Margery Allingham - Ellery Queen’s Anthology. 1960

I crossed the hall and the dining-room sill. Wolfe was at his end of the table, and Fritz, standing at his elbow, had just removed the lid from a steaming platter. At his left was Tina, and Carl was at his right, my place when there was no company. Wolfe saw me but finished his lecture on mountain climbing before attending to me: “In time, Archie. You like veal and mushrooms.”

Talk about infantile. His not being willing to sit down to his lunch with unfed people in the house was all well enough, but why not send trays in to them? That was easy. He was sore at me and I had called them foreigners.

I stepped to the end of the table and said, “I know you have a paroxysm if I try to bring up business during meals, but eighteen thousand cops would give a month’s pay to get their hands on Carl and Tina, your guests.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe was serving the veal and accessories. “Why?”

“Have you talked with them?”

“No. I merely invited them to lunch.”

“Then don’t until I’ve reported. I ran into Cramer and Stebbins at the barbershop.”

“Confound it.” The serving spoon stopped en route.

“Yeah. It’s quite interesting. But first lunch, of course. I’ll go put the chain bolt on. Please dish me some veal.”

Carl and Tina were speechless.

That lunch was one of Wolfe’s best performances, I admit it. He didn’t know a thing about Carl and Tina except that they were in a jam, he knew that Cramer and Stebbins dealt only with homicide, and he had a strong prejudice against entertaining murderers at his table. His only hope now was his knowledge that I was aware of his prejudice, and even shared it.

He must have been fairly tight inside, but he stayed the polite host clear to the end, with no sign of hurry even with the coffee. Then, however, the tension began to tell. Ordinarily his return to the office after a meal was leisurely and lazy, but this time he went right along, followed by his guests and me. He marched across to his chair behind the desk, got his bulk deposited, and snapped at me, “What have you got us into now?”

I was pulling chairs around so the Vardas family would be facing him, but stopped to give him an eye. “Us?” I inquired.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” I said courteously, “if that’s how it is. I did not invite them to come here, let alone to lunch. They came on their own and I let them in, which is one of my functions. Having started it, I’ll finish it. May I use the front room? I’ll have them out of here in a minute.”

“Pfui.” He was supercilious. “I am now responsible for their presence, since they were my guests at lunch... Sit down, sir. Sit down, Mrs. Vardas.”

Carl and Tina didn’t know what from which. I had to push the chairs up behind their knees. Then I went to my own chair and swiveled to face Wolfe.

“I have a question to ask them,” I told him, “But first you need a couple of facts: They’re in this country without papers. They were in a concentration camp in Russia, and they’re not telling how they got here if they can help it. They could be spies, but I doubt it after hearing them talk. Naturally, they jump a mile if they hear someone say boo, and when a man came to the barbershop this morning and showed a police card and asked who they were and where they came from and what they were doing last night, they scooted the first chance they got. But they didn’t know where to go, so they came here to buy fifty bucks’ worth of advice. I got big-hearted and went to the shop, myself.”

“You went?” Tina gasped.

I turned to them. “Sure, I went. It’s a complicated situation, but I think I can handle it if you two can be kept out of the way. It would be dangerous for you to stay here. I know a safe place up in the Bronx for you to lay low for a few days. You shouldn’t take a chance on a taxi or the subway, so we’ll go around the corner to the garage and get Mr. Wolfe’s car, and you can drive it—”

“Excuse me,” Carl said urgently. “You would drive us up there?”

“No, I’ll be busy. Then I’ll—”

“But I can’t drive a car! I don’t know how!”

“Then your wife will drive.”

“She can’t! She don’t know, either!”

I sprang from my chair and stood over them. “Look,” I said savagely; “save that for the cops. Can’t drive a car? Certainly you can! Everybody can!”

They were looking up at me, Carl bewildered, Tina frowning. “In America, yes,” she said. “But we are not Americans, not yet. We have never had a chance to learn.”

“What’s this?” Wolfe demanded.

I returned to my chair. “That,” I said, “was the question I wanted to ask. It has a bearing, as you’ll soon see.” I regarded Carl and Tina. “If you’re lying about this, not knowing how to drive a car, you won’t be sent back home to die, you’ll die right here. It will be a cinch to find out if you’re lying.”

“Why should we?” Carl demanded. “What is so important in it?”

“Once more,” I insisted, “can you drive a car?”

“No.”

“Can you, Tina?”

“No!”

“Okay.” I turned to Wolfe: “The caller at the barbershop this morning was a precinct dick named Wallen. Fickler took him to Tina’s booth and he questioned Tina first. Then the others had a session with him in the booth, in this order: Philip, Carl, Jimmie, Tom, Ed, and Janet. You may not know that the manicure booths are around behind the long partition. After Janet came out there was a period of ten or fifteen minutes when Wallen was in the booth alone. Then Fickler went to see, and what he saw was Wallen’s body with scissors buried in his back. Someone had stabbed him to death. Since Carl and Tina had lammed—”

Tina’s cry was more of a gasp, a last gasp, an awful sound. With one leap she was out of her chair and at Carl, grasping him and begging wildly, “Carl, no! No, no! Oh, Carl—!”

“Make her stop,” Wolfe snapped.

I had to try, because Wolfe would rather be in a room with a hungry tiger than with a woman out of hand. I went and got a grip on her shoulder, but released it at sight of the expression on Carl’s face as he pushed to his feet against the pressure. It looked as if he could and would handle it. He did.

He eased her back to her chair and down onto it, and turned to me: “That man was killed there in Tina’s booth?”

“Yes.”

Carl smiled as he had once before, and I wished he would stop trying it. “Then of course,” he said, as if he were conceding a point in a tight argument, “this is the end for us. But, please, I must ask you not to blame my wife. Because we have been through many things together she is ready to credit me with many deeds that are far beyond me. She has a big idea of me and I have a big idea of her. But I did not kill that man. I did not touch him.” He frowned. “I don’t understand why you suggested riding in a car to the Bronx. Of course you will give us to the police.”

“Forget the Bronx.” I was frowning back. “Every cop in town has his eye peeled for you. Sit down.”

He went to his chair and sat. “About driving a car,” Wolfe muttered. “Was that flummery?”

“No, sir, that comes next. Last night around midnight a hit-and-run driver in a stolen car killed a woman up on Broadway. The car was found parked at Broadway and Ninety-sixth Street. Wallen, from the Twentieth Precinct, was the first dick to look it over. In it he apparently found something that led him to the Golden rod Barbershop — anyhow, he phoned his wife that he was on a hot one that would lead to glory and a raise, and then he showed up at the shop and called the roll, as described. With the result also as described. Cramer has bought it that the hit-and-run driver found himself cornered and used the scissors, and Cramer — don’t quote me — is not a dope. To qualify as a hit-and-run driver you must meet certain specifications, and one of them is knowing how to drive a car. So the best plan would be for Carl and Tina to go back to the shop and report for duty and for the official quiz, if it wasn’t for two things: First, the fact that they lammed will make it very tough, and, second, even though it is settled that they didn’t kill a cop, their lack of documents will fix them anyhow.”