I gave Fred an eye. The comic aspect of things retreated into the wings.
“What makes you think so?” I demanded.
“I frisked him. Look there on the dresser.”
I tiptoed across to inspect the little heap of articles. Among other things, a driving license for Eugene Davis. A membership card in the New York County Bar Association for Eugene Davis, of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis. A pass to the New York World’s Fair 1939, with a picture of him thereon. An accident insurance identification card. Three letters received by Eugene Davis at his business address. Two snapshots of Naomi Karn, one in a bathing suit.
I told Fred, “Go and stay at the hall door and scream if anyone comes. I’m going to browse around.”
I made it snappy but thorough. Davis lay there sucking it in like a bear caught short on Atmosphere common. I covered it all, that bedroom and a smaller one, bathroom, kitchenette, and the big living room, including closets. I would have floated right out of a window if I had found a last will and testament of Noel Hawthorne dated subsequent to March 7th, 1938, but I didn’t. Nor anything else that seemed pertinent to a will or a murder or any phenomenon I was interested in, unless you want to count eight more pictures of Naomi Karn, of various shapes and sizes, three of them inscribed “To Gene,” with dates in 1935 and 1936. Even the refrigerator was empty. I took a parting look at the member of the bar, collected Fred and escorted him out and down to the street and into the roadster, drove around the corner onto Sixth Avenue, drew up at the curb in the morning shadow of the buildings, and demanded:
“How come?”
Fred protested, “We ought to park where we can see—”
“He’ll be there for hours. Tell Papa.”
“Well, I tailed him—”
“Did he and the female subject leave Santoretti’s together?”
“Yeah, at eleven o’clock. They walked west to Lexington, with me on foot and Saul stringing along in his bus. He put her in a taxi and Saul followed it. He stood and watched the taxi, going uptown, until it was out of sight, and then he started walking south as if he’d just remembered something he’d left in Florida. He’s a giraffe. I damn near ran my legs off. The damn fool walked clear to 8th Street!”
“We’ll warn him not to do that again. How you must have suffered. Skip things like that. I can’t bear it.”
“Go spit up a rope. He went into a place on 8th Street near Sixth, a bar and restaurant named Wellman’s. I happen to know a guy that works there. I waited outside a while, and then I went in and saw that Sam was there filling and spilling — he’s the guy I know. I bought a drink and chinned with him. The subject was there at the bar taking on cargo. He would sip at one maybe ten minutes and then down it would go and he’d get a refill. After that had been going on for an hour and a half Sam began frowning at him and I asked Sam about him. By the way, I had to turn loose of two dollars and sixty cents for refreshments.”
“I’ll bet you did. Wait till Wolfe sees the expense account, I won’t pass it.”
“Now, look here, Archie—”
“I’ll see. Finish your report to your superior.”
“Wait till I laugh. Haw. Sam said the subject was a good customer, too damn good sometimes. His name was Dawson and he lived in the neighborhood. A dozen times in the past two years Sam had had to get him home in a taxi. Well, it went on and on. After a while he staggered over to a table and sat down and asked for more. Finally he flopped. Sam and I made a couple of efforts to straighten him up, but he was out. So I offered to see him home, and Sam thought that was swell of me, and so did I until I started carrying him up that two flights of stairs. He weighs two hundred if he weighs an ounce.”
“Saul says a hundred and seventy.”
“Saul didn’t carry him upstairs. It was a quarter after five when I got him here. I took his pants and shoes off, and then sat and thought it over. The main thing was, why should I get you out of bed at that hour? I know how you are before breakfast—”
“So you took a nap and then phoned an SOS as if—”
“I didn’t take a nap. I just wanted you to realize—”
“Okay. Save it. I may as well admit that the boss will pay for the drinks. I also admit it’s handy your knowing so many Sams in so many bars. I’ll be back pretty soon.”
I hopped out, went to the corner and entered a drugstore, found a phone booth, and dialed a number. A familiar voice said hello.
“This is Archie, Fritz. Give the plant rooms a buzz.”
“Mr. Wolfe isn’t up there.”
I glanced at my wrist watch and saw 10:05. “What are you talking about? Certainly he’s up there.”
“No, really, Archie. Mr. Wolfe has gone out.”
“You’re crazy. If he told you to say that — who does he think he’s kidding, anyhow? Ring the plant rooms.”
“But, Archie, I tell you he went. He received a telephone call and went. He gave me messages for you — wait — I wrote them down — First, Saul reported and he arranged to have Orrie relieve him. Second, that owing to your absence he would have to ride in a taxicab. Third, that you are to go in the sedan to the residence of Mr. Hawthorne, deceased, on 67th Street.”
“Is this straight, Fritz?”
“Honest for God, Archie. It took my breath.”
“I’ll bet it did.”
I hung up and went back out to the car and told Fred:
“A new era has begun. The earth has turned around and started the other way. Mr. Wolfe has left home in a taxicab to work on a case.”
“Huh? Nuts.”
“Nope. As Fritz says, honest for God. He really has. So if you’ll—”
“But Jesus, Archie. He’ll get killed or something.”
“Don’t I know it? You beat it. Go on home and finish your nap. Your friend Davis is set for several hours at least. If we need you I’ll give you a ring.”
“But if Mr. Wolfe—”
“I’ll tend to him.”
He climbed out and stood there shaking his head and looking worried as I drove off. I wasn’t worried, but I was slightly dazed, as I headed the roadster north. Arriving at the garage on Eleventh Avenue, I transferred to the sedan, circled down the ramp to the street, and started north again. I figured that it must be the state of the bank account that was responsible for Wolfe’s shattering his inflexible rule never to go calling on business, but though I knew he was concerned about it I hadn’t realized that he was in a condition of absolute frenzy. I was feeling pretty sorry for him as I parked the sedan on 67th Street and walked to the entrance of the Hawthorne stone pile.
There were no city employees standing around and no reporters or photographers climbing in at the windows, so I concluded that Skinner and Cramer still hadn’t blown the horn for the busy intersection. The butler who opened the door had distinguished ancestry oozing from every pore. I said:
“Good morning, Jeeves. I’m Lord Goodwin. If Mr. Nero Wolfe got here alive, he’s expecting me. A big fat man. Is he here?”
“Yes, sir.” He permitted me to slide through. “Your hat, sir? This way if you please, sir.” He moved across the large entrance hall to a doorway and stood aside for me. “I shall inform Mr. Dunn and Mr. Wolfe that you are here.” I sauntered by him with a nod and he went off.
So that was why Wolfe was zooming around like a wren building a nest. It would have been more pat to our purpose if it had been the secretary of the treasury instead of the secretary of state, but you can’t have a silver lining without a cloud. I shrugged it off and glanced around. With all its size and elegant and successful effort to live up to the butler, the room was not what I would live in if my rich uncle died. There were too many chairs that looked as if they had been made to have their pictures taken instead of to sit on. The only thing I saw that I liked was a marble statue over in a corner of a woman reaching for a bath towel — at least she had an arm stretched as if she was reaching for something, and she was ready for a towel. I strolled across to appreciate it, and, as I stood doing so, got a certain feeling in the back of my neck, though I hadn’t heard a sound. I whirled on my heel, and saw what had caused it. Mrs. Noel Hawthorne was there at the other end of the room, facing me. That is, she would have been facing me if she had had a face. She had on a long gray dress that reached to her ankles, and the veil was the same gray. She just stood there.
I was certainly allergic to that damn veil. There was something about it that was bad for my nerves. I wanted to say, “Good morning, Mrs. Hawthorne,” with my customary suavity, but had the feeling it would come out a yell, so I said nothing. Neither did she. After she had stood there an hour, which I suppose was actually nine seconds, she turned and, noiselessly on the thick carpet, disappeared the other side of some draperies. I strode across the room as if I was going to do something; I suppose if I had had my sword handy I would have lunged through the drapery with it like Hamlet in the third act. Before I got there a voice from the rear stopped me:
“Hullo!”
I jerked around like Gary Cooper surrounded by cutthroats, saw who it was and felt like a fool, and blurted savagely, “Hullo yourself.”
Sara Dunn, the professional fiend, approached. “I forget your name. I suppose you’re going to sit in with Nero Wolfe and my dad?”
“I guess I am if I live long enough.”
She was in front of me, looking up at me with her mother’s fighting bird eyes. “Will you do something for me? Tell Nero Wolfe I want to see him before he leaves here. As soon as possible. Tell him so my dad can’t hear.”
“I’ll try. You might save time by telling me what you want to see him about.”
“I don’t know.” Her brow wrinkled. “Maybe I should. It’s something I’d like him to know—”
She turned at a noise. The butler was coming through the doorway.
“Yes, Turner?”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Dunn. Your father is expecting Mr. Goodwin upstairs.”
“They can wait a minute,” I said, “if you want—”
She shook her head. “No, it would be — tell him what I said. Will you?”
I said I would, and followed the butler. From the entrance hall he mounted a wide curving stairway, and in the upper corridor passed one door on the right and opened the second one. I went in. A glance showed me that this room was closer to my idea of what to do to keep in out of the rain if you have money. There were shelves with books on three sides, pictures of horses and dogs, a big roomy flat-top desk, plenty of comfortable chairs, and a radio. No one was at the desk. Nero Wolfe was holding down a brown leather chair with his back to a window. Mrs. John Charles Dunn was on the edge of another one. Standing between them was a tall stoop-shouldered guy in shirt sleeves, with harassed deep-set eyes and a wavy mane of hair turning gray. I would have recognized him immediately from pictures I had seen, and of course he was noted for shedding his coat and vest whenever circumstances permitted.
Wolfe grunted a greeting. June murmured at me and introduced me to her husband. Wolfe said:
“Sit down, Archie. I have explained your function to Mr. and Mrs. Dunn. Did Fred get into trouble again?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t say trouble. Following the instructions I gave him, he walked around and sat in a bar having refreshments until five o’clock. Then one of the bar’s customers needed to be conveyed home and Fred obliged. I joined him in the customer’s apartment at the address I told Fritz to give you, arriving at nine o’clock. The customer was on the bed in a coma sequential to acute inebriation. After looking around to make sure that everything was all right, I departed, phoned the house, and received your message from Fritz. Fred has gone home to sleep.”
“The customer’s identity?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well?”
I shrugged. If the lid was off for the cabinet member and wife, okay. “Eugene Davis, of the law firm of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis.”
“Ah.”
Mrs. Dunn asked in a tone of surprise, “Gene Davis?”
“Do you know him, madam?” inquired Wolfe.
“Not well. I haven’t seen him for a long time.” She turned to her husband. “You remember him, John. Eugene Davis, Glenn’s partner. I don’t think either of us has seen him since we went to Washington.”
Dunn nodded uncertainly. “I believe I do. A fellow with a narrow nose and too much blood in his lips. But he has no connection with this — has he? Eugene Davis?”
“I don’t know,” Wolfe said. “Anyway, he is at present in a drunken stupor, so he’ll keep. You were saying, sir?...”
“Yes.” Dunn scowled at me and then transferred it to Wolfe. “I don’t like this man’s being here, but what I like is no longer of much significance.” He sounded bitter.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Wolfe remonstrated. “I’ve explained about Mr. Goodwin. Without him I’m an ear without a tympanum. Go ahead. You made a fine dramatic statement, which pleased me very much because I’m an incurable romantic. You said you are going to put your fate in my hands.”
“There was nothing dramatic about it. It was merely a statement of fact.”
“I like facts too.”
“I don’t,” Dunn muttered. “Not these facts.” He turned and looked at his wife, then abruptly went over to her and bent down to kiss her on the lips. “June dear,” he said. “I’ve hardly even said hello to you. June dear.” She pulled him back down and had him kiss her again and muttered at him. Wolfe told me:
“Mr. Dunn just arrived from Washington. He phoned me from the airport.”
Dunn straightened up and came back to Wolfe. “You’ve heard the report that is being spread about Noel Hawthorne and me.”
Wolfe nodded. “Something, yes, sir. The editor of the Gazette dines with me once a month. That the decision to make the loan to Argentina was arrived at in the State Department. That shortly after the loan was announced, it was learned that valuable industrial concessions in Argentina had already been secured by companies controlled by Daniel Cullen and Company. That Noel Hawthorne had, through you, his brother-in-law, received prior secret information of the loan and its terms. That you, the secretary of state, are as good as convicted of skulduggery.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I know nothing whatever about it.”
“It’s a damned lie. If you believe it, you are disqualified for what I want you to do.”
“I have no basis for belief or disbelief. I don’t try to abolish reality by shutting my eyes, nor do I gobble garbage. As a citizen, I like your methods and approve your policies. I am a professional detective, and if I take a job I work at it. What do you want me to do?”
“You did a brilliant piece of work on the Wetzler case.”
“Thank you, sir. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to find out who murdered Noel Hawthorne.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe heaved a sigh. I looked across at June and saw that her fingers were twisted tight in her lap as she gazed across at her husband. Dunn, standing in front of Wolfe, scowled down at him.
“My career is ruined anyhow,” he declared. “My wife’s too, for it has been as much hers as mine. I’ll probably have to resign within a month. I’ll clear it up some day, the question of how the Cullen office got that advance information. My brother-in-law claimed he didn’t know. I’ll do that before I die, in spite of the intrigue and obscurities and obstacles. But the first thing to clear up is this murder.” Dunn clenched his fists. “By God, I won’t leave Washington with this on my shoulders too.”
Wolfe grunted. “Miss May Hawthorne seems to think that your political opponents are deliberately using Hawthorne’s death as a lever to pry you out. Do you?”
“I don’t know. I make no such charge. But I do know that if the murder is not solved I’ll never crawl out of the mire, either before my death or after, and I don’t think they’ll solve it. I don’t believe they will.” Dunn’s fists closed again. “I suppose this Argentina thing has worn my nerves thin and they’re ready to snap, but I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. People who sit at the same table with me at a cabinet meeting will help tear my scalp off. Am I going to trust my life — more than my life — to a Rockland County district attorney or a slick rabble-rouser like Bill Skinner? I am not! There’s not a soul in Washington that I can trust who is in a position to help me in a thing like this. And people don’t like to help a man who is supposed to be going down for the third time, not even when — especially when — he occupies a position like mine. I need you, Mr. Wolfe. I want you to find out who killed Hawthorne.”
“Well.” Wolfe stirred in his chair. “I have already accepted a commission—”
“I know you have. But first another thing. My salary is $15,000 a year and I have a hard time living on it. If I resign and resume private practice—”
Wolfe waved it away. “If you can trust me with your fate I can trust you for a fee. But I can’t undertake to look two ways at once. Your wife and her sisters and Mrs. Hawthorne have engaged me in the matter of the will. They are my clients. If I take on your job too I run the risk of finding myself confronted by the painful necessity...”
Wolfe let it hang. Dunn glowered at him. The tableau was interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by its opening for the entrance of the butler.
“What is it?” Dunn demanded.
“Three gentlemen to see you, sir. Mr. Skinner, Mr. Cramer and Mr. Hombert.”
“Ask them to wait. Tell them — put them in that room with the piano. I’ll see them there.”
The butler bowed and went. June, looking across at Wolfe, said quietly, “You mean, what if one of us killed my brother.”
“Bosh!” Dunn blurted.
June shook her head at him. “Bosh to us, John, not to Mr. Wolfe.” Her eyes went to Wolfe. “If we ask you to expose a murderer, we’ll expect you to do so if you can. Do you really — do you think one of us did it?”
“I haven’t started thinking,” said Wolfe testily. “I just want things understood. I don’t like it. If Miss May Hawthorne, for instance, is going to be convicted for murder, I’d rather have nothing to do with it. I work as a detective to make money, and I expect to make some on that will business. I’d prefer to let it go at that, but my confounded vanity won’t let me. John Charles Dunn stands here and puts his fate in my hands. What the devil is a conceited man like me going to do?” He frowned at Dunn. “I warn you, sir, that if I start after this murderer I’m apt to catch him. Or her.”
“I hope you do.”
“So do I,” said June. “We all do.”
“Except one of you,” said Wolfe grimly. “At present I know nothing at all about it, but if Mr. Skinner is proceeding on the theory that Hawthorne was killed by someone in that gathering at your house, I don’t blame him. At any rate, I’ll have to start with them. Separately. Who is on the premises?”
“My sisters are,” said June. “and the children, and I think Miss Fleet...”
I chimed in, “I saw Mrs. Hawthorne downstairs, or at least someone in a veil.”
“That will do to begin with,” said Wolfe. “You, Mr. Dunn? It won’t hurt Mr. Skinner to wait a few minutes longer. I understand you were chopping wood. Miss May Hawthorne says she was asked whether she heard your axe going continuously from 4:30 to 5:30.”
“She didn’t,” Dunn said curtly. “I’m not a robot. I sat on a log. I was in a stew. I didn’t like Noel Hawthorne being there, even for our anniversary.”
“It wasn’t exactly a gay carefree party.”
“It was not.”
“Around four o’clock you and Hawthorne had discussed shooting a hawk?”
“The hawk was there, flying around, over towards the woods. Ames had told me it had got a chicken the day before, and I told Noel. He wanted to shoot it. He liked to shoot things. I don’t. I found Ames and told him to give Noel his shotgun, and Noel went off with it. I went the other way, around back of the sheds, to let off steam splitting wood.”
“Did Hawthorne himself suggest shooting the hawk? Or did you suggest it to get rid of him?”
“He suggested it.” Dunn was frowning. “See here. You’d better put me at the end of the list. I’m aware what you’re capable of, and I don’t swagger. It wouldn’t be in me to put you on this as a finesse if my own heel was exposed.”
“But it’s my job now, Mr. Dunn. Were others present when the hawk was discussed?”
“Yes, we were having tea on the lawn. Most of us.”
“Then I can ask them. Even if there were something to fish out of you, I doubt if I could do it; you’ve had long training. Do you know of anything that happened that afternoon that you think might help me? Anything at all?”
“No. Nothing is in my mind now.”
“Do you suspect anyone of murdering Hawthorne?”
“Yes, I suspect his wife. His widow.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows went up. “Any special reason?”
“That’s just leaping in the dark, John,” June remonstrated. “Poor Daisy is a spiteful wretch, but—”
“I answered his question, June dear. He asked if I suspect anyone — No special reason, Mr. Wolfe. She’s malevolent and she hated him. That’s all.”
“You didn’t smell burnt powder on her hands or anything like that.”
“No no. Nothing.”
“Well.” Wolfe turned. “What about you, Mrs. Dunn? You went to pick raspberries, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“About what time?”
“Shortly after Noel went with the gun and my husband went to chop wood. We finished tea and scattered. Who told you I went to pick raspberries?”
“Your sister May. Wild raspberries?”
“No, we have a patch in a corner of the vegetable garden.”
“Did you hear the shots that killed crows?”
“Yes, I did. And I heard the third shot, the — the last one. Faintly, but I heard it. Of course I thought it was only my brother still trying to get the hawk, but I’m nervous about guns and I don’t like the sound no matter what is being shot. The third shot was a little before five o’clock. I quit picking raspberries and went to the arbor for some grape leaves, and when I got to the house it was ten after five.”
“I understand that Titus Ames corroborates that — the time of the third shot.”
June nodded. “He was in the barn milking.”
“Yes. There seems to have been a great variety of activity around there. Now, Mrs. Dunn, if I asked you a lot of questions would it do me any good?”
“I don’t know. I’m certainly willing to answer them.”
“Do you know of anything that would help me?”
“No. I know a great many things about my brother, his character and personality, and his relations with us and other people, but nothing that I think would help you find his murderer.”
“We’ll have to talk it over. Not now; I’ll see the others first — By the way, Mr. Dunn, I want to send a man up to your place in the country. May I have a note to Titus Ames, telling him to let my man look around, and to answer questions if he asks any? The name is Fred Durkin.”
“I’ll write it,” June offered. “And I’ll send — whom shall I send first, Mr. Wolfe?”
I put in an oar. “Your daughter, Mrs. Dunn, if you please.”
“My daughter?” She looked at me in surprise. “She wasn’t there. She didn’t arrive until afterwards.”
“We’ll take her first,” I said firmly.
She accepted it and crossed to her husband, and they left the room together, with his arm around her shoulders and her hand patting him on the back.
When the door had closed Wolfe asked, “Why the daughter?”
Rummaging through the desk drawers for something to take notes on, I told him, “By request. She’s trying to win a prize and wants to take your picture.”