Death Times Three SSC Page 7

"Did you?"

  "Maybe--a little."

  "When was the other time?"

  "Nearly a year ago."

  "What did he want you to influence Philip to do?"

  "To--well, to settle down. To take an interest in the business. He knew that Philip was--had wanted to marry me. Of course, Philip isn't really my first cousin, since he was adopted. He isn't any relation at all, but I didn't want to marry him. I wasn't in love with him."

  "And your uncle tried to persuade you to marry him?"

  "Oh, no. He was dead against our marrying--I thought that was odd--but anyway he thought I had enough influence with Philip to reform him."

  "Had Philip, himself, abandoned the idea of marrying you?"

  "Well, he--he had quit trying."

  Leonard Cliff was scowling. "Look here," he blurted at her suddenly, "what does he look like?"

  "Philip?"

  "Yes?"

  "Why--he's tall. Tall and broad, with a bony face and deep-set eyes. He's cynical. I mean he looks cynical."

  Cliff hit the arm of his chair with his palm. "It was him! I saw him at police headquarters this morning. It was him!"

  "What if it was?" Wolfe demanded impatiently.

  "Because that's what I came to tell you about! He's the man I saw last night! The one in the raincoat!"

  "Indeed," Wolfe said. "The one who arrived at seven-forty? After Mr. Judd left?"

  "Yes!"

  "How sure are you?"

  "Damned sure. I was sure when I saw him there at headquarters, and I started to try to find out who he was, but they hustled me out. And now, from the description Amy gives--"

  Wolfe snapped at Amy, "Do you know where he lives?"

  She shook her head. "No, I don't. But, oh--I can't believe--you don't think--"

  "I haven't begun to think. First I have to get something to think about." He turned to me: "Archie, do you know of anyone we might hire to find Philip Tingley and bring--"

  That was all I heard. I was on my way out.

  This was the third man I had been sent for in less than twenty-four hours. The first one had been dead when I got to him. The second one had threatened to have me jailed. I intended to get this one.

  But first I had to find him, and that turned into a job. From the colored maid at Tingley's house I got the address easily enough, east of Second Avenue on 29th Street, but he wasn't there. It was a dump, a dingy, dirty, five-story walk-up. I pushed the button labeled "Philip Tingley," but got no answering click. The button's position showed that he was four flights up, and since the door was unlatched, I entered and climbed the dark and smelly stairs. There were no buttons on the inside doors, so at the fifth floor rear I knocked half a dozen times, but without result.

  I sat down at the top of the stairs and tried not to stew for nearly two hours.

  Up to five o'clock that was one of the most unsatisfactory afternoons I remember. The sensible thing would have been to get Fred Durkin, who works for Wolfe on occasion, and leave him on post while I explored, but I wanted to make the delivery without any help. After a dish of beans and a couple of glasses of milk at a joint on Second Avenue I tried again, with the same result. Inquiries of the janitor in the basement and some of the other tenants were a good language lesson, but that was all. At half past four I went out again and did some research from a phone booth and drew nothing but blanks. It was during that expedition that he flew back to the nest. When I returned, a little after five o'clock, and, just to be doing something, pressed the button in the vestibule, the click sounded immediately. I popped in and bounced up the four flights.

  The door to the rear flat was standing open and he was there on the sill when I reached his level. My first glance at him showed me not only that Amy's description had been accurate, but that I was an unwelcome surprise. He didn't like me at all.

  "What do you want?" he demanded as I appeared. I grinned at him. "You, brother. I've been around here wanting you for five hours."

  "Are you from the police?"

  "Nope. My name's Goodwin. I

  The ape was shutting the door. I got against it and slid inside.

  "Get out!" he snarled. "Get out of here!"

  "My goodness," I protested, "you haven't even asked me what I want! How do you know I'm not Santa Claus?" I kicked the door shut behind me. There was no hurry, since Wolfe wouldn't be available until six O'clock. "Let's go in and talk it over."

  I suppose I was careless but what he did was so unexpected that he had me before I knew it. Not only did he get his long, bony fingers around my throat, but the strength of his grip indicated that they weren't all bone. I grabbed his wrists, but that was no good; he had the leverage. I ducked and twisted, and broke his hold, but he pressed on in, clutching at me, scratching me on the cheek. I don't like to plug a guy who never learned what fists are for, but I don't like to be scratched, either, so I pushed him back with my left and hooked with my right. He staggered, but the wall kept him from going down.

  "Cut it out," I said curtly. "I don't want to --"

  He hauled off and kicked me! What with my throat hurting when I talked, and the scratch on my cheek, and now this, I hit him harder, the second time, than I intended to. He didn't topple over, he folded up. As if he had melted. Then he didn't move.

  I stooped over for a look at him, and then slid past for an inspection of the premises. The only way I could account for his violent lack of hospitality before he ever knew what I came for was that there was someone else there who wasn't supposed to be. But the place was empty. All there was of it was a bedroom and kitchen and bath. I gave them a glimpse, including the closet and under the bed, and went back to the tenant. He was still out.

  In view of his disinclination even to let me state my intentions, it didn't seem likely that I would get any kind of co-operation from him in my desire to escort him to Wolfe's house, so I decided to wrap him up. He was too big to do anything with in the narrow little hall, and I dragged him into the kitchen. With a length of old clothesline from a kitchen drawer and a roll of adhesive tape from the bathroom cabinet, I soon had him arranged so that he would at least listen to me without kicking and scratching. I was putting the third strip of tape crosswise on his mouth when a bell rang right behind me.

  I jerked up. The bell rang again.

  So that was it. Not that someone was there, but someone was expected. I found the button on the wall that released the door latch downstairs, pushed it several times, took a swift look at the job I had just completed, stepped out and closed the kitchen door, and opened the door to the public hall.

  I heard faint and hesitating footsteps from below on the un-carpeted stairs. Before a head appeared above the landing I had decided it was a woman; and it was. When she got to my level she stopped again, glanced the other way, and then saw me. She was a new one on me. Fifty or maybe a little more, slim and slick, in a mink coat.

  I said politely, "Good evening."

  She asked, with a sort of gasp, "Are you--Philip Tingley?"

  I nodded. "Don't you recognize me?"

  That seemed to hit some mark. "How would I recognize you?" she demanded sharply.

  "I don't know. From my statue in the park, maybe."

  I stood aside from her passage to the door. "Come in."

  She hesitated a second; then pulled her shoulders up as if bracing herself against peril and swept by me. I followed her in and motioned her to the living-bedroom and shut the door. All was dark before me, figuratively speaking, but anyway I could try some fancy groping and stumbling.

  I went up to her. "Let me take your coat. This isn't the sort of chair you're used to, but it'll have to do."

  She shuddered away from me and glanced nervously around. When she sat she let just enough of her come in contact with the shabby, soiled upholstery to call it sitting. Then she looked at me. I have never regarded myself as a feast for the eye, my attractions run more to the spiritual, but on the other hand I am not a toad, and I resented her expression.

/>   "It seems," I ventured, "that something about me falls short of expectations."

  She made a contemptuous noise. "I told you on the phone that there can be nothing sentimental about me and never has been."

  "Okay," I agreed. "I'm not sentimental, either."

  "I wouldn't expect you to be." If the breath of her voice had dribbled off the edge of a roof it would have made icicles. "It's not in you from either side. Neither from your father nor from me. My brother says you're a blackguard. He also says you're a coward and a bluffer, but considering where your blood came from, I don't believe that. I tell you frankly, I think my brother is making a mistake." She was biting the words off. "That's why I came. He thinks you'll take what he has offered, but I don't. I know I wouldn't, and half of you came from me."

  I was loping along behind trying to keep up. The best bet seemed to be that I was a blackguard, so I did as well as I could with a sneer. "He thinks I'm a coward, does he?" I emitted an ugly little laugh. "And he thinks I'll take his offer? I won't!"

  "What will you take?"

  "What I said! That's final!"

  "It is not final," she said sharply. "You're making a mistake, too. You're a fool if you think my brother will give you a million dollars."

  "He will, or else."

  "No. He won't." She moved on the chair, and I thought she was going to slide off, but she didn't. "All men are fools," she said bitterly. "I thought I had a cool head and knew how to take care of myself, but I was doomed to be ruined by men. When I was a pretty little thing in that factory--that finished me with men, I thought--but there are more ways than one. I don't deny that you have some right to--something; but what you demand is ridiculous. What my brother offers is also ridiculous, I admit that. If I had money of my own but I haven't. You're obdurate fools, both of you. He has never learned to compromise, and apparently you haven't, either. But you'll have to on this; you both will."

  I kept the sneer working. "He's a pigheaded blubber-lip." I asserted. "It takes two to compromise. How about him?"

  She opened her mouth and closed it again.

  "So," I said sarcastically. "It strikes me that you're not any too bright yourself. What good did you expect to do by coming here and reading me the riot act? Do you think I'm boob enough to say, okay, split the difference, and then you run back to him? Now, that would be smart, wouldn't it?"

  "It would at least make--"

  "No!" I stood up. "You want this settled. So do I. So does he, and I know it. All right, let's go see him together. Then you can tell both of us to compromise. Then we'll find out who's being ridiculous. Come on." She looked startled. "You mean now?"

  "I mean now."

  She balked. She had objections. I overruled them. I had the advantage, and I used it. When I put on my coat she just sat and chewed on her lip. Then she got up and came along.

  When we got downstairs and out to the sidewalk there was no car there but mine; apparently she had come in a cab. I doubted if Philip Tingley ought to own a car, so I snubbed it and we walked to the corner and flagged a taxi. She shoved clear into her corner and I returned the compliment, after hearing her give an address in the 70's just east of Fifth Avenue. During the ride she showed no desire for conversation.

  She allowed Philip to pay the fare, which seemed to me a little scrubby, under the circumstances. Before the massive ornamental door to the vestibule she stood aside, and I depressed the lever and pushed it open. The inner door swung open without any summons, and she passed through, with me on her heels. A man in uniform closed the door.

  She seemed to have shrunk, and she looked pale and peaked. She was scared stiff. She asked the man, "Is Mr. Judd upstairs?"

  "Yes, Miss Judd."

  She led me upstairs to a large room with a thousand books and a fireplace and exactly the kind of chairs I like. In one of them was a guy I didn't like. He turned his head at our entrance.

  Her voice came from a constricted throat: "Guthrie, I thought--"

  What stopped her was the blaze from his eyes. It was enough to stop anyone.

  I walked over and asked him, "Is Aiken around?"

  He ignored me. He spoke to his sister as if she had been a spot of grease: "Where did this man come from?"

  "It's a long story," I said, "but I'll make it short. She went to Philip Tingley's flat and I was there and she thought I was him." I waved a hand. "Mistaken identity."

  "She thought--" He was speechless. That alone was worth the price of admission. His sister was staring at me frozenly.

  He picked on her. "Get out!" he said in cold fury. "You incomparable fool!"

  She was licked. She went.

  I waited till the door had closed behind her and then said, "We had a good, long talk. It's an interesting situation. Now I can give you an invitation I was going to extend yesterday when you interrupted me. You're going down to Thirty-fifth Street to call on Nero Wolfe."

  "I'll talk with you," he said between his teeth. "Sit down."

  "Oh, no. I invited you first. And I don't like you. If you do any wriggling and squirming, I swear I'll sell it to a tabloid and retire on the proceeds." I pointed to the door. "This way to the egress."

  Wolfe sat at his desk. I sat at mine, with my notebook open. Guthrie Judd was in the witness box, near Wolfe's desk.

  Wolfe emptied his beer glass, wiped his lips, and leaned back. "You don't," he said, "seem to realize that the thing is now completely beyond your control. All you can do is save us a little time, which we would be inclined to appreciate. I make no commitment. We can collect the details without you if we have to, or the police can. The police are clumsy and sometimes not too discreet, but when they're shown where to dig they do a pretty good job. We know that Philip Tingley is your sister's son, and that's the main thing. That's what you were struggling to conceal. The rest is only to fill in. Who, for instance, is Philip's father?"

  Judd, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw clamped, gazed at him in silence.

  "Who is Philip's father?" Wolfe repeated patiently. Judd held the pose.

  Wolfe shrugged. "Very well." He turned to me. "Call Inspector Cramer. With the men he has, a thing like this-- Did you make a noise, sir?"

  "Yes," Judd snapped. "Damn you. Philip's father is dead. He was Thomas Tingley. Arthur's father."

  "I see. Then Arthur was Philip's brother."

  "Half-brother." Judd looked as if he would rather say it with bullets than words. "Thomas was married and had two children, a son and a daughter, by his wife. The son was Arthur."

  "Was the wife still alive when--?"

  "Yes. My sister went to work in the Tingley factory in 1909. I was then twenty-five years old, just getting a start in life. She was nineteen. Arthur was a year or two younger than me. His father, Thomas, was approaching fifty. In 1911 my sister told me she was pregnant and who was responsible for it. I was making a little more money then, and I sent her to a place in the country. In September of that year the boy was born. My sister hated him without ever seeing him. She refused to look at him. He was placed in a charity home, and was forgotten by her and me. At that time I was occupied with my own affairs to the exclusion of considerations that should have received my attention. Many years later it occurred to me that there might be records at that place which would be better destroyed, and I had inquiries made."

  "When was that?"

  "Only three years ago. I learned then what had happened. Thomas Tingley had died in 1913, and his wife a year later. His son Arthur had married in 1912, and Arthur's wife had died in an accident. And in 1915 Arthur had legally adopted the four-year-old boy from the charity home."

  "How did you know it was that boy?"

  "I went to see Arthur. He knew the boy was his half-brother. His father, on his deathbed, had told him all about it and charged him with the child's welfare secretly, since at that time Thomas's wife was still alive. Two years later, after Arthur's wife had died, leaving him childless, he had decided on the adoption."

  "You said you h
ad a search made for records. Did Arthur have them?"

  "Yes, but he wouldn't give them up. I tried to persuade him. I offered--an extravagant sum. He was stubborn, he didn't like me, and he was disappointed in the boy, who had turned out a blithering fool."

  Wolfe grunted. "So you made efforts to get the records by other methods."

  "No. I didn't." A corner of Judd's mouth twisted up. "You can't work me into a melodrama. I don't fit. Not even a murder. I knew Arthur's character and had no fear of any molestation during his life-time, and he conceded me a point. He put the papers in a locked box in his safe and willed the box and its contents to me. Not that he told me where they were. I found that out later."