Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (81 page)

“Not
much. Mostly from Monday evening, when Margot was talking about Bottweill. So
it’s all hearsay, from her. Mrs. Jerome has put half a million in the
business—probably you should divide that by two at least— and thinks she owns
him. Or thought. She was jealous of Margot and Cherry. As for Leo, if his
mother was dishing out the dough he expected to inherit to a guy who was trying
to corner the world’s supply of gold leaf, and possibly might also marry him,
and if he knew about the jar of poison in the workshop, he might have been
tempted. Kiernan, I don’t know, but from a remark Margot made and from the way
he looked at Cherry this afternoon, I suspect he would like to mix some Irish
with her Chinese and Indian and Dutch, and if he thought Bottweill had him
stymied he might have been tempted too. So much for hearsay.”

“Mr.
Hatch?”

“Nothing
on him from Margot, but, dealing with him during the tapestry job, I wouldn’t
have been surprised if he had wiped out the whole bunch on general principles.
His heart pumps acid instead of blood. He’s a creative artist, he told me so.
He practically told me that he was responsible for the success of that
enterprise but got no credit. He didn’t tell me that he regarded Bottweill as a
phony and a fourflusher, but he did. You may remember that I told you he had a
persecution complex and you told me to stop using other people’s jargon.”

“That’s
four of them. Miss Dickey?”

I
raised my brows. “I got her a license to marry, not to kill. If she was lying
when she said it worked, she’s almost as good a liar as she is a dancer. Maybe
she is. If it didn’t work she might have been tempted too.”

“And
Miss Quon?”

“She’s
half Oriental. I’m not up on Orientals, but I understand they slant their eyes
to keep you guessing. That’s what makes them inscrutable. If I had to be
poisoned by one of that bunch I would want it to be her. Except for what Margot
told me—”

The
doorbell rang. That was worse than the phone. If they had hit on Santa Claus’s
trail and it led to Nero Wolfe, Cramer was much more apt to come than to call.
Wolfe and I exchanged glances. Looking at my wrist-watch and seeing 10:08, I
arose, went to the hall and flipped the switch for the stoop light, and took a
look through the one-way glass panel of the front door. I have good eyes, but
the figure was muffled in a heavy coat with a hood, so I stepped halfway to the
door to make sure. Then I returned to the office and told Wolfe, “Cherry Quon.
Alone.”

He
frowned. “I wanted—” He cut it off. “Very well. Bring her in.”

As I
have said, Cherry was highly decorative, and she went fine with the red leather
chair at the end of Wolfe’s desk. It would have held three of her. She had let
me take her coat in the hall and still had on the neat little woolen number she
had worn at the party. It wasn’t exactly yellow, but there was yellow in it. I
would have called it off-gold, and it and the red chair and the tea tint of her
smooth little carved face would have made a very nice kodachrome.

She
sat on the edge, her spine straight and her hands together in her lap. “I was
afraid to telephone,” she said, “because you might tell me not to come. So I
just came. Will you forgive me?”

Wolfe
grunted. No commitment. She smiled at him, a friendly smile, or so I thought.
After all, she was half Oriental.

“I
must get myself together,” she chirped. “I’m nervous because it’s so exciting
to be here.” She turned her head. “There’s the glove, and the bookshelves, and
the safe, and the couch, and of course Archie Goodwin. And you. You behind your
desk in your enormous chair! Oh, I know this place! I have read about you so
much—everything there is, I think. It’s exciting to be here, actually here in
this chair, and see you. Of course I saw you this afternoon, but that wasn’t
the same thing, you could have been anybody in that silly Santa Claus costume.
I wanted to pull your whiskers.”

She
laughed, a friendly little tinkle like a bell.

I
think I looked bewildered. That was my idea, after it had got through my ears
to the switchboard inside and been routed. I was too busy handling my face to
look at Wolfe, but he was probably even busier, since she was looking straight
at him. I moved my eyes to him when he spoke.

“If I
understand you, Miss Quon, I’m at a loss. If you think you saw me this
afternoon in a Santa Claus costume, you’re mistaken.”

“Oh, I’m
sorry!” she exclaimed. “Then you haven’t told them?”

“My
dear madam.” His voice sharpened. “If you must talk in riddles, talk to Mr.
Goodwin. He enjoys them.”

“But I
am
sorry, Mr.
Wolfe. I should have explained first how I know. This morning at breakfast Kurt
told me you had phoned him and arranged to appear at the party as Santa Claus,
and this afternoon I asked him if you had come and he said you had and you were
putting on the costume. That’s how I know. But you haven’t told the police?
Then it’s a good thing I haven’t told them either, isn’t it?”

“This
is interesting,” Wolfe said coldly. “What do you expect to accomplish by this
fantastic folderol?”

She
shook her pretty little head. “You, with so much sense. You must see that it’s
no use. If I tell them, even if they don’t like to believe me they will investigate.
I know they can’t investigate as well as you can, but surely they will find
something.”

He
shut his eyes, tightened his lips, and leaned back in his chair. I kept mine
open, on her. She weighed about a hundred and two. I could carry her under one
arm with my other hand clamped on her mouth. Putting her in the spare room
upstairs wouldn’t do, since she could open a window and scream, but there was a
cubbyhole in the basement, next to Fritz’s room, with an old couch in it. Or,
as an alternative, I could get a gun from my desk drawer and shoot her.
Probably no one knew she had come here.

Wolfe
opened his eyes and straightened up. “Very well. It is still fantastic, but I
concede that you could create an unpleasant situation by taking that yarn to
the police. I don’t suppose you came here merely to tell me that you intend to.
What do you intend?”

“I
think we understand each other,” she chirped.

“I
understand only that you want something. What?”

“You
are so direct,” she complained. “So very abrupt, that I must have said
something wrong. But I do want something. You see, since the police think it
was the man who acted Santa Claus and ran away, they may not get on the right
track until it’s too late. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

No
reply.

“I
wouldn’t want it,” she said, and her hands on her lap curled into little fists.
“I wouldn’t want whoever killed Kurt to get away, no matter who it was, but you
see, I know who killed him. I have told the police, but they won’t listen until
they find Santa Claus, or if they listen they think I’m just a jealous cat, and
besides, I’m an Oriental and their ideas of Orientals are very primitive. I was
going to make them listen by telling them who Santa Claus was, but I know how
they feel about you from what I’ve read, and I was afraid they would try to
prove it was you who killed Kurt, and of course it could have been you, and you
did run away, and they still wouldn’t listen to me when I told them who did
kill him.”

She
stopped for breath. Wolfe inquired, “Who did?”

She nodded.
“I’ll tell you. Margot Dickey and Kurt were having an affair. A few months ago
Kurt began on me, and it was hard for me because I—I—” she frowned for a word,
and found one. “I had a feeling for him. I had a strong feeling. But you see, I
am a virgin, and I wouldn’t give in to him. I don’t know what I would have done
if I hadn’t known he was having an affair with Margot, but I did know, and I
told him the first man I slept with would be my husband. He said he was willing
to give up Margot, but even if he did he couldn’t marry me on account of Mrs.
Jerome, because she would stop backing him with her money. I don’t know what he
was to Mrs. Jerome, but I know what she was to him.”

Her
hands opened and closed again to be fists. “That went on and on, but Kurt had a
feeling for me too. Last night late, it was after midnight, he phoned me that
he had broken with Margot for good and he wanted to marry me. He wanted to come
and see me, but I told him I was in bed and we would see each other in the
morning. He said that would be at the studio with other people there, so
finally I said I would go to his apartment for breakfast, and I did, this
morning. But I am still a virgin, Mr. Wolfe.”

He was
focused on her with half-closed eyes. “That is your privilege, madam.”

“Oh,” she
said. “Is it a privilege? It was there, at breakfast, that he told me about
you, your arranging to be Santa Claus. When I got to the studio I was surprised
to see Margot there, and how friendly she was. That was part of her plan, to be
friendly and cheerful with everyone. She has told the police that Kurt was
going to marry her, that they decided last night to get married next week.
Christmas week. I am a Christian.”

Wolfe
stirred in his chair. “Have we reached the point? Did Miss Dickey kill Mr. Bottweill?”

“Yes.
Of course she did.”

“Have
you told the police that?”

“Yes.
I didn’t tell them all I have told you. but enough.”

“With
evidence?”

“
No. I have no
evidence.”

“Then
you’re vulnerable to an action for slander.”

She
opened her fists and turned her palms up. “Does that matter? When I know I’m
right? When I
know
it? But she was so clever, the way she did it, that there
can’t be any evidence. Everybody there today knew about the poison, and they
all had a chance to put it in the bottle. They can never prove she did it. They
can’t even prove she is lying when she says Kurt was going to marry her,
because he is dead. She acted today the way she would have acted if that had
been true. But it has got to be proved somehow. There has got to be evidence to
prove it.”

“And
you want me to get it?”

She
let that pass. “What I was thinking, Mr. Wolfe, you are vulnerable too. There
will always be the danger that the police will find out who Santa Claus was,
and if they find it was you and you didn’t tell them—”

“I
haven’t conceded that,” Wolfe snapped.

“Then
we’ll just say there will always be the danger that I’ll tell them what Kurt
told me, and you did concede that that would be unpleasant. So it would be
better if the evidence proved who killed Kurt and also proved who Santa Claus
was. Wouldn’t it?”

“Go on.”

“So I
thought how easy it would be for you to get the evidence. You have men who do
things for you, who would do anything for you, and one of them can say that you
asked him to go there and be Santa Claus, and he did. Of course it couldn’t be
Mr. Goodwin, since he was at the party, and it would have to be a man they
couldn’t prove was somewhere else. He can say that while he was in the dressing
room putting on the costume he heard someone in the office and peeked out to
see who it was, and he saw Margot Dickey get the bottle from the desk drawer
and put something in it and put the bottle back in the drawer, and go out. That
must have been when she did it, because Kurt always took a drink of Pernod when
he came back from lunch.”

Wolfe
was rubbing his lip with a fingertip. “I see,” he muttered.

She
wasn’t through. “He can say,” she went on, “that he ran away because he was
frightened and wanted to tell you about it: first. I don’t think they would do
anything to him if he went to them tomorrow morning and told them all about it,
would they? Just like me. I don’t think they would do anything to me if I went
to them tomorrow morning and told them I had remembered that Kurt told me that
you were going to be Santa Claus, and this afternoon he told me you were in the
dressing room putting on the costume. That would be the same kind of thing,
wouldn’t it?”

Her
little carved mouth thinned and widened with a smile. “That’s what I want,” she
chirped. “Did I say it so you understand it?”

“You
did indeed,” Wolfe assured her. “You put it admirably.”

“Would
it be better, instead of him going to tell them, for you to have Inspector
Cramer come here, and you tell him? You could have the man here. You see, I
know how you do things, from all I have read.”

“That
might be better,” he allowed. His tone was dry but not hostile. I could see a
muscle twitching beneath his right ear, but she couldn’t. “I suppose, Miss
Quon, it is futile to advance the possibility that one of the others killed
him, and if so it would be a pity—”