I kept on the west side as far as Eighty-sixth Street and then shot crosstown and through the park. I stepped on it only up to the limit, because I didn’t want to get stopped. I felt pretty good and pretty rotten, both. She had cracked wide open and I was on my way, and that was all sweetness and light, but on the other hand Fred’s story of the event decorated by Wolfe’s comments looked like nothing but bad weather. I swung left into Fifth Avenue, with only five blocks to go.
I pulled up short of the Burton number on Ninetieth Street, locked the ignition and jumped to the sidewalk. There were canopies and entrances to big apartment houses all around. I walked east. I was nearly to the entrance I was headed for when I saw Fred Durkin. From somewhere he came trotting toward me. I stopped, and he jerked his head back and started west, and I went along behind him. I followed him to the corner of Fifth, and around it a few feet.
I said, “Am I poison? Spill it.”
He said, “I didn’t want that doorman to see you with me. He saw me getting the bum’s rush. They caught me phoning you and kicked me out.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll complain at headquarters. Well?”
“Well, they’ve got him, that’s all. We followed him up here, the town dick and me, got here at seven-thirty. It was nice and private, without Pinkie. Of course we knew who lived here, and we talked it over whether we ought to phone and decided not to. We decided to go inside the lobby, and when the hall flunky got unfriendly Murphy — that’s the town dick — flashed his badge and shut him up. People were going and coming, there’s two elevators. All of a sudden one of the elevator doors bangs open and a woman comes running out popeyed and yells where’s Dr. Foster, catch Dr. Foster, and the hall flunky says he just saw him go out, and the woman runs for the street yelling Dr. Foster, and Murphy nabs her by the arm and asks why not try Dr. Burton, and she looks at him funny and says Dr. Burton’s been shot. He turns her loose and jumps for the elevator, and on the way up to the fifth floor discovers that I’m in it with him. He says—”
“Come on, for Christ’s sake.”
“Okay. The door of Burton’s apartment is open. The party’s in the first room we go into. Two women is there, one of them whining like a sick dog and jiggling a telephone, and the other one kneeling by a guy laying on the floor. The lop is sitting in a chair looking like he’s waiting his turn in a barber shop. We got busy. The guy was dead. Murphy got on the phone and I looked around. A gat, a Colt automatic, was on the floor by the leg of a chair next to a table in the middle of the room. I went over and gave Chapin a rub to see if he had any more tools. The woman that was kneeling by the meat began to heave and I went and got her up and led her away. Two men came in, a doctor and a house guy. Murphy got through on the phone and came over and slipped some irons on Chapin. I stayed with the woman, and when a couple of precinct cops came loping in I took the woman out of the room. The woman that had gone for Dr. Foster came back, she came running through the place and took the other woman away from me and took her off somewhere. I went into another room and saw books and a desk and a telephone, and called you up. One of the precinct men came snooping around and heard me, and that’s when I left. He brought me downstairs and gave me the air.”
“Who else has come?”
“Only a couple of radios and some more precinct guys.”
“Cramer or the D.A. office?”
“Not yet. Hell, they don’t need to bother. A package like that, they could just have it sent parcel post.”
“Yeah. You go to Thirty-fifth Street and tell Fritz to feed you. As soon as Wolfe has finished his dinner, tell him about it. He may want you to get Saul and Orrie — he’ll tell you.”
“I?ll have to phone my wife—”
“Well, you got a nickel? Beat it.”
He went downtown, towards Eighty-ninth, and I went around the corner and east again. I approached the entrance; I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t crash it, though I didn’t know anyone up there. Just as I was under the canopy a big car came along and stopped quick, and two men got out. I took a look, then I got in the way of one of them. I grinned at him:
“Inspector Cramer! This is luck.” I started to walk along in with him.
He stopped. “Oh! You. Nothing doing. Beat it.”
I started to hand him a line, but he got sharp. “Beat it, Goodwin. If there’s anything up there that belongs to you I’ll save it for you. Nothing doing.”
I fell back. People were gathering, there was already quite a crowd, and a cop was there herding them. In the confusion I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard the little passage between Cramer and me. I faded away, and went to where I had parked the roadster. I opened up the back and got out a black bag I kept a few things in for emergencies; it didn’t look just right, but good enough. I went back to the entrance and pushed through the line while the cop was busy on the other side, and got through the door. Inside was the doorman and another cop. I stepped up to them and said, “Medical Examiner. What apartment is it?” The cop looked me over and took me to the elevator and said to the boy, “Take this gent to the fifth floor.” Inside, going up, I gave the black bag a pat.
I breezed into the apartment. As Durkin had said, the party was right there, the first room you entered, a big reception hall. There was a mob there, mostly flatfeet and dicks standing around looking bored. Inspector Cramer was by the table listening to one of the latter. I walked over to him and said his name.
He looked around, and seemed surprised. “Well, in the name of—”
“Now listen, inspector. Just a second. Forget it. I’m not going to steal the prisoner or the evidence or anything else. You know damn well I’ve got a right to curiosity and that’s all I expect to satisfy. Have a heart. My God, we’ve all got mothers.”
“What have you got in that bag?”
“Shirts and socks. I used it to bring me up. I’d just as soon have one of your men take it down to my car for me.”
He grunted. “Leave it here on the table, and if you get in the way—”
“I won’t. Much obliged.”
Being careful not to bump anyone, I got back against the wall. I took a look. It was a room 17 × 20, on a guess, nearly square. One end was mostly windows, curtained. At the other end was the entrance door. One long wall, the one I was standing against, had pictures and a couple of stands with vases of flowers. In the other wall, nearly to the corner, was a double door, closed, leading of course to the apartment proper. The rest of that wall, about ten feet of it, had curtains to match those at the end, but there couldn’t have been windows. I figured it was closets for wraps. The light was from the ceiling, indirect, with switches at the double door and the entrance door. There was one large rug, and a good-sized table in the middle. Near where I stood was a stand with a telephone and a chair.
There were only four chairs altogether. In one of them, at the end of the table, Paul Chapin was sitting. I couldn’t see his face, he was turned wrong. At the other end of the table Doc Burton was on the floor. He just looked dead and fairly comfortable; either he had landed straight when he fell or someone had stretched him out, and his arms were neatly along his sides. His head was at a funny angle, but they always are until they’re propped up. Looking at him, I thought to myself that Wolfe had had him down for seven thousand bucks, and now he’d never have that to worry about again along with a lot of other things. From where I was I couldn’t see much blood.
A few details had happened since I arrived. There had been phone calls. One of the dicks had gone out and come back in a couple of minutes with an Assistant Medical Examiner; apparently there had been difficulty downstairs. I hoped he wouldn’t take my bag by mistake when he went. They buzzed around. Inspector Cramer had left the room by the double door, to see the women I supposed. A young woman came in from outside and made a scene, but all in all she did pretty well with it, since it appeared that it was her father that had been croaked. She had been out somewhere, and she took it hard. I’ve often observed that the only thing that makes it a real hardship to have dealings with stiffs is the people that are still living. This girl was the kind that makes your throat clog up because you see how she’s straining to fight it back in and you know she’s licked. I was glad when a dick took her away, in to her mother.
I moseyed around to get a slant at the cripple. I went around the table and got in front of him. He looked at me, but there wasn’t any sign of his being aware he had ever seen me before. His stick was on the table beside him, and his hat. He had on a brown overcoat, unbuttoned, and tan gloves. He was slouched over; his hands were resting on his good knee, fastened with the bracelets. There was nothing in his face, just nothing; he looked more like a passenger in the subway than anything else. His light-colored eyes looked straight at me. I thought to myself that this was the first piece of real hundred per cent bad luck I had ever known Nero Wolfe to have. He had had his share of bad breaks all right, but this wasn’t a break, it was an avalanche.
Then I remembered what I was there for, and I said to myself that I had gone around for two days pretending to hunt Andrew Hibbard knowing all the time it was hopeless, and Hibbard was at that moment eating scallops and arguing psychology with Wolfe. And until Wolfe himself said finish for that case one way or the other, hopeless was out. It was up to me to dig up a little hope.
I got against the wall again and surveyed the field. The medical guy was done. There was no telling how long Cramer would be with the women, but unless their tale was more complicated than it seemed likely to be there was no reason why it should be very long. When he returned there would probably be no delay in removing the stiff and the cripple, and then there would be nothing to keep anybody else. Cramer wouldn’t be apt to go off and leave me behind, he’d want me for company. Nor could I see any reason why he would leave anyone behind, except a dick out in the hall maybe and possibly one downstairs, to keep annoyance away from the family.
That was the way it looked. I couldn’t go back to Wolfe with nothing but a sob story about a poor cripple and a dead man and a grief-stricken daughter. I wandered around again to the other side of the table, to the other wall where the curtains were. I stood with my back to the curtains. Then I saw my bag on the table. That wouldn’t do, so I went over and got it, casually, and went back against the curtains again. I figured the chances were about fifty to one against me, but the worst I could get was an escort to the elevator. Keeping my eyes carelessly on the array of dicks and flatfeet scattered around, I felt behind me with my foot and found that back of the curtains the floor continued flush, with no sill. If it was a closet it was built into the wall and I had no idea how deep it was or what was in there. I kept my eyes busy; I had to pick an instant when every guy there had his face turned; at least not right on me. I was waiting for something, and luck came that time; it happened. The phone rang, on the stand by the other wall. Having nothing to occupy them, they all turned involuntarily. I had my hand behind me ready to pull the curtain aside, and back I went, and let the curtain fall again, with me behind.
I had ducked going in, in case there happened to be a hat shelf at the usual height, but the shelf was further back; the closet was all of three feet deep and I had plenty of room. I held my breath for a few seconds, but heard none of the bloodhounds baying. I eased the black bag onto the floor in a corner and got behind what felt like a woman’s fur coat. One thing there had been no help for: the cripple had seen me. His light-colored eyes had been right at me as I backed in. If he should decide to open his trap I hoped he would find something else to talk about.
I stood there in the dark, and after a while wished I had remembered to bring an oxygen tank. To amuse me I had the voices of the dicks outside, but they were low and I couldn’t pick out many words. Somebody came in, some woman, and a little later a man. It was all of half an hour before Cramer returned. I heard the double door opening, close to my curtain, and then Cramer handing out orders. He sounded snappy and satisfied. A dick with a hoarse voice told another one, right in front of me, to carry Chapin’s stick and he’d help him walk; they were taking him away. There were noises, and directions from Cramer, about removing the corpse, and in a couple of minutes heavy feet as they carried it out. I was hoping to God that Cramer or someone else hadn’t happened to hang his coat in my closet, but that wasn’t likely; there had been three or four piled on the table. I heard a voice telling someone to go ask for a rug to put over the soiled place where Burton had been, and Cramer and others shoving off. It sounded like there were only two left, after the guy came back with the rug; they were kidding each other about some kind of a girl. I began to be afraid Cramer had spotted them to stay for some reason or other, but pretty soon I heard them going to the door, and it opened and closed.
I’d been in the closet long enough as far as my lungs were concerned, but I thought it was just possible one was still inside the main apartment, and I waited five minutes, counting. Then I pulled the edge of the curtain a little and took a slant. I opened it up and stepped out. Empty. All gone. The double doors were closed. I went over and turned the knob and pushed, and walked through. I was in a room about five times the size of the reception hall, dimly lit, furnished up to the hilt. There was a door at the far end and a wide open arch halfway down one side. I heard voices from somewhere. I went on in a ways and called:
“Hello! Mrs. Burton!”
The voices stopped, and there were footsteps coming. A guy appeared in the arch, trying to look important. I grinned inside. He was just a kid, around twenty-two, nice and handsome and dressed up. He said, “We thought you had all gone.”
“Yeah. All but me. I have to see Mrs. Burton.”
“But he said... the Inspector said she wouldn’t be bothered.”
“I’m sorry, I have to see her.”
“She’s lying down.”
“Tell her just a few questions.”
He opened his moth and shut it, looked as if he thought he ought to do something, and turned and beat it. In a minute he came back and nodded me along. I followed.
We went through a room and a sort of a hall and into another room. This was not so big, but was better lit and not so dolled up. A maid in uniform was going out another door with a tray. A woman was sitting on a couch, another woman in a chair, and the daughter I had seen in the reception hall was standing behind the couch. I walked over there.
I suppose Mrs. Loring A. Burton wasn’t at her best that evening, but she could have slipped a few more notches and still have been in the money. A glance was enough to show you she was quite a person. She had a straight thin nose, a warm mouth, fine dark eyes. Her hair was piled in braids at the back, pulled back just right for you to see her temples and brow, which maybe made most of the effect; that and the way she held her head. Her neck knew some artist’s trick that I’ve seen many a movie star try to copy without quite getting it. It had been born in her spine.
With her head up like that I could see it would take more than a murdered husband to overwhelm her into leaving decisions to daughters and so on, so I disregarded the others. I told her I had a few confidential questions to ask and I’d like to see her alone. The woman in the chair muttered something about cruel and unnecessary. The daughter stared at me with red eyes. Mrs. Burton asked:
“Confidential to whom?”
“To Paul Chapin. I’d rather not...” I looked around.
She looked around too. I saw that the kid wasn’t the son and heir after all, it was the daughter he was interested in, probably had it signed up. Mrs. Burton said, “What does it matter? Go to my room — you don’t mind, Alice?”
The woman in the chair said she didn’t, and got up. The kid took hold of the daughter’s arm to steer her, by golly he wasn’t going to let her fall and hurt herself. They went on out.
Mrs. Burton said, “Well?”
I said, “The confidential part is really about me. Do you know who Nero Wolfe is?”
“Nero Wolfe? Yes.”
“Dr. Burton and his friends entered into an agreement—”
She interrupted me. “I know all about it. My husband...” She stopped. The way she suddenly clasped her fingers tight and tried to keep her lips from moving showed that a bust-up was nearer to coming through than I had supposed. But she soon got it shoved under again. “My husband told me all about it.”
I nodded. “That saves time. I’m not a city detective. I’m private. I work for Nero Wolfe, my name’s Goodwin. If you ask me what I’m here for there’s lots of ways to answer you, but you’d have to help me pick the right one. It depends on how you feel.” I had the innocence turned on, the candid eye. I was talking fast. “Of course you feel terrible, certainly, but no matter how bad it is inside of you right now, you’ll go on living. I’ve got some questions to ask for Nero Wolfe, and I can’t be polite and wait for a week until your nerves have had a chance to grow some new skin, I’ve got to ask them now or never. I’m here now, just tell me this and get rid of me. Did you see Paul Chapin shoot your husband?”
“No. But I’ve already—”
“Sure. Let’s get it done. Did anybody see him?”
“No.”
I took a breath. At least, then, we weren’t floating with our bellies up. I said, “All right. Then it’s a question of how you feel. How you feel about this, for instance, that Paul Chapin didn’t shoot your husband at all.”
She stared at me. “What do you mean — I saw him—”
“You didn’t see him shoot. Here’s what I’m getting at, Mrs. Burton. I know your husband didn’t hate Paul Chapin. I know he felt sorry for him and was willing to go with the crowd because he saw no help for it. How about you, did you hate him? Disregard what happened tonight, how much did you hate him?”
For a second I thought I had carried her along; then I saw a change coming in her eyes and her lips beginning to tighten up. She was going to ritz me out. I rushed in ahead of it:
“Listen, Mrs. Burton, I’m not just a smart pup nosing around somebody’s back yard seeing what I can smell. I really know all about this, maybe even some things you don?t know. Right now, in a cabinet down in Nero Wolfe’s office, there is a leather box. I put it there. This big. It’s beautiful tan leather, with fine gold tooling on it, and it’s locked, and it’s full nearly to the top with your gloves and stockings. Some you’ve worn.—Now wait a minute, give me a chance. It belongs to Paul Chapin. Dora Ritter hooked them and gave them to him. It’s his treasure. Nero Wolfe says his soul is in that box. I wouldn’t know about that, I’m no expert on souls. I’m just telling you. The reason I want to know whether you hate Paul Chapin, regardless of his killing your husband, is this: what if he didn’t kill him? Would you like to see them hang it on him anyway?”
She was looking at me, with the idea of ritzing me out put aside for the moment. She said, “I don’t know what you’re driving at. I saw him dead. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Neither do I. That’s what I’m here to find out. I’m trying to make you understand that I’m not annoying you just for curiosity, I’m here on business, and it may turn out to be your business as well as mine. I’m interested in seeing that Paul Chapin gets no more than is coming to him. Right now I don’t suppose you’re interested in anything. You’ve had a shock that would lay most women flat. Well, you’re not flat, and you might as well talk to me as sit and try not to think about it. I’d like to sit here and ask you a few things. If you look like you are going to faint I’ll call the family and get up and go.”
She unclasped her hands. She said, “I don’t faint. You may sit down.”
“Okay.” I used the chair Alice had left. “Now tell me how it happened. The shooting. Who was here?”
“My husband and I, and the cook and the maid. One of the maids was out.”
“No one else? What about the woman you called Alice?”
“That is my oldest friend. She came to... just a little while ago. There was no one else here.”
“And?”
“I was in my room dressing. We were dining out, my daughter was out somewhere. My husband came to my room for a cigarette; he always... he never remembered to have any, and the door between our rooms is always open. The maid came and said Paul Chapin was there. My husband left to go to the foyer to see him, but he didn’t go direct; he went back through his room and his study. I mention that because I stood and listened. The last time Paul had come my husband had told the maid to keep him in the foyer, and before he went there he had gone to his study and got a revolver out of the drawer. I had thought it was childish. This time I listened to see if he did it again, and he did, I heard the drawer opening. Then he called to me, called my name, and I answered what is it, and he called back, nothing, never mind, he would tell me after he had speeded his guest. That was the last... those were his last words I heard. I heard him walking through the apartment — I listened, I suppose, because I was wondering what Paul could want. Then I heard noises — not loud, the foyer is so far away from my room, and then shots. I ran. The maid came out of the dining-room and followed me. We ran to the foyer. It was dark, and the light in the drawing-room was dim and we couldn’t see anything. I heard a noise, someone falling, and Paul’s voice saying my name. I turned on the light switch, and Paul was there on his knee trying to get up. He said my name again, and said he was trying to hop to the switch. Then I saw Lorrie, on the floor at the end of the table. I ran to him, and when I saw him I called to the maid to go for Dr. Foster, who lives a floor below us. I don’t know what Paul did then, I didn’t pay attention to him, the first I knew some men came—”
“All right, hold it.”
She stopped. I looked at her a minute, getting it. She had clasped her hands again and was doing some extra breathing, but not obtrusively. I quit worrying about her. I took out a pad and pencil, and said, “This thing, the way you tell it, needs a lot of fixing. The worst item, of course, is the light being out. That’s plain silly.—Now wait a minute, I’m just talking about what Nero Wolfe calls a feeling for phenomena, I’m trying to enjoy one. Let’s go back to the beginning. On his way to see Paul Chapin, your husband called to you from the study, and then said never mind. Have you any idea what he was going to say?”
“No, how could I—”
“Okay. The way you told it, he called to you after he opened the drawer. Was that the way it was?”
She nodded. “I’m sure it was after I heard the drawer open. I was listening.”
“Yeah. Then you heard him walking to the foyer, and then you heard noises. What kind of noises?”
“I don’t know. Just noises, movements. It is far away, and doors were closed. The noises were faint.”
“Voices?”
“No. I didn’t hear any.”
“Did you hear your husband closing the foyer door after he got there?”
“No. I wouldn’t hear that unless it banged.”
“Then we’ll try this. Since you were listening to his footsteps, even if you couldn’t hear them any more after he got into the drawing-room, there was a moment when you figured that he had reached the foyer. You know what I mean, the feeling that he was there. When I say Now, that will mean that he has just reached the foyer, and you begin feeling the time, the passing of time. Feel it as near the same as you can, and when it’s time for the first shot to go off, you say Now.—Get it? Now.”
I looked at the second hand of my watch; it went crawling up from the 30. She said, “ Now.”
I stared at her. “My God, that was only six seconds.”
She nodded. “It was as short as that, I’m sure it was.”
“In that case... all right. Then you ran to the foyer, and there was no light there. Of course you couldn’t be wrong about that.”
“No. The light was off.”
“And you switched it on and saw Chapin kneeling, getting up. Did he have a gun in his hand?”
“No. He had his coat and gloves on. I didn’t see a gun... anywhere.”
“Did Inspector Cramer tell you about the gun?”
She nodded. “It was my husband’s. He shot... it had been fired four times. They found it on the floor.”
“Cramer showed it to you.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s gone from the drawer in the study.”
“Of course.”
“When you turned on the light Chapin was saying something.”
“He was saying my name. After the light was on he said — I can tell you exactly what he said. Anne, a cripple in the dark, my dear Anne, I was trying to hop to the switch. He had fallen.”
“Yeah. Naturally.” I finished scratching on the pad, and looked up at her. She was sitting tight. I said, “Now to go back again. Were you at home all afternoon?”
“No. I was at a gallery looking at prints, and then at a tea. I got home around six.”
“Was your husband here when you got here?”
“Yes, he comes early... on Saturday. He was in his study with Ferdinand Bowen. I went in to say hello. We always... said hello, no matter who was here.”
“So Mr. Bowen was here. Do you know what for?”
“No. That is... no.”
“Now come, Mrs. Burton. You’ve decided to put up with this and it’s pretty swell of you, so come ahead. What was Bowen here for?”
“He was asking a favor. That’s all I know.”
“A financial favor?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Did he get it?”
“No. But this has no connection... no more of this.”
“Okay. When did Bowen leave?”
“Soon after I arrived, I should say a quarter past six. Perhaps twenty after; it was about ten minutes before Dora came, and she was punctual at six-thirty.”
“You don’t say so.” I looked at her. “You mean Dora Chapin.”
“Yes.”
“She came to do your hair.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned.—Excuse me. Nero Wolfe doesn’t permit me to swear in front of ladies. And Dora Chapin got here at six-thirty. Well. When did she leave?”
“It always takes her three-quarters of an hour, so she left at a quarter past seven.” She paused to calculate. “Yes, that would be right. A few minutes later, perhaps. I figured that I had fifteen minutes to finish dressing.”
“So Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty and Paul Chapin arrived at half past. That’s interesting; they almost collided. Who else was here after six o’clock?”
“No one. That’s all. My daughter left around half past six, a little before Dora came. Of course I don’t understand — what is it, Alice?”
A door had opened behind me, and I turned to see. It was the woman, the old friend. She said:
“Nick Cabot is on the phone — they notified him. He wants to know if you want to talk to him.”
Mrs. Burton’s dark eyes flashed aside for an instant, at me. I let my head go sideways enough for her to see it. She spoke to her friend, “No, there is nothing to say. I won’t talk to anyone. Are you folks finding something to eat?”
“We’ll make out. Really, Anne, I think—”
“Please, Alice. Please—”
After a pause the door closed again. I had a grin inside, a little cocky. I said, “You started to say, something you don’t understand...”
She didn’t go on. She sat looking at me with a frown in her eyes but her brow smooth and white. She got up and went to a table, took a cigarette from a box and lit it, and picked up an ash tray. She came back to the couch and sat down and took a couple of whiffs. Then she looked at the cigarette as if wondering where it had come from, and crushed it dead on the tray, and set the tray down. She straightened up and seemed to remember I was looking at her. She spoke suddenly:
“What did you say your name is?”
“Archie Goodwin.”
“Thank you. I should know your name. Strange things can happen, can’t they? Why did you tell me not to talk to Mr. Cabot?”
“No special reason. Right now I don’t want you to be talking to anybody but me.”
She nodded. “And I’m doing it. Mr. Goodwin, you’re not much over half my age and I never saw you before. You seem to be clever. You realized, I suppose, what the shock of seeing my husband dead, shot dead, has done to me. It has shaken things loose. I am doing something very remarkable, for me. I don’t usually talk, below the surface. I never have, since childhood, except with two people. My husband, my dear husband, and Paul Chapin. But we aren’t talking about my husband, there’s nothing to say about him. He’s dead. He is dead... I shall have to tell myself many times... he is dead. He wants to go on living in me, or I want him to. I think — this is what I am really saying — I think I would want Paul to.—Oh, it’s impossible!” She jerked herself up, and her hands got clasped again. “It’s absurd to try to talk about this — even to a stranger — and with Lorrie dead — absurd...”
I said, “Maybe it’s absurd not to. Let it crack open once, spill it out.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to crack open. There’s no reason why I should want to talk about it, but I do. Otherwise why should I let you question me? I saw farther inside myself this evening than I have ever seen before. It wasn’t when I saw my husband dead, it wasn’t when I stood alone in my room, looking at a picture of him, trying to realize he was dead. It was sitting here with that police inspector, with him telling me that a plea of guilty is not accepted in first degree murder, and that I would have to talk with a representative of the District Attorney, and would have to testify in court so that Paul Chapin can be convicted and punished. I don’t want him punished. My husband is dead, isn’t that enough? And if I don’t want him punished, what is it I want to hold onto? Is it pity? I have never pitied him. I have been pretty insolent with life, but not insolent enough to pity Paul Chapin. You told me that he has a box filled with my gloves and stockings which Dora stole for him, and that Nero Wolfe said it holds his soul. Perhaps my soul has been put away in a box too, and I didn’t even know it...”
She got up, abruptly. The ash tray slid off the couch to the floor. She stooped over, and with deliberate fingers that showed no sign of trembling picked up the burnt match stick and the cigarette and put them on the tray. I didn’t move to help her. She went to the table with the tray and then came back to the couch and sat down again. She said:
“I have always disliked Paul Chapin. Once, when I was eighteen years old, I promised to marry him. When I learned of his accident, that he was crippled for life, I was delighted because I wouldn’t have to keep my promise. I didn’t know that then but I realized it later. At no time have I pitied him. I claim no originality in that, I think no woman has ever pitied him, only men. Women do not like him — even those who have been briefly fascinated by him. I dislike him intensely. I have thought about this; I have had occasion to analyze it; it is his deformity that is intolerable. Not his physical deformity. The deformity of his nervous system, of his brain. You have heard of feminine cunning, but you don’t understand it as Paul does, for he has it himself. It is a hateful quality in a man. Women have been fascinated by it, but the two or three who surrendered to it — I not among them, not even at eighteen — got only contempt for a reward.
“He married Dora Ritter. She’s a woman?”
“Oh yes, Dora’s a woman. But she is consecrated to a denial of her womanhood. I am fond of her, I understand her. She knows what beauty is, and she sees herself. That forced her, long ago, to the denial, and her strength of will has maintained it. Paul understood her too. He married her to show his contempt for me; he told me so. He could risk it with Dora because she might be relied upon never to embarrass him with the only demand that he would find humiliating. And as for Dora — she hates him, but she would die for him. Fiercely and secretly, against her denial, she longed for the dignity of marriage, and it was a miracle of luck that Paul offered it under the only circumstances that could make it acceptable to her. Oh, they understand each other!”
I said, “She hates him, and she married him.”
“Yes. Dora could do that.”
“I’m surprised she was here today. I understood she had a bad accident Wednesday morning. I saw her. She seems to have some character.”
“It could be called that. Dora is insane. Legally, I suppose not, but nevertheless she is insane. Paul has told her so many times. She tells me about it, in the same tone she uses for the weather. There are two things she can’t bear the thought of: that any woman should suspect her of being capable of tenderness, or that any man should regard her as a woman at all. Her character comes from her indifference to everything else, except Paul Chapin.”
“She bragged to Nero Wolfe that she was married.”
“Of course. It removes her from the field.—Oh, it is impossible to laugh at her, and you can’t pity her any more than you can Paul. A monkey might as well pity me because I haven’t got a tail.”
I said, “You were talking about your soul.”
“Was I? Yes. To you, Mr. Goodwin. I could not speak about it to my friend, Alice — I tried but nothing came. Wasn’t I saying that I don’t want Paul Chapin punished? Perhaps that’s wrong, perhaps I do want him punished, but not crudely by killing him. What have I in my mind? What is in my heart? God knows. But I started to answer your questions when you said something — something about his punishment—”
I nodded. “I said he shouldn’t get more than is coming to him. Of course to you it looks open and shut, and apparently it looks the same way to the cops. You heard shots and ran to the foyer and there it was, a live man and a dead man and a gun. And of course Inspector Cramer has already got the other fixings, for instance the motive all dressed up and its shoes shined, not to mention a willingness to even up with Chapin for certain inconveniences he has been put to. But as Nero Wolfe says, a nurse that pushes the perambulator in the park without putting the baby in it has missed the point. Maybe if I look around I’ll find the baby. For example, Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty. Chapin arrived at seven-thirty, ten minutes later. What if she waited in the hall outside and came back in with him? Or if she couldn’t do that because the maid let him in, he could have opened the door for her while the maid was gone to tell Dr. Burton. She could have snatched the gun from Burton’s pocket and done the shooting and beat it before you could get there. That might explain the light being out; she might have flipped the switch before she opened the outer door so if anyone happened to be passing in the outside hall they couldn’t see in. You say she hates Chapin. Maybe to him it was entirely unexpected, he had no idea what she was up to—”
She was shaking her head. “I don’t believe that. It’s possible, but I don’t believe it.”
“You say she’s crazy.”
“No. As far as Dora could like any man, she liked Lorrie. She wouldn’t do that.”
“Not to make a reservation for Chapin in the electric chair?”
Mrs. Burton looked at me, and a little shudder ran over her. She said, “That’s no better... than the other. That’s horrible.”
“Of course it’s horrible. Whatever we pull out of this bag, it won’t be a pleasant surprise for anyone concerned, except maybe Chapin. I ought to mention another possibility. Dr. Burton shot himself. He turned the light out so Chapin couldn’t see what he was doing in time to let out a yell that might have given it away. That’s horrible too, but it’s quite possible.”
That didn’t seem to discompose her as much as my first guess. She merely said, calmly, “No, Mr. Goodwin. It might be barely conceivable that Lorrie wanted... had some reason to kill himself without my knowing it, but that he would try to put the guilt on Paul... on anyone... No, that isn’t even possible.”
“Okay. You said it yourself a while ago, Mrs. Burton; strange things can happen. But as far as that’s concerned, anyone at all might have done it — anyone who could get into that foyer and who knew Chapin was there and that Dr. Burton would come.—By the way, what about the maid that’s out this evening? Does she have a key? What’s she like?”
“Yes, she has a key. She is fifty-six years old, has been with us nine years, and calls herself the housekeeper. You would waste time asking about her.”
“I could still be curious about her key.”
“She will have it when she comes in the morning. You may see her then if you wish.”
“Thanks. Now the other maid. Could I see her now?”
She got up and went to the table and pushed a button, and took another cigarette and lit it. I noticed that with her back turned you could have taken her for twenty, except for the coil of hair. But she was slumping a little; as she stood her shoulders sagged. She pulled them up again and turned and came back to the couch, as the inner door opened and the whole outfit appeared: cook, maid, friend Alice, daughter and boy friend. The cook was carrying a tray. Mrs. Burton said:
“Thank you, Henny, not now. Don’t try it again, please don’t, I really couldn’t swallow. And the rest of you... if you don’t mind... we wish to see Rose a few minutes. Just Rose.”
“But, mother, really—”
“No, dear. Please, just a few minutes. Johnny, this is very nice of you. I appreciate it very much. Come here, Rose.”
The kid blushed. “Aw, don’t mention it, Mrs. Burton.”
They faded back through the door. The maid came and stood in front of us and tried some swallowing which didn’t seem to work. Her face looked quite peculiar because it intended to be sympathetic but she was too shocked and scared, and it would have been fairly peculiar at any time with its broad flat nose and plucked eyebrows. Mrs. Burton told her I wanted to ask her some questions, and she looked at me as if she had been informed that I was going to sell her down the river. Then she stared at the pad on my knee and looked even worse. I said:
“Rose. I know exactly what’s in your mind. You’re thinking that the other man wrote down your answers to his questions and now I’m going to do the same, and then we’ll compare them and if they’re not alike we’ll take you to the top of the Empire State Building and throw you off. Forget that silly stuff. Come on, forget it.—By the way.” I turned to Mrs. Burton: “Does Dora Chapin have a key to the apartment?”
“No.”
“Okay. Rose, did you go to the door when Dora Chapin came this evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You let her in and she was alone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When she left did you let her out?”
“No, sir. I never do. Mrs. Kurtz don’t either. She just went.”
“Where were you when she went?”
“I was in the dining-room. I was there a long while. We weren’t serving dinner, and I was dusting the glasses in there.”
“Then I suppose you didn’t let Mr. Bowen out either. That was the man—”
“Yes, sir, I know Mr. Bowen. No, I didn’t let him out, but that was a long time before.”
“I know. All right, you let nobody out. Let’s get back to in. You answered the door when Mr. Chapin came.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You opened the door and he came in and you shut the door again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now see if you can remember this. It doesn’t matter much if you can’t, but maybe you can. What did Mr. Chapin say to you?”
She looked at me, and aside at Mrs. Burton, and down at the floor. At first I thought maybe she was trying to fix up a fake for an answer, then I saw that she was just bewildered at the terrible complexity of the problem I had confronted her with by asking her a question that couldn’t be answered yes or no. I said, “Come on, Rose. You know, Mr. Chapin came in, and you took his hat and coat, and he said—”
She looked up. “I didn’t take his hat and coat. He kept his coat on, and his gloves. He said to tell Dr. Burton he was there.”
“Did he stand there by the door or did he walk to a chair to sit down?”
“I don’t know. I think he would sit down. I think he came along behind me but he came slow and I came back in to tell Dr. Burton.”
“Was the light turned on in the foyer when you left there?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“After you told Dr. Burton, where did you go?”
“I went back to the dining-room.”
“Where was the cook?”
“In the kitchen. She was there all the time.”
“Where was Mrs. Burton?”
“She was in her room dressing.—Wasn’t you, madam?”
I grinned. “Sure she was. I’m just getting all of you placed. Did Dr. Burton go to the foyer right away?”
She nodded. “Well... maybe not right away. He went pretty soon. I was in the dining-room and heard him go by the door.”
“Okay.” I got up from my chair. “Now I’m going to ask you to do something. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you it’s important, but it is. You go to the dining-room and start taking down the glasses, or whatever you were doing after you told Dr. Burton. I’ll walk past the dining-room door and on to the foyer. Was Dr. Burton going fast or slow?”
She shook her head and her lip began to quiver. “He was just going.”
“All right, I’ll just go. You hear me go by, and you decide when enough time has passed for the first shot to go off. When the time has come for the first shot, you yell Now loud enough for me to hear you in the foyer. Do you understand? First you’d better tell—”
I stopped on account of her lip. It was getting into high. I snapped at her, “Come on out of that. Take a look at Mrs. Burton and learn how to behave yourself. You’re doing this for her. Come on now.”
She clamped her lips together and held them that way while she swallowed twice. Then she opened them to say:
“The shots all came together.”
“All right, say they did. You yell Now when the time comes. First you’d better go and tell the people inside that you’re going to yell or they’ll be running out here—”
Mrs. Burton interposed, “I’ll tell them. Rose, take Mr. Goodwin to the study and show him how to go.”
She was quite a person, that Mrs. Burton. I was getting so I liked her. Maybe her soul was put away in a box somewhere, but other items of her insides, meaning guts, were all where they ought to be. If I was the kind that collected things I wouldn’t have minded having one of her gloves myself.
Rose and I went out. Apparently she avoided the bedrooms by taking me around by a side hall, for we entered the study direct from that. She showed me how to go, by another door, and left me there. I looked around; books, leather chairs, radio, smoke stands, and a flat-top desk by a window. There was the drawer, of course, where the gat had been kept. I went over to it and pulled it open and shut it again. Then I went out by the other door and followed directions. I struck a medium pace, past the dining-room door, across the central hall, through a big room and from that through the drawing-room; got my eye on my watch, opened the door into the foyer, went in and closed it—
It was a good thing the folks had been warned, for Rose yelling Now so I could hear it sounded even to me, away off in the foyer, like the last scream of doom. I went back in faster than I had come for fear she might try it again. She had beat it back to the room where Mrs. Burton was. When I entered she was standing by the couch with her face white as a sheet, looking seasick. Mrs. Burton was reaching up to pat her arm. I went over and sat down.
I said, “I almost didn’t get there. Two seconds at the most. Of course she rushed it, but it shows it must have been quick.—Okay, Rose. I won’t ask you to do any more yelling. You’re a good brave girl. Just a couple more questions. When you heard the shots you ran to the foyer with Mrs. Burton. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you see when you got there?”
“I didn’t see anything. It was dark.”
“What did you hear?”
“I heard something on the floor and then I heard Mr. Chapin saying Mrs. Burton’s name and then the light went on and I saw him.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was trying to get up.”
“Did he have a gun in his hand?”
“No, sir. I’m sure he didn’t because he had his hands on the floor getting up.”
“And then you saw Dr. Burton.”
“Yes, sir.” She swallowed. “I saw him after Mrs. Burton went to him.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well... I stood there I guess... then Mrs. Burton told me to go for Dr. Foster and I ran out and ran downstairs and they told me Dr. Foster had just left and I went to the elevator—”
“Okay, hold it.”
I looked back over my notes. Mrs. Burton was patting Rose’s arm again and Rose was looking at her with her lip ready to sag. My watch said five minutes till eleven; I had been in that room nearly two hours. There was one thing I hadn’t gone into at all, but it might not be needed and in any event it could wait. I had got enough to sleep on. But as I flipped the pages of my pad there was another point that occurred to me which I thought ought to be attended to. I put the pad and pencil in my pocket and looked at Mrs. Burton:
“That’s all for Rose. It’s all for me too, except if you would just tell Rose—”
She looked up at the maid and nodded at her. “You’d better go to bed, Rose. Good night.”
“Oh, Mrs. Burton—”
“All right now. You heard Mr. Goodwin say you’re a brave girl. Go and get some sleep.”
The maid gave me a look, not any too friendly, looked again at her mistress, and turned and went. As soon as the door had closed behind her I got up from my chair.
I said, “I’m going, but there’s one more thing. I’ve got to ask a favor of you. You’ll have to take my word for it that Nero Wolfe’s interest in this business is the same as yours. I’ll tell you that straight. You don’t want Paul Chapin to burn in the electric chair for killing your husband, and neither does he. I don’t know what his next move will be, that’s up to him, but it’s likely he’ll need some kind of standing. For instance, if he wants to ask Inspector Cramer to let him see the gun he’ll have to give a better reason than idle curiosity. I can’t quite see Paul Chapin engaging him, but how about you? If we could say we were acting on commission from you it would make things simple. Of course there wouldn’t be any fee, even if we did something you wanted done. If you want me to I’ll put that in writing.”
I looked at her. Her head was still up, but the signs of a flop were in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. I said to her, “I’m going, I won’t stay and bark at you about this, just say yes or no. If you don’t lie down somewhere and relax, let it go ahead and bust, you’ll be doing another kind of relaxing. What about it?”
She shook her head. I thought she was saying no, to me, but then she spoke — though this didn’t sound as if it was directed at me any more than the headshake: “I loved my husband, Mr. Goodwin. Oh yes, I loved him. I sometimes disapproved of things he did. He disapproved of things I did, more often — though he seldom said so. He would disapprove of what I am doing now — I think he would. He would say, let fate do her job. He would say that as he so often said it — gallantly — and about Paul Chapin too. He is dead... Oh yes, he is dead... but let him live enough to say that now, and let me live enough to say what I always said, I will not keep my hand from any job if I think it’s mine. He would not want me to make any new concessions to him, dead.” She rose to her feet, abruptly, and abruptly added, “And even if he wanted me to I doubt if I could. Good night, Mr. Goodwin.” She held out her hand.
I took it. I said, “Maybe I get you, but I like plain words. Nero Wolfe can say he is acting in your behalf, is that it?”
She nodded. I turned and left the room.
In the foyer I took a glance around as I got my hat and coat from the table and put them on. I took the black bag from the closet. When I opened the door I gave the lock an inspection and saw it was the usual variety in houses of that class, the kind where you can press a button countersunk in the edge of the door to free the cylinder. I tried it and it worked. I heard a noise in the hall and stepped out and shut the door behind me. There sitting in a chair, twisting the hide on his neck to see who had been monkeying with the door but not bothering to get up, was the snoop Cramer had left to protect the family from annoyance as I had suspected he would.
I started pulling on my gloves. I said to him friendly and brisk, “Thank you, my man. I assure you we appreciate this,” and went on to the elevator.