Рекс Стаут: Kill Now — Pay Later

At six o’clock the sound came from the hall of the elevator groaning its way down and jolting to a stop, and Wolfe entered. I waited until he had crossed to his desk and got his seventh of a ton lowered into the oversized chair to say, “They’ve got Pete down at the DA’s office. Apparently he didn’t go back to the building at all, and they—”

The doorbell rang. I got up and stepped to the hall, switched on the stoop light, saw a familiar brawny figure through the one-way glass, and turned. “Cramer.”

“What does he want?” Wolfe growled. That meant let him in. When Inspector Cramer of Homicide South is not to be admitted, with or without reason, Wolfe merely snaps, “No!” When he is to be admitted but is first to be riled, again with or without reason, Wolfe says, “I’m busy.” As for Cramer, he has moods too. When I open the door he may cross the sill and march down the hall without a grunt of greeting, or he may hello me man to man. Twice he has even called me Archie, but that was a slip of the tongue. That day he let me take his hat and coat, and when I got to the office he was in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk, but not settled back. That chair has a deep seat, and Cramer likes to plant his feet flat on the floor. I have never seen him cross his legs. He told Wolfe this wouldn’t take long, he just wanted a little information to fill in, and Wolfe grunted.

“About that man that came this morning to shine your shoes,” Cramer said. “Peter Vassos. What time did he get here?”

Wolfe shook his head. “You should know better, Mr. Cramer. You do know better. I answer questions only when you have established their relevance to your duty and to my obligation, and then at my discretion.”

“Yeah.” Cramer squeezed his lips together and counted three. “Yeah. Never make it simple, no matter how simple it is, that’s you. I’m investigating what may have been a murder, and Peter Vassos may have done it. If he did, he came straight to you afterwards. I know, he’s been coming more than three years, three times a week, to shine your shoes, but today he came early. I want to know what he said. I don’t have to remind you that you’re a licensed private detective, you’re not a lawyer, and communications to you are not privileged. What time did Vassos come this morning and what did he say?”

Wolfe’s brows were up. “Not established. ‘May have’ isn’t enough. A man can get through a window unaided.”

“This one didn’t. Close to certain. There was a thing on his desk, a big hunk of polished petrified wood, and it had been wiped. A thing like that on a man’s desk would have somebody’s prints or at least smudges, and it didn’t. It had been wiped. And at the back of his head, at the base of his skull, something smooth and round had hit him hard. Nothing he hit when he landed could have done that, and nothing on the way down. This hasn’t been released yet, but it will be in the morning.”

Wolfe made a face. “Then your second ‘may have.’ Supposing that someone hit him with that thing and then pushed him out the window, it couldn’t have been Mr. Vassos, by his account. A woman, a Miss Cox, saw him enter Mr. Ashby’s room; and within seconds after entering, finding no one there, he looked out the window and saw a crowd gathered below. If Miss Cox can set the time within—”

“She can. She does. But Vassos might have been in there before that. He could have entered by the other door, direct from the outer hall. That door was kept locked, but he could have knocked and Ashby let him in. He hit Ashby with that thing, killed him or stunned him, dragged or carried him to the window and pushed him out, left by that door, went down the hall and entered the anteroom and spoke to Miss Cox, went to Mercer’s room and gave him a shine, went to Busch’s room and gave him a shine, went to Ashby’s room by the inner hall, speaking to Miss Cox again, looked out of the window or didn’t, left by the door to the outer hall he had used before, took the elevator down and left the building, decided he had better come and see you, and came. What did he say?”

Wolfe took a deep breath. “Very well. I won’t pretend that I’m not concerned. Aside from the many pleasant conversations I have had with Mr. Vassos, he is an excellent bootblack and he never fails to come. He would be hard to replace. Therefore I’ll indulge you. Archie. Report to Mr. Cramer in full. Verbatim.”

I did so. That was easy, compared to some of the lengthy and complicated dialogues I have had to report to Wolfe over the years. I got my notebook and pen and shorthanded it down as I recited it, so there would be no discrepancy if he wanted it typed and signed later. Since I was looking at the notebook I couldn’t see Cramer’s face, but of course his sharp gray eyes were fastened on me, trying to spot a sign of a skip or stumble. When I came to the end, Pete’s departure, and tossed the notebook on my desk, he looked at Wolfe.

“You advised him to go back there at once?”

“Yes. Mr. Goodwin’s memory is incomparable.”

“I know it is. He’s good at forgetting too. Vassos didn’t go back. He went home and we found him there. His account of his conversation with you agrees with Goodwin’s, only he left something out or Goodwin put something in. Vassos says nothing about telling you he saw someone.”

“He didn’t You heard it. It was an if — what if he told a cop he saw someone.”

“Yeah. Like for instance, if he told a cop he saw someone going into Ashby’s room by the hall door, would that be a good idea, or not? like that?”

“Pfui. You’re welcome to your conjectures, but don’t expect me to rate them. I’m concerned; I have said so; it would be a serious inconvenience to lose Mr. Vassos. If he killed that man a jury would wonder why. So would I.”

“We’re not ready for a jury.” Cramer stood up. “But we’ve got a pretty good guess at why. Granting that Goodwin has reported everything Vassos said today, which I don’t, what about other days? What has Vassos ever said about Ashby?”

“Nothing.”

“He has never mentioned his name?”

“No. Archie?”

“Right,” I said. “Not before today.”

“What has he ever said about his daughter?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said.

“Correction,” I said. “What Pete talked about wasn’t up to him. Mr. Wolfe kept him on the ancient glories of Greece. But one day more than two years ago, in June nineteen fifty-eight, when Mr. Wolfe was upstairs in bed with the flu, Pete told me his daughter had just graduated from high school and showed me a picture of her. Pete and I would know each other a lot better if it wasn’t for ancient Greece.”

“And he has never mentioned his daughter since?”

“No, how could he?”

“Nuts. Greece.” Cramer looked at Wolfe. “You know what I think? I think this. If you know Vassos killed Ashby, and you know why, on account of his daughter, and you can help nail him for it, you won’t. If you can help him wriggle out of it, you will.” He tapped Wolfe’s desk with a finger. “Just because, by God, you can count on him to come and shine your shoes, and you like to spout to him about people nobody ever heard of. That’s you.” His eyes darted to me. “And you.” He turned and tramped out.

It was exactly twenty-eight hours later, Tuesday evening at half past ten, that I went to answer the doorbell and saw, through the one-way glass of the front door, a scared but determined little face bounded at the sides by the turned-up collar of a brown wool coat and on top by a fuzzy brown thing that flopped to the right. When I opened the door she told me with a single rush of breath, “You’re Archie Goodwin I’m Elma Vassos.”