Curtains For Three (20 page)

“Get down to it,” Cramer muttered.

“Yes.” Morley put his elbows on the table and paired all his fingertips. “Now,

today. On the basis of the assumptions I began with, it is a tenable theory,

worthy to be tested, that this was the same man. If so, it is no longer a question of finding him among thousands or millions; it’s a mere hundred or so,

and I am willing to contribute my services.” The black eyes flashed. “I admit that for a psychiatrist this is a rare opportunity. Nothing could be more dramatic than a psychosis exploding into murder. All you have to do is to have them brought to my office, one at a time -“

“Wait a minute,” Cramer put in. “Are you suggesting that we deliver everyone that was here today to your office for you to work on?”

“No, not everyone, only the men. When I have finished I may have nothing that can be used as evidence, but there’s an excellent chance that I can tell you who the strangler is -“

“Excuse me,” Cramer said. He was on his feet. “Sorry to cut you off, Doctor, but I must get downtown.” He was on his way. “I’m afraid your suggestion wouldn’t work - I’ll let you know -“

He went, and Levy and Murphy with him.

Dr. Morley pivoted his head to watch them go, kept it that way a moment, and then he arose and walked out without a word.

“Twenty minutes to ten,” I announced.

Wolfe muttered, “Go look at the office door.”

“I just did, as I let Morley out. It’s sealed. Malefic spite. But this isn’t a bad room to sit in,” I said brightly.

“Pfui! I want to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“I want your opinion of this. Assume that we accept without reservation the story Miss Brown told you. Assume also that the man she had recognized, knowing she had recognized him, followed her downstairs and saw her enter the office;

that he surmised she intended to consult me; that he postponed joining her in the office, either because he knew you were in there with her or for some other reason; that he saw you come out and go upstairs; that he took an opportunity to enter the office unobserved, got her off guard, killed her, got out unobserved,

and returned upstairs.”

“I’ll take it that way.”

“Very well. Then we have significant indications of his character. Consider it.

He has killed her and is back upstairs, knowing that she was in the office talking with you for some time. He would like to know what she said to you.

Specifically, he would like to know whether she told you about him, and, if so,

how much. Had she or had she not named or described him in his current guise'

With that question unanswered, would a man of his character, as indicated, leave the house'Or would he prefer the challenge and risk of remaining until the body had been discovered, to see what you would do'And I, too, of course, after you had talked with me, and the police?”

“Yeah.” I chewed my lip. There was a long silence. “So that’s how your mind’s working. I could offer a guess.”

“I prefer a calculation to a guess. For that, a basis is needed, and we have it.

We know the situation as we have assumed it, and we know something of his character.”

“Okay,” I conceded, “a calculation. The answer I get, he would stick around until the body was found, and if he did, then he is one of the bunch Cramer has been talking with. So that’s what occurred to you, huh?”

“No. By no means. That’s a different matter. This is merely a tentative calculation for a starting point. If it is sound, I know who the murderer is.”

I gave him a look. Sometimes I can tell how much he is putting on and sometimes I can’t tell. I decided to buy it.

“That’s interesting,” I said admiringly. “If you want me to get him on the phone I’ll have to use the one in the kitchen.”

“I want to test the calculation.”

“So do I.”

“But that’s a difficulty. The test I have in mind, the only one I can contrive to my satisfaction - only you can make it. And in doing so you would have to expose yourself to great personal risk.”

“For Pete’s sake!” I gawked at him. “This is a brand-new one. The errands you’ve sent me on! Since when have you flinched or faltered in the face of danger to me?”

“This danger is extreme.”

“Let’s hear the test.”

“Very well.” He turned a hand over. “Is that old typewriter of yours in working order?”

“Fair.”

“Bring it down here, and some sheets of blank paper - any kind. I’ll need a blank envelope.”

“I have some.”

“Bring one. Also the telephone book, Manhattan, from my room.”

When I returned to the dining-room and was placing the typewriter in position on the table, Wolfe spoke: “No, bring it here. I’ll use it myself.”

I lifted my brows at him. “A page will take you an hour.”

“It won’t be a page. Put a sheet of paper in it.”

I did so, got the paper squared, lifted the machine, and put it in front of him.

He sat and frowned at it for a long minute, and then started pecking. I turned my back on him to make it easier to withhold remarks about his two-finger technique, and passed the time by trying to figure his rate. All at once he pulled the paper out.

“I think that will do,” he said.

I took it and read what he had typed:

“She told me enough this afternoon so that I know who to send this to, and more.

I have kept it to myself because I haven’t decided what is the right thing to do. I would like to have a talk with you first, and if you will phone me tomorrow, Tuesday, between nine o’clock and noon, we can make an appointment;

please don’t put it off or I will have to decide myself.”

I read it over three times. I looked at Wolfe. He had put an envelope in the typewriter and was consulting the phone book. He began pecking, addressing the envelope. I waited until he had finished and rolled the envelope out.

“Just like this?” I asked. “No name or initials signed?”

“No.”

“I admit it’s nifty,” I admitted. “We could forget the calculation and send this to every guy on that list and wait to see who phoned.”

“I prefer to send it only to one person - the one indicated by your report of that conversation. That will test the calculation.”

“And save postage.” I glanced at the paper. “The extreme danger, I suppose, is that I’ll get strangled.”

“I don’t want to minimize the risk of this, Archie.”

“Neither do I. I’ll have to borrow a gun from Saul - ours are in the office…

May I have that envelope'I’ll have to go to Times Square to mail it.”

“Yes. Before you do so, copy that note. Keep Saul here in the morning. If and when the phone call comes you will have to use your wits to arrange the appointment advantageously.”

“Right. The envelope, please.”

He handed it to me.

That Tuesday morning I was kept busy from eight o’clock on by the phone and the doorbell. After nine, Saul was there to help, but not with the phone, because the orders were that I was to answer all calls. They were mostly from newspapers, but there were a couple from Homicide and a few scattered ones. I took them on the extension in the kitchen.

Every time I lifted the thing and told the transmitter, “Nero Wolfe’s office,

Archie Goodwin speaking,” my pulse went up a notch, and then had to level off again. I had one argument, with a bozo in the District Attorney’s office who had the strange idea that he could order me to report for an interview at eleven-thirty sharp, which ended by my agreeing to call later to fix an hour.

A little before eleven I was in the kitchen with Saul, who, at Wolfe’s direction, had been briefed to date, when the phone rang.

“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“Mr. Goodwin?”

“Right.”

“You sent me a note.”

My hand wanted to grip the phone the way Vedder had gripped the flower-pot, but I wouldn’t let it.

“Did I'What about?”

“You suggested that we make an appointment. Are you in a position to discuss it?”

“Sure. I’m alone and no extensions are on. But I don’t recognize your voice. Who is this?”

“I have two voices. This is the other one. Have you made a decision yet?”

“No. I was waiting to hear from you.”

“That’s wise, I think. I’m willing to discuss the matter. Are you free this evening?”

“I can wiggle free.”

“With a car to drive?”

“Yeah, I have a car.”

“Drive to a lunchroom at the north-east corner of Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue. Get there at eight o’clock. Park your car on Fifty-first Street, but not at the corner. You will be alone, of course. Go in the lunchroom and order something to eat. I won’t be there, but you will get a message. You’ll be there at eight?”

“Yes. I still don’t recognize your voice. I don’t think you’re the person I sent the note to.”

“I am. It’s good, isn’t it?”

The connection went. I hung up, told Fritz he could answer calls now, and hotfooted it to the stairs and up three flights.

Wolfe was, in the cool-room. When I told him about the call he merely nodded.

“That call,” he said, “validates our assumptions and verifies our calculation,

but that’s all. Has anyone come to take those seals off?”

I told him no. “I asked Stebbins about it and he said he’d ask Cramer.”

“Don’t ask again,” he snapped. “We’ll go down to my room.”

If the strangler had been in Wolfe’s house the rest of that day he would have felt honored - or anyway he should. Even during Wolfe’s afternoon hours in the plant rooms, from four to six, his mind was on my appointment, as was proved by the crop of new slants and ideas that poured out of him when he came down to the kitchen. Except for a trip to Leonard Street to answer an hour’s worth of questions by an assistant district attorney, my day was devoted to it, too. My most useful errand - though at the time it struck me as a waste of time and money - was one made to Doc Vollmer for a prescription and then to a drugstore,

under instructions from Wolfe.

When I got back from the D.A.’s office Saul and I got in the sedan and went for a reconnaissance. We didn’t stop at 51st Street and 11th Avenue but drove past it four times. The main idea was to find a place for Saul. He and Wolfe both insisted that he had to be there.

We finally settled for a filling station across the street from the lunchroom.

Saul was to have a taxi drive in there at eight o’clock, and stay in the passenger’s seat while the driver tried to get his carburetor adjusted. There were so many contingencies to be agreed on that if it had been anyone but Saul I wouldn’t have expected him to remember more than half. For instance, in case I left the lunchroom and got in my car and drove off, Saul was not to follow unless I cranked my window down.

Trying to provide for contingencies was okay, in a way, but actually it was strictly up to me, since I had to let the other guy make the rules. And with the other guy making the rules no one gets very far, not even Nero Wolfe arranging for contingencies ahead of time.

Saul left before I did, to find a taxi driver that he liked the looks of. When I went to the hall for my hat and raincoat, Wolfe came along.

“I still don’t like the idea,” he insisted, “of your having that thing in your pocket. I think you should slip it inside your sock.”

“I don’t.” I was putting the raincoat on. “If I get frisked, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket.”

“You’re sure that gun is loaded?”

“I never saw you so anxious. Next you’ll be telling me to put on my rubbers.”

He even opened the door for me.

It wasn’t actually raining, merely trying to make up its mind, but after a couple of blocks I reached to switch on the windshield wiper. As I turned uptown on 10th Avenue the dash clock said 7:47; as I turned left on 51st Street it had only got to 7:51. At that time of day in that district there was plenty of space, and I rolled to the curb and stopped about twenty yards short of the corner, stopped the engine and turned the window down for a good view of the filling station across the street. There was no taxi there. At 7:59 a taxi pulled in and stopped by the pumps, and the driver got out and lifted the hood and started peering. I put my window up, locked the doors, and entered the lunchroom.

There was one hash slinger behind the counter and five customers scattered along on the stools. I picked a stool that left me elbowroom, sat, and ordered ice cream and coffee. The counterman served me and I took my time. At 8:12 the ice cream was gone and my cup empty, and I ordered a refill.

I had about got to the end of that, too, when a male entered, looked along the line, came straight to me, and asked me what my name was. I told him, and he handed me a folded piece of paper and turned to go. He was barely old enough for high school and I made no effort to hold him, thinking that the bird I had a date with was not likely to be an absolute sap. Unfolding the paper, I saw,

neatly printed in pencil: “Go to your car and get a note under the windshield wiper. Sit in the car to read it.”

I paid what I owed, walked to my car and got the note as I was told, unlocked the car and got in, turned on the light, and read, in the same print:

“Make no signal of any kind. Follow instructions precisely. Turn right on 11th Ave and go slowly to 56th St. Turn right on 56th and go to 9th Ave. Turn right on 9th Ave. Right again on 45th. Left on 11th Ave. Left on 38th. Right on 7th Ave. Right on 27th St. Park on 27th between 9th and 10th Aves. Go to No. 814 and tap five times on the door. Give the man who opens the door this note and the other one. He will tell you where to go.”

I didn’t like it much, but I had to admit it was a handy arrangement for seeing to it that I went to the conference unattached.

It had now decided to rain. Starting the engine, I could see dimly through the misty window that Saul’s taxi driver was still monkeying with his carburetor,

but of course I had to resist the impulse to crank the window down to wave so-long. Keeping the instructions in my left hand, I rolled to the corner,

waited for the light to change, and turned right on 11th Avenue.

Since I had not been forbidden to keep my eyes open I did so, and as I stopped at 52nd for the red light I saw a black or dark-blue sedan pull away from the curb behind me and creep in my direction. I took it for granted that that was my chaperon.