Curtains For Three (18 page)

“Goodwin’s story,” Cramer growled. “I mean her story. What do you think?”

Wolfe’s eyes came open a little. “What followed seems to support it. I doubt if she would have arranged for that” - he flipped a hand in the direction of the office across the hall - “just to corroborate a tale. I accept it.”

“Yeah. I don’t need to remind you that I know you well and I know Goodwin well.

So I wonder how much chance there is that in a day or so you’ll suddenly remember that she had been here before, or one or more of the others had, and you’ve got a client, and there was something leading up to this.”

“Bosh,” Wolfe said dryly. “Even if it were like that - and it isn’t - you would be wasting time, since you know us.”

A dick came to relay a phone call from a deputy commissioner. Another dick came in to say that Homer Carlisle was raising the roof in the front room. Meanwhile,

Wolfe sat with his eyes shut, but I got an idea of his state of mind from the fact that intermittently his forefinger was making little circles on the polished top of the table.

Cramer looked at him. “What do you know,” he asked abruptly, “about the killing of that Doris Hatten?”

“Newspaper accounts,” Wolfe muttered. “And what Mr. Stebbins has told Mr.

Goodwin, casually.”

“Casual is right.” Cramer got out a cigar, conveyed it to his mouth, and sank his teeth in it. He never lit one. “Those houses with self-service elevators are worse than walk-ups for a checking job. No one ever sees anyone coming or going.

Even so, the man who paid the rent for that apartment was lucky. He may have been clever and careful, but also he was lucky never to have anybody see him enough to give a description of him.”

“Possibly Miss Hatten paid the rent herself.”

“Sure,” Cramer conceded, “she paid it all right, but where did she get it from'

No, it was that kind of a set-up. She had only been living there two months, and when we found out how well the man who paid for it had kept himself covered, we decided that maybe he had installed her there just for that purpose. That was why we gave it all we had. Another reason was that the papers started hinting that we knew who he was and that he was such a big shot we were sitting on the lid.”

Cramer shifted his cigar one tooth over to the left. “That kind of thing used to get me sore, but what the heck; for newspapers that’s just routine. Big shot or not, he didn’t need us to do any covering for him - he did too good a job himself. Now, if we’re to take it the way this Cynthia Brown gave it to Goodwin,

it was the man who paid the rent. I would hate to tell you what I think of the fact that Goodwin sat there in your office and was told he was right here on these premises, and all he did was -“

“You’re irritated,” I said charitably. “Not that he was on the premises, that he had been. Also, I was taking it with salt. Also, she was saving specifications for Mr. Wolfe. Also -“

“Also, I know you. How many of those two hundred and nineteen people were men?”

“I would say a little over half.”

“Then how do you like it?”

“I hate it.”

Wolfe grunted. “Judging from your attitude, Mr. Cramer, something that has occurred to me has not occurred to you.”

“Naturally. You’re a genius. What is it?”

“Something that Mr. Goodwin told us. I want to consider it a little.”

“We could consider it together.”

“Later. Those people in the front room are my guests. Can’t you dispose of them?”

“One of your guests,” Cramer rasped, “was a beaut, all right.” He spoke to the dick by the door: “Bring in that woman - what’s her name'Carlisle.”

Mrs. Homer N. Carlisle came in with all her belongings: her caracul coat, her gaily colored scarf, and her husband. Perhaps I should say that her husband brought her. As soon as he was through the door he strode across to the dining table and delivered a harangue. At the first opening Cramer, controlling himself, said he was sorry and asked them to sit down.

Mrs. Carlisle did. Mr. Carlisle didn’t.

“We’re nearly two hours late now,” he stated. “I know you have your duty to perform, but citizens have a few rights left, thank God. Our presence here is purely adventitious. I warn you that if my name is published in connection with this miserable affair, I’ll make trouble. Why should we be detained'What if we had left five or ten minutes earlier, as others did?”

“That’s not quite logical,” Cramer objected. “No matter when you left, it would have been the same if your wife had acted the same. She discovered the body.”

“By accident!”

“May I say something, Homer?” the wife put in.

“It depends on what you say.”

“Oh,” Cramer said significantly.

“What do you mean, oh?” Carlisle demanded.

“I mean that I sent for your wife, not you, but you came with her, and that tells me why. You wanted to see to it that she wasn’t indiscreet.”

“What’s she got to be indiscreet about?”

“I don’t know. Apparently you do. If she hasn’t, why don’t you sit down and relax?”

“I would, sir,” Wolfe advised him. “You came in here angry, and you blundered.

An angry man is a jackass.”

It was a struggle for the executive vice-president, but he made it.

Cramer went to the wife: “You wanted to say something, Mrs. Carlisle?”

“Only that I’m sorry.” Her bony hands, the fingers twined, were on the table before her. “For the trouble I’ve caused.”

“I wouldn’t say you caused it exactly - except for yourself and your husband.”

Cramer was mild. “The woman was dead, whether you went in there or not. But if only as a matter of form, it was essential for me to see you, since you discovered the body. That’s all there is to it as far as I know.”

“How could there be anything else?” Carlisle blurted.

Cramer ignored him. “Goodwin, here, saw you standing in the hall not more than two minutes, probably less, prior to the moment you screamed and ran out of the office. How long had you then been downstairs?”

“We had just come down. I was waiting for my husband to get his things.”

“Had you been downstairs before that?”

“No - only when we came in.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“A little after three, I think.”

“Were you and your husband together all the time?”

“Of course. Well - you know how it is … He would want to look longer at something, and I would -“

“Certainly we were,” Carlisle said irritably. “You can see why I made that remark about it depending on what she said. She has a habit of being vague.”

“I’m not actually vague,” she protested. “It’s just that everything is relative.

Who would have thought my wish to see Nero Wolfe’s office would link me with a crime?”

Carlisle exploded. “Hear that'Link!”

“Why did you want to see Wolfe’s office?” Cramer inquired.

“Why, to see the globe.”

I gawked at her. I had supposed that naturally she would say it was curiosity about the office of a great and famous detective. Apparently, Cramer reacted the same as me.

“The globe?” he demanded.

“Yes, I had read about it, and I wanted to see how it looked. I thought a globe that size, three feet in diameter, would be fantastic in an ordinary room - Oh!”

“Oh, what?”

“I didn’t see it!”

Cramer nodded. “You saw something else, instead. By the way, I forgot to ask -

Did you know her?”

“You mean - her?”

“We had never known her or seen her or heard of her.” the husband declared.

“Had you, Mrs. Carlisle?”

“No.”

“Of course. She wasn’t a member of this flower club. Are you a member?”

“My husband is.”

“We both are,” Carlisle stated. “Vague again. It’s a joint membership. Isn’t this about enough?”

“Plenty,” Cramer conceded. “Thank you, both of you. We won’t bother you again unless we have to… Levy, pass them out.”

When the door had closed behind them Cramer glared at me and then at Wolfe.

“This is sure a sweet one,” he said grimly. “Say it’s within the range of possibility that Carlisle is it, and the way it stands right now, why not'So we look into him. We check back on him for six months, and try doing it without getting roars out of him - a man like that in his position. However, it can be done - by three or four men in two or three weeks. Multiply that by what'How many men were here?”

“Around a hundred and twenty,” I told him. “But you’ll find that at least half of them are disqualified one way or another. As I told you, I took a survey. Say sixty.”

“All right, multiply it by sixty. Do you care for it?”

“No,” I said.

“Neither do I.” Cramer took the cigar from his mouth. “Of course,” he said sarcastically, “when she sat in there telling you about him the situation was different. You wanted her to enjoy being with you. You couldn’t reach for the phone and tell us you had a self-confessed crook who could put a quick finger on a murderer and let us come and take over. No! You had to save it for a fee for Wolfe!”

“Don’t be vulgar,” I said severely.

“You had to go upstairs and make a survey! You had to - Well?”

Lieutenant Rowcliff had opened the door and entered. There were some city employees I liked, some I admired, some I had no feeling about, some I could have done without easy - and one whose ears I was going to twist some day. That was Rowcliff. He was tall, strong, handsome, and a pain in the neck.

“We’re all through in there, sir,” he said importantly. “We’ve covered everything. Nothing is being taken away, and it is all in order. We were especially careful with the contents of the drawers of Wolfe’s desk, and also we -“

“My desk!” Wolfe roared.

“Yes, your desk,” Rowcliff said precisely, smirking.

The blood was rushing into Wolfe’s face.

“She was killed there,” Cramer said gruffly. “Did you get anything at all?”

“I don’t think so,” Rowcliff admitted. “Of course, the prints have to be sorted,

and there’ll be lab reports. How do we leave it?”

“Seal it up and we’ll see tomorrow. You stay here and keep a photographer. The others can go. Tell Stebbins to send that woman in - Mrs. Irwin.”

“Orwin, sir.”

“Wait a minute,” I objected. “Seal what up'The office?”

“Certainly,” Rowcliff sneered.

I said firmly, to Cramer, not to him, “You don’t mean it. We work there. We live there. All our stuff is there.”

“Go ahead. Lieutenant,” Cramer told Rowcliff, and he wheeled and went.

I was full of both feelings and words, but I knew they had to be held in. This was far and away the worst Cramer had ever pulled. It was up to Wolfe. I looked at him. He was white with fury, and his mouth was pressed to so tight a line that there were no lips.

“It’s routine,” Cramer said aggressively.

Wolfe said icily, “That’s a lie. It is not routine.”

“It’s my routine - in a case like this. Your office is not just an office. It’s the place where more fancy tricks have been played than any other spot in New York. When a woman is murdered there, soon after a talk with Goodwin, for which we have no word but his - I say sealing it is routine.”

Wolfe’s head came forward an inch, his chin out. “No, Mr. Cramer. I’ll tell you what it is. It is the malefic spite of a sullen little soul and a crabbed and envious mind. It is the childish rancor of a primacy too often challenged and offended. It is the feeble wiggle -“

The door came open to let Mrs. Orwin in.

With Mrs. Carlisle, the husband had come along. With Mrs. Orwin, it was the son.

His expression and manner were so different I would hardly have known him.

Upstairs his tone had been mean and his face had been mean. Now his narrow little eyes were working overtime to look frank and cordial.

He leaned across the table at Cramer, extending a hand:

“Inspector Cramer'I’ve been hearing about you for years! I’m Eugene Orwin.” He glanced at his right. “I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Goodwin - earlier today, before this terrible thing happened. It is terrible.”

“Yes,” Cramer agreed. “Sit down.”

“I will in a moment. I do better with words standing up. I would like to make a statement on behalf of my mother and myself, and I hope you’ll permit it. I’m a member of the bar. My mother is not feeling well. At the request of your men she went in with me to identify the body of Miss Brown, and it was a bad shock, and we’ve been detained now more than two hours.”

His mother’s appearance corroborated him. Sitting with her head propped on a hand and her eyes closed, obviously she didn’t care as much about the impression they made on the inspector as her son did.

“A statement would be welcome,” Cramer told him, “if it’s relevant.”

“I thought so,” Gene said approvingly. “So many people have an entirely wrong idea of police methods! Of course, you know that Miss Brown came here today as my mother’s guest, and therefore it might be supposed that my mother knows her.

But actually she doesn’t.”

“Go ahead.”

Gene glanced at the shorthand dick. “If it’s taken down I would like to go over it when convenient.”

“You may.”

“Then here are the facts: In January my mother was in Florida. You meet all kinds in Florida. My mother met a man who called himself Colonel Percy Brown - a British colonel in the reserve, he said. Later on, he introduced his sister Cynthia to her. My mother saw a great deal of them. My father is dead, and the estate, a rather large one, is in her control. She lent Brown some money, not much - that was just an opener.”

Mrs. Orwin’s head jerked up. “It was only five thousand dollars and I didn’t promise him anything,” she said wearily.

“All right, Mother.” Gene patted her shoulder. “A week ago she returned to New York and they came along. The first time I met them I thought they were impostors. They weren’t very free with family details, but from them and Mother,

chiefly Mother, I got enough to inquire about, and sent a cable to London. I got a reply Saturday and another one this morning and there was more than enough to confirm my suspicion, but not nearly enough to put it up to my mother. When she likes people she can be very stubborn about them.