Might as Well Be Dead (9 page)

“How many days are there in ten months?”

“It depends on the months. Roughly three hundred.”

“We could call it ‘The Last Three Hundred Days of a Murdered Man.’”

“A good idea. I understand that occasionally you had dinner with Molloy at a restaurant. Was it—”

“Who told you that?”

I had three choices: get up and go, strangle her, or sit on her. “Look, Miss Brandt. I’m being paid by the hour and I’ve got to earn it. Was it to discuss business matters or was it social?”

She smiled, which made her even prettier. “Oh, that was just social. He never talked about business to me. It had got so he didn’t want to have dinner with his wife, and he hated to eat alone. I’d love to put that in. I know some people think I allowed him liberties, but I never did.”

“Did he try to take liberties?”

“Oh, of course. Married men always do. That’s because with their wives it’s not a liberty any more.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’ve never married. Did he—”

“Oh, aren’t you married?”

But you’ve had enough of her. So had I, but I was on duty, and I stuck with it for three solid hours. I had to go through another ordeal, about halfway through. We were thirsty, and she went to the kitchenette for liquid, and came back with a bottle of ginger ale, a bottle of gin, and two glasses with one cube of ice in each. I apologized, said I had ulcers, and asked for milk. She said she didn’t have any, and I asked for water. I will go beyond the call of duty in a pinch, but I wouldn’t drink gin and ginger ale to get the lowdown on Lizzie Borden. It was bad enough to sit there and watch her sipping away at it.

In the taxi on my way downtown to keep the date, I had felt some slight compunction at imposing on a poor working girl with a phony approach. In the taxi on my way home, having told her I would let her know if the editor still liked the idea, my conscience was sound asleep. If a conscience could snore, it probably would have.

Wolfe, who rarely turns in before midnight, was at his desk, reading
A Secret Understanding
by Merle Miller. He didn’t look up when I entered, so I went to the safe for the expense book and entered the amounts I had given the hired help for expenses, a hundred bucks for each, put the book back and closed the safe and locked it, and cleared up my desk. I refuse to meet a cluttered desk in the morning.

Then I stood and looked down at him. “Excuse me. Anything from Fred or Johnny that needs attention?”

He finished a paragraph and looked up. “No. Fred called at eleven and reported no progress. Johnny didn’t call.”

“Shall I save mine for morning?”

“No. That woman will be here. Did you get anything?”

“I don’t know.” I sat. “She’s either a featherbrain or a damn good imitation. She starts every other sentence with ‘Oh.’ You’d walk out on her in three minutes. She drinks four parts ginger ale and one part gin.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens. Did you?”

“No. But I had to watch her. Two items. One day last October a button on his coat was loose and she offered to sew it on for him. While she was doing so some papers fell out of the pocket and when she picked them up she glanced at them. So she says; papers can fall out of pockets or they can be taken out. Anyhow, she was looking at one of the papers which was a list of names and figures when he suddenly entered from his room, snatched the paper from her, and gave her hell. He slapped her, but that’s off the record because she doesn’t want it to be in the article, and besides he apologized and bought her champagne at dinner that evening. She says he was so mad he turned white.”

“And the names and figures?”

“I hoped you would ask that. She can’t remember. She thinks the figures were amounts of money, but she’s not sure.”

“Hardly a bonanza.”

“No, sir. Neither is the other item, but it’s more recent. One day between Christmas and New Year’s he asked her how she would like to take a trip to South America with him. He had to go on business and would need a secretary. I should mention that he had been trying to take liberties and she hadn’t allowed it. She liked the idea of a trip to South America, but, knowing that what are liberties up here are just a matter of course down there, she told him she’d think it over. He said there wouldn’t be much time for thinking it over because the business matters wouldn’t wait. He also said they were confidential matters and made her promise she wouldn’t mention the proposed trip to anyone. She put him off and hadn’t said yes or no by January third, the day he died. So she says. I think she said yes. She is not a good liar. I didn’t mention that her mind soars.”

“Soars where?”

I waved a hand. “Just soars. You would enjoy her.”

“No doubt.” He looked up at the clock. Past midnight. “Has she a job?”

“Oh, yes. With an import firm downtown. Apparently no connection.”

“Very well.” He pushed his chair back, yawned, and got up. “Johnny should have reported. Confound him, he’s too set on a master stroke.”

“Instructions for morning?”

“No. I’ll need you here for developments. If any. Good night.”

He went, to the elevator, and I went, to the stairs. Up in my room, undressing, I decided to dream of Selma Molloy—something like her being trapped in a blazing building, at an upper window, afraid to jump for the firemen’s net. I would march up, wave the firemen aside, stretch my arms, and down she would come, light as a feather, into my embrace. The light as a feather part was important, since otherwise there might have been some bones broken. I didn’t consider this reneging on my decision, because you can’t hold a man responsible for his dreams. But I didn’t follow through on it. No dreams at all. In the morning I didn’t even remember that I had been going to dream, but I never do remember anything in the morning until I have washed and showered and shaved and dressed and made my way down to the kitchen. With the orange juice the fog begins to lift, and with the coffee it’s all clear. It’s a good thing Wolfe breakfasts in his room, on a tray taken up by Fritz, and then goes up to the plant rooms. If we met before breakfast he would have fired me or I would have quit long ago.

Thursday started busy and kept it up. There were three letters from P.H.’s, answers to the ad, in the morning mail, and I had to answer them. There was a phone call from Omaha, from James R. Herold. His wife was impatient. I told him we had five men working on the case, including Saul Panzer and me, and we would report as soon as there was anything worth reporting. Fred Durkin came in person to confer. He had visited five establishments with phone booths within two blocks of the 52nd Street house, and had found no one who remembered anything about any user of the phone around nine o’clock on January 3. The soda jerk who had been on duty at the drugstore that evening had left and gone somewhere in Jersey. Should Fred find him? I told him yes and wished him luck.

Orrie Cather phoned from Freyer’s office to ask if we had arranged with Mrs. Molloy to hire a lawyer to establish her position legally, and I told him no, that would be done when she came to see Wolfe.

Lon Cohen of the
Gazette
phoned and said he had a riddle for me. It goes like this, he said. “Archie Goodwin tells me on Tuesday that he and Nero Wolfe aren’t interested in the Hays murder trial. The P.H. in Wolfe’s ad is a different person, no connection. But Wednesday evening I get a note from Goodwin asking me to give the bearer, Saul Panzer, a good clear print of a picture of Michael M. Molloy. Here’s the riddle: what’s the difference between Archie Goodwin and a double-breasted liar?”

I couldn’t blame him, but neither could I straighten him out. I told him the note Saul had brought him must have been a forgery, and promised to give him a front-page spread as soon as we had one.

Selma Molloy came on the dot at eleven. I let her in and took her coat, a quiet gray plaid, in the hall, and was putting it on a hanger when the elevator bumped to a stop and Wolfe emerged. He stopped, facing her, inclined his head nearly an inch when I pronounced her name, turned, and made for the office, and I convoyed her in and to the red leather chair. He sat and leveled his eyes at her, trying not to scowl. He hates to work, and this would probably be not only an all-day session, but all day with a woman. Then he had an idea. His head turned and he spoke.

“Archie. Since I’m a stranger to Mrs. Molloy, and you are not, it might be better for you to tell her about the legal situation regarding her husband’s estate.”

She looked at me. In her apartment she had sat with her back to a window, and here she was facing one, but the stronger light gave me no reason to lower my guard.

She squinted at me. “His estate? I thought you wanted to go on from yesterday.”

“We do,” I assured her. “By the way, I told you I wouldn’t be here, but my program was changed. The estate thing is a part of the investigation. We want access to Molloy’s records and papers, and since no will has been found the widow has a right to them, and you’re the widow. Of course you can let us look at anything that’s in the apartment, but there should be some legal steps—for instance, you should be named as administrator.”

“But I don’t want to be administrator. I don’t want anything to do with his estate. I might have wanted some of the furniture, if—” She let it hang. She shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”

“What about cash for your current expenses?”

“I wondered about that yesterday, after you had gone.” Her eyes were meeting mine, straight. “Whether Nero Wolfe was expecting me to pay him.”

“He isn’t.” I looked at Wolfe, and his head moved left, just perceptibly, and back. So we were still keeping our client under our hat. I met her eyes again. “Our interest in the case developed through a conversation with Mr. Freyer, and all we expect from you is information. I asked about cash only because there must be some in your husband’s estate.”

“If there is I don’t want it. I have some savings of my own, enough to go along on a while. I just don’t know what I’m going to do.” She pinned her lower lip with her teeth, and after a moment released it. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I don’t want to be administrator or have anything to do with it. I should have left him long ago, but I had married him with my eyes open and my silly pride—”

“Okay, but it might help if we could take a look at his papers. For instance, his checkbook. Miss Brandt tells me that the furniture in the office was sold, and that before it was taken away some man went through the desks and removed the contents. Do you know about that?”

“Yes, that was a friend of mine—and he had been a friend of my husband’s—Tom Irwin. He said the office should be closed up and I asked him to attend to it.”

“What happened to the stuff he took?”

“He brought it to the apartment. It’s there now, in three cartons. I’ve never looked at it.”

“I would like to. You’ll be here with Mr. Wolfe for quite a while. I could go up to the apartment and do it now if you’re willing to let me have the key.”

Without the slightest hesitation she said, “Of course,” and opened her handbag. It didn’t put her down a notch in my book—her being so trustful with a comparative stranger. All it meant was that with her P.H. convicted of murder she didn’t give a damn about anything at all, and besides, I was the comparative stranger. Glancing at Wolfe and getting a nod, I went to her and took the keys, told her I would let her know if I found anything helpful and would give her a receipt for anything I brought away, and headed for the hall. I had just taken my topcoat from the rack when the doorbell rang, and a look through the one-way glass panel showed me Saul Panzer out on the stoop. Putting the coat back, I opened up.

There are things about Saul I don’t understand and never will. For instance, the old cap he always wears. If I wore that cap while tailing a subject I’d be spotted in the first block. If I wore it while calling on people for information they would suspect I was cuckoo or quaint and draw the curtains. But Saul never gets spotted unless he wants to, and for extracting material from people’s insides nothing can equal him except a stomach pump. While he was hanging up his coat and sticking the cap in its pocket I stepped to the office door to tell Wolfe, and Wolfe said to bring him in. He came, and I followed him.

“Yes?” Wolfe inquired.

Saul, standing, shot a glance at the red leather chair and said, “A report.”

“Go ahead. Mrs. Molloy’s interest runs with ours. Mrs. Molloy, this is Mr. Panzer.”

She asked him how he did and he bowed. That’s another thing about him, his bow; it’s as bad as his cap. He sat down on the nearest yellow chair, knowing that Wolfe wants people at eye level, and reported.

“Two employees of the Metropolitan Safe Deposit Company identified a picture of Michael M. Molloy. They say it’s a picture of Richard Randall, a renter of a box there. I didn’t tell them it was Molloy, but I think one of them suspects it. I didn’t try to find out what size the box is or when he first rented it or any other details, because I thought I’d better get instructions. If they get stirred up enough to look into it and decide that one of their boxes was probably rented under another name by a man who has been murdered, they’ll notify the District Attorney. I don’t know the law, I don’t know what rights the DA has after he has got a conviction, since he couldn’t be looking for evidence, but I thought you might want to get to the box first.”

“I do,” Wolfe declared. “How good is the identification?”

“I’d bank on it. I’m satisfied. Do you want to know just how it went?”

“No. Not if you’re satisfied. How much are they already stirred up?”

“I think not much. I was pretty careful. I doubt if either of them will go upstairs with it, but they might, and I thought you might want to move.”

“I do.” Wolfe turned. “Mrs. Molloy. Do you know what this is about?”

“Yes, I think so.” She looked at me. “Isn’t it what I told you yesterday, the envelope and slip of paper when I was looking for the hockey ticket?”

“That’s it,” I told her.

“And you’ve found out already that my husband was Richard Randall?”

“We have,” Wolfe said, “and that changes the situation. We must find out what is in that box as soon as possible, and to do so we must, first, demonstrate that Randall was Molloy, and, second, establish your right to access. Since in handling his safe-deposit box a man certainly makes fingerprints, the first presents no technical problem, but it must wait upon the second. When you said, madam, that you would have nothing to do with your husband’s estate, I understood and respected your attitude. Rationally it could not be defended, but emotionally it was formidable; and when feeling takes over sense is impotent. Now it’s different. We must see the contents of that box, and we can get to it only through you. You will have to assert your rights as the widow and take control of the estate. The law can crawl and usually does, but in an emergency it can—What are you shaking your head for?”