Death Times Three SSC (27 page)

"I'm a woman," she said.

"Right. No argument. And?"

"I'm a woman, that's all." She put out a hand and was going to touch me but let it drop. "You have a reputation for knowing all about women, Mr. Good- win."

"And..."

"And I act like one. Calling you a rat and a coward, that was silly. Of course I know you're not, I know you're a very smart man, and you're honorable and anything but a coward." She put her hand out again, and that time touched my arm. "It's just that I think I may know something about what's in the package on account of what Hattie told me yesterday morning. She said she was going to take it to Nero Wolfe. You say she left it with you and told you something in confidence. If you ask me why I sneaked in here and took it, can't I ask you why you set a trap? Why you told us it was here in your pocket and then sneaked in and hid?"

She talked too much. I had caught her in the very act, and she was turning it into a debating match. I decided to give her a test. "We could keep this up all day," I said. "I'll call Purley Stebbins, the police sergeant who was here yesterday, and he'll come or we'll go and see him. Let him decide about the package. Where's the phone?"

That did it, and I should have been tickled but wasn't. I believe I haven't mentioned that the idea had occurred to me at our first meeting that it might be interesting to know her better, to learn about such details as her table manners and her reactions to dance music, and a girl is not available for that kind of investigation if she is in the coop on a murder charge. Even before she spoke, the expression on her face was a big hint.

She spoke. "I'd rather not," she said. "Hattie hated cops."

"Hattie is dead."

"Yes, but..." She touched my arm. "You said yourself it's still her property and she certainly wouldn't want us to give it to the police. She trusted me, didn't she? When she told me she was going to see Nero Wolfe? Can't you trust me, Mr. Goodwin? Don't you think I'm fit to be trusted?"

I skipped that. She was unquestionably a woman. "All right," I said, "there's an alternative. I'm not too fond of cops myself. We'll go and put it up to Nero Wolfe. Get your coat and hat."

She considered it, twisting her mouth, her head tilted, regarding me. "You won't give me the package if I promise to come later?"

"Of course not."

"All right. I'll go. My coat's up in my room."

I opened the door and she passed through and headed for the stairs. Since I would have at least six minutes, the world record minimum for a human female to get a coat and put it on, I thought I might as well take a look at Hattie Annis' desk, so I went up. The door was standing open, and Paul Hannah appeared on the sill as I approached.

"Oh, there you are," he said. "I was thinking about those questions Ferris asked. You didn't answer them."

"I made a stab at it." I entered and crossed to the desk. The top was rolled up, the pigeonholes were stuffed full, and stacks of papers and magazines and miscellaneous items left no room on the surface. It would have taken an hour for a quick once-over or four hours for a real job, not counting the drawers. I pulled out the contents of a pigeonhole. "Which question especially?" I asked.

"All of them. I don't get any of it."

"I'm not sure I do. That's why I'm snooping. I'll let you know if I find anything that helps."

"I won't be here. I'm leaving for the theatre. Rehearsal."

"Good luck and don't trip on anything. If Clement Brod's around give him my regards."

He said he would, and went. Opening the six drawers of the desk, none of them locked, and finding that they were stuffed too, I went back to the surface and pigeonholes. There were theatre programs, newspaper clippings, pictures cut out of magazines, cancelled checks--something of everything except letters. Not a single letter. My watch told me that the six minutes had stretched to ten, which was surely enough, when Tammy Baxter's voice came: "Mr. Goodwin! Where are you?"

She was below, at the foot of the stairs, in the same fur coat and fuzzy little turban as the day before. I descended and got my coat and hat from the parlor and put the package in the pocket, and we left, heading west. She was a good woman walker, neither trotting nor jiggling. When we had flagged a taxi on Ninth Avenue and I had climbed in after her and given the hackie the address, I asked, "Do you drive a car?"

"Certainly," she said. "Who doesn't?"

So that was no help. You can't steal a car and run it over somebody if you don't know how to drive. If you think I'm piling it on, that I didn't really suspect she might have killed Hattie Annis, you are wrong. If there's a formula for ruling people out as incapable of murder under any provocation I don't know what it is, and there were four marks against her. But that aspect of the situation was soon to be disposed of. As the taxi rolled to the curb in front of the old brownstone a man got out of a parked car just ahead. It was Albert Leach.

I should have caught on immediately. I should have let Tammy Baxter scramble out by herself instead of giving her a hand. I certainly was a sap that it didn't dawn on me when Leach flashed the leather fold with his credentials and said, "I'm arresting you on suspicion of being in possession of counterfeit United States currency."

My brows went up. "No warrant this time?"

"No warrant is needed if the suspicion is based on reasonable grounds."

"You ought to know. I'm not up on Federal law. But since we're outdoors and you have already searched my room, I suppose 'possession' means having it on my person?"

"It does."

"Okay, that's easily settled." I stretched my arms wide. "Go to it."

"Not here." He touched my shoulder. "Come along."

"I respectfully decline. I'm too heavy for you to carry, so you'll have to drag me. People have been known to plant things on people, and here I have witnesses--this lady and the cab driver. If you undress me and I catch cold I hereby agree not to hold the United States responsible." I stretched my arms again.

He turned and called, "Come here, Ziegler!" and a man climbed out of the car and joined us. "Stand by," Leach said, and moved. He didn't pat or feel; he simply stuck his hand in my pocket and pulled out the package. He backed up, squatted, put the package on the sidewalk, untied the string, and opened the wrapping. He stared a second at the neat white stack of paper, then picked it up and flipped through it, first at one end and then the other.

"Don't soil it, please," I said. "That's good bond." I stretched my arms. "Try again. You've barely started."

He stood up. "I warned you yesterday, Goodwin. It doesn't pay to play games with us. You'll regret this. Come on, Ziegler." He turned and headed for the car, with the makings of the package.

"Hey!" I called. "I want that!"

He ignored me, and it wasn't worth an argument, since I could make another one at a cost of under fifteen cents. When they had got in and rolled away, the hackie called to me, "What's he? FBI?"

"Yes," I told him. "Foiled By Intelligence--What's the idea?"

Tammy Baxter was opening the door of the cab. "I'm going," she said. "I might as well. The package is gone."

"But you're not. Nothing doing. There is still something to discuss. We'll go in and discuss it here, or you can discuss it later with Stebbins. Take your pick."

She hesitated, then swung the door shut. "Okay," I told the driver, "your flag's up," and he fed gas and was off. Tammy turned to me: "What was that in the package? Just blank paper?"

I eyed her. "Show me your credentials," I said. "What? What credentials?"

"Nuts. Maybe you're right. You might as well go. Then I can go in and ring a man I know on the Gazette and give him an item he'll appreciate. Human interest. That Archie Goodwin was ambushed on the sidewalk in front of Nero Wolfe's house by two T-men and a T-woman and arrested for possession of counterfeit United States currency, and only his quick wit and presence of mind saved him. I'll bet he doesn't even know there is a T-woman. I didn't. A picture of you would help. A picture of you would decorate any story. The gorgeous glamorous T-woman. Wait here a second while I go in and get my camera."

"What on earth are you talking about? What's a T-woman?"

"Oh, come on down. When you went to get your coat you phoned him. Two of them waiting here in a car? And the way he went about it? If I'm wrong you can sue the newspaper and me both for libel."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Ha. You double-talking she-weasel. Giving me the dewy eye and purring at me, `I'm a woman.' Touching my arm and asking me if you weren't fit to be trusted.

Come in and purr at Nero Wolfe a while. Are you coming or going?"

"I have nothing to say to Nero Wolfe. If you can set a trap

"Shut up! If I go in alone I ring my newspaper friend before I take off my coat and hat. Which do you want me to use, Tammy or Tamiris?"

No reply. I turned and started up the steps. She came. By the time I had my key out she was there, and I swung the door open and let her precede me. T-women first. She stood while I got rid of my hat and coat and then started for the office, but I stopped her. "In here," I told her, opening the door to the front room, and she passed through. "I'm going to report first," I said. "Help yourself to the magazines. Don't bother to strain your ears; the soundproofing is good. I'm locking the door to the hall only so you won't roam around looking for packages; if you get tired waiting you can leave by a window."

She had something to say but I wasn't interested. Leaving by the hall door, which I locked, and proceeding to the office, I found Wolfe at his desk counting bottle caps he had taken from his drawer. Tuesday is the day for checking the week's beer consumption. I went and stood. When he looked up I asked, "Any more invasions?"

"No," he said. "I had a talk with Mr. Cramer on the phone. He wanted to know what that woman told you yesterday and what you were doing at her house. Of course he wasn't satisfied, he never is, and he may call. I'll be through in a moment." He finished putting the caps in groups of ten, figured the total, scowled at them, muttered, "I don't understand it," and brushed them into a heap. "Didn't I hear a woman's voice?"

"You did. She's in the front room. The bait worked fine, as planned, but it hooked the wrong fish. It is now one sweet mess. I'll have to report in full."

"Very well."

I went to my desk and sat, and gave it to him, omitting nothing. He is the best listener I know of, his most violent reaction being with his fingertip, making circles the size of a quarter on the arm of his chair. When I got to the end and said, "If you have no use for her I'll take her to the Empire State Building and push her off," he moved the fingertip to rub the side of his nose.

He cleared his throat. "It could be that your wit was dulled by your discomfiture. How certain are you that she is a colleague of Mr. Leach?"

"Utterly. Totally. Absolutely. She is probably kept under cover and used only for special occasions. I doubt if Tammy Baxter is her real name."

He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips moved--out to a pucker and then in again, out and in, out and in. His record for that performance is around forty minutes. That time it was only three or four. He opened his eyes and spoke. "I need your opinion."

"Of her?"

"No. Of a stratagem. That one miscarried, but it has prepared the way for another. I'll describe it."

He did so, and I gave it both ears. It was nothing as complicated or fancy as some of the programs he has cooked up, and I had to answer only three questions as my contribution. And at the end a fourth, when he asked, "Well?"

"Yes," I said, "except for one detail. What if you can't keep her here and Leach is waiting for me at the door?"

He grunted. "Am I a clod? Bring her."

I went and opened the connecting door and said, "In here, Miss Baxter."

As she sat in the red leather chair Wolfe frowned at her on principle and I frowned at her in particular. The chair would have held two of her, and in order to have her knees straight in front and her feet flat she had to sit on the edge. Twenty-four hours earlier I would have thought that she went fine with the red leather, but now my mind was closed.

"Do you know what a premise is, madam?" Wolfe demanded.

"Why .. . yes," she said.

"We have one: that you are an agent of the Secret Service of the Treasury Department. If you're going to waste my time denying it you may as well go. If you do, you know what Mr. Goodwin's intentions are and I approve of them. It would be a readable item. He suffered a contretemps, but so did you and your colleagues. Shall I proceed?"

"I'll listen," she said.

"Good. First, I am concerned only with the exposure of a murderer. With you that is secondary; your target is a counterfeiter. The reason for my concern is personal and not material to this discussion. I wish you success in your pursuit, but I won't let it impede mine. You know who killed Hattie Annis."

"I do not!"

"I think you do. At least you have grounds for a strong suspicion. You were assigned to that house because there was evidence that someone there was involved in a counterfeiting operation, and you have lived there three weeks. Surely you aren't so inept that you learned nothing. You may even have known who it was when you went there, and your purpose was to discover his source of supply. I won't list the reasons for the assumption that he killed Hattie Annis; you know them as well as I do. I don't suggest that you will let a murderer escape his doom if it suits your convenience; it is merely that you give priority to your objective, and I do not. But the advantage is with me. I have the package of counterfeit bills."