Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27 (23 page)

I patted her fingers, not wishing to be boorish. “Sorry,” I told her, “but I’m afraid of young mares. One kicked me once.”

She turned and disappeared into the apartment, leaving the door standing open.

“Don’t call me Mrs. Meegan!” Jewel Jones cried.

Wolfe was in as bad a humor as she was. True, she had been hopelessly cornered, with no weapons within reach, but he had been compelled to tell Fritz to postpone lunch until further notice.

“I was only,” he said crustily, “stressing the fact that your identity is not a matter for discussion. Legally you are Mrs. Richard Meegan. That understood, I’ll call you anything you say. Miss Jones?”

“Yes.” She was on the red leather chair, but not in it. Just on its edge, she looked as if she were set to spring up and scoot any second.

“Very well.” Wolfe regarded her. “You realize, madam, that everything you say will be received skeptically. You are a competent liar. Your offhand denial of acquaintance with Mr. Meegan last night was better than competent. Now. When did Mr. Chaffee tell you that your husband was in town looking for you?”

“I didn’t say Mr. Chaffee told me.”

“Someone did. Who and when?”

She was hanging on. “How do you know someone did?”

He wiggled a finger at her. “I beg you, Miss Jones, to realize the pickle you’re in. It is not credible that Mr. Chaffee couldn’t remember the name of the model for that figure in his picture. The police don’t believe it, and they haven’t the advantage of knowing, as I do, that it was you and that you lived in that house for a year, and that you still see Mr. Chaffee occasionally. When your husband came and asked Mr. Chaffee for the name, and Mr. Chaffee pleaded a faulty memory, and your husband rented an apartment there and made it plain that he intended to persevere, it is preposterous to suppose that Mr. Chaffee didn’t tell you. I don’t envy you your tussles with the police after they learn about you.”

“They don’t have to learn about me, do they?”

“Pfui. I’m surprised they haven’t got to you already, though it’s been only eighteen hours. They soon will, even if not through me. I know this is no frolic for you, here with me, but they will almost make it seem so.”

She was thinking. Her brow was wrinkled and her eyes straight at Wolfe. “Do you know,” she asked, “what I think would be the best thing? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. You’re a detective, you’re an expert at helping people in trouble, and I’m certainly in trouble. I’ll pay you to help me. I could pay you a little now.”

“Not now or ever, Miss Jones.” Wolfe was blunt. “When did Mr. Chaffee tell you that your husband was here looking for you?”

“You won’t even listen to me,” she complained.

“Talk sense and I will. When?”

She edged back on the chair an inch. “You don’t know my husband. He was jealous about me even before we married, and then he was worse. It got so bad
I couldn’t stand it, and that was why I left him. I knew if I stayed in Pittsburgh he would find me and kill me, so I came to New York. A friend of mine had come here—I mean, just a friend. I got a job at a modeling agency and made enough to live on, and I met a lot of people. Ross Chaffee was one of them, and he wanted to use me in a picture, and I let him. Of course he paid me, but that wasn’t so important, because soon after that I met Phil Kampf, and he got me a tryout at a night club, and I made it. About then I had a scare, though. A man from Pittsburgh saw me at a theater and came and spoke to me, but I told him he was wrong, that I had never been in Pittsburgh.”

“That was a year ago,” Wolfe muttered.

“Yes. I was a little leery about the night club, in public like that, but months went by and nothing happened, and then all of a sudden this happened. Ross Chaffee phoned me that my husband had come and asked about the picture, and I asked him for God’s sake not to tell him who it was, and he promised he wouldn’t. You see, you don’t know my husband. I knew he was trying to find me so he could kill me.”

“You’ve said that twice. Has he ever killed anybody?”

“I didn’t say anybody; I said me. I seem to have an effect on men.” She gestured for understanding. “They just go for me. And Dick— Well, I know him, that’s all. I left him a year and a half ago, and he’s still looking for me, and that’s what he’s like. When Ross told me he was here I was scared stiff. I quit working at the club because he might happen to go there and see me, and I didn’t hardly leave my apartment until last night.”

Wolfe nodded. “To meet Mr. Talento. What for?”

“I told you.”

“Yes, but then you were merely Miss Jones. Now you are also Mrs. Meegan. What for?”

“That doesn’t change it any. I had heard on the radio about Phil being killed, and I wanted to know about it. I rang Ross Chaffee and I rang Jerry Aland, but neither of them answered, so I rang Vic Talento. He wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, but he said he would meet me.”

“Did Mr. Aland and Mr. Talento know you had sat for that picture?”

“Sure they did.”

“And that Mr. Meegan had seen it and recognized you, and was here looking for you?”

“Yes, they knew all about it. Ross had to tell them, because he thought Dick might ask them if they knew who had modeled for the picture, and he had to warn them not to tell. They said they wouldn’t, and they didn’t. They’re all good friends of mine.”

She stopped to do something. She opened her black leather bag on her lap, took out a purse, and fingered its contents, peering into it. She raised her eyes to Wolfe. “I can pay you forty dollars now, to start. I’m not just in trouble, I’m in danger of my life, really I am. I don’t see how you can refuse— You’re not listening!”

Apparently he wasn’t. With his lips pursed, he was watching the tip of his forefinger make little circles on his desk blotter. Her reproach didn’t stop him, but after a moment he moved his eyes to me and said abruptly, “Get Mr. Chaffee.”

“No!” she cried. “I don’t want him to know—”

“Nonsense,” he snapped at her. “Everybody will have to know everything, and why drag it out? Get him, Archie. I’ll speak to him.”

I got at the phone and dialed. I doubted if he would be back from his session with the DA, but he was. His
“hello” was enough to recognize his voice by. I pitched mine low so he wouldn’t know it, not caring to start a debate as to whether I had or had not impersonated an officer, and merely told him that Nero Wolfe wished to speak to him.

Wolfe took it at his desk. “Mr. Chaffee? This is Nero Wolfe…. I’ve assumed an interest in the murder of Philip Kampf and have done some investigating…. Just one moment, please, don’t ring off…. Sitting here in my office is Mrs. Richard Meegan, alias Miss Jewel Jones…. Please let me finish…. I shall of course have to detain her and communicate with the police, since they will want her as a material witness in a murder case, but before I do that I would like to discuss the matter with you and the others who live in that house. Will you undertake to bring them here as soon as possible? … No, I’ll say nothing further on the phone, I want you here, all of you. If Mr. Meegan is balky, you might as well tell him his wife is here. I’ll expect—”

She was across to him in a leap that any young mare might have envied, grabbing for the phone and shrieking at it, “Don’t tell him, Ross! Don’t bring him! Don’t—”

My own leap and dash around the end of the desk was fairly good too. Getting her shoulders, I yanked her back, with enough enthusiasm so that I landed in the red leather chair with her on my lap, and since she was by no means through I wrapped my arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides, whereupon she started kicking my shins with her heels. She kept on kicking until Wolfe finished with Chaffee. When he hung up she suddenly relaxed and was limp, and I realized how warm she felt tight against me.

Wolfe scowled at us. “An affecting sight,” he snorted.

There were various aspects of the situation. One was lunch. For Wolfe it was unthinkable to have company in the house at mealtime, no matter what his or her status was, without feeding him or her, but he certainly wasn’t going to sit at table with a female who had just pounced on him and clawed at him. That problem was simple. She and I were served in the dining room, and Wolfe ate in the kitchen with Fritz. We were served, but she didn’t eat much. She kept listening and looking toward the hall, though I assured her that care would be taken to see that her husband didn’t kill her on those premises.

A second aspect was the reaction of three of the tenants to their discovery of my identity. I handled that myself. When the doorbell rang and I admitted them, at a quarter past two, I told them I would be glad to discuss my split personality with any or all of them later, if they still wanted to, but they would have to file it until Wolfe was through. Victor Talento had another beef that he wouldn’t file, that I had doublecrossed him on the message he had asked me to take to Jewel Jones. He wanted to get nasty about it and demanded a private talk with Wolfe, but I told him to go climb a rope.

I also had to handle the third aspect, which had two angles. There was Miss Jones’s theory that her husband would kill her on sight, which might or might not be well founded, and there was the fact that one of them had killed Kampf and might go to extremes if
pushed. On that I took three precautions: I showed them the Carley.38 I had put in my pocket and told them it was loaded; I insisted on patting them from shoulders to ankles; and I kept Miss Jones in the dining room until I had them seated in the office, on a row of chairs facing Wolfe’s desk, and until Wolfe had come in from the kitchen and been told their names. When he was in his chair behind his desk I went across the hall for her and brought her in.

Meegan jumped up and started for us. I stiff-armed him and made it good. She got behind me. Talento and Aland left their chairs, presumably to help protect the mare. Meegan was talking, and so were they. I detoured with her around back of them and got her to a chair at the end of my desk, and when I sat I was in an ideal spot to trip anyone headed for her. Talento and Aland had pulled Meegan down onto a chair between them, and he sat staring at her.

“With that hubbub over,” Wolfe said, “I want to be sure I have the names right.” His eyes went from left to right. “Talento, Meegan, Aland, Chaffee. Is that correct?

I told him yes.

“Then I’ll proceed.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Twenty hours ago Philip Kampf was killed in the house where you gentlemen live. The circumstances indicate that one of you killed him. But I won’t rehash the multifarious details which you have already discussed at length with the police; you are familiar with them. I have not been hired to work on this case; the only client I have is a dog, and he came to my office by inadvertence. However, it is—”

The doorbell rang. I asked myself if I had put the chain bolt on, and decided I had. Through the open door to the hall I saw Fritz passing to answer it. Wolfe
started to go on, but was annoyed by the sound of voices, Fritz’s and another’s, coming through, and stopped. The voices continued. Wolfe shut his eyes and compressed his lips. The audience sat and looked at him.

Then Fritz appeared in the doorway and announced, “Inspector Cramer, sir.”

Wolfe’s eyes opened. “What does he want?”

“I told him you are engaged. He says he knows you are, that the four men were followed to your house and he was notified. He says he expected you to be trying some trick with the dog, and he knows that’s what you are doing, and he intends to come in and see what it is. Sergeant Stebbins is with him.”

Wolfe grunted. “Archie, tell—No. You’d better stay where you are. Fritz, tell him he may see and hear what I’m doing, provided he gives me thirty minutes without interruptions or demands. If he agrees to that, bring them in.”

“Wait!” Ross Chaffee was on his feet. “You said you would discuss it with us before you communicated with the police.”

“I haven’t communicated with them, they’re here.”

“You told them to come!”

“No. I would have preferred to deal with you men first and then call them, but here they are and they might as well join us. Bring them, Fritz, on that condition.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fritz went. Chaffee thought he had something more to say, decided he hadn’t, and sat down. Talento said something to him, and he shook his head. Jerry Aland, much more presentable now that he was combed and dressed, kept his eyes fastened on Wolfe.

For Meegan, apparently, there was no one in the room but him and his wife.

Cramer and Stebbins marched in, halted three paces from the door, and took a survey.

“Be seated,” Wolfe invited them. “Luckily, Mr. Cramer, your usual chair is unoccupied.”

“Where’s the dog?” Cramer barked.

“In the kitchen. You had better suspend that prepossession. It’s understood that you will be merely a spectator for thirty minutes?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Then sit down. But you should have one piece of information. You know the gentlemen, of course, but not the lady. Her current name is Miss Jewel Jones. Her legal name is Mrs. Richard Meegan.”

“Meegan?” Cramer stared. “The one in the picture Chaffee painted? Meegan’s wife?”

“That’s right. Please be seated.”

“Where did you get her?”

“That can wait. No interruptions and no demands. Confound it, sit down!”

Cramer went and lowered himself onto the red leather chair. Purley Stebbins got one of the yellow ones and planted it behind the row, between Chaffee and Aland.

Wolfe regarded the quartet. “I was about to say, gentlemen, that it was something the dog did that pointed to the murderer for me. But before—”

“What did it do?” Cramer barked.

“You know all about it,” Wolfe told him coldly. “Mr. Goodwin related it to you exactly as it happened. If you interrupt again, by heaven, you can take them all down to your quarters, not including the dog, and stew it out yourself.”

He went back to the four. “But before I come to
that, another thing or two. I offer no comment on your guile with Mr. Meegan. You were all friends of Miss Jones’s, having, I suppose, enjoyed various degrees of intimacy with her, and you refused to disclose her to a husband whom she had abandoned and professed to fear. I will even concede that there was a flavor of gallantry in your conduct. But when Mr. Kampf was murdered and the police swarmed in, it was idiotic to try to keep her out of it. They were sure to get to her. I got to her first only because of Mr. Goodwin’s admirable enterprise and characteristic luck.”