Death Times Three SSC Page 18

  Those were the main aspects. After looking them over, along with a few minor ones, I got the address by finding Annis, Hattie, in the phone book, buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to tell Wolfe I was going out on an errand, went to the hall for my coat and hat, and left. With the snow coming down thicker and the wind swirling it around there would be no such thing as an empty taxi at that time of day, so I walked, twelve short blocks uptown and one long one across.

  It was a dump all right, like hundreds of others in that part of town. I stood across the street for a survey through the snow, blinking it from my lashes. I didn't care to bump into Sergeant Purley Stebbins or any of the others, but of course it wasn't likely that Homicide was around, since it was probably being handled as a routine hit-and-run. There was no police car in sight, and I crossed over and entered the vestibule. It had never been converted for multiple tenancy--only one mailbox, and one button, on the jamb. I pressed it and waited for a click, but none came. Instead, after half a minute, the door opened and a tall thin guy with a marvelous mane of wavy white hair was there, boring a hole through me with deep-set blue-gray eyes.

  "You a reporter?" he boomed. It almost blew me back out of the vestibule.

  "Not guilty," I told him. "I would like to see Miss Baxter. My name's Goodwin."

  "Do you recognize me?" he demanded.

  "No. I have a feeling that I would in a better light, but no."

  "Raymond Dell."

  "Sure. Of course. Certainly."

  He turned on his heel and strode down the dim and dingy hall. I entered and shut the door. He kept going, to a door at the end of the hall and on through, and, since he hadn't told me to wait, I followed. As I crossed the sill he was saying, "For you, Tammy. A Philistine. Goodman."

  It was the kitchen. Tammy Baxter and another girl, and two men, were seated at a big table with a linoleum top, dining or maybe teaing--sandwiches on paper plates and coffee in big white heavy cups. There was a fifth chair and the white-maned Raymond Dell was taking it and picking up what remained of a sandwich.

  "Hi," Tammy said. "Not Goodman, Ray. Goodwin. Archie Goodwin. I met him somewhere. A Philistine but not a barbarian. Martha Kirk, Mr. Goodwin. Raymond Dell. Noel Ferris. Paul Hannah. I don't ask what you want . . . because I may not have it. I hope it's not a sandwich?"

  It was neat. She had used only four words, "I met him somewhere," to tell me that she didn't want them to know of her call at Wolfe's office. I humored her. "No, thanks," I said. "It's not urgent. I'll wait somewhere till you finish if you'll tell me where."

  "You phoned," Noel Ferris said.

  He was looking at me. I met his lazy brown eyes. "I phoned?"

  He nodded, a lazy nod. "Around noon." His voice changed: "My name is Buster. I want to speak to Miss Annis. Then I'll speak to Miss Baxter, please." His voice changed back. "Will that pass?"

  It would indeed. On a tape recording my voice doesn't sound like me at all, but he had it to a T, and he had only heard me once on the phone. "Perfect," I said. "I wish I could do it. It's a gift."

  "That's nothing." He was bored. He was younger than me, but probably he had been born bored. "But your-name's Archie Goodwin. I seem to have heard it. Are you in the theatre?" He waved it away with a lazy hand. "It doesn't matter. Don't bother."

  I opened my mouth to bother, but closed it when Tammy Baxter pushed her chair back and got up. As she headed for the door I moved, but stopped when she said, "I'm just going for my lipstick. I'll be back." Paul Hannah was telling Noel Ferris, "Of course you've heard it." Hannah was still younger than Ferris. For a juvenile lead he would have to do something about his chubby cheeks. He was regarding me. "Aren't you the Archie Goodwin that works with Nero Wolfe?"

  "For him," I said.

  "A detective."

  "Right."

  "A snoop," Raymond Dell rumbled. "Worse than a Philistine. A monster."

  "That's not very polite," Martha Kirk said. She was an ornamental little number, not long out of high school, with a dimple in her chin. I no longer had any

  illusions about dimples. The most attractive and bestplaced ones I had ever seen were on the cheeks of a woman who had fed arsenic to three husbands in a row. "If Ray knew how to be polite," Noel Ferris drawled, "he would have had his name at the top of a marquee long ago." His eyes moved lazily to me. "Since you're a detective, maybe you can help us. As a service to the arts. We're having a conference, but it's a farce. Just a guessing match. We want to know what's going to happen to this castle of culture now that our Lady Bountiful has been slain."

  "By a fiend," Raymond Dell declared. "Worse than a monster!"

  "People who steal cars," Paul Hannah said, "and run them over people ought to have their hands and feet cut off."

  "How horrible," Martha Kirk said. She had a full rich contralto, enough for one twice her size. "That's brutal, Paul."

  "It's not polite," Noel Ferris drawled. "But you might agree if you had seen her, Martha darling. It was my luck to be here when they came to get someone to identify her. That was horrible. I would be for one hand and one foot, at least."

  Raymond Dell boomed at me, "Is that what you're snooping about?"

  "No," I said, "it's after hours. I only snoop from eight to four. I know about Miss Annis because it happened only three blocks from Nero Wolfe's place and the cop on the beat told me, but that's a police matter. I'm just a Philistine trying to rub up against culture."

  "So Tammy is culture," Noel Ferris said. "I don't deny that she--but here she is. Tammy, you're culture."

  "Sit down," Dell commanded me. "I'll explain why it's hopeless. Utterly hopeless."

  "Later, Ray." Tammy Baxter was in the doorway. "Maybe Rodgers and Hammerstein sent him to beg me to take a lead. If I like it I'll buy the house and have the plumbing fixed. Come on, Mr. Goodwin."

  She started down the hall and I followed. Toward the front she opened a door on the left, entered and flipped a light switch, and, when I was in, closed the door. It was the parlor, at least it had been the parlor fifty years back, and it was the same furniture. Dark red plush or velvet or whatever it was. An upright piano. The window blinds were down. I dropped my coat and hat on a sofa. She took hold of a chair to move it and found it was heavy, and I helped, and we sat. She didn't sit like an actress. Actresses sit with their knees together and to one side a little, and their feet drawn in, but she kept hers straight front and at a right angle, with her feet flat.

  She cocked her head. "I've been trying to guess what brought you. It would be flattering to think it's a social call, but no such luck. When you phoned you asked for Miss Annis first."

  "That Noel Ferris is a wonderful mimic," I said. "When I was a boy I could croak like a bullfrog, but I've lost it. I'm more than willing to make it social. If you can stand a drink on top of a sandwich Sardi's is only a six-minute walk."

  She shook her head. "I think not. You did ask for Miss Annis?"

  "Yes. The fact is, I'm under suspicion. I suspect myself of wanting to see you again, I have no idea why. I suspect my asking for Miss Annis was a trick. After I had spoken with her I would have an excuse to ask for you, and you wouldn't suspect what I was really after. Not a bad idea."

  "A grand idea. And now?"

  "Now I admit there's another element. You heard me say how I happened to hear-about Miss Annis, from the cop on the beat--no, you weren't there."

  "No. From the cop on the beat?"

  I nodded. "Right in the neighborhood, only three blocks away. And she had told you she was going to see Nero Wolfe. Have you told the police that?"

  "I haven't told them anything. They haven't asked me. I was out and wasn't here until nearly four o'clock. They had talked with Noel Ferris and Raymond Dell, and Noel had gone and identified the body. There's nothing I can tell them. It was just a moron or a maniac, or both, with a stolen car. Wasn't it?"

  "Evidently." I was looking relieved. "But there's still a chance they may check with everyone here, sometimes they're pret
ty thorough, and that's the other element. If the police learn that she had said she was going to see Nero Wolfe they'll pester him. It won't make any sense since she didn't see him, but they'll grab at the excuse to pester him, and anyhow they may think she did see him. He has been known to reserve facts. Since, as you say, it was just a moron or maniac with a stolen car, it won't help any for them to know she had said she was going to see Nero Wolfe, so there's no point in your mentioning it. Of course it's not vital, he's been pestered before, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to suggest it. And I still suspect myself. There's the possibility that I've merely cooked up an excuse to see you again."

  I admit it wasn't a very good line, but it was the best I had been able to come up with, and anyhow all I had wanted was an approach. It had already got me a look at the inmates. Also it would be interesting to get her reaction. I have mentioned the possibility that she had had the Hope diamond under her mattress, and while a stack of phoney lettuce isn't the same thing as the Hope diamond, far from it; it was still possible. How would she take it?

  I soon found out. "I would love to think," she said,

  "that you bothered to cook up an excuse. I wish I could, but I can't. Why don't you want the police to know that Miss Annis saw Nero Wolfe? What did she say that he doesn't want to tell?"

  My brows lifted. "You're mixing us up. I'm the detective. Trick questions like that are no good if you can't back them up. You know darned well she didn't see him."

  "But she did. What did she say? Was it before I was there or after?"

  I grinned at her. "Come on now, Miss Baxter. I was looking forward to calling you Tammy. Don't spoil it."

  "I wouldn't dream of spoiling it. I can back it up. You told Noel Ferris on the phone that your name was Buster. Hattie always called men Buster. Even Ray Dell. She had been there and she had called you Buster. It was in your mind and you said that to Noel without thinking. Had you ever before told anyone that your name was Buster?"

  At that point, naturally, my mind was occupied. If it hadn't been I might have heard the doorbell ring, and noticed it, and also heard and noticed steps in the hall. I might even have recognized a voice from out in the vestibule. But my mind was too busy.

  "You're doing it wrong," I said. "You should have sneaked up on me. You should have asked me casually why I told Ferris my name was Buster, and then it would have depended on how I answered. You might have got me in a hole. I doubt it,-but you might. Now it's no good because I've seen your hand. I say I've often told people my name is Buster because that's what my grandmother called me, and what do you say?"

  "I say I want to know why you told me this morning she hadn't been there."

  "Right. Then I say that if I lied to you this morning, which I am not conceding, I must have had a reason, and the reason must still hold or I wouldn't be dodging like this. Your turn."

  "What kind of a reason?" Her eyes, straight at me, weren't sociable at all.

  "Oh, nothing fancy. She had told me you were a Russian spy would do. Or that one of her roomers was stealing eggs and I thought it might be you."

  "I'd like to wring your neck!"

  "Wear gloves. They're working on a method to lift fingerprints from bare skin." I leaned toward her. "Look, Miss Baxter, I really meant it when I asked you to keep it to yourself that Miss Annis told you she was going to see Nero Wolfe. He hates to be pestered. But the way you're riding me, it looks to me as if something's biting you, and if so, maybe I can help and I'd be glad to. I've had a lot of experience with bites. Did Miss Annis tell you why she was going to Mr. Wolfe? Was it something that--"

  The door flew open and I turned my head and saw an object that didn't appeal to me at all. He stopped short and glared at me. "You? You again?"

  I stood up. "The same for me," I said. "You again. When the door of a room is closed you're supposed to knock. Miss Baxter, this is Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide. Miss Tammy Baxter. There should be a class on manners at the--"

  "What are you doing here?"-

  "Have a heart. What is a man usually doing when he's sitting in a parlor with a pretty girl? Pardon the expression, Miss Baxter, of course you're not merely a pretty girl, but I put it at the sergeant's level."

  "Are you telling me or not?"

  "Not. Not even if you say please. Shinny on your own side."

  "We'll see." His eyes moved. "Your name is Baxter?"

  "Yes. Tammy or Tamiris."

  "You live here?"

  "Yes."

  "How long have you lived here?"

  "Three weeks."

  "I'm an officer of the law and I'm here to ask some questions. Come with me, please. Goodwin, you wait here."

  Of course that was absurd. Since he was taking the pretty girl it would have been silly for me to stay there and twiddle my thumbs, and besides, I was twiddling my brain. Why was he there? What had sicced Homicide on it? So when she got up and went and he followed I tagged along, to the kitchen. The others were still at the table, except Paul Hannah, who was bringing the coffee pot from the range. Tammy joined them. There were more chairs at one side, and Stebbins got one and took it to the table. As I went and sat on one he barked at me, "I told you to wait in there!"

  "Yeah. I thought you might want to ask me something. If I'm in the way I can go home."

  "I'll deal with you later." He sat and got out his notebook and pencil, and ran his eyes over the audience. "This is just some routine questions," he told them. "As you know, the owner of this house, Hattie Annis, was hit by a car and killed at five minutes past eleven this morning. One of you identified the body."

  "I did," Noel Ferris said.

  "Okay. We've got the car. It had been stolen. We haven't got the driver yet, and we're making a routine check. I'll start with you, Miss--your name, please?"

  "Martha Kirk."

  He wrote. "K-I-R-K?" "Yes."

  "Occupation?"

  "Dancer."

  "Employed at present?"

  "No."

  "How long have you lived here?"

  "Nearly a year."

  "Where were you at eleven o'clock this morning?"

  "Wait a minute," Raymond Dell rumbled. "This is invasion of privacy. It's monstrous. Are we in Moscow? Look at that child, that coryphee in the bud! Do you dare to imply that she is a murderous fiend?"

  "I'm not implying anything. I said this is routine. I'm doing you folks a favor, coming here instead of sending for you. Miss Kirk?"

  "I was here. In my room, in bed."

  "At eleven o'clock?"

  "Yes."

  "Was anybody with you?"

  Paul Hannah let out a whoop. Noel Ferris drawled, "Now really." Stebbins blushed. "Routine," he said stiffly.

  "No, I was alone," Martha Kirk said. "I got up about eleven, a little after, and dressed and went out. I think this is exciting. I never gave an alibi before. I guess I'm not giving one now, because nobody was around."

  Stebbins was getting it down. He looked up. "Miss Baxter?"

  "You have my name," she said, "and that I've lived here three weeks. I'm going to be an actress if I can make it. Not employed at present. This morning I left here around ten o'clock to go shopping, and between then and noon I was in four or five different stores."

  I had her in profile and couldn't tell how well she handled her face when she was lying, but her tone was perfect. Purely matter-of-fact. That's not so easy when someone is present, disposition unknown, who can call you.

  Stebbins went to Ferris. "You, sir?"

  "Noel Ferris." He spelled it. "Actor out of work because if it's either television or starve, I'll starve. Lived here a year and a half. For two hours this morning, from ten-thirty on, I was calling at casting agencies."

  "How many?"

  "Four, I think, altogether."

  "Can you get corroboration for eleven o'clock?"

  "I doubt it. I doubt if I would try. This is so idiotic." "Maybe so." Stebbins turned a page of his notebook.

  "And you, sir?"
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  "Paul Hannah. Hannah with an h." He was standing back of Tammy's chair, with a cup of coffee. Standing up he looked even younger than sitting down. "I'm rehearsing in Do As Thou Wilt. It goes on at the Mushroom Theatre next month. That is, we hope it does."

  "How long have you lived here?"

  "Since September. Four months."

  "Where were you at eleven o'clock this morning?" "I was walking."

  "Where?"

  "From here to Bowie Street. To the Mushroom Theatre."