Rex Stout - Too Many Clients

Since they didn’t leave until dinnertime and business is barred at the table, Wolfe didn’t relay it to me until we were back in the office after dinner. When he had finished he said, “It’s bootless. Time, effort, and money wasted. That woman killed him. Call Fred.” He picked up his book.

“Sure,” I said, “no question about it. It was such a nuisance, all that money rolling in, three hundred a week or more, she had to put a stop to it, and that was the easiest way, shoot him and dump him in a hole.”

He shook his head. “She is a creature of passion. You saw her face when I asked if her daughter had ever gone up to that room — no, you didn’t know what I had asked her. Her eyes blazed, and her voice shrilled. She discovered that Yeager had debauched her daughter and she killed him. Call Fred.”

“She admitted it?”

“Certainly not. She said that her daughter had been forbidden to go up to that room and had never seen it. She resented the implication with fury. We are no longer concerned.” He opened the book. “Call Fred.”

“I don’t believe it.” My voice may have shrilled slightly. “I haven’t described Maria at length and don’t intend to, but when I start marrying she will be third on the list and might even be first if I didn’t have prior commitments. She may be part witch but she has not been debauched. If and when she orgies with a satyr he’ll be leaning gracefully against a tree with a flute in his hand. I don’t believe it.”

“Orgy is not a verb.”

“It is now. And when I asked you this morning if there was any limit to how much I should take along and disburse if necessary, you said as dictated by my discretion and sagacity. I took five hundred, and my discretion and sagacity dictated that the best way to use it was to get Fred there and keep him there. Sixty hours at seven-fifty an hour is four hundred and fifty dollars. Add fifty for his grub and incidentals and that’s the five hundred. The sixty hours will be up at eleven-thirty p.m. Thursday, day after tomorrow. Since I have met Maria and you haven’t, and since you left it—”

The phone rang. I whirled my chair and got it. “Nero Wolfe’s reside—”

“Archie! I’ve got one.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman. You coming?”

“Immediately. You’ll be seeing me.” I cradled the phone and stood up. “Fred has caught a fish. Female.” I glanced at the wall clock: a quarter to ten. “I can have her here before eleven, maybe by ten-thirty. Instructions?”

He exploded. “What good would it do,” he roared, “to give you instructions?”

I could have challenged him to name one time when I had failed to follow instructions unless forced by circumstances, but with a genius you have to be tactful. I said merely, “Then I’ll use my discretion and sagacity,” and went. I should have used them in the hall, to stop at the rack for my topcoat, as I discovered when I was out and headed for Tenth Avenue. A cold wind, cold for May, was coming from the river, but I didn’t go back. Getting a taxi at the corner, I told the driver 82nd and Amsterdam. There might still be a cop at the hole, and even if there wasn’t it would be just as well not to take a cab right to the door.

There was no cop at the hole, and no gathering of amateur criminologists, just passers-by and a bunch of teen-agers down the block. After turning in at 156, descending the three steps, and using Meg Duncan’s key, I entered and proceeded down the hall; and halfway along I had a feeling. Someone had an eye on me. Of course that experience, feeling a presence you have neither seen nor heard, is as old as rocks, but it always gets you. I get it at the bottom of my spine, showing perhaps that I would be either raising or lowering my tail if I had one. At the moment I had the feeling there was a door three paces ahead of me on the right, opened to a crack, a bare inch. I kept going, and when I reached the door I shot an arm out and pushed it. It swung in a foot and was stopped, but the foot was enough. There was no light inside and the hall was dim, but I have good eyes.

She didn’t move. “Why did you do that?” she asked. “This is my room.” A remarkable thing; with a strong light on her, that was best, and with a dim one, that was best.

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “As you know, I’m a detective, and detectives have bad habits. How many times have you been in the room on the top floor?”

“I’m not allowed,” she said. “Would I tell you? So you could tell my mother? Excuse me, I shut the door.”

She did, and I didn’t block it. A nice long talk with her would be desirable, but it would have to wait. I went to the elevator and used the other key, stepped in, and was lifted.

You have expectations even when you’re not aware of them. I suppose I was expecting to find a scared or indignant female sitting on a couch or chair and Fred near at hand with an eye on her. It wasn’t like that. Fred was standing in the center of the room holding up his pants, with two red streaks down his cheek. For a second I thought she wasn’t there; then I saw her head sticking out of the bundle on the floor. It was the yellow silk coverlet from the bed, and she was wrapped in it, with Fred’s belt strapped around the middle. I went and looked down at her, and she glared up at me.

“She’s not hurt any,” Fred said. “I wish she was. Look at me.”

The red of the streaks on his cheek was blood. He lifted a hand with a handkerchief and dabbed at it. “You said I wouldn’t have to touch her unless she started it. She started it all right. Then when I went for the phone she went for the elevator, and when I went to head her off she went for the phone. So I had to wrap her up.”

“Have you told her who you are?”

“No. I wouldn’t do her that favor. That’s her bag there.” He pointed to a chair. “I haven’t looked in it.”

A voice came from the bundle on the floor. “Who are you?” it demanded.

I ignored her and went and got the bag and opened it. With the other usual items, it contained four that were helpful: credit cards from three stores and a driver’s license. The name was Julia McGee, with an address on Arbor Street in the Village. She was twenty-nine years old, five feet five inches, white, brown hair and brown eyes. I put the stuff back in the bag and the bag on the chair, and went to her.

“I’ll unwrap you in a minute, Miss McGee,” I said. “His name is Fred Durkin and mine is Archie Goodwin. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe, the private detective. We work for him. Mr. Durkin is camped here because Mr. Wolfe wants to have a talk with anyone who comes to this room. I’ll be glad to take you to him. I ask no questions because I’d only have to tell him what you said, and it will be simpler to let him ask them.”

“Let me up!” she demanded.

“In a minute. Now that I know who you are and where to find you the situation is a little different. If you grab your bag and head for the elevator I won’t try to stop you, but I advise you to count to ten first. There are keys in your bag to the door downstairs and the elevator. If and when the police get to this room they will of course be interested in anyone who had keys and could have been here Sunday night. So it might be a mistake to decline my invitation. Think it over while I’m unwrapping you.”

I squatted to unbuckle the belt and pull it from under her, and Fred came and took it. I couldn’t stand her up to unwrap her because her feet were inside too. “The easiest way,” I told her, “is to roll out while I hold the end.” She rolled. That thing was ten feet square, and I never have asked Fred how he managed it. When she was out she bounced up and was on her feet. She was quite attractive, perhaps more than normally with her face flushed and her hair tousled. She shook herself, yanked her coat around into place, went and got her bag, and said, “I’m going to phone.”