Death Times Three SSC (19 page)

"Nuts." Cramer had worked up to his grittiest rasp. "I have accused you of nothing. I have merely stated

facts. The time of the murder was supposed to be established by you and Goodwin hearing it on the phone. Is that a fact? Those five people all have alibis for that time. One of them was here with you. Is that a fact? When I put it to you yesterday that that phone business might have been faked, that she might have been killed earlier, all I got was a run-around. You could challenge it circumstantially, but not intrinsically-whatever that means. Is that a fact? So that if you and Goodwin got to the witness stand you might both swear that you were absolutely satisfied that you had heard her get it at exactly half past eleven. Is that a fact? Giving me to understand that you weren't interested, you weren't concerned, you had no

"No," Wolfe objected. "That was broached."

"You said you had never had any association with any of those people besides what was in your statement, so how could you be concerned, with Bianca Voss dead? Tell me this: did any of them approach you, directly or indirectly, between seven o'clock yesterday and noon today?"

"NO.

"But--" He bore down on the "but." "But you sent Goodwin there today. And when Stebbins ran into him and asked him what he was there for, he said he was on a fishing trip. And they all refuse to tell what Goodwin said to them or what they said to him. That is a fact. They say it was a private matter and had no connection with the murder of Bianca Voss. And when I come and ask you what you sent Goodwin there for, you say you will probably be ready to tell me within twenty-four hours. And what I said was absolutely justified. I did not accuse you of duplicity. You know what I said."

"I do indeed, Mr. Cramer." I couldn't see Wolfe, but I knew he had upturned a palm. "This is childish and

futile. If a connection is established between your murder investigation and the topic of Mr. Goodwin's talks with those people today it will be only because I formed a conjecture and acted on it. I hope to establish it within twenty-four hours, and meanwhile it will do no harm to give you a hint. Have you any information on the death of a woman named Sarah Yare?

A pause. Cramer was certainly interrupting his glare to blink. "Why?" he demanded.

"I merely put the question.

"All right, I'll answer it. I have some--yes. Presumed a suicide, but it's being checked. I have two men on it. What about it?"

"I suggest that you assign more men to it, good ones, and explore it thoroughly. I think we shall both find it helpful. I may soon have a more concrete suggestion, but for the present that should serve. You know quite well "

The doorbell rang. I wheeled and looked through the one-way glass pane of the front door. It wasn't a visitor on the stoop, it was a mob. All of them were there: Gallant, Flora, Anita Prince, Emmy Thorne and Carl Drew. Fritz appeared from the kitchen, saw me and stopped. I got my notebook and pen from pockets and wrote:

That phone works.

The five subjects are at the door.

I told Fritz to stand by, tore out the sheet, entered the office and crossed to Wolfe's desk, and handed it to him*

Wolfe read it, frowned at it for three seconds, turned his head and called "Fritz!"

He appeared at the door. "Yes, sir?"

"Put the chain bolt on and tell those people they will be admitted shortly. Stay there."

"Yes, sir." He went.

Wolfe looked at Cramer. "Mr. Gallant, his sister, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne and Mr. Drew have arrived, uninvited and unexpected. You'll have to leave without being seen. In the front room until they have entered. I'll communicate with you later."

"Like hell I'll leave." Cramer was on his feet. "Like hell they're unexpected." He was moving toward the hall, his intention plain--taking over as receptionist.

"Mr. Cramer!" It snapped at his back, turning him. "Would I lie so clumsily if they had been expected, would I have let you in? Would I have sat here bickering with you? Either you leave or I do. If you admit them, you'll have them to yourself, and I wish you luck."

Cramer's jaw was clamped. "You think I'm going to sneak out and sit on your stoop until you whistle?"

"That would be unseemly," Wolfe conceded. "Very well." He pointed at a picture on the wall to his left behind him--a pretty waterfall. "You know about that. You may take that station, but only if you engage not to disclose yourself unless you are invited. Unequivocally."

The waterfall covered a hole in the wall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, the hole was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. Cramer had used it once before, a couple of years ago.

He stood, considering, his jaw clamped again. Wolfe demanded, "Well? They're waiting. For you or for me?"

Cramer said, "O.K., I'll try it your way," turned and marched to the hall, and turned left.

"All right, Archie. Bring them in."

While I was in the hall, admitting the guests and helping with coats, Fritz was in the office moving chairs, and when we entered, there was a row of them lined up facing Wolfe's desk. And then, when I had pronounced their names and Wolfe had acknowledged each one by inclining his head an eighth of an inch, Flora wouldn't accept my idea of the proper seating arrangement. I thought it would be desirable to have her handy, in the chair nearest me--for professional reasons, not personal ones--but she didn't agree. She took the one at the other end of the row, farthest from me, presumably because it was near her brother in the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe's desk. Next to her was Carl Drew, then Anita Prince, then Emmy Thorne at my end.

When they were all seated, including me, Wolfe turned to Gallant. "I presume, sir, you are the spokesman?"

"I speak for us, yes, but it is enough that I speak for myself. I want to know why you sent a man to ask me questions about Sarah Yare."

Wolfe nodded. "Of course. Naturally your curiosity was aroused. But evidently you have been provoked to more than curiosity; you have been impelled to call on me in a body; so I want to know something too. Why were Mr. Goodwin's questions so provocative?"

"Pah!" Gallant hit a chair arm with a fist. "I answered his question; you can answer mine! I have asked it!

Anita Prince put in, "We came because we think it

is important, but we don't know why. The police insist on knowing why Mr. Goodwin was there, what he wanted."

"And you refused to say. Only because Mr. Goodwin advised you to?"

"No," Emmy Thorne declared. "Because it was none of their business. And we have a right to know why you sent him, whether his questions were provocative or not." That girl was strong on rights.

Wolfe's eyes went from right to left and back again. "There's no point in dragging this out. I sent Mr. Goodwin to see you because I suspected I had been gulled and wanted to find out; and further, because I had guessed that there was a connection between Sarah Yare and her death, and the murder of Bianca Voss. By coming where en masse, you have made that guess a conviction, if any doubt had remained."

"I knew it," Flora mumbled. She looked at her brother. "I knew it! That was why--"

"Tais toi," Gallant commanded her. He jerked back to Wolfe: "I'll tell you why we came here. We came for an explanation. We came--"

Carl Drew put in, "For an understanding," he declared. "We're in trouble, all of us, you know that, and we need your help, and we're ready to pay for it. First we have to know what the connection is between Sarah Yare and what happened to Bianca Voss."

Wolfe shook his head. "You don't mean that. You mean you have to know whether I have established the connection, and if so, how. I'm prepared to tell you, but before I do so I must clarify matters. There must be no misunderstanding. For instance, I understand that all of you thought yourselves gravely endangered by Miss Voss' presence. You, Miss Prince; you, Miss Thorne; and you, Mr. Drew--your dearest ambitions were

threatened. Your future was committed to the success and glory of that enterprise, and you were convinced that Miss Voss was going to cheapen it, and perhaps destroy it. Do you challenge that?"

"Of course not." Emmy Thorne was scornful. "Everybody knew it."

"Then that's understood. . . That applied equally to you, Miss Gallant, but with special emphasis. You also had a more intimate concern, for your brother. You told me so...As for you, Mr. Gallant, you are manifestly not a man to truckle, yet you let that woman meddle in your affairs. Presumably you were under severe constraint. Were you?"

Gallant opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his sister, returned to Wolfe, and again opened his mouth and closed it. He was under constraint now, no doubt about that.

He forced it out, "Yes. I was under her heel." He set his jaw. He unset it. "The police know. They found out enough, and I have told them the rest. She was a bad woman, though I didn't know it until too late. I met her in France during the war. We were in the Resistance together when I married her. Only afterwards I learned that she was perfide. She had been a traitor to France; I couldn't prove it, but I knew it. I left her and changed my name and came to America--and then last year she found me and made demands. I was under her heel."

Wolfe grunted. "That won't do, Mr. Gallant. I doubt if it has satisfied the police, and it certainly doesn't satisfy me. In this situation you might have killed her, but surely you wouldn't have let her take charge of your business and your life. What else was there?"

"Nothing. Nothing!"

"Pfui. Of course there was. And if the investigation

is prolonged, the police will discover it. I advise you to disclose it and let me get on and settle this affair. Didn't her death remove her heel?"

"Yes. Thank God, it did. And I am not blind; I can see that that points at me." Gallant hit the arms of the chair with his palms. "But she is gone and I can tell you. With her gone, there is no evidence to fear. She had two brothers, and they, like her, were traitors, and I killed them. I would have killed her, too, but she escaped me. During the war it would have been merely an episode, but it was later, much later, when I found out about them, and by then it was a crime. With her evidence I was an assassin, and I was doomed. Now she is gone, thank God, but I did not kill her. You know I did not. At half past eleven yesterday morning I was in my workshop with Miss Prince and many others, and you can swear that she was killed at that moment. That is why we came to see you, to arrange to pay--"

"You are in error, Mr. Gallant. I cannot swear that Bianca Voss was killed 'at that moment.' On the contrary, I'm sure she wasn't, for a variety of reasons. There are such minor ones as the extraordinary billingsgate she spat at me on the phone, quite gratuitous; and her calling me a gob of fat. A woman who still spoke the language with so marked an accent would not have the word 'gob' so ready, and probably wouldn't have it at all."

He waved "gob" away. "But the major reasons are more cogent. In the first place, it was too pat. Since the complexities of nature permit a myriad of coincidences, we cannot reject one offhand, but we can discriminate. That one--that the attack had come just at the moment when Miss Gallant had got Mr. Goodwin and me on the

phone with Miss Voss--that was highly suspect. Besides, it was indiscreet of the murderer to strike exactly then. Indeed, foolhardy. Why not wait until she had hung up? Whoever was talking with her would certainly hear the sounds and take alarm. As I told Mr. Cramer, it was open to challenge circumstantially, though not intrinsically. However, there was another challenge, on surer ground. In fact, conclusive. Miss Gallant did not dial Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, Miss Voss' number, as she pretended. She dialed Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven, Sarah Yare's number."

A noise, a sort of low growl, came from the waterfall. I was farthest away, and I heard it distinctly, so it must have reached their ears, too, but Wolfe's last words had so riveted their attention that it didn't register.

It did with Wolfe, and he added hastily, "I didn't know that yesterday. I became certain of it only after you rang my doorbell, when Mr. Goodwin handed me this note." He tapped it there on his desk. "It's first words are, 'That phone works.' I had sent him to learn if Sarah Yare's phone was in operation. Obviously, Miss Gallant had arranged with Miss Yare to impersonate Bianca Voss, and it is a reasonable--"

"Wait a minute," Gallant had come forward in the red leather chair. "You can't prove that."

"Directly, no. Inferentially, yes.

"And how do you know she dialed Sarah Yare's number? You weren't where you could see the dial, and neither was Goodwin."

Wolfe nodded. "Evidently you have discussed it with her. You're quite right, Mr. Gallant; we couldn't

see the dial. Nevertheless, we can supply evidence, and we think it will be persuasive. I am not--"

"What kind of evidence?"

"That's no good, Alec." It was Emmy Thorne, the contact girl. "You can't push Nero Wolfe. He has his teeth in it, you can see that. You know what we decided."

"I'm not sure," Anita Prince objected, "that we decided right."

"I am. Carl?"

"Yes." Drew was chewing his lip. "I think so. Yes." "Flora? It's up to you."