At eleven o’clock the next morning, Tuesday, Cleveland Archer, District Attorney of Westchester County, said to James U. Sperling, “This is a very regrettable affair. Very.”
It would probably have been not Archer himself, but one of his assistants, sitting there talking like that, but for the extent of Stony Acres, the number of rooms in the house, and the size of Sperling’s tax bill. That was only natural. Wolfe and I had had a couple of previous contacts with Cleveland Archer, most recently when we had gone to the Pitcairn place near Katonah to get a replacement for Theodore when his mother was sick. Archer was a little plump and had a round red face, and he could tell a constituent from a tourist at ten miles, but he wasn’t a bad guy.
“Very regrettable,” he said.
None of the occupants of the house had been kept up all night, not even me, who had found the body. The State cops had arrived first, followed soon by a pair of county dicks from White Plains, and, after some rounds of questions without being too rude, they had told everyone to go to bed — that is, everyone but me. I was singled out not only because I had found the body, which was just a good excuse, but because the man who singled me would have liked to do unto me as I would have liked to do unto him. He was Lieutenant Con Noonan of the State Police, and he would never forget how I had helped Wolfe make a monkey out of him in the Pitcairn affair. Add to that the fact that he was fitted out at birth for a career as a guard at a slave-labor camp and somehow got delivered to the wrong country, and you can imagine his attitude when he came and saw Wolfe and me there. He was bitterly disappointed when he learned that Wolfe was on Sperling’s payroll and therefore he would have to pretend he knew how to be polite. He was big and tall and in love with his uniform, and he thought he was handsome. At two o’clock one of the county boys, who was really in charge, because the body had not been found on a public highway, told me to go to bed.
I slept five hours, got up and dressed, went downstairs, and had breakfast with Sperling, Jimmy, and Paul Emerson. Emerson looked as sour as ever, but claimed he felt wonderful because of an unusual experience. He said he couldn’t remember when he had had a good night’s sleep, on account of insomnia, but that last night he had gone off the minute his head hit the pillow, and he had slept like a log. Apparently, he concluded, what he needed was the stimulant of a homicide at bedtime, but he didn’t see how he could manage that often enough to help much. Jimmy tried halfheartedly to help along with a bum joke, Sperling wasn’t interested, and I was busy eating in order to get through and take Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him.
From the bedroom I phoned Fritz and learned that Andy and the others were back at work on the roof and everything was under control. I told him I couldn’t say when we’d be home, and I told Saul to stay on call but to go out for air if he wanted some. I figured that he and Ruth were in the clear, since with Rony gone no one could identify the bandits but me. I also told Saul of the fatal accident that had happened to a friend of the Sperling family, and he felt as Archer did later, that it was very regrettable.
When Wolfe had cleaned the tray I took it back downstairs and had a look around. Madeline was having strawberries and toast and coffee on the west terrace, with a jacket over her shoulders on account of the morning breeze. She didn’t look as if homicides stimulated her the way they did Paul Emerson, to sounder sleep. I had wondered how her eyes would be, wide open or half shut, when her mind was too occupied to keep them to a program, and the answer seemed to be wide open, even though the lids were heavy and the whites not too clear.
Madeline told me that things had been happening while I was upstairs. District Attorney Archer and Ben Dykes, head of the county detectives, had arrived and were in the library with Sperling. An Assistant District Attorney was having a talk with Gwenn up in her room. Mrs. Sperling was staying in bed with a bad headache. Jimmy had gone to the garage for a car to drive to Mount Kisco on a personal errand, and had been told nothing doing because the scientific inspection of the Sperlings’ five vehicles had not been completed. Paul and Connie Emerson had decided that house guests must be a nuisance in the circumstances, and that they should leave, but Ben Dykes earnestly requested them to stay; and anyhow their car too, with the others in the garage, was not available. A New York newspaper reporter had got as far as the house by climbing a fence and coming through the woods to the lawn, and had been bounced by a State cop.
It looked as if it wouldn’t be merely a quick hello and good-by, in spite of the size of the house and grounds, with all the fancy trees and bushes and three thousand roses. I left Madeline to her third cup of coffee on the terrace and strolled to the plaza, behind the shrubbery where I had left the sedan. It was still there, and so were two scientists, making themselves familiar with it. I stood and watched them a while without getting as much as a glance from them, and then moved on. Moseying around, it seemed to me that something was missing. How had all the law arrived, on foot or horseback? It needed investigation. I circled the house and struck out down the front drive. In the bright June morning sun the landscape certainly wasn’t the same as it had been the night before when I had taken that walk with Madeline. The drive was perfectly smooth, whereas last night it had kept having warts where my feet landed.
As I neared the bridge over the brook I got my question answered. Fifteen paces this side of the brook a car was parked in the middle of the drive, and another car was standing on the bridge. More scientists were at work on the drive, concentrated at its edge, in the space between the two cars. So they had found something there last night that they wanted to preserve for daylight inspection, and no cars had been allowed to pass, including the DA’s. I thoroughly approved. Always willing to learn, I approached and watched the operations with deep interest. One who was presumably not a scientist but an executive, since he was just standing looking, inquired, “You doing research?”
“No, sir,” I told him. “I smelled blood, and my grandfather was a cannibal.”
“Oh, a gag man. You’re not needed. Beat it.”
Not feeling like arguing, I stood and watched. In about ten minutes, not less, he reminded me. “I said beat it.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t think you were serious, because I have a friend who is a lawyer, and that would be silly.” I tilted my head back and sniffed twice. “Chicken blood. From a White Wyandotte rooster with catarrh. I’m a detective.”
I had an impulse to go take a look at the bush where I had found Rony, which looked much closer to the drive than it had seemed last night, but decided that might start a real quarrel, and I didn’t want to make enemies. The executive was glaring at me. I grinned at him as a friend and headed back up the drive.
As I mounted the three steps to the wide front terrace a State employee in uniform stepped toward me.
“Your name Goodwin?”
I admitted it.
He jerked his head sideways. “You’re wanted inside.”
I entered and crossed the vestibule to the reception hall. Madeline, passing through, saw me and stopped.
“Your boss wants you.”
“The worm. Where, upstairs?”
“No, the library. They sent for him and they want you too.”
I went to the library.
Wolfe did not have the best chair this time, probably because it had already been taken by Cleveland Archer when he got there. But the one he had would do, and on a little table at his elbow was a tray with a glass and two bottles of beer. Sperling was standing, but after I had pulled up a chair and joined them he sat down too. Archer, who had a table in front of him with some papers on it, was good enough to remember that he had met me before, since of course there was always a chance that I might buy a plot in Westchester and establish a voting residence there.
Wolfe said Archer had some questions to ask me.
Archer, not at all belligerent, nodded at me. “Yes, I’ve got to be sure the record is straight. Sunday night you and Rony were waylaid on Hotchkiss Road.”
It didn’t sound like a question, but I was anxious to cooperate, so I said that was right.
“It’s a coincidence, you see,” Archer explained. “Sunday night he got blackjacked and robbed, and Monday night he got run over and killed. A sort of epidemic of violence. It makes me want to ask, was there any connection?”
“If you’re asking me, none that I know of.”
“Maybe not. But there were circumstances — I won’t say suspicious, but peculiar. You gave a false name and address when you reported it at the State Police barracks.”
“I gave the name Goodwin.”
“Don’t quibble,” Wolfe muttered, pouring beer.
“I suppose you know,” I told Archer, “that I was sent up here by Mr. Wolfe, who employs me, and that Mr. Sperling and I arranged what my name and occupation would be to his family and guests. Rony was present while I was reporting at the barracks, and I didn’t think I ought to confuse him by changing names on him when he was still dim.”
“Dim?”
“As you said, he had just been blackjacked. His head was not clear.”
Archer nodded. “Even so, giving a false name and address to the police should be avoided whenever possible. You were held up by a man and a woman.”
“That’s right.”
“You reported the number of the license on their car, but it’s no good.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“No. Nor me. Did you recognize either the man or the woman?”
I shook my head. “Aren’t you wasting your time, Mr. Archer?” I pointed at the papers on the table. “You must have it all there.”
“I have, certainly. But now that the man who was with you has been killed, that might sharpen your memory. You’re in the detective business, and you’ve been around a lot and seen lots of people. Haven’t you remembered that you had seen that man or woman before?”
“No, sir. After all, this is — okay. No, sir.”
“Why did you and Rony refuse to let the police take your wallets to get fingerprints?”
“Because it was late and we wanted to get home, and anyway it looked to me as if they were just living up to routine and didn’t really mean it.”
Archer glanced at a paper. “They took around three hundred dollars from Rony, and over two hundred from you. Is that right?”
“For Rony, so he said. For me, right.”
“He was wearing valuable jewelry — stickpin, cufflinks, and a ring. It wasn’t taken. There was luggage in the car, including two valuable cameras. It wasn’t touched. Didn’t that strike you as peculiar?”
I turned a hand over. “Now listen, Mr. Archer. You know damn well they have their prejudices. Some of them take everything that’s loose, even your belt or suspenders. These babies happened to prefer cash, and they got over five C’s. The only thing that struck me worth mentioning was something on the side of my head.”
“It left no mark on you.”
“Nor on Rony either. I guess they had had practice.”
“Did you go to a doctor?”
“No, sir. I didn’t know that Westchester required a doctor’s certificate in a holdup case. It must be a very progressive county. I’ll remember it next time.”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic, Goodwin.”
“No, sir.” I grinned at him. “Nor do you have to be so goddam sympathetic with a guy who got a bat on the head on a public road in your jurisdiction. Thank you just the same.”
“All right.” He flipped a hand to brush it off. “Why did you feel so bad you couldn’t eat anything all day Sunday?”
I admit that surprised me. Wolfe had mentioned the possibility that there would be a first-rate man among the questioners, and while this sudden question was no proof of brilliancy it certainly showed that someone had been good and thorough.
“The boys have been getting around,” I said admiringly. “I didn’t know any of the servants here had it in for me — maybe they used the third degree. Or could one of my fellow guests have spilled it?” I leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “I had nine drinks and they were all doped.”
“Don’t clown,” Wolfe muttered, putting down an empty glass.
“What then?” I demanded. “Can I tell him it must have been something I ate with my host sitting here?”
“You didn’t have nine drinks,” Archer said. “You had two or three.”
“Okay,” I surrendered. “Then it must have been the country air. All I know is, I had a headache and my stomach kept warning me not to make any shipments. Now ask me if I went to a doctor. I ought to tell you, Mr. Archer, that I think I may get sore, and if I get sore I’ll start making wisecracks, and if I do that you’ll get sore. What good will that do us?”
The District Attorney laughed. His laughing routine was quite different from Sperling’s, being closer to a giggle than a roar, but it suited him all right. No one joined him, and after a moment he looked around apologetically and spoke to James U. Sperling.
“I hope you don’t think I’m taking this lightly. This is a very regrettable affair. Very.”
“It certainly is,” Sperling agreed.
Archer nodded, puckering his mouth. “Very regrettable. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be entirely frank with you, Mr. Sperling — and in Mr. Wolfe’s presence, since you have retained him in your interest. It is not the policy of my office to go out of its way to make trouble for men of your standing. That’s only common sense. We have considered your suggestion that Rony was killed elsewhere, in a road accident, and the body brought here and concealed on your property, but we can’t — that is, it couldn’t have happened that way. He got off the train at Chappaqua at nine-twenty-three, and the taxi driver brought him to the entrance to your grounds, and saw him start walking up the driveway. Not only that, there is clear evidence that he was killed, run over by a car, on your drive at a point about thirty feet this side of the bridge crossing the brook. That evidence is still being accumulated, but there is already enough to leave no room for doubt. Do you want me to send for a man to give you the details?”
“No,” Sperling said.
“You’re welcome to them at any time. The evidence indicates that the car was going east, away from the house, toward the entrance, but that is not conclusive. Inspection of the cars belonging here has not been completed. It is possible that it was some other car — any car — which came in from the road, but you will understand why that theory is the least acceptable. It seems improbable, but we haven’t rejected it, and frankly, we see no reason for rejecting it unless we have to.”
Archer puckered his lips again, evidently considering words that were ready to come, and decided to let them through. “My office cannot afford to be offhand about sudden and violent death, even if it wanted to. In this case we have to answer not only to our own consciences, and to the people of this county whose servants we are, but also to — may I say, to other interests. There have already been inquiries from the New York City authorities, and an offer of co-operation. They mean it well and we welcome it, but I mention it to show that the interest in Rony’s death is not confined to my jurisdiction, and that of course increases my responsibility. I hope — do I make my meaning clear?”
“Perfectly,” Sperling assented.
“Then you will see that nothing can be casually overlooked — not that it should be or would be, in any event. Anyhow, it can’t be. As you know, we have questioned everyone here fairly rigorously — including all of your domestic staff — and we have got not the slightest clue to what happened. No one knows anything about it at all, with the single exception of your younger daughter, who admits — I should say states — that she asked Rony to come here on that train and meet her at a certain spot on this property. No one—”
Wolfe grunted. “Miss Sperling didn’t ask him to come on that train. She asked him to come. It was his convenience that determined the train.”
“My mistake,” Archer conceded. “Anyhow, it was her summons that brought him. He came on that train. It was on time. He got into the taxi at once, and the driving time from the railroad station to the entrance to these grounds is six or seven minutes, therefore he arrived at half past nine — perhaps a minute or so later. He may have headed straight for the place of his rendezvous, or he may have loitered on the drive — we don’t know.”
Archer fingered among the papers before him, looked at one, and sat up again. “If he loitered your daughter may have been at the place of the rendezvous at the time he was killed. She intended to get there at nine-thirty but was delayed by a conversation with her sister and was a little late — she thinks about ten minutes, possibly fifteen. Her sister, who saw her leave the house, corroborates that. If Rony loitered—”
“Isn’t this rather elaborate?” Sperling put in.
Archer nodded. “These things usually are. If Rony loitered on the drive, and if your daughter was at the place of rendezvous at the time he was killed, why didn’t she hear the car that killed him? She says she heard no car. That has been thoroughly tested. It is slightly downhill along the drive clear to the entrance. From the place of rendezvous, beyond that thicket, the sound of a car going down the drive is extremely faint. Even with a car going up the drive you have to listen for it, and last night there was some wind from the northeast. So Rony might have been killed while your daughter was there waiting for him, and she might have heard nothing.”
“Then damn it, why so much talk about it?”
Archer was patient. “Because that’s all there is to talk about. Except for your daughter’s statement, nothing whatever has been contributed by anyone. No one saw or heard anything. Mr. Goodwin’s contribution is entirely negative. He left here at ten minutes to ten—” Archer looked at me. “I understand that time is definite?”
“Yes, sir. When I get in the car I have a habit of checking the dash clock with my wrist watch. It was nine-fifty.”
Archer returned to Sperling. “He left at nine-fifty to drive to Chappaqua to make a phone call, and noticed nothing along the drive. He returned thirty or thirty-five minutes later, and again noticed nothing — so his contribution is entirely negative. By the way, your daughter didn’t hear his car either — or doesn’t remember hearing it.”
Sperling was frowning. “I still would like to know why all the concentration on my daughter.”
“I don’t concentrate on her,” Archer objected. “Circumstances do.”
“What circumstances?”
“She was a close friend of Rony’s. She says that she had not engaged to marry him, but she — uh, saw a great deal of him. Her association with him had been the subject of — uh, much family discussion. It was that that led to your engaging the services of Nero Wolfe, and he doesn’t concern himself with trivialities. It was that that brought him up here yesterday, and his—”
“It was not. He wanted me to pay for the damage to his plant rooms.”
“But because he thought it was connected with your employment of him. His aversion to leaving his place for anything at all is well known. There was a long family conference—”
“Not a conference. He did all the talking. He insisted that I must pay the damages.”
Archer nodded. “You all agree on that. By the way, how did it come out? Are you paying?”
“Is that relevant?” Wolfe inquired.
“Perhaps not,” Archer conceded. “Only, since you have been engaged to investigate this other matter — I’ll withdraw the question if it’s impertinent.”
“Not at all,” Sperling declared. “I’m paying the damage, but not because I’m obliged to. There’s no evidence that it had any connection with me or my affairs.”
“Then it’s none of my business,” Archer further conceded. “But the fact remains that something happened yesterday to cause your daughter to decide to summon Rony and tell him she was through with him. She says that it was simply that the trouble her friendship with him was causing was at last too much for her, and she made up her mind to end it. That may well be. I can’t even say that I’m skeptical about it. But it is extremely unfortunate, extremely, that she reached that decision the very day that Rony was to die a violent death, under circumstances which no one can explain and for which no one can be held accountable.”
Archer leaned forward and spoke from his heart. “Listen, Mr. Sperling. You know quite well I don’t want to make trouble for you. But I have a duty and a responsibility, and, besides that, I’m not functioning in a vacuum. Far from it! I can’t say how many people know about the situation here regarding your daughter and Rony, but certainly some do. There are three guests here in the house right now, and one of them is a prominent broadcaster. Whatever I do or don’t do, people are going to believe that that situation and Rony’s death are connected, and therefore if I tried to ignore it I would be hooted out of the county. I’ve got to go the limit on this homicide, and I’m going to. I’ve got to find out who killed Rony and why. If it was an accident no one will be better pleased than me, but I’ve got to know who was responsible. It’s going to be unpleasant—” Archer stopped because the door had swung open. Our heads turned to see the intruder. It was Ben Dykes, the head of the county detectives, and behind him was the specimen who had been born in the wrong country, Lieutenant Con Noonan of the State Police. I didn’t like the look on Noonan’s face, but then I never do.
“Yes, Ben?” Archer demanded impatiently. No wonder he was irritated, having been interrupted in the middle of his big speech.
“Something you ought to know,” Dykes said, approaching.
“What is it?”
“Maybe you’d rather have it privately.”
“Why? We have nothing to conceal from Mr. Sperling, and Wolfe’s working for him. What is it?”
Dykes shrugged. “They’ve finished on the cars and got the one that killed him. It’s the one they did last, the one that’s parked out back. Nero Wolfe’s.”
“No question about it!” Noonan crowed.