Death Times Three SSC Page 14

  She put fingers on his arm. "You gave him five minutes, Alec, and he has had only two." Her voice was

  smooth and sure. The black eyes came to me. "So you don't know the purpose of Mr. Wolfe's inquiry?"

  "No, Miss Prince, I don't. He tells me only what he thinks I need to know."

  "Nor who hired him to make it?"

  So Drew had covered the ground. "Not that either. He'll probably tell you, if you have what he wants, letters from her, and you want to know why he wants to see them."

  "I have no letters from her. I never had any. I had no personal relations with Miss Yare." Her voice sharpened a little. "Though I saw her many times, my contact with her was never close. Mr. Gallant preferred to fit her himself. I just looked on. It seems--" She stopped for a word, and found it. "It seems odd that Nero Wolfe should be starting an inquiry immediately after her death. Or did he start it before?"

  "I couldn't say. The first I knew, he gave me this errand this morning. This noon."

  "You don't know much, do you?"

  "No. I just take orders."

  "Of course you do know that Miss Yare committed suicide?"

  I didn't get an answer in. Gallant, hitting the table with a palm, suddenly shouted at her. "Name of God! Must you? Send him away!"

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Gallant," I told him. "I guess my time's up. If you'll tell me where to find your sister and Miss Thorne, that will--"

  I stopped because his hand had darted to an ash tray, a big metal one that looked heavy, and since he wasn't smoking, he was presumably going to let fly with it. Anita Prince beat him to it. With her left hand she got his wrist, and with her right she got the ash

  tray and moved it out of reach. It was very quick and deft.

  Then she spoke, to me. "Miss Gallant is not here. Miss Thorne is busy, but you can ask Mr. Drew downstairs. You had better go."

  I went. In more favorable circumstances I might have spared another five minutes for a survey of the pinups, but not then, not if I had to dodge ash trays. So I went.

  That is, I started. But when I was near enough to the door to start a hand out for the knob, it suddenly swung in at me, and I had to jump back to give it room, and there was Flora Gallant.

  Turning to close the door, she saw me and stopped, right against me. She backed up, then whirled to face the table.

  Anita Prince spoke. "You know Mr. Goodwin, don't you? Your alibi?"

  Flora didn't answer. Gallant had left his chair and was coming around the end of the table to her, and she extended her hands and he took them.

  "My dear," he said. "My dear sister. Was it bad?" "It's all right," she said. "It was so long." I "Who was it? The one that croaks like a frog?" "No, not him. There were two of them, one named Brill and one named Bowen. It was so long."

  It would be, I thought, with the district attorney himself taking a hand.

  "More than three hours," she said. "Most of the time it wasn't about me; it was about you and the others. I suppose because I have an alibi." Her head turned. "Yes, Anita, I know Mr. Goodwin--as you say, my alibi. Carl told me he was here asking questions."

  Flora turned to me. "Well--hello."

  I returned it. "Hello. If you've been answering questions for three hours, I guess you've had enough for a while, so I'll just ask--"

  She cut me off. "Not here." She moved. "I don't mind you asking me questions." She was touching my arm. "But tete-a-tete." She turned to her brother. "It wasn't too bad, Alec. I'll tell you later." She stepped into the hall, and I followed, pulling the door shut.

  "My room is so small," she said, "that you can't stretch your legs." She touched my arm again. "I know. You ought to see it, anyway. I'm sure you're a better detective than any of them. Come along."

  Leading me along the hall toward the front, on past the elevator, nearly to the end, she opened a door, stood aside for me to enter, and followed me in.

  "This was her room," she said. "When you're through asking me questions, you can go over it and maybe you can detect something. Maybe you'll find something they missed."

  I glanced around. There were coats, suits, dresses, all kinds. They were on dummies scattered around--on hangers strung on a pole along a wall and piled on a big long table. Half of one wall was a mirror from floor to ceiling. At the far side of the room was a desk, with a pad and pen stand and calendar and other objects on its top, including a telephone--the one, presumably, that Wolfe and I had heard hit the floor.

  Flora crossed to the desk and sat down on a chair near an end of it. "You sit in her chair," she invited me.

  "It's hardly worth taking the trouble to sit," I told her. "However," I turned Bianca Voss' chair around and sat. "Only a question or two--one really. Apparently Carl Drew told you what it is."

  "He said you wanted to know if we have any letters from Sarah Yare, and Nero Wolfe wants to see them. I haven't any."

  "Then that answers it. It doesn't make much of a tete-a-tete, does it?"

  "No."

  "I get the impression that everybody around here was pretty fond of Sarah Yare. Were you?"

  "Yes."

  "I suppose you first met her before she--when she had the world by the tail."

  "Yes."

  I looked at her. Her face had full light on it from a window, and her chin was more pointed than ever, her eye rims were red, and her lips were too tight. That was nothing remarkable; after all, not only had she just returned from three hours of nagging by Brill and Bowen about a murder--murder of a woman as she occupied the chair I was sitting in--but also someone she had been fond of had just died in a very unpleasant manner. But there was something about her--I guess her eyes--that made me feel that if I went after her I would get something. The trouble was, I would be exceeding instructions, and I still didn't know what Wolfe had been doing with the phone book.

  So I merely said, "Well, I guess that covers it." "Archie," she said.

  "Yes, Finger?"

  "You kissed me good night when you put me in the taxi."

  "So I did. It's nice of you to remember."

  "Would you kiss me now?"

  It was a little complicated. When Wolfe is investigating a murder case for a client, and I am helping, I do not go around kissing the suspects. But we had no client, and I was working on Sarah Yare, not Bianca Voss.

  Besides, if I declined, she would think I had decided there was something repellent about her, and I hadn't decided a thing about her or anyone else. So I arose. So did she, which was sensible. One on his feet and one in a chair is no way to kiss.

  She drew away. "Then you still like me."

  "I think I do. I could tell better after a few more." "Then I can ask you. I couldn't ask if you were not if you were my enemy. Now I can. Why are you asking all of us about Sarah Yare?"

  "Because Mr. Wolfe told me to."

  "Why did he tell you to?"

  "I don't know."

  "Or course you know. He tells you everything. Why?"

  I shook my head. "No good, Finger. Either I don't know or I do know but am not saying. What's the difference? It happens that I really don't know, but it doesn't matter whether you believe that or not."

  "I don't. You're lying to me. You are my enemy. You told Carl Drew that someone engaged Mr. Wolfe to make an inquiry. Who engaged him?"

  "I don't know."

  "Of course you know. Was it Carl Drew?"

  "Don't know."

  "Was it Emmy Thorne?"

  "Don't know."

  "Was it Anita Prince?"

  "Don't know."

  She grabbed my arms. I wouldn't have thought her little hands had so much muscle. Her face was right under mine, tilted up to me. "I have to know, Archie. There's a reason why I must know. What can I do? What can I do to make you tell me?"

  Instructions or no instructions, that was too much. I

  would find out what was biting her. "I can't tell you what I don't know," I said, "but maybe I can help. Sit down and calm down and we'll see. It's quite possible--"<
br />
  The door opened. I was facing it. Flora let go of my arms and turned. A voice which I had myself frequently heard croak more or less like a frog sounded. "Huh? You?" --

  It was my old friend and foe, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, of Homicide. In two steps he stopped and was glaring. Behind one of his shoulders appeared the saggy cheeks and puffy eyes of Carl Drew. Behind the other appeared an attractive display of hair about the color of white gold, a nice smooth brow, a pair of blue eyes not at all puffed, and a nose that went with them fine. The rest of her was shielded by Purley Stebbins' broad frame.

  Purley took another step, and another. He probably thought a slow and measured advance would be more impressive and menacing, and, as a matter of fact, it was, or would have been if I hadn't seen it before.

  "Greetings," I said.

  "The scene of a murder," he said, "and you." He came to a stop an arm's length from me.

  I grinned at him. "This time," I said, "you're in for a disappointment. I haven't got the answer ready for you because I'm not interested. Sorry, but my mind is elsewhere. Actually I'm just on a fishing trip." My eyes went to Carl Drew, who had approached on the left. "If that's Miss Thorne, would you mind introducing me, Mr. Drew?"

  "That's me," she said. "No introduction required.

  You're Archie Goodwin." Now that all of her was in view, I could see that the mouth and chin were no letdown from the other details.

  "Fishing," Purley croaked. "For what?"

  "Fish." I put one brow up. He thinks I do that because I know he can't, but my motives are my business. "Listen, sergeant. Don't let's start ring-around-a-rosy and end in a squat. If you demand to know why I'm poking my nose in a murder, you know darned well what you'll get, so what's the use? Even if I told you what I'm here for--and I'm not going to--you wouldn't have the faintest idea if or how it's connected with what you're here for. Neither have I. Anyhow, I'm about finished and I've had no lunch. All I want is a few words in private with Miss Thorne. . . . If you will be so good, Miss Thorne?"

  "Certainly," she said. "My room is down the hall." "Just a minute," Stebbins growled. "Maybe you'd like a ride downtown." To me.

  "I've already been downtown. I spent two hours at the D.A.'s office this morning."

  "Did you tell them you were coming here?"

  "I didn't know I was coming here. I went home, and Mr. Wolfe sent me on an errand."

  "And I find you here. And you're obstructing justice and withholding evidence, as usual."

  "Nuts. What evidence?"

  "I don't know, but I'll find out. I'm not going to waste time horsing around with you." He moved. "Miss Gallant, what has this guy been saying to you?"

  That would not do. Wolfe hadn't told me he wanted to keep his conjecture to himself, but I took it for granted that he did, since he hadn't even told me, and he certainly wouldn't want Purley Stebbins sticking his

  big thumb in, not to mention Cramer and the rest of the Homicide gang. And if Flora didn't spill it, one of the others probably would.

  Action was called for. I stepped in front of Purley and told Flora, "Come on, I want to tell your brother something I want you to hear. Come along." She took half a second for a glance at Purley, then left her chair, and I took her arm. As we headed for the door I told Carl Drew and Emmy Thorne, "You too. I want you all to hear. Come along.

  They came. Going down the hall they were right behind Flora and me, and on their heels was Stebbins. On past the elevator. At Gallant's room I turned the knob and swung the door wide, and stood on the sill to say my piece.

  "Sorry to interrupt you again, Mr. Gallant, but Sergeant Stebbins is trying to exceed his authority, as usual. He wants me to tell him what I came to see you people about, and I won't, and he thinks he's going to squeeze it out of you. Of course you can tell him if you want to, but there's no reason why you should, and if you ask me, I wouldn't. Sometimes the police are entirely too inquisitive. They mean well, but so did the boy who aimed a rock at a rabbit and hit his sister."

  Flora slid past me to enter the room. Carl Drew wanted in, too, and I moved aside for him, and Stebbins followed him, glaring at me as he passed. I felt a touch on my elbow and turned.

  "That was quite a speech," Emmy Thorne said. "I would have clapped if I had known you were through."

  "Glad you liked it. Absolutely unrehearsed. No script."

  "Wonderful. If you want some words in private, my room is at the end of the hall. This way."

  Conclusion

  Her room was about half the size of the two others I had seen, and there was no display of either women or clothes. A table had piles of magazines and portfolios, and there was only one chair besides the one at her desk. I stood until she was seated and then pulled the other chair up.

  "Flora says you dance well," she said.

  "Good for her. I can chin myself twenty times too."

  "I've never tried that." Her left eye had more blue in it than the right one, or maybe it was the light. "What is this nonsense about letters from Sarah Yare?"

  "You know," I said, "my tie must be crooked or I've got a grease spot. Mr. Drew resented me, and Mr. Gallant was going to throw an ash tray at me. Now you start in. Why is it nonsense to ask a simple question politely and respectfully?"

  "Well," she conceded, "maybe. 'nonsense' isn't exactly the word. Maybe 'gall' would be better. What right have you to march in here and ask questions at all? Polite or not."

  "None. It's not a right, it's a liberty. And you're at liberty to tell me to go climb a tree if you find the question ticklish. Have you any letters from Sarah Yare?"

  She laughed. She had good teeth. Then, abruptly, she cut the laugh off. "Good Lord," she said, "I didn't think I would ever laugh again. This awful business, what happened here yesterday, and then Sarah. No, I have no letters from her." Her blue eyes, straight at me, were cool and keen. "Why should I find the question ticklish?"

  "No reason that I know of. You said I had gall to ask

  it."

  "If it hurt your feelings I take it back. What else?"

  Again I had to resist temptation. With Drew the temptation had been purely professional; with her it was only partly professional and only partly pure. Cramer had said she was in charge of contacts, and one more might be good for her.

  Having resisted, I shook my head. "Nothing else, unless you know of something. For instance, if you know of anyone who might have letters."

  "I don't." She regarded me. "Of course I'm curious. I'm wondering what it's about--your coming here. You told Mr. Drew that you don't know, that you don't even know who hired Nero Wolfe to inquire about her."

  "That's right. I don't."

  "Then you can't tell me. I can't turn on the charm and coax it out of you. Can I?"

  "I'm afraid not." I stood up. "Too bad. I would enjoy seeing you try. You're probably pretty good at it."

  In the hall, on my way to the elevator, I stopped at Gallant's door and cocked an ear. I heard a rumble (that was Purley); and a soprano murmur (that was Anita Prince); and a bellicose baritone (that was Gallant). But the door was too thick for me to get the words.

  Emerging from the building, I turned left, found a phone booth on Madison Avenue, dialed the number I knew best, got Fritz and asked for Wolfe.

  His voice came, "Yes, Archie?"

  "It's full of fish. Swarming. Sarah Yare bought her clothes there for two years and they all loved her. Apparently she never wrote letters. They all want to know who hired you and why, especially Flora Gallant. I've had no lunch and I'm half starved, but I stopped to phone because there may be some urgency. Stebbins walked in on me, and of course he wanted to know what I was doing there."

  "You didn't tell him?"

  "Certainly not. When he said he would get it out of them, I got them all together and made a speech--you know, a man's brain is his castle. But one of them might spill it any minute, and I thought you ought to know right away, in case that would mess up your program, if you've really got one."
<
br />   "It won't. Not if I get on with it. I have further instructions for you. You will go--"

  "No, sir. I can kid my stomach along with a sandwich and a glass of milk, but no more errands until I get some idea of where we're headed for. Do you want to tell me on the phone?"

  "No. But very well. It is not exigent, and Fritz is keeping your lunch warm. Come home."

  "Right. Fifteen minutes."

  I hung up and went out and flagged a taxi.