Rex Stout - Too Many Clients

“Why can’t I stay until you find—”

“Nothing doing. I’ll be too busy for company.”

She stepped in, the door closed, the click came, and the faint sound. I turned to Perez.

“You’ve never seen her before.”

“No. Never.”

“Phooey. When you brought things up at midnight?”

“I only saw him. She could have been in the bathroom.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

He pointed. “At that end.”

I went to his wife. “When she saw you she said, ‘Thank God it’s you.’ ”

She nodded. “I heard her. She must see me some time when she came in, in the hall or a door was open. We don’t know her. We never saw her.”

“The things you don’t know. All right now, you two. It will take hours and will have to wait because I have things to do, but one question now.” To him: “When you put the body in the hole why did you climb in and put the tarp over it?”

He was surprised. “But he was dead! A man dead, you cover him! I knew that thing was in there, I had seen it.”

That was the moment that I decided that Cesar Perez had not killed Thomas G. Yeager. Possibly his wife had, but not him. If you had been there looking at him as he said that, you would have decided the same. When I had been trying to account for the tarp the simplest explanation had never occurred to me, that long ago people covered dead men to hide them from vultures, and it got to be a habit.

“That was decent,” I said. “Too bad you didn’t wear gloves. Okay, that’s all for now. I have work to do. You heard me give that woman Nero Wolfe’s address, Six-eighteen West Thirty-fifth Street. Be there at six o’clock this afternoon, both of you. I’m your detective temporarily, but he’s the boss. You certainly need help, and after you tell him about it we’ll see. Where are Yeager’s keys? Don’t say ‘We don’t know.’ You said you took them. Where are they?”

“I have them safe,” Mrs. Perez said.

“Where?”

“In a cake. I made a cake and put them in. There are twelve keys in a thing.”

“Including the keys to the door and the elevator?”

“Yes.”

I considered. I was already on thin ice, and if I took possession of something that had been taken from Yeager’s body there would be no ice at all between me and suppression of evidence. No. “Don’t cut the cake,” I said, “and be darned sure nobody else does. Are you going anywhere today? Either of you?”

“We don’t have to,” she said.

“Then don’t. Nero Wolfe’s office at six o’clock, but I’ll see you when I come down, probably in an hour or so.”

“You take things?”

“I don’t know. If I do I’ll show them to you, including the cigarette case. If I take anything you think I shouldn’t, you can call in that cop from out front.”

“We couldn’t,” Perez said.

“He makes a joke,” she told him. She pushed the button to bring the elevator up. “This is a bad day, Cesar. There will be many bad days, and he makes a joke.” The elevator clicked at the top, she pushed another button, the door opened, and they entered and were gone.

I moved my eyes around. At the edge of a panel of red silk at the left was a rectangular brass plate, if it wasn’t gold. I went and pulled on it, and it gave. The panel was a door. I pushed it open and stepped through, and was in the kitchen. The walls were red tile, the cupboards and shelves were yellow plastic, and the sink and appliances, including the refrigerator and electric range, were stainless steel. I opened the refrigerator door, saw a collection of various items, and closed it. I slid a cupboard door back and saw nine bottles of Dom Pérignon champagne on their sides in a plastic rack. That would do for the kitchen for now. I emerged and walked the length of the yellow carpet, surrounded by silk and skin, to the other end, where there was another brass plate, or gold, at the edge of a panel. I pushed it open and was in the bathroom. I don’t know what your taste is, but I liked it. It was all mirrors and marble, red marble with yellow streaks and splotches. The tub, big enough for two, was the same marble. Two of the mirrors were doors to cabinets, and they contained enough different cosmetic items to supply a harem.

I returned to the silk and skin. There were no drawers anywhere, no piece of furniture that might contain pieces of paper on which someone had written something. There was nothing at the telephone stand but the phone, which was yellow, and the directory, which was in a red leather holder. But along one wall, the one across from the bed, there was no furniture for about thirty feet of its length, and the silk along the bottom, for three feet up from the floor, was in little folds like a curtain, not flat as it was everywhere else. I went and gave the silk a tug and it parted and slid along the top, and behind it were drawer fronts, of wood something like mahogany, but redder. I pulled one open. Female slippers, a dozen pairs in two neat rows, various colors and shapes and sizes. The sizes ranged from quite small to fairly large.

I looked into only five more drawers before I went to the phone. That was enough to make it plain that Meg Duncan wasn’t the only one who had keys to the door and elevator. There was another drawer of slippers, again assorted colors and sizes, and two drawers of nighties, a mighty fine collection. It was after I unfolded eight of them and spread them on the bed for comparison, and found that they also covered a wide range in sizes, that I went to the phone and dialed a number. There was a possibility that it was tapped or there was an extension, but it was very slim, and I preferred the slight risk to going out to a booth.

Saul Panzer, whose number I dialed, was the free-lance operative we called on when only the best would do. But what I got was the answering-service girl, who said that Mr. Panzer was out and couldn’t be reached and would I leave a message. I said no and dialed another number, Fred Durkin’s, the next best, and got him. He said he had nothing on for the day.

“You have now,” I told him. “Pack a bag for a week. It will probably be less but could be more. Come as you are, no costumes required, but have a gun. You probably won’t use it, but have it. Come to One-fifty-six West Eighty-second Street, the basement entrance, superintendent, and push the button at the door. It will be a man or a woman, either Cuban or Puerto Rican, I’m not sure which. They speak American. Tell him or her your name and ask for me, and you’ll have the pleasure and honor of being brought to my presence. Don’t hurry. Take three minutes to pack if you want to.”

“Eighty-second Street,” he said. “Murder. What was his name? Yeager.”

“You read too much and you’re morbid and you jump to conclusions. Pack your bag and button your lip.” I hung up.

Folding flimsy nighties properly is no job for a man and it takes time, but I gritted my teeth and stuck to it, because a detective is supposed to leave a place the way he found it. Them back in the drawer, I brought the elevator up, took it down, and went to an open door, the first one on the left in the hall. The Perez family was having a conference in the kitchen. Father and mother were sitting, and Maria was standing. There was more light than there had been in the front of the hall, and with that rare specimen, the more light the better. Looking at her, any man alive would have the thought, What the hell, I could wash the dishes and darn the socks myself. The beige nightie with lace around the top, medium-sized, would have fitted her fine. I made my eyes go to her parents and spoke.

“A man will come pretty soon, tall and thick in all directions. He’ll give his name, Fred Durkin, and ask for me. Send him up.”