come to see Nero Wolfe, but he was busy, and she was coming back at a quarter past eleven. She

never came, and I wondered why. When I phoned of course I didn't know she had been killed."

"You asked for Miss Baxter," Ferris said.

"Yeah. I knew she lived here. I had met her somewhere. Later, when I learned what had happened to Miss Annis, I thought over what she had told me, and on account of something she had said, something she had told me was confidential, I wanted to take a look at her effects. I wanted to know what to do about what she had told me in confidence. So I came, and was talking with Miss Baxter when we were interrupted. And here I am again. I'm going to glance through Miss Annis' things, her papers mostly. Did she have a desk somewhere?"

"A good idea." Ferris yawned. "Go to it. Second floor front. If you find a will leaving the house to Ray Dell we'll be fixed for life."

"That's brutal," Martha Kirk said. "The poor woman isn't even in her grave yet."

"She left nothing to me," Dell rumbled. "She regarded me as a sloven. All my eloquence couldn't persuade her that orange peel, as it dries in a waste basket, gives a scent pleasant to a discriminating nose."

"She was right," Martha declared. "It smells terrible."

"Is it all right to do that?" Paul Hannah asked me. "Go through her things? Isn't there a law about it?"

"If there is," Ferris said, "he should break it. We all should, in her memory. She hated cops."

"I won't be breaking any law," I assured them, "unless I pinch something, and I'm not going to. Of course the strictly proper thing would be to get permission from the executor of the estate, but who is it? Do any of you know?"

They didn't.

"Has anyone been here officially? Someone claiming to be an heir? Or a lawyer?"

They said no. "Hattie was a relict," Raymond Dell declared. "The last of her line. It is my belief that she was without kith or kin--unless we are to be considered her kith. That appeals to me." He thumped his chest. "Raymond Dell, of the kith of Hattie Annis. May I have a napkin, Martha?"

Tammy Baxter spoke for the first time since she had told me I had made history. "You may not find what you're looking for, Mr. Goodwin. That police sergeant was in Miss Annis' room for more than an hour last night after he finished with us. He may have taken it.

"Which suggests a question," Ferris said. He put his cup down. "You're a detective, you ought to know everything. Why the inquisition? Why are we beset? Why did that bloodhound tell us not to leave the jurisdiction? What is the jurisdiction? Why did Hattie go to see Nero Wolfe? What did she tell you in confidence? What do you expect to find among her papers?"

"That's seven questions," I protested. "Have a heart."

"They're damn good questions," Paul Hannah said. He was at the range again. "I'd like to ask them myself. I think we all would. Especially the first two. As far as we know, Hattie was crossing the street and got hit by a goon who had stolen a car." His chubby cheeks were flushed. "Why don't they find him and cut off his hands and feet? What have we got to do with it?"

I shook my head. "Search me. That's not my territory. As for what Miss Annis told me in confidence, now that she's dead it may be that I ought to tell it, and that's what I want to find out. Specifically, about the package she left with me--a little package wrapped in brown paper. She didn't tell me what was in it. I don't want to slander the dead, but from something she said I got the notion that it might have belonged to one of you and she had swiped it. Are any of you minus such a package? Or anything that could be put in such a package?"

"That's horrible," Martha Kirk said. "To accuse Hattie of stealing!"

"He's not accusing her. Martha darling," Ferris told her. "He's eliminating. Detectives spend practically all their time eliminating."

"Could it be a book?" Raymond Dell asked. "My Tamburlaine is gone."

"It's not the right shape for a book," I said. "Six inches by three and two inches thick."

"Where is it?" Tammy Baxter asked.

"In my overcoat pocket." I sent my eyes around. "Oh, I left it in the parlor."

"Well, for heaven's sake." Martha Kirk turned her hands up--a dancer's hands. "I'm not a detective, but when I want to know what's in a package I open it. Shall I bring it?"

"No, thank you, Miss Kirk. Miss Annis told me not to open it. She's dead, but as far as I'm concerned it's still her property. Unless you want to claim it?"

"Me? Why should I? It's not mine."

"Miss Baxter?"

Tammy shook her head. "No."

"Mr. Dell?"

"I am minus nothing." He had finally finished the orange. "Nothing but my illusions, my ambitions, and my hopes. They could not be contained in the package you describe."

"Mr. Ferris?"

His eyes were still only half open. "How can I claim it unless I know what's in it?"

"Have you missed anything recently?"

"No. Not even an illusion."

"Mr. Hannah?"

He shook his head. "I guess we're all eliminated. Why, did Hattie tell you it belonged to one of us?"

"No, it was just a notion I got. --By the way, Mr. Dell, that remark you made yesterday about snooping. I snoop only within reason. I could have opened the package and tried whatever is in it for fingerprints. If I found some I could have come and got hold of samples from you people--for instance, from the coffee cups. That would have been snooping. Instead, I just came and asked you." I pushed my chair back and stood. "I apologize again for coming before breakfast, and many thanks for the coffee and the cooperation. You said second floor front, Mr. Ferris?"

"Correct. One flight up. If you find a will leaving it to anyone but us or one of us, burn it."

"I'll do that." I went.

I took my time mounting the stair, trying each step for creaks, in case developments called for silent descent. The fifth from the top didn't creak but it croaked unless you stepped on the inside end. The upper hall had three doors, one toward each end and one about the middle. The one at the rear end was standing open -Raymond Dell's, since he had told Stebbins that his room was above the kitchen. The one in the middle was shut; probably a closet. The one at the front was also shut, and I went and opened it and entered. There was a massive walnut bed, a big old rolltop desk, a worn and faded carpet with big flowers, some chairs; and a hundred or so pictures of men and women all over the walls, most of them in costume, and all of them actors from a mile off.

Of course staying there was no good; I might as well have stayed at home. A floor and ceiling were between me and the parlor, and if he or she took the bait quick, on leaving the kitchen, he could be in and out of the parlor without my hearing or seeing a thing. There was no place to lurk in the lower hall. Only one place would do. I left, closed the door, went to the landing, and listened. Voices came up, dominated by the boom of Raymond Dell. With that for cover I descended, remembering the fifth step, saw that the hall was clear, made the door to the parlor, opened it, entered, and shut the door gently.

There were three possibilities: a closet if there was one, the upright piano at the right wall, and the sofa itself. One of the other two doors was probably a closet, but I wanted a better view than a keyhole, and with the blinds down there wasn't much light. To be covered by the sofa I would have had to shift its angle. The thought struck me that one of them might already have dived in and out again, and I felt the pocket of my coat. Still there. I went and huddled at the end of the piano, squeezing into the corner, and decided it would do. It would have to. If he looked around first it would cramp my style, but anyhow there would be something to discuss. I straightened up, listened to my ears, and kept an eye on two doors, since the one at the far corner might be to a passage to the kitchen. It was so dark that I could barely see the hands of my wrist watch. 9:42.

I might have been able to hear their voices, at least Dell's, if it hadn't been for the street sounds. Morning cross-town traffic in the Forties can be heard even when it can't be seen. So I quit trying. I learned later that the historic gathering I had assembled soon broke up, but the only sign I got was footsteps in the hall a couple of times. They went on by. I was rubbing one eye and beginning to think he wasn't going to bite, that I had wasted a lot of typewriter paper and carefully selected items from Fritz's hoard of paper and string, when the door to the hall started to open, and I squeezed into the corner fast.

He certainly wasn't noisy. I have good ears, but the door closing was just a faint whisper, and so was his crossing to the sofa. But when a package is a tight fit in a pocket it isn't easy to get it out with no noise at all, especially if you're in a hurry, and I heard that, which was the main point. I moved and spoke: "Did you want me?"

It wasn't he, it was she, and she was quick. She made a dash for the door and got there before I did, but it opened in, and of course that was hopeless. I was against it before she had the knob turned. "You rat," she said, not too loud.

I stretched an arm to reach for the wall switch and turned on the light. "I admit I'm surprised," I said. "If I had made book on it you would have been at the bottom."

"You lied," she said. "Yesterday. You said she hadn't been there."

"Sure. Because she might have had reasons for not wanting you to know. Apparently she did."

"She did not! She told me she was going!" "Maybe. Or maybe you followed her. Anyway, the point isn't why I lied, it's why you sneaked in and snitched that package." I put out a hand. "I'll take it."

She backed up a step. "You will not. It's not yours, it's hers. That's why I came and got it. You have no right to it!"

"Have you?"

"As much as you have. More. This is her house. It belongs here."

I shot out a hand, grabbed her wrist, whirled her off balance, and with the other hand got the package.

"Coward," she said. "If I were a man..."

"I wish you were. For instance, Noel Ferris. I don't like the way he answers the phone. Look, Miss Baxter. I may be a rat and a coward, but I'm not a goof. If you felt that I had no right to the package because it belongs here, why didn't you say so? The three men could have held me while you came and got it, or at least they could have tried. But you sneaked in when the coast was clear, or you thought it was. Of course you knew I would miss it, so the point was that I wouldn't know who had taken it. Why?"