Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe (12 page)

Wolfe grunted. “Why didn't you bring Miss Holt inside?”

“Because it's not my house. Or my office.”

“Nonsense. There is the front room. If you wish to stand on ceremony, I invite you to use it for consultation with your client. Sitting here in this hubbub is absurd. Have you any further information for Mr. Cramer?”

“No.”

“Have you, Miss Holt?”

She was on her feet beside me. “I didn't have any,” she said. “I haven't got any.”

“Then get away from this turmoil. Come in.”

Cramer found his tongue. “Just a minute.” He had come on up to the stoop and was at my elbow, focused on Wolfe. “This is all very neat. Too damn neat. Goodwin says he quit his job. Did he?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Pfui. That's egregious, Mr. Cramer, and you know it.”

“Did it have anything to do with Miss Holt or what she was coming to consult about?”

“No.”

“Or with the fact that a taxi was parked at your door with a dead body in it?”

“No.”

“Did you know Miss Holt was coming?”

“No. Nor, patently, did Mr. Goodwin.”

“Did you know the taxi was out here?”

“No. I am bearing with you, sir. You persist beyond reason. If Mr. Goodwin or I were involved in the circumstance that brought you here, or Miss Holt, would
he have sat here with her, supine, awaiting your assault? You know him, and you know me. Come, Archie. Bring your client.” He turned.

I told Cramer, “I'll be glad to type up statements and bring them down,” touched Mira Holt's arm, and followed her inside, Wolfe having preceded us.

When I had shut the door and the lock had clicked Wolfe spoke. “Since there's no telephone in the front room and you may have occasion to use one, perhaps the office would be better. I will go to my room.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. “But it might be still better for us to leave the back way. You may not want us here when I explain the situation. Miss Holt drove that taxi here. A friend of hers named Judith Bram is one of the ninety-three female hackies in New York, and she let Miss Holt take her cab—or maybe Miss Holt took it without Miss Bram's knowledge. She left—”

“No,” Mira said. “Judy let me take it.”

“Possible,” I conceded. “You're a pretty good liar. Let me finish. She left it, empty, in front of a building and went in the building for something, and when she came back there was a dead body in it, a woman, with a knife between its ribs. Either it was covered with a canvas, or she—”

“I covered it,” Mira said. “It was under that panel by the driver's seat.”

“She's level-headed,” I told Wolfe. “Somewhat. She couldn't notify the police, because not only had she and her friend violated the law, but also she had recognized the dead woman. She knew her. She decided to come and consult you and me. I met her on the stoop. She told me a cockeyed tale about a bet she had made with a friend which I'll skip. I said
somewhat
level-headed. I let her see that I knew she was feeding me soap but
kept her from blurting it out. So I told Cramer no lies, but she did, and did a good job. But the lies won't keep long. It's barely possible that Judith Bram will deny that she let someone take her cab, but sooner or later—”

“I tried to phone her,” Mira said, “but she didn't answer. I was going to tell her to say that someone stole it.”

“Quit interrupting me. Did you ever hear of fingerprints? Did you see them working on that cab? So I have a client who is in a double-breasted jam. I'll know more about it after she tells me things. The point is, did she kill that woman? If I thought she did I would bow out quick—I would already have bowed out because it would have been hopeless. But she didn't. One will get you ten that she didn't. If she had—”

That interruption wasn't words; it was her lips against mine and her palms covering my ears. If she had been Wolfe's client I would have shoved her off quick, since that sort of demonstration only ruffles him, but she was mine and there was no point in hurting her feelings. I even patted her shoulder. When she was through I resumed.

“If she had killed her she would not have driven here with the corpse for a passenger to tell you, or even me, a goofy tale about a bet with a friend. Not a chance. She would have dumped the corpse somewhere. Make it twenty to one. Add to that my observation of her while we sat there on the stoop, and it's thirty to one. Therefore I am keeping the fee she paid me, and I'm—by the way.” I reached in my pocket for the bills she had given me, unfolded them, and counted. Three twenties, three tens, and a five. Returning two twenties and a ten to my pocket, I offered her the rest. “Your change. I'm keeping fifty.”

She hesitated, then took it. “I'll pay you more. Of course. What are you going to do?”

“I'll know better after you answer some questions. One that shouldn't wait: what did you do with the cap?”

“I have it.” She patted her front.

“Good.” I returned to Wolfe. “So we'll be going. Thank you again for your offer of hospitality, but Cramer may be ringing the bell any minute. We'll go out the rear, Miss Holt. This way.”

“No.” Wolfe snapped it. “This is preposterous. Give me half of that fifty dollars.”

I raised a brow. “For what?”

“To pay me. You have helped me with many problems; surely I can help you with one. I am not being quixotic. I do not accept your headstrong decision that our long association has ended, but even if it has, your repute is inextricably involved with mine. Your client is in a pickle. I have never tried to do a job without your help; why should you try to do one without mine?”

I wanted to grin at him, but he might have misunderstood. “Okay,” I said, and got a twenty from the pocket where I had put the fee, and a five from my wallet, and handed them to him. He took them, turned, and headed for the office, and Mira and I followed.

Where to sit was a delicate question—not for Wolfe, who of course went to his oversized custom-built chair behind his desk, nor for the client, since Wolfe wiggled a finger to indicate the red leather chair that would put her facing him, but for me. The desk at right angles to Wolfe's was no longer mine. I had a hand on one of the
yellow chairs, to move it up, when Wolfe growled, “Confound it, don't be frivolous. We have a job to do.”

I went and sat where I had belonged, and asked him, “Do I proceed?”

“Certainly.”

I looked at her. In good light, with the cap off, she was very lookable, even in a pickle. “I would like,” I said, “to be corroborated. Did you kill that woman?”

“No.
No!
”

“Okay. Out with it. This time, method two, the truth. Judith Bram is a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Did she let you take her cab?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I asked her to.”

“Why did you ask her to?”

“Because … it's a long story.”

“Make it as short as you can. We may not have much time.”

She was on the edge of the chair, which would have held two of her. “I have known Judy three years. She was a model too, but she didn't like it. She's very unconventional. She had money she had inherited, and she bought a cab and a license about a year ago. She cruises when she feels like it, but she has some regular customers who think it's chic to ride in a cab with a girl driver, and my husband is one of them. He often—”

“Your husband?” Wolfe demanded. “
Miss
Holt?”

“They don't live together,” I told him. “Not divorced, but she uses her own name. Fashion model. Go ahead but keep it short.”

She obeyed. “My husband's name is Waldo Kearns. He paints pictures but doesn't sell any. He has money. He often calls Judy to take him somewhere, and he
called last night when I was with her and told her to come for him at eight o'clock this evening, and I asked Judy to let me go instead of her. I have been trying to see him for months to have a talk with him, and he refuses to see me. He doesn't answer my letters. I want a divorce and he doesn't. I think the reason he doesn't is that—”

“Skip it. Get on.”

“Well … Judy said I could take the cab, and today at seven o'clock I went to her place and she brought it from the garage, and she gave me her cap and jacket, and I drove it to—”

“Where is her place?”

“Bowdoin Street. Number seventeen. In the Village.”

“I know. You got in the cab there?”

“Yes. I drove it to Ferrell Street. It's west of Varick, below—”

“I know where it is.”

“Then you know it's a dead end. Close to the end is an alley that goes between walls to a little house. That's my husband's. I lived there with him about a year. I got there a little before eight, and turned around and parked in front of the alley. Judy had said she always waited for him there. He didn't come. I didn't want to go to the house, because as soon as he saw me he would shut the door on me, but when he hadn't come at half past eight I got out and went—”

“You're sure of the time?”

“Yes. I looked at my watch. Of course.”

“What does it say now?”

She lifted her wrist. “Two minutes after eleven.”

“Right. You went through the alley?”

“Yes, to the house. There's a brass knocker on the door, no bell. I knocked with it, but nobody came. I
knocked several times. I could hear the radio or television going inside, I could just barely hear it, so I knocked loud. He couldn't have recognized me through a window because it was too dark and I had the cap pulled down. Of course it could have been Morton, his man as he calls him, playing the radio, but I don't think so because he would have heard the knocker and come to the door. I finally gave up and went back to the cab, and as I was getting in I saw her. At first I thought it was a trick he had played, but when I looked closer I saw the knife, and then I recognized her, and she was dead. If I hadn't turned around and gripped the wheel as hard as I could I think I would have fainted. I never have fainted. I sat there—”

“Who was it?”

“It was Phoebe Arden. She was the reason my husband didn't want a divorce. I'm sure she was, or anyway one of the reasons. I think he thought that as long as he was still married to me she couldn't expect him to marry her, and neither could anyone else. But I wasn't thinking about that while I sat there, I was thinking what to do. I knew the right thing was to call the police, but I was driving Judy's cab, and, what was worse, I would have to admit I knew who she was, and they would find out about her and my husband. I don't know how long I sat there.”

“It must have been quite a while. You left the cab to go to the house at eight-thirty. How long were you gone?”

“I don't know. I knocked several times, and looked in at the windows, and then knocked some more.” She considered. “At least ten minutes.”

“Then you were back at the cab at eight-forty, and from there to here wouldn't take more than ten minutes,
and you got here at nine-twenty. Did you sit there half an hour?”

“No. I decided to get her—to get it out of the cab. I found that canvas under the panel. I thought the best place would be somewhere along the river front, and I drove there but didn't see a good place, and men tried to stop me twice, and once when I stopped for a light a man opened the door and when I told him I was making a delivery he almost climbed in anyway. Then I thought I would just leave the cab somewhere, anywhere, and I went to a phone booth to call Judy and tell her to say the cab had been stolen, but there was no answer. Then I thought of Nero Wolfe and you, and I drove here. I didn't have much time to make that up about the bet, just on my way here. I knew it wasn't much good while I was telling it.”

“So did I.” I was frowning at her. “I want you to realize one thing. I believe you when you say you didn't kill her, but it doesn't follow that I swallow you whole. For instance, the divorce situation. If the fact is that your husband wanted one so he could marry Phoebe Arden, and you balked, that would make it different.”

“No.” She was frowning back. “I've told you the truth, every word. I lied to you out there, but if I lied to you now I'd be a fool.”

“You sure would. How good a friend of yours is Judy Bram?”

“She's my best friend. She's a little wild, but I like her. I love her.”

“Are you sure she rates it?”

“Yes.”

“You'd better cross your fingers.” I turned to Wolfe. “Since you're helping on this, and I fully appreciate it, our minds should meet. Do you accept it that she didn't kill her?”

“As a working hypothesis, yes.”

“Then isn't it likely that she was killed by someone who knew that Miss Holt would be driving the cab? Since Kearns didn't show, taking her away from the cab, and the radio or television was on in the house?”

“Likely, but far from certain. It could have been impromptu. Or the embarrassment could have been meant for Miss Bram, not for Miss Holt.”

I returned to Mira. “How close are Judy Bram and your husband?”

“Close?” The frown was getting chronic. “They aren't close. If you mean intimate, I doubt if Judy has ever allowed any man to be intimate. My husband may have tried. I suppose he has.”

“Could Judy have had any reason to kill Phoebe Arden?”

“Good lord, no.”

“Isn't it possible that Judy, unknown to you, had got an idea that she would like to break the ice with your husband, and Phoebe Arden was in the way?”

“I suppose it is, if you want to say that anything is possible, but I don't believe it.”

“You heard what I asked Mr. Wolfe and what he answered. I still like it that whoever killed her knew that you were going to drive the cab there. It's certainly possible that Judy Bram told someone.”