Rex Stout - Homicide Trinity (Crime Line)

"No. He isn't."

"He's working for that law firm, and that's the same thing."

"No. He's working for nobody but himself. He-" "You're lying."

"I only allow myself so many lies a day and I'm careful not to waste them. Mr. Wolfe is upset because that woman was killed in his office, and he intends to get even. He is working for no one, and he won't be until this is settled. He thought you might have known Ber- tha Aaron and could tell me something about her that would help." "I can't."

"That's too bad. I'm still at your feet." "I like you there. You're very handsome." She smiled. "I just had an idea. Would Nero Wolfe work for me?"

"He might. He doesn't like some kinds of jobs. If he did he'd soak you. If he has any pictures in his heart at all, which I doubt, they are not of beautiful women-or even homely ones. What would you want him to do?" "I would rather tell him."

She was meeting my eyes, with her long lashes low- ered just enough for the best effect, and again I had to hand it to her. You might have thought she hadn't the faintest idea that I was aware that she was ignoring anything, and that I was ignoring it too. She was so damn good that looking at her, meeting her eyes, I actually considered the possibility that she really thought I had made up that card from nothing.

"For that," I said, "you would have to make an ap- pointment at his office. He never leaves his house on business." I got a card from my case and handed it to her. "There's the address and phone number. Or if you'd like to go now I'd be glad to take you, and he might stretch a point and see you. He'll be free until one o'clock."

"I wonder." She smiled.

"You wonder what?"

"Nothing. I was talking to myself." She shook her head. "I won't go now. Perhaps… I'll think it over." She stood up. "I'm sorry I can't help, I'm truly sorry, but I had never met that-what was her name?"

"Bertha Aaron." I was on my feet.

"I had never heard of her." She glanced at the card, the one I had handed her. "I may ring you later today. I'll think it over."

She went with me to the foyer, and as I reached for the doorknob she offered a hand and I took it. There was nothing flabby about her clasp.

When you leave an elevator at the lobby floor of the Churchill Towers you have three choices. To the right is the main entrance. To the left and then right is a side entrance, and to the left and left again is another. I left by the main entrance, stopped a moment on the side- walk to put my coat on and pull at my ear, and turned downtown, in no hurry. At the corner I was joined by a little guy with a big nose who looked, at first sight, as if he might make forty bucks a week waxing floors. Actu- ally Saul Panzer was the best operative in the metro- politan area and his rate was ten dollars an hour.

"Any sign of a dick?" I asked him.

"None I know, and I think none I don't know. You saw her?"

"Yeah. I doubt if they're on her. I stung her and she may be moving. The boys are covering?"

"Yes. Fred at the north entrance and Orrie at the south. I hope she takes the front."

"So do I. See you in court."

He wheeled and was gone, and I stepped to the curb and flagged a taxi. It was 11:40 when it rolled to the curb in front of the old brownstone on 35th Street.

After mounting the seven steps to the stoop, using my key to get in, and putting my hat coat on the rack in the hall, I went to the office. Wolfe would of course be settled in his chair behind his desk with his current book, since his morning session in the plant rooms ended at eleven o'clock. But he wasn't. His chair was empty, but the red leather one was occupied, by a stranger. I kept going for a look at his front, and said good morning. He said good morning.

He was a poet above the neck, with deep-set dreamy eyes, a wide sulky mouth, and a pointed modeled chin, but he would have had to sell a lot of poems to pay for that suit and shirt and tie, not to mention the Parvis of London shoes. Having given him enough of a glance for that, and not caring to ask him where Wolfe was, I returned to the hall and turned left, toward the kitchen;

and there, in the alcove at the end of the hall, was Wolfe, standing at the hole. The hole was through the wall at eye level. On the office side it was covered by a picture of a waterfall. On this side, in the alcove, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only hear through but also see through.

I didn't stop. Pushing the two-way door to the kitchen, I held it for Wolfe to enter and then let it swing back.

"You forgot to leave a necktie on your desk," I told him.

He grunted. "We'll discuss that some day, the neck- tie. That is Gregory Jett. He has spent the morning at the District Attorney's office. I excused myself because I wanted to hear from you before talking with him, and I thought I might as well observe him."

"Good idea. He might have muttered to himself, 'By golly, the rug is gone.' Did he?"

"No. Did you see that woman?"

"Yes, sir. She's a gem. There is now no question about Bertha Aaron's basic fact, that a member of the firm was with Mrs. Sorell in a lunchroom."

"She admitted it?"

"No, sir, but she confirmed it. We talked for twenty minutes, and she never mentioned the card after the first half a minute, when she merely said it was crazy and asked me where I got it. She told me I was hand- some twice, she smiled at me six times, she said she had never heard of Bertha Aaron, and she asked if you would work for her. She may phone for an appointment. Do you want it verbatim now?"

"Later will do. The men are there?"

"Yes. I spoke with Saul when I left. That's wasted. She's not a fool, anything but. Of course it was a blow to learn that that meeting in the lunchroom is known, but she won't panic. Also of course, she doesn't know how we got onto it. She may not have suspected that there was any connection between that meeting and the mur- der of Bertha Aaron. It's even possible she doesn't suspect it now, though that's doubtful. If and when she does she will also suspect that the man she was with in the lunchroom killed Bertha Aaron, and that will be hard to live with, but even then she won't panic. She is a very tough article and she is still after thirty million bucks. Looking at her as she smiled at me and told me I was handsome, which may have been her honest opin- ion in spite of my flat nose, you would never have guessed that I had just sent her a card announcing that her pet secret had been spilled. She's a gem. If I had thirty million I'd be glad to buy her a lunch. What's biting Gregory Jett?"

"I don't know. We shall see." He pushed the door open and passed through and I followed.

As Wolfe detoured around the red leather chair Jett spoke. "I said my business was urgent. You're rather cheeky, aren't you?"

"Moderately so." Wolfe got his mass adjusted in his seat and swiveled to face him. "If there is pressure, sir, it is on you, not on me. Am I concerned?"

"You are involved." The deep-set dreamy eyes came to me. "Is your name Goodwin? Archie Goodwin?"

I said yes.

"Last night you gave a statement to the police about your conversation with Bertha Aaron, and you gave a copy of it to Lamont Otis, the senior member of my firm."