THE crowd of spectators ganged up in the corridor outside the Goldenrod Barber Shop was twice as big as it had been before, for two reasons. It was just past five o’clock, and home-goers were flocking through for the subway; and inside the shop there was a fine assortment of cops and dicks to look at. The corridor sported not one flatfoot, but three, keeping people away from the entrance and moving. I told one of them my name and errand and was ordered to wait, and in a minute Purley came and escorted me in.
I darted a glance around. The barber chairs were all empty. Fickler and three of the barbers, Jimmie, Ed, and Philip, were seated along the row of waiting chairs, in their white jackets, each with a dick beside him. Tom was not in view. Other city employees were scattered around.
Purley had guided me to the corner by the cash register. “How long have you known that Janet Stahl?” he demanded.
I shook my head reproachfully. “Not that way. You said I was needed, and I came on the run. If you merely want my biography, call at the office any time during hours. If you call me Archie, even after hours.”
“Cut the comedy. How long have you know her?”
“No, sir. I know a lawyer. Lay a foundation.”
Purley’s right shoulder twitched. It was only a reflex of his impulse to sock me, beyond his control and therefore nothing to resent. “Some day,” he said, setting his jaw and then releasing it. “She was found on the floor of her booth, out from a blow on her head. We brought her to, and she can talk but she won’t. She won’t tell us anything. She says she don’t know us. She says she won’t talk to anybody except her friend Archie Goodwin. How long have you known her?”
“I’m touched,” I said with emotion. “Until today I’ve merely leered at her, with no conversation or bodily contact of any kind. The only chat I’ve ever had with her was here today under your eye, but look what it did to her. Is it any wonder my opinion of myself is what it is?”
“Listen, Goodwin, we’re after a murderer.”
“I know you are. I’m all for it.”
“You’ve never seen her outside this shop?”
“No.”
“That can be checked maybe. Right now we want you to get her to talk. Goddam her, she’s stopped us dead. Come on.” He moved.
I caught his elbow. “Hold it. If she sticks to it that she’ll only talk with me I’ll have to think up questions. I ought to know what happened.”
“Yeah.” Purley wanted no more delay, but obviously I had a point. “There were only three of us left, me here at the front, and Joffe and Sullivan there on chairs. The barbers were all working on customers. Fickler was moving around. I was on the phone half the time. We had squeezed out everything we could here, for the present anyhow, and it was a letdown, you know how that is.”
“Where was Janet?”
“I’m telling you. Toracco, that’s Philip, finished with a customer, and a new one got in his chair — we were letting regular customers in. The new one wanted a manicure, and Toracco called Janet, but she didn’t come. Fickler was helping the outgoing customer on with his coat. Toracco went behind the partition to get Janet, and there she was on the floor of her booth, cold. She had gone there fifteen minutes before, possibly twenty. I think all of them had gone behind the partition at least once during that time.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I think.”
“It must have been quite a letdown.”
“I said I was on the phone a lot. Joffe and Sullivan will not be jumped up, and don’t they know it. You know damn well how much we like it, her getting bopped with three of us right here.”
“How bad is she hurt?”
“Not enough for the hospital. Doc let us keep her here. She was hit above the right ear with a bottle taken from the supply shelf against the partition, six feet from the entrance to her booth. The bottle was big and heavy, full of oil. It was there by her on the floor.”
“Prints?”
“For God’s sake, start a school. He had a towel in his hand or something. Come on.”
“One second. What did the doctor say when you asked him if she could have been just testing her skull?”
“He said it was possible but he doubted it. Come and ask her.”
Feeling that I had enough for a basis for conversation, I followed him. As we went toward the partition all the barbers and dicks along the row of chairs gave us looks, none of them cheerful. Fickler was absolutely forlorn.
I had never been behind the partition before. The space ran about half the length of the shop. Against the partition were steamers, vats, lamps, and other paraphernalia, and then a series of cupboards and shelves. Across a wide aisle were the manicure booths, four of them, though I had never seen more than two operators in the shop. As we passed the entrance to the first booth in the line a glance showed me Inspector Cramer seated at a little table across from Tom, the barber with white hair. Cramer saw me and arose. I followed Purley to the third booth, and on in. Then steps came behind me, and Cramer was there.
It was a big booth, eight by eight, but was now crowded. In addition to us three and the furniture, a city employee was standing in a corner, and, on a row of chairs lined up against the right wall, Janet Stahl was lying on her back, her head resting on a stack of towels. She had moved her eyes, but not her head, to take in us visitors. She looked beautiful.
“Here’s your friend Goodwin,” Purley told her, trying to sound sympathetic.
“Hello there,” I said professionally. “What does this mean?”
The long home-grown lashes fluttered at me. “You,” she said.
“Yep. Your friend Archie Goodwin.” There was a chair there, the only one she wasn’t using, and I squeezed past Purley and sat, facing her and close. “How do you feel, terrible?”
“No, I don’t feel at all. I am past feeling.”
I reached for her wrist, got my fingers on the spot, and looked at my watch. In thirty seconds I said, “Your pump isn’t bad. May I inspect your head?”
“If you’re careful.”
“Groan if it hurts.” I used all fingers to part the fine brown hair, and gently but thoroughly investigated the scalp. She closed her eyes and flinched once, but there was no groan. “A lump to write home about,” I announced. “Doing your hair will be a problem. I’d like to give the guy that did it a piece of my mind before plugging him. Who was it?”
“Send them away, and I’ll tell you.”
I turned to the kibitzers. “Get out,” I said sternly. “If I had been here this would never have happened. Leave us.”
They went without a word. I sat listening to the sound of their retreating footsteps outside in the aisle, then thought I had better provide sound to cover in case they were careless tiptoeing back. They had their choice of posts, just outside the open entrance or in the adjoining booths. The partitions were only six feet high. “It was dastardly,” I said. “He might have killed you or disfigured you for life, and either one would have ruined your career. Thank God you’ve got a good strong thick skull.”
“I started to scream,” she said, “but it was too late.”
“What started you to scream? Seeing him, or hearing him?”
“It was both. I wasn’t in my chair, I was in the customer’s chair, with my back to the door — I was just sitting trying to think — and there was a little noise behind me, like a stealthy step, and I looked up and saw him reflected in the glass, right behind me with his arm raised, and I started to scream, but before I could get it out he struck—”
“Wait a minute.” I got up and moved my chair to the outer side of the little table and sat in it. “These details are important. You were like this?”
“That’s it. I was sitting thinking.”
I felt that the opinion I had formed of her previously had not done her justice. The crinkly glass of the partion wall could reflect no object whatever, no matter how the light was. Her contempt for mental processes was absolutely spectacular. I moved my chair back beside her. From that angle, as she lay there flat on her back, not only was her face lovely to see, but the rest of her was good for the eyes too.
I asked, “But you saw his reflection before he struck?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“Of course I did. That’s why I wouldn’t speak to them. That’s why I had to see you. It was that big one with the big ears and gold tooth, the one they call Stebbins, or they call him Sergeant.”
I wasn’t surprised. I knew her qualify now. “You mean it was him that hit you with the bottle?”
“I can’t say it was him that hit me. I think people should be careful what they accuse other people of. I only know it was him I saw standing behind me with his arm raised, and then something hit me. From that anyone can only draw conclusions, but there are other reasons too. He was rude to me this morning, asking me questions, and all day he has been looking at me in a rude way, not the way a girl is willing for a man to look at her because she has to expect that. And then you can just be logical. Would Ed want to kill me, or Philip or Jimmie or Tom or Mr. Fickler? Why would they? So it must have been him even if I hadn’t seen him.”
“It does sound logical,” I conceded. “But I’ve known Stebbins for years and have never known him to strike a woman without cause. What did he have against you?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned a little. “When they ask me that I’ll just have to say I don’t know. That’s one of the first things you must tell me, how to answer things to the reporters. I shouldn’t think I can keep on saying I don’t know, or why would they print it? What hit you I don’t know, who hit you I don’t know, why did he hit you I don’t know, my Lord, who would want to read that? What shall I say when they ask why he hit me?”
“We’ll come back to that. First we—”
“We ought to settle it now.” She was pouting fit for a Life cover, but determined. “That’s how you’ll earn your ten per cent.”
“My ten per cent of what?”
“Of everything I get. As my manager.” She extended a hand, her eyes straight at mine. “Shake on it.”
To avoid a contractual shake without offending, I grasped the back of her hand with my left, turning her palm up, and ran the fingers of my right from her wrist to her fingertips. “It’s a darned good idea,” I said appreciatively, “but we’ll have to postpone it. I’m going through bankruptcy just now, and it would be illegal for me to make a contract. About—”
“I can tell the reporters to ask you about things I don’t know. It’s called referring them to my manager.”
“I know it is. Later on it will—”
“I don’t need you later on. I need you right now.”
“Here I am, you’ve got me, but not under contract yet.” I released her hand, which I had kept as something to hold onto, and got emphatic. “If you tell reporters I’m your manager I’ll give you a lump that will make that one seem as flat as a pool table. If they ask why he hit you don’t say you don’t know, say it’s a mystery. People love a mystery. Now—”
“That’s it!” She was delighted. “That’s the kind of thing!”
“Sure. Tell ’em that. Now we’ve got to consider the cops. Stebbins is a cop, and they won’t want it hung on him. They’ve had one cop killed here today already. They’ll try to tie this up with that. I know how they work, I know them only too well. They’ll try to make it that somebody here killed Wallen, and he found out that you knew something about it so he tried to kill you. They may even think they have some kind of evidence — for instance, something you were heard to say. So we have to be prepared. We have to go back over it. Are you listening?”
“Certainly. What do I say when the reporters ask me if I’m going to go on working here? Couldn’t I say I don’t want to desert Mr. Fickler in a time of trouble?”
It took control to stay in that chair. I would have given a good deal to be able to get up and walk out, go to Purley and Cramer at their eavesdropping posts, tell them she was all theirs and they were welcome to her, and go on home. But at home there were the guests locked in the front room, and sometime, somehow, we had to get rid of them. I looked at her charming enchanting comely face, with its nice chin and straight little nose and the eyelashes, and realized that the matter would be approached from her angle or not at all.
“That’s the ticket,” I said warmly. “Say you’ve got to be loyal to Mr. Fickler. That’s the main thing to work on, how to handle the reporters. Have you ever been interviewed before?”
“No, this will be the first, and I want to start right.”
“Good for you. What they like best of all is to get the jump on the police. If you can tell them something the cops don’t know they’ll love you forever. For instance, the fact that Stebbins crowned you doesn’t prove that he’s the only one involved. He must have an accomplice here in the shop, or why did Wallen come here in the first place? We’ll call the accomplice X. Now listen. Sometime today, some time or other after Wallen’s body was found, you saw something or heard something, and X knew you did. He knew it, and he knew that if you told about it — if you told me, for example — it would put him and Stebbins on the spot. Naturally both of them would want to kill you. It could have been X that tried to, but since you say you saw Stebbins reflected in the glass we’ll let it go at that for now. Here’s the point: if you can remember what it was you saw or heard that scared X, and if you tell the reporters before the cops get wise to it, they’ll be your friends for life. Now for God’s sake don’t miss this chance. Concentrate. Remember everything you saw and heard here today, and everything you did and said too. Even if it takes us all night we’ve got to work it out.”
She was frowning. “I don’t remember anything that would scare anybody.”
“Don’t go at it like that. It was probably some little thing that didn’t seem important to you at all. We may have to start at the beginning and go over every—”
I stopped on account of her face. The frown had left it, and she was looking past me, not seeing me, with an expression that told me plainly, if I knew her half as well as I thought I did, what was going on inside. I snapped at her, “Do you want the reporters hating you? Off of you for good?”
She was startled. “Of course not! That would be awful!”
“Then watch your step. This has got to be all wool. A girl with a fine mind like you, so much imaginaton, it would be a cinch for you to be creative, but don’t. They’ll double-check everything you say, and if they find it’s not completely straight you’re ruined. They’ll never forgive you. You’ll never need a manager.”
“But I can’t remember anything like that!”
“Not right off the bat, who could? Sometimes a thing like this takes days, let alone hours.” Her hand was right there, and I patted it. “I guess we’d better go over it together, right straight through. That’s the way Nero Wolfe would do it. What time did you get to work this morning?”
“When I always do, a quarter to nine. I’m punctual.”
“Were the others already here?”
“Some were and some weren’t.”
“Who was and who wasn’t?”
“My Lord, I don’t know. I didn’t notice.” She was resentful. “If you’re going to expect me to remember things like that we might as well quit, and you wouldn’t be a good manager. When I came to work I was thinking of something else. A lot of the time I am thinking of something else, so how would I notice?”
I had to be patient. “Okay, we’ll start at another point. You remember when Wallen came in and spoke with Fickler and went to Tina’s booth and talked with her, and when Tina came out Fickler sent Philip in to him. You remember that?”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
“Guesses won’t get us anywhere. Just recall the situation, where you all were when Philip came back after talking with Wallen. Where were you?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I’m not saying you noticed, but look back. There’s Philip, coming around the end of the partition after talking with Wallen. Did you hear him say anything? Did you say anything to him?”
“I don’t think Philip was this X,” she declared. “He is married, with children. I think it was Jimmie Kirk. He tried to make passes at me when I first came, and he drinks, you can ask Ed about that, and he thinks he’s superior. A barber being superior!” She looked pleased. “That’s a good idea about Jimmie being X, because I don’t have to say he really tried to kill me. I’ll try to remember something he said. Would it matter exactly when he said it?”
I had had enough, but a man can’t hit a woman when she’s down, so I ended it without violence.
“Not at all,” I told her, “but I’ve got an idea. I’ll go and see if I can get something out of Jimmie. Meanwhile I’ll send a reporter in to break the ice with you, from the Gazette probably. I know a lot of them.” I was on my feet. “Just use your common sense and stick to facts. See you later.”
“But Mr. Goodwin! I want—”
I was gone. Three steps got me out of the booth, and I strode down the aisle and around the end of the partition. There I halted, and it wasn’t long before I was joined by Cramer and Purley. Their faces were expressive. I didn’t have to ask if they had got it all.
“If you shoot her,” I suggested, “send her brain to Johns Hopkins, if you can find it.”
“Jesus,” Purley said. That was all he said.
Cramer grunted. “Did she do it herself?”
“I doubt it. It was a pretty solid blow to raise that lump, and you didn’t find her prints on the bottle. Bothering about prints is beneath her. I had to come up for air, but I left you an in. Better pick a strong character to play the role of reporter from the Gazette. ”
“Send for Biatti,” Cramer snapped at Purley.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “he can take it. Now I go home?”
“No. She might insist on seeing her manager again.”
“I wouldn’t pass that around,” I warned them. “How would you like a broadcast of her line on Sergeant Stebbins? I’d like to be home for dinner. We’re having fresh pork tenderloin.”
“We would all like to be home for dinner.” Cramer’s look and tone were both sour. They didn’t change when he shifted to Purley. “What about it? Is the Vardas pair still all you want?”
“They’re what I want most,” Purley said doggedly, “in spite of her getting it when they weren’t here, but I guess we’ve got to spread out more. You can finish with them here and go home to dinner, and I suppose we’ve got to take ’em all downtown. I’m not sold that the Stahl girl is unfurnished inside her head, and we know she’s capable of using her hands, since only three months ago she pushed a full-grown man out of his own car into a ditch and drove off. No matter how hard he was playing her, that’s quite a stunt. I still want to be shown she couldn’t have used that bottle on herself and I don’t have to be shown that she could have used the scissors on Wallen if she felt like it. Or if she performed with the bottle to have something to tell reporters about, the Vardases are still what I want most. But I admit the other if is the biggest one. If some one here conked her, finding out who and why comes first until we get the Vardases.”
Cramer stayed sour. “You haven’t even started.”
“Maybe that’s a little too strong, Inspector.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We were on the Vardases, but we didn’t clear out of here, we kept close. Then when we found the Stahl girl and brought her to she shut the valve and had to see Goodwin. Even so, I wouldn’t say we haven’t made a start with the others. Ed Graboff plays the horses and owes a bookie nine hundred dollars, and he had to sell his car. Philip Toracco went off the rails in 1945 and spent a year in a booby hatch. Joel Fickler has been seen in public places with Horny Gallagher, and while that don’t prove—”
Cramer cut in to shoot at me, “Is Fickler a racket boy?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Blank. I’ve never been anything but a customer.”
“If he is we’ll get it.” Purley was riled and didn’t care who knew it. “Jimmie Kirk apparently only goes back three years, and he has expensive habits for a barber. Tom Yerkes did a turn in nineteen thirty-nine for assault, beat up a guy who took his young granddaughter for a fast weekend, and he is known for having a quick take-off. So I don’t think you can say we haven’t even started. We’ve got to take ’em all downtown and get through, especially about last night, sure we do. But I still want the Vardases.”
“Are all alibis for last night being checked?” Cramer demanded.
“They have been.”
“Do them over, and good. Get it going. Use as many men as you need. And not only alibis, records too. I want the Vardas pair as much as you do, but if the Stahl girl didn’t use that bottle on herself, I also want someone else. Get Biatti here. Let him have a try at her before you take her down.”
“He’s not on duty, Inspector.”
“Tell them to find him. Get him here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Purley moved. He went to the phone at the cashier’s counter. I went to the one in the booth at the end of the clothes rack and dialed the number I knew best. Fritz answered, and I asked him to buzz the extension in the plant rooms, since it was still a few minutes short of six o’clock.
“Where are you?” Wolfe demanded. He was always testy when interrupted up there.
“At the barber shop.” I was none too genial myself. “Janet was sitting in her booth and got hit on the head with a bottle of oil. They have gone through the routine and are still at the starting line. Her condition is no more critical than it was before she got hit. She insisted on seeing me, and I have had a long intimate talk with her. I can’t say I made no progress, because she asked me to be her manager, and I am now giving you notice, quitting at the end of this week. Aside from that I got nowhere. She’s one in a million. I would love to see you take her on. I have been requested to stick around. I’m willing, but I advise you to tell Fritz to increase the grocery orders until further notice.”
Silence. Then, “Who is there?”
“Everybody. Cramer, Purley, squad men, the staff. They quit letting customers in after Janet got rapped. The whole party will be moved downtown in an hour or so, including Janet. Everyone is glum, including me.”
“No progress whatever has been made?”
“Not as far as I know, except what I told you, I am now Janet’s manag—”
“Pfui.” Silence. In a moment, “Stay there.”
The connection went.
I left the booth. Neither Purley nor Cramer was in sight. Only one flatfoot was at the door, and the throng outside in the corridor was no longer a throng, merely a knot, and a small one. I moseyed toward the rear, with the line of empty barber chairs on my left and the row of waiting chairs against the partition on my right. Fickler was there, and three of the barbers — Ed being the missing one now — with dicks in between. They weren’t interested in me at all, and I made no effort to try to change their attitude.
The chair on the left of the magazine table was empty, and I dropped into it. Apparently no one had felt like reading today, since the same New Yorker was on top and the two-weeks-old Time was still on the shelf below. I would have been glad to employ my mind analyzing the situation if there had been anything to analyze, but there was no place to start, and after sitting a few minutes I became aware that I was trying to analyze Janet. Of course that was even more hopeless, and I mention it only to show you the condition I was in. But it did look as if Janet was the key, and in that case the thing to do was to figure some way of handling her. I sat and worked on that problem. There must be some practical method of digging up from her memory the fact or facts that we had to have. Hypnotize her, maybe? That might work. I was considering suggesting it to Cramer when I became aware of movement over at the door and lifted my eyes.
The flatfoot was blocking the entrance to keep a man fully twice his weight from entering, and was explaining the situation.
The man let him finish and then spoke. “I know, I know.” His eyes came at me over the flatfoot’s shoulder, and he bellowed, “Archie! Where’s Mr. Cramer?”