Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe (16 page)

Kearns bounced out of the chair, and as he did so the doorbell rang. Since a man who might have stuck a knife in a woman might be capable of other forms of violence, I was going to leave it to Fritz, but Wolfe shot me a glance and I went to the hall for a look. On the stoop was a tall guy with a bony face and a strong jaw. Behind me Kearns was yapping but had drawn no weapon. I went to the front and opened the door.

“To see Mr. Wolfe,” he said. “My name is Gilbert Irving.”

The temptation was too strong. Only twelve hours ago I had seen a confrontation backfire for Cramer, when he had brought Judy Bram in to face Mira, but this time the temperament was already in the office, having a fit, and it would be interesting to see the reaction, and possibly helpful. So I told him to come in, took his Homburg and put it on the shelf beside the floppy black number, and steered him to the office.

Kearns was still on his feet yapping, but when Wolfe's eyes left him to direct a scowl at me he turned his head. I ignored the scowl. I had disregarded another rule by bringing in a visitor without consulting Wolfe, but as far as I was concerned Mira was still my client and it was my case. I merely pronounced names. “Mr. Gilbert Irving. Mr. Wolfe.”

The reaction was interesting enough, though not helpful, since it was no news that Kearns and Irving were not pals. Perhaps Kearns didn't actually spit at him because it could have been merely that moisture came out with his snort. Two words followed immediately. “You bastard!”

Irving must have had lessons or practice, or both. His uppercut, with his right, was swift and sure, and
had power. It caught Kearns right on the button and sent him straight up a good six inches before he swayed against the corner of Wolfe's desk.

To do him justice, Kearns handled it as well as could be expected, even better. He surprised me. He didn't utter a peep. The desk saved him from going down. He stayed propped against it for three seconds, straightened with his hand on it for support, moved his head backward and forward twice, decided his neck was still together, and moved. His first few steps were wobbly, but by the time he reached the door to the hall they were steadier, and he made the turn okay. I went to the hall and stood, as he got his hat from the shelf and let himself out, pulling the door shut without banging it, and re-entered the office as Irving was saying, “I should beg your pardon. I do. I'm sorry.”

“You were provoked,” Wolfe told him. He gestured at the red leather chair. “Be seated.”

“Hold it.” I was there. “I guess I should beg your pardon, Mr. Irving, for not telling you he was here, and now I just beg it again. I have to tell Mr. Wolfe something that can't wait. It won't take long.” I went and opened the door to the front room. “If you'll step in here.”

He didn't like the idea. “My business is pressing,” he said.

“So is mine. If you please?”

“Your name is Archie Goodwin?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated a second, and then came, and crossed the sill, and I closed the door. Since it and the wall
were soundproofed, I didn't have to lower my voice to tell Wolfe, “I want to report. I saw his wife.”

“Indeed. Will a summary do?”

“No.” I sat. “It will for one detail, that eighty feet from where the cab was parked there is a stoneyard that would be perfect cover, you couldn't ask for better, but you must have my talk with Mrs. Irving verbatim.”

“Go ahead.”

I did so, starting with a description of her. It had been years since he had first told me that when I described a man he must see him and hear him, and I had learned the trick long ago. I also knew how to report conversations word for word—much longer ones than the little chat I had had with Mrs. Irving.

When I had finished he asked one question. “Was she lying?”

“I wouldn't bet either way. If so she is good. If it was a mixture I'd hate to have to sort it out.”

“Very well.” He closed his eyes. In a moment they opened. “Bring him.”

I went and opened the door to the front room and told him to come, and he entered, crossed to the red leather chair, sat, and aimed his eyes at Wolfe. “I should explain,” he said, “that I am here as a friend of Miss Mira Holt, but she didn't send me.”

Wolfe nodded. “She mentioned your name last evening. She said you are an intelligent man.”

“I'm afraid she flatters me.” Evidently it was normal for him to sit still. “I have come to you for information, but I can't pretend I have any special right to it. I can only tell you why I want it. When I learned on the radio this morning that Miss Holt was in custody I started downtown to see her, to offer my help, but on the way I decided that it wouldn't be advisable because it might be misconstrued, since I am merely a friend.
So I called on my lawyer instead. His name is John H. Darby. I explained the situation and asked him to see Miss Holt, and he arranged to see her and has talked with her, but she won't tell him anything. She even refused to authorize him to arrange bail for her. She says that Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe are representing her, and she will say nothing and do nothing without their advice.”

I touched my lips with a fingertip, the lips that Mira had kissed. I was blowing the kiss back to her. Not only had she put my name first, but also she had improved on my suggestion by combining method three and method one. She was a client in a thousand. She had even turned down two offers to spring her.

“I'm not a lawyer,” Wolfe said, “and neither is Mr. Goodwin.”

“I'm aware of that. But you seemed to have hypnotized Miss Holt. With no offense intended, I must ask, are you acting in her interest or in Waldo Kearns's?”

Wolfe grunted. “Hers. She hired us.”

I put in, “You and Kearns agree. He thinks we hypnotized her too. Nuts.”

He regarded me. “I prefer to deal with Mr. Wolfe. This is his office.”

“You're dealing with both of us,” Wolfe told him. “Professionally we are indiscrete. What information do you want?”

“I want to know why you are taking no steps to get her released and what action you intend to take in her interest. I also want you to advise her to accept the services of my lawyer. He is highly qualified.”

Wolfe rested his palms on the chair arms. “You should know better, Mr. Irving; you're a man of affairs. Before I gave you an inch, let alone the mile you ask
for, I would have to be satisfied that your interest runs with hers.”

“Damn it, I'm her friend! Didn't she say I am? You said she mentioned me.”

“She could be mistaken.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. For instance, I don't even know what you have told the police.”

“Nothing. They haven't asked me anything. Why should they?”

“Then you haven't told them that Miss Holt told you on the phone Sunday evening that she was going to drive Judith Bram's cab?”

It got him. He stared. He looked at me and back at Wolfe. “No,” he said. “Even if she had, would I tell the police?”

“Do you deny that she did?”

“I neither deny it nor affirm it.”

Wolfe upturned a palm. “How the devil can you expect candor from me? Do you want me to suspect that Miss Holt lied when she told us of that phone call?”

“When did she tell you?”

“Last evening. Here. Not under hypnosis.”

He considered. “All right. She told me that.”

“And whom did you tell?”

“No one.”

“You're certain?”

“Of course I'm certain.”

“Then it won't be easy to satisfy me. Assuming that Miss Holt fulfilled her intention and took the cab, and arrived with it at Mr. Kearns's address at eight o'clock, and combining that assumption with the fact that at twenty minutes past nine the cab was standing in front of my house with a dead body in it, where are you? Miss Bram states that she told no one of the arrangement. Miss Holt states that she told no one but you. Is
it any wonder that I ask where you are? And, specifically, where you were last evening from eight o'clock on?”

“I see.” Irving took a breath, and another. “It's utterly preposterous. You actually suspect me of being involved in the murder of Phoebe Arden.”

“I do indeed.”

“But it's preposterous! I had no concern whatever with Miss Arden. She meant nothing to me. Not only that, apparently whoever killed her managed to get Miss Holt involved—either managed it or permitted it. Would I do that?” He made his hands fists and raised them, shook them. “Damn it, I have to know what happened! You know. Miss Holt told you. I have to know!”

“There are things
I
have to know,” Wolfe said drily. “I mentioned one: your movements last evening. We have it from your wife, but I prefer it from you. That's the rule, and a good one: get the best available evidence.”

Irving was staring again. “My wife? You have seen my wife?”

“Mr. Goodwin has. He called at your home this morning to see you, and you had gone. Your wife wished to be helpful. You know, of course, what she told him.”

“Did she tell him—” He stopped and started over. “Did she tell him about a phone call she made yesterday afternoon?”

Wolfe nodded. “And one she received. She received one from you and made one to Miss Arden.”

Irving inclined his head forward to look at his right hand. Its fingers bent, slowly, to make a fist. Apparently something about the operation was unsatisfactory, for he repeated it several times, gazing at it. At length his head came up. “My lawyer wouldn't like
this,” he said, “but I'm going to tell you something. I have to if I expect you to tell me anything. If I told you what I told my wife you would check it, and it won't check. I know Miss Holt drove Judy Bram's cab there last evening. I know she got there at five minutes to eight and left at ten minutes to nine. I saw her.”

“Indeed. Where were you?”

“I was in a cab parked on Carmine Street, around the corner from Ferrell Street. I suppose you know what her purpose was in driving Judy's cab?”

“Yes. To talk with her husband.”

“I had tried to persuade her not to. Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't like it. There isn't much that Kearns isn't capable of. I don't mean violence; just some trick like getting her out of the cab and going off with it. I decided to be there, and I phoned my wife that I would have to spend the evening with a business associate. I was afraid if I took my car Miss Holt might recognize it, so I got a taxi with a driver I know. Carmine Street is one-way, and we parked where we would be ready to follow when she came out of Ferrell Street. We were there when she arrived, at five minutes to eight. When she came back, nearly an hour later, she was alone. There was no one in the cab. I supposed Kearns had refused to let her drive him, and I was glad of it.”

“What then?”

“I went to my club. If you want to check I'll give you the cab driver's name and address. I rang Judy Bram's number, and I rang Miss Holt's number three or four times, but there was no answer. I supposed they were out somewhere together. And this morning I heard the radio and saw the paper.” He breathed. “I hope to heaven I won't have to regret telling you this.
If it contradicts anything she told you she's right and I'm wrong. I could be lying, you know, for my own protection.”

I was thinking, If so you're an expert.

Wolfe's eyes, at him, were half closed. “It was dark. How could you know there was no one in the cab?”

“There's a light at that corner. I have good eyes and so has the driver. She was going slow, for the turn.”

“You didn't follow her?”

“No. There was no point in following her if Kearns wasn't with her.”

“What would you say if I told you that Miss Holt saw you in your parked taxi as she drove by?”

“I wouldn't believe it. When she drove by arriving I was flat on the seat. It was dark but I didn't risk her seeing me. When she left she didn't drive by. Carmine Street is one-way.”

Wolfe leaned back and shut his eyes, and his lips began to work. Irving started to say something, and I snapped at him, “Hold it.” Wolfe pushed his lips out and pulled them in, out and in, out and in. … He was earning the twenty-five bucks I had paid him. I had no idea how, but when he starts that lip operation the sparks are flying inside his skull.

Irving tried again. “But I want—”

“Hold it.”

“But I don't—”

“Shut up!”

He sat regarding me, not warmly.

Wolfe opened his eyes and straightened. “Mr. Irving.” He was curt. “You will get what you came here for, but not forthwith. Possibly within the hour, probably somewhat later. Tell me where I can reach you, or you may—”

“Damn it, no! I want—”

“If you please. Confound it, I've been yelped at enough today. Or you may wait here. That room has comfortable chairs—or one at least. Mr. Goodwin and I have work to do.”

“I don't intend—”

“Your intentions have no interest or point. Where can we reach you?”

Irving looked at me and saw nothing hopeful. He arose. “I'll wait here,” he said, and headed for the front room.

Having turned my head to see that Irving shut the door, I turned it back again. “Fine,” I said. “We're going to work.”

“I'm a dunce,” he said. “So are you.”

“It's possible,” I conceded. “Can you prove it?”

“It's manifest. Why did that policeman stop his car to look inside that cab?”

“Cops do. That's what a prowl car is for. They saw it parked with the hackie gone, and while that's nothing strange they thought it was worth a look. Also it was parked in front of your house. He knew it was your house. He said so.”

“Nevertheless, we are dunces not to have questioned it. I want to know if that policeman had been prompted. At once.”