Rex Stout - Over My Dead Body

"No, she was alone. She stayed in there only about ten minutes. At eleven-fifteen she came out and went to Second Avenue and took a taxi. She got out at the Maidstone Building on 42nd Street. They were a little behind her as she entered the building, and she popped into an elevator just as the door was closing, and they missed it. They couldn't find out from the elevator boy what floor she got off at, and anyway, as you know and I know, that would be bad tailing, because she could have taken to the stairs and gone up or down. There are four different rows of elevators to watch in that building, and they were afraid to leave to go to a phone, but just now a cop passed by and they flagged him, and had him send in a report. They're sure she hasn't left the building, and they want help, because the rush hour will be on at five o'clock."

"Is that all?"

"That's the crop."

I made a face. "And Cramer, the louse, said there was no news worth mentioning! He's going upstairs with Wolfe to the roof. When you hear the elevator go up, you go down to the office and stay there. Take all calls. If anybody comes, tell Wolfe on the house phone. Write out a report of what you've told me, and add to it that I've gone to the Maidstone Building, and send it up to Wolfe by Fritz. If I call in and there's anyone in the office, use code. Got it?"

"I've got it. But why not let me go-?"

"No, my boy, this is a job for a master."

I left him there. Descending the stairs as fast as I could without making a hubbub, I went to the kitchen and told Fritz:

"Go to the office and tell Wolfe the goose hasn't been delivered and you've sent me to the Washington Market for it. Tell him I protested and complain bitterly of the language I used. That is for the benefit of Inspector Cramer. Fred has the low-down. Got it?"

"Yes," Fritz hissed.

I left by way of the front hall, grabbing my hat and coat. Outside was no regiment, but there was a dick on the sidewalk not far from the stoop, and another one across the street, and a taxi was parked fifty yards east. Not to mention Cramer's police car, there nosing the hind end of my roadster. I climbed in the roadster and started the engine, called to Cramer's chauffeur, "Follow me to the scene of the crime!" and rolled. I didn't go far, only around the corner and a couple of blocks on Tenth Avenue, and then stopped at the kerb, locked the ignition, got out and stopped the first taxi that came along. I waited a minute to see either the police car or the taxi if they turned in from 35th Street, but apparently my invitation hadn't been accepted, so I hopped in and told the driver 42nd and Lexington.

Entering the marble lobby of the fifty-storey Maidstone Building, I felt fairly sappy. I had come because Wolfe had instructed me that if Fred copped any news about Carla Lovchen I was to follow it up, and the only way I could follow it up was to go there. I felt sappy because, observing the extent and complications of the lobby, with the four banks of elevators and the twisting crowds, not to mention such things as stairways and possibly basement exits, it seemed good for even money that she had moved out and on; and also, even if she hadn't, I stood a fat chance of grabbing her and getting away with her under the circumstances. Apparently the tails had already got their reinforcements; I had easily spotted three of them on one quick survey. It was obvious that the lobby was no place for me, even if she walked out of an elevator right into my arms.

I had had one feeble idea on my way up in the taxi, and I proceeded to use that up. The building directory board was in two sections, on two sides of the lobby, one A to L and the other M to Z. I tackled the first section and went over it thoroughly, a name at a time, hoping for a hint or a hunch. I got neither, and moved across to the second section, and there, nearing the end, I saw WHEELER amp; DRISCLOLL, 3259. It looked slim, but I went to the information booth and told the guy, "I'm looking for a tenant and don't know his firm. Nat Driscoll. Or maybe instead of Nat, Nathaniel."

He opened his book with weary hands and looked at it with weary eyes and said in a weary voice, "Driscoll, Nathaniel, 3259, thirty-second floor, elevators on the-"

I was gone. My heart had started to pump. I love the feeling of a hunch.

I got out at the thirty-second and walked half a mile, around three corners, to 3259. The lettering on the door said:

I opened the door and went in, and right away, even in the ante-room, found myself in the midst of prosperity, judging by the rugs and furniture and the type of employee displayed. She was the kind who without any visible effort conveys the impression that she got a job in an office only because she was fed-up with yachting and riding to hounds. Not wanting to frighten anyone into scooting out of any other Wheeler amp; Driscoll doors into the public corridor, I told her:

"My name is Goodwin and I would like to see Mr Nathaniel Driscoll."

"Have you an appointment?"

"Nope, I just dropped in. Have you heard about the diamonds? The ones he thought had been stolen from him?"

"Oh, yes." Her lip twitched. "Yes, indeed."

"Tell him my name is Goodwin, and Miss Tormic sent me to see him. I represent Miss Tormic."

"I'm sorry. Mr Driscoll isn't in."

"Has he gone home?"

"He hasn't been here this afternoon."

In the first place, my hunch was still alive and kicking, and in the second place, she wasn't a good liar, even with a common conventional lie like that. I got out my memo pad and wrote on it:

"If you don't want the cops busting in here in about two minutes looking for your fencing teacher, let's have a little talk. And, for God's sake, don't let her show her face in the hall.

I grinned at the employee to show there was no hard feeling; and indeed there wasn't. "May I have an envelope?"

She got one and handed it to me, and I inserted the note and licked the flap and sealed it. "Here," I said, "take this to Mr Driscoll, there's a good girl, and don't argue. Do I look like a man who would come all this way to see him unless I knew he was here?"

Without saying a word, she pressed a button. A boy entered from a door on the left, and she gave him the envelope and told him to deliver it to Mr Driscol's desk. I said, "Deliver it to him." And then, as the boy disappeared, I went to the entrance door and opened it and stood there where I could see the hall in both directions. There were several passers-by, but no sign of any frantic dash for freedom. I must have stood there for all of three minutes before I saw, about fifty feet down the hall, the top of a head and then a pair of eyes protruding beyond the edge of a door-jamb. I called in a tone of authority:

"Hey, back in there!"

The head disappeared. It had not shown again when I heard the employee's voice calling my name. I turned. The boy was there holding a door open. He said, "This way, sir," and I followed him into an inner corridor and past three doors to one at the end, which he opened.

The room I entered was at least five times as big as the ante-room and six times as prosperous. I realized that in my one swift glance as I started to where Nat Driscoll stood at the corner of a large and elegant desk, telling him, "If you sneaked her out while I was coming in here, the cops will have her inside of a minute."

With one hand gripping the edge of the desk hard enough to bleach the knuckles, he said, "Unh." He looked as bewildered and terrified as a corpulent uncle who had been inveigled into taking a ride on the Ziparoo at Coney Island.

I looked around. "Where is she?"

He said, "Unh."

There were two doors besides the one I had entered by. I trotted across and opened one, and saw only gleaming tiles and a washbowl and sittery. I closed that and went and opened the other one, and looked into a small room with filing cabinets, a bookcase, and a de luxe secretary's desk. The secretary sat there staring at me with big round blue eyes, and a more glittering stare was bestowed on me from a chair in a corner occupied by Carla Lovchen.