Trio For Blunt Instruments (8 page)

PHILIP HORAN. Nothing. Elma corroborated Horan. Pete had never shined Horan's shoes and had probably never seen him.

FRANCES COX. I got the feeling that Elma had toned it down some, but even so it was positively thumbs down. The general impression was that Miss Cox was a highnose and a female baboon. Evidently she had never turned siren on him.

'I don't see what good this is,' Elma said as we collated the original and carbons. 'He asked me a thousand questions about what my father said about them.'

'Search me,' I told her. 'I just work here. If it comes to me in a dream, I'll tell you in the morning.'

AT THE MOMENT, half past three Friday afternoon, that Saul Panzer was finding what Pete Vassos had scrawled on a rock with his finger dipped in his blood, I was at the curb in front of a church on Cedar Street, Greek Orthodox, getting into a rented limousine with Elma Vassos and three friends of hers. The hearse, with the coffin in it, was just ahead, and we were going to follow it to a cemetery somewhere on the edge of Brooklyn. I had offered to drive us in the sedan, which was Wolfe's in name but mine in practice, but no, it had to be a black limousine. I had asked Elma if she wanted the stack of dollar bills from the safe, but she said she would pay for her father's funeral with her own money, so apparently she had some put away.

I wouldn't have been jolly even if it had been a wedding instead of a funeral, with Saul and Fred somewhere doing something, I had no idea where or what, and me spending the day convoying, on her personal errands, a girl on whom I had no designs, private or professional. The idea, according to Wolfe when I had gone up to his room at eight-thirty A.M. for instructions, was that it would be risky to let her go anywhere unattended. If I would prefer, I could get an operative to escort her and I could stay in the office to stand by. He knew damn well what I would prefer, to join Saul and Fred, and I knew damn well, he wouldn't be blowing $17.50 an hour plus expenses if he hadn't had a healthy notion that he was going to get something for It. But we had had that argument time and again, and there would have been no point in repeating it, especially when he was at breakfast.

So I spent the day bodyguarding, and it didn't help much that the body I was guarding was 110 pounds of attractive female with a sad little face. I have nothing against sympathy when my mind is free, but it wasn't. It was with Saul and Fred, and that was very frustrating because I didn't know where they were. No doubt Elma's friends got the impression that I was a fish.

When we finally got back to Manhattan and the friends had been dropped off at their addresses, and the rented limousine stopped in front of the old brownstone, it was after six o'clock. Elma paid the driver. Mounting the stoop with her and finding that the door wasn't bolted, I knew that at least nothing had blown up, but, stepping inside, I saw that someone had blown in. There on the hall rack were objects that I recognized: a brown wool cap, a gray hat, a blue hat, and three coats. As I took Elma's coat I told her, 'Go up and lie down. There's company in the office. Inspector Cramer, Saul Panzer, and Fred Durkin.'

'But what-why are they& '

'The Lord only knows, or maybe Mr. Wolfe does. You're all in. If you want-'

Her look stopped me. She was facing the door. I turned. There on the stoop was John Mercer, with a finger on the bell button, with Frances Cox and Philip Horan behind him. I told Elma to beat it and waited until she had turned up the stairs to open the door.

So Wolfe thought he had it. I wondered, as I let them in and took their things and sent them to the office. More than once I had seen him risk it when all he had hold of was the tip of the tail, even with a big fee at stake, and with no intake but a dollar bill already spent and then some-he could be trying it with no hold at all. He knew I was home, since Saul had appeared at the office door when the bell had rung and had seen me admitting the guests, and I had a notion to go to the kitchen and sit down with a glass of milk. If I joined the party I would be merely a spectator, and it might be a bum show. But while I was considering it another guest appeared on the stoop. Andrew Busch. I had the door open before he pressed the button. Since I had crossed him off and I thought Wolfe had too, his coming meant there would be a real showdown, all or nothing, so I took him to the office and followed him in. And found that it was the full cast: Joan Ashby was on the couch at the left of my desk, with a mink coat, presumably not paid for, draped on her shoulders. Cramer was in the red leather chair. Saul and Fred were over by the big globe. Mercer, Horan, and Miss Cox were on yellow chairs in a row facing Wolfe's desk, and there was a vacant one waiting for Busch. As I circled around the chairs Wolfe told Busch he was late, and Busch said something, and, as I sat, Cramer said he wanted Elma Vassos there.

Wolfe shook his head. 'You are here by sufferance, Mr. Cramer, and you will either listen or leave, as agreed. As I told you on the phone, you can't expect to interfere in your official capacity, since you have closed your investigation of the only death by violence in your jurisdiction that these people are connected with. Or you had closed it. You agreed to listen or leave. Do you want to leave?'

'Go ahead,' Cramer growled, 'But Elma Vassos ought to be here.'

'She's at hand if needed.' Wolfe's eyes left him. 'Mr. Mercer. I told you on the phone that if you would bring Miss Cox and Mr. Horan I thought we could come to an understanding about the actions Miss Vassos has brought. It seemed desirable for Mrs. Ashby and Mr. Busch to be present, and I asked them to come. I'm on better ground than I was yesterday. Then I only knew that Mr. Vassos had not killed Dennis Ashby; now I know who did. I'll tell you briefly-'

Cramer cut in. 'Now I'm here officially! Now you're saying you can name a murderer! How did you know Vassos hadn't killed Ashby?'

Wolfe glared at him. 'I have your word. Listen or leave.'

'I'll listen to your answer to my question!'

'I was about to give it.' Wolfe turned to the others. 'I was saying, I'll tell you briefly how I knew that. Miss Vassos came to me Tuesday evening to engage my services. She said that someone had lied to the police about her; that the police were persuaded that she had been seduced by Ashby and her father had found out about it and had killed Ashby and then himself; that none of that was true; that her father had told her I was the greatest man in the world; that she wanted to hire me to discover and establish the truth; and in payment she would give me all the dollar bills, some five hundred, I had paid her father for shining my shoes over a period of more than three years.'

He turned a palm up. 'Very well. If she had in fact misbehaved, and if her misbehavior had been responsible for her father's committing murder and suicide, what on earth could possibly have impelled her to come to me-the greatest man in the world to her father, and therefore a man not to be hoodwinked-and offer me what was for her a substantial sum to learn the truth and expose it'It was inconceivable. So I believed her.'

He turned his hand back over. 'But I won't pretend that I was moved to act by the dollar bills, by the pathos of Miss Vassos' predicament, or by a passion for truth and justice. I was moved by pique. Monday afternoon, the day before Miss Vassos came, Mr. Cramer had told me that I was capable of shielding a murderer in order to avoid the inconvenience of finding another bootblack; and the next day, Wednesday, he told Mr. Goodwin that I had been beguiled by a harlot and ejected him from his office. That's why-'

'I didn't eject him!'

Wolfe ignored it. 'That's why Mr. Cramer is here. I could have asked the district attorney to send someone, but I preferred to have Mr. Cramer present.'

'I'm here and I'm listening,' Cramer rasped.

Wolfe turned to him. 'Yes, sir. I'll pass over the actions at law I advised Miss Vassos to bring; that was merely a ruse to make contact. I needed to see these people. I already had a strong hint about the murderer. So had you.'

'If you mean a hint about somebody besides Vassos, you're wrong. I hadn't.'

'You had. I gave it to you, half of it, or Mr. Goodwin did, when he reported verbatim my conversation with Mr. Vassos Monday morning. He said he saw someone. He said that he had only said what if he told a cop he saw someone, but it was obvious that he actually had seen someone. Also he told his daughter that evening that there was something he hadn't told either me or the police, and he was going to come and tell me in the morning and ask me what he ought to do; and he wouldn't tell his daughter what it was. Surely that's a strong hint.'

'Hint of what?'

'That he knew, or thought he knew, who had killed Ashby. Where and when he had seen someone can only be conjectured, but it is highly probable that he had seen someone leaving Ashby's room. Not entering; you know the times involved as well as I do, or better; he must have seen him leaving, at a moment which made it likely that he had been in that room when Ashby left it by the window. And it was someone whom he did not want to expose, for whom he had affection or regard, or who had put him under obligation. There I have the advantage of you. Mr. Vassos and I had formed the habit, while he was shining my shoes, of discussing the history of ancient Greece and the men who made it, and I knew the bent of his mind. He was tolerant of violence and even ferocity, and the qualities he most strongly contemned were ingratitude and disloyalty. That was, of course, not decisive, but it helped.'

Wolfe wiggled a finger. 'So. The person, call him X, whom Mr. Vassos had seen in compromising circumstances and who was probably the murderer, was one who had earned his affection, his high regard, his gratitude, or his loyalty.' He left Cramer and surveyed the others. 'Was it one of you'That was the point of my questions yesterday afternoon when you were here, and of a discussion I had with Miss Vassos last evening. It isn't necessary to elaborate; as you know, only one of you qualifies. You, Mr. Mercer. You fit admirably; Mr. Vassos owed you gratitude for giving his daughter a job. By which door were you leaving Ashby's room when he saw you, the one to the outer hall or the other?'

'Neither one.' Wolfe had telegraphed the punch, and Mercer had got set. 'You're not intimating that I killed Dennis Ashby. Are you?'

'I am indeed.' Wolfe turned to Cramer. 'The question of which door isn't vital, but the inner one is more likely. You are of course familiar with the arrangement. If Mr. Mercer left by the door to the outer hall after killing Ashby, he would have had to get back in through the reception room and would have been seen by Miss Cox and anyone else who happened to be there. The other way, there was a good chance of being seen by no one, and he was seen only by Mr. Vassos, who had just entered the reception room and been nodded in by Miss Cox.'

'You say,' Cramer growled. 'So far, damn little. I'm still listening.'

Wolfe nodded. 'I thought it proper to explain what directed my attention to Mr. Mercer. After my talk last evening with Miss Vassos I called in Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin. You know them. Mr. Goodwin wouldn't be available today. There was a possibility that Mr. Mercer was not the only likely candidate, that there was someone in another office in that building who qualified-whom Mr. Vassos would have been reluctant to expose and who might have had a motive for killing Ashby. Mr. Durkin's job-'

'Did Mercer have a motive?'

'I'll come to that. Confound it, don't interrupt! Mr. Durkin's job was to explore that possibility, and he has spent the day at it. No negative can be established beyond question, but he found no one who met the specifications; and he got some suggestive information. On the sixth floor of that building is a firm which is the chief competitor of Mercer's Bobbins, and its president told Mr. Durkin that Ashby's death was a blow to him because he had been discussing with him the possibility of Ashby's coming to his firm and they had been approaching agreement on terms. It could be that that man had been so harassed by a competitor that he had killed him, but he fails the other test. He had never had his shoes shined by Mr. Vassos. Only two people in that office had, and only occasionally, and neither of them had put him under any obligation of affection or gratitude or loyalty.'

Wolfe took a breath. His eyes stayed at Cramer. 'Before calling on Mr. Panzer, I'll dispose of Miss Vassos. Your information about her came from three sources, and probably you would have tested them further if her father had not died as he did outside your jurisdiction, but even so you are open to a charge of nonfeasance. Miss Cox and Mr. Mercer gave Ashby as their source, and he was dead. Were they lying'Mercer's reason for lying is of course manifest, since he had himself killed both Ashby and Mr. Vassos. As for Miss Cox, Ashby may have boasted to her of a feather he had not in fact gathered, or she may be a born liar, or she- Pfui. She's a woman. Pry it out of her when you have nothing better to do. As for-'

'I still believe it,' Frances Cox said, loud. Her chin was thrust forward.

Wolfe didn't give her a glance. 'As for Mr. Horan, you know, of course, that he coveted Ashby's job. He has refused to name the source of his information. He may have been lying, or he may have himself been misled. That's immaterial now; I'll move to what is material. Saul?'

Saul Panzer got up, went to Mercer's chair, and stood behind it, facing Cramer. There was nothing about him to catch the eye; he looked just ordinary, but people who had dealt with him knew better, and Cramer was one of them.

'My job,' he said, 'was to check on John Mercer for Monday evening. Mr. Wolfe's theory was that he knew Vassos had seen him leaving Ashby's room that morning, and that evening he phoned him and arranged to meet him. They met, and Mercer had a car, and he drove across the river to Jersey and to a place he knew about. He slugged Vassos with something, stunned him, or killed him, and pushed him over the edge of the cliff. That was the theory, and-'

'To hell with the theory,' Cramer snapped. 'What did you get?'

'I was lucky. I couldn't start at Mercer's end, for instance at the garage where he kept his car, because I had no in. So I went to Graham Street to try to find someone who had seen Vassos leaving the house that evening. You know how that is, Inspector, you can spend a week at it and come out empty, but I was lucky. Within an hour I had it. Mr. Wolfe has told me to keep the details for later, since Mercer is here and listening, but I have the names and addresses of three people who saw Vassos get into a car at the corner of Graham Street and Avenue A Monday evening a little before nine o'clock. There was only one person in the car, the man driving it, and they can describe him. Then I-'

'Did you describe him for them?'