Trouble In Triplicate (19 page)

Wolfe hung up, leaned back and sighed, and muttered at me, 'Archie. You'll have to pay a call on Mrs. Poor.'

I objected, 'She's probably in bed, tired out. The funeral was today.'

'It can't be helped. Saul will go with you.'

I stared. 'Saul?'

'Yes. He's up in my room asleep. He didn't get to bed last night. You will take her that photograph of her husband. You should leave as soon as possible, before that confounded Westchester lawyer gets here. I don't want to see him. Tell Fritz to bolt the door after you go. Ring my room and tell Saul to come down at once. Then I'll give you your instructions.'

The appearance of the living room in the Poor apartment on Eighty-fourth Street was not the same as it had been when I had arrived there three evenings before.

Not only was there no army of city employees present and no man of the house with his face gone huddled on the floor, but the furniture had been moved around. The chair Poor had sat in when he lit his last cigar was gone, probably to the cleaners on account of spots, the table Cramer had used for headquarters had been shifted to the other side of the room, and the radio had been moved to the other end of the couch. Martha Poor was sitting on the couch, and I was on a chair I had pulled around to face her. She was wearing something that wasn't a bathrobe and wasn't exactly a dress, modest, with sleeves and only a proper amount of throat showing.

'I'm here under orders,' I told her. 'I said this morning that if anything happened that it would help you to know about I'd see that you knew, but this isn't it. This is different. Nero Wolfe sent me with orders. I just want to make that clear. Item number one is to hand you this envelope and invite you to look at the contents.'

She took it from me. With steady fingers, slow-moving rather than hurried, she opened the flap and pulled out the photograph.

I informed her, 'That decoration may look like something by Dali, but it was Nero Wolfe's idea. I am not authorized to discuss it or the picture from any angle, just there it is, except to remark that it is a very good likeness of your husband. I only saw him that one time, the other afternoon at the office, but of course I had a long and thorough look at him. Wednesday we could have sold that photo to a newspaper for a nice amount, but of course we didn't have it Wednesday.' She had put the photo beside her on the couch and was pinching an edge of the cardboard between her index finger and thumbnail, with the nail sinking in. She was looking straight at me. The muscles of her throat had tightened, which no doubt accounted for the change in her voice when she spoke.

'Where did you get it?'

I shook my head. 'Out of bounds. As I said, I'm under orders. Item number two is just a piece of information to the effect that a man named Saul Panzer is out in the back hall on this floor, standing by the door of the service elevator. Saul is not big but he just had a nap and is alert. Number three: that naked body found up in Westchester with the head smashed by running a car over it, in an orchard not more than ten minutes' drive from either Monty's Tavern or Blaney's place, has been identified as formerly belonging to a man named Arthur Howell, an employee of the Beck Products Corporation.'

Her eyes hadn't moved. I hadn't even seen the lashes blink. She said in a faraway voice, 'I don't know why you tell me about that. Arthur Howell'Did you say Arthur Howell?'

'Yep, that's right. Howell, Arthur. Head flattened to a pancake, but enough left for the dentist. As for telling you about it, I'm only obeying orders.' I glanced at my wrist. 'Number four: it is now twenty past ten. At a quarter to eleven I am supposed either to arrive back at the office or phone. If I do neither, Nero Wolfe will phone Inspector Cramer and then here they'll come. Not as many as Tuesday evening I suppose, because they won't need all the scientists, but plenty.' I stopped, still meeting her eyes, and then went on, 'Let's see. Photo and capsule, Saul out back, Howell, cops at a quarter to eleven& that's all.'

She got up, with the photo in her hand, and started for a door to the right, the one she had retreated through Tuesday when Blaney had arrived on the scene.

It was up to me to decide. If she wanted to be alone to get her mind arranged, or anything else arranged, that was all right with me, but the one detail which I thought had not been sufficiently considered was fire escapes. So although I would have much preferred to stay where I was, I went along.

That game of follow the leader was one of my experiences that can stay unique and suit me fine. She might have been a deaf-and-dumb renting agent showing me the apartment, and me a deaf-and-dumb prospective tenant. First we did the master bedroom, her in front and me right behind. She went and opened a closet door, looked in a moment, and shut it again. Then she crossed to another door that was standing open. I had never seen a fire escape with an entrance through a bathroom window, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to look so I did. Seeing it was okay, I backed out and she shut the door, staying inside. I went to a window and frowned out at the dark for maybe three minutes, and apparently I forgot to breathe, for when the door opened and she came out I pulled in enough oxygen to fill a barrel. Observing that she no longer was carrying the photograph, I let her go on being it. Her next destination was the back door, leading from the kitchen to the service hall. With me at her elbow, she pulled the door wide-open, and we were both looking at Saul, standing there reading a newspaper.

He turned his head our way, and I said, 'Hello, Saul.'

He said, 'Hello, Archie.'

She closed the door, not letting it bang, and went by way of the dining room back to the living room and on to the front foyer. If this seems crazy to you reading about it, that's nothing to what it seemed to me helping do it. Not wanting any scene in the public hall, I slipped ahead of her in the foyer and stood with my back against the entrance door, and she simply turned around and re-entered the living room. I hadn't the dimmest idea then whether she was merely a rat in a cage and acting like one, or what, and I haven't now. But I wasn't going to have to phone Nero Wolfe that she had climbed down a fire escape and would he please tell the police to start looking, so when she kept going until she was in the master bedroom again I was right there.

She hadn't uttered one word since she had asked me if I had said Arthur Howell, but now she did. When she turned, in the middle of the room, near the foot of the big double bed where she had presumably slept with her husband, I thought she was going to take hold of me, but all she did was stand in front of me, about eight inches away, looking up at me. She came about up to my chin, that was all. She wasn't tall.

'Archie Goodwin,' she said. 'You think I'm terrible, don't you'You think I'm an awful woman, bad clear through. Don't you?'

'I'm not thinking, lady. I'm just an errand boy.' The only thing was that if at any moment up to then I had made a list of the ten most beautiful women she would not have been on it.

'You've had lots of experience,' she said, her head back to look up at me. 'You know what women are like. I knew you did when you put your hand on my arm yesterday. You know I'm a man's woman, but it has to be the right man. Just one man's, forever.' She started to smile, and her lip began to quiver, and she stopped it. 'But I didn't find the man until it was too late. I didn't find him until you put your hand on my arm yesterday. You could have had me then, forever yours, you could have me now if anything like that was possible. I mean-we could go away together-now you wouldn't have to promise anything-only you could find out if you want me forever too-the way I want you-' She lifted her hand and touched me, just a touch, the tips of her fingers barely brushing my sleeve. I jerked back.

'Listen,' I said, with my voice sounding peculiar, so I tried to correct it. 'You are extremely good, no question about it, but as you say, it's too late. You are trying to go to bat when your side already has three out in the ninth, and that's against the rules. I'll hand it to you that you are extremely good. When you turn it on it flows. But in seven minutes now Nero Wolfe will be phoning the police, so you'd better fix your hair. You'll be having your picture taken.'

She hauled off and smacked me in the face. I barely felt it and didn't even move my hands.

'I hate men,' she said through her teeth. 'God, how I hate men!'

She turned and walked to the bathroom, and entered and closed the door.

I didn't know whether she had gone to fix her hair or what, and I didn't care.

Instead of crossing to the window and standing there without breathing, as I had done before, I sat down on the edge of the bed and did nothing but breathe. I suppose I did actually know what was going to happen. Anyhow, when it happened, when the noise came, not nearly as loud as it had been in Wolfe's office because then the capsule had been inside a metal percolator, I don't think I jumped or even jerked. I did not run, but walked, to the bathroom door, opened it and entered.

Less than a minute later I went to the back door in the kitchen and opened that and told Saul Panzer, 'All over. She stuck it in her mouth and lit the fuse. You get out. Go and report to Wolfe. I'll phone the cops.'

'But you must be- I'll stay-'

'No, go on. Step on it. I feel fine.'

At noon the next day, Saturday, I was getting fed up with all the jabber because I had a question or two I wanted to ask myself. Cramer had come to Nero Wolfe's office prepared to attack from all sides at once, bringing not only Sergeant Purley Stebbins but also a gang of civilians consisting of Helen Vardis, Joe Groll, and Conroy Blaney. Blaney had not been let in. On that Wolfe would not budge. Blaney was not to enter his house. The others had all been admitted and were now distributed around the office, with Cramer, of course, in the red leather chair. For over half an hour he and Wolfe had been closer to getting locked in a death grip than I had ever seen them before.

Wolfe was speaking. 'Then arrest me,' he said. 'Shut up, get a warrant, and arrest me.'

Cramer, having said about all an inspector could say, merely glared.

'Wording the charge would be difficult,' Wolfe murmured. When he was maddest he murmured. 'I have not withheld evidence, or obstructed justice, or shielded the guilty. I thought it possible that Mrs. Poor, confronted suddenly with that evidence, would collapse and confess.'

'Nuts,' Cramer said wearily. 'How about confronting me with the evidence'Instead of evidence, what you confront me with is another corpse. And I know'-he tapped the chair arm with a stiff finger-'exactly why. The only evidence you had that was worth a damn was that photograph of Arthur Howell. If you had turned it over to me-'

'Nonsense. You already had a photograph of Arthur Howell. Several of them. The Beck Products Corporation people gave them to you on Thursday. So they told Saul Panzer. What good would one more do you?'

'Okay.' Cramer was in a losing fight and knew it. 'But I didn't know that Howell had come to see you on Tuesday with Mrs. Poor, passing himself off as her husband. Dressed in the same kind of suit and shirt and tie that Poor was wearing that day. Only you and Goodwin knew that.'

'I knew it. Mr. Goodwin didn't. He thought it was a photograph of Mr. Poor.'

'Protecting the help, huh?' Cramer snorted incredulously. 'Anyhow, you knew it, and you knew it sewed her up, and you knew if she was arrested and came to trial you would have to go to court and testify, and you don't like to leave home and you don't like what there is to sit on in a courtroom, so you arrange it otherwise, and I'll be damned if anyone has appointed you judge, jury, district attorney, and the police force all in one.'

Wolfe's shoulders moved an eighth of an inch up and down. 'As I said, get a warrant, but watch the wording.' Cramer glared. A noise like a giggle came from the direction of Helen Vardis, and Joe Groll, being perched on the arm of her chair and therefore close enough, put his hand over hers. Apparently the days when they had taken turns following each other were only a memory.

I put in an entry. 'Excuse me, but when you gentlemen finish the shadow-boxing I would like to ask a question.' I was looking at Wolfe. 'You say you knew Poor wasn't Poor. When and how?'

Of course Wolfe faked. He sighed as if he were thinking now this is going to be an awful bore. Actually he was always tickled stiff to show how bright he was.

His eyes came to me. 'Wednesday evening you told me that Mr. Poor smoked ten to fifteen cigars a day. Thursday Mr. Cramer said the same thing. But the man that came here Tuesday, calling himself Poor, didn't even know how to hold a cigar, let alone smoke one.'

'He was nervous.'

'If he was he didn't show it, except with the cigar. You saw him. It was a ludicrous performance and he should never have tried it. When I learned that Mr. Poor was a veteran cigar smoker, the only question was who had impersonated him in this office'And the complicity of Mrs. Poor was obvious, especially with the added information, also furnished by Mr. Cramer, that no photograph of Mr. Poor was available. There are photographs of everybody nowadays. Mrs. Poor was an ass. She was supremely an ass when she selected me to bamboozle. She wanted to establish the assumption that Mr. Blaney was going to kill Mr. Poor. That was intelligent. She did not want to take her counterfeit Mr. Poor to the police, for fear someone there might be acquainted with the real Mr. Poor. That also was intelligent. But it was idiotic to choose me as the victim.'

'She hated men,' I remarked.

Wolfe nodded. 'She must have had a low opinion of men. In order to get what she wanted, which presumably was something like half a million dollars-counting her husband's fortune, the insurance money, and a half share in the business after Mr. Blaney had been executed for the murder of Mr. Poor-she was willing to kill three men, two by direct action and one indirectly. Incidentally, except for the colossal blunder of picking on me she was not a fool.'

'The hell she wasn't,' Cramer growled. 'With all that trick set-up'She was absolutely batty.'

'No, sir.' Wolfe shook his head. 'She was not. Go back over it. She didn't manufacture the trick setup out of her head, she simply used what she had. On a certain day she found herself with these ingredients at hand. One, the hostility between the partners in the business, amply corroborated by such details as Mr. Poor having Miss Vardis spy on Mr. Blaney, and Mrs. Poor herself having Mr. Groll do the same. Two, her acquaintance with a man named Arthur Howell, who had access to a supply of explosive capsules capable of concealment in a cigar, and who also sufficiently resembled her husband in build and general appearance except for the face itself, and she intended to take care of the face. Ten of your men, Mr. Cramer, kept at it for a week or so, can probably trace her association with Mr. Howell. They're good at that. Unquestionably it was those qualifications of Mr. Howell that suggested the details of her plan. She did not of course inform him that she hated men. Quite the contrary. She persuaded him to help her kill her husband, offering, presumably, a strong incentive.'

'She was good at offering incentives,' I declared. 'She was good period. The way she pretended here, Tuesday afternoon, that she wanted Poor to slap it and go live in the country and grow roses, with her to cook and darn socks.'

Wolfe nodded. 'I admit she was ingenious. By the way, Mr. Groll, did she have an opportunity to conceal those four capsules in that desk calendar?'

'Yes,' Joe said. 'Helen and I were discussing that. She came there Tuesday to go with Poor to the rodeo, and she could have done it then. Anyway, she had keys, she could have done it any time.'

'That was well conceived,' Wolfe said approvingly. 'That and the hairs in the box of cigars. She was preparing for all contingencies. Neither of those touches was meant for you, Mr. Cramer, but for a jury in case it ever got to that. She had sense enough to know what a good lawyer could do with complications of that sort. Will you gentlemen have some beer?'

'No,' Cramer said bluntly. 'I'll have a question. Poor wasn't here Tuesday afternoon?'

'No, sir. Arthur Howell was.'

'Then where was he?'

'At the rodeo.' Wolfe pushed a button, two pushes for beer. 'Again Mrs. Poor was ingenious. Look at her schedule for Tuesday. She went to the Blaney and Poor office-what time, Mr. Groll?'

Helen answered. 'She came around noon. They went to lunch together and then were going to the rodeo.'

'Thank you. So all she had to do was to make some excuse and see that he went to the rodeo alone. It was an ideal selection-Madison Square Garden, that enormous crowd. Then she met Arthur Howell somewhere near, having arranged for him to be dressed as her husband was dressed, and brought him here. She was driving her car-or her husband's car. They left here a little before five o'clock. Between here and Forty-second Street he got out and went to Grand Central to take a train to White Plains. A woman who could persuade a man to help her kill her husband could surely persuade him to take a train to White Plains.' Fritz brought beer, and Wolfe opened a bottle and poured.

'Then she continued to Fiftieth Street and met her husband as he left the rodeo, and they drove to Westchester, having an appointment to see Mr. Blaney at his place there. She talked her husband out of that, left him at a place called Monty's Tavern, drove somewhere, probably the White Plains railroad station, met Arthur Howell there as arranged, drove to an isolated spot probably previously selected, turned off the road into an orchard, killed Mr. Howell or knocked him unconscious with whatever she used for that purpose, removed his clothing, and ran the car over him to obliterate his face.'

A noise came from Helen Vardis. She had obliterated her own face by covering it with her hands. That gave Joe an excuse to touch her again, which he did.

'Granted her basic premise,' Wolfe went on, 'she couldn't very well have been expected to let Arthur Howell continue to live. She would never have had a carefree moment. What if Mr. Goodwin or I had met him on the street'That thought should have occurred to him, but apparently something about Mrs. Poor had made him quit thinking. There are precedents. Since she was good at detail, I presume she spread his coat over his head so as to leave no telltale matter on her tires. What she then did with the clothing is no longer of interest, at least not to me.'

He drank beer. 'She proceeded. First to Mr. Blaney's place to make sure, by looking through windows, that he was alone there, so that she could safely say that she had gone to see him and couldn't find him. Again she was providing for all contingencies. If Arthur Howell's body was after all identified, known as that of a man who was with the Beck Products Corporation and had access to those capsules, it would help to have it established that Mr. Blaney had not been at home during the time that Arthur Howell had been killed. It wouldn't surprise me if a good search around Mr. Blaney's place discovered Mr. Howell's clothes concealed-no, that wouldn't do, since they were the same as Mr. Poor's. She wouldn't make that kind of mistake.'

He emptied the glass. 'The rest is anticlimax, though of course for her it was the grand consummation. She returned to Monty's Tavern, told her husband Mr. Blaney had not been at home, dined with him, drove back to New York and went to their apartment, and got him a nice fresh cigar from a new box. Everything worked perfectly. It sounds more complicated than it really was. Such details as making sure that no photographs of her husband would be available for the newspapers had no doubt been already attended to.'

'That receipt you signed,' Cramer growled.

'What'Oh. That gave her no difficulty. Arthur Howell gave the receipt to her, naturally, and she put it in her husband's pocket. That was important. It was probably the first thing she did after the cigar exploded.'

'Meanwhile you've got the five thousand dollars.'

'Yes, sir. I have.'

'But Poor didn't pay it to you. You never saw Poor. You weren't hired by him. If you want to say Mrs. Poor paid it, do you take money from murderers?' It was one of Cramer's feeblest attempts to be nasty, certainly not up to his standard.

Wolfe merely poured beer and said, 'Pfui. Whether Mr. Poor paid me or not, he got his money's worth.' Try analyzing the logic of that. I can't.