I am inclined to believe that Cramer has a fairly good understanding of Wolfe in most respects, but not all. For instance, he exaggerates Wolfe’s appetite for dough, which I suppose is natural, since if he goes on being an honest cop, which he is, the most he can ever expect to get is considerably less than Wolfe pays me, whereas Wolfe’s annual take is well up in six figures. I admit Wolfe is not in business for my health, but he is quite capable of letting a customer leave the premises with a dime for carfare or even a buck for a taxi.
However, Cramer is not under that impression, and therefore, when he learned that we had no client connected in any way with Priscilla Eads, now that she was dead, and apparently no prospect of any, and hence no fee to build up and safeguard, he started calling me Archie, which had happened before, but not often. He expressed appreciation for the information I provided, taking a dozen pages of notes in his small neat hand, and asking plenty of questions, not to challenge but just to elucidate. He did offer a pointed comment about what he called our dodge with Helmar, with his ward upstairs, and I rebutted.
“Okay,” I told him, “you name it. She came here uninvited, and so did he. We had made no engagement with either one. They couldn’t both have what they wanted. Let’s hear how you would have handled it.”
“I’m not a genius like Wolfe. He could have been too busy to consider taking Helmar’s job.”
“And use what to meet his payroll? Speaking of busy, are you too busy to answer a question from a citizen in good standing?”
He looked at his wrist. “I’m due at the DA’s office at ten-thirty.”
“Then we’ve got hours — anyhow, minutes. Why did you want to make it so tight about the time Helmar left here? It was shortly after ten, and it was more than an hour later that Miss Eads left.”
“Uh-huh.” He got out a cigar. “What paper do you read?”
“The Times, but today I’ve seen only page one and sports.”
“It didn’t make the Times. A little after one o’clock last night the body of a woman was found in a vestibule on East Twenty-ninth Street. She had been strangled with some kind of cord, not very thick. There was trouble identifying her because her bag had been taken, but she lived in a nearby tenement and it didn’t take too long. Her name was Margaret Fomos, and she worked as a maid at the apartment of Miss Priscilla Eads on Seventy-fourth Street. It was a full-time job, but she lived on Twenty-ninth Street with her husband. She usually got home around nine, but last evening she phoned her husband that she wouldn’t arrive until eleven. He says she sounded upset, and he asked her why, and she said she would tell him when she saw him.”
“So she was killed about eleven o’clock?”
“Not known. The building on Seventy-fourth Street is a private house done over into luxes, one to a floor, except Miss Eads — she had the two top floors — and the elevator is self-service, so there is no staff around to see people coming and going. The ME puts it between ten-thirty and midnight.”
Cramer glanced at his wrist, stuck the cigar between his teeth at the left corner of his mouth, and clamped down on it. He never lit one. “I was home in bed. Rowcliff took it. He had four men on it, following routine, and around four o’clock one of them, a young fellow named Auerbach, decided he had brains and he might as well give ’em a chance. It occurred to him that he had never heard of a bag-snatcher going so far as to strangle the victim, and there was no evidence of any attempt at rape. What was there about her, or about the bag, that called for strangling? According to the husband, nothing about her, nor the bag either. But listing the contents of the bag as well as he could with the husband’s help, one item struck Auerbach as worth considering — Mrs. Fomos’s key to the apartment where she worked.”
“He’ll have your job someday.”
“He’s welcome to it now. He went to Seventy-fourth Street and rang the bell to the Eads apartment and got no answer. He got the janitor and had him open the door and take a look. The body of Priscilla Eads was there on the floor, half in a bathroom and half in a hall. She had been hit on the side of the head with the poker from her fireplace and then strangled with some kind of cord, not very thick. Her hat was lying near her, and she had her jacket on, so he had probably been there waiting for her when she came in. We’ll know more about that when we find the hackie, which should be soon with what you gave me. The ME puts it between one and two.”
“Then she didn’t go straight home. As I told you, I put her in the taxi about twenty to twelve.”
“I know. Auerbach got Rowcliff, and the boys moved in. The crop of prints was below average — I guess Mrs. Fomos was a good cleaner and duster — and the best of the lot were some nice fresh ones on the luggage. When the word came that they were yours Rowcliff phoned me, and I decided to drop by here on my way downtown. He doesn’t know how to handle Wolfe at all, and you have the same effect on him as a bee on a dog’s nose.”
“Some day I’ll describe the effect he has on me.”
“I’d rather not.” Cramer looked at his wrist. “I had it in mind to have a word with Wolfe, but I know how he is about being disturbed up there about a little thing like a homicide, and I’d just as soon take it from you, so long as I get it.”
“You’ve got it all right.”
“I believe you, for a change.” He left his chair. “Especially since he has no client, and none in sight that I can see. He’ll be in one hell of a humor, and I don’t envy you. I’ll be going. You understand you’re a material and you’ll be around.”
I said I would.
When I went back down the hall after letting Cramer out I started to re-enter the office, but suddenly braked at the door, pivoted, and made for the stairs. Two flights up, I went into the south room, stood in its center, and looked around. Fritz hadn’t been in it yet, and the bed was turned down as Priscilla had left it, with the folded coverlet on the other bed. I went and lifted the coverlet to look under it and dropped it again. I raised the pillow on the turned-down bed and glanced under that. I crossed to the large bureau between the windows and started opening and closing drawers.
I was not being completely cuckoo. I was a trained and experienced detective, there had been a murder that I was interested in and wanted to know more about, and the closest I could get to it at the moment was this room in which Priscilla had expected to sleep and eat her breakfast. I hadn’t the slightest expectation of finding anything helpful, and so wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t; and I did find something at that. On a shelf in the bathroom was a toothbrush and a soiled handkerchief. I took them to my room and put them on my dresser, and I still have them, in a drawer where I keep a collection of assorted professional relics.
There was no point in going up to the plant rooms and starting a squabble, so I went down to the office and opened the morning mail and fiddled around with chores. Somewhat later, when I became aware that I was entering a germination date of Cymbidium holfordianum on the card of Cymbidium pauwelsi, I decided I wasn’t in the mood for clerical work, returned things to the files, and sat and stared at my toes. There were four thousand things I wanted to know, and there were people I might have started asking, like Sergeant Purley Stebbins or Lon Cohen of the Gazette, but after all this was Nero Wolfe’s office and phone.
At eleven o’clock he came down, entered and crossed to his desk, got himself settled in his chair, and glanced through the little stack of mail I had put there under a paperweight. There was nothing of much interest and certainly nothing urgent. He cocked his head, focused on me, and stated, “It would have been like you to come up at ten o’clock for instructions as arranged.”
I nodded. “I know, but Cramer didn’t leave until five after, and I knew how you would react. Do you care to hear the details?”
“Go ahead.”
I gave him what I had got from Cramer. When I had finished he sat frowning at me with his eyes half closed, through a long silence. Finally he spoke. “You reported in full to Mr. Cramer?”
“I did. You said to unload.”
“Yes. Then Mr. Helmar will soon know, if he doesn’t already, of our stratagem, and I doubt if it’s worth the trouble to communicate with him. He wanted his ward alive and well, so he said, and that’s out of the question.”
I disagreed, not offensively. “But he’s our only contact, and, no matter how sore he is, we can start with him. We have to start somewhere with someone?”
“Start?” He was peevish. “Start what? For whom? We have no client. There’s nothing to start.”
The simple and direct thing to do would have been to blow my top, and it would have been a satisfaction — but then what? I refused to boil, and kept my voice even. “I don’t deny,” I told him, “that that’s one way to look at it, but only one, and there is at least one other. Like this. She was here and wanted to stay, and we kicked her out, and she got killed. I should think that would have some bearing on your self-esteem, which you were discussing last night. I should think that you do have something to start — a murder investigation. And you also have a client — your self-esteem.”
“Nonsense!”
“Maybe.” I stayed calm. “I would like to explain at length why I think it’s up to us to get the guy that killed Priscilla Eads, but I don’t want to waste your time or my breath just for the hell of it. Would it do any good?”
“No.”
“You won’t even consider it?”
“Why should I?” He fluttered a hand. “I am under no onus and am offered no reward. No.”
“Okay,” I stood up. “I guess I knew how it would be. You realize that I have my personal problem, and it’s different from yours. If I had turned her down and put her out yesterday afternoon as soon as I found out what she wanted, would she be in the morgue now? I doubt it. When you came down and I sprung her on you, you told me to get her out of the house before dinner. If I had, would she be in the morgue now? Probably not. It was absolutely my fault that she didn’t leave until nearly midnight, and she decided to go home, it doesn’t matter why. It may have been just to change her clothes and luggage, or she may have decided not to play — anyhow, she went home, and she got it. That’s my personal problem.”
“Archie.” He was gruff. “No man can hold himself accountable for the results of his psychological defects, especially those he shares with all his fellow men, such as lack of omniscience. It is a vulgar fallacy that what you don’t know can’t hurt you; but it is true that what you don’t know can’t convict you.”
“It’s still my personal problem. I can get along without omniscience, but I can’t get along with a goddam strangler going around being grateful to me for sending his victim to him, and I don’t intend to try. I’ll quit if you prefer it, but I’d rather take an indefinite leave of absence, starting now — without pay, of course. You can get Saul in. I’ll move to a hotel, but I suppose you won’t mind if I drop in occasionally in case I need something.”
He was glowering at me. “Do I understand you? Do you intend to go single-handed for the murderer of Miss Eads?”
“I don’t know about single-handed. I may need some hired help, but I’m going for him.”
“Pfui.” He was contemptuous. “Poppycock. Is Mr. Cramer such a bungler? And his men? So inept that you must assume their functions?”
I stared at him. “I’ll be damned. That, from you?”
He shook his head. “It won’t do, Archie. You’re trying to coerce me, and I won’t have it. I will not undertake a major and expensive operation, with no chance of income, merely because you have been piqued by circumstance. Your bluff won’t work. It would of course be folly for you to try any — what’s that for?”
I was too busy to answer him. With my jacket off, I had got a shoulder holster from a drawer and was strapping it on. That done, I took a Marley.32 and a box of cartridges, filled the cylinder, put the gun in the holster, and put my jacket back on. It was an effective retort to Wolfe, but that was not the sole reason for it. Ever since a certain regrettable experience some years back, I never left the house on an errand connected with a murder case without taking a gun, so I was merely following habit.
I faced Wolfe. “I’ll do my best to see that everybody understands that I’m not working for you. Some of them won’t believe it, but I can’t help that. I’ll come back for some things, and if I can’t make it until late I’ll phone to tell you what hotel I’m at. If you decide you’d rather have me quit, okay. I haven’t got time to discuss it now because I want to catch a guy before lunch.”
He sat with his lips pressed tight, scowling. I turned and went. Passing the hall rack, I snared my straw hat, not that I don’t hate to monkey with a hat in summer, but I might need the tone. Descending the seven steps of the stoop, I turned east as if I knew exactly where I was headed for, walked to Tenth Avenue and turned downtown, and at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street entered a drugstore, mounted a stool at the soda fountain, and ordered a chocolate egg malted with three eggs.
There was no guy I wanted to catch before lunch. I had got away from there because I knew I had to as soon as I saw there was no chance of harassing Wolfe into taking a hand. I didn’t blame him; he had no personal problem like mine. I wasn’t fussing about the problem. That was settled. Until further notice I had only one use for my time and faculties: to find out who the strangler was that I had sent Priscilla Eads to in a taxi, and wrap him up for delivery to the proper address, with or without help. I had no great ideas about galloping down Broadway on a white horse with his head on the point of a spear. I just wanted to catch the sonofabitch, or at least help.
I considered the notion of helping. I could go to Inspector Cramer, explain my problem, and offer to stick strictly to orders if he would take me on as a special for the case. I might have done it but for the fact that Rowcliff would probably be giving some of the orders. Nothing on earth could justify a man’s deliberately putting himself under orders from Rowcliff. I gave that up. But then what? If I went to Priscilla’s apartment I wouldn’t be let in. If I got to Perry Helmar, supposing I could, he wouldn’t speak to me. I had to find a crack somewhere.
When I had finished the malted, and a glass of water for a chaser, I went to a phone booth, dialed the number of the Gazette, and got Lon Cohen.
“First,” I told him, “this call is strictly personal. Nero Wolfe is neither involved nor interested. With that understood, kindly tell me all facts, surmises, and rumors connected directly or indirectly with Miss Priscilla Eads and her murder.”
“The paper costs a nickel, son. I’m busy.”
“So am I. I can’t wait for the paper. Did she leave any relatives?”
“None in New York that we know of. A couple of aunts in California.”
“Have you got any kind of a line that you can mention on the phone?”
“Yes and no. Nothing exclusive. You know about her father’s will?”
“I know absolutely nothing.”
“Her mother died when she was an infant, and her father when she was fifteen. The cash and securities he left her, and the insurance, were nothing spectacular, but he set up a trust of ninety per cent of the stock of Softdown, Incorporated, a ten-million-dollar towel and textile business. The trustee was his friend and lawyer, Perry Helmar. Eighty per cent of the income of the trust was to go to Priscilla, and on her twenty-fifth birthday the whole works was to become her property. In case she died before her twenty-fifth birthday, the stock was to become the property of the officers and employees of the corporation. They were named in a schedule that was part of the will, with the amount to go to each one. Most of it went in big gobs to less than a dozen of them. Okay, she was killed six days before her twenty-fifth birthday. That is obviously a line, but it’s certainly not exclusive.”
“I’ll bet it’s not. The damn fool — I mean the father. What about the guy she married? I hear she ran away with him. Who was she running from? Her father was dead.”
“I don’t know — maybe the trustee; he was her guardian. That wasn’t here. She met him somewhere on a trip, down South I think. There’s very little on it in New York. What do you mean, Wolfe is neither involved nor interested?”
“Just that. He isn’t.”
“Ha-ha. I suppose you’re calling for a friend. Give him my regards. Have you got your dime’s worth?”
“For now, yes. I’ll buy you a steak at Pierre’s at seven-thirty.”
He made a smacking noise. “That’s the best offer I’ve had today. I hope I can make it. Ring me at seven?”
“Right. Much obliged.”
I hung up, pulled the door open, and got out a handkerchief and wiped my brow and behind my ears. The booth was hot. I stepped out, found the Manhattan phone book, looked up an address, went out and crossed Thirty-fourth Street, and got a taxi going east.