Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 (21 page)

Wolfe handed me the card and I read, “John P. Barrett.”

The sound came of the elevator door clanging, and Wolfe said, “Bring him in.”

T
he appearance of Donnybonny’s father in the flesh fitted the sound of his voice on the telephone. He was the kind many people call distinguished-looking and I call Headwater’s Dream. He was around fifty, smooth-shaven, with gray eyes that needed to look only once at something, and was wearing $485 worth of quiet clothes. He shook hands with Wolfe in a pleasant manner, as if there could never be any hurry or urgency about anything in the world.

“You’re over here by the river in a corner of your own,” he observed genially as he sat down.

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, I bought this place a long time ago and I’m hard to move. You must excuse me, Mr. Barrett, if I say that I haven’t much time to spare. I’m wedging you in. Another caller kindly went up to my plant rooms for an interlude. Mr. Cramer of the pouce.”

“Cramer?”

“Inspector Cramer of the Homicide Bureau.”

“Oh.” Barrett’s tone was nonchalant but his eyes, for an instant, were not. “I came to see you on account of some remarks you made last night to my son.
Regarding Bosnian forests, credits held by my firm, and the Donevitch gang. That was your word, I believe—gang.”

“I believe it was,” Wolfe admitted. “Was there something wrong with my remarks?”

“Oh, no. Nothing wrong. May I smoke?”

Permission received, he got a cigarette from a case which boosted his freight loading from the $485 up to around eight hundred berries, lit, and thanked me for the ash tray I provided.

“My son,” he said in a tone of civilized exasperation, “is a little bit green. It’s unavoidable that youth should arrange people in categories, it’s the only way of handling the mass of material at first to avoid hopeless confusion, but the sorting out should not be too long delayed. My son seems to be pretty slow at it. He overrates some people and underrates others. Perhaps I’ve tried to rush it by opening too many doors for him. A father’s conceit can be a very disastrous thing.”

He tapped ashes from his cigarette. He asked abruptly but not at all pugnaciously, “What is it you want, Mr. Wolfe?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing right now. I wanted to see Madame Zorka and your son kindly made that possible.”

“Yes, he told me about that. But what else?”

“Nothing at present. Really.”

“Well.” Barrett smiled. “I understand that as a private investigator you undertake almost any sort of job that promises a fee proportionate to your abilities.”

“Yes, sir, I do. Within certain boundaries I have set. I try to keep my prejudices intact.”

“Naturally.” Barrett laughed sympathetically. “We
can’t leave it to anyone else to defend our prejudices for us.” He tapped off ashes again. “My son also tells me that you are engaged in the interests of a young woman named Tormic who is a friend of his. At least—hum—an acquaintance. In connection with the murder of that man Ludlow.”

“That’s right,” Wolfe agreed. “I was originally engaged to clear her of a charge of stealing diamonds from a man named Driscoll. Then Mr. Ludlow got killed, and Miss Tormic needed a little help on that too because she was implicated by circumstances.”

“And was it from this Miss Tormic that you received information which enabled you to put pressure on my son? You did put pressure on him, didn’t you?”

“Certainly. I blackmailed him.”

“Yes. With a threat to disclose certain facts. Did you get those facts from Miss Tormic?”

“My dear sir.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “You can’t possibly be fatuous enough to expect me to tell you that.”

Barrett smiled at him. “There’s always a chance that you might. Especially since there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t. Are you under obligation to defend the interests of anyone except Miss Tormic?”

“Yes. My own. Always my own.”

“That, of course. But anyone else? I should think there would be no impropriety in your telling me if you represent any interest except that of Miss Tormic. For instance, Madame Zorka?”

Wolfe frowned. “I am always reluctant to make a present of information. Just as you are reluctant to make a present of money. You’re a banker and your business is selling money; I’m a detective and mine is selling information. But I don’t want to be churlish. In connection with the activities we are speaking of, I
represent no interest whatever except that of Miss Tormic.”

“And, always, your own.”

“Always my own.”

“Good.” Barrett crushed his cigarette in the tray. “That clears the way for us, I should think. Please don’t think I’m fatuous. I’ve made some inquiries and I find you have an enviable reputation for good faith. I have a proposal to make regarding this little project my firm is interested in. This—um—business you mentioned to my son. We need your services. Nothing onerous, and certainly nothing to offend your prejudices.” He pulled a little leather fold from his pocket. “I’ll give you a check now as a retainer. Say ten thousand dollars?”

I thought to myself, what do you know about that; Donny-darling got his briber’s itch honestly, by direct inheritance. Then I grinned, looking at Wolfe. One corner of his mouth was twisted a little out of line, which mean that he was suffering acute pain. It was a situation he had had to face fairly often during the years I had known him, and the torture involved was in direct proportion to the number of ciphers. Ten thousand bucks would have kept a good man, even Ray Borchers, in Central America for a full year, hunting rare orchids, always with the possibility of finding one absolutely new. Or 5000 cases of beer or 600 pounds of caviar….

He said bravely, but with somewhat more breath than the word should require, “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“If I assure you that you will be expected to do nothing that will interfere with the interest you already represent? And in case my assurance doesn’t
satisfy you, if at any time you find your engagements in conflict you may merely return the ten thousand dollars—”

Wolfe’s lip twitched. I turned my head away. But his voice showed that he had it licked: “No, sir. To return that amount of money would ruin my digestion for a week. If I could bring myself to do it, which is doubtful. No, sir. Abandon the idea. I shall accept no commission or retainer from you.”

“Is that—um—definite?”

“Irrevocable.”

One little vertical crease showed in the middle of Barrett’s forehead. With no other sign of fits, he returned the leather fold to his breast pocket, and then regarded Wolfe with what was probably as close to an open stare as he ever got.

“The only recourse that leaves me,” he said, with no affability left in his tone at all, “is to draw my own conclusions.”

“If you find you must have a conclusion, yes, sir.”

“But I confess I’m puzzled. I’m not often puzzled, but I am now. I’m not gullible enough to believe that your interest is only what you profess it to be. I have very good reasons for not believing it besides the fact that in that case there would be no explanation for your refusing my proposal. My son thinks that you are representing either London or Rome, but there are two objections to that: first, no contacts have been reported to us, and second, if that were true why would you have exposed yourself as you did last night? Is it any wonder that we regarded that as an invitation to deal?”

“I’m sorry I misled you,” Wolfe murmured.

“But you’re not going to tell me whom you’re tied up with.”

“I have no client but Miss Tormic.”

“And you’re not prepared to deal with us.”

Wolfe shook his head, if not with enthusiasm, with finality.

John P. Barrett stood up. There was a vague sort of vexation on his face, like a man with a feeling that he has gone off and left something somewhere but unable to say either what it was or where he left it.

“I hope,” he said, with an edge to his tone, “for your own sake, that you don’t happen to get in our way unwittingly. We know who our opponents are, and we know how to handle them. If you’re in this on your own and you’re trying to play for a haul—”

“Nonsense.” Wolfe cut him off. “I’m a detective working on a job. I am not apt to get in anyone’s way, or perform any other maneuver, unwittingly. I will say this. There is a possibility that in finishing up my own business I’ll be compelled to interfere with yours. If that seems likely to occur, I’ll let you know in advance.”

Bang went another illusion. I wouldn’t have supposed that a man of Barrett’s appearance and breeding, and especially with the clothes he was wearing, could do or say anything mean. But the look in his eyes at that moment, and the tone of his voice, were plain mean and you could even say nasty. All he said was, “Don’t try it, Mr. Wolfe. Don’t try interfering with my business.”

He turned to go.

Fortunately I had noticed the sound of Fritz in the hall and, passing Wolfe a signal to hold Barrett a moment, I bounced up and out, shutting the office door behind me, not in Barrett’s face, for he had turned at a remark from Wolfe. As I trotted down the hall Fritz was holding the street door open and three people
were entering in the shape of a sandwich: a dick, Zorka, and another dick. Without ceremony or apology I hustled them into the front room and shut them in, then trotted back to the office and nearly knocked Barrett off his pins swinging the door against him.

“Sorry, sir, I did it unwittingly.”

He gave me a frosty eye and departed. I stayed there on the threshold until I saw Fritz had got him accoutered and dispatched on his way, and then told Wolfe who had come and asked him if he thought Cramer would prefer to go on looking at orchids. He told me to phone up and tell Horstmann to bring the inspector down, and I did so, and then returned to the front room for Zorka. The two dicks started to come along, and I waved them back and said I would take her to Inspector Cramer.

“Well help you, buddy,” they said as if they were twins, and stayed as close to her as they could without being vulgar. Wolfe frowned as the four of us cluttered into the office. In a minute we were a neat half-dozen when Cramer joined us, five full-grown men against one dressmaker. One of the dicks got out a notebook and I arranged myself at my desk with mine. Wolfe leaned back with his clasped hands resting on his meal container, looking at Zorka with his eyes half shut. Cramer was scowling at her.

I had remembered the name of the girl in the Bible she resembled—Delilah. But right then she looked crumby, with puffs under her eyes, scared and nervous, and altogether anything but carefree. I was glad to notice, for Wolfe’s sake, that she had snared a dark red woolen suit somewhere, and some shoes and stockings, but it was just like Wolfe to pick on that as the first means of harassing her. Naturally he was sore at her for using his fire escape.

He growled at her, “Where did you get those clothes?”

She looked at the skirt as if she hadn’t realized she had it on. “Zeeze—” She stopped, frowning at him.

“I mean the clothes you’re wearing. When you left here last night—this morning—all you had on was a red thing. Under your coat. Those things you’re wearing now were in the bag and suitcase you took to Miss Reade’s apartment. Is that right?”

“You say zey waire.”

“Weren’t they? Who took them to you at the Hotel Brissenden? Mr. Barrett?”

She shrugged.

Cramer barked, “We can prove that and that’s not all we can prove! After those clothes were delivered to you this morning, you put them on and left the hotel, and you were followed.”

“Zat ees not true.” She set her teeth on her lower lip for a moment, and then went on, “For one sing, if you had me followed you would know where I was and you would not wait so late to get me and bring me here. For anozzer sing, I did not leave zee hotel, not once until zee men came—”

“That won’t get you anywhere! Now look here—”

“Please, Mr. Cramer?” Wolfe opened his eyes. “If you don’t mind? Remember what you said, that you’d be no better off if you had stood across the street yourself and seen her go in with him and emerge without him. There’s no point in running her up a tree if you have no ammunition to bring her down again.”

“Have you?” the inspector demanded.

“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.”

Cramer pulled out a cigar and stuck it between his teeth. “Go ahead.”

Wolfe cleared his throat and focused on her. “Madame Zorka. Is that your name?”

“Of course eet ees.”

“I know it’s the name on your letterheads and in the telephone book. But were you christened Zorka?”

“Eet ees my name.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

She fluttered a nervous hand. “Zorka.”

“Now my dear young lady. Last night, inferentially at least, you were drunk. But you’re not drunk now, you’re merely bedraggled. Do you intend to tell us the rest of your name or not?”

“I …” She hesitated, and then said with sudden determination, “No. I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I—it would be dangerous.”

“Dangerous to whom? To you?”

“No, not to me—as much as uzzer people.” She took a deep breath. “I am a refugee. I escaped.”

“Where from?”

She shook her head.

“Come, come,” Wolfe said brusquely. “Not the place, the city, the village, if you think you can’t. What country? Germany? Russia? Italy? Yugoslavia?”

“All right. Zat much. Yugoslavia.”

“I see. Croatia? Serbia? Montenegro?”

“I said, Yugoslavia.”

“Yes, but—very well.” Wolfe shrugged. “How long ago did you escape?”

“About one year ago.”

“And came to America? To New York?”

“First Paris. Paris some time, then America.”

“Did you bring a lot of money with you?”

“Oh, no.” She spread out her hands to reject an absurdity. “No money. No refugee could have money.”

“But I understand you have a business here in New York which must have cost a good deal to set up.”

She almost smiled at him. “I knew you would ask zat. A friend was very kind to me.”

“Is the friend’s name Donald Barrett?”

She sat silent a moment, just looking at him, and then said, “But I am foolish. Zaire is no disgrace. Anyway, eet ees known to a few people, and you would ask and find out. Zee kind friend who lent me money ees Mr. Barrett. He ees, what you call eet, silent partner.”