Three For The Chair (19 page)

'Very well put. Satisfactory. Do you think it possible, ladies and gentlemen, that it was through coincidence that the five men whose wires Donahue wanted tapped were all members of that committee?'

They didn't think so.

'Neither do I. Surely it invites inquiry. Miss Bonner, how many competent operatives, not counting Miss Colt, are immediately available to you?'

She was startled. 'Why& you mean now'Tonight?'

'Tonight or in the morning. What time is it, Archie?'

'Quarter past eleven.'

'Then the morning will have to do. How many?'

She considered, rubbing her lip with a fingertip. I admit there was nothing wrong with her lips and she had good hands. 'On my payroll,' she said, 'one woman and two men. Besides them, four women and three men whom I use occasionally.'

'That makes ten. Mr. Ide?'

'What's this for?' Ide wanted to know.

'I'll explain. Now just how many.'

'It depends on your definition of 'competent.' I have twelve good men on my staff. Eight or ten others might be available.'

'Say twenty. That makes thirty. Mr. Kerr?'

'Call it nine. For an emergency I could scare up maybe five more, maybe six.'

'Fifteen. That makes forty-five. Mr. Amsel?'

'I pass.'

'None at all?'

'Well, I might. I've got no payroll and no staff. Wait till I hear the pitch, and I might.'

'Then forty-five.' Abruptly Wolfe got to his feet. 'Now, if you'll permit me, I must arrange my mind. It shouldn't take long. I beg you to stay, all of you, to hear a suggestion I want to offer. And you must be thirsty. For me, Archie, a bottle of beer.'

He moved his chair over near a window, turned it around, and sat, his back to the room.

They all took refills except Sally, who switched to coffee, and Ide, who declined with thanks. After phoning down the order I told them not to bother to keep their voices lowered, since nothing going on outside his head could disturb Wolfe when he was concentrating on the inside. They got up to stretch their legs, and Harland Ide went to Dol Bonner and asked her what her experience had been with women operatives, and Kerr and Amsel joined them and turned it into a general discussion. The drinks came and were distributed, and they went on exchanging views and opinions. You might have thought it was just a friendly gathering, and that nothing like a murder investigation, not to mention an official inquiry that might cost some of them their licenses, was anywhere near, unless you noticed their frequent glances at the back of Wolfe's chair. I gathered that with the men the consensus was that women were okay in their place, which I guess was the way cavemen felt about it, and all their male descendants. The question was, and still is, what's their place'I only hoped Wolfe wasn't getting any fleabite of a notion that Dol Bonner's place was in the old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street.

When he finally arose and started turning his chair around I glanced at my wrist. Eight minutes to midnight. It had taken him half an hour to arrange his mind. He moved the chair back to its former position, and sat, and the others followed suit.

'We could hear it tick,' Steve Amsel said.

Wolfe frowned at him. 'I beg your pardon?'

'In your pan. The knocker.'

'Oh. No doubt.' Wolfe was brusque. 'It's late, and we have work to do. I have reached a working hypothesis about the murder, and I want to describe it and suggest a collective effort. I intend to ask for full co-operation from all of you, and I expect to get it. I'll try to supply my share, though I have no organization to compare with Mr. Ide's and Mr. Kerr's. Archie, I must talk with Saul Panzer and it must be confidential. Can I do so from this room?'

'Good God no.' I could have kicked him, asking such a dumb question in front of our fellow members. 'Ten to one Groom would have it in ten minutes. And not from a booth in the hotel. You'll have to go out to one.'

'Can you find one at this hour?'

'Sure. This is the City of Albany.'

'Then please do so, and get him. Tell him I'll call him at eight in the morning at his home. If he has other commitments ask him to cancel them. I need him.'

'Right. As soon as we're through here.'

'No. Now. If you please.'

I could have kicked him again, but I couldn't start beefing in front of company. I went and got my hat and coat and beat it.

IF YOU'RE NO MORE interested than I was in how I spent the next day, Tuesday, you'll be bored stiff for the next four minutes.

There were happenings, but no developments that I was aware of. First about Monday night and Saul Panzer. Saul is the best there is and I would match him against all of the forty-five operatives our confreres had, all of them put together, but he ought to get home earlier and get to bed. I found a booth easy enough in a bar-and-grill, called the number, and got no answer. Going back to join the conference, and trying again later, was out. When Wolfe sends me on an errand he wants it done, and for that matter so do I. I waited five minutes and tried again, and then ten minutes and another try. That went on forever, and it was a quarter past one when I finally got him. He said he had been out on a tailing job for Bascom, and he was going to resume it at noon tomorrow. I said he wasn't, unless he wanted Wolfe and me indicted for murder and probably convicted, and told him to stand by for a call at eight in the morning. I gave him the highlights of the jolly day we had had, told him good night, returned to the hotel and up to room 902, and found Wolfe in bed sound asleep, in the bed nearest the window, with the window wide open and the room as cold as yesterday's corpse. From the open door to the bathroom I got enough light to undress by.

When I sleep I sleep, but even so I wouldn't have thought it possible that an animal of his size could turn out, get erect, and move around dressing and so on, without rousing me. In the cold, too. I would have liked to watch him at it. What got to me was the click as he turned the door knob. I opened my eyes, bounced up, and demanded, 'Hey, where you going?'

He turned on the threshold. 'To phone Saul.'

'What time is it?'

'By the watch on your wrist, twenty past seven.'

'You said eight o'clock!'

'I'll get something to eat first. Finish your rest. There's nothing to do, after I speak to Saul.' He pulled the door shut and was gone. I turned over, worried a while about how he would squeeze into a booth, and went back to sleep.

Not as deep as before, though. At the sound of his key in the lock I was wide awake. I looked at my wrist: 8:35. He entered and closed the door, took off his hat and coat, and put them in the closet. I asked if he had got Saul, and he said yes and it was satisfactory. I asked how it had gone last night, had our fellow members agreed to co-operate, and he said yes and it was satisfactory. I asked what the program was for us, and he said there wasn't any. I asked him if that was satisfactory too, and he said yes. During this conversation he was removing duds. He stripped, with no visible reaction to the deep freeze, put on his pajamas, got into bed and under the blankets, and turned his back on me.

It seemed to be my turn, I was wide awake, it was going on nine o'clock, and I was hungry. I rolled out, went to the bathroom and washed and shaved, got dressed, having a little trouble buttoning my shirt on account of shivering, went down to the lobby and bought a Times and a Gazette, proceeded to the dining room and ordered orange juice, griddle cakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, and coffee. Eventually wearing out my welcome there, I transferred to the lobby and finished with the papers. There was nothing in them about the murder of William A. Donahue that I didn't already know, except a few dozen useless details such as the medical examiner's opinion that he had died somewhere between two and five hours before he got to him. It was the first time the Gazette had ever run pictures of Wolfe and me as jailbirds. The one of me was fair, but Wolfe's was terrible. There was one of Albert Hyatt, very good, and one of Donahue, which had evidently been taken after the scientists smoothed his face out. I went out for some air, turning up my overcoat collar against the wind, which was nearly as cold as room 902, and found that it was more fun to take a walk when you were out on bail. You want to go on and on and just keep going. It was after eleven o'clock when I got back to the hotel, took the elevator up to the ninth floor, and let myself into the deep freeze.

Wolfe was still in bed, and didn't stir when I entered. I stood and gazed at him, not tenderly. I was still considering the situation when there was a knock on the door behind me, a good loud one. I turned and opened it, and an oversized specimen was coming in, going to walk right over me. I needed something like that. I stiff-armed him good, and he tottered back and nearly went down.

'I'm a police officer,' he barked.

'Then say so. Even if you are, I'm not a rug. What do you want?'

'Are you Archie Goodwin?'

'Yes.'

'You're wanted at the district attorney's office. You and Nero Wolfe. I'm here to take you.'

The correct thing to do would have been to tell him we'd consider it and let him know, and shut the door on him, but I was sorer at Wolfe than I was at him. There had been no good reason for sending me out to phone Saul until the conference had ended. It had been absolutely childish, when he returned from talking with Saul, for him to go back to bed without giving me any idea what was cooking. I had offered to split the blame fifty-fifty, but no, I was the goat and he was the lion. So I moved aside for the law to enter, and turned to see Wolfe's eyes open, glaring at us.

'That's Mr. Wolfe,' I told the baboon.

'Get up and dress,' he commanded. 'I'm taking you to the district attorney's office for questioning.'

'Nonsense.' Wolfe's voice was colder than the air. 'I have given Mr. Hyatt and Mr. Groom all the information I possess. If the district attorney wishes to come to see me in an hour or so I may admit him. Tell Mr. Groom he's an ass. He shouldn't have arrested me. Now he has no threat to coerce me with, short of charging me with murder or getting my bail canceled, and the one would be harebrained and the other quite difficult. Get out of here! No. Ha! No indeed. Archie, how did this man get in here?'

'Walked. He knocked, and I opened the door.'

'I see. You, who can be, and usually are, a veritable Horatius. I see.' His eyes moved. 'You, sir. Were you sent for me only or both of us?'

'Both of you.'

'Good. Take Mr. Goodwin. You could take me only by force, and I'm too heavy to lift. The district attorney can phone me later for an appointment, but I doubt if he'll get it.'

The baboon hesitated, opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again to tell me to come on. I went. Wolfe probably thought he had landed a kidney punch, but he hadn't. Since I was being kept off the program, kidding with a DA was as good a way to pass the time as any.

Another way of passing some time that had occurred to me was to offer to buy Sally Colt a lunch, but it was after two o'clock when the DA finally decided I was hopeless. I went to a drugstore and called Wolfe, told him the DA was hopeless, asked if he had any instructions, and was told no. I called Sally Colt and asked if she felt like taking in a movie, and she said she would love to but was busy and couldn't. She was busy. Fine. I did hope she would find some way of saving me from the electric chair. I started for the fountain counter for a sandwich and milk, remembered that this trip would go on the expense account, went and found the restaurant that Stanley Rogers had recommended, and ordered and consumed six dollars' worth of food, getting a receipt. The waiter told me where I could find a pool hall, and I walked to it, phoned to tell Wolfe where I was, sat and watched a while, got propositioned by a hustler, took him on at straight pool, and avoided getting cleaned only by refusing to boost the bets to the levels he suggested. He finally decided I was a piker and dropped me. By then it was going on seven o'clock, dinner time coming, but I had no intention of imposing myself on the occupant of room 902, so I mounted a stool to watch a pair of three-cushion sharks. They weren't Hoppes, but they were good. While one of them was lifting his cue for a masse, the cashier called to me that I was wanted on the phone. I took my time going. Let him wait.

'Hello.'

'Hello, Mr. Goodwin?'

'Speaking.'

'This is Sally Colt. I hated to say no to your invitation, I really did, but I had to. I don't suppose you feel like making it a dinner instead of a movie?'

I took time out for control. Only one person could have told her where I was. But it wasn't her fault. 'Sure,' I told her. 'I eat every day. When?'

'Any time now. At the hotel?'

'No, there's a better place, just two blocks away. Henninger's. Shall we meet there in fifteen minutes?'

'It's a deal. Henninger's?'

'That's right.'

'I'll be there. I'll tell Mr. Wolfe where we'll be in case he needs us.'

'I'll phone him.'

'No, I'll tell him, he's right here.'

As I went for my coat and hat my feelings were too mixed to sort out. Cold rage. It was okay to make allowances for a genius, but this was too much. Curiosity. What the hell was he doing with her'Relief. At least he was up and dressed, unless his attitude toward women had done a complete somersault. Cheerfulness. Under almost any circumstances it's a pleasure to have a date with a good-looking girl. Expectation. Somewhere along the line she might see fit to tell me what my employer was up to.

She didn't. It was a very enjoyable meal, and before it was over I had decided that I would have to concede an exception to my verdict on she-dicks, but not a word about current affairs, and of course I wouldn't ask her. Wolfe had told her to lay off. I can't document that, but we got quite sociable by the time dessert and coffee came, and when a damsel smiles at me a certain way but steers clear of the subject she knows damn well is on top of my mind, she has been corrupted by someone. We were finishing our coffee and considering whether to move to a place down the street where there was a dance floor when the waiter came and told me I was wanted on the phone. I went.

'Hello.'

'Archie?'

'Yeah.'

'Is Miss Colt with you?'

'Yeah.'

'Come to the room, and bring her.'

'Yeah.'

I returned to the table, told her we were wanted, got the check and paid it, and we left. The sidewalk was icy in spots and she took my arm, which seemed a little sissy for a working detective, but at least she didn't tug. At the hotel, when we got out at the ninth floor she went to her room, 917, to leave her things, and I waited in the hall for her. I had been told to bring her, and since that had been my only assignment for the day I wanted to carry it out properly. She rejoined me, we proceeded to 902, I opened the door with my key, and we entered.

The room was full of people.

'Well!' I said heartily, for I wasn't going to let my bitterness show in public. 'Another party, huh?'

Wolfe was in the armchair toward the far wall. The writing table had been moved and was next to him, with papers on it. Dol Bonner was seated across the table from him. She was smirking. If you think I'm being unfair, that she wasn't really smirking but was merely showing no signs of misery, you're absolutely right. Wolfe nodded at me. 'You may as well leave the door open, Archie. Mr. Groom and Mr. Hyatt are expected momentarily.'