The Doorbell Rang (8 page)

She had put the glass on the table. “But what is there to ask me?”

“Just questions. For instance, about Morris Althaus. How well did you know him?”

“I didn’t know him at all.”

“He came at least once to your house-your office. According to Odell.”

She nodded. “That’s right, he did. I remembered that when I read about him-the murder.” Her chin was up. “I don’t like your tone, Mr Goodwin. Are you intimating that I have concealed something?”

“Yes, Mrs Bruner, I am. That you may have. We might as well clear it up before lunch instead of after. You have hired Mr Wolfe to do a job that’s as close to impossible as a job can get. The least you can do is tell us everything that could conceivably have a bearing on it. The fact that you had known Morris Althaus, at least you had met him, naturally suggests questions. Did you know he was working at a piece on the FBI'Let me finish. Did you know or suspect that the FBI was involved in his murder'Was that why you sent those books'Was that why you came to Nero Wolfe'Just stay in the buggy. We simply have to know everything you know, that’s all.”

She did all right. A woman who can toss you a check for a hundred grand without blinking hasn’t had much practice listening to reason from a hireling, but she managed it. She didn’t count ten, at least not audibly, but she picked up her glass and drank, gave me a straight look, put the glass down, and spoke. “I didn’t ‘conceal’ anything. It just didn’t occur to me to mention Morris Althaus. Or perhaps it did occur to me while I was thinking about it, but not while I was talking to Mr Wolfe. Because it was just-I didn’t really know anything. I don’t know anything now. I had read about the murder and remembered that I had met him, but the only connection it had with the FBI was what Miss Dacos, my secretary, had told me, and that was just a girl talking. She didn’t really know anything either. It had nothing to do with my sending the books. I sent them because I had read it, and I thought it was important for important people to read it. Does that answer your questions?”

“Pretty well, but it raises another one. Just keep in mind that I’m working on your job. What had Miss Dacos told you?”

“Nothing but talk. She lived at the same address, she still does. Her-“

“What same address?”

“The same as that man, Morris Althaus. In the Village. Her apartment is on the second floor, below his. She was out that evening, and soon after-“

“The night he was killed?”

“Yes. Stop interrupting me. Soon after she returned to her apartment she heard footsteps outside, people going down the stairs, and she was curious about who it might be. She went to the window and looked out and saw three men leave the house and walk to the corner, and she thought they were FBI men. The only reason she had for thinking they were FBI men was that they looked like it; she said they were ‘the type.’ As I said, she didn’t know anything, and I didn’t know there was any connection between Morris Althaus and the FBI. You asked if I knew he was working on a piece on the FBI. No, not until you told me. I resent your suggestion that I concealed something.” She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s after one o’clock, and I have an appointment at half past two, a committee meeting that I must be on time for.”

I pushed a button, two shorts, on a slab on the table, and begged her pardon for asking her to lunch and then starving her.

In a couple of minutes Pierre came with the lobster bisque, and I told him to bring the squabs in ten minutes without waiting for a ring.

There was a little question of etiquette. As a matter of business it would have been proper to tell her that neither Nero Wolfe nor I was ever allowed to pay for anything we or our guests ate at Rusterman’s, so it wouldn’t be an item on the expense account, but such a remark didn’t seem to fit with Squabs a la Moscovite, Mushrooms Polonaise, Salade Beatrice, and Souffle Armenonville. I vetoed it. I didn’t resume on Miss Dacos, but our only known common interest was the FBI. I learned that she had received 607 letters thanking her for the book, most of them just a polite sentence or two; 184 disapproving letters, some pretty strong; and 29 anonymous letters and cards calling her names. I was surprised that it was only 29; out of the 10,000 there must have been a couple of hundred members of the John Birch Society and similar outfits.

With the coffee I returned to Miss Dacos, having done some calculating. If Wolfe left Hewitt’s at four o’clock he would get back around five-thirty, but he might leave later, say five, and arrive at six-thirty, in need of refreshment after the dangerous trip in the dark of night surrounded by thousands of treacherous machines. It would have to be after dinner. When Pierre left after serving coffee I told Mrs Bruner, “Of course Mr Wolfe will have to see Miss Dacos. She may know nothing, as you say, but he’ll have to satisfy himself on that. Will you tell her to be here at nine o’clock this evening'In this room. Our office may be bugged.”

“But I told you it was just a girl talking.”

I said she was probably right, but one of Wolfe’s specialties was prying something useful out of people who just talk, and when she finished her coffee I took her to Felix’s office in the rear, and she got Miss Dacos on the phone and arranged it.

After I escorted her downstairs and into her car I went back up and had another cup of coffee. I would wait to call Wolfe until I was sure they had finished lunch. I sat and looked things over. I had slipped up on one point; I hadn’t asked if Miss Dacos had been present when Morris Althaus and Frank Odell had talked with Mrs Bruner in her office. Of course Miss Dacos could tell us, but it was the kind of detail that Wolfe expects me to cover, and I expect me to too. How good a guess was it that it was Sarah Dacos who had told the cops about the three men'Not good at all, unless she had dressed it up or down either for the cops or for Mrs Bruner. She couldn’t see them go to a car around the corner, and get the license number, from the window of Number 63. Then we could be getting corroboration, but for the first alternative, that the FBI killed him, not for the one we preferred. But so what, since it was no longer futile, according to Wolfe’s program.

I remembered how, crossing Washington Square yesterday on my sightseeing trip, I had thought it was coincidence that Arbor Street was in the Village and Sarah Dacos lived in the Village. Now it might be more than coincidence; it might be some more cause and effect.

At three o’clock I went to Felix’s office and called Lewis Hewitt’s number. There’s something wrong with the way the people in that palace handle phone calls. It took a good four minutes, but finally Wolfe’s voice came.

“Yes. Archie?”

“Yes and no,” I said, “but more yes than no. I’m at Rusterman’s. Mrs Bruner and I had lunch here. If you get here before six-thirty I can report before dinner. We might as well eat here because someone is coming at nine o’clock to discuss things.”

“Coming there?”

“Yes, sir.

“Why'Why not the office?”

“It will be better here. Unless you want an attractive young woman practically sitting on your lap for a couple of hours with the radio going.”

“What young woman?”

“Sarah Dacos, Mrs Bruner’s secretary. I’ll report when you come.”

“If I come. Very well.” He hung up.

I dialed the number I knew best and told Fritz we would dine at Rusterman’s and he would have to leave the venison chops in the marinade until tomorrow. Then I got Mrs David Althaus’s number from the book and dialed it, but by the time she got on I had decided not to ask her on the phone. All I wanted to know was if she had ever heard her son mention a girl named Sarah Dacos, but I had three hours to kill, so I might as well take a walk. I asked if she would let me in if I came around four-thirty, and she said yes. On the way out I told Felix that Wolfe and I would be there for dinner.

I was back in the soundproofed room, on my fanny with my legs stretched out and my eyes focused on my toes, going over the mess for the tenth time, when Wolfe arrived at twenty minutes to seven, ushered in by Felix. Knowing that was the busiest time of day downstairs for Felix, I shooed him out and took Wolfe’s coat and hung it up and said I hoped he had had an interesting trip.

He growled and went and sat in the armchair which Marko Vukcic had bought years ago for his friend Nero’s exclusive use.

Between Wolfe’s visits it is kept in the room that was Marko’s personal den. “I have decided,” he said, “that every man alive today is half idiot and half hero. Only heroes could survive in the maelstrom, and only idiots would want to.”

“It’s tough in spots,” I conceded, “but you’ll feel better after you eat. Felix has woodcock.”

“I know he has.” He glared. “You enjoy it.”

“I have up to now. Now, I’m not so sure. How about Hewitt?”

“Confound it, he enjoys it too. Everything is arranged. Saul was very helpful, as he always is. Satisfactory.”

I went and took a chair. “My report may not be satisfactory, but it has its points. To begin at the end, Mrs Althaus says that she never heard her son mention Sarah Dacos.”

“Why should he?”

“That’s one of the points. Cause and effect.”

I reported, the conversations in full and the actions in detail, including the frolic with the G-men. It had been our first actual contact with the enemy, and I thought he should know how we had handled ourselves. That armchair wasn’t as good as his in the office for leaning back and closing his eyes, but it would do, and it was almost like home. When I finished he didn’t move a muscle, not even opening an eye. I sat through three minutes of complete silence and then spoke.

“I understand, of course, that all that bored you-if you bothered to listen. You don’t give a damn who killed Morris Althaus. All you’re interested in is this cocky shenanigan you’re cooking up, and to hell with who murdered whom. I appreciate your not snoring. A sensitive man like me.”

His eyes opened. “Pfui. I can say satisfactory, and I do. Satisfactory. But you could have proceeded. You could have had that woman here this afternoon instead of this evening.”

I nodded. “You’re not only bored, your connections are jammed. You said we prefer by far the second alternative, so we certainly want to know if there is any chance of getting it. Sarah Dacos was there in the house, if not when he was shot, soon after. It’s possible she can settle it, one way or the other. If you want-“

The door opened, and Pierre entered with a loaded tray. I glanced at my watch: 7:15. So he had told Felix a quarter past seven; by gum, he was hanging on to one rule at least, and he would certainly hang on to another one, no business talk at the table. He got up and left the room to wash his hands. By the time he got back Pierre had the mussels served and was waiting to hold his chair. He sat, forked a mussel to his mouth, used his tongue and teeth on it, swallowed, nodded, and said, “Mr Hewitt has bloomed four crosses between Miltonia sanderae and Odontoglossum pyramus. One of them is worth naming.”

So they had found time to visit the orchid house.

Around half past eight Felix came and asked if he could have a minute to discuss the problem of shipping langoustes from France by air. It developed that what he really wanted was Wolfe’s approval of frozen langoustes, and of course he didn’t get it. But he was stubborn, and they were still at it when Pierre ushered Sarah Dacos in. She was right on time. As I took her coat she accepted my offer of coffee, so I put her in a chair at the table and waited until Felix had gone to tell Wolfe her name.

He sizes a man up, but not a woman, because of his conviction that any opinion formed of any woman is sure to be wrong. He looked at Sarah Dacos, of course, since he was to talk to her. He told her that he supposed Mrs Bruner had told her of her conversation with me.

She wasn’t as chipper as she had been in her office; the hazel eyes weren’t so lively. Mrs Bruner had said that she had just talked; perhaps, sent to tell Nero Wolfe about it, she was feeling that she had just talked too much. She said yes, Mrs Bruner had told her.

Wolfe blinked at her. The light there wasn’t like the office, and besides, his eyes had had a hard day. “My interest is centered on Morris Althaus,” he said. “Did you know him well?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no.”

“You lived under the same roof.”

“Well& that doesn’t mean anything in New York, you know that. I moved there about a year ago, and when we met in the hall one day we realized we had met before-at Mrs Bruner’s office, the day he was there with that man, Odell. After that we had dinner together sometimes-maybe twice a month.”

“It didn’t progress to intimacy.”

“No. No matter how you define ‘intimacy.’ We weren’t intimate.”

“Then that’s settled and we can get to the point. The evening of Friday, November twentieth. Did you dine with Mr Althaus that evening?”

“No.”

“But you were out?”

“Yes, I went to a lecture at the New School.”

“Alone?”

She smiled. “You’re like Mr Goodwin, you want to prove you’re a detective. Yes, I was alone. The lecture was on photography. I’m interested in photography.”

“What time did you get back to your apartment?”

“A little before eleven o’clock. About ten minutes to eleven. I was going to listen to the eleven-o’clock news.”

“And then'Be as precise as possible.”

“There isn’t much to be precise about. I went in and went upstairs-it’s one flight-and into my apartment. I took my coat off and got a drink of water, and I was starting to undress when I heard footsteps out on the stairs. It sounded as if they were trying to be quiet, and I was curious. There are only four floors, and the woman on the top floor was away-she had gone to Florida. I went to the window and opened it enough to put my head out, and three men came out and turned left, and they turned at the corner, walking fast.” She gestured. “That was all.”

“Did they, one or more of them, hear you open the window and look up?”

“No. I had the window open before they came out.”

“Did they speak?”

“No.”

“Did you recognize them'Any of them?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Not necessarily ‘of course.’ But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Could you identify them?”

“No. I didn’t see their faces.”

“Did you notice any peculiarities-size, manner of walking?”

“Well& no.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“So you went to bed.”

“Yes.”

“After you entered your apartment, before you heard footsteps on the stairs, did you hear any sound above you, in Mr Althaus’s apartment?”

“I didn’t notice any. I was moving around, taking my coat off and putting it away, and the water was running, getting it cold enough to drink. And his room had a thick carpet.”

“You had been in it?”

She nodded. “A few times. Three or four times. For a drink before we went to dinner.” She picked up her cup, and her hand was steady. I said her coffee was cold and offered to pour her some hot, but she said it was all right and drank. Wolfe poured himself some and took a sip.

“When and how,” he asked her, “did you learn that Mr Althaus had been killed?”

“In the morning. I don’t work on Saturday and I sleep late. Irene, the cleaning woman, came and banged on my door. It was after nine o’clock.”

“Then it was you who phoned the police?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell them of seeing the three men leave the house?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell them that you thought they were FBI men?”

“No. That hadn’t-it was-I guess I was in shock. I had never seen a dead body before-except in a coffin.”

“When did you tell Mrs Bruner that you thought they were FBI men?”

Her lips moved, a moment of hesitation. “On Monday.”

“Why did you think they were FBI men?”

“They looked like it. They looked young, and-well, sort of athletic, and the way they walked.”

“You said there were no peculiarities.”

“I know I did. It wasn’t-I wouldn’t call it peculiarities.” She bit her lip. “I knew you would ask me this. I think I ought to admit-I think the main reason I told her that was because I knew how she felt about the FBI, I had heard her talking about that book, and I thought she would like-I mean, that would agree with how she felt about them. I don’t like to admit this, Mr Wolfe, of course I don’t. I know how it sounds. I hope you won’t tell Mrs Bruner.”

“I’ll tell her only if it suits a purpose.” Wolfe picked up his cup, drank, put the cup down, and looked at me. “Archie?”

“Maybe one or two little points.” I looked at her, and she looked back. The hazel eyes seemed darker when they were straight at you. “Of course,” I said, “the cops have asked you about the last time you spoke with Althaus. When was it?”

“Three days before-before that Friday. Tuesday morning, in the hall, just a minute or two. Just by accident.”

“Did he tell you he was doing a piece on the FBI?”

“No. He never talked to me about his work.”

“When was the last time you were with him-for dinner, for anything?”

“I’m not sure about the date. It was about a month before, some day in October. We had dinner together.”

“At a restaurant?”

“Yes. Jerry’s Joint.”

“Have you ever met Miss Marian Hinckley?”

“Hinckley'No.”

“Or a man named Vincent Yarmack?”

“No.”

“Or one named Timothy Quayle?”

“No.”

“Did Althaus ever mention any of those names?”

“Not that I remember. He might have mentioned them.”

I raised my brows at Wolfe. He regarded her for half a minute, grunted, and told her he doubted if she had supplied anything that would help, so the evening had probably been wasted. As he spoke I went and got her coat, and held it for her when she got up. Wolfe didn’t leave his chair. He does sometimes rise when a woman comes or goes; he probably has some kind of a rule for it, but I have never been able to figure it out. She said I needn’t bother to see her downstairs, but, wishing to show her that some private detectives have some manners, I went along. Down on the sidewalk, as the doorman waved a taxi up, she put her hand on my arm and said she would be so grateful if we didn’t tell Mrs Bruner, and I patted her shoulder. Patting a shoulder can be anything from an apology to a promise, and only the patter can say which.

When I got back to the room upstairs Wolfe was still in the armchair, with his fingers clasped at the peak of his middle mound. When I turned from shutting the door he growled, “Does she lie?”

I said certainly and went and sat.

“How the devil can you tell?”

“All right,” I said, “to skip argument I’ll concede that I am wise to attractive young women and you are not, since that’s your line. But even you must know that she is not a big enough sap to give Mrs Bruner that guff about FBI men just because she thought she would like to hear it. I doubt if she’s a sap at all. But she did tell Mrs Bruner that, so she had a reason, and not just some bull about how they walked. She had a real reason, God knows what. One guess out of a dozen: When she went in the house she heard noises, and went up another flight and listened at Althaus’s door, and heard something they said. I don’t like it, because if it was something like that why didn’t she tell the cops'I prefer something she wouldn’t want to spill. For instance, she knew Althaus was working on the FBI. He had-“

“How did she know?”

“Oh, it had progressed to intimacy. That’s the easiest lie a woman can tell, they’ve been telling that one for ten thousand years. Very convenient, there in the same house, and he liked women and she is no hag. He had told her. He had even told her they might call on him uninvited when he wasn’t home. So she-“

“She would have gone up to see if he was there.”

“She did, after she saw the three men leaving, but the door was locked and she had no key, and her knock or ring wasn’t answered. Anyway, I am only answering your question does she lie. She does.”

“Then we need the truth. Get it.”

That was par. He does not believe that I can take a girl to the Flamingo and dance a couple of hours and end up with all her deepest secrets, but he pretends he does because he thinks it makes me try harder.

“I’ll consider it,” I said. “I’ll sleep on it-on the couch. May I change the subject'Last night you asked me if I could contrive any maneuver that would help to make Wragg believe that one of his men killed Althaus, and I said I couldn’t. But I have. They have an open tail on Sarah Dacos, so they know she was here, and almost certainly they know you are. Also they know she lives at Sixty-three Arbor Street, and they do not know what she saw or heard that night. Therefore they don’t know what she might have told you here tonight, but they’ll assume it was something about that night. That should help.”

“Possibly. Satisfactory.”

“Yeah. But. If we take a taxi, now, to Cramer’s home and spend an hour with him, they will absolutely assume that we have got something hot regarding his unsolved homicide, and that we got it from Sarah Dacos. That would help.”

He shook his head. “You gave Mr Cramer our word of honor.”

“Only about his seeing me and telling me. We go to him because in trying to dig up something on the FBI we got interested in Morris Althaus because he was working on them, and he was murdered, and Sarah Dacos tells us something about the murder that we think Cramer should know. Our word of honor is good as gold.”

“What time is it?”

I looked. “Three minutes to ten.”

“Mr Cramer would be in bed, and we have nothing for him.”

“The hell we haven’t. We have someone who had some reason for thinking they were G-men and is saving it. That will be pie for Cramer.”

“No. It’s our pie. We’ll give Mr Cramer Miss Dacos only when we have her ourselves, if at all.” He pushed his chair back. “Get it out of her. Tomorrow. I’m tired. We’re going home and to bed.”