Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 19 (6 page)

“I will maybe ask you to come in and sit,” she said, “when you tell me what you want.”

“I don’t think,” I told her, “I need to take much of your time. I told you my name on the phone, Archie Goodwin. I’m getting some stuff together for an article on public stenographers. Does your daughter discuss her work with you?”

She frowned a little. “You could ask her. Couldn’t you?”

“Sure I could, if there’s some reason why I shouldn’t ask you.”

“Why should there be a reason?”

“I don’t know any. For instance, say she types a story or an article for a man. Does she tell you about him—what he looked like and how he talked? Or does she tell you what the story or article was about?”

The frown had not gone. “Would that be not proper?”

“Not at all. It’s not a question of being proper, it’s just that I want to make it personal, talking with her family and friends.”

“Is it there will be an article about her?”

“Yes.” That was not a lie. Far from it.

“Is it her name will be printed?”

“Yes.”

“My daughter never talks about her work to me or her father or her sisters, only one thing, the money she makes. She tells about that because she gives me a certain part, but not for me, for the family, and one sister is in college. She does not tell me what men look
like or about her work. If her name is going to be printed everybody ought to know the truth.”

“You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Abrams. Do you know—”

“You said you will talk with her family and friends. Her father will be home at twenty minutes to seven. Her sister Deborah is here now, doing her homework, but she is only sixteen—too young? Her sister Nancy will not be here today, she is with a friend, but she will be here tomorrow at half-past four. Then you want friends. There is a young man named William Butterfield who wants to marry her, but he is—”

She stopped short, with a twinkle in her eye. “If you will pardon me, but that is maybe too personal. If you want his address?”

“Please.”

She gave me a number on Seventy-sixth Street. “There is Hulda Greenberg, she lives downstairs on the second floor, Two C. There is Cynthia Free, only that is not her real name. You know about her.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“She acts on the stage.”

“Oh, sure. Cynthia Free.”

“Yes. She went to high school with Rachel, but she quit. I will not speak against her. If my daughter is once a friend she is always a friend. I will be getting old now, but what will I have? I will have my husband and Deborah and Nancy, and enough friends I have, many friends, but I know I will always have my Rachel. If her name is to be printed that must be part of it. I will tell you more about her, Mr. Goodwin, if you will come in and sit—oy, the phone. Excuse me, please?”

She turned and trotted inside. I stayed put. In a moment I heard her voice, faintly.

“Hello …. This is Mrs. Abrams …. Yes ….
Yes, Rachel is my daughter …. Who is it you say? …”

There was no doubt about its being my move. The only question was whether to leave the door standing open or close it. It seemed better to close it. I reached for the knob, pulled it to quickly but with no bang, and headed for the stairs.

Out on the sidewalk, glancing at my wrist and seeing 5:24, I went to the corner for a look, saw a drugstore down a block, walked there, found a phone booth, and dialed the number. Fritz answered and put me through to the plant rooms.

When Wolfe was on I told him, “I’ve had a talk with Rachel’s mother. She says her daughter never discusses her work at home. We were using the present tense because she hadn’t got the news yet. She wants to see her Rachel’s name in print, and thanks to that son of a bitch I missed by three minutes, she will. I didn’t tell her because it would have wasted time. Tomorrow, when she knows that discussing her daughter’s work may help to find the guy that killed her, she might possibly remember something, though I doubt it. I have some names, but they’re scattered around town. Tell the boys to call me at this number.” I gave it to him.

He spoke. “Mr. Cramer insists on seeing you. I gave him the information, and he sent for the notebook, but he wants to see you. He is sour, of course. You might as well go down there. After all, we are collaborating.”

“Yeah. On what? Okay, I’ll go. Don’t overdo.”

I waited in the booth to corner it. When the calls came I gave William Butterfield to Saul, Hulda Greenberg to Fred, and Cynthia Free to Orrie, telling them all to collect additional names and keep going. Then I hiked to the subway.

Down at Homicide on West Twentieth Street I
learned how sour Cramer was. Over the years my presence has been requested at that address many times. When it’s a case of our having something he would like to get, or he thinks it is, I am taken inside at once to his own room. When it’s only some routine matter, I am left to Sergeant Purley Stebbins or one of the bunch. When all that is really wanted or expected is a piece of my hide, I am assigned to Lieutenant Rowcliff. If and when I am offered a choice of going to heaven or hell it will be simple; I’ll merely ask, “Where’s Rowcliff?” We were fairly even—he set my teeth on edge about the same as I did his—until one day I got the notion of stuttering. When he gets worked up to a certain point he starts to stutter. My idea was to wait till he was about there and then stutter just once. It more than met expectations. It made him so mad he had to stutter, he couldn’t help it, and then I complained that he was mimicking me. From that day on I have had the long end and he knows it.

I was with him an hour or so, and it was burlesque all the way, because Wolfe had already given them my story and there was nothing I could add. Rowcliff’s line was that I had overstepped when I searched her desk and took the notebook, which was true, and that I had certainly taken something besides the notebook and was holding out. We went all around that, and back and forth, and he had a statement typed for me to sign, and after I signed it he sat and studied it and thought up more questions. Finally I got tired.

“Look,” I told him, “this is a lot of bull and you know it. What are you trying to do, b-b-b-break my spirit?”

He clamped his jaw. But he had to say something. “I’d rather b-b-b-break your goddam neck,” he stated. “Get the hell out of here.”

I went, but not out. I intended to have one word
with Cramer. Down the hall I took a left turn, strode to the door at the end, and opened it without knocking. But Cramer wasn’t there, only Purley Stebbins, sitting at a table working with papers.

“You lost?” he demanded.

“No. I’m giving myself up. I just c-c-c-cooked Rowcliff and ate him. Aside from that, I thought someone here might want to thank me. If I hadn’t been there today, the precinct boys would probably have called it a jump or a fall, and no one would have ever gone through that book and found those entries.”

Purley nodded. “So you found the entries.”

“So I did.”

“And took the book home to Wolfe.”

“And then, without delay, turned it over.”

“By God, so you did. Thank you. Going?”

“Yes. But I could use a detail without waiting for the morning paper. What’s in the lead on how Rachel Abrams got out of the window?”

“Homicide.”

“By flipping a coin?”

“No. Finger marks on her throat. Preliminary, the M.E. says she was choked. He thinks not enough to kill her, but we won’t know until they’re through at the laboratory.”

“And I missed him by three minutes.”

Purley cocked his head. “Did you?”

I uttered a colorful word. “One Rowcliff on the squad is enough,” I told him and beat it. Out in the anteroom I went to a phone booth, dialed, got Wolfe, and reported, “Excuse me for interrupting your dinner, but I need instructions. I’m at Homicide on Twentieth Street, without cuffs, after an hour with Rowcliff and a word with Purley. From marks on her throat the dope is that she was choked and tossed out the window. I told
you so. I divided the three names Mrs. Abrams gave me among the help, and told them to get more and carry on. There should be another call on the family either tonight or tomorrow, but not by me. Mrs. Abrams might open up for Saul, but not for me, after today. So I need instructions.”

“Have you had dinner?”

“No.”

“Come home.”

I went to Tenth Avenue and flagged a taxi. It was still drizzling.

W
olfe does not like conferences with clients. Many’s the time he has told me not to let a client in. So when, that evening, following instructions, I phoned Wellman at his hotel and asked him to call at the office the next morning at eleven, I knew it looked as bad to Wolfe as it did to me.

Eight days had passed since we had seen our client, though we had had plenty of phone calls from him, some local and some from Peoria. Apparently the eight days hadn’t done him any good. Either he was wearing the same gray suit or he had two of them, but at least the tie and shirt were different. His face was pasty. As I hung his coat on the rack I remarked that he had lost some weight. When he didn’t reply I thought he hadn’t heard me, but after we had entered the office and he and Wolfe had exchanged greetings and he was in the red leather chair, he apologized.

“Excuse me, what did you say about my weight?”

“I said you had lost some.”

“I guess so. I haven’t been eating much and I don’t seem to sleep. I go back home and go to the office or the warehouse, but I’m no darned good, and I take a train back here, and I’m no good here either.” He went to
Wolfe. “He told me on the phone you didn’t have any real news but you wanted to see me.”

Wolfe nodded. “I didn’t want to, I had to. I must put a question to you. In eight days I have spent—how much, Archie?”

“Around eighteen hundred bucks.”

“Nearly two thousand dollars of your money. You said you were going through with this even if it pauperized you. A man should not be held to a position taken under stress. I like my clients to pay my bills without immoderate pangs. How do you feel now?”

Wellman looked uncomfortable. He swallowed. “I just said I don’t eat much.”

“I heard you. A man should eat.” Wolfe gestured. “Perhaps I should first describe the situation. As you know, I regard it as established that your daughter was murdered by the man who, calling himself Baird Archer, phoned for an appointment with her. Also that he killed her because she had read the manuscript she told about in her letter to you. The police agree.”

“I know they do.” Wellman was concentrating. “That’s something. You did that.”

“I did more. Most of your money has been spent in an effort to find someone who could tell us something about either the manuscript or Baird Archer, or both. It missed success by a narrow margin. Yesterday afternoon a young woman named Rachel Abrams was murdered by being pushed from a window of her office. Mr. Goodwin entered her office three minutes later. This next detail is being withheld by the police and is not for publication. In a notebook in her desk Mr. Goodwin found entries showing that last September a Baird Archer paid her ninety-eight dollars and forty cents for typing a manuscript. Of course that clinches it that your daughter was killed because of her knowledge of the
manuscript, but I was already acting on that assumption, so it doesn’t help any. We are—”

“It proves that Baird Archer did it!” Wellman was excited. “It proves that he’s still in New York! Surely the police can find him!” He came up out of the chair. “I’m going—”

“Please, Mr. Wellman.” Wolfe patted the air with a palm. “It proves that the murderer was in that building yesterday afternoon, and that’s all. Baird Archer is still nothing but a name, a will-o’-the-wisp. Having missed Rachel Abrams by the merest tick, we still have no one alive who has ever seen or heard him. As for finding his trail from yesterday, that’s for the police and they do it well; we may be sure that the building employees and tenants and passers-by are being efficiently badgered. Sit down, sir.”

“I’m going up there. To that building.”

“When I have finished. Sit down, please?”

Wellman lowered himself, and nearly kept going to the floor when his fanny barely caught the edge of the leather. He recovered and slid back a few inches.

“I must make it plain,” Wolfe said, “that the chance of success is now minute. I have three men interviewing Miss Abrams’ family and friends, to learn if she spoke to any of them about Baird Archer or his manuscript, but they have already talked with the most likely ones and have got nothing. Mr. Goodwin has seen everyone at the office of Scholl and Hanna who could possibly have what we’re after, and he has also called on other publishers. For a week the police, with far greater resources than mine, have been doing their best to find a trace of either Baird Archer or the manuscript. The outlook has never been rosy; now it is forlorn.”

Wellman’s glasses had slipped down on his nose, and
he pushed them back. “I asked about you before I came here,” he protested. “I thought you never gave up.”

“I’m not giving up.”

“Excuse me. I thought you sounded like it.”

“I’m merely describing the situation. Forlorn is not too strong a word. It would indeed be desperate but for one possibility. The name Baird Archer was first seen on a sheet of paper in the handwriting of Leonard Dykes. It would not be poopery to assume that when he wrote that list of names, obviously invented, he was choosing a pseudonym for a manuscript of a novel, whether written by him or another. But it is a fact, not an assumption, that he included that name in a list he compiled, and that that was the name of Miss Abrams’ client, and it was also the name on the manuscript read by your daughter, and the name given by the man who phoned her for an appointment. If I make this too elaborate it is because I must make sure that it is completely clear.”