Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 32 Read online

  “They all do as long as we’re on this theory. None of them especially. We haven’t spotted anything that looks like a lead.”

  Wolfe grunted. “No wonder you want to confirm my conclusion. What about the routine? Is it still assumed that the body was taken there in a motor car?”

  “Yes. Or a helicopter or a wheelbarrow.”

  Wolfe grunted again. “I am aware, Mr. Cramer, that you are too canny to jump to conclusions. I’ll lump a hundred questions into one. Have you learned anything helpful from inspection of the scene, or examination of the body and clothing, or random inquiries?”

  “Yes. That the blade of the knife was an inch wide and at least five inches long, that there was probably no struggle, and that he died between nine and eleven Monday night.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning. Nothing to chew on.”

  “You have of course inquired about the payments made to Alice Porter, Simon Jacobs, and Jane Ogilvy, in settlement of the claims. If our theory is sound, substantial portions of those payments eventually found their way to another person.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then who?”

  “There is no record. In each case the check settling the claim was deposited and then a large amount was withdrawn in cash. We’re still on that, but it looks hopeless.”

  “A moment ago, speaking of Mrs. Jacobs, you said, ‘She says.’ Do you question her candor?”

  “No. I think she’s straight.”

  “And she has no idea where her husband was going, or whom he was going to see, when he went out Monday evening?”

  “No.”

  “Did he have anything with him that was not found on his body?”

  “If he did she doesn’t know it.”

  Wolfe shut his eyes. In a moment he opened them. “It is remarkable,” he remarked, “how little a large group of competent trained investigators can gather in a night and a day. I intend no offense. You can’t pick plums in a desert. Archie. Type this with two carbons: ‘I acknowledge receipt of (list the items) from Nero Wolfe, as a personal loan to me. I guarantee to return all of the above-named items, intact, to Nero Wolfe not later than seven p.m. Friday, May 29th, 1959.’ Make a package of the items.”

  “One thing,” Cramer said. He put the cigar in the ashtray on the stand at his elbow. “You’ve got a client. That committee.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, that’s your business. My business is to investigate homicides as an officer of the law. I’ve answered your questions because you’ve got something I need and we made a deal, but that doesn’t mean I’m sanctioning your horning in on my business. I’ve told you this before and I’m telling you again. Watch your step. Some day you’re going to lose a leg, and don’t expect me to give a damn.”

  “I won’t.” Wolfe eyed him. “I promise you, Mr. Cramer, that I will never plead your sanction to justify my conduct. My engagement with my client is to catch a swindler. Apparently he is also a murderer, and if so your claim will be superior. If and when I get him I’ll bear that in mind. I don’t suppose you challenge my right to expose a swindler?”

  The rest of it was rather personal. I was busy typing the receipt and guarantee and then collecting the items and making the package, so I missed some of it. When I was tying the string it occurred to Cramer that he wanted to check the items against the list in the receipt, so I had to unwrap it, and then it occurred to him to ask about fingerprints on the manuscripts. You mustn’t judge his abilities as a police inspector by that performance; Wolfe always has that effect on him. He gets behind.

  When I returned to the office after letting him out it was only half an hour till dinnertime, and Wolfe had opened a book, not by a member of the committee, and was scowling at it, so I went for a walk. His brain works better when he is sitting down and mine when I am on my feet. Not that I would dream of comparing mine with his, though I do believe that in one or two respects—Oh, well.

  Back in the office after dinner, and after coffee, I said politely that if I wasn’t needed I would go and do a couple of personal errands. He asked if they were urgent, and I said no but I might as well get them done if we had nothing on hand.

  “That’s uncalled for,” he growled. “Have you a suggestion?”

  “No. None that I like.”

  “Neither have I. We have never been in a comparable situation. We can’t explore motives; we know the motive. We can’t set a trap; where would we put it? We can’t ask questions of people; whom would we ask, and. what? The forty-seven that Mr. Cramer’s men have already seen and will see again? Pfui. Five hours for each would take ten hours a day for three weeks and more. We’re almost as badly off as on Monday, when I told that confounded committee that it was no longer my kind of job and then idiotically consented to proceed with the plan proposed by Mr. Oshin. I admit it might have worked if we had taken proper precautions. Now Simon Jacobs is dead. I invite suggestions.”

  “Yeah. When I went for a walk you knew I wanted to think. I did. When I got back you knew from the expression on my face that I was empty, and I knew you were. The best I can do is remind you that thinking is your department. I haven’t pestered you, have I? I know darned well it’s a beaut.”

  “Then I have a suggestion. I don’t like it, but we must either act or capitulate. You told Mr. Oshin on Monday that Jane Ogilvy might grab at the bait or she might spurn it. We have his ten thousand dollars and Mr. Dexter’s offer to make any necessary contribution. It may be worth trying.”

  “It may,” I conceded. “Wait till you see her.”

  “I’m not going to see her. That’s for you. You are adept at dealing with personable young women, and I am not. Of course you will be severely handicapped. For Simon Jacobs you were provided with agreements by Richard Echols and Title House not to prosecute or demand reimbursement. You can’t offer that inducement to Jane Ogilvy. She won her case in court, and even if we could get a similar agreement from Marjorie Lippin’s heirs and from Nahm and Son, her publishers, which is doubtful, again our plan would be known to a number of people.”

  “Then it’s a hell of a suggestion.”

  He nodded. “But it leads to another. From Jane Ogilvy’s testimony at the trial, and from your report of your encounter with her, I gather that she is daft, and therefore unpredictable. Another approach might get her. Appeal to her sensibilities. Disclose the situation to her, all of it. Explain why we know that her claim against Marjorie Lippin was instigated by some person unknown to us, X. That X, threatened by imminent exposure, killed Simon Jacobs. Describe the grief and the plight of the widow and children; you might take her to see them and talk with them. Can you get a photograph of the corpse?”

  “Probably, from Lon Cohen.”

  “Show it to her. Get one that shows the face, if possible; the face of a dead man before it has been rearranged is much more affecting than a mere heap of clothing. If you can’t stir her sympathy perhaps you can arouse her fear. She is herself in peril; X may decide that she too must be removed. It would probably be a mistake to try to get her to supply evidence and details of her association with X, of the swindling of Marjorie Lippin; that would scare her off; all you really need is his name. Once we know him he is doomed. I want your opinion.”

  I glanced at the clock: ten minutes past nine. “It may take a while to find Lon. After seven o’clock there’s no telling where he is. And the photograph would help.”

  “You think it’s worth trying?”

  “Sure. It may work. We’ve got to try something.”

  “We have indeed. Then as early in the morning as may be.”

  I turned to the phone and started after Lon Cohen.

  11

  At a quarter to ten Thursday morning I braked the Heron sedan to a stop in front of 78 Haddon Place, Riverdale. Perhaps that wasn’t “as early as may be,” but I didn’t want to tackle her before she had had breakfast, and besides, I hadn’t been able to get the photograph until Lo
n got to the Gazette office at nine o’clock. As I was soon to learn, it didn’t matter anyway, since she had already been dead about twelve hours.

  If it had been a nice sunny morning I might have gone around to the side for a look at the terrace where I had found her before, but it was cloudy and cool, so I went up the walk to the entrance and pushed the button. The door was opened by a DAR type, a tall, upright female with a strong chin, in a gray dress with black buttons. Unquestionably the mother under whose devotion Jane had once been suffocating and probably still was.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning,” I said. “My name is Archie Goodwin. Are you Mrs. Ogilvy?”

  “I am.”

  “I would like to see your daughter, Miss Jane Ogilvy.”

  “Does she know you?”

  “We have met. She may not recognize the name.”

  “She is in the cloister.”

  Good Lord, I thought, she has taken the veil. “Cloister?” I said.

  “Yes. She may not be up yet. Go around the house to the left and from the terrace take the path through the shrubbery.” She backstepped and was closing the door.

  I followed directions. I had a feeling that I might have known she had a cloister—a cloister felt though not perceived. Rounding the house to the terrace, which was deserted, I took a graveled path which disappeared into bushes that gave it a roof. After winding among the bushes for some distance it left them and straightened out to pass between two big maples to the door of a small building—one story, gray stone, sloping roof, a curtained window on each side of the door. I proceeded and used the knocker, a big bronze flower with a red agate in the center. When nothing happened I knocked again, waited twenty seconds, turned the knob, found the door wasn’t locked, opened it a couple of inches, and called through the crack, “Miss Ogilvy!” No response. I swung the door open and stepped in.

  It was a fine well-furnished cloister and probably contained many objects that were worth a look, but my attention centered immediately on its tenant. She was on her back on the floor in front of an oversized couch, dressed in a blue garment that I would call a smock but she probably had called something else. One of her legs was bent a little, but the other one was out straight. Crossing to her, I stooped to get her hand and found that the arm was completely stiff. I got a foot, which was covered by a sock but no shoe; the leg was stiff too. She had been dead a minimum of six hours, and almost certainly more.

  There was a dark red stain at heart level around a slit in the smock, not a big one. My hand started to open the zipper for a look underneath. But I drew it back. Let the medical examiner do it. I straightened up and looked around. There was no sign of a struggle or of any disturbance—no drawers open or anything scattered around. Everything was as it should be except that she was dead.

  I said aloud, with feeling, “The sonofabitch.”

  There was a phone on a table against a wall, and I went and lifted the receiver, using my handkerchief, and put it to my ear. The dial tone came. There was a chance that it was an etxension, but probably not; the number on the disk was not the same as the one listed for Ogilvy in the phone book. I dialed and got Fritz, and asked him to buzz the plant rooms.

  Wolfe’s voice: “Yes?”

  I apologized. “I’m sorry to disturb you so often when you’re up with the orchids, but I’ve hit another snag. I’m in a building in the rear of the Ogilvy grounds which Jane called the cloister. Her corpse is here on the floor. Stabbed in the chest. She died at least six hours ago, probably more. At the house her mother told me she was here and might not be up yet, and I came here alone. I have touched nothing but the knocker and the doorknob. If you want me to hurry home for new instructions, okay, I knocked a few times and got no response, and left. I can stop at the house and tell Mrs. Ogilvy that.”

  He growled, “If you had gone last night.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. She was probably killed about the time I started trying to find Lon Cohen. If I leave I should leave quick.”

  “Why leave? How in the name of heaven could I have new instructions?”

  “I thought you might want to discuss the situation.”

  “Pfui. Discussion wouldn’t help it any.”

  “Then I stick.”

  “Yes.”

  He hung up. I cradled the phone, considered for half a minute, stepped to the door and on out, shut the door, wiped the knob with my handkerchief, followed the path back to the house and around to the front entrance, and pushed the button. Again the door was opened by the devoted mother.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again,” I said, “but I thought I ought to tell you. Miss Ogilvy doesn’t seem to be there. I knocked several times, and knocked loud, and got no response.”

  She wasn’t alarmed. “She must be there. She hasn’t been in for breakfast.”

  “I knocked hard.”

  “Then she’s gone somewhere. There’s a lane in back of the cloister, and she keeps her car there.”

  “Gone without breakfast?”

  “She might. She never has, but she might.”

  I took a chance. It was highly unlikely that X had gone off with her car. “What make is her car?”

  “Jaguar.”

  “It’s there. I looked around a little and saw it. I think you ought to come and see, Mrs. Ogilvy. She might have had a stroke or something.”

  “She doesn’t have strokes. I never go to the cloister.” She tightened her lips. “But perhaps I should—All right. You come along.”

  She crossed the sill and shut the door, and I moved aside to let her by. She strode like a female sergeant, around to the terrace and across it, and along the path. When she reached the door of the cloister she started her hand for the knob, but changed her mind and raised it to the knocker. She knocked three times, at intervals, turned her head to look at me, grabbed the knob and opened the door, and entered. I followed. In three steps she saw it and stopped. I said something, went on by, on to it, squatted, and touched an arm. I unzipped the smock, spread it open, and took a look.

  I stood up. Mother hadn’t moved, except that her mouth was working. “She’s dead,” I said. “Stabbed in the chest. She has been dead quite a while.”

  “So she did it,” Mrs. Ogilvy said.

  “No. Someone else did it. There’s no weapon.”

  “It’s under her. It’s somewhere.”

  “No. If she did it and pulled the weapon out, still alive, there would be a lot of blood, and there is almost none. It was pulled out after her heart stopped.”

  “You know a lot about it.”

  “I know that much. Will you call the police or shall I?”

  “She did it.”

  “No. She did not.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Archie Goodwin. I’m a private detective. I’ve had some experience with death by violence.”

  “Do you mean she was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God.” She turned her head, saw a chair, went to it, and sat. She started to slump, then jerked her shoulders back. “Then you must call the police?”

  “Certainly.” I had moved to face her. “It might help if I could give them some information on the phone. Could you answer a few questions?”

  “If I choose to.”

  “When did you last see your daughter?”

  “When she left the house last evening to come here.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Right after dinner. Half past eight—a little later.”

  “Was anyone with her?”

  “No.”

  “Did she always sleep here?”

  “Not always. Frequently. She has her room in the house.”

  “Were there guests at dinner?”

  “No. Just my husband and I, and her.”

  “Was she expecting someone to call?”

  “Not that I knew of, but I wouldn’t. I seldom
did.”

  “You know nothing of any letter or phone call she got yesterday?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “Did anyone come to see her after she left the house last evening, or call her on the phone?”

  “No. Not at the house. Someone might have come here.”

  “Someone did. How? By the lane in back?”

  “Yes. It’s a public road. Dipper Lane. I’ve forgotten your name. What is it?”

  “Goodwin. Archie Goodwin. Did you hear a car on the lane last evening, stopping here or starting here?”

  “No.” Abruptly she left the chair. “I’m going to phone my husband. He should be here when the police come. How soon will they come?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe less. Have you any idea who killed your daughter? Any idea at all?”

  “No.” She turned and marched out, still a sergeant.

  I went to the phone, used my handkerchief to lift the receiver, and dialed.

  12

  I ate lunch that day, two hamburgers and a glass of milk, at the office of the Bronx District Attorney, in the room of an assistant DA named Halloran whom I had never seen before. I ate dinner, if two corned-beef sandwiches and lukewarm coffee in a paper cup can be called dinner, in the office of the District Attorney of the County of New York, in the room of an assistant DA named Mandelbaum whom I knew quite well from various contacts on other occasions. When I finally got back to the old brownstone on West 35th Street it was going on ten o’clock. Fritz offered to warm up the lamb loaf and said it would be edible, but I told him I was too tired to eat and might nibble a snack later.

  It was nearly eleven when I finished reporting to Wolfe. Actually I knew very little more than I had when Mrs. Ogilvy had left the cloister and I had dialed SP 7–3100, but Wolfe was now trying to find a straw to grab at. He wanted everything I had, every sight and sound of my twelve-hour day, even including the session at the Bronx DA’s office, though Halloran had known nothing of the background. He had me repeat my conversation with Mrs. Ogilvy three times. He almost never asks me to repeat anything even once, but of course he was desperate. When there was nothing left to ask me he still had a question; he wanted to know what conclusions I had drawn.