Gambit (11 page)

A couple of electricians had installed a juke box inside my skull, and they were still there, testing it to see how many selections it could play simultaneously.

About a dozen, apparently, judging from the noise. Also they were jumping up and down to find out how much vibration it could stand. Or maybe it wasn’t a juke box, it was a band, and they were all jumping up and down. If I wanted to see which it was I would have to turn my eyes around to look inside, and in the effort to do that my lids came open, and there facing me was the clock on my bedstand. I quit trying to reverse my eyes and concentrated on the clock.

Seventeen minutes past eleven. The noise was neither a juke box nor a band; it was the house buzzer. Someone somewhere had a finger on the button and was keeping it there. Nuts. I could stop it by reaching for the cord and yanking it loose. But it takes a hero to do something as sensible as that, and I wasn’t awake enough to be a hero, so when I reached I got the phone instead of the cord, brought it to the neighborhood of my mouth, and said, “Now what?”

Wolfe’s voice came: “I’m in the kitchen. What time did you get home?”

“Nine minutes to seven, and had three fingers of bourbon while I was fixing a bowl of milk toast. I intended to sleep through until dinner. Why are you in the kitchen?”

“Mr. Cramer is in the office. Have you anything I should know?”

“Yes. Lieutenant Rowcliff’s stutter is getting worse. Sergeant Stebbins has a bandage on the middle finger of his left hand, probably got bit by a pigeon he was trying to put salt on the tail of. An assistant DA named Schipple whom I never met before has amended the Constitution; a man is guilty until he proves he’s innocent. That’s all. In my answers to ten thousand questions and in the statement I signed there was nothing to affect your program if you have one. I didn’t even admit in so many words that Sally is your client. As for Kalmus, he was hit on the back of the head, probably with a heavy metal ash tray that was there on a table, before the cord was tied around his throat. The cord was from one of the window blinds there in the room. The ME’s on-the-spot guess was that he had been dead two to five hours. Where’s Sally?”

“In the south room.” (Even after three nights, not ‘in her room.’) “Dr Vollmer is attending. Before he dosed her last evening I told her why you went to that apartment - when she is asked. How soon can you be down?”

“Oh, six hours. What does Cramer want'He can’t want me, he had me off and on all night. Does he want Sally?”

“I don’t know. When he arrived I came to the kitchen and Fritz took him to the office. He may presume to quote something you said, even something in your statement, and you should be present. Can you be down in ten minutes?”

“Yes, but I won’t. Twenty. Tell Fritz I would appreciate orange juice and coffee.”

He said certainly and hung up, and I stretched out on my back and yawned good and wide before reaching to switch the electric blanket off. On my feet, before I closed the open window I stuck my head out for a whiff of winter air, which helped a little, enough to rouse me to the point where I could put my pants on right side front and my shoes on the right feet. More than that couldn’t be expected. All night, in between sessions with dicks and the assistant DA, I had considered the situation with Kalmus out of it, and had decided that the best idea would be for the morning mail to bring a letter from Kalmus, telling why he had killed Jerin and saying that after his talk with Wolfe he knew it was all up, so he was bowing out. I might have gone to bed looking forward to the morning mail but for one thing. It wasn’t positively inconceivable that he had tied the cord himself, but he simply could not have tucked the ends under his shoulder; he would have been too far gone.

By the time I got downstairs, in twenty minutes flat, my personal fog had cleared a little. In the kitchen, Wolfe, at the center table inspecting a string of dried mushrooms, put it down when I appeared, and moved. I said, “Orange juice,” and he said Fritz would bring it, and I sidestepped to let him by, and followed him to the office. If Cramer, in the red leather chair, wished us a good morning he didn’t say so. As we went to our desks he looked at his wrist watch, not just a glance but holding his cuff back with his other hand and staring, and as Wolfe sat he rasped, “Half an hour, by God. If you were the Mayor, but you’re not.”

“I offer no apology,” Wolfe said, no hard feeling. “You had no appointment.”

Cramer uttered a word that I omit, out of respect for his rank and his long and faithful public service. He was short on sleep too, and his eyes showed it. But he went on, “Appointment my ass. In the kitchen lapping up beer?’ His hand went to his inside breast pocket and came out with a piece of paper. “This is to you,

but it was found on the body of a man who died by violence, so it’s evidence and I’m keeping it. Shall I read it to you?”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch. “As you please. I would return it.”

“When?”

“As soon as Mr. Goodwin makes a copy of it.”

Cramer looked at me. Apparently he decided that I would probably eat it, for he shook his head and said, “I’ll read it.” He unfolded the paper. “Printed at the top is “From the desk of Daniel Kalmus.” It’s dated yesterday, February 14,

1962. It says, written by hand, in ink: “To Nero Wolfe: I hereby engage your professional services in my behalf and will pay you a reasonable fee plus necessary expenses. My attorney, Daniel Kalmus, will explain what I wish investigated, and you will work in collaboration with him and at his direction.”

It’s signed, “Matthew Blount.”‘ He looked at me. “I see you’ve got it down.”

“Sure,” I said, and closed my notebook.

He returned the paper to his pocket. “All right,” he told Wolfe, I want to know.

Monday you announced through Goodwin that you had been hired on behalf of Blount. Kalmus denied it. Tuesday you told me you had been hired but wouldn’t say who had hired you. Wednesday, yesterday, Kalmus comes to you and, according to Goodwin, tells you that he wants to hire you but he has to get Blount’s okay first. Last night Kalmus is murdered, and in his pocket is this note to you from Blount. I want to know and you’re going to tell me. First, if you were hired Monday who hired you?”

Wolfe’s brows went up. “Didn’t Mr. Goodwin tell you?”

“You know damn well he didn’t. He told us damn little. I wanted to hold him as a material witness, but the DA said no. Who hired you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?’ Wolfe turned a hand over. “Since she went there with Mr.

Goodwin last evening, and I hadn’t yet been engaged by Mr. Kalmus or Mr. Blount'

Surely you can add two and two. Miss Blount, of course.”

Cramer nodded. “Yeah, I can add. Now that you know I already know, you tell me.

I also know she has been here since Monday night, and she’s here now. I want to see her.”

“She’s under a doctor’s care and you must have his permission. Dr Edwin A. Voll -“

“Nuts. She discovered a dead body and left before the police arrived. Where is she, in the kitchen?”

“Mr. Goodwin discovered the body and you kept him all night.” Wolfe turned to me. “Tell Miss Blount to bolt the door.”

I swiveled to get the house phone, but Cramer roared, “Your goddam clowning!’

and I swiveled back and grinned at him, and told Wolfe, “I hate to disturb her.

If he starts upstairs there’ll be time enough.”

“That’s the first thing you wanted to know,” Wolfe told Cramer. “Miss Blount was and is my client. Now her father is too if I accept the engagement. Next?”

Cramer had his fingers curled over the chair arms, regaining control. He must have told himself many times over the years never to let Wolfe get him roaring,

and here he had done it again. I expected him to get out a cigar and give it a massage, but Fritz saved him the trouble and expense by coming with my orange juice and coffee on a tray, and by the time he had put it on my desk and gone,

and I had picked up the glass and taken a sip, Cramer had himself in hand.

He cleared his throat. “You remember,” he said, a little hoarse, “that I said Tuesday I knew damn well you hadn’t been hired. Okay, maybe I was wrong. But I also said that I thought you had got hold of something, some piece of information or evidence, that you thought would spring Blount, or at least might, and now I’m sure of it. It’s a fair guess that you got it from the daughter. You used it to get Kalmus here. You told him what it was, or gave him a good hint, good enough so he told Blount and advised him to hire you, and Blount wrote you this note.” He tapped his chest. “But Kalmus went ahead and did something with that piece of information himself without calling you in, and he got himself killed, and you learned about it or suspected it, and when Goodwin went there last night, taking the daughter along to get him in, he expected to find a corpse.”

He paused for breath. “You and your goddam tricks. You probably told Kalmus to try something. I’d bet a dollar to a dime that you know who killed him. All right, you’ve jockeyed yourself into a fee, and Kalmus is dead, but your client is still in jail. Can you pry him loose or can’t you'I’m not going to tell you for the twentieth time that if and when the DA thinks he can get you for obstructing justice by withholding evidence I’ll do all I can to make it stick,

and it looks as if this is it. Do I have to get a warrant for the arrest of Sarah Blount as a material witness?”

Wolfe, leaning back, took in air, all he had room for, which was plenty, and let it out. “Day before yesterday,” he said, “I told you that you were incomparably better acquainted than I was with all the circumstances surrounding the death of Paul Jerin. That was true, and it still is, and it is equally true of the circumstances surrounding the death of Daniel Kalmus. You’ve had your army working at it for twelve hours, and I have merely read the morning paper. I have had no report from Mr. Goodwin. As for his expecting to find a corpse when he went there last night, at that time he was of the opinion, and so was I, that Kalmus had probably murdered Paul Jerin.”

Cramer again uttered a word that I omit, the same one, and this time he added nothing.

“Not an opinion based on evidence,” Wolfe said, “only on a suspicion held by a person I had spoken with, now of course discredited. You know Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Gather.”

“I ought to. What about them?”

“I hired them yesterday. Their assignment was to find evidence that Kalmus procured or possessed arsenic in some form prior to Tuesday evening, January thirtieth. When Mr. Panzer telephoned this morning I told him to drop it.

Naturally.”

Cramer was staring. “That’s not your kind of lie. Three men would have to back it up.”

“Nor ordinarily, I hope, my kind of truth - admission of error. Two hundred dollars of Miss Blount’s money wasted.”

Cramer still stared. “Kalmus was Blount’s lawyer. You thought he had put arsenic in the chocolate'Why?”

“I considered that the most likely alternative. I reserve the why; as I said, it wasn’t based on evidence. Now for the only alternatives left - Hausman, Yerkes,

and Farrow - since Blount is excluded. Don’t you too exclude him now'Your elaborate theory of my trickery was at fault, but one of its assumptions, that Kalmus was killed by the man who killed Jerin, is surely sound, and Blount is in jail. Should you keep him there?”

Cramer looked at me. I had the orange juice down and was on the second cup of coffee. “You lied in that statement,” he said. “You said you went to Kalmus’s place to find out if Blount had okayed hiring Wolfe, and what you really went for was to search it to try to find -” He cut it off short. “Oh, nuts.” He got up. This is the first time I ever left here,” he told Wolfe, “thinking you may have grabbed a bear’s tail and can’t let go. You may have. If you actually thought at ten o’clock last night that Kalmus had killed Jerin where are you now'Who comes next'Huh?”

He turned and was on his way, but I stayed put, ready to whirl to the house phone. He just might make a dash for the stairs and the south room, and if I were in the hall it would be ticklish. You can bolt a door on a cop, but you can’t touch him. But he turned right, to the front, and when the sound came of the door closing I stepped to the hall to see that he wasn’t still inside, then returned to my desk, poured coffee, emptying the pot, and took a swallow. Wolfe had his arms folded and his eyes shut. I sat and drank coffee. The morning mail was there on my desk pad, mostly junk stuff as usual, and, when my cup was empty, I started slitting it open.

Wolfe’s voice came, a growl. “You had four hour’s sleep.”

“I did not.” I didn’t turn. “It takes time to make milk toast and eat it. Do you want a report?”

“No.”

I opened an envelope. “Here’s another invitation to become a charter member of the National Foundation for the Control of Crime. Have you any instructions for me regarding crime?”

“I have a question. Can you see Mr. Blount today'Now?”

“I doubt it. No one can visit a man in for murder without bail but his lawyer and members of his immediate family, on a permit from the DA’s office. The visiting hours are from six to eight p.m. He’s your client, but you’re not a lawyer. We can ask the DA’s office for an exception and get turned down. Cramer might fix it as a special personal favor.”

“Pfui.”

“Check.” I opened another envelope and removed the contents. “Weniger has a fresh batch of ready-mixed Berrichon cheese which is incredibly delicious. When we found Kalmus last night Sally’s first idea was to go home to mother. Are you sure she’s in her room?”

“No.”

I turned. “No?”

“Fritz took a breakfast tray to her, and Dr Vollmer came and saw her shortly before ten o’clock. I was in the plant rooms as usual, and he spoke to me on the house phone.”

“She could have walked downstairs and on out.”

“Yes. Go and see.”

I swiveled, rose, and headed for the hall. Naturally he was boiling, since she had given him a bum steer on Kalmus, but the one sure thing was that we had to reach Blount, and we had a member of his immediate family right there. Or we had had. On my way down I had noticed that her door was closed and, mounting two steps at a time, I found that it still was. I was so sure she had blown that my hand went to the knob without knocking, but I told it no, and it swerved and rapped, somewhat louder than necessary; and her voice came immediately: “Who is it?,” and I opened the door and entered.