Lewent’s father’s house of granite, on Sixty-ninth Street between Fifth and Madison, had apparently not had its face washed since little Herman had been born there back in the nineteenth century, but inside there had unquestionably been changes. For one thing, the self-service elevator was so modern and so large that I guessed it had been installed since the present owner had been condemned to a wheelchair on account of his bum arteries.
Though Lewent had insisted that we should delay the operation until Theodore Huck’s lunch hour was past, and therefore it was after two o’clock when we arrived and were let in by a female viking who could have carried Herman around in her apron, I was still nursing the hope that I might earn the grand that day and evening and have my weekend. So when the viqueen had taken our hats I wasted no time for a glance at the luxuries of the big entrance hall as Lewent led the way to the elevator. We left it one flight up and turned right down the hall, which was some narrower but longer than the one downstairs. I was surprised at the thickness of the rugs in a mansion whose master did all his moving in a wheelchair.
The surprise left when we entered a large high-ceilinged room at the rear of the house and I saw the wheelchair. He could have parked it in a trailer camp and lived in it if it had had a roof. The seat was roomy enough for Nero Wolfe. At the sides were shelves, trays and compartments. A large metal box at the rear, low, was presumably a motor housing. A fluorescent light was attached to the frame at Huck’s left, shining on a magazine Huck was reading.
Lewent said, “This is Mr. Goodwin, as I phoned you,” and turned and went.
Theodore Huck said nothing. Tossing the magazine on a table nearby, he pressed a button, and the footrest of the chair came up, smoothly, until his legs, which were under a large plaid shawl, were straight and horizontal. He pressed another button, and the chair’s back receded until he was half reclining. He pressed another button, and the part of his legs were on began to move from side to side, not very gently. He closed his eyes. I lowered myself onto a chair and did a sweeping take of the room, which was his study, with the parts of the wall left visible by pictures and rows of books showing old wood panels, and then went back to him. The upper half of him was perfectly presentable for a guy his age, with a discernible waistline, good broad shoulders, a face with all features in proportion and correctly placed, and his full share of hair that had been dark but was now mostly gray. I had plenty of time to take him in, for he stayed put for a good five minutes, with his legs going from side to side on the moving frame. Finally the motion stopped, he pressed buttons, his legs went down and his torso up, and he reached to pull the edge of the plaid shawl above his hips.
He looked at me, but I couldn’t meet him because he seemed to be focusing about a foot below my chin. “I do that sixteen times a day,” he said. “Every hour while I’m awake. It helps a little. A year ago I could barely stand, and now I can take five or six steps. Your name’s Goodwin?”
“Right.”
“My brother-in-law said you wanted to see me.”
I nodded. “That’s not strictly accurate, but it will do. He wanted me to see you. My name’s Archie Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe, the detective, and your—”
“Oh! You’re that Goodwin?”
“Right. Your brother-in-law called at Mr. Wolfe’s office today and wanted to engage his services. He says that his sister—”
A door off to the right opened, and a young woman my age came stepping in, with papers in her hands. She was fair, with gray-green eyes, and as a spectacle there wasn’t a thing wrong with her, at a glance. Halfway across to the wheelchair she stopped and inquired, “Will you sign the letters now, Mr. Huck?”
“Later, Miss Riff.” He was a little crisp. “Later will do.”
“You said — I thought perhaps—”
“There’s no hurry.”
“Very well. I’m sorry if I interrupted.”
She turned and was gone, closing the door behind her so gently that there was no noise at all. I asked Huck, “That was Dorothy Riff?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I was telling you. Mr. Lewent says his sister promised him that in case of her death he would get a substantial sum. That was about a year before she died, and he is certain she would not have failed to arrange to keep her promise.”
Huck was shaking his head. “He heard her will read, and he saw it.”
“He says she told him she wouldn’t put it in her will because that would have violated a promise she had made her father. He thinks she left it in someone’s care for him — not you, he says, for you would have followed her instructions fully and promptly. He suspects it was Miss Riff or Miss Marcy or Mrs. O’Shea, and he wants Mr. Wolfe to investigate the matter, but he says it can be investigated only with your knowledge and consent, and that’s why he asked you to see me. Also Mr. Wolfe thought—”
Another door swung open, this time the one by which Lewent and I had entered from the hall, and another female was with us. On a guess she was somewhat younger than Dorothy Riff, but it was hard to tell with her nurse’s uniform setting off her big dark eyes and dark brown hair. Stopping for no questions, she crossed to a cabinet, got out a glass, a thermos carafe, and a bottle of Solway’s twenty-year liqueur striped-label scotch, put on ounce from the bottle and two ounces from the carafe into the glass, no ice, and went and handed it to Huck and got thanked.
She asked him in a low, cooing voice, “Everything under control?”
“Fine.”
“Your two-thirty exercise?”
“Of course.”
She left us, having given me just one swift glance. When the door was closed again Huck spoke. “This is medicine for me every two hours, but will you have some?”
“No, thanks. That was Sylvia Marcy?”
“Yes. You were saying that Mr. Wolfe thought—”
I resumed. “He thought that before I talk with the three women — with your permission, of course — you might be willing to let us have your opinion on a few points. For instance, do you think it likely that your wife made some such arrangement as Mr. Lewent suspects? Can you recall ever hearing her say anything hinting at such a thing? Her accounts for the months before she died — say a year — do they show a withdrawal of any unusual amount, either cash or securities? And most important, Mr. Wolfe thinks, which of those three women would your wife have been most likely to choose for such a purpose?”
Huck may have thought he was looking straight at me, but if so his aim was still low. “My brother-in-law has never mentioned this to me,” he said stiffly.
I nodded. “He says he was afraid of offending you. But now, since a year has passed and it is evident that all you have for him is the request in your wife’s will that his needs be considered, he feels that the matter should be looked into, so far as it can be without any inconvenience or embarrassment to you.”
“How could it embarrass me?”
“I don’t know. You’re a very wealthy man, and Miss Riff and Miss Marcy and Mrs. O’Shea work for you and live in your house, and I suppose Mr. Lewent thought you might not like my asking them an assortment of leading questions.”
“Miss Riff doesn’t live here.”
“The other two do?”
“Yes.”
“Do you regard them all as upright and trustworthy?”
“Yes.”
“This might help. Are you yourself so certain of the character of any one of them that you would eliminate her entirely from consideration in a matter of this kind?”
He twisted and stretched an arm to put his medicine glass on the table, and, turning back to me, was opening his mouth to reply when the door to the hall opened again and we had another visitor. This time I wasn’t sure. There had been no question about the secretary or nurse the moment they appeared, but I had not expected to see the housekeeper in a gay figured dress, white and two shades of blue. Also, though she was a little farther along than the other two, she was by no means a crone. She had medium brown hair and deep blue eyes, and there was a faint touch of hip-swinging in her walk. She came as for a purpose, straight to the front of the wheelchair, bent over from the hips, and tucked in the edge of the shawl around Huck’s feet. I watched Huck’s eyes. They went to her, naturally, but they seemed more preoccupied than pleased.
She straightened up and spoke. “All right, sir?”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. O’Shea.”
“Any orders?”
“No, nothing.”
She wheeled a quarter-turn to face me, and did a take. Her look was too brief to be called deliberate, but there sure was nothing furtive about it. I thought I might as well let her have a grin, but before my muscles reacted to deliver it she was through and was on her way. From the rear the hip-swing was more perceptible than from the front. As I viewed it I reflected that they had certainly wasted no time in giving a stranger a once-over. Entering and ascending with Lewent, I had had sight, sound, or smell of none of them, but now all three had galloped in before I had been with Huck more than fifteen minutes. If they were too jealous for a mutual intelligence pact it must have been radar.
When the door was shut again Huck spoke. “You asked some questions. I think it very unlikely that my wife made any such arrangement as you describe. She certainly never hinted at it to me. As far as I know, during the last year of her life she made no withdrawal of cash or securities not accounted for, but I’ll be glad to tell the accountants to check it. Although I do not accuse my brother-in-law of fabrication, I strongly suspect that he grossly misunderstood something my wife said to him. However, since he has consulted Nero Wolfe and you are here, I’m willing to humor him, the poor devil. Do you want to see them separately or together?”
“Together for a start.”
“How long will it take? You’ll finish today?”
“I hope to. I want to, but I don’t know.”
He regarded me, started to say something, decided not to, and pressed a button. Instantly the shebang leaped forward like a bronco out of a chute, missing my feet by maybe eight inches with one of its big balloon tires as it swept by. Huck was steering with a lever. Stopping beside the door to the hall, he reached for the knob and pulled the door wide, and the chair circled and passed through. I was on my feet and following when his bellow came.
“Herman! Come down here!”
I know now what had put the whole household on the alert — Paul Thayer, Huck’s nephew, had let it out that I was Nero Wolfe’s Archie Goodwin — but I didn’t know then, and it was a little spectacular to see them coming at us from all directions — Dorothy Riff from a door on that floor, Mrs. O’Shea up the stairs from below, and Lewent and Sylvia Marcy down the stairs from above — none of them bothering with the elevator. They stopped flurrying when they saw Huck sitting composed in his chair and me standing beside him at graceful ease, and approached in no apparent agitation.
Lewent standing was exactly the same height as Huck sitting. He asked as he came, “You want me, Theodore?”
The girls were closing in.
“Yes, I do,” Huck told his brother-in-law. “Mr. Goodwin has described the situation to me, and I want you to hear what I say to Mrs. O’Shea and Miss Marcy and Miss Riff.” His eyes moved to his womenfolk. “I suppose you have heard of a private detective named Nero Wolfe. Mr. Lewent went to see him this morning and engaged him to investigate something, and he has sent Mr. Goodwin here to make inquiries. Mr. Goodwin wishes to question you three ladies. You will answer at your discretion, as you please and think proper. That’s all I have to say. I want to make it clear that I am imposing no restriction on what Mr. Goodwin asks or what you answer, but I also wish you to understand that this is a private inquiry instigated by Mr. Lewent, and you are free to judge for yourselves what is fitting and relevant.”
I didn’t care for it a bit. You might have thought he knew what I was there for and was making damn sure I wouldn’t get it. Not by a flicker of an eyelash had he given any ground for a decent guess as to which one had him hooked.