Homicide Trinity (24 page)

“No. As for that question, if Hattie is your client you could ask her. Perhaps you already have. I have paid no room rent for three years and she has asked for none.”

Wolfe’s head moved. “Miss Kirk?”

She was still staring at him. “The cops didn’t ask me that,” she said.

Wolfe grunted. “They have their technique and I have mine. That question applies to the problem as I see it. Does it embarrass you?”

“No. I have lived there nearly a year and I have paid five dollars every week.”

“From current income?”

“I haven’t any current income. I get a check from my father every month.”

“I trust it doesn’t embarrass him. Mr. Ferris?”

Noel Ferris passed his tongue over his lips. “How this applies is beyond me,” he said, “but I don’t dare to refuse to answer. I haven’t figured how I stand on rent, but you can. I’ve had a room there for eighteen months. Last summer I was on television for thirteen weeks and I gave Hattie a hundred and fifty dollars. A show I was in flopped in November, and since then it has been television crumbs. Two weeks ago I gave her sixty dollars. You figure it.”

“You’re a hundred and eighty dollars short. Mr. Hannah?”

Paul Hannah was looking determined. “I’m not taking
any dare,” he blurted. “You may think your question applies, but I don’t. You say you know one of us killed Tammy Baxter, but I don’t believe it. I know damn well I didn’t. You don’t kill someone without a reason, and what was it? She had only been there three weeks and we barely knew her. The knife doesn’t prove anything. Whoever killed her got in the house somehow, and if he was in the house he could have got the knife. I’m not taking any dare.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Your spunk is impressive, Mr. Hannah, but it bounces off. If you are innocent the question whether you’ll take a dare doesn’t arise; the question is, what are you here for? To oblige a friend or parade your conceit?”

“I’m here because of what Hattie said to Martha and I wanted to hear what you had to say. And you asked if I’ve paid my room rent, for God’s sake. All right, I have. I’ve been there four months and I’ve paid every week. That proves something?”

“Obviously. That you are not a pauper. You have an income?”

“No. I have money that I saved.”

“So. That point is covered.” Wolfe’s eyes went to Martha. “Now, Miss Kirk, for what you have told the police—at least one detail. Your movements this morning, say from ten-thirty until one o’clock. Where were you?”

“I was in my room,” she said, “until about a quarter after twelve. The police wanted to know exactly, but I couldn’t tell them. I got in late last night, and I always do exercises for an hour when I get up. About a quarter after twelve I went down to the kitchen. There were no oranges and I went out and got some. I wasn’t gone more than ten minutes. I was cooking bacon and eggs when Mr. Dell came in, and Hattie with Mr. Goodwin, and Hattie said he was going to do a piece for a magazine, and they went—”

“That’s far enough. Which room is yours?”

“The third floor front, above Hattie’s.”

“And the others? Their rooms?”

“Ray’s is the second floor rear—Raymond Dell’s. The rear room on my floor, the third, is Tammy Baxter’s. The one above mine, on the fourth floor, is Noel Ferris’s, and the rear one on that floor is Paul Hannah’s.”

“Did you see any of them this morning?”

“No. Not until Ray came to the kitchen, and that was afternoon.”

“Did you hear any of them moving or speaking?”

“No.”

“Not even Mr. Ferris in the room above you?”

“No. I suppose he was up and gone before I woke up.”

“Did you hear or see anything at all that might be of significance?”

She shook her head. “The police thought I must have, when I was in the kitchen, but I didn’t.”

Wolfe’s head went left, to Raymond Dell in the red leather chair. “Mr. Dell. I know you came downstairs when Miss Annis entered the house with Mr. Goodwin shortly after one o’clock. Before that?”

“Nothing,” Dell rumbled.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. That was when I left my room for the first time. Until then I had seen no one, heard nothing, and seen nothing. I had been asleep.”

“Then how did you know there were no oranges?”

Dell’s chin jerked up. “What’s that? Oh.” He gestured. “That man Goodwin. I knew because there had been none when I went down for some in the early hours—the late hours. I don’t sleep at night; I read. I was reading Sophocles’
Oedipus Rex,
and when I finished it, at five o’clock perhaps, or six, I wanted oranges. I always do around that hour. Finding none, I returned to my room and finally dozed.”

“So that was customary? You rarely stir before twelve?”

“I never do.”

“And at night you read. How do you spend your afternoons?”

Dell frowned. “Could that conceivably apply?”

“Yes. Conceivably.”

“I want to be present when you apply it. That would be a revelation worthy of the Cumaean sybil. I babysit.”

“You what?”

“The current abhorrent term is ‘babysit.’ I have a friend who is a painter, by name Max Eder, who lives in an East Side tenement. His wife is dead. He has a son and daughter aged three and four, and five days a week I am their keeper for five hours, from two till seven. For a stipend. Mondays and Tuesdays I am free to roam the market if I am so inclined. You frown. To offer my talents in television dens. I am so inclined only by necessity.”

“What is Mr. Elder’s address?”

Dell shrugged, an actor’s shrug. “This approaches lunacy. However, it’s in the phone book. Three-fourteen Mission Street.”

“How long have you been—uh—performing this service for him?”

“Something over a year.”

Wolfe left him. “Mr. Hannah. Since I am now merely asking for what you have already told the police, your whereabouts today from ten-thirty to one, I hope you won’t be provoked.”

“You do like hell,” Hannah blurted. “Parading my conceit, huh? I’m sticking only because I told Martha I would. I left the house a little after nine o’clock and spent a couple of hours around the West Side docks, and then I took a bus downtown and got to the Mushroom Theater a little before twelve. We start rehearsal at noon. Around two o’clock a man came and flashed a badge and said I was wanted for questioning and took me to Forty-seventh Street.”

“What were you doing around the docks?”

“I was looking and listening. In the play we’re doing,
Do As Thou Wilt,
I’m a longshoreman, and I want to get it right.”

“Where is the Mushroom Theater?”

“Bowie Street. Near Houston Street.”

“Do you have a leading role in the play?”

“No. Not leading.”

“How many lines have you?”

“Not many. It’s not a big part. I’m young and I’m learning.”

“How long have you been rehearsing?”

“About a month.”

“Have you appeared at that theater before?”

“Once, last fall. I had a walk-on in
The Pleasure Is Mine.”

“How long did it run?”

“Six weeks. Pretty good for off-Broadway.”

“Do you favor any particular spot when you visit the docks?”

“No. I just move around and look and listen.”

“Do you do that every day?”

“Hell, no.”

“How many times in the past month?”

“Only once before today. A couple of times when I got the part, in November.”

I was thinking that at least he had one of the basic qualifications for an actor. He was ready and willing to answer any and all questions about his career, with or without a dare, whether they applied or not. If Wolfe thought it would help to have the plot of
Do As Thou Wilt
described in detail all he had to do was ask.

But apparently he didn’t need it. His head moved. “And you, Mr. Ferris?”

“I’m feeling a lot better,” Noel Ferris said. “When the questions they asked made me realize that I was actually suspected of murder, and I also realized that I had no alibi, it looked pretty dark. Believe me. What if the others had all been somewhere else and could prove it? So I thank you, Mr. Wolfe. I feel a lot better. As for me, I left the house a little after ten and called at four agencies. Two of them would remember I was there, but probably not the exact time. When I got hungry I went back to the house to eat. I can’t afford five-dollar lunches, and I can’t eat eighty-cent ones. When I entered the house a man was at the phone telling someone that
Tammy Baxter had been murdered and her body was in the parlor.”

“What kind of agencies?”

“Casting. Theater and television.”

“Do you visit them daily?”

“No. About twice a week.”

“And the other five days? How do you pass the time?”

“I don’t. It passes me. Two days, sometimes three, I make horses and kangaroos and other animals. I go to a workroom and model them and make molds. Something on the order of Cellini. I get eight dollars for a squirrel. Twenty for a giraffe.”

“Where is the workroom?”

“In the rear of a shop on First Avenue. The name of the shop is Harry’s Zoo. The name of the owner is Harry Arkazy. He has a sixteen-year-old daughter as beautiful as a rosy dawn, but she lisps. Her name is Ilonka. His son’s name—”

“This is not a comedy, Mr. Ferris,” Wolfe snapped. He twisted his neck to look at the wall clock. “I engaged to act for Miss Annis only five hours ago and I haven’t arranged my mind, so my questions may be at random, but they are not frivolous.” His eyes moved to take them in. “Now that I have seen you and heard you I am better prepared, and I can consider how to proceed. I will leave it to Miss Annis to thank you—three of you—for coming.” He arose. “I expect to see you again.”

Martha was gawking at him. “But Hattie said to tell you everything we told the cops!”

He nodded. “I know. It would take all night. I’ll go to that extreme only by compulsion; and if you told them anything indicative they are hours ahead of me and I would only breathe their dust.”

Dell boomed. “You call this investigating a murder? Asking me if I had paid my room rent and how I spend my afternoons?”

It
was
a little odd, the four suspects coming uninvited to empty the bag and being told to go almost before they got started. Noel Ferris, his lip twisted, got up and
headed for the hall. Martha Kirk, getting no satisfaction from Wolfe, appealed to me: didn’t I realize that Hattie had been arrested for a murder she didn’t commit? Paul Hannah sat and listened to us, chewing his lip, then got up and touched her arm and said they might as well go. Raymond Dell stood, lowered his chin, gazed at Wolfe half a minute, registering indignation, wheeled, and marched out. (Exit Dell, center.) I followed Martha and Hannah to the hall, but she preferred to put on her galoshes herself. When I opened the door for them a few snowflakes danced in.

Back in the office, Wolfe was sitting again, leaning back with his eyes closed. I asked if he wanted beer, got a nod, and went to the kitchen and brought a bottle and glass, and a glass of milk for me. He opened his eyes, took in a bushel of air through his nose and let it out through his mouth, straightened up, picked up the bottle, and poured.

He spoke. “Saul and Fred and Orrie. At eight in the morning in my room.”

My brows went up. Saul Panzer is the best operative south of the North Pole. His rate is ten dollars an hour and he is worth twenty. Fred Durkin’s rate is seven dollars and he is worth seven-fifty. Orrie Gather’s rate is also seven dollars and he is worth six-fifty.

“Oh.” I took a sip of milk. “Then you did get an inkling?”

“I got a conclusion: that it would be futile to go on pecking at them. Mr. Leach has been on their flanks for three weeks, and now Mr. Cramer’s army has them under siege. My only chance of priority is to surprise him from the rear.”

The foam was down to the rim of his glass, and he lifted it and drank, a healthy gulp. “It’s a forlorn chance, certainly, but it’s worth trying for want of a better. I am not familiar with the procedures of counterfeiters, but it seems unlikely that an underling would be entrusted with five hundred twenty-dollar bills. Ten thousand dollars. We know he had that large supply; and that permits the conjecture that his connection may be not
with a mere go-between, but with the source. If so, the quickest way to settle it would be to locate the source.”

“Yeah. It’s barely possible that Leach has had that idea.”

“No doubt. I assume that when Miss Baxter took a room in that house her primary mission was to search the premises for counterfeiting equipment. Obviously she found none. I also assume that, as you suggested, it was known that one of the inhabitants of that house had passed counterfeit money, but it was not known which one, and they were all under surveillance—by Miss Baxter in the house and by others outside. And if I were a Secret Service agent assigned to keep an eye on Raymond Dell I would suppose that any meeting he had with a supplier of contraband would be clandestine. That is how my mind would work. The first day I followed him to an East Side tenement I would of course make inquiries, with due caution, but when he went there five days a week and I learned from Miss Baxter what he did there, my attention would be diverted. But I am not a Secret Service agent. My attention is drawn to that tenement house, and specifically to Max Eder, a painter. An artist. I shall send Orrie Cather there tomorrow morning to reconnoiter. Fred Durkin will go to the shop on First Avenue—by the way, I want its address. Harry’s Zoo.” He made a face. “Saul Panzer will go to the Mushroom Theater. As I said, it’s a forlorn chance, but what better can we do with tomorrow? Unless you have a suggestion?”

“I have,” I said emphatically. “I respectfully suggest that you start thinking up something for day after tomorrow.”

He grunted. He picked up his glass, took a gulp of beer, swallowed it, licked his lips, and put the glass down. “‘Forlorn’ was too strong a word,” he said. “I have an expectation that is not wholly unreasonable. Twelve hours of the time of those three men plus expenses comes to more than three hundred dollars. I don’t hazard that amount, even of a client’s money, on a pig in a poke.”

“Then you did get an inkling.”