And Be a Villain (16 page)

I remembered too. I chalked it against me that I hadn’t recognized the voice with the first six words, though it had been over two years since I had heard it—hard, slow, precise, and cold as last week’s corpse. It was continuing:

“I was pleased to see that you did limit your efforts as I suggested. That showed—”

“I limited them because no extension of them was required to finish the job I was hired for. I did not limit them because you suggested it, Mr. Zeck.” Wolfe was being fairly icy himself.

“So you know my name.” The voice never changed.

“Certainly. I went to some trouble and expense to ascertain it. I don’t pay much attention to threats, I get too many of them, but at least I like to know who the threatener is. Yes, I know your name, sir. Is that temerarious? Many people know Mr. Arnold Zeck.”

“You have had no occasion to. This, Mr. Wolfe, does
not
please me.”

“I didn’t expect it to.”

“No. But I am much easier to get along with when I am pleased. That’s why I sent you that telegram and am talking with you now. I have strong admiration for you, as I’ve said before. I wouldn’t want to lose it. It would please me better to keep it. Your advertisement in the papers has given me some concern. I realize that you didn’t know that, you couldn’t have known it, so I’m telling you. The advertisement disturbs me. It can’t be recalled; it has appeared. But it is extremely important that you should not permit it to lead you into difficulties that will be too much for you. The wisest course for you will be to drop the matter. You understand me, don’t you, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Oh yes, I understand you. You put things quite clearly, Mr. Zeck, and so do I. I have engaged to do something, and I intend to do it. I haven’t the slightest desire either to please you or to displease you, and unless one or the other is inherent in my job you have no reason to be concerned. You understand me, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do. But now you know.”

The line went dead.

Wolfe cradled the phone and leaned back in his chair, with his eyes closed to a slit. I pushed my phone away, swiveled, and gazed at him through a minute’s silence.

“So,” I said. “That sonofabitch. Shall I find out about the Midland number?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Useless. It would be some little store that merely took a message. Anyway, he has a number of his own.”

“Yeah. He didn’t know you knew his name. Neither did I. How did that happen?”

“Two years ago I engaged some of Mr. Bascom’s men without telling you. He had sounded as if he were a man of resource and resolution, and I didn’t want to get you involved.”

“It’s the Zeck with the place in Westchester, of course?”

“Yes. I should have signaled you off as soon as I recognized his voice. I tell you nothing because it is better for you to know nothing. You are to forget that you know his name.”

“Like that.” I snapped my fingers, and grinned at him. “What the hell? Does he eat human flesh, preferably handsome young men?”

“No. He does worse.” Wolfe’s eyes came half open. “I’ll tell you this. If ever, in the course of my business, I find that I am committed against him and must destroy him, I shall leave this house, find a place where I can work—and sleep and eat if there is time for it—and stay there until I have finished. I don’t want to do that, and therefore I hope I’ll never have to.”

“I see. I’d like to meet this bozo. I think I’ll make his acquaintance.”

“You will not. You’ll stay away from him.” He made a face. “If this job leads me to that extremity—well, it will or it won’t.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s nearly noon. You’d better go and see if any more answers have arrived. Can’t you telephone?”

T
HERE WERE NO MORE answers. That goes not only for Tuesday noon, but for the rest of the day and evening, and Wednesday morning, and Wednesday after lunch. Nothing doing.

It didn’t surprise me. The nature of the phone call from the man whose name I had been ordered to forget made it seem likely that there was something peculiar about the subscribers to
Track Almanac
and
What to Expect
, which was the name of the political and economic dope sheet published by the late Beula Poole. But even granting that there wasn’t, that as far as they were concerned it was all clean and straight, the two publishers had just been murdered, and who would be goop enough to answer such an ad just to get asked a lot of impertinent questions? In the office after lunch Wednesday I made a remark to that effect to Wolfe, and got only a growl for reply.

“We might at least,” I insisted, “have hinted that they would get their money back or something.”

No reply.

“We could insert it again and add that. Or we could offer a reward for anyone who would give us the name of an Orchard or Poole subscriber.”

No reply.

“Or I could go up to the Fraser apartment and get into conversation with the bunch, and who knows?”

“Yes. Do so.”

I looked at him suspiciously. He meant it.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“You sure are hard up when you start taking suggestions from me.”

I pulled the phone to me and dialed the number. It was Bill Meadows who answered, and he sounded anything but gay, even when he learned it was me. After a brief talk, however, I was willing to forgive him. I hung up and informed Wolfe:

“I guess I’ll have to postpone it. Miss Fraser and Miss Koppel are both out. Bill was a little vague, but I gather that the latter has been tagged by the city authorities for some reason or other, and the former is engaged in trying to remove the tag. Maybe she needs help. Why don’t I find out?”

“I don’t know. You might try.”

I turned and dialed Watkins 9-8241. Inspector Cramer wasn’t available, but I got someone just as good, or sometimes I think even better, Sergeant Stebbins.

“I need some information,” I told him, “in connection with this fee you folks are earning for Mr. Wolfe.”

“So do we,” he said frankly. “Got any?”

“Not right now. Mr. Wolfe and I are in conference. How did Miss Koppel hurt your feelings, and where is she, and if you see Miss Fraser give her my love.”

He let out a roar of delight. Purley doesn’t laugh often, at least when he’s on duty, and I resented it. I waited until I thought he might hear me and then demanded:

“What the hell is so funny?”

“I never expected the day to come,” he declared. “You calling me to ask where your client is. What’s the matter, is Wolfe off his feed?”

“I know another one even better. Call me back when you’re through laughing.”

“I’m through. Haven’t you heard what the Koppel dame did?”

“No. I only know what you tell me.”

“Well, this isn’t loose yet. We may want to keep it a while if we can, I don’t know.”

“I’ll help you keep it. So will Mr. Wolfe.”

“That’s understood?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Of course they’ve all been told not to leave the jurisdiction. This morning Miss Koppel took a cab to LaGuardia. She was nabbed as she was boarding the nine o’clock plane for Detroit. She says she wanted to visit her sick mother in Fleetville, which is eighty miles from Detroit. But she didn’t ask permission to go, and the word we get is that her mother is no sicker than she has been for a year. So we charged her as a material witness. Does that strike you as highhanded? Do you think it calls for a shakeup?”

“Get set for another laugh. Where’s Miss Fraser?”

“With her lawyer at the D.A.’s office discussing bail.”

“What kind of reasons have you got for Miss Koppel taking a trip that are any better than hers?”

“I wouldn’t know. Now you’re out of my class. If you want to go into details like that, Wolfe had better ask the Inspector.”

I tried another approach or two, but either Purley had given me all there was or the rest was in another drawer which he didn’t feel like opening. I hung up and relayed the news to Wolfe.

He nodded as if it were no concern of his. I glared at him:

“It wouldn’t interest you to have one or both of them stop in for a chat on their way home? To ask why Miss Koppel simply had to go to Michigan would be vulgar curiosity?”

“Bah. The police are asking, aren’t they?” Wolfe was bitter. “I’ve spent countless hours with those people, and got something for it only when I had a whip to snap. Why compound futility? I need another whip. Call those newspapers again.”

“Am I still to go up there? After the ladies get home?”

“You might as well.”

“Yeah.” I was savage. “At least I can compound some futility.”

I phoned all three papers. Nothing. Being in no mood to sit and concentrate on germination records, I announced that I was going out for a walk, and Wolfe nodded absently. When I got back it was after four o’clock and he had gone up to the plant rooms. I fiddled around, finally decided that I might as well concentrate on something and the germination records were all I had, and got Theodore’s reports from the drawer, but then I thought why not throw away three more nickels? So I started dialing again.

Herald-Tribune
, nothing.
News
, nothing. But the
Gazette
girl said yes, they had one. The way I went for my hat and headed for Tenth Avenue to grab a taxi, you might have thought I was on my way to a murder.

The driver was a philosopher. “You don’t see many eager happy faces like yours nowadays,” he told me.

“I’m on my way to my wedding.”

He opened his mouth to speak again, then clamped it shut. He shook his head resolutely. “No. Why should I spoil it?”

I paid him off outside the
Gazette
building and went in and got my prize. It was a square pale-blue envelope, and the printed return on the flap said:

Mrs. W. T. Michaels

890 East End Avenue

New York City 28

Inside was a single sheet matching the envelope, with small neat handwriting on it:

Box P304:

Regarding your advertisement, I am not a former subscriber to either of the publications, but I may be able to tell you something. You may write me, or call Lincoln 3-4808, but do not phone before ten in the morning or after five-thirty in the afternoon. That is important.

Hilda Michaels

It was still forty minutes this side of her deadline, so I went straight to a booth and dialed the number. A female voice answered. I asked to speak to Mrs. Michaels.

“This is Mrs. Michaels.”

“This is the
Gazette
advertiser you wrote to, Box P304. I’ve just read—”

“What’s your name?” She had a tendency to snap.

“My name is Goodwin, Archie Goodwin. I can be up there in fifteen minutes or less—”

“No, you can’t. Anyway, you’d better not. Are you connected with the Police Department?”

“No. I work for Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe, the detective?”

“Of course. This isn’t a convent. Was that his advertisement?”

“Yes. He—”

“Then why didn’t he phone me?”

“Because I just got your note. I’m phoning from a booth in the
Gazette
building. You said not—”

“Well, Mr. Goodman, I doubt if I can tell Mr. Wolfe anything he would be interested in. I really doubt it.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded. “But he would be the best judge of that. If you don’t want me to come up there, how would it be if you called on Mr. Wolfe at his office? West Thirty-fifty Street—it’s in the phone book. Or I could run up now in a taxi and—”

“Oh, not now. Not today. I might be able to make it tomorrow—or Friday—”

I was annoyed. For one thing, I would just as soon be permitted to finish a sentence once in a while, and for another, apparently she had read the piece about Wolfe being hired to work on the Orchard case, and my name had been in it, and it had been spelled correctly. So I took on weight:

“You don’t seem to realize what you’ve done, Mrs. Michaels. You—”

“Why, what have I done?”

“You have landed smack in the middle of a murder case. Mr. Wolfe and the police are more or less collaborating on it. He would like to see you about the matter mentioned in his advertisement, not tomorrow or next week, but quick. I think you ought to see him. If you try to put it off because you’ve begun to regret sending this note he’ll be compelled to consult the police, and then what? Then you’ll—”

“I didn’t say I regret sending the note.”

“No, but the way you—”

“I’ll be at Mr. Wolfe’s office by six o’clock.”

“Good! Shall I come—”

I might have known better than to give her another chance to chop me off. She said that she was quite capable of getting herself transported, and I could well believe it.

T
HERE WAS NOTHING SNAPPY about her appearance. The mink coat, and the dark red woolen dress made visible when the coat had been spread over the back of the red leather chair, unquestionably meant well, but she was not built to cooperate with clothes. There was too much of her and the distribution was all wrong. Her face was so well padded that there was no telling whether there were any bones underneath, and the creases were considerably more than skin deep. I didn’t like her. From Wolfe’s expression it was plain, to me, that he didn’t like her. As for her, it was a safe bet that she didn’t like anybody.

Wolfe rustled the sheet of pale-blue paper, glanced at it again, and looked at her. “You say here, madam, that you may be able to tell me something. Your caution is understandable and even commendable. You wanted to find out who had placed the advertisement before committing yourself. Now you know. There is no need—”

“That man threatened me,” she snapped. “That’s not the way to get me to tell something—if I have something to tell.”

“I agree. Mr. Goodwin is headstrong.—Archie, withdraw the threat.”

I did my best to grin at her as man to woman. “I take it back, Mrs. Michaels. I was so anxious—”

“If I tell you anything,” she said to Wolfe, ignoring me, “it will be because I want to, and it will be completely confidential. Whatever you do about it, of course I have nothing to say about that, but you will give me your solemn word of honor that my name will not be mentioned to anyone. No one is to know I wrote you or came to see you or had anything to do with it.”