Triple Jeopardy (19 page)

The reason given in the letter'

Yes.

I swiveled the typewriter to me, got paper and carbon in, and hit the keys. I had to concentrate. This was Cramers farthest north. Parker was asking questions, and Wolfe was grunting at him. I finished the letter and envelope,

had Wolfe sign it, went to the kitchen and told Fritz to take it to Eighth Avenue immediately, and returned to the office.

Now, Wolfe said, I want all of it. Go ahead.

Ordinarily when I start giving Wolfe a full report of an event, no matter how extended and involved, I just glide in and keep going with no effort at all,

thanks to my long and hard training. That time, having just got a severe jolt, I wasnt so hot at the beginning, since I was supposed to include every word and movement, but by the time I had got to where I opened the window it was coming smooth and easy. As usual, Wolfe soaked it all in without making any interruptions.

It took all of an hour and a half, and then came questions, but not many. I rate a report by the number of questions he has when Im through, and by that test this was up toward the top. Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes.

Parker spoke. It could have been any of them, but it must have been Koven. Or why his string of lies, knowing that you and Goodwin would both contradict him'

The lawyer haw-hawed. That is, if theyre lies - considering your settled policy of telling your counselor only what you think he should know.

Pfui. Wolfes eyes came open. This is extraordinarily intricate, Archie. Have you examined it any'

Ive started. When I pick at it, it gets worse instead of better.

Yes. Im afraid youll have to type it out. By eleven tomorrow morning'

I guess so, but I need a bath first. Anyway, what for'What can we do with it without a license'I suppose its suspended'

He ignored it. What the devil is that smell'he demanded.

Disinfectant. Its for the bloodhounds in case you escape. I arose. Ill go scrub.

No. He glanced at the wall clock, which said 3:45 - fifteen minutes to go until he was due to join Theodore and the orchids up on the roof. An errand first. I believe its the Gazette that carries the Dazzle Dan comic strip'

Yes, sir.

Daily and Sunday'

Yes, sir.

I want all of them for the past three years. Can you get them'

I can try.

Do so.

Now'

Yes. Wait a minute - confound it, dont be a cyclone! You should hear my instructions for Mr. Parker, but first one for you. Mail Mr. Koven a bill for recovery of his gun, five hundred dollars. It should go today.

Any extras, under the circumstances'

No. Five hundred flat. Wolfe turned to the lawyer. Mr. Parker, how long will it take to enter a suit for damages and serve a summons on the defendant'

That depends. Parker sounded like a lawyer. If its rushed all possible and there are no unforeseen obstacles and the defendant is accessible for service,

it could be merely a matter of hours.

By noon tomorrow'

Quite possibly, yes.

Then proceed, please. Mr. Koven has destroyed, by slander, my means of livelihood. I wish to bring an action demanding payment by him of the sum of one million dollars.

M-m-m-m, Parker said. He was frowning.

I addressed Wolfe. I want to apologize, I told him, for jumping to a conclusion. I was supposing you had lost control for once and buried it too deep in Cramer. Whereas you did it purposely, getting set for this. Ill be damned.

Wolfe grunted.

In this sort of thing, Parker said, it is usual, and desirable, to first send a written request for recompense, by your attorney if you prefer. It looks better.

I dont care how it looks. I want immediate action.

Then well act. That was one of the reasons Wolfe stuck to Parker; he was no dilly-dallier. But I must ask, isnt the sum a little flamboyant'A full million'

It is not flamboyant. At a hundred thousand a year, a modest expectation, my income would be a million in ten years. A detective license once lost in this fashion is not easily regained.

All right. A million. Ill need all the facts for drafting a complaint.

You have them. Youve just heard Archie recount them. Must you stickle for more'

No. Ill manage. Parker got to his feet. One thing, though, service of process may be a problem. Policemen may still be around, and even if they arent I doubt if strangers will be getting into that house tomorrow.

Archie will send Saul Panzer to you. Saul can get in anywhere and do anything.

Wolfe wiggled a finger. I want Mr. Koven to get that. I want to see him in this room. Five times this morning I tried to get him on the phone, without success.

If that doesnt get him Ill devise something that will.

Hell give it to his attorney.

Then the attorney will come, and if hes not an imbecile Ill give myself thirty minutes to make him send for his client or go and get him. Well'

Parker turned and left, not loitering. I got at the typewriter to make out a bill for half a grand, which seemed like a waste of paper after what I had just heard.

At midnight that Tuesday the office was a sight. It has often been a mess, one way and another, including the time the strangled Cynthia Brown was lying on the floor with her tongue protruding, but this was something new.

Dazzle Dan, both black-and-white and color, was all over the place. On account of our shortage in manpower, with me tied up on my typing job, Fritz and Theodore had been drafted for the chore of tearing out the pages and stacking them chronologically, ready for Wolfe to study. With Wolfes permission,

I had bribed Lon Cohen of the Gazette to have three years of Dazzle Dan assembled and delivered to us, by offering him an exclusive. Naturally he demanded specifications.

Nothing much, I told him on the phone. Only that Nero Wolfe is out of the detective business because Inspector Cramer is taking away his license.

Quite a gag, Lon conceded.

No gag. Straight.

You mean it'

Were offering it for publication. Exclusive, unless Cramers office spills it,

and I dont think they will.

The Getz murder'

Yes. Only a couple of paragraphs, because details are not yet available, even to you. Im out on bail.

I know you are. This is pie. Well raid the files and get it over there as soon as we can.

He hung up without pressing for details. Of course that meant he would send Dazzle Dan COD, with a reporter.

When the reporter arrived a couple of hours later, shortly after Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms at six oclock, it wasnt just a man with a notebook,

it was Lon Cohen himself. He came to the office with me, dumped a big heavy carton on the floor by my desk, removed his coat and dropped it on the carton to show that Dazzle Dan was his property until paid for, and demanded, I want the works. What Wolfe said and what Cramer said. A picture of Wolfe studying Dazzle Dan -

I pushed him into a chair, courteously, and gave him all we were ready to turn loose of. Naturally that wasnt enough; it never is. I let him fire questions up to a dozen or so, even answering one or two, and then made it clear that that was all for now and I had work to do. He admitted it was a bargain, stuck his notebook in his pocket, and got up and picked up his coat.

If youre not in a hurry, Mr. Cohen, muttered Wolfe, who had left the interview to me.

Lon dropped the coat and sat down. I have nineteen years, Mr. Wolfe. Before I retire.

I wont detain you that long. Wolfe sighed. I am no longer a detective, but Im a primate and therefore curious. The function of a newspaperman is to satisfy curiosity. Who killed Mr. Getz'

Lons brows went up. Archie Goodwin'It was his gun.

Nonsense. Im quite serious. Also Im discreet. I am excluded from the customary sources of information by the jackassery of Mr. Cramer. I -

May I print that'

No. None of this. Nor shall I quote you. This is a private conversation. I would like to know what your colleagues are saying but not printing. Who killed Mr. Getz'Miss Lowell'If so, why'

Lon pulled his lower lip down and let it up again. You mean were just talking.

Yes.

This might possibly lead to another talk that could be printed.

It might. I make no commitment. Wolfe wasnt eager.

You wouldnt. As for Miss Lowell, she has not been scratched. It is said that Getz learned she was chiseling on royalties from makers of Dazzle Dan products and intended to hang it on her. That could have been big money.

Any names or dates'

None that are repeatable. By me. Yet.

Any evidence'

I havent seen any.

Wolfe grunted. Mr. Hildebrand. If so, why'

Thats shorter and sadder. He has told friends about it. He has been with Koven for eight years and was told last week he could leave at the end of the month,

and he blamed it on Getz. He might or might not get another job at his age.

Wolfe nodded. Mr. Jordan'

Lon hesitated. This I dont like, but others are talking, so why not us'They say Jordan has painted some pictures, modern stuff, and twice he has tried to get a gallery to show them, two different galleries, and both times Getz has somehow kiboshed it. This has names and dates, but whether because Getz was born a louse or whether he wanted to keep Jordan -

Ill do my own speculating, thank you. Mr. Getz may not have liked the pictures. Mr. Koven'

Lon turned a hand over. Well'What better could you ask'Getz had him buffaloed, no doubt about it. Getz ruled the roost, plenty of evidence on that,

and nobody knows why, so the only question is what he had on Koven. It must have been good, but what was it'You say this is a private conversation'

Yes.

Then heres something we got started on just this afternoon. It has to be checked before we print it. That house on Seventy-sixth Street is in Getzs name.

Indeed. Wolfe shut his eyes and opened them again. And Mrs. Koven'

Lon turned his other hand over. Husband and wife are one, arent they'

Yes. Man and wife make one fool.

Lons chin jerked up. I want to print that. Why not'

It was printed more than three hundred years ago. Ben Jonson wrote it. Wolfe sighed. Confound it, what can I do with only a few scraps'He pointed at the carton. You want that stuff back, I suppose'

Lon said he did. He also said he would be glad to go on with the private conversation in the interest of justice and the public welfare, but apparently Wolfe had all the scraps he could use at the moment. After ushering Lon to the door I went up to my room to spend an hour attending to purely personal matters,

a detail that had been too long postponed.

I was out of the shower, selecting a shirt, when a call came from Saul Panzer in response to the message I had left. I gave him all the features of the picture that would help and told him to report to Parkers law office in the morning.

After dinner that evening we were all hard at it in the office. Fritz and Theodore were unfolding Gazettes, finding the right page and tearing it out, and carrying off the leavings. I was banging away at my machine, three pages an hour.

Wolfe was at his desk, concentrating on a methodical and exhaustive study of three years of Dazzle Dan. It was well after midnight when he pushed back his chair, arose, stretched, rubbed his eyes, and told us, Its bedtime. This morass of fatuity has given me indigestion. Good night.

Wednesday morning he tried to put one over. His routine was breakfast in his room, with the morning paper, at eight; then shaving and dressing; then, from nine to eleven, his morning shift up in the plant rooms. He never went to the office before eleven, and the detective business was never allowed to mingle with the orchids. But that Wednesday he fudged. While I was in the kitchen with Fritz, enjoying griddle cakes, Darsts sausage, honey, and plenty of coffee, and going through the morning papers, with two readings for the Gazettes account of Wolfes enforced retirement, Wolfe sneaked downstairs into the office and made off with a stack of Dazzle Dan. The way I knew, before breakfast I had gone in there to straighten up a little, and I am trained to observe.

Returning after breakfast, and glancing around before starting at my typewriter,

I saw that half of a pile of Dan was gone. I dont think I had ever seen him quite so hot under the collar. I admit I fully approved. Not only did I not make an excuse for a trip up to the roof to catch him at it, but I even took the trouble to be out of the office when he came down at eleven oclock, to give him a chance to get Dan back unseen.

My first job after breakfast had been to carry out some instructions Wolfe had given me the evening before. Manhattan office hours being what they are, I got no answer at the number of Levay Recorders, Inc., until 9:35. Then it took some talking to get a promise of immediate action, and if it hadnt been for the name of Nero Wolfe I wouldnt have made it. But I got both the promise and the action. A little after ten two men arrived with cartons of equipment and tool kits, and in less than an hour they were through and gone, and it was a neat and nifty job. It would have taken an expert search to reveal anything suspicious in the office, and the wire to the kitchen, running around the baseboard and on through, wouldnt be suspicious even if seen.

It was hard going at the typewriter on account of the phone ringing, chiefly reporters wanting to talk to Wolfe, or at least me, and finally I had to ask Fritz in to answer the damn thing and give everybody a brush-off. A call he switched to me was one from the DAs office. They had the nerve to ask me to come down there so they could ask me something. I told them I was busy answering Help Wanted ads and couldnt spare the time. Half an hour later Fritz switched another one to me. It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. He was good and sore,

beefing about Wolfe having no authority to break the news about losing his license, and it wasnt official yet, and where did I think it would get me refusing to cooperate with the DA on a murder when I had discovered the body,

and I could have my choice of coming down quick or having a PD car come and get me. I let him use up his breath.