Rex Stout - Too Many Clients

I got the expected reaction from Mrs. Perez. I had no right to tell anybody about that place, they were going to pay me, and so forth. Wishing to keep on speaking terms with our clients, I took four minutes to explain why I had to leave Fred there when I went, got her calmed down, permitted my eyes to dart another glance at Maria, took the elevator back up, and resumed on the drawers where I had left off. I won’t take time and space to list an inventory, but will merely say that everything that could be needed for such an establishment was there. I’ll only mention two details: one, that there was only one drawer of male items, and the six suits of pajamas were all the same size; and two, the drawer in which I found Meg Duncan’s cigarette case was obviously a catchall. There were three women’s handkerchiefs, used, an anonymous compact, a lady’s umbrella, a matchbook from Terry’s Pub, and other such miscellany. I had just put it all back in and was closing the drawer when I heard the click from the elevator.

Presumably it was Fred, but possibly not, so I got the Marley out and went to the wall by the elevator door. I could hear no voices from below; the place was so thoroughly soundproofed that you could hear nothing but a faint suggestion of noise from the street traffic, and that was more felt than heard. Soon the click came again, the door opened, and Fred slipped out. He stood and swiveled his head, right and left, brought it around until he caught a glimpse of me, turned it back again, and spoke.

“Jesus Kee-rist!”

“Your new home,” I told him. “I do hope you’ll be happy here. The idea is, you take your pick from the pictures. Something like the Mountain Room at the Churchill with live trout and you choose the one you want for lunch. I strongly recommend the one over there sitting on a rose bush. If she can stand thorns she can stand you.”

He put his bag down. “You know, Archie, I’ve always wondered why you didn’t marry. How long have you had it?”

“Oh, ten years, I guess. I have others here and there around town. I’m turning this one over to you for a while. Kitchen, bathroom, TV, maid service. Like it?”

“Good God. I’m a married man.”

“Yeah. Too bad. I’d like to stay and explain the pictures to you, but I have to go. The point is, if a visitor comes, someone should be here to receive her. It could be a him, but more likely it would be a her. Most likely there won’t be any, but there might be. She might come at any hour, day or night. The less you know the better; just take my word for it that if she steps out of that elevator you are in a position to refuse to let her get back in, and there’s no other way out of here. Identify yourself or not, as you prefer. Ring me, and I’ll come.”

He was frowning. “Alone with a woman, restraining her by force isn’t so good.”

“You won’t have to touch her unless she starts it.”

“She sticks her head out a window and yells police.”

“Not a chance. There’s no window, and she wouldn’t want anyone to know she’s here, least of all a cop. The one thing she’ll want is to get out, and fast.”

He was still frowning. “The hole that Yeager’s body was found in is right out front. Maybe I ought to know a little more.”

“Not from me. Why drag in Yeager? He’s dead; I read it in the paper. If the phone rings take it and ask who it is and see what happens, but don’t say who you are. That’s the door to the kitchen.” I pointed. “There’s some fancy stuff in the refrigerator when you get hungry. The people down below are Mr. and Mrs. Cesar Perez and their daughter Maria. Did you see Maria?”

“No.”

“I’m going to marry her when I find time. I’ll tell Mrs. Perez to bring you up a loaf of bread, and if you have to have anything she’ll get it. She and her husband are out on a limb and they’re counting on me to get a ladder. Okay, enjoy the pictures. You couldn’t ask for a better chance to study anatomy.” I opened the elevator door.

“What if it’s a man that comes?”

“It won’t be. If it is, stick to the program; that’s why I told you to have a gun.”

“What if it’s a cop?”

“One chance in a million. Not even that. Tell him you’ve forgotten your name and he’ll have to ring me at Nero Wolfe’s office. Then I’ll know what happened.”

“And I’ll be in the coop.”

“Right. But not for long. We’ll have you out by Christmas easy. There’s half a pound of fresh caviar in the refrigerator, twenty dollars’ worth. Help yourself.”

I entered the elevator. Downstairs I explained the situation to Mrs. Perez and asked her to take up a loaf of bread, and left the house. My watch said noon, on the dot, as I headed for Columbus Avenue for a taxi.

At five minutes past one, Wolfe, at his desk, growled at me. “Your objective was to find an acceptable client, not a pair of wretches who probably killed him and another wretch who offers a reward for a cigarette case. I concede your craft, your finesse, and your gumption, and I even felicitate you, but if you have discovered the culprits, as seems probable, where do you send a bill?”

I had reported in full, omitting only one detail, a factual description of Maria. He was quite capable of assuming, or pretending to assume, that I was prejudiced in favor of Mr. and Mrs. Perez on account of their daughter. I had described the place accurately and completely, and had even included my handling of the nightie problem. I had admitted that I had tried to get Saul Panzer (ten dollars an hour), and had got Fred Durkin instead (seven-fifty an hour) only because Saul was not available.

“I won’t see them,” he said.

I knew, or thought I did, where the real snag was, but I had to go easy. I nodded thoughtfully. “Of course they could have killed him,” I said, “but one will get you five that they didn’t. For the reasons I gave. His tone and his expression when he told me why he put the tarp over the body. The fact that she let the daughter come to the door when I rang the bell. If she had killed him she would have come herself. But chiefly, with him alive they were in clover. Of course he was paying them plenty. With him dead they’re not only minus a fat income, they’re in a hell of a fix, and they would have been even if I hadn’t got to them. When the executor of his estate learns that he owned that house and goes to inspect it?”

I crossed my legs. “Naturally,” I said, “you don’t like it, I understand that. If it was just a nice place he had fixed up where he could safely spend a night now and then with his mistress, that wouldn’t be so bad, but obviously it wasn’t that. There are probably half a dozen women with keys to that door and elevator, and maybe twenty or more. I realize that you wouldn’t like to be involved with that kind of setup, but now that I have—”

“Nonsense,” he said.

I raised a brow. “Nonsense?”

“Yes. A modern satyr is part man, part pig, and part jackass. He hasn’t even the charm of the roguish; he doesn’t lean gracefully against a tree with a flute in his hand. The only quality he has preserved from his Attic ancestors is his lust, and he gratifies it in dark corners or other men’s beds or hotel rooms, not in the shade of an olive tree on a sunny hillside. The preposterous blower of carnality you have described is a sorry makeshift, but at least Mr. Yeager tried. A pig and a jackass, yes, but the flute strain was in him too — as it once was in me, in my youth. No doubt he deserved to die, but I would welcome a sufficient inducement to expose his killer.”

I suppose I was staring. “You would?”

“Certainly. But who is likely to offer it? Granting that you have shown commendable alacrity and wit, and that you are right about Mr. and Mrs. Perez, where are we? Where is a prospective client? To whom can we disclose the existence of that preposterous bower and his connection with it? Neither his family nor his business associates, surely. They would be more likely to want it concealed than disclosed, and are we blackmailers? I concede that there is one remote possibility: who is the man who came here yesterday posing as Yeager, and why did he come?”