Some Buried Caesar (39 page)

I said I would give him five minutes to tell me who had killed Mrs. Fromm. He said the way it was going it would take him five years and no guarantee. I asked him if that was based on the latest dispatches, and he said yes. I said that was all I wanted to know and therefore withdrew my offer of five minutes, but if and when he could make it five hours instead of five years I would appreciate it if he would communicate.

He asked, “Communicate what?”

I said, “That it’s nearly ripe. That’s all. So I can tell Mr. Wolfe to dive for cover.”

“He’s too damn fat to dive.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. You sure that’s all?”

“Absolutely.”

“I thought maybe you were going to ask for Rowcliff’s head with an apple in his mouth.”

I went home and told Wolfe, “Relax. The cops are playing eeny, meeny, miney, mo. They know more than we do, but they’re no closer to the answer.”

“How do you know?”

“Gypsies. It’s authentic, fresh, and strictly private. I saw the boys and gave them the photos. Do you want the unimportant details?”

“No.”

“Any instructions?”

“No.”

“No program for me for tomorrow?”

“No.”

That was Sunday night.

Monday morning I got a treat. Wolfe never shows
downstairs until eleven o’clock. After breakfast in his room he takes the elevator to the roof for the two hours with the plants before descending to the office. For morning communication with me he uses the house phone unless there is something special. Apparently that morning was special, for when Fritz came to the kitchen after taking breakfast up he announced solemnly, “Audience for you.
Levée!”
I spell it French because he pronounced it so.

I had finished with the morning paper, in which there was nothing to contradict my gypsies, and when my coffee cup was empty I ascended the one flight, knocked, and entered. On rainy mornings, or even gray ones, Wolfe breakfasts in bed, after tossing the black silk coverlet toward the foot because stains are bad for it, but when it’s bright he has Fritz put the tray on a table near a window. That morning it was bright, and I had my treat. Barefooted, his hair tousled, with his couple of acres of yellow pajamas dazzling in the sun, he was sensational.

We exchanged good mornings, and he told me to sit. There was nothing left on his plate, but he wasn’t through with the coffee.

“I have instructions,” he informed me.

“Okay. I was intending to be at the bank at ten o’clock to deposit Mrs. Fromm’s check.”

“You may. You will proceed from there. You will probably be out all day. Tell Fritz to answer the phone and take the usual precautions with visitors. Report by phone at intervals.”

“The funeral is at two o’clock.”

“I know, and therefore you may come home for lunch. We’ll see. Now the instructions.”

He gave them to me. Four minutes did it. At the end he asked if I had any questions.

I was frowning. “One,” I said. “It’s clear enough as far as it goes, but what am I after?”

“Nothing.”

“Then that’s probably what I’ll get.”

He sipped coffee. “It’s what I’ll expect. You’re stirring them up, that’s all. You’re turning a tiger loose in a crowd—or, if that’s too bombastic, a mouse. How will they take it? Will any of them tell the police, and if so, which one or ones?”

I nodded. “Sure, I see the possibilities, but I wanted to know if there is any specific item I’m supposed to get.”

“No. None.” He reached for the coffee pot.

I went down to the office. In a drawer of my desk there is an assortment of calling cards, nine or ten different kinds, worded differently for different needs and occasions. I took some engraved ones with my name in the center and “Representing Nero Wolfe” in the corner, and on six of them I wrote in ink beneath my name, “To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.” With them in my wallet, and the check and bankbook in my pocket, and a gun under my armpit, I was fully loaded, and I got my hat and beat it.

I walked to the bank, a pleasant fifteen-minute stretch on a fine May morning, and from there took a taxi to Sixty-eighth Street. I didn’t know what the home of a deceased millionairess would be like on the day of her funeral, which was to be held in a chapel on Madison Avenue, but outside it was quieter than it had been Saturday. The only evidences of anything uncommon were a cop in uniform on the sidewalk, with nothing to do, and black crepe hanging on the
door. It wasn’t the same cop as on Saturday, and this one recognized me. As I made for the door he stopped me.

“You want something?”

“Yes, officer, I do.”

“You’re Archie Goodwin. What do you want?”

“I want to ring that bell, and hand Peckham my card to take to Miss Estey, and enter, and be conducted within, and engage in conversation—”

“Yeah, you’re Goodwin all right.”

That called for no reply, and he merely stood, so I walked past him into the vestibule and pushed the bell. In a moment the door was opened by Peckham. He may have been well trained, but the sight of me was too much for him. Instead of keeping his eyes on my face, as any butler worthy of the name should do, he let his bewilderment show as he took in my brown tropical worsted, light tan striped shirt, brown tie, and tan shoes. In fairness to him, remember it was the day of the funeral.

I handed him a card. “Miss Estey, please?”

He admitted me, but he had an expression on his face. He probably thought I was batty, since from the facts as he knew them that was the simplest explanation. Instead of ushering me down the hall, he told me to wait there, and went to the door to the office and disappeared inside. Voices issued, too low for me to catch the words, and then he came out.

“This way, Mr. Goodwin.”

He moved aside as I approached, and I passed through the door. Jean Estey was there at a desk with my card in her hand. Without bothering with any greeting, she asked me abruptly, “Will you please close the door?”

I did so and turned to her. She spoke. “You know what I told you Saturday, Mr. Goodwin.”

The greenish-brown eyes were straight at me. Below them the skin was puffy, either from too little sleep or too much, and while I still would have called her comely, she looked as if the two days since I had seen her had been two years.

I went to a chair near the end of her desk and sat. “You mean about the police asking you to see Nero Wolfe and pass it on?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, only—well—if Mr. Wolfe still wants to see me, I think I might go. I’m not sure—but I certainly wouldn’t tell the police what he said. I think they’re simply awful. It’s been more than two days since Mrs. Fromm was killed, fifty-nine hours, and I don’t think they’re getting anywhere at all.”

I had to make a decision in about one second. With the line she was taking, it was a cinch I could get her down to the office, but would Wolfe want her? Which would he want me to do, get her to the office or follow my instructions? I don’t know what I would have decided if I could have gone into a huddle with myself to think it over, but it had to be a flash vote and it went for instructions.

I spoke. “I’ll tell Mr. Wolfe how you feel, Miss Estey, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it, but I ought to explain that what it says on that card—‘Representing Nero Wolfe’—is not exactly true. I’m here on my own.”

She cocked her head. “On your own? Don’t you work for Nero Wolfe?”

“Sure I do, but I work for me too when I get a good chance. I have an offer to make you.”

She glanced at the card. “It says ‘To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.’”

“That’s right, that’s what I want to discuss, but just between you and me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You soon will.” I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “You see, I was present during the talk Mrs. Fromm had with Mr. Wolfe. All of it. I have an extremely good memory. I could recite it to you word for word, or mighty close to it.”

“Well?”

“Well, I think you would appreciate hearing it. I have reason to believe you would find it very interesting. You may think I’m sticking my neck out, but I have been Mr. Wolfe’s confidential assistant for a good many years, and I’ve done some good work for him, and I’ve seen to it that he has learned to trust me, and if you call him up when I leave here, or go to see him, and tell him what I said to you, he’ll think you’re trying to pull a fast one. And when he asks me and I tell him you’re a dirty liar, he’ll believe me. So don’t worry about my neck. I’ll tell you about that talk, all of it, for five thousand dollars cash.”

She said, “Oh,” or maybe it was “Uh,” but it was just a noise. Then she just stared.

“Naturally,” I said, “I don’t expect you to have that amount in your purse, so this afternoon will do, but I’ll have to be paid in advance.”

“This is incredible,” she said. “Why on earth should I pay you five cents to tell me about that talk? Let alone five thousand dollars. Why?”

I shook my head. “That would be telling. After you pay and I deliver, you may or may not feel that you got your money’s worth. I’m giving no guarantee
of satisfaction, but I’d be a fool to come here with such an offer if all I had was a bag of popcorn.”

Her gaze left me. She opened a drawer to get a pack of cigarettes, removed one, tapped its end several times on a memo pad, and reached for a desk lighter. But the cigarette didn’t get lit. She dropped it and put the lighter down. “I suppose,” she said, her eyes back to me, “I should be insulted and indignant, and I suppose I will, but now I’m too shocked. I didn’t know you were a common skunk. If I had that much money to toss around I’d like to pay you and hear it. I’d like to hear what kind of a lie you’re trying to sell me. You’d better go.” She rose. “Get out of here!”

“Miss Estey, I think—”

“Get out!”

I have seen skunks in motion, both skunks unperturbed and skunks in a hurry, and they are not dignified. I was. Taking my hat from a corner of the desk, I walked out. In the hall Peckham showed his relief at getting rid of a lunatic undertaker without regrettable incident by bowing to me as he held the door open. On the sidewalk the cop thought he would say something and then decided no.

Around the corner I found a phone booth in a drugstore, called Wolfe and gave him a full report as instructed, and flagged a taxi headed downtown.

The address of my second customer, on Gramercy Park, proved to be an old yellow brick apartment house with a uniformed doorman, a spacious lobby with fine old rugs, and an elevator with a bad attack of asthma. It finally got the chauffeur and me to the eighth floor, after the doorman had phoned up and passed me. When I pushed the button at the door of 8B it was opened by a female master sergeant
dressed like a maid, who admitted me, took my hat, and directed me to an archway at the end of the hall.

It was a large high-ceilinged living room, more than fully furnished, the dominant colors of its drapes and upholstery and rugs being yellow, violet, light green, and maroon—at least that was the impression gained from a glance around. A touch of black was supplied by the dress of the woman who moved to meet me as I approached. The black was becoming to her, with her ash-blond hair gathered into a bun at the back, her clear blue eyes, and her pale carefully tended skin. She didn’t offer a hand, but her expression was not hostile.

“Mrs. Horan?” I inquired.

She nodded. “My husband will be furious at me for seeing you, but I was simply too curious. Of course I should be sure—you are the Archie Goodwin that works for Nero Wolfe?”

I got a card from my wallet and handed it to her, and she held it at an angle for better light. Then she widened her eyes at me. “But I don’t—‘To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe’? With me? Why with me?”

“Because you’re Mrs. Dennis Horan.”

“Yes, I am, of course.” Her tone implied that that angle hadn’t occurred to her. “My husband will be furious!”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Perhaps we might sit over by a window? This is rather private.”

“Certainly.” She turned and found a way among pieces of furniture, and I followed. She took a chair at the far end near a window, and I moved one over close enough to make it cozy.

“You know,” she said, “this is the most dreadful thing. The
most
dreadful. Laura Fromm was such a
fine person.” She might have used the same tone and expression to tell me she liked the way I had my hair cut. She added, “Did you know her well?”

“No, I saw her only once, last Friday when she came to consult Mr. Wolfe.”

“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you a detective too?”

“Yes, I work for Mr. Wolfe.”

“It’s simply fascinating. Of course there have been two men here asking questions—no, three—and Saturday more of them at the District Attorney’s office, but they’re really only policemen. You’re truly a detective. I would never have thought a detective would be so—would dress so well.” She made a pretty little gesture. “But here I am babbling along as usual, and you want to discuss something with me, don’t you?”

“That was the idea. What Mrs. Fromm said to Mr. Wolfe.”

“Then you’ll have to tell me what she said. I can’t discuss it until I know what it was. Can I?”

“No,” I conceded, “but I can’t tell you until I know how much you want to hear it.”

“Oh, I
do
want to hear it!”

“Good. I thought you would. You see, Mrs. Horan, I was in the room all the time Mrs. Fromm and Mr. Wolfe were talking, and I remember every word they said. That’s why I thought you would be extremely curious about it, so I’m not surprised that you are. The trouble is, I can’t afford to satisfy your curiosity as a gift. I should have explained, I’m not here representing Nero Wolfe, that’s why I said it’s rather private. I’m representing just myself. I’ll satisfy
your curiosity if you’ll lend me five thousand dollars to be repaid the day it rains up instead of down.”

The only visible reaction was that the blue eyes widened a little. “That’s an amusing idea,” she said, “raining up instead of down. Would it be raining from the clouds up, or up from the ground to the clouds?”