Рекс Стаут - Death Times Three

I admit it wasn’t a very good line, but it was the best I had been able to come up with, and anyhow all I had wanted was an approach. It had already got me a look at the inmates. Also it would be interesting to get her reaction. I have mentioned the possibility that she had had the Hope diamond under her mattress, and while a stack of phoney lettuce isn’t the same thing as the Hope diamond, far from it, it was still possible. How would she take it?

I soon found out. “I would love to think,” she said, “that you bothered to cook up an excuse. I wish I could, but I can’t. Why don’t you want the police to know that Miss Annis saw Nero Wolfe? What did she say that he doesn’t want to tell?”

My brows lifted. “You’re mixing us up. I’m the detective. Trick questions like that are no good if you can’t back them up. You know darned well she didn’t see him.”

“But she did. What did she say? Was it before I was there or after?”

I grinned at her. “Come on now, Miss Baxter. I was looking forward to calling you Tammy. Don’t spoil it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it. I can back it up. You told Noel Ferris on the phone that your name was Buster. Hattie always called men Buster. Even Ray Dell. She had been there and she had called you Buster. It was in your mind and you said that to Noel without thinking. Had you ever before told anyone that your name was Buster?”

At that point, naturally, my mind was occupied. If it hadn’t been I might have heard the doorbell ring, and noticed it, and also heard and noticed steps in the hall. I might even have recognized a voice from out in the vestibule. But my mind was too busy.

“You’re doing it wrong,” I said. “You should have sneaked up on me. You should have asked me casually why I told Ferris my name was Buster, and then it would have depended on how I answered. You might have got me in a hole. I doubt it, but you might. Now it’s no good because I’ve seen your hand. I say I’ve often told people my name is Buster because that’s what my grandmother called me, and what do you say?”

“I say I want to know why you told me this morning she hadn’t been there.”

“Right. Then I say that if I lied to you this morning, which I am not conceding, I must have had a reason, and the reason must still hold or I wouldn’t be dodging like this. Your turn.”

“What kind of a reason?” Her eyes, straight at me, weren’t sociable at all.

“Oh, nothing fancy. She had told me you were a Russian spy would do. Or that one of her roomers was stealing eggs and I thought it might be you.”

“I’d like to wring your neck!”

“Wear gloves. They’re working on a method to lift fingerprints from bare skin.” I leaned toward her. “Look, Miss Baxter, I really meant it when I asked you to keep it to yourself that Miss Annis told you she was going to see Nero Wolfe. He hates to be pestered. But the way you’re riding me, it looks to me as if something’s biting you, and if so, maybe I can help and I’d be glad to. I’ve had a lot of experience with bites. Did Miss Annis tell you why she was going to Mr. Wolfe? Was it something that—”

The door flew open and I turned my head and saw an object that didn’t appeal to me at all. He stopped short and glared at me. “You? You again?”

I stood up. “The same for me,” I said. “You again. When the door of a room is closed you’re supposed to knock. Miss Baxter, this is Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide. Miss Tammy Baxter. There should be a class on manners at the—”

“What are you doing here?”

“Have a heart. What is a man usually doing when he’s sitting in a parlor with a pretty girl? Pardon the expression, Miss Baxter, of course you’re not merely a pretty girl, but I put it at the sergeant’s level.”

“Are you telling me or not?”

“Not. Not even if you say please. Shinny on your own side.”

“We’ll see.” His eyes moved. “Your name is Baxter?”

“Yes. Tammy or Tamiris.”

“You live here?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Three weeks.”

“I’m an officer of the law and I’m here to ask some questions. Come with me, please. Goodwin, you wait here.”

Of course that was absurd. Since he was taking the pretty girl it would have been silly for me to stay there and twiddle my thumbs, and besides, I was twiddling my brain. Why was he there? What had sicced Homicide on it? So when she got up and went and he followed I tagged along, to the kitchen. The others were still at the table, except Paul Hannah, who was bringing the coffee pot from the range. Tammy joined them. There were more chairs at one side, and Stebbins got one and took it to the table. As I went and sat on one he barked at me, “I told you to wait in there!”

“Yeah. I thought you might want to ask me something. If I’m in the way I can go home.”

“I’ll deal with you later.” He sat and got out his notebook and pencil, and ran his eyes over the audience. “This is just some routine questions,” he told them. “As you know, the owner of this house, Hattie Annis, was hit by a car and killed at five minutes past eleven this morning. One of you identified the body.”

“I did,” Noel Ferris said.

“Okay. We’ve got the car. It had been stolen. We haven’t got the driver yet, and we’re making a routine check. I’ll start with you, Miss — your name, please?”

“Martha Kirk.”

He wrote. “K-I-R-K?”

“Yes.”

“Occupation?”

“Dancer.”

“Employed at present?”

“No.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Nearly a year.”

“Where were you at eleven o’clock this morning?”

“Wait a minute,” Raymond Dell rumbled. “This is invasion of privacy. It’s monstrous. Are we in Moscow? Look at that child, that coryphée in the bud! Do you dare to imply that she is a murderous fiend?”

“I’m not implying anything. I said this is routine. I’m doing you folks a favor, coming here instead of sending for you. Miss Kirk?”

“I was here. In my room, in bed.”

“At eleven o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Was anybody with you?”

Paul Hannah let out a whoop. Noel Ferris drawled, “Now really.” Stebbins blushed. “Routine,” he said stiffly.

“No, I was alone,” Martha Kirk said. “I got up about eleven, a little after, and dressed and went out. I think this is exciting. I never gave an alibi before. I guess I’m not giving one now, because nobody was around.”

Stebbins was getting it down. He looked up. “Miss Baxter?”

“You have my name,” she said, “and that I’ve lived here three weeks. I’m going to be an actress if I can make it. Not employed at present. This morning I left here around ten o’clock to go shopping, and between then and noon I was in four or five different stores.”

I had her in profile and couldn’t tell how well she handled her face when she was lying, but her tone was perfect. Purely matter-of-fact. That’s not so easy when someone is present, disposition unknown, who can call you.

Stebbins went to Ferris. “You, sir?”

“Noel Ferris.” He spelled it. “Actor out of work because if it’s either television or starve, I’ll starve. Lived here a year and a half. For two hours this morning, from ten-thirty on, I was calling at casting agencies.”

“How many?”

“Four, I think, altogether.”

“Can you get corroboration for eleven o’clock?”

“I doubt it. I doubt if I would try. This is so idiotic.”

“Maybe so.” Stebbins turned a page of his notebook. “And you, sir?”

“Paul Hannah. Hannah with an h .” He was standing back of Tammy’s chair, with a cup of coffee. Standing up he looked even younger than sitting down. “I’m rehearsing in Do As Thou Wilt . It goes on at the Mushroom Theatre next month. That is, we hope it does.”