Death Times Three SSC Read online

  I spoke. "Easy does it, Finger. Take a breath. Going without your stole?"

  "Oh." She swallowed. "Where is it?" I got it for her. "In my opinion," I said, "you need a little chivalry. I'll come and get you in a taxi."

  She shook her head. "I'm all right."

  "You are not. You'll get run over."

  "No, I won't. Don't come. Just let me please."

  She meant it, so I stepped to the door and pulled it open, and she crossed the sill. I stood there and watched, thinking she might stumble going down the steps of the stoop, but she made it to the sidewalk and turned west toward Tenth Avenue. Evidently she wasn't completely paralyzed, since Tenth was one-way uptown.

  There are alternative explanations for the fact that I did not choose to return immediately to the office. One would be that I was afraid to face the music--not the way to put it, since the sounds that come from Wolfe when he is good and sore are not musical. The other would be that purely out of consideration for him I decided he would rather be alone for a while. I prefer the latter. Anyway, I made for the stairs, but I was only halfway up the first flight when his bellow came, "Archie! Come here!"

  I about-faced, descended, crossed the hall and stood on the threshold. "Yes, sir? I was going up to my room to see if I left the faucet dripping."

  "Let it drip. Sit down."

  I went to my chair and sat down. "Too bad," I said regretfully. "Three hundred dollars may be hay, but "Shut up."

  I lifted my shoulders half an inch and dropped them. He leaned back comfortably and eyed me.

  "I must compliment you," he said, "on the ingenuity of your stratagem. Getting me with you on the phone, so that I could corroborate your claim that both you and Miss Gallant were here in my office at the moment the murder was committed was well conceived and admirably executed. But I fear it was more impetuous than prudent. You are probably in mortal jeopardy, and

  I confess I shall be seriously inconvenienced if I lose your services, even though you get only a long term in prison. So I would like to help, if I can. It will be obvious, even to a slower wit than Mr. Cramer's, that you and Miss Gallant arranged for the attack to occur on schedule, precisely at the moment that Miss Voss was speaking to me on the phone; and therefore, patently, that you were in collusion with the attacker. So our problem is not how to fend suspicion from you, but whether you can wriggle out of it, and if so how. No doubt you have considered it?"

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "And?"

  "I think it's hopeless. I'm in for it. Not a prison term; I'll get six thousand volts. I know it will inconvenience you, but it will inconvenience me too. I regret it very much because it has been a rare experience working for you." I uncrossed my legs. "Look. Naturally, you are boiling. I let her come here, yes. I--uh--persuaded you to see her, yes. If you're in a tantrum, O.K., go ahead and tantrum and get it over with."

  "I am not in a tantrum and 'tantrum' is not a verb."

  "Then I take it back. Apparently it's worse than a tantrum, since instead of ragging me, you burlesque it. Can't you just tell me what you think of me?"

  "No. It's not in my vocabulary. You realize what we are in for?"

  "Certainly. If it was murder, and evidently it was, Flora Gallant will tell them where she was and what happened. Then we will have visitors, and not only that, but if and when someone is nominated for it and put on trial, we will be star witnesses because we heard it happen. Not eyewitnesses, earwitnesses. We can time it right to the minute. You will sit for hours on a hard wooden bench in a courtroom, with no client and

  no fee in sight. I know how you feel and I don't blame you. Go ahead and tell me what you think of me." "You admit you are answerable?"

  "No. I was unlucky."

  "That doesn't absolve you. A man is as responsible for his luck as for his judgment. How long have you known that woman?"

  "Nineteen hours. She picked me up on Thirty-eighth Street at five o'clock yesterday afternoon." "Picked you up?"

  "Yes. I thought she was tailing Putz, but she said she was after me. That gave me a sense of well-being and stimulated my manhood. I took her to a bar and bought her a drink--she took vermouth--and it came out that it was you she was really after. Thinking there might be a fee in it, I took her to a place and fed her and danced with her. If it had led to a fee, that would have gone on my expense account, but now I don't suppose--"

  "No."

  "Very well. She didn't tell me the whole story, but enough so it seemed possible it was worth half an hour of your time, and I told her to come at eleven this morning."

  "How long were you out?"

  "Until midnight. Altogether, seven hours." "Did you take her home?"

  "No. She was against it. I put her in a taxi."

  "Did she phone you this morning before she came?"

  "No."

  "How did she come? In a cab?"

  "I don't know. Fritz may know; he let her in."

  "She probably did." His lips tightened. He released them. "Cabs and cars have thousands of accidents every day. Why couldn't hers have been one of them?" He

  came forward in the chair and rang for beer. "Confound it. It will save time and harassment if we have a report ready. You will type one. Your meeting with her yesterday, your conversation with her, and what occurred here today, including everything that was said. We will both sign it."

  "Not everything that was said last evening."

  "No, I suppose not. You said you got sentimental. What I sign I read, and I certainly wouldn't read that."

  I swiveled and pulled the typewriter around and got out paper and carbons. Reports, especially when they are to be signed statements, have to be in triplicate.

  That kept me busy the rest of the day, with an hour out for lunch and various interruptions, mostly phone calls, including one from Lon Cohen, of the Gazette, to ask for the low-down on the murder of Bianca Voss. I wondered why the cops had been so free and fast about Flora Gallant's call on Nero Wolfe, but that wasn't it: one of the Gazette's journalists had seen me at Colonna's with her, and Lon is one of a slew of people who have the idea that whenever I am seen anywhere near anybody who is anyhow connected with a death by violence, Nero Wolfe is looming. I told him our only interest in the Voss murder was not to get involved in it, which was no lie.

  Over the years I have reported hundreds of long conversations to Wolfe, verbatim, some after a week or more had passed, and that typing job was no strain on my memory, but I took my time because I had to be darned sure of it, since he was going to sign it. Also he was going to read it, and in his present mood he would be delighted to tell me that he had not said "prolonged,

  difficult, and extremely expensive." He had said "prolonged, laborious, and extremely expensive." And I would have to retype a whole page.

  So I took my time, and was on the last paragraph when he came down to the office from his afternoon session in the plant rooms, which is from four to six. When he had got settled at his desk I gave him the first five pages and he started reading. Back at the typewriter, I shot a glance at him now and then, and saw that his frown was merely normal. Finished, I took him the remainder, returned to my desk to arrange the carbons, and then got up to shake down my pants legs and stretch.

  He is a fast reader. When he got to the end he cleared his throat. "One thing. Did I say 'not necessarily guilty ones'? Didn't I say 'not always guilty ones'?"

  "No, sir. As you know, you like the word 'necessarily.' You like the way you say it. You may remember--"

  The doorbell rang. I went to the hall, flipped the switch of the stoop light, and took a look through the one-way glass panel of the front door. It wasn't necessary to go closer to recognize Inspector Cramer, of Homicide.

  II

  I stepped into the office and told Wolfe, "Him." He compressed his lips and took in air through his nose.

  "I see you've signed the statement," I said. "Shall I open the door a crack and slip it through to him and tell him that covers it and give him your reg
ards?"

  "No. A crack is open both ways. If he has a warrant for you, he could slip that through to you. Let him in."

  I wheeled, walked to the front door, swung it wide, and made it hearty, "Just the man we wanted to see, Inspector Cramer! Do come in."

  He was already in. By the time I had shut the door and turned around he had shed his hat and coat and dropped them on a chair, and by the time I had put the hat on the shelf where he knew darned well it belonged, and the coat on a hanger, and got to the office, he was already in the red leather chair and talking.

  tie . . and don't tell me you didn't know a crime had been committed or any of that tripe, and you had firsthand knowledge of it, both you and Goodwin, and do you come forward with it? No. You sit here at your desk and to hell with the law and the city of New York and your obligations as a citizen and a licensed private detective, and you "

  Wolfe had his eyes closed. I, back at my desk, had mine open. I always enjoy seeing Inspector Cramer worked up. He is big and brawny to start with, and then he seems to be expanding all over, and his round red face gets gradually redder, bringing out its contrast with his gray hair.

  When he stopped for breath, Wolfe opened his eyes.

  assure you,. Mr. Cramer, this is uncalled for. Mr. Goodwin has indeed been sitting here, but not idly. He has been fulfilling our obligations, his and mine, as citizens and licensed private detectives." He lifted sheets of paper. "This is a statement, signed by both of us. After you have read it, we'll answer questions if they're relevant."

  Cramer didn't move, and Wolfe wouldn't, so I arose and got the statement and took it to Cramer. He snatched it from me, no thanks, glared at Wolfe,

  glanced at the heading on the first page, glared at me as I sat, and started to read. First he skimmed through it, and then went back and really read it. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed. I passed the time taking in the changes of expression on Cramer's face. When he reached the end he turned back to one of the earlier pages for another look, and then aimed his sharp gray eyes at Wolfe.

  "So you had it ready," he said, not with gratitude. Wolfe opened his eyes and nodded. "I thought it would save time and trouble."

  "Yeah. You're always thoughtful. I admit it agrees pretty well with Flora Gallant's story, but why shouldn't it? Is she your client?"

  "Pfui. That statement makes it quite clear that I have no client."

  "It does if it's all here. Did you leave anything out?"

  "Yes. Much of Mr. Goodwin's conversation with Miss Gallant last evening. Nothing pertinent."

  "Well, we'll want to study it. Of course some details are vitally important--for instance, that it was exactly eleven-thirty-one when you heard the blow."

  Wolfe objected. "We heard no blow, identifiably. The statement does not say that we heard a blow."

  Cramer found the place on page 9 and consulted it. "O.K. You heard a groan and a crash and rustles. But there was a blow. She was hit in the back of the head with a chunk of marble, a paperweight, and then a scarf was tied around her throat to stop her breathing. You say here at eleven-thirty-one."

  I corrected him. "Not when we heard the groan. After that there were the other noises, then the connection went, and I said hello a few times, which was human but dumb. It was when I hung up that I looked at my watch and saw eleven-thirty-one. The groan had

  been maybe a minute earlier, say eleven-thirty. If a minute is important."

  "It isn't. But you didn't hear the blow?"

  "Not to recognize it as a blow, no."

  He went back to the statement, frowning at it, reading parts of some pages and just glancing at others. He looked up at Wolfe. "I know how good you are at arranging words. This implies that Flora Gallant was a complete stranger to you, that you had never had anything to do with her or her brother or any of the people at that place, but it doesn't say so in so many words. I'd like to know."

  "The implication is valid," Wolfe told him. "Except as related in that statement, I have never had any association with Miss Gallant or her brother or, to my knowledge, with any of their colleagues. Nor has Mr. Goodwin. . . . Archie?"

  "Right," I agreed.

  "I'll accept that for now." Cramer folded the statement and put it in his pocket. "Then you had never heard Bianca Voss' voice before and you couldn't recognize it on the phone?"

  "Of course not."

  "And you can't hear it now, since she's dead. So you can't swear it was her talking to you."

  "Obviously."

  "And that raises a point. If it was her talking to you, she was killed at exactly half past eleven. Now there are four important people in the organization who had it in for Bianca Voss. They have admitted it. Besides Flora Gallant, there is Anita Prince, fitter and designer, been with Gallant eight years; Emmy Thorne in charge of contacts and promotion, been with him four years; and Carl Drew, business manager, been with him five years. None of them killed Bianca Voss at half

  past eleven. From eleven-fifteen on, until the call came from Goodwin calling himself John H. Watson, Carl Drew was down on the main floor, constantly in view of four people, two of them customers. From eleven O'clock on, Anita Prince was on the top floor, the workshop, with Alec Gallant and two models and a dozen employees. At eleven-twenty Emmy Thorne called on a man by appointment at his office on Forty-sixth Street, and was with him and two other men until a quarter to twelve. And Flora Gallant was here with you. All airtight."

  "Very neat," Wolfe agreed.

  "Too damn neat. Of course there may be others who wanted Bianca Voss out of the way, but as it stands now, those four are out in front. And they're all--"

  "Why not five? Alec Gallant himself?"

  "All right, make it five. They're all in the clear, including him, if she was killed at eleven-thirty. So suppose she wasn't. Suppose she was killed earlier--half an hour or so earlier. Suppose when Flora Gallant phoned her from here and put you on to talk with her, it wasn't her at all, it was someone else imitating her voice, and she pulled that stunt, the groan and the other noises, to make you think you had heard the murder at that time."

  Wolfe's brows were up. "With the corpse there on the floor?"

  "Certainly."

  "Then you're not much better off. Who did the impersonation? Their alibis still hold for eleven-thirty."

  "I realize that. But there were nineteen women around there altogether, and a woman who wouldn't commit a murder might be willing to help cover up after someone else had committed it. You know that."

  Wolfe wasn't impressed. "It's very tricky, Mr.

  Cramer. If you are supposing Flora Gallant killed her, it was elaborately planned. It wasn't until late last evening that Miss Gallant persuaded Mr. Goodwin to make an appointment for her here for eleven this morning. Did she kill Miss Voss, station someone there beside the corpse to answer the phone, rush down here and maneuver me into ringing Miss Voss' number? It seems a little farfetched."

  "I didn't say it was Flora Gallant." Cramer hung on. "It could have been any of them. He or she didn't have to know she was going to come to see you and get you to ring that number. His plan might have been to ring it himself, before witnesses, to establish the time of the murder, and when your call came, whoever it was there by the phone got rattled and went ahead with the act. There are a dozen different ways it could have happened. Hell, I know it's tricky. I'm not asking you to work your brain on it. You must know why I brought it up"

  Wolfe nodded. "Yes, I think I do. You want me to consider what I heard--and Mr. Goodwin. You want to know if we are satisfied that those sounds were authentic. You want to know if we will concede that they might have been bogus."

  "That's it. Exactly."

  Wolfe rubbed his nose with a knuckle, closing his eyes. In a moment he opened them. "I'm afraid I can't help you, Mr. Cramer. If they were bogus, they were well executed. At the time, hearing them, I had no suspicion that it was flummery. Naturally, as soon as I learned that they served to fix the precise moment of a murder,
I knew they would be open to question, but I can't challenge them intrinsically. . . . Archie?"

  I shook my head. "I pass." To Cramer: "You've read

  the statement, so you know that right after I heard it my guess was that something hit her and she dragged the phone along as she went down and it struck the floor. I'm not going to go back on my guess now. As for our not hearing the blow, read the statement. It says that it started out as if it was going to be a scream, but then it was a groan. She might have seen the blow coming and was going to scream, but it landed and turned the scream into a groan, and in that case we wouldn't hear the blow. A chunk of marble hitting a skull wouldn't make much noise. As for supposing she was killed half an hour or so earlier, I phoned within three minutes, or John H. Watson did, and in another six or seven minutes Carl Drew was talking to me, so he must have seen the body, or someone did, not more than five minutes after we heard the groan. Was she twitching?"