Trio For Blunt Instruments (17 page)

AN HOUR LATER, when the doorbell rang again, Kirk was still there and still the client, and I would still have had to toss a coin to decide where I stood on the question, did he or didn't he'

Wolfe had of course refused to either talk or listen until the tray had come and gone. Kirk had said he couldn't eat, but when Wolfe insisted he tried, and if a man can swallow anything he can swallow Fritz's madrilene with beet juice, and after one spoonful of his lemon sherry pudding with brown sugar sauce there's no argument. The cheese and water cress were still on the tray when I took it to the kitchen, but the bowls were empty.

When I returned Wolfe had started in. '& so I'll reverse the process,' he was saying. 'I'll tell you and then ask you. Are you sufficiently yourself to comprehend?'

'I'm better. I didn't think I could eat. I'm glad you made me.' He didn't look any better.

Wolfe nodded. 'The brain can be hoodwinked but not the stomach. First, then, your statement that you didn't kill your wife is of course of no weight. I have assumed that you didn't for reasons of my own, which I reserve. Do you know or suspect who did kill her?'

'No. There are-No.'

'Then attend. An item in yesterday's mail to this house was an envelope addressed to Mr. Goodwin, typewritten. A paper inside had a typewritten note saying, 'Archie Goodwin, keep this until you hear from me, JNV.' The envelope and paper were the engraved stationery of James Neville Vance. Also in the envelope was a four-in-hand necktie, cream-colored with brown diagonal stripes, and it had a spot on it, a large brown stain.'

Kirk was squinting, concentrating. 'So that's how it was. They never told me exactly& '

'They wouldn't. Neither would I if I weren't engaged in your interest. At a quarter past eleven yesterday morning Mr. Goodwin got a phone call, and a voice that squeaked, presumably for disguise, said it was James Neville Vance and asked him to burn what he had received in the mail. Mr. Goodwin, provoked, went to Two-nineteen Horn Street and was admitted by Vance, who identified the tie as one of his but denied that he had sent it. As Mr. Goodwin was about to go a policeman arrived who wanted access to your apartment, and he was with Mr. Vance and the policeman when your wife's body was discovered, but he left immediately. Later he took-'

'But what-'

'Don't interrupt. He took the tie to a laboratory and learned that the spot was human blood. He gave the tie, and the envelope and letterhead, to a law officer who had been told of the tie episode by Mr. Vance, and the police have established that the blood is the same type as your wife's. You say they think they can prove that you killed your wife. Did they take your fingerprints?'

'Yes. They- I let them.'

'Could your fingerprints be on that envelope and letterhead?'

'Of course not. How could they'I don't understand-'

'If you please. Mr. Vance told Mr. Goodwin that he had nine ties of that pattern and gave one to somebody. Did he give it to you'Cream with brown stripes.'

Kirk's mouth opened and stayed open. The question was answered.

'When did he give it to you?'

'About two months ago.'

'Where is it now?'

'I suppose- I don't know.'

'When you moved to a hotel room two weeks ago you took personal effects. Including that tie?'

'I don't know. I didn't notice. I took all my clothes, but I wasn't noticing things like ties. I'll see if it's there.'

'It isn't.' Wolfe took a deep breath, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Kirk looked at me, blinking, and was going to say something, but I shook my head. He had said enough already to make me think it might have been better all around if I had burned the damned souvenirs and crossed it off. He put his palms to his temples and massaged.

Wolfe opened his eyes and straightened up. He regarded Kirk, not cordially. 'It's a mess,' he stated. 'I have questions of course, but you'll answer them more to the point if I first expound this necktie tangle. Are your wits up to it'Should you sleep first?'

'No. If I don't- I'm all right.'

'Pfui. You can't even focus your eyes properly. I'll merely describe it and ignore the intricacies. Assuming that the blood on the tie is in fact your wife's blood, there are three obvious theories. The police theory must be that when you killed your wife the blood got on the tie, either inadvertently or by your deliberate act, and to implicate Vance you used his stationery to mail it to Mr. Goodwin. It was probably premeditated, since you had the stationery at hand. I don't ask if that was possible; the police must know it was. You had been in his apartment, hadn't you?'

'Yes.'

'Frequently?'

'Yes. Both my wife and I-yes.'

'Is there a typewriter in his apartment?'

'There's one in his studio.'

'You could have used it. Is there one in your apartment?'

'Yes.'

'More subtly, you could have used that, thinking it would be assumed-but that's one of the intricacies I'll ignore for the moment. So much for the police theory. Rejecting it because you didn't kill your wife, I need an alternative, and there are two. One: Vance killed her. It would take an hour or more to talk that out, all its twists respecting the tie. He had it on and blood got on it, and he used it to call attention to himself in so preposterous a manner that it would inevitably be shifted to you; but in that case he had previously retrieved the tie he had given you, so it had been premeditated for at least two weeks. If the tie he gave you is in your hotel room, that will be another twist. Still another: he thought it possible that Mr. Goodwin would burn it as requested on the phone, and if so he would admit he had sent it, since it would no longer be available for inspection, saying he had found it somewhere on his premises and intended to get Mr. Goodwin to investigate, but changed his mind.'

'But why'I don't see& '

'Neither do I. I said it's a mess. The other alternative: X killed your wife and undertook to involve both Vance and you. Before considering him, what about Vance'If he killed her, why'Did he have a why?'

Kirk shook his head. 'If he did- No. Not Vance.'

'She wasn't much of a wife. Your phrase. Granting that no woman is much of a wife, did she have distinctive flaws?'

He shut his eyes for a long moment, opened them, and said, 'She's dead.'

'And you're here because the police think you killed her, and they are digging up every fact about her that's accessible. Decorum is pointless. At your trial, if it comes to that, her defects will become public property. What were they?'

'They were already public property-our little public.' He swallowed. 'I knew when I married her that she was promis-no, she wasn't promiscuous, she was too sensitive for that. She was incredibly beautiful. You know that?'

'No.'

'She was. I thought then that she was simply curious about men, and impetuous-and a little reckless. I didn't know until after we had been married a few months that she had no moral sense about sexual relations-not just no moral sense, no sense. She was sensitive, very sensitive, but that's different. But I was stuck. I don't mean I was stuck just because I was married to her, that's simple enough nowadays, I mean I was really stuck. Do you know what it's like to have all your feelings and desires, all the desires that really matter, to have them all centered on a woman, one woman?'

'No.'

'I do.' He shook his head, jerked it from side to side several times. 'What got me started?'

He could have meant either what got him started on that woman or what got him started talking about her. Wolfe, assuming the latter, said, 'I asked you about Mr. Vance. Was he one of the objects of her curiosity?'

'Good Lord, no.'

'You can't be sure of that.'

'Oh yes I can. She never bothered to pretend. I tell you, she had no sense. I did some work for Vance on a couple of buildings, and I had that apartment before I was married. For her he was a nice old guy, rather a bore, who let her use one of his pianos when she felt like it. I am sure.'

Wolfe grunted. 'Then X. He must meet certain specifications. It would be fatuous not to assume, tentatively at least, that whoever killed your wife sent the necktie to Mr. Goodwin, either to involve Mr. Vance or with some design more artful. So he had access to Vance's stationery and either to his tie rack or to yours; and he had had enough association with your wife to want her dead. That narrows it, and you should be able to suggest candidates.'

Kirk was squinting, concentrating. 'I don't think I can,' he said. 'I could name men who have been& associated with my wife, but none of them has ever met Vance as far as I know. Or I could name men I have seen at Vance's place, but none of them has-'

He stopped abruptly. Wolfe eyed him. 'His name?'

'No. He didn't want her dead.'

'You can't know that. His name?'

'I'm not going to accuse him.'

'Preserve your scruples by all means. I won't accuse him either without sufficient cause. His name?'

'Paul Fougere.'

Wolfe nodded. 'The tenant on the ground floor. As I said, I have read the morning paper. He was an object of your wife's curiosity?'

'Yes.'

'Had the curiosity been satisfied?'

'If you mean was she through with him, I don't know. I don't think so. I'm not sure.'

'Had he had opportunities to get some of Vance's stationery?'

'Yes. Plenty of them.'

'We'll return to him later.' Wolfe glanced up at the clock and shifted his bulk in the chair. 'Now you. Not to try you; to learn the extent of your peril. I want the answers you have given the police. I don't ask where you were Monday afternoon because if you were excluded by an alibi you wouldn't be here. Why did you move to a hotel room two weeks ago'What you have told the police.'

'I told them the truth. I had to decide what to do. Seeing my wife and hearing her, having her touch me-it had become impossible.'

'Did you decide what to do?'

'Yes. I decided to try to persuade her to have a baby. I thought that might make her& might change her. I realized I couldn't be sure the baby was mine, but there was no way out of that. That's what I told the police, but it wasn't true. The baby idea was only one of many that I thought of, and I knew it was no good, I knew I couldn't take it, not knowing if I was its father. I didn't actually decide anything.'

'But you dialed her phone number six times between four o'clock Monday afternoon and ten o'clock Tuesday morning. What for?'

'What I told the police'To say I wanted to see her, to persuade her to have a baby.'

'Actually what for?'

'To hear her voice.' Kirk made fists and pressed them on his knees. 'Mr. Wolfe, you don't know. I was stuck. You could pity me or you could sneer at me, but I wouldn't give a damn, it wouldn't mean a thing. Say I was obsessed, and what does that mean'I still had my faculties, I could do my work pretty well, and I could even think straight about her, as far as thinking went. One of the ideas I had, I realized that the one thing I could do that would settle it was to kill her. I knew I couldn't do it, but I realized that that was the one sure thing, and I wished I could do it.'

He opened the fists and closed them again. 'I hadn't seen her or heard her voice for two weeks, and I dialed the number, and when there was still no answer the sixth time I went there. When there was no answer to my ring from the vestibule and I went in and took the elevator I intended to use my key upstairs too, but I didn't. I simply couldn't. She might be there and-and not alone. I left and went to a bar and bought a drink but didn't drink it. I wanted to know if her things were there, and I thought of phoning Jimmy Vance, but finally decided to phone police headquarters instead. Even if they found her there and someone with her, that might-'

The doorbell rang, and I went, again giving myself even money that it was Vance, and losing again. It was a girl, or woman, and she had a kind of eyes that I had met only twice before, once a woman and once a man. I have a habit, when it's a stranger on the stoop, of taking a five-second look through the one-way glass and tagging him or her, to see how close I can come. From inside, the view through the glass is practically clear, but from the outside it might as well be wood. But she could see through. Of course she couldn't, but she was face-to-face with me, and her eyes, slanted up, had exactly the look they would have if she were seeing me. They were nice enough hazel eyes, but I hadn't liked it the other two times it had happened, and I didn't like it then. Not trying to tag her, I opened the door.

'I beg your pardon,' she said. 'I believe Mr. Kirk is here'Martin Kirk?'

It wasn't possible. They wouldn't put a female dick on his tail, and even if they did she wouldn't be it, with that attractive little face and soft little voice. But there she was. 'I beg your pardon,' I said, 'but what makes you think so?'

'He must be. I saw him come in and I haven't seen him come out.'

'Then he's here. And?'

'Would you mind telling me whose house-who lives here?'

'Nero Wolfe. It's his house and he lives here.'

'That's an odd name. Nero Wolfe'What does he- Is he a lawyer?'

Either she meant it or she was extremely good. If the former, it would be a pleasure to tell Wolfe and see him grunt. 'No,' I said. Let her work for it.

'Is Mr. Kirk all right?'

'We haven't been introduced,' I said. 'My name is Archie Goodwin and I live here. Your turn.'

Her mouth opened and closed again. She considered it, her eyes meeting mine exactly as they had when she couldn't see me. 'I'm Rita Fougere,' she said. 'Mrs. Paul Fougere. Will you tell Mr. Kirk I'm here and would like to see him?'

It was my turn to consider. The rule didn't apply-the rule that I am to take no one in to Wolfe without consulting him; she wanted to see Kirk, not Wolfe. And I was riled. The tie had been mailed to me, not him, but he hadn't even glanced at me before taking Kirk on and feeding him. I was by no means satisfied that Kirk was straight, and I wanted to see how he took it when Paul Fougere's wife suddenly appeared.

'You might as well tell him yourself,' I said. 'Also you might as well know that Nero Wolfe is a private detective, and so am I. Come in.'