Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough

“No. Take a train. This is part of the deal, or the deal’s off. Be sure he doesn’t loose you. When you buy your ticket at Grand Central, be sure he’s close enough to hear where to, and be sure he makes the train. Take a day coach, no parlor car. He’ll stay at the Worthington too. Keep an eye on him, but don’t let him know you know he’s tailing you. Don’t do any horseback riding or anything to frustrate him. We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Make it as soon after as you can, because I’m busy—”

“Wait a minute! Archie! You’re batty. Have you been there? To Ann’s apartment?”

“Certainly not. No time—”

“Then where did you get that Roy Douglas?”

“Caught up with him before he got there. No time for explanations. See you Saturday, if not before.”

When I got back to the table, the darned fool was having another drink. I called the waiter and paid for it.

Then Roy said, “I can’t do it. I can’t go. I forgot about my birds. I have to take care of my birds.”

Another complication, as if I didn’t already have enough to contend with. I got him out of there and into a taxi, and on the way uptown I managed to sell him the idea that I would get in touch with Miss Leeds before 8:00 in the morning and arrange with her to tend the pigeons. The chief trouble now was that he was more than half lit, and what with that and the shock he had had it was a question how much comprehension he had left, so I carefully repeated all the instructions and made sure he knew which pocket the hundred bucks were in.

At that, he seemed to have things fairly under control when we got out at the Ritz. It worked like a charm. We hadn’t been waiting more than ten minutes when Lily came out, with only three pieces of luggage, which for her was practically a paper bag. As she waited for the taxi door to be opened I saw her get me out of the corner of her eye, and I handed Roy into another taxi, shook his hand and told him I trusted him, and instructed the driver to hang onto the taxi in front at any cost. I stood and watched them roll off.

My watch said 7:45. I entered the Ritz and sent a telegram to Miss Leeds, signing it Roy Douglas, asking her to take care of my pigeons. I wanted to get back to 35th Street as soon as possible, because it was an open question whether the note I had written to Ann would be discovered by the first squad man that got there, or hours later when the medicals started on the p.m., and I simply had to be home when the phone rang or a visitor arrived. But one little errand had first call, because it was urgent. After all, Roy Douglas was Ann’s fiancé, and although it seemed incredible that he could have been coolheaded enough to sit and chin with me about pigeons just after strangling his sweetheart, I had to make sure if I didn’t want to make a double-breasted boob of myself. So I went for a phone book and a phone.

It took nearly three-quarters of an hour. First I dialed the number of the National Bird League on the chance that someone might be working late, but there was no answer. Then I went to it. I tried the Times and Gazette , and finally found someone on the Herald Tribune who gave me the name and address of the president of the National Bird League. He lived in Mount Kisco. I phoned there, and he was in Cincinnati, but his wife gave me the name and address of the secretary of the League. I got her, a Brooklyn number, and by gum she had been away from the office that afternoon, attending a meeting, and I had to put all I had on the ball to coax out of her the name and phone number of another woman who worked in the office. At last I had a break; the woman was at home, and apparently bored, for I didn’t have to coax her to talk. She worked at the desk next to Ann Amory, and they had left the office together that afternoon at a couple of minutes after five. So it was worth all the trouble, since that was settled. Roy had got to Wolfe’s house at 4:55, before Ann had even left the office. It was gratifying to know I hadn’t slipped the murderer a hundred bucks to take a trip to the country.

I took a taxi down to 35th Street, stopping on the way to pick up a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of milk, and found that luck was with me there too. All was serene. They had gone to bed. The house was dark. I would have liked to enjoy the sandwiches in the kitchen, but didn’t want the doorbell to ring, so I sneaked in and got a glass, turning on no light, and went back to the stoop, closing the door, and sat there on the top step to eat my dinner. Everything was going smooth as silk.

They were pretty good sandwiches. As time wore on I began to get chilly. I didn’t want to stamp around on the stoop or pace the sidewalk, since Fritz slept in the basement and I didn’t know how soundly he slept during training, so I stood and flapped my arms to work up a circulation. Then I sat on the step again. I looked at my watch and it was 10:40. An hour later I looked again and it was 10:55. Having been afraid before I got there that some squad man might discover the note first thing, now I began to wonder if the damn laboratory was going to wait till morning to start the p.m. and keep me out all night. I stood up and flapped my arms some more.

It was nearly midnight when a police car came zipping down the street and rolled to a stop right in front, and a man got out. I knew him before he hit the sidewalk. It was Sergeant Stebbins of the Homicide Squad. He crossed the sidewalk and started up the steps, and saw me, and stopped.

I said cheerfully, “Hello, Purley. Up so late?”

“Who are you?” he demanded. He peered. “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t recognize you in uniform. When did you get to town?”

“Yesterday afternoon. How’s crime?”

“Just fine. What do you say we go in and sit down and have a little conversation?”

“Sorry, can’t. Don’t talk loud. They’re all asleep. I just stepped out for a breath of air. Gee, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah. I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Well — for instance. When did you last see Ann Amory?”

“Aw, hell,” I said regretfully. “You would do that. Ask me the one question I’m not answering tonight. This is my night for not answering any questions whatever about anybody named Ann.”

“Nuts,” he growled, his bass growl that I had been hearing off and on for ten years. “And I don’t mean peanuts. Is it news to you that she’s dead? Murdered?”

“Nothing doing, Purley.”

“There’s got to be something doing. She’s been murdered. You know damn well you’ve got to talk.”

I grinned at him. “What kind of got?”

“Well, to start with, material witness. You talk, or I take you down, and maybe I do anyway.”

“You mean arrest me as a material witness?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Go ahead. It will be the first time I’ve ever been arrested in the city of New York. And by you! Go ahead.”

He growled. He was getting mad. “Goddamn it, Archie, don’t be a sap! In that uniform? You’re an officer, ain’t you?”

“I am. Major Goodwin. You didn’t salute.”

“Well, for God’s sake—”

“No good. Final. Regarding Ann Amory, anything about Ann Amory, I don’t open my trap.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ve always thought you were cuckoo. You’re under arrest. Get in that car.”

I did so.

There was one little chore left before I could sit back and let nature take its course. Arriving at Centre Street, and asserting my right to make one phone call, I got a lawyer I knew out of bed and gave him some facts to relay to Bill Pratt of the Courier. At 3:45 in the morning, after spending three hours in the company of Inspector Cramer, two lieutenants, and some assorted sergeants and other riffraff, and still refusing to utter a syllable connected in any way with the life or death of Ann Amory, I was locked into a cell in the beautiful new city prison, which is not as beautiful inside as outside.