Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 (23 page)

“Is that all?”

“That’s the crop.”

I made a face. “And Cramer, the louse, said there was no news worth mentioning! He’s going upstairs with Wolfe, to the roof. When you hear the elevator go up, you go down to the office and stay there. Take all calls. If anybody comes, tell Wolfe on the house phone. Write out a report of what you’ve told me, and add to it that I’ve gone to the Maidstone Building, and send it up to Wolfe by Fritz. If I call in and there’s anyone in the office, use code. Got it?”

“I’ve got it, but why not let me go—”

“No, my boy, this is a job for a master.”

I left him there. Descending the stairs as fast as I could without making a hubbub, I went to the kitchen and told Fritz:

“Go to the office and tell Wolfe the goose hasn’t been delivered and you’ve sent me to the Washington Market for it. Tell him I protested and complain bitterly of the language I used. That is for the benefit of Inspector Cramer. Fred has the low-down. Got it?”

“Yes,” Fritz hissed.

I left by way of the front hall, grabbing my hat and coat. Outside was no regiment, but there was a dick on the sidewalk not far from the stoop, and another one
across the street, and a taxi was parked fifty yards east. Not to mention Cramer’s police car, there nosing the hind end of my roadster. I climbed in the roadster and started the engine, called to Cramer’s chauffeur, “Follow me to the scene of the crime!” and rolled. I didn’t go far, only around the corner and a couple of blocks on Tenth Avenue, and then stopped at the curb, locked the ignition, got out, and stopped the first taxi that came along. I waited a minute to see either the police car or the taxi if they turned in from 35th Street, but apparently my invitation hadn’t been accepted, so I hopped in and told the driver 42nd and Lexington.

Entering the marble lobby of the fifty-story Maidstone Building, I felt fairly sappy. I had come because Wolfe had instructed me that if Fred copped any news about Carla Lovchen I was to follow it up, and the only way I could follow it up was to go there. I felt sappy because, observing the extent and complications of the lobby, with the four banks of elevators and the twisting crowds, not to mention such things as stairways and possibly basement exits, it seemed good for even money that she had moved out and on; and also, even if she hadn’t, I stood a fat chance of grabbing her and getting away with her under the circumstances. Apparently the tails had already got their reinforcements; I had easily spotted three of them on one quick survey. It was obvious that the lobby was no place for me, even if she walked out of an elevator right into my arms.

I had had one feeble idea on my way up in the taxi, and I proceeded to use that up. The building directory ward was in two sections, on two sides of the lobby, me A to L and the other M to Z. I tackled the first ection and went over it thoroughly, a name at a time,
hoping for a hint or a hunch. I got neither, and moved across to the second section, and there, nearing the end, I saw
WHEELER
&
DRISCOLL
3259. It looked slim, but I went to the information booth and told the guy, “I’m looking for a tenant and don’t know his firm. Nat Driscoll. Or maybe instead of Nat, Nathaniel.”

He opened his book with weary hands and looked at it with weary eyes and said in a weary voice, “Driscoll, Nathaniel, 3259, thirty-second floor, elevators on the—”

I was gone. My heart had started to pump. I love the feeling of a hunch.

I got out at the thirty-second and walked half a mile, around three corners, to 3259. The lettering on the door said:

WHEELER & DRISCOLL
IMPORTERS AND BROKERS

I opened the door and went in, and right away, even in the anteroom, found myself in the midst of prosperity, judging by the rugs and furniture and the type of employee displayed. She was the kind who without any visible effort conveys the impression that she got a job in an office only because she was fed up with yachting and riding to hounds. Not wanting to frighten anyone into scooting out of any other Wheeler & Driscoll doors into the public corridor, I told her:

“My name is Goodwin and I would like to see Mr. Nathaniel Driscoll.”

“Have you an appointment?”

“Nope, I just dropped in. Have you heard about the diamonds? The ones he thought had been stolen from him?”

“Oh, yes.” Her lip twitched. “Yes, indeed.”

“Tell him my name is Goodwin and Miss Tormic sent me to see him. I represent Miss Tormic.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Driscoll isn’t in.”

“Has he gone home?”

“He hasn’t been here this afternoon.”

In the first place, my hunch was still alive and kicking, and in the second place, she wasn’t a good liar, even with a common conventional lie like that. I got out my memo pad and wrote on it:

I grinned at the employee to show there was no hard feeling, and indeed there wasn’t. “May I have an envelope?”

She got one and handed it to me, and I inserted the note and licked the flap and sealed it. “Here,” I said, “take this to Mr. Driscoll, there’s a good girl, and don’t argue. Do I look like a man who would come all this way to see him unless I knew he was here?”

Without saying a word, she pressed a button. A boy entered from a door at the left, and she gave him the envelope and told him to deliver it to Mr. Driscoll’s desk. I said, “Deliver it to
him,”
and then, as the boy disappeared, I went to the entrance door and opened it and stood there where I could see the hall in both directions. There were several passers-by, but no sign of any frantic dash for freedom. I must have stood there all of three minutes before I saw, about fifty feet down the hall, the top of a head and then a pair of eyes
protruding beyond the edge of a door jamb. I called in a tone of authority:

“Hey, back in there!”

The head disappeared. It had not shown again when I heard the employee’s voice calling my name. I turned. The boy was there holding a door open. He said, “This way, sir,” and I followed him into an inner corridor and past three doors to one at the end, which he opened.

The room I entered was at least five times as big as the anteroom and six times as prosperous. I realized that in my one swift glance as I started to where Nat Driscoll stood at the corner of a large and elegant desk, telling him: “If you sneaked her out while I was coming in here, the cops will have her inside of a minute.”

With one hand gripping the edge of the desk hard enough to bleach the knuckles, he said, “Unh.” He looked as bewildered and terrified as a corpulent uncle who had been inveigled into taking a ride on the Ziparoo at Coney Island.

I looked around. “Where is she?”

He said, “Unh.”

There were two doors besides the one I had entered by. I trotted across and opened one, and saw only gleaming tiles and a washbowl and sittery. I closed that and went and opened the other one, and looked into a small room with filing cabinets, a bookcase, and a de luxe secretary’s desk. The secretary sat there staring at me with big round blue eyes, and a more glittering stare was bestowed on me from a chair in a corner occupied by Carla Lovchen.

She didn’t say anything, just goggled at me. My elbow was grabbed from behind, and I was agreeably surprised to find that Nat Driscoll could grip like that.
I pulled away, and we were both inside the small room, and I shut the door.

I demanded, “What did you figure on doing? Keeping her here till after the funeral?”

Carla asked in a low tense voice, without altering her stare, “Where’s Neya?”

“She’s all right. For a while anyhow. You were tailed to this building—”

“Tailed?”

“Shadowed. Followed by policemen. There are a dozen of them downstairs now, covering all the elevators and exits.”

Driscoll dropped onto a chair and groaned. The blue-eyed secretary inquired in a cool business-like tone:

“Are you Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office?”

“I am. Pleased to meet you.” I met Carla’s stare. “Did you kill Rudolph Faber?”

“No.” A shiver ran over her, and she controlled it and sat rigid again.

Driscoll mumbled at me, “You mean Ludlow. Percy Ludlow.”

“Do I? I don’t.” I fired at the secretary, “What time did Driscoll get here this morning?”

“Ask him,” she said icily.

“I’m asking you. Let me tell you folks something. I may not be your best and dearest friend, but I’m quite a pal compared to the guys downstairs I mentioned. Otherwise I would have brought them up here. That can be done at any moment. What time did Driscoll get here this morning?”

“About half past eleven.”

“That was his first appearance here today?”

“Yes.”

“What time did he leave?”

“He didn’t leave at all. He had some lunch brought in on account of Miss Lovchen.”

“She got here at 11:20.”

“Yes.” The secretary was getting no warmer. “How did you know that? How did you know she was here?”

“Intuition. I’m an intuitive genius.” I shifted to Driscoll. “So you didn’t kill Faber, huh?”

He stammered, “You mean … you must mean Ludlow—”

“I mean Rudolph Faber. A little before noon today he was found in the apartment occupied by Neya Tormic and Carla Lovchen, lying on the floor dead. Stabbed. Miss Tormic and I went there looking for Miss Lovchen, and found him.”

The secretary looked impressed. Driscoll’s eyes widened and his mouth stood open. I snapped at Carla:

“He was there when you went there. Either alive or dead, or alive and then dead.”

“I didn’t—I wasn’t there—”

“Can it. What do you think this is, hide and seek? They were tailing you. You went in there at 11:05 and came out again at 11:15. Faber was there.”

She shivered again. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Was he there?”

She shook her head and took a deep jerky breath. “I’m not … going to say anything. I am going away, away from America.” She clasped her hands at me. “Pliz you must help me! Mr. Driscoll would help me! Oh you must, you must—”

Driscoll demanded in an improved voice, “You say Faber was there in her apartment stabbed to death?”

“Yes.”

“And she had just been there?”

“She left there about thirty minutes before the body was found.”

“Good God.” He stared at her. The secretary was staring at her too.

I said briskly. “She says she didn’t do it. I don’t know. The immediate point is that Nero Wolfe wants to see her before the cops get hold of her. What were you going to do, help her get away?”

Driscoll nodded. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. Good God—she didn’t tell me about Faber. She said …” He flung out his hands. “Damn it, she appealed to me! She swore she had nothing to do with—Ludlow—but she didn’t need to! She has been damn fine with me down there—that fencing—greatest pleasure I ever had in my life—she has been damn fine and understanding! She is a very fine young woman! I would be proud to have her for a sister and I’ve told her so! Or daughter! Daughter would be better! She came here and appealed to me to help her get away from trouble, and by God I was doing it, and I didn’t consult any lawyer either! And by God I’ll still do it! Do you realize that she appealed to me? I don’t care if her apartment was as full of dead bodies as the morgue, that young woman is no damn murderer!”

“I understand,” said the secretary with ice still in her voice box, “that it is perfectly legal to help anyone go anywhere they want to, provided they have not committed a crime.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Driscoll declared, “whether it’s legal or not! To hell with legal!”

“Okay.” I pushed a palm at him. “Don’t yell so loud. The point—”

“I want you to understand—”

“Pipe down! I understand everything. You’re a hero. Skip it. Here’s the way it stands. You can’t go ahead and send her on a world cruise, because to begin with you don’t stand a chance of getting her out of
here and away, and to end with I won’t let you. Nero Wolfe wants to see her. Whatever Nero Wolfe wants he gets or he has a tantrum and I get fired. I have no idea whether she’s a very fine young woman or a murderer or what, but I do know that the next thing on her program is a talk with Nero Wolfe, and I’m in charge of the program.”

“I suppose,” said the secretary crushingly, “that
you
stand a chance of getting her out of here.”

“Chance is right,” I agreed grimly. “May I use your phone?”

She pushed it across the desk and I asked the anteroom employee to get me a number. In a moment I had the connection.

“Hello, Hotel Alexander? Let me talk to Ernie Flint. The house detective.”

In two minutes I had him.

“Hello, Ernie? Archie Goodwin. That’s right. How’s about things? Fine, thanks, everything rosy, I’m studying to be a detective. Not on your life. Say, listen, I’m pulling a stunt and I want you to do me a favor. Send a bellboy in uniform over to the Maidstone Building, Room 3259. Wait, get this. A small one, about five foot three, and not a fat one. With a cap on, don’t forget the cap. With a dark complexion if you’ve got one like that. Yep, dark hair and eyes. Good. Have him bring a parcel with him containing all his own clothes, everything, including hat. Right. Oh, not long. He can be back there within an hour, only you’ll have to give him another uniform. Oh, no. Just a stunt I’m pulling. I’m playing a trick on a feller. I’ll describe it when I see you. Make it snappy, will you, Ernie?”

I rang off, took the expense roll from my pocket, peeled off a ten, and tendered it to the secretary. “Here, run down to the nearest store and get a pair of
black low-heeled oxfords that will fit her. Like what a bellboy might wear. Step on it.”

She looked critically at Carla’s feet. “Five?”

Carla nodded. Driscoll told the secretary:

“Give him back that money.” He got out his wallet and produced a twenty-dollar bill. “Here. Get a
good
pair.”

She took it, handed me mine, and went. She may have been chilly, but she wasn’t a goof.

Carla said, “I won’t go.”