Trouble In Triplicate (6 page)

Wolfe was there, standing by a window. There was no chair in that room that would take him without complaints from both him and the chair. He did his little bow, head forward eleven-sixteenths of an inch. 'How do you do, Miss Page. And Morton. You came along?'

'Yes, sir.' Morton was firm. 'I would like to know what this is all about. Goodwin saying his name was Stevens-'

'Of course. Not illegal, no felony, but at least odd. Miss Page deserves an explanation, and she'll get it. Doubtless you'll get it too, later, from her. Mr. Goodwin and I are taking Miss Page up to the plant rooms to show her my orchids and have a talk with her.' He waved a hand. 'There are books and magazines here, or you may go down to the office if you prefer.'

The muscles of Morton's jaw had set. 'I must insist-'

'No. Don't try.' Wolfe was curt. 'Since this concerns Miss Page, I do not intend to substitute my discretion for hers. We'll rejoin you in half an hour or so. Archie, tell Fritz that there will be two luncheon guests, at one sharp.'

Wolfe never tries to deny he's vain, but I doubt if he'll ever admit that it's an exercise of vanity when he takes someone who is under a strain up to the plant rooms. He acts nonchalant, but I can tell when he's enjoying himself.

Beulah met expectations. In the blaze of the Cattleya room she only looked dazed, but the Dendrobiums and Phalaenopsis really got her. She stopped dead and just looked, with her mouth open. 'Someday,' Wolfe said, not sounding pleased, with his usual self-control, 'you must spend an hour up here. Or two hours. Now I'm afraid we haven't time.' He nudged her along to the potting room and told Theodore, the orchid nurse, that he had better go and see to the ventilators.

When Theodore had gone and Wolfe was in his chair and Beulah and I on stools, he said abruptly, 'You're not an infant, Miss Page. You're nineteen years old.'

She nodded. 'In Georgia I could vote.'

'So you could. Then I won't have to use a nipple for this. We'll ignore nonessentials; they can be dealt with later, at more leisure-as, for instance, why Mr. Goodwin chose such a name as Harold Stevens to lure you down here yesterday. Do you know what a hypothetical question is?'

'Certainly.'

'Then I'll put one to you. Suppose these things: that with me as intermediary, your father has arranged to make available to you a considerable sum of money; that he is not in a position to disclose himself to you and cannot ever be expected to do so; that he has put it wholly within my discretion whether you shall be told his name and your mother's name; and that the circumstances are such that it will be a deuce of a job to keep you from guessing his name and guessing it right. Supposing all that, here's something for you to think over.'

Wolfe pointed a finger at her. 'Do you want me to tell you the names or not?'

'I don't need to think it over. I want you to tell me.'

'That's an impulse.'

'It is not an impulse. Good lord, an impulse'If you only knew what I-for years-' Beulah made a little gesture. 'I want to know.'

'What if your father is-say, a convicted pickpocket?'

'I don't care what he is! I want to know!'

'Then you should. Mr. Perrit, your father, died last night.'

Wolfe inclined his head toward a window. 'Out there on the sidewalk.'

'I knew it,' Beulah said calmly.

'The devil you did!'

But she wasn't actually as calm as she sounded. Her hands were clasped tight together and she had started a swallowing marathon. She didn't even try to resume the conversation, but just sat, and all signs indicated the same outcome.

The outcome arrived in something like a minute. It started with her shoulders going up and down in a minor convulsion, and then her head went forward and her hands went up to cover her face, and the regulation sounds began to come.

'Good God,' Wolfe muttered in a tone of horror, and got to his feet and went. In a moment, above the sounds Beulah was making, I heard the bang of his elevator door. I merely sat and waited, thinking it was natural for me to understand better than he did the most desirable and effective course of action when a young woman began to cry. After all, I thought, I see a good deal more of them than he does.

Time passed by. I was deciding the moment had come for a sympathetic hand on her shoulder when her face came up and she blurted, 'Why haven't you got sense enough to go too?'

It didn't faze me. 'I have,' I said politely, 'but I was waiting for the noise to die down enough for you to hear me tell you that if you don't want to go in the room where Morton is in your present condition, the room at the front on that floor is mine, is unlocked, and has a bathroom with a mirror.'

I left her alone with it. On the way out I warned Theodore what was going on in the potting room and advised him to find jobs elsewhere. On my floor I stopped in my room to make sure about clean towels in the bathroom and general appearances. As I returned to the hall the door of the south room opened and Morton was there.

'Where's Miss Page?' he demanded. 'What's going on?'

'She's up looking at orchids,' I told him en route. 'Relax. Lunch in ten minutes.'

Down in the office Wolfe was sitting at his desk, looking harassed.

I crossed to mine, sat, and told him, 'They want a shoulder to cry on, but with her fianc9'under the same roof I didn't think it would be fitting. Morton is pacing-'

The phone rang. I answered it, and heard a voice I had been expecting to hear all day. I told Wolfe Inspector Cramer would like to speak to him. He got on and I stayed on.

'Nero Wolfe speaking, Mr. Cramer. How are you?'

'I'm fine. You?'

'The way I always am just before lunch. Hungry.'

'Well, enjoy it. This is just a friendly call. I wanted to let you know you were right as usual when you decided to keep it all to yourself and tell Rowcliff only one thing that was worth a damn, about Perrit's daughter being wanted in Salt Lake. We got onto her through the Washington fingerprint files, as you knew we would. I don't think she was his daughter at all. Her name was Angelina Murphy, though of course she used others. She had about ten years coming. I just wanted to tell you that, but I suppose I might as well ask if you have anything to add.'

'No-no, I think not.'

'Nothing at all'About the job you took on for Perrit?'

'Nothing.'

'Okay, I didn't expect it. Enjoy your lunch.'

I pushed the phone back. I turned to Wolfe and spoke with feeling. 'At least I heard that before I died. Cramer knowing you've got things he could use and merely telling you to enjoy your lunch! No pressure, no hard words, nothing! Not even bothering to drop in on us! And you know why'He's religious and he thinks it would be out of place! He thinks the only guy that belongs here now is a priest for the last rites!'

'Quite right,' Wolfe agreed. 'It was in effect an obituary. If I were a sentimentalist I would be touched. Mr. Cramer has never before shown the slightest interest in my enjoyment of a meal. He thinks I haven't long to live.'

'Including me.'

'Yes, you too, of course.'

'And what do you think?'

'I haven't given it-'

The phone rang again. With a suspicion that it was Cramer, who had decided he had been too sentimental, I got it and spoke. The voice was as familiar as Cramer's but it wasn't his. 'Saul Panzer,' I told Wolfe, and, since he didn't give me the sign to keep off, I kept on. But it was brief and didn't fill in any gaps for me.

'Saul?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Have you had lunch?'

'No, sir.'

'How soon can you get here?'

'Eight to ten minutes.'

'There is a change or two in the program, dictated by circumstances. I'll need you here earlier than I thought. Come and join us at luncheon-Miss Beulah Page, Mr. Morton Schane, Archie, and me.'

'Yes, sir. Probably eight minutes.'

Whether Wolfe enjoyed his lunch or not, I didn't. It is my habit to make big discounts anyhow, and that day I reached my all-time peak in skepticism. I didn't think he had any program whatever. I thought his line that he needed Saul, and he knew what for, was unadulterated guff. I was sure that Cramer had laid off because he had all the stuff he wanted, through the flock of stools the police always know where to find, and he regarded Wolfe and me as bad company even for an inspector. I thought the only reason Wolfe asked Saul to lunch was to have someone to talk to about something pleasant.

The last thought proved to be sound. It was not a meal full of sparkle. Morton was aloof and not a bit intimate. Beulah, who showed no traces of the recent irrigation, was trying to pretend she wasn't somewhere else, without great success. I was so firmly convinced that it was a hell of a time for a man to sit and eat that I had to grit my teeth to stay in my chair, and you can neither chew nor talk very well with your teeth gritted. So the conversation was almost exclusively confined to Wolfe and Saul. Saul, in a suit that didn't fit, and needing a shave as usual, could do almost anything better than anyone I knew-even talk. They discussed plant germination, the meat shortage, books about Roosevelt, and the World Series.

At one-fifty-five Wolfe pushed his chair back and said he was sorry to end the meal so abruptly but callers were expected. He thought it best for Beulah and Morton to leave the way they had come.

Beulah protested that she wasn't going to leave, that there were things she wanted to ask about. She would wait until the callers had gone. Then, Wolfe said, she could go back to the plant rooms and do her waiting there, and also Morton if he wished to stay.

'We'll do that,' Beulah agreed. She was out of her chair and moving to the dining-room door. 'Come on, Morton.'

But the law student balked. The way the light was I could see his eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses, and they looked determined. His voice matched them. 'I don't like the way things look here. I don't know what explanation you have given Miss Page about last night. Then what happened in front of this house afterwards. And asking Miss Page to sneak in the back way. Who are these callers you're expecting?'

To my surprise, Wolfe obliged him. 'One of them,' he said, 'is a man named Fabian. The other is named Schwartz. L. A. Schwartz, a lawyer. A member of the bar.'

That was news to me. He must have invited Schwartz after I left the office.

'Are they connected with this-with Miss Page's affairs?' Morton demanded.

'With Miss Page, no. With her affairs, yes.'

'I want to see them. I intend to be present.' Beulah didn't approve and said so. Wolfe said that her name would not appear in the conversation and that there was no reason why Morton shouldn't be there if he wanted to. That settled it. The fianc9?e started upstairs for the plant rooms, and the fianc9'went with the rest of us to the office. As we were crossing the hall the doorbell rang, and I went to answer it.

Fingering back the edge of the curtain over the glass panel for a look through, and seeing it was Schwartz, I opened up. He had his briefcase and was wearing the same suit and nose-pinchers, but in spite of that he was a different man. In the morning his face had been pale and colorless; now it was rosy. Before I hadn't smelled him at all; now I couldn't help smelling him. He had been spending some of the fifty grand in advance, at the courage counter. Judging from the smell, he had alternated with gin, rum, rye, vodka, and turpentine. My study of him was cut short because the bell rang again as I was hanging up his coat, and this time it was an object deserving much closer and longer study. It was Fabian.

I had seen him around, at the ringside at fights and so on, but never met him. I had never had any desire to meet him. The most famous fact about his physical make-up, that he had no nose, wasn't true. His nose was almost normal in size and shape when you looked at it, but the point was that three other features-the mouth, ears, and eyes-grabbed the scene and the nose might as well not have been there.

Schwartz was still there, standing rigid by the coat rack, clasping his briefcase. I began politely, 'Do you two gentlemen-'

'You're Schwartz,' Fabian stated, hoarse as ever.

'Yes, Mr. Fabian,' the lawyer said hastily. He wasn't too plastered to talk straight. 'You may remember-'

'Yeah.' Fabian's head jerked to me. 'Which way?' I took a step, but checked it because the door between the hall and the front room opened and Wolfe appeared.

He said, in his best manner, 'Good afternoon, Mr. Schwartz. If you'll go to the office and make yourself comfortable we'll join you shortly.' He paused.

Schwartz, getting the cue, marched down the hall toward the door to the office.

Wolfe turned. 'Mr. Fabian'How do you do, sir'I'm Nero Wolfe.' He had a hand out, and Fabian came through for a shake. Wolfe was going on, 'Would you step in here for a private word with me?' He moved toward the door to the front room.

Fabian, not budging, looked at me, which struck me as childish under the circumstances, but not caring to make a point of it I followed Wolfe, and Fabian followed me. When he had passed through I closed the door, and saw at a glance that the connecting door to the office was already shut. They were both soundproofed. Figured by pounds, Wolfe would have made more than two of Fabian.

Figured by survival potential, it was anybody's guess. Wolfe didn't seem to be concerned with either calculation. He only said, 'It is a part of your legend, sir, that you never go anywhere unarmed. Are you armed now?'

As far as I could see there wasn't the slightest change in the expression of Fabian's eyes, but a little crease showed between his eyebrows, as if he wasn't sure he had heard right. Then apparently he decided he had, because the crease disappeared.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Any objections?'

'None at all. But-I'm not calling you a liar-but I would be better satisfied if I saw proof. Where is your weapon'Easily available?'

'Yeah.'

'Would you mind showing it to me?'

'Comedy,' Fabian said. The crease had appeared again. 'I could have had it out and in again twenty times. I came to get some proof from you. You and this Goodwin-'

'Excuse me.' Wolfe was crisp and cool. 'We'll go in the office and sit down. The people in there are a lawyer, Mr. Schwartz, a law student, Mr. Schane, and a man who works for me, Mr. Panzer.' He had stepped to the connecting door and was opening it. 'This way, sir.' I followed him, preceding Fabian in accordance with the underworld's Emily Post. Wolfe stood in the middle of the office and pronounced names, but there was no handshaking. Fabian got the scene with a slow take, his head doing the arc from right to left, and then picked a chair backed up against a section of the bookshelves. Schwartz was in the red leather chair, and Morton Schane was off to my right, on the couch in the corner made by the wall of the lavatory that had been built in. Saul Panzer, in a chair with its back to the wall, was six feet the other side of Schwartz.

Wolfe, from behind his desk, looked around at us, then leveled off at Fabian. He spoke casually. 'I must apologize, sir, for appropriating a few moments of your time. I realize it is your time, since you made an appointment to come here, and therefore you should have first say. But this will only take me-'

The damn doorbell rang. Wolfe went right on, but darted a glance at me when he saw I was staying put. I met the glance deadpan. Without consulting him about it, I had told Fritz to attend to the door if the bell rang, not intending to do any trotting in and out under the circumstances. I suppose I should have told him to keep the door bolted, which he never did when I was there unless so instructed, but subconsciously I must have figured that with Fabian already inside it wouldn't matter who else came. The result was that unwelcome noises came from the hall, including voices, one of which was Fritz's yelling for me.

'Archie! ARCHIE!'

I was up and on my way, but the gate-crasher must have galloped right through Fritz, for I was still ten feet short of the door to the hall when he entered the office. At sight of him I locked my brakes and held my breath. What was flashing through my mind was nothing you could call a thought, but just a pair of facts. One was Fabian. The other was Thumbs Meeker. I backed up so fast I bumped into the corner of Wolfe's desk, and hung there, looking. Fabian was on his feet and was furnishing the proof Wolfe had asked for. It was in his hand, with his elbow against his hip and his forearm extended. Schwartz had left the red leather chair and was kneeling on the floor behind it.

As far as Meeker and Fabian were concerned, they were the only two there. Their gazes had met and held. Fabian's gun was steady and pointed, the same as his eyes, but no blast came. Meeker's hands hung at his sides.

'You'd better lift 'em,' Fabian said, no less hoarse and no more. Besides having his gun out, he also had the best of it in size of target, since Meeker was well over six feet and weighed a good two-twenty.

'Not here and now,' Meeker said in a thin voice. 'Who gave you the steer?'

'Nobody. I came on business.'

'Lift 'em up.'

'Tommyrot!' Wolfe blurted at them, but none of their four eyes moved. He went on, 'This is preposterous! Besides you two, there are five people here. If you shoot him, Mr. Fabian, what do you expect to do, shoot all of us'Nonsense. The same consideration holds for the other gentleman.' He addressed the other gentleman. 'Who the devil are you, sir'What do you mean, bounding into my house like this?'

That relaxed me. I thought to myself, okay, say it ends-today, tomorrow. Before I die at least I get this. Before I die I get to hear Wolfe bawling hell out of Thumbs Meeker for dashing in to where Fabian is ready with his gun out. I felt I owed them something. So I said, 'That's Mr. Meeker, Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Meeker, this is Nero Wolfe.'

'You heard me,' Meeker said in his thin voice. 'Not here and now. He's right. I came here on business.' Fabian didn't say anything. His arm didn't straighten out, but his hand receded until it was where his elbow had been, and both hand and gun slid into his side coat-pocket and stayed there.

Wolfe demanded, 'You came here on business'What business?'

Meeker turned, letting his eyes leave Fabian. They aimed at Wolfe. 'Who are these guys?'

'They're here on business too. What is yours?'

'By God.' Meeker smiled. That smile was famous, and I decided it justified its reputation. 'I don't know if I care to make it public. With Fabian here. He might think I was backing out, and I don't back out.' He turned again, not fast. 'I don't back out, Fabian.' Fabian had nothing to say. He was still standing up.

'Confound it,' Wolfe said testily. 'What do you want?'

Meeker turned again, and smiled again. 'I want to know if it's true that you told the cops that your punk put a finger on Perrit and his daughter for me.'

'No.'

'They seem to have that idea.'

'That isn't true.'

Meeker's smile came again. It came and went. 'Oh,' he said, 'I'm a liar.'

'I don't know whether you're a liar or not. But if the police have made any such statement or intimation, they are. I would have expected you to be sufficiently familiar with police methods not to come running to me with anything as silly as that.'

'You didn't tell them that?'

'Certainly not.'

Meeker looked at me. I was back at my desk. 'You're Goodwin. Did you?'

'No,' I said. 'Am I a half-wit?'

'Mr. Meeker.' Wolfe was curt. 'Now that you're here, I suggest that you stay. Be seated. You'll be interested in what I have to say. When you entered I was about to tell these people who killed Mr. Perrit and his daughter and how and why. It will be doubly interesting because the man who did it is present.'

You could have heard a cockroach stomping. Schwartz, who was back in the red leather chair, was blinking as if he would never stop again. Morton was sitting on the edge of the couch, his palms on his knees. Saul Panzer hadn't moved as much as a finger since Wolfe and I had brought Fabian in.

Fabian, still on his feet, rasped, 'I don't want to miss that.'

'I'm present,' Meeker said.

'Yes, sir, but it wasn't you. Sit down. I don't like to talk to faces on different levels. You too, Mr. Fabian.'

'[Missing] as a law student, and indeed, his temerity was unlimited. He didn't bother about an alias. I suppose at the beginning, he regarded the two worlds as too far apart ever to get connected, and if he regretted it later on it was too late to change. Anyhow, he became engaged to marry Mr. Perrit's daughter under his own, Morton Schane.'

'That's a lie.' It was Morton again. His tone wasn't as loud as it had been before, but it packed more weight.

'You'll have a turn, Mr. Schane,' Wolfe said.

His glance went around. 'As I said, I can't believe that Mr. Perrit didn't know about Mr. Schane, though he didn't mention him to me. I presume Mr. Schane calculated that the highest expectations, in the long run, would be realized through the real daughter and not the counterfeit one. I assume that although Mr. Perrit knew what Mr. Schane was doing, Miss Murphy didn't, or something would have popped. I also assume that Mr. Perrit had got onto Mr. Schane quite recently, since Mr. Schane had continued his program without interference. I also assume that the reason Mr. Perrit didn't mention Mr. Schane to me was because he was confident of being able to handle that himself, By his own methods.'

'You assume,' Morton sneered.

Wolfe nodded. 'I agree. These presumptions and assumptions are merely embroidery and really not needed.' He kept his eyes on Morton. 'Their only purpose is to answer the question, why'Why did you shoot and kill Miss Murphy and Mr. Perrit'Merely to clear the track, to get them out of the way, since the daughter was betrothed to you'Possibly, but I doubt it. More probably, something had happened; you had become aware of some deadly threat. One more assumption-'

Morton stood up. 'You'll eat all this, you fat, lying, son-of-a-bitch! I'm going!'

Fabian stood up.