Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27 (18 page)

I went to the door, opened it six inches, and asked politely, “Now what?”

“I want to see Wolfe.”

“It’s pretty late. What about?”

“About a dog.”

It is understood that no visitor, and especially no officer of the law, is to be conducted to the office until Wolfe has been consulted, but this seemed to rate an exception. Wolfe had been known to refuse an audience to people who topped inspectors, and, told that Cramer had come to see him about a dog, there was no telling how he might react in the situation as it had developed.

I considered the matter for about two seconds and then swung the door open and invited cordially, “Step right in.”

“Properly speaking,” Cramer declared as one who wanted above all to be perfectly fair and square, “it’s Goodwin I want information from.”

He was in the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe’s desk, just about filling it. His big round face
was no redder than usual, his gray eyes no colder, his voice no gruffer. Merely normal.

Wolfe came at me. “Then why did you bring him in here without even asking?”

Cramer interfered for me. “I asked for you. Of course you’re in it. I want to know where the dog fits in. Where is it, Goodwin?”

That set the tone—again normal. He does sometimes call me Archie, after all the years, but it’s exceptional. I inquired, “Dog?”

His lips tightened. “All right, I’ll spell it. You phoned the precinct and gave them a tag number and wanted to know who owns the dog. When the sergeant learned that the owner was a man named Philip Kampf, who was murdered this afternoon in a house at twenty-nine Arbor Street, he notified Homicide. The officer who had been on post in front of that house had told us that the dog had gone off with a man who had said it wasn’t his dog. After we learned of your inquiry about the owner, the officer was shown a picture of you and said it was you who enticed the dog. He’s outside in my car. Do you want to bring him in?”

“No, thanks. I didn’t entice.”

“The dog followed you.”

I gestured modestly. “Girls follow me, dogs follow me, sometimes even your own dicks follow me. I can’t help—”

“Skip the comedy. The dog belonged to a murder victim, and you removed it from the scene of the murder. Where is it?”

Wolfe butted in. “You persist,” he objected, “in imputing an action to Mr. Goodwin without warrant. He did not ‘remove’ the dog. I advise you to shift your ground if you expect us to listen.”

His tone was firm but not hostile. I cocked an eye at
him. He was probably being indulgent because he had learned that Jet’s owner was dead.

“I’ve got another ground,” Cramer asserted. “A man who lives in that house, named Richard Meegan, and who was in it at the time Kampf was murdered, has stated that he came here to see you this morning and asked you to do a job for him. He says you refused the job. That’s what he says.” Cramer jutted his chin. “Now. A man at the scene of a murder admits he consulted you this morning. Goodwin shows up at the scene half an hour after the murder was committed, and he entices—okay, put it that the dog goes away with him, the dog that belonged to the victim and had gone to that house with him. How does that look?” He pulled his chin in. “You know damn well the last thing I want in a homicide is to find you or Goodwin anywhere within ten miles of it, because I know from experience what to expect. But when you’re there, there you are, and I want to know how and why and what, and by God I intend to. Where’s the dog?”

Wolfe sighed and shook his head. “In this instance,” he said, almost genial, “you’re wasting your time. As for Mr. Meegan, he phoned this morning to make an appointment and came at eleven. Our conversation was brief. He wanted a man shadowed, but divulged no name or any other specific detail because in his first breath he mentioned his wife—he was overwrought— and I gathered that his difficulty was marital. As you know, I don’t touch that kind of work, and I stopped him. My vanity bristles even at an offer of that sort of job. My bluntness enraged him, and he dashed out. On his way he took his hat from the rack in the hall, and he took Mr. Goodwin’s raincoat instead of his own. Archie. Proceed.”

Cramer’s eyes came to me, and I obeyed. “I didn’t
find out about the switch in coats until the middle of the afternoon. His was the same color as mine, but mine’s newer. When he phoned for an appointment this morning he gave me his name and address, and I wanted to phone him to tell him to bring my coat back, but he wasn’t listed, and Information said she didn’t have him, so I decided to go get it. I walked, wearing Meegan’s coat. There was a cop and a crowd and a PD car in front of twenty-nine Arbor Street, and, as I approached, another PD car came, and Purley Stebbins got out and went in, so I decided to skip it, not wanting to go through the torture. There was a dog present, and he nuzzled me, and I patted him. I will admit, if pressed, that I should not have patted him. The cop asked me if the dog was mine, and I said no and went on, and headed for home. I was—”

“Did you call the dog or signal it?”

“No. I was at Twenty-eighth and Ninth Avenue before I knew he was tailing me. I did not entice or remove. If I did, if there’s some kind of a dodge about the dog, please tell me why I phoned the precinct to get the name of his owner.”

“I don’t know. With Wolfe and you I never know. Where is it?”

I blurted it out before Wolfe could stop me. “Upstairs in my room.”

“Bring it down here.”

“Right.”

I was up and going, but Wolfe called me sharply. “Archie!”

I turned. “Yes, sir.”

“There’s no frantic urgency.” He went to Cramer. “The animal seems intelligent, but I doubt if it’s up to answering questions. I don’t want it capering around my office.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then why bring it down?”

“I’m taking it downtown. We want to try something with it.”

Wolfe pursed his lips. “I doubt if that’s feasible. Sit down, Archie. Mr. Goodwin has assumed an obligation and will have to honor it. The creature has no master, and so, presumably, no home. It will have to be tolerated here until Mr. Goodwin gets satisfactory assurance of its future welfare. Archie?”

If we had been alone I would have made my position clear, but with Cramer there I was stuck. “Absolutely,” I agreed.

“You see,” he told Cramer. “I’m afraid we can’t permit the dog’s removal.”

“Nuts. I’m taking it.”

“Indeed? What writ have you? Replevin? Warrant for arrest as a material witness?”

Cramer opened his mouth and shut it again. He put his elbows on the chair arms, interlaced his fingers, and leaned forward. “Look. You and Meegan check, either because you’re both telling it straight, or because you’ve framed it, I don’t know which, and we’ll see. But I’m taking the dog. Kampf, the man who was killed, lived on Perry Street, a few blocks away from Arbor Street. He arrived at twenty-nine Arbor Street, with the dog on a leash, about five-twenty this afternoon. The janitor of the house, named Olsen, lives in the basement, and he was sitting at his front window, and he saw Kampf arrive with the dog and turn in at the entrance. About ten minutes later he saw the dog come out, with no leash, and right after the dog a man came out. The man was Victor Talento, a lawyer, the tenant of the ground-floor apartment. Talento says he left his apartment to go to an appointment, saw the
dog in the hall, thought it was a stray, and chased it out, and that’s all he knows. Anyhow, Olsen says Talento walked off, and the dog stayed there on the sidewalk.”

Cramer unlaced his fingers and sat back. “About twenty minutes later, around ten minutes to six, Olsen heard someone yelling his name and went to the rear and up one flight to the ground-floor hall. Two men were there, a live one and a dead one. The live one was Ross Chaffee, a painter, the tenant of the top-floor studio—that’s the fourth floor. The dead one was the man that had arrived with the dog. He had been strangled with the dog’s leash, and the body was at the bottom of the stairs leading up. Chaffee says he found it when he came down to go to an appointment, and that’s all he knows. He stayed there while Olsen went downstairs to phone. A squad car arrived at five-fifty-eight. Sergeant Stebbins arrived at six-ten. Goodwin arrived at six-ten. Excellent timing.”

Wolfe merely grunted. Cramer continued, “You can have it all. The dog’s leash was in the pocket of Kampf’s raincoat, which was on him. The laboratory says it was used to strangle him. The routine is still in process. I’ll answer questions within reason. The four tenants of the house were all there when Kampf arrived: Victor Talento, the lawyer, on the ground floor; Richard Meegan, whose job you say you wouldn’t take, second floor; Jerome Aland, a night-club performer, third floor; and Ross Chaffee, the painter with the studio. Aland says he was sound asleep until we banged on his door and took him down to look at the corpse. Meegan says he heard nothing and knows nothing.”

Cramer sat forward again. “Okay, what happened? Kampf went there to see one of those four men, and had his dog with him. It’s possible he took the leash off
in the lower hall to leave the dog there, but I doubt it. At least it’s just as possible that he took the dog along to the door of one of the apartments, and the dog was wet and the tenant wouldn’t let it enter, so Kampf left it outside. Another possibility is that the dog was actually present when Kampf was killed, but we’ll know more about that after we see and handle the dog. The particular thing we want—we’re going to take the dog in that house and see which door it goes to. We’re going to do that now. There’s a man out in my car who knows dogs.” Cramer stood up.

Wolfe shook his head. “You must be hard put. You say Mr. Kampf lived on Perry Street. With a family?”

“No. Bachelor. Some kind of a writer. He didn’t have to make a living; he had means.”

“Then the beast is orphaned. He’s in your room, Archie?”

“Yes, sir.” I got up and started for the door.

Wolfe halted me. “One moment. Go up and in, lock your door, and stay there till I notify you. Go!”

I went. It was either that or quit my job on the spot, and I resign only when we haven’t got company. Also, assuming that there was a valid reason for refusing to surrender the dog to the cops, Wolfe was justified. Cramer, needing no warrant to enter the house because he was already in, wouldn’t hesitate to mount to my room to do his own fetching, and stopping him physically would have raised some delicate points. Whereas breaking through a locked door would be another matter.

I didn’t lock it, because it hadn’t been locked for years and I didn’t remember which drawer of my chest the key was in, and while I was searching Cramer might conceivably have made it up the carpeted stairs and come right in, so I left it open and stood on the sill
to listen. If I heard him coming I would shut it and brace it with my foot. Nero, or Jet, depending on where you stand, came over to me, but I ordered him back, and he went without a murmur. From below came voices, not cordial, but not raised enough for me to get words. Before long there was the sound of Cramer’s heavy steps leaving the office and tramping along the hall, and then the slam of the front door.

I called down, “All clear?”

“No!” It was a bellow. “Wait till I bolt it!” And after a moment: “All right!”

I shut my door and went to the stairs and descended. Wolfe was back in his chair behind his desk, sitting straight. As I entered he snapped at me, “A pretty mess! You sneak a dog in here to badger me, and what now?”

I crossed to my desk, sat, and spoke calmly. “We’re way beyond that. You will never admit you bollixed it up yourself, so forget it. When you ask me what now, that’s easy. I could say I’ll take the dog down and deliver him at Homicide, but we’re beyond that too. Not only have you learned that he is orphaned, as you put it, which sounds terrible, and therefore adopting him will probably be simple, but also you have taken a stand with Cramer, and of course you won’t back up. If we sit tight with the door bolted I suppose I can take the dog out back for his outings, but what if the law shows up tomorrow with a writ?”

He leaned back and shut his eyes. I looked up at the wall clock: two minutes past eleven. I looked at my wristwatch: also two minutes past eleven. They both said six minutes past when Wolfe opened his eyes.

“From Mr. Cramer’s information,” he said, “I doubt if that case holds any formidable difficulties.”

I had no comment.

“If it were speedily solved,” he went on, “your commitment to the dog could be honored at leisure. I had thought until now that my disinclination to permit a policeman to storm in here and commandeer any person or object in this house that struck his fancy was shared by you.”

“It is. Within reason.”

“That’s an ambiguous phrase, and I must be allowed my own interpretation short of absurdity. Clearly the simplest way to settle this matter is to find out who killed Mr. Kampf. It may not be much of a job; if it proves otherwise we can reconsider. An immediate exploration is the thing, and luckily we have a pretext for it. You can go there to get your raincoat, taking Mr. Meegan’s with you, and proceed as the occasion offers. The best course would be to bring him here, but, as you know, I wholly rely on your discretion and enterprise in such a juncture.”

“Thank you very much,” I said bitterly. “You mean now.”

“Yes.”

“They may still have Meegan downtown.”

“I doubt if they’ll keep him overnight. In the morning they’ll probably have him again.”

“I’ll have to take the dog out first.”

“Fritz will take him out back in the court.”

“I’ll be damned.” I arose. “No client, no fee, no nothing except a dog with a wide skull for brain room.” I crossed to the door, turned, said distinctly, “I will be damned,” went to the rack for my hat and Meegan’s coat, and beat it.

The rain had ended, and the wind was down. After dismissing the taxi at the end of Arbor Street, I walked to number 29, with the raincoat hung over my arm. There was light behind the curtains of the windows on the ground floor, but none anywhere above, and none in the basement. Entering the vestibule, I inspected the labels in the slots between the mailboxes and the buttons. From the bottom up they read: Talento, Meegan, Aland, and Chaffee. I pushed the button above Meegan, put my hand on the doorknob, and waited. No click. I twisted the knob, and it wouldn’t turn. Another long push on the button, and a longer wait. I varied it by trying four short pushes. Nothing doing.