The Father Hunt (17 page)

I looked it up once. To eavesdrop means to stand under the eaves to listen to what is said inside a house. But to listen to what is said inside Wolfe’s office you don’t stand under the eaves; you stand in the alcove, which is at the rear end of the hall, to the left as you approach the kitchen. At eye level, if you are about the height of Wolfe or me, there is a rectangular hole in the wall, seven inches high and twelve inches wide. On the alcove side of the hole there is a panel which slides open silently, and on the office side there is a trick picture of a waterfall; “trick” because through the one-way picture you can not only eaves-hear from the alcove but also eaves-see nearly all of the office.

In arranging for Amy Denovo, who was eight inches shorter than me, to hear and see from the alcove I could have put phone books for her to stand on, but the show might last an hour or more, and for her price of admission, of twenty grand she deserved something better than standing room. So after breakfast Friday morning I took the kitchen stepladder to the alcove, sat on it, and found that my eyes were five inches above the center of the hole. I had never measured Amy and me to determine how much of my extra eight inches was below the hips and how much was above, but I decided that would be close enough.

Amy arrived at 10:21 and Saul at 10:29. I took Amy to the alcove, had her perch on the stepladder, slid the panel open, and saw that her eyes were about right. “The size of that seat,” I said, “it’s a good thing it’s your fanny and not Mr. Wolfe’s.”

“What is this?” she demanded.

“For you, spectator sport. You’re going to hear and see the man who sent those two hundred and sixty-four checks to your mother. Cyrus M. Jarrett is due at eleven o’clock, by appointment. We thought you ought to hear it firsthand, and with him in the red leather chair his face will be about ten feet from yours. Take a look.”

She leaned to get her eyes closer to the hole. “Won’t he see me?”

“No. From that side it’s just a picture.”

She turned to me, “But why do& What’s he going to say?”

“We’re waiting to hear him. Among other things he may tell us, and you, the name of your father. That may-“

The doorbell rang and I went, and it was Saul. I had told him what the program was and needed only to take him to the alcove and introduce him to the client who had paid him, through me, a little less than a grand in two weeks.

“Since you call me Archie,” I told Amy, “you’ll have to call him Saul not to hurt his feelings. He’ll be here with you and if you get the idea that we’re not asking Jarrett the right questions and decide to come and help, Saul will block you. Jarrett must not suspect that he has any audience but Mr. Wolfe and me. Have your shoes off, and if you feel a cough or a sneeze coming, for God’s sake feel it soon enough to beat it to the kitchen.” I looked at my watch. “He’s due in twenty-five minutes, but he’s driving ninety miles and he might be early. Saul will now take you to the kitchen for a coffee break. I’ll be in the office taking tranquilizers to steady my nerves.”

“You won’t,” Amy said. ‘

“Then I won’t,” I said, and left them. It would take Saul about five minutes to get acquainted with her.

There had been one big danger. A man of Jarrett’s position, financially and otherwise, might be able to put enough pressure on someone like the Police Commissioner or the Mayor or the New York Secretary of State, who issues private investigator licenses, to gag us. I blamed that fact, which had been on my mind ever since Jarrett had hung up, for something that had happened Thurs-

day evening, when I had let Lon Cohen rake in a fat pot without showing, though it was at least three to two that my tens would have taken it. But now, as eleven o’clock came closer and closer, that danger got slimmer and slimmer, and it looked surer and surer that Jarrett’s tie-in was so very personal that he couldn’t risk it.

Wolfe came down at eleven on the dot, put the daily display in the vase on his desk, sat, and went at the morning mail. I had the expense book at my desk, checking entries and additions and getting totals, on the theory that they were final totals, except for Saul today. Just a pair of private detectives starting the daily grind, yeah. The reason they weren’t holding their breath was that a man can’t hold his breath more than about two minutes, and the doorbell didn’t ring until a quarter past eleven.

The first two things I noticed when I opened the front door were that the car Jarrett had come in was a Heron town car, and that his eyes were exactly the same as they had been two weeks ago. I felt that I deserved a credit mark for the way I said, “Good morning.” I could have made it a jab or even a jeer, but I swear it was just a cordial welcome.

He also said, “Good morning,” but it wasn’t a cordial anything. It was probably merely the way he had always said good morning, and always would, to everybody from the office boy to the senior vice-president. What was different from before was his walk as he went down the hall to the office. He didn’t totter, but his steps were short and he made sure of each one before he took the next one. I waited until he had got safely lowered into the red leather chair to say, “Mr. Jarrett. Mr. Wolfe.”

Jarrett said, “A footstool and a glass of water.”

The only footstools in the house were in Fritz’s room in the basement. On my way to the kitchen to ask to borrow it and tell him a glass of water was wanted, a glance showed me Saul and Amy in the alcove, and her shoes were off. In Fritz’s big cluttered den in the basement, with its 294 cookbooks on eleven shelves, there were three footstools, and I took the biggest one, which was topped with a tapestry with a woven hunter aiming a spear at a woven wild boar.

Back up and in the office, I found that I hadn’t missed

any conversation. Jarrett was taking a large blue pill from a little gold box, and I stood with the footstool until he had put the pill in his mouth and got it down with a swallow of water. He may have expected me to lift his feet to get the stool under, presumably Oscar would have, but I wasn’t that cordial. After he got the glass back on the stand he lifted them himself and I slid the stool under.

“There’s a competent doctor a few doors away,” Wolfe said.

“No,” Jarrett said. The eyes were as frozen as ever and the bony jaw as set. “I told you mornings are difficult. Talk.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I will not hector a sick man. Will the pill help?”

“Damn your impudence.” The bony jaw twitched. “I’m old. I’m not sick. You will not hector me, sick or well. Talk.”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up a little and down. “Very well, sir, I’ll talk, but it will go faster if you accept the realities of the situation. You say I won’t hector you, but I already have. I bullied you into coming this morning, and in doing so I completely exposed my position. I made it clear that you are faced with an alternative: either you will answer my questions about certain matters, answers that will satisfy me, or I will give the police information that will move them to investigate thoroughly your relations over the years with two people-Floyd Vance and Carlotta Vaughn, later Elinor Denovo. If you are not conversant with criminal law you may not know why the police will be concerned. Floyd Vance’s lawyer, if he knows he can’t get his client acquitted, and he can’t, because of evidence supplied by Mr. Goodwin and me, will try to get a verdict of accidental homicide or second-degree murder. The police and the* District Attorney will want a verdict of first-degree murder, and to get it they will need to establish a motive. You could verify this by communicating with the police or the District Attorney, but of course you can’t do that, since you don’t want the details of your connection with those two people to be disclosed. And they would inevitably be disclosed; once; the police get the concrete evidence of the connection, the ' checks you sent to Elinor Denovo during those twenty-

three years, they will uncover all the facts. That’s a task for which they are admirably equipped.”

Wolfe turned a hand over and said, with no change of tone, “You had an early breakfast and a long ride. Will you have refreshment of any kind'Coffee or other drink'A sandwich, pastry, fruit'Thyme honey on corn fritters?”

Jarrett’s jaw worked. “Damn your impudence.” He ignored the offer of refreshments, which was a pity, for he had never tasted Fritz’s corn fritters coated with wild thyme honey. “This is blackmail,” he said, “but even if I would pay, you couldn’t deliver. If you don’t tell the police about those checks McCray will, or one of the others.”

“No. Not possibly. They have no knowledge, not even a suspicion, of any connection between you and Floyd Vance. Only Mr. Goodwin and I have that.”

“You do not. There is no connection. If you-“

“Mr. Jarrett. Don’t talk nonsense. Accept the realities. The mere mention of Floyd Vance’s name brought you to the telephone, and what I added brought you here. Pfui. Confound it, you’re not well.”

It was something to see, how, in that fix, Jarrett’s eyes stayed as hard and cold as when he had told me I was an idiot. “You’re lying about McCray,” he said. “He’s behind this and behind you.”

“No. Only fools tell lies that are vulnerable. My sole concern is the interest of my client, Miss Amy Denovo, the daughter of Elinor Denovo.”

“What do you want'How much?”

“I want nothing but answers to some questions. I want the information that my client hired me to get, that’s all-and by the way, my commitment is a limited one. I have engaged only to learn who and what her father was -and is. I will be obliged to tell her only that, and no other information you give me will be repeated to her or to anyone else, either by Mr. Goodwin or by me.”

Wolfe cocked his head. “You spoke of blackmail. Actually, as I said yesterday, I am showing you more consideration tihan you deserve. A citizen who possesses information relevant to a crime is expected to give it to the police. I could have done that yesterday and saved all this pother. In their investigation they would certainly es-tabHsh the identity of Amy Denovo’s father and my

obligation to her would be met, and I would have earned my fee. I go to this unnecessary trouble only to gratify my self-esteem; I prefer to get the information myself, firsthand. I don’t want any thanks from you and don’t expect any.”

“You won’t get any.” Jarrett lifted his feet and kicked the footstool aside. Evidently the pill had helped. “I answer your questions and you earn your fee, and then you inform the police.”

“No. I have told you, except for the identity of Amy Denovo’s father, nothing that you say will be reported to anyone, either by Mr. Goodwin or by me. If as assurance of that you will not accept my word there was no point in your coming.”

Jarrett was visibly reacting. I admit it gave me pleasure to see it, remembering the two sessions I had had with him. His jaw was working, the muscle at the side of his neck was twitching, and his fingers had folded to make fists.

“Floyd Vance is Amy Denovo’s father,” he said.

Wolfe nodded. “As I surmised. How do you know that?”

“Damn you, I’m telling you! I know because& I have personal knowledge. That’s the information you say you have been hired to get.”

“It is indeed. But as I said, I must have answers that satisfy me. We’ll start at the beginning. In the spring of nineteen forty-four Carlotta Vaughn left your employ and went to work for and with Floyd Vance. Why?”

“I reserve details not essential for your satisfaction.”

“Pfui. Sir, you are a man of sense. You say you are not sick. Since you have declared your knowledge of the basic fact, it’s asinine to prolong this by trying to reserve details. The decision on what will satisfy me is for me, not you. This isn’t an agreeable conversation for either of us, and let’s make it as brief as possible. Why did she leave you and go to Floyd Vance?”

Jarrett’s jaw had stopped working and the frozen eyes were leveled at Wolfe. “I asked her to,” he said. “I continued to pay her. She was very competent and I thought she would put his business on a sound basis and straighten him out. He didn’t know she came from me. He knows nothing about me. My communications to him and about

him have never been direct. My sending Carlotta Vaughn to him was a mistake. When I returned from abroad in September I learned what had happened. He had attracted her and seduced her and she was pregnant. By then she had returned to her senses. She stayed on with him for a month or so, out of stubbornness, hoping to make a man of a fool, but it was impossible, even for her. She left. She disappeared. I felt responsible, and I never slight a responsibility. I arranged to have her traced, but it took months, and I learned of her change of name in March nineteen forty-five. I arranged to keep informed, and was, and I sent her a check shortly after the birth of her child. I have not seen her or communicated with her since October nineteen forty-four. I am giving you details that make it unnecessary for you to ask questions. I have no knowledge of any contacts she may have had with Vance since October of nineteen forty-four. If he killed her I know nothing of his motive. I have never seen him or-” He stopped.

Wolfe asked, “Does he know he is your son?” Jarrett was set for it and wasn’t fazed. “I’ve answered that,” he said. “I said he knows nothing about me. You don’t merely assume that he is my son, you conclude it, because you can conceive of no other circumstance that would account for my taking the responsibility for Carlotta Vaughn’s misfortune. To deny it would be pointless; you wouldn’t believe me. If this Amy Denovo hires you to learn more about her father I know what you’ll do, and I’ve had enough of you. His mother’s name was Florence Vance. In nineteen fourteen she was twenty and I was twenty-three. She was a waitress in a restaurant in Boston. She died five days after the child was born. No; Floyd Vance does not know I am his father. If you have a material question ask it.”

“There are many I could ask,” Wolfe said, “but you have covered the essential points. It is only my curiosity that would be satisfied by knowing how you got word to Floyd Vance, two weeks ago, that I was looking for Amy Denovo’s father, and I can’t insist on that. I do have a comment. If you had told Mr. Goodwin when he first called on you what you have just told me, it is extremely likely that Floyd Vance would never have been identified