Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough

At 5:20 Lily Rowan said, “Don’t talk so loud, Roy. You’d better whisper. You might wake him up.”

I was inclined to agree with her. Wolfe was leaning back comfortably in his chair, his arms folded, with his eyes closed, and I had a suspicion that he was about two-thirds asleep. He had finished two bottles of beer, after going without for over a month, and he was back in the only chair in the world he liked, and his insane project of going outdoors and walking fast twice a clay was only a hideous memory.

He heaved a deep sigh and half opened his eyes, with their focus on Lily.

“It is no occasion for drollery, Miss Rowan,” he muttered at her. “Especially for you. You are suspected of murder. At a minimum that is nothing to be jocund about.”

“Ha,” she said. She didn’t laugh; she merely said, “Ha.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I assure you, madam, it is not a time to ha. The police suspect you. They will annoy you and irritate you. They will ask questions of your friends and enemies. They will dig into your past. They will do it poorly, without any discrimination, and that will make it worse. They will go back as far as they can, for they know that Miss Amory’s father worked for your father a long while ago, and they will surmise — probably they already have — that the reason for your killing Miss Amory is buried in that old association.” Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and settled back again. “It will be extremely disagreeable. So I suggest that we clear it away now, all that we can of it,”

The twist was at the corner of Lily’s mouth. “I think,” she said, “that you and Archie ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I thought you were friends of mine, and here you are trying to prove I committed murder. When I didn’t.” She switched to me, “Archie, look at me. Look in my eyes. Really I didn’t, Archie.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “You went to that apartment yesterday afternoon to see Miss Amory, arrived about 5:40 or 5:45, found the door open, walked in, and saw her there on the floor, dead. Is that it?”

Lily studied him, with her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t believe,” she said slowly, “that I’m going to talk about it. Of course I’d be willing to discuss it with you as a friend, but this is different.”

“I am merely repeating what you told Mr. Goodwin.”

“Then there’s no use going over it again, is there?”

Wolfe’s eyes opened the rest of the way. He was beginning to get riled. “I am going on the assumption,” he said testily, “that you either killed Miss Amory or you didn’t, which seems reasonable. If you did, the way you conduct yourself here is strictly your own affair. If you didn’t you are foolish to act in a way that enforces suspicion of you. It would be a good plan for you to give the impression that you are willing to help us find out who killed Miss Amory, in either case.”

“I am perfectly willing. More than willing. I’m anxious. But this is a fine way to go about it. Keeping me sitting here for hours while you pump this Roy Douglas.” Lily was indignant. “Cops in front of the house. That room probably full of cops. Starting out by telling me I’m suspected of murder. Archie taking down what I say.” She turned on me. “You bum, this is a swell way to repay me for obeying orders the way I did! I never took orders from anyone else in my life and you know it!”

She went back to Wolfe. “As far as Ann Amory is concerned, if Archie has told you what I told him, you know all I know. I hadn’t seen her or thought of her for years until she came to see me a few weeks ago and said she was in trouble and wanted me to send her to a lawyer. All I can do is repeat what I told Archie.”

“Do so,” Wolfe muttered.

“I will not! Let him do it!” She was warming up. She turned on me again:

“Look at you, you damn stenographer! Telling me to come here and talk it over, and this is what I run into! I used to have some sense until I met you! Now what do I do? Chase off down to Washington just to find out where you are because you won’t answer my telegrams! Use enough pull to get my picture on the cover of Life just to find you’re taking an airplane and get a seat on it! Not only that, blab it all out to you because it might soften your heart! And you were too busy to make any social engagements, and I phone here fifty times, and finally I go out for a drink, and there you are dancing! If I ever do go in for murder, I know exactly where I’ll start! And on top of all that I’m enough of a sap to pack up and take a train—”

“Please!” Wolfe said peremptorily. “Miss Rowan!”

She sat back. “There,” she said in a tone of satisfaction, “I feel better. I wanted to get that off my chest in the presence of witnesses. Now if you’ll instruct him to take me somewhere and buy me a drink—”

“Please,” Wolfe said curtly, “don’t get started again. I sympathize with your resentment at the presence of the police, but it’s not my fault. None of this is my fault. I abandon any attempt to question you about Miss Amory, but I would like to ask you one or two things about Mr. Goodwin. Apparently you find him as vexatious as I do. Did I understand you to say that you went to Washington in search of him, and went to some trouble to get a seat on the airplane he was taking, and informed him of that fact?”

“Yes.”

“On Monday? Day before yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe pursed his lips. “He said that meeting was accidental. I didn’t know he had a streak of modesty in him.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Lily said sarcastically. “He hasn’t. He wouldn’t think it was worth bragging about unless it was the three Soong sisters.”

Wolfe nodded. “It’s only that it gives me an idea. You say he hadn’t answered your telegrams. Possibly your pestering — that is, your recent efforts to communicate with me came from your desire, not so much to help Miss Amory as to learn the whereabouts of Mr. Goodwin. If you would care to answer that—”

“They did.”

“I see. And the phone ringing here Monday evening, that was you. And Tuesday? Yesterday? Was that also you?”

“Yes. You might as well—”

“Please. I can guess what all that frustration might have done to a woman of your temperament. It is only a guess, but it deserves a little investigation.” Wolfe raised his voice. “Mr. Cramer! Come here, please!”

By the time we got our heads turned Cramer was in the doorway.

“I knew it,” Lily said. “I knew darned well there were cops in there. But I didn’t know it was you. What do you think Dad would think of that?”

“I believe you know Miss Rowan,” Wolfe said. “I’ve got a little job for Sergeant Stebbins and those men out in front.” He paused. “No, the Sergeant had better stay here. Are those men any good?”

“Medium,” Cramer rumbled. “What—”

“They ought to do for this. Send them up to the Ritz. To interview Miss Rowan’s maid, elevator men, bellboys, the doormen, telephone girls, everybody. We want to know, to the minute if possible, what time Miss Rowan left there Tuesday afternoon. Especially if it was late in the afternoon, say approaching six o’clock — Did you wish to say something, Miss Rowan?”

“No,” Lily said. She was gawking at him incredulously.

“Very well. Of course you may have left the Ritz at any time during the afternoon, I realize that. But other inquiries can be made. Whether, for instance, Miss Amory received a phone call at her office that afternoon. Whether the bell of any of the tenants at 316 Barnum Street rang between 5:30 and 5:45. Whether—”

“My God,” Lily said. “You actually did guess it!”

“Indeed,” Wolfe said quietly. His eyes had a glint in them. “Then you might as well save us the trouble. What time did you leave the Ritz on Tuesday?”