And Be a Villain (22 page)

“No one has got me buffaloed,” Cramer rasped. “Take him, Purley. I’ll phone about a charge.”

T
HERE WERE TWO THINGS I liked about Deputy Commissioner O’Hara’s office. First, it was there that I had been clever on a previous occasion, and therefore it aroused agreeable memories, and second, I like nice surroundings and it was the most attractive room at Centre Street, being on a corner with six large windows, and furnished with chairs and rugs and other items which had been paid for by O’Hara’s rich wife.

I sat at ease in one of the comfortable chairs. The contents of my pockets were stacked in a neat pile on a corner of O’Hara’s big shiny mahogany desk, except for one item which Purley Stebbins had in his paw. Purley was so mad his face was a red sunset, and he was stuttering.

“Don’t be a g-goddam fool,” he exhorted me. “If you clam it with O’Hara when he gets here he’ll jug you sure as hell, and it’s after six o’clock so where’ll you spend the night?” He shook his paw at me, the one holding the item taken from my pocket. “Tell me about this!”

I shook my head firmly. “You know, Purley,” I said without rancor, “this is pretty damn ironic. You frisked that bunch of suspects and got nothing at all—I could tell that from the way you and Rowcliff looked. But on me, absolutely innocent of wrongdoing, you find what you think is an incriminating document. So here I am, sunk, facing God knows what kind of doom. I try to catch a glimpse of the future, and what do I see?”

“Oh, shut up!”

“No, I’ve got to talk to someone.” I glanced at my wrist. “As you say, it’s after six o’clock. Mr. Wolfe has come down from the plant rooms, expecting to find me awaiting him in the office, ready for my report of the day’s events. He’ll be disappointed. You know how he’ll feel. Better still, you know what he’ll do. He’ll be so frantic he’ll start looking up numbers and dialing them himself. I am offering ten to one that he has already called the Fraser apartment and spoken to Cramer. How much of it do you want? A dime? A buck?”

“Can it, you goddam ape.” Purley was resigning. “Save it for O’Hara, he’ll be here pretty soon. I hope they give you a cell with bedbugs.”

“I would prefer,” I said courteously, “to chat.”

“Then chat about this.”

“No. For the hundredth time, no. I detest anonymous letters and I don’t like to talk about them.”

He went to a chair and sat facing me. I got up, crossed to bookshelves, selected
CRIME AND CRIMINALS
, by Mercier, and returned to my seat with it.

Purley had been wrong. O’Hara was not there pretty soon. When I glanced at my wrist every ten minutes or so I did it on the sly because I didn’t want Purley to think I was getting impatient. It was a little past seven when I looked up from my book at the sound of a buzzer. Purley went to a phone on the desk and had a talk with it. He hung up, returned to his chair, sat, and after a moment spoke:

“That was the Deputy Commissioner. He is going to have his dinner. I’m to keep you here till he comes.”

“Good,” I said approvingly. “This is a fascinating book.”

“He thinks you’re boiling. You bastard.”

I shrugged.

I kept my temper perfectly for another hour or more, and then, still there with my book, I became aware that I was starting to lose control. The trouble was that I had begun to feel hungry, and that was making me sore. Then there was another factor: what the hell was Wolfe doing? That, I admit, was unreasonable. Any phoning he did would be to Cramer or O’Hara, or possibly someone at the D.A.’s office, and with me cooped up as I was I wouldn’t hear even an echo. If he had learned where I was and tried to get me, they wouldn’t have put him through, since Purley had orders from O’Hara that I was to make no calls. But what with feeling hungry and getting no word from the outside world, I became aware that I was beginning to be offended, and that would not do. I forced my mind away from food and other aggravating aspects, including the number of revolutions the minute hand of my watch had made, and turned another page.

It was ten minutes to nine when the door opened and O’Hara and Cramer walked in. Purley stood up. I was in the middle of a paragraph and so merely flicked one eye enough to see who it was. O’Hara hung his hat and coat on a rack, and Cramer dropped his on a chair. O’Hara strode to his desk, crossing my bow so close that I could easily have tripped him by stretching a leg.

Cramer looked tired. Without spending a glance on me he nodded at Purley.

“Had he opened up?”

“No, sir. Here it is.” Purley handed him the item.

They had both had it read to them on the phone, but they wanted to see it. Cramer read it through twice and then handed it to O’Hara. While that was going on I went to the shelves and replaced the book, had a good stretch and yawn, and returned to my chair.

Cramer glared down at me. “What have you got to say?”

“More of the same,” I told him. “I’ve explained to the sergeant, who has had nothing to eat by the way, that that thing has no connection whatever with any murder or any other crime, and therefore questions about it are out of order.”

“You’ve been charged as a material witness.”

“Yeah, I know, Purley showed it to me. Why don’t you ask Mr. Wolfe? He might be feeling generous.”

“The hell he might. We have. Look, Goodwin—”

“I’ll handle him, Inspector.” O’Hara speaking. He was an energetic cuss. He had gone clear around his desk to sit down, but now he arose and came clear around it again to confront me. I looked up at him inquiringly, not a bit angry.

He was trying to control himself. “You can’t possibly get away with it,” he stated. “It’s incredible that you have the gall to try it, both you and Wolfe. Anonymous letters are a central factor in this case, a vital factor. You went up to that apartment today to see those people, and you had in your pocket an anonymous letter about one of them, practically accusing her of murder. Do you mean to tell me that you take the position that that letter has no connection with the crimes under investigation?”

“I sure do. Evidently Mr. Wolfe does too.” I made a gesture. “Corroboration.”

“You take and maintain that position while aware of the penalty that may be imposed upon conviction for an obstruction of justice?”

“I do.”

O’Hara turned and blurted at Cramer, “Get Wolfe down here! Damn it, we should have hauled him in hours ago!”

This, I thought to myself, is something to like. Now we ought to see some fur fly.

But we didn’t, at least not as O’Hara had it programmed. What interfered was a phone call. The buzzer sounded, and Purley, seeing that his superiors were too worked up to hear it, went to the desk and answered. After a word he told Cramer, “For you, Inspector,” and Cramer crossed and got it. O’Hara stood glaring down at me, but, having his attention called by a certain tone taken by Cramer’s voice, turned to look that way. Finally Cramer hung up. The expression on his face was that of a man trying to decide what it was he just swallowed.

“Well?” O’Hara demanded.

“The desk just had a call,” Cramer said, “from the WPIT newsroom. WPIT is doing the script for the ten o’clock newscast, and they’re including an announcement received a few minutes ago from Nero Wolfe. Wolfe announces that he has solved the murder cases, all three of them, with no assistance from the police, and that very soon, probably sometime tomorrow, he will be ready to tell the District Attorney the name of the murderer and to furnish all necessary information. WPIT wants to know if we have any comment.”

Of course it was vulgar, but I couldn’t help it. I threw back my head and let out a roar. It wasn’t so much the news itself as it was the look on O’Hara’s face as the full beauty of it seeped through to him.

“The fat bum!” Purley whimpered.

I told O’Hara distinctly: “The next time Cramer asks you to step into another room with him I’d advise you to step.”

He didn’t hear me.

“It wasn’t a question,” Cramer said, “of Wolfe having me buffaloed. With him the only question is what has he got and how and when will he use it. If that goes on the air I would just as soon quit.”

“What—” O’Hara stopped to wet his lips. “What would you suggest?”

Cramer didn’t answer. He pulled a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, got it between his teeth, took it out again and hurled it for the wastebasket, missing by two feet, walked to a chair, sat down, and breathed.

“There are only two things,” he said. “Just let it land is one. The other is to ask Goodwin to call him and request him to recall the announcement—and tell him he’ll be home right away to report.” Cramer breathed again. “I won’t ask Goodwin that. Do you want to?”

“No! It’s blackmail!” O’Hara yelled in pain.

“Yeah,” Cramer agreed. “Only when Wolfe does it there’s nothing anonymous about it. The newscast will be on in thirty-five minutes.”

O’Hara would rather have eaten soap. “It may be a bluff,” he pleaded. “Pure bluff!”

“Certainly it may. And it may not. It’s easy enough to call it—just sit down and wait. If you’re not going to call on Goodwin I guess I’ll have to see if I can get hold of the Commissioner.” Cramer stood up.

O’Hara turned to me. I have to hand it to him, he looked me in the eye as he asked:

“Will you do it?”

I grinned at him. “That warrant Purley showed me is around somewhere. It will be vacated?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ve got witnesses.” I crossed to the desk and began returning my belongings to the proper pockets. The anonymous letter was there where O’Hara had left it when he had advanced to overwhelm me, and I picked it up and displayed it. “I’m taking this,” I said, “but I’ll let you look at it again if you want to. May I use the phone?”

I circled the desk, dropped into O’Hara’s personal chair, pulled the instrument to me, and asked the male switchboard voice to get Mr. Nero Wolfe. The voice asked who I was and I told it. Then we had some comedy. After I had waited a good two minutes there was a knock on the door and O’Hara called come in. The door swung wide open and two individuals entered with guns in their hands, stern and alert. When they saw the arrangements they stopped dead and looked foolish.

“What do you want?” O’Hara barked.

“The phone,” one said. “Goodwin. We didn’t know …”

“For Christ’s sake!” Purley exploded. “Ain’t I here?” It was a breach of discipline, with his superiors present.

They bumped at the threshold, getting out, pulling the door after them. I couldn’t possibly have been blamed for helping myself to another hearty laugh, but there’s a limit to what even a Deputy Commissioner will take, so I choked it off and sat tight until there was a voice in my ear that I knew better than any other voice on earth.

“Archie,” I said.

“Where are you?” The voice was icy with rage, but not at me.

“I’m in O’Hara’s office, at his desk, using his phone. I am half starved. O’Hara, Cramer, and Sergeant Stebbins are present. To be perfectly fair, Cramer and Purley are innocent. This boneheaded play was a solo by O’Hara. He fully realizes his mistake and sincerely apologizes. The warrant for my arrest is a thing of the past. The letter about Miss Vance is in my pocket. I have conceded nothing. I’m free to go where I please, including home. O’Hara requests, as a personal favor, that you kill the announcement you gave WPIT. Can that be done?”

“It can if I choose. It was arranged through Mr. Richards.”

“So I suspected. You should have seen O’Hara’s face when the tidings reached him. If you choose, and all of us here hope you do, go ahead and kill it and I’ll be there in twenty minutes or less. Tell Fritz I’m hungry.”

“Mr. O’Hara is a nincompoop. Tell him I said so. I’ll have the announcement suspended temporarily, but there will be conditions. Stay there. I’ll phone you shortly.”

I cradled the phone, leaned back, and grinned at the three inquiring faces. “He’ll call back. He thinks he can head it off temporarily, but he’s got some idea about conditions.” I focused on O’Hara. “He said to tell you that he says you’re a nincompoop, but I think it would be more tactful not to mention it, so I won’t.”

“Someday,” O’Hara said, “he’ll land on his nose.”

They all sat down and began exchanging comments. I didn’t listen because my mind was occupied. I was willing to chalk up for Wolfe a neat and well-timed swagger, and to admit that it got the desired results, but now what? Did he really have anything at all, and if so how much? It had better be fairly good. Cramer and Stebbins were not exactly ready to clasp our hands across the corpses, and as for O’Hara, I only hoped to God that when Wolfe called back he wouldn’t tell me to slap the Deputy Commissioner on the back and tell him it had been just a prank and wasn’t it fun? All in all, it was such a gloomy outlook that when the buzzer sounded and I reached for the phone I would just as soon have been somewhere else.

Wolfe’s voice asked if they were still there and I said yes. He said to tell them that the announcement had been postponed and would not be broadcast at ten o’clock, and I did so. Then he asked for my report of the day’s events.

“Now?” I demanded. “On the phone?”

“Yes,” he said. “Concisely, but including all essentials. If there is a contradiction to demolish I must know it.”

Even with the suspicion gnawing at me that I had got roped in for a supporting role in an enormous bluff, I did enjoy it. It was a situation anyone would appreciate. There I was, in O’Hara’s chair at his desk in his office, giving a detailed report to Wolfe of a murder I had witnessed and a police operation I had helped with, and for over half an hour those three bozos simply utterly had to sit and listen. Whatever position they might be in all too soon, all they could do now was to take it and like it. I did enjoy it. Now and then Wolfe interrupted with a question, and when I had finished he took me back to fill in a few gaps. Then he proceeded to give me instructions, and as I listened it became apparent that if it was a bluff at least he wasn’t going to leave me behind the enemy lines to fight my way out. I asked him to repeat it to make sure I had it straight. He did so.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell Fritz I’m hungry.” I hung up and faced the three on chairs: