Rex Stout - Triple Jeopardy

I told him okay, I would wait, went to the rack and undressed to my shirt, and crossed to one of the chairs over by the partition, next to the table with magazines. I thought it would be fitting to pick up a magazine, but I had already read the one on top, the latest New Yorker, and the one on top on the shelf below was the Time of two weeks ago. So I leaned back and let my eyes go, slow motion, from left to right and back again. Though I had been coming there for six years I didn't really know those people, in spite of the reputation barbers have as conversationalists. I knew that Fielder, the boss, had once been attacked bodily there in the shop by his ex-wife; that Philip had had two sons killed in World War II; that Tom had once been accused by Fickler of swiping lotions and other supplies and had slapped Fickler's face; that Ed played the horses and was always in debt; that Jimmie had to be watched or he would take magazines from the shop while they were still current; and that Janet, who had only been there a year, was suspected of having a sideline, maybe dope peddling. Aside from such items as those, they were strangers.

Suddenly Janet was there in front of me. She had come from around the end of the partition, and not alone. The man with her was a broad-shouldered husky, gray-haired and gray-eyed, with an unlit cigar slanting up from a corner of his mouth. His eyes swept the whole shop, and since he started at the far right he ended up at me.

He stared. "For God's sake," he muttered. "You? Now what?"

I was surprised for a second to see Inspector Cramer himself, head of Manhattan Homicide, there on the job. But even an inspector likes to be well thought of by the rank and file, and here it was no mere citizen who had met his end but

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one of them. The whole force would appreciate it. Besides, I have to admit he's a good cop.

"Just waiting for a shave," I told him. "I'm an old customer here. Ask Purley."

Purley came over and verified me, but Cramer checked with Ed himself. Then he drew Purley aside, and they mumbled back and forth a while, after which Cramer summoned Philip and escorted him around the end of the partition.

Janet seated herself in the chair next to mine. She looked even better in profile than head on, with her nice chin and straight little nose and long home-grown lashes. I felt a little in debt to her for the mild pleasure I had got occasionally as I sat in Ed's chair and glanced at her while she worked on the customer in the next chair.

"I was wondering where you were," I remarked.

She turned to me. She wasn't old enough to have wrinkles or seams but she looked old enough then. She was putting a strain on every muscle in her face, and it certainly showed.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

"Nothing vital. My name's Goodwin. Call me Archie."

"I know. You're a detective. How can I keep them from having my picture in the paper?"

"You can't if they've already got it. Have they?"

"I think so. I wish I was dead."

"I don't." I made it not loud but emphatic.

"Why should you? I do. My folks in Michigan think I'm acting or modeling. I leave it vague. And here--oh, my God."

Her chin worked, but she controlled it.

"Work is work," I said. "My parents wanted me to be a college president, and I wanted to be a second baseman, and look at me. Anyhow, if your picture gets printed and it's a good likeness, who knows what will happen?"

"This is my Gethsemane," she said.

That made me suspicious, naturally. She had mentioned acting. "Come off it," I advised her. "Think of someone else. Think of the guy that got stabbed--no, he's out of it--think of his wife, how do you suppose she feels? Or Inspector

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Cramer, with the job he's got. What was he asking you just now?"

She didn't hear me. She said through clamped teeth, "I only wish I had some guts."

"Why? What would you do?"

"I'd tell all about it."

"All about what?"

"About what happened."

"You mean last night? Why not try it out on me and see how it goes? That doesn't take guts, just go ahead and let it come, keep your voice down and let it flow."

She didn't hear a word. Her ears were disconnected. She kept her brown eyes, under the long lashes, straight at me.

"How it happened this morning. How I was going back to my booth after I finished Mr. Levinson in Philip's chair, and he called me into Tina's booth and he seized me, with one hand on my throat so I couldn't scream, and there was no doubt at all what he intended, so I grabbed the scissors from the shelf and, without realizing what I was doing, plunged them into him with all my strength, and his grip on me loosened, and he collapsed onto the chair. That's what I would do if I had any guts and if I really want a successful career the way I say I do. I would have to be arrested and have a trial, and then--"

"Hold it. Your pronouns. Mr. Levinson called you into Tina's booth?"

"Certainly not. That man that got killed." She tilted her head back. "See the marks on my throat?"

There was no mark whatever on her smooth pretty throat.

"Good Lord," I said. "That would get you top billing anywhere."

"That's what I was saying."

"Then go ahead and tell'it."

"I can't! I simply can't! It would be so darned vulgar."

Her full face was there, only sixteen inches away, with the muscles no longer under strain, the closest I had ever been to it, and there was no question about how lovely it was. Under different circumstances my reaction would have

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been merely normal and healthy, but at the moment I could have slapped it with pleasure. I had felt a familiar tingle at the base of my spine when I thought she was going to open up about a midnight ride up Broadway, probably with one of her co-workers, possibly with the boss himself, and then she had danced off into this folderol.

She needed a lesson. "I understand your position," I said, "a girl as sweet and fine and strong as you, but it's bound to come out in the end, and I want to help. Incidentally, I am not married. I'll go to Inspector Cramer right now and tell him about it. He'll want to take photographs of your throat. I know the warden down at the jail and I'll see that you get good treatment, no rough stuff. Do you know any lawyers?"

She shook her head, answering, I thought, my question about lawyers, but no. She didn't believe in answering questions. "About your being married," she said, "I hadn't even thought. There was an article in the American magazine last month about career girls getting married. Did you read it?"

"No. I may be able to persuade the district attorney to make it a manslaughter charge instead of murder, which would please your folks in Michigan." I drew my feet back and slid forward on the chair, ready to rise. "Okay, I'll go tell Cramer."

"That article was silly," she said. "I think a girl must get her career established first. That's why when I see an attractive man I never wonder if he's married; by the time I'm ready for one these will be too old. That's why I wouldn't ask you if you know anyone in show business, because I wouldn't take help from a man. I think a girl--"

If Ed hadn't signaled to me just then, his customer having left the chair, there's no telling how it would have ended. It would have been vulgar to slap her, and no words would have been any good since she was deaf, but surely I might have thought of something that would have taken effect. As it was, I didn't want to keep Ed waiting so I got up and crossed to his chair and climbed in.

"Just scrape the face," I told him.

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He got a bib on me and tilted me back. "Did you phone?" he asked. "Did that fathead forget again?"

I told him no, that I had been caught midtown with a stubble and an unforeseen errand for which I should be presentable and added, "You seem to have had some excitement."