Might as Well Be Dead (13 page)

“Then he left?”

“I suppose so. We left him in the lobby when we went to the elevator.”

“You and your wife went up to your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do the rest of the evening?”

Arkoff took a breath. “By God,” he said, “if anyone had told me an hour ago that I was going to be asked where I was at the time of the murder I would have thought he was crazy.”

“No doubt. It does often seem an impertinence. Where were you?”

“I was in my apartment, working with scripts until after midnight. My wife was in another room, and neither of us could have gone out without the other one knowing it. No one else was there.”

“That seems conclusive. Certainly either conclusive or collusive.” Wolfe’s eyes went right. “Mr. Irwin, since Mr. Keems had been told that you had suggested Mrs. Molloy, I presume he sought you. Did he find you?”

From the expression on Tom Irwin’s face, he needed a hand to hold. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “I’m not sure I like this,” he said. “If I’m going to be questioned about a murder I think I’d rather be questioned by the police.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” his wife protested. “He won’t bite you! Do what Rita did, get it over with!” She went to Wolfe. “Do you want me to tell it?”

“If you were present, madam.”

“I was. That man—what was his name?”

“John Joseph Keems.”

“It was nearly nine o’clock when he came, and we were just going out. We had promised to drop in at a party some friends were giving for somebody, and we would have been gone if my maid hadn’t had to fix the lining of my wrap. He said the same thing he told Rita, about the possibility of a new trial for Peter Hays, and he asked my husband about the phone call to the restaurant. Rita has told you about that. Actually—”

“Did your husband’s account of it agree with Mrs. Arkoffs?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it? Actually, though, it was I who suggested asking Selma Molloy. While Tom was at the phone I told him to tell her to ask Selma because I could trust him with her. It was partly a joke, but I’m one of those jealous wives. Then he wanted to ask some more questions, I mean that man Keems, but by that time my wrap was ready and we had told him all we knew. That was all there was to it.”

“Did your husband tell him that you had suggested asking Mrs. Molloy?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure—Didn’t you, Tom?”

“Yes.”

“And you went to the party? How late did you stay?”

“Not late at all. It was a bore, and my husband was tired. We got home around eleven and went to bed. We sleep in the same room.”

Wolfe started to make a face, realized he was doing it, and called it off. The idea of sleeping in the same room with anybody on earth, man or woman, was too much. “Then,” he asked, “you had only that one brief talk with Mr. Keems? You didn’t see him again?”

“No. How could we?”

“Did you see him again, Mr. Irwin?”

“No.”

“Can you add anything to your wife’s account of your talk with him?”

“No. That was all there was to it. I might add that our maid sleeps in, and she was there that night.”

“Thank you. That should be helpful. I’ll include it in my report to the police.” Wolfe went back to the wife. “One little point, Mrs. Irwin. If you decided earlier in the day that you wouldn’t be able to go to the theater that evening, you might have mentioned it to someone, for instance to some friend on the phone, and you might also have mentioned, partly as a joke, that you would suggest that Mrs. Molloy be asked in your place. Did anything like that happen?”

She shook her head. “No, it couldn’t have, because I didn’t decide not to go until just before my husband came home.”

“Then your headache was a sudden attack?”

“I don’t know what you would call sudden. I was lying down with it most of the afternoon, and taking emagrin, and I was hoping it would go away. But I had to give up.”

“Do you have frequent headaches?”

Irwin burst out, “What the hell has that got to do with it?”

“Probably nothing,” Wolfe conceded. “I’m fishing white water, Mr. Irwin, and am casting at random.”

“It seems to me,” Arkoff put in, “that you’re fishing in dead water. Asking Mrs. Molloy didn’t have to be designed at all. If Peter Hays didn’t kill Molloy, if someone else did, of course it was somebody who knew him. He could have phoned Molloy and said he wanted to see him alone, and Molloy told him to come to the apartment, they would be alone there because Mrs. Molloy had gone to the theater. Why couldn’t it have happened like that?”

“It could,” Wolfe agreed. “Quite possible. The invitation to Mrs. Molloy was merely one of the aspects that deserved inquiry, and it might have been quickly eliminated. But not now. Now there is a question that must be answered: who killed Johnny Keems, and why?”

“Some damned fool. Some hit-and-run maniac.”

“Possibly, but I don’t believe it. I must be satisfied now, and so must the police, and even if you people are innocent of any complicity you can’t escape harassment. I’ll want to know more than I do now about the evening of January third, about what happened at the theater. I understand—Yes, Archie?”

“Before you leave last night,” I said, “I have a question to ask them.”

“Go ahead.”

I leaned forward to have all their faces as they turned to me. “About Johnny Keems,” I said. “Did he ask any of you anything about Bill Lesser?”

They had never heard the name before. You can’t always go by the reaction to a sudden unexpected question, since some people are extremely good at handling their faces, but if that name meant anything to one or more of them they were better than good. They all looked blank and wanted to know who Bill Lesser was. Of course Wolfe would also have liked to know who he was but didn’t say so. I told him that was all, and he resumed.

“I understand that Mrs. Molloy and Mrs. Arkoff went in to their seats before curtain time, and that Mr. Arkoff and Mr. Irwin joined them about an hour later, saying they had been in a bar across the street. Is that correct, Mr. Arkoff?”

Arkoff didn’t care for that at all, and neither did Irwin. Their position was that their movements on the evening of January 3 had no significance unless it was assumed that one or both of them might have killed Molloy and framed Peter Hays, and that was absurd. Wolfe’s position was that the police would ask him if he had questioned them about January 3, and if he said he had and they had balked, the police would want to know why.

Rita told her husband to quit arguing and get it over with, and that only made it worse, until she snapped at him, “What’s so touchy about it? Weren’t you just dosing up?”

He gave her a dirty look and then transferred it to Wolfe. “My wife and I,” he said, “met Mrs. Molloy in the theater lobby at half-past eight. The ladies went on in and I waited in the lobby for Irwin. He came a few minutes later and said he wanted a drink, and he also said he didn’t care much for plays about Joan of Arc. We went across the street and had a couple of drinks, and by the time we got in to our seats the first act was about over.”

Wolfe’s head turned. “You corroborate that, Mr. Irwin?”

“I do.”

Wolfe turned a hand over. “So simple, gentlemen. Why all the pother? And with a new and quite persuasive detail, that Mr. Irwin doesn’t care for plays about Joan of Arc—an inspired hoyden. To show you to what lengths an investigation can be carried, and sometimes has to be, a dozen men could make a tour of Mr. Irwin’s friends and acquaintances and ask if they have ever heard him express an attitude toward Joan of Arc and plays about her. I doubt if I’ll be driven to that extremity. Have you any questions?”

They hadn’t, for him. Rita Arkoff got up and went to Selma, and Fanny Irwin joined them. The men did too, for a moment, and then headed for the hall, and I followed them. They got their coats on and stood and waited, and finally their women came, and I opened the door. As they moved out Rita was telling the men that she had asked Selma to come and eat with them, but she had said she wasn’t up to it. “And no wonder,” Rita was saying as I swung the door to.

When I re-entered the office Selma didn’t look as if she were up to anything whatever, sitting with her shoulders slumped and her head sagging and her eyes closed. Wolfe was speaking, inviting her to stay for not only dinner but also the night. He said he wanted her at hand for consultation if occasion arose, but that wasn’t it. She had brought word from Parker that the court formalities might be completed in the morning, and if so we might get to the safe-deposit box by noon. For that Mrs. Molloy would be needed, and Wolfe would never trust a woman to be where she was supposed to be when you wanted her. Therefore he was telling her how pleasant our south room was, directly under his, with a good bed and morning sunshine, but no sale, not even for dinner. She got to her feet, and I went to the hall with her.

“It’s hopeless, isn’t it,” she said, not a question. I patted her shoulder professionally and told her we had barely started.

In the office again, Wolfe demanded, “Who is Bill Lesser?”

I told him, reporting it verbatim, including my phone call to Delia Brandt, and explaining I had hoped to get a glimmer from one or more of the quartet at sound of the name. He wasn’t very enthusiastic but admitted it was worth a look and said we would put Fred Durkin on it. I asked if I should phone Purley Stebbins, and he said no, it was too close to dinnertime and he wanted first to think over his talk with Mrs. Molloy’s friends.

He heaved a sigh. “Confound it,” he complained, “no gleam anywhere, no little fact that stings, no word that trips. I have no appetite!”

I snorted. “That’s the least of my worries,” I declared.

Chapter 12

I
NEVER DID PHONE Purley because I didn’t have to. Fred Durkin called during dinner and said he had had no better luck at the theater and the bar than at the phone booth places, and I told him to come in, and he was there by the time we returned to the office with coffee. He had drawn nothing but blanks and I was glad we had a bone for him with a little meat on it. He was to do a take on William Lesser—address, occupation, and the trimmings—and specifically, had he been loose at 11:48 Wednesday night? That last seemed a waste of time and energy, since I had it entered that the Arkoffs and Irwins had never heard of him, but Wolfe wanted a little fact that stung and you never can tell. Just before Fred left Orrie Cather came.

Orrie brought a little package of items he had selected from the cartons in the Molloy apartment, and if they were the cream the milk must have been dishwater. He opened the package on my desk and we went through the treasure together, while Wolfe sat and read a book. There was a desk calendar with an entry on the leaf for January 2,
Call B
, and nothing else; a batch of South American travel folders; half a dozen books of matches from restaurants; a stack of carbon copies of letters, of which the most exciting was one to the Pearson Appliance Corporation telling them what he thought of their electric shaver; and more of the same.

“I don’t believe it,” I told Orrie. “You must have brought the wrong package.”

“Honest to God,” he swore. “Talk about drek, I never saw anything to equal it.”

“Not even check stubs?”

“Not a stub.”

I turned to Wolfe. “Mike Molloy was one of a kind. Meeting sudden death by violence in the prime of his manhood, as you would put it, he left in his office not a single item that would interest a crow, let alone a detective. Not even the phone number of his barber. No gleam anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. Not ‘prime of manhood.’”

“Okay. But unless he expected to get killed—”

The doorbell rang. I stepped to the door to the hall, switched on the stoop light, took a look, and turned.

“Cramer. Alone.”

“Ah.” Wolfe lifted his eyes from the book. “In the front room, Orrie, if you please? Take that stuff with you. When Mr. Cramer has passed through you might as well leave, and report in the morning.”

I stood a moment until Orrie had gathered up the treasure and started for the door to the front room, and then went to the hall and opened up. Many a time, seeing the burly breadth and round face of Inspector Cramer of Homicide there on the stoop, I had left the chain bolt on and spoken with him through the crack, but I now swung the door wide.

“Good evening,” I said courteously.

“Hello, Goodwin. Wolfe in?”

That was a form of wit. He knew damn well Wolfe was in, since he was never out. If I had been feeling sociable I would have reciprocated by telling him no, Wolfe had gone skating at Rockefeller Center, but the haul Orrie had brought had been hard on my sense of humor, so I merely admitted him and took his coat. He didn’t wait for escort to the office. By the time I got there he was already in the red leather chair and he and Wolfe were glaring at each other. They do that from force of habit. Which way they go from the glare, toward a friendly exchange of information or toward a savage exchange of insults, depends on the circumstances. That time Cramer’s opening pass was mild enough. He merely remarked that Goodwin had told Sergeant Stebbins he would call him back and hadn’t done so. Wolfe grunted and merely remarked that he didn’t suppose Cramer had come in person for information which Mr. Goodwin could have given Mr. Stebbins on the phone.

“But he didn’t,” Cramer growled.

“He will now,” Wolfe growled back. “Do you want him to?”

“No.” Cramer got more comfortable. “I’m here now. There’s more to it than Johnny Keems, but I’ll take that first. What was he doing for you last night?”

“He was investigating a certain aspect of the murder of Michael M. Molloy on January third.”

“The hell he was. I thought a murder investigation was finished when the murderer was tried and convicted.”

Wolfe nodded. “It is. But not when an innocent man is tried and convicted.”

It looked very much as if they were headed for insults. But before Cramer had one ready Wolfe went on. “You would ask, of course, if I have evidence to establish Peter Hays’s innocence. No, I haven’t. My reasons for thinking him innocent would not be admissible as evidence, and would have no weight for you. I intend to find the evidence if it exists, and Johnny Keems was looking for it last night.”