Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 17 (12 page)

I walked to the portal, entered the vestibule, and pushed the button. In a moment the door opened enough to show me a baldheaded guy in conventional black, with a big pointed nose, and to show me to him.

“My name is Archie Goodwin,” I informed him, “and I would like to see Mrs. Whitten.”

He said authoritatively, “No newspapermen are being admitted,” and started to close the door. My foot stopped it after a couple of inches.

“You have newspapermen on the brain,” I told him courteously but firmly. “I happen to be a detective.” I got my card case from my pocket. “Like this.” I pulled my license card, with photograph and thumbprint, from under the cellophane and handed it to him, and he inspected it.

“This does not indicate,” he asserted, “that you are a member of the police force.”

“I didn’t say I was. I merely—”

“What’s the trouble, Borly?” a voice came from behind him. He turned, and the pressure of my foot made the door swing in more. Since an open door is universally regarded as an invitation to enter, I crossed the threshold.

“There’s no trouble, Mr. Landy,” I said cheerfully. “The butler was just doing his duty.” As I spoke two other men came in sight from a door to the right, which made it four to one. I was going on. “My name’s Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe, and I want to see Mrs. Whitten.”

“The hell you do. On out.” With a gesture he indicated the door he wished me to use. “I said out!”

He took a step toward me. I was mildly confused
because I hadn’t expected to have to deal with a whole quartet immediately on entering. Of course it was no trick to spot them, from their pictures in the papers and descriptions. The one outing me, which he might possibly have done since he was a little bigger, up to heavyweight specifications, with a big red face having eyes too far apart, was Mortimer. The one with dark hair slicked back, wirier and smaller and smarter looking, was his elder brother Jerome. The middle-sized one, who looked like a washed-out high school teacher, was their brother-in-law, the famous columnist who was more widespread than
AMBROSIA,
Daniel Bahr.

“You can,” I admitted, “put me out, but if you wait half a minute you can still put me out. I have come to see Mrs. Whitten on behalf of Miss Julie Alving. It would be only fair to let Mrs. Whitten herself decide whether she wants to see someone who wishes to speak for Miss Alving. If you—”

“Beat it.” He took another step. “You’re damn right we can put you out—”

“Take it easy, Mort.” Jerome was approaching, in no haste or alarm. He saw the license card in the butler’s hand, took it and glanced at it, and handed it to me. “My mother’s upstairs asleep. I’m Jerome Landy. Tell me what you want to say for Miss Alving and I’ll see that it gets attention.”

“She’s asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s sick?”

“Sick?”

“Yeah. Ill.”

“I don’t know. Not me. Why?”

“I just saw a doctor leave here carrying his case, and of course if he gave her sleeping pills and then
stopped for a chat with you, naturally she would be asleep now. It’s the way a detective’s mind works, that’s all.” I grinned at him. “Unless she’s not the patient. One of your sisters maybe? Anyhow, I have nothing to say for Miss Alving except direct to Mrs. Whitten. I don’t know whether she would agree that it’s urgent and strictly personal, and there’s no way of deciding but to ask her. By tomorrow it might be too late. I don’t know about that either.”

“Ask him,” suggested Daniel Bahr, who had joined us, “whether it’s a request for money. If it is an attempt at a shakedown there is only one possible answer.”

“If that was it,” I said, “our blackmail department would be handling it, and I’ve been promoted from that. That’s as far as I can go except to Mrs. Whitten.”

“Wait here,” Jerome instructed me, and made for the stairs.

I stood in quiet dignity, but allowed my eyes to move. This, of course, was the reception hall, with the stairs at the left, the door to the living room on the right, and at the far end the door to the dining room, where the secret meeting of sons and daughters had been held. The hall was large and high-ceilinged and not overfurnished, except maybe a pink marble thing against the wall beyond the living-room door. It had a bare look because there was nothing but a couple of straw mats on the floor, but since it was July that was understandable. The only action while Jerome was gone was Mortimer’s dismissing the butler, who disappeared through the door to the dining room.

It wasn’t too long before Jerome came halfway down the stairs and called to me.

“Up here, Goodwin.”

I mounted to join him. On the landing above he turned to face me.

“You’ll keep it brief. I’m telling you. Is that understood?”

“Sure.”

“My mother’s in bed but not asleep. The doctor didn’t give her sleeping pills because she doesn’t need them. Her heart isn’t as good as it might be, and what happened here night before last, and these two days —I tried to persuade her not to see you, but she takes a lot of persuading. You’ll make it brief?”

“Sure.”

I followed him up to the third floor, which seemed a bad location for a woman with a weak heart, and into a room at the front. Inside I halted. Within range there was not one woman, but three. The one standing over by the bed, dark and small like Jerome, was Eve. The one who had been doing something at a bureau and turned as we entered was Phoebe, the child who, according to my day’s collection of scraps, most resembled her father. My quick glance at her gave me the impression that Father could have asked for no nicer compliment. Jerome was pronouncing my name, and I advanced to the bedside. As I did so there were steps to my rear and I swiveled my neck enough to get a glimpse of Mortimer and Daniel Bahr entering. That made it complete—all the six that Wolfe wanted to see!

But not for long. A voice of authority came from the bed.

“You children get out!”

“But mother—”

They all protested. From the way she insisted, not with any vehemence, it was obvious that she took obedience for granted, and she got it, though for a
moment I thought Phoebe, who was said to resemble her father, might stick it. But she too went, the last one out, and closed the door after her as instructed.

“Well?” Mrs. Whitten demanded. She took in a long breath, with a long loud sigh. “What about Miss Alving?”

She was lying flat on her back with a thin blue silk coverlet nearly up to her throat, and against the blue pillow her face was so pale that I might not have recognized her from the pictures and descriptions. That made her look older, of course, and then her hair was in no condition for public display. But the snap and fire were in her eyes, as specified, and the firm pointed chin was even exaggerated at that angle.

“What about her?” she repeated impatiently.

“Excuse me,” I apologized. “I was wondering if I should bother you after all—right now. You look sick.”

“I’m not sick. It’s only—my heart.” She took a long sighing breath. “What would you expect? What about Miss Alving?”

I could and would have done better if my mind had been on it, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t even remember which tack I had decided to take, because an interesting idea had not only entered my head but evicted all the previous tenants. But I couldn’t just turn on my heel and blow, so I spoke.

“I don’t want to be crude, Mrs. Whitten, but you understand that while you have your personal situation and problems, other people have theirs. At least you will grant that the death of Floyd Whitten means more to Miss Alving than it does to people who never knew him, though they’re all reading about it and talking about it. The idea was for Nero Wolfe to have a little talk with you regarding certain aspects of the situation which are of special interest to Miss Alving.”

“I owe Miss Alving nothing.” Mrs. Whitten had raised her head from the pillow, aiming her eyes at me, but now she let it fall back, and again she sighed, taking in all the air she could get. “It is no secret that my husband knew her once, but their—it was ended when he got married. That is no secret either.”

“I know that,” I agreed. “But I couldn’t discuss things even if I knew about them. I’m just a messenger boy. My job was to arrange for Mr. Wolfe to talk with you, and it looks as if I’ll have to pass it up for now, since he never leaves his house to see anyone on business, and you can’t very well be expected to leave yours if your doctor has put you to bed.” I grinned down at her. “That’s why I apologized for bothering you. Maybe tomorrow or next day?” I backed away. “I’ll phone you, or Mr. Wolfe will.”

Her head had come up again. “You’re going to tell me,” she said in a tone that could not have been called a cluck, “exactly why Miss Alving sent you here to annoy me.”

“I can’t,” I told her from the door. “Because I don’t know. And I promised your son I’d make it brief.” I turned the knob and pulled. “You’ll be hearing from us.”

Two daughters and a son were out on the landing. “Okay,” I told them cheerfully, got by, and started down. Bahr and Mortimer were in the reception hall, and I nodded as I breezed past, opened the door for myself, and was out.

Since what I wanted was the nearest phone booth, I turned left, toward Madison, and one block down, at the corner, entered a drug store.

Routine would have been to call Wolfe and get his opinion of my interesting idea, but he had sicked me onto them with nothing to go by but his snooty remark
that circumstances might offer suggestions, so I went right past him. I could have got what I wanted from 20th Street, but if I got a break and my hunch grew feathers I didn’t want the Homicide boys in on it, so the number I dialed was that of the
Gazette
office. Lon Cohen was always there until midnight, so I soon had him.

“I’m looking,” I told him, “for a good doctor to pierce my ears for earrings, and I think I’ve found one. Call me at this number”—I gave it to him—“and tell me who New York license UMX four three three one seven belongs to.”

He had me repeat it, which shouldn’t have been necessary with a veteran newspaperman. I hung up and did my waiting outside the booth, since the temperature inside was well over a hundred. The phone rang in five minutes, exactly par for that routine item of research, and a voice—not Lon’s, for he was a busy man at that time of night—gave me a name and address: Frederick M. Cutler, M.D., with an office on East 65th and a residence on Park Avenue.

It was ten blocks away, so I went for the car and drove it, parked on the avenue a polite distance from the canopy with the number on it, and went in. The lobby was all it should have been in that locality, and the night man took exactly the right attitude toward a complete stranger. On my way I had decided what would be exactly the right attitude for me.

“Dr. Frederick M. Cutler,” I said. “Please phone up.”

“Name?”

“Tell him a private detective named Goodwin has an important question to ask him about the patient he was visiting forty minutes ago.”

I thought that would do. If that got me to him my
hunch would already have an attractive fuzz on its bare pink skin. So when, after finishing at the phone, he crossed to the elevator with me and told his colleague I was to be conveyed to 12C, my heart had accelerated a good ten per cent.

At 12C I was admitted by the man I had seen leaving the Whitten house with his black case. Here, with a better view of him, I could note such details as the gray in his hair, his impatient gray-blue eyes, and the sag at the corners of his wide full mouth. Also I could see, through an arch, men and women at a couple of card tables in the large room beyond.

“Come this way, please,” my victim said gruffly, and I followed him down a hall and through a door. This was a small room, its walls solid with books, and a couch, a desk, and three chairs, leaving no space at all. He closed the door, confronted me, and was even gruffer.

“What do you want?”

The poor guy had already given me at least half of what I wanted, but of course he would have had to be very nifty on the draw not to.

“My name,” I said, “is Archie Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe.”

“So that’s who you are. What do you want?”

“I was sent to see Mrs. Floyd Whitten, and while I was parking my car in front I saw you leaving her house. Naturally I recognized you, since you are pretty well known.” I thought he might as well have a lump of sugar. “I went in and had a little talk with Mrs. Whitten up in her bedroom. Her son said, and she said, that the trouble was her heart. But then how come? There is a widespread opinion that she is in splendid health and always has been. At her age she plays tennis. She walks up two flights to her bedroom.
People who know her admire her healthy complexion. But when I saw her, there in bed, she was as pale as a corpse, in fact she was pale
like
a corpse, and she kept taking long sighing breaths. I’m not a doctor, but I happen to know that those two symptoms—that kind of pallor and that kind of breathing—go with a considerable loss of blood, say over a pint. She didn’t have a cardiac hemorrhage, did she?”

Cutler’s jaw was working. “The condition of my patient is none of your business. But Mrs. Whitten has had an extremely severe shock.”

“Yeah, I know she has. But the business I’m in, I have seen quite a few people under the shock of the sudden death of someone they loved, and I’ve seen a slew of reactions, and this one is brand new. The pallor possibly, but combined with those long frequent sighs?” I shook my head. “I will not settle for that. Besides, why did you let me come up after the kind of message I sent, if it’s just shock? Why did you let me in and herd me back here so private? At this point I think you ought to either toss me out or invite me to sit down.”

He did neither. He glared.

“Lookit,” I said, perfectly friendly. “Do some supposing. Suppose you were called there and found her with a wound and a lot of blood gone. You did what was needed, and when she asked you to keep it quiet you decided to humor her and ignore your legal obligation to make a report to the authorities in such cases. Ordinarily that would be nothing for a special broadcast; doctors do it every day. But this is far from ordinary. Her husband was murdered, stabbed to death. A man named Pompa has been charged with it, but he’s not convicted yet. Suppose one of the five people hid in the dining room Wiled Whitten? They
could have, easily, while Pompa and Mrs. Whitten were in the living room—a whole half-hour. Those five people are in Mrs. Whitten’s house with her now, and two of them live there. Suppose the motive for killing Whitten is good for her too, and one of them tried it, and maybe tonight or tomorrow makes another try and this time it works? How would you feel about clamming up on the first try? How would others feel when it came out, as it would?”