Rex Stout - Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

In the taxi, going uptown, I touched bottom. I had hoped to get some little lead out of Orrie, at least a glimmer, but as we turned west at 35th Street I realized that I was going over how he had looked and what he had said for indications about him, which was plain silly, since he was supposed to be definitely out. Of course the trouble was that the only way to get something out of your mind is to get something else in. The idea that Orrie might have conked Isabel Kerr with that ashtray had popped into my head as soon as I saw the dent in her skull, and it was going to stay there, no matter what, until I had an X or Y to substitute for Orrie; and after three days and nights there was still no X or Y anything like good enough. If you say, even so, I shouldn't have been considering Orrie because we had barred him, you're perfectly right but you don't know much.

To show how I was taking it, when I entered the office I did not open the top left drawer of my desk to get the pad on which I enter items for my weekly expense account. The $3.75 cab fare would be on me. Wolfe had told us the undertaking was his, but until we brought him something he would have nothing to undertake, and he had no corner in self-esteem. Since it was only a couple of minutes past eleven, he had just come down from the plant rooms and was taking a look at the mail. When he found there was nothing interesting, no checks and no lists from orchid collectors, he pushed it aside and said good morning. I said it wasn't, and to prove it gave him a verbatim report of my talk with Orrie, ending with the comment that he had better take on the next one himself, since I had got nowhere with the three I had tackled, Jill Hardy and the Flemings.

"Anyway," I said, "it's a man. I admit that Julie Jaquette would probably be too much for you, but she can wait until you have had a go at Avery Ballou."

He frowned. "Dr. Gamm."

I frowned back. "You can't put it off forever. As you know, I agree with you on jobs like divorce evidence, they're too grubby. Any job is apt to be if the main point is who has been, or is, or will be, sleeping with whom. But while it's true that Ballou was probably not paying her rent so he could read poetry to her, that presumably sex was a factor, that's not the main point and you can ignore it. You can pretend that he might have killed her because she snickered when he pronounced a word wrong."

His lips were tight. He breathed three times before he said, "Very well. Bring him."

I nodded. "Okay, but I don't know when or how. I looked him up a little last night. He is not only president of the Federal Holding Corporation, he's also a director of nine other big outfits. He has a house on Sixty-seventh Street, one at Rhinebeck, and one at Palm Beach. He's fifty-six years old. He has one married son and two married daughters. I would have to call the bank to learn the size of his stack, and we don't want to advertise that you have any curiosity about him, but it -"

"I said bring him."

"I heard you. I am explaining that it wouldn't be advisable to tell the receptionist at his office, and the underling she would pass me to, that a private detective named Nero Wolfe wants to consult him about a matter that is too confidential for any ears but his. Phoning would be even worse. Therefore I must arrange something, and Julie Jaquette will have to be postponed."

He grunted. "Any word from Saul?"

"He phoned at nine o'clock. Fred was with him and they were proceeding. He'll call around one."

"Pfui. A prodigy on a treadmill. Take him off. Give him Miss Jaquette. He will get names from her, and Fred will help with them." He reached for the mail. "Your notebook. This letter from that ass in Paris will have to be answered."

Chapter 7

At four o'clock that afternoon I stood in the marble lobby of a forty-story financial castle in Wall Street, across from the row of elevators that were marked "32-40." I was equipped. In my head was a picture of Avery Ballou, acquired from a back number of Fortune magazine at the New York Public Library, and in my pocket was a card. It was like the card I had given William the elevator man – my name in the middle and Nero Wolfe's name and address and phone number in smaller type at the bottom – but I had added something. Typewritten below my name was the information: "There was a diary in the pink bedroom and the police have it." It filled the space neatly.

I may have been overdoing it. It was conceivable that not only Ballou's wife and family, but also some of his friends, and even some of the Federal Holding Corporation personnel, knew how he had spent some of his evenings. But it was likely that they didn't. Some of the adjectives about him in Fortune were "astute," "aloof," "conventional," and "scrupulous." I don't swallow printed adjectives whole, but if that batch was only half right it was going to be ticklish.

So I spent a hundred minutes down in the lobby instead of going up to the thirty-fourth floor. Anyhow it was better than the upstairs hall at 2938 Humboldt Avenue, especially from five o'clock on, when every elevator unloaded a flock of wrens, a pleasing sight. I know that the wrens who lay eggs don't flock, but if they used elevators instead of wings they would have to.

I had looked at my watch at 5:38, and it was two minutes later that Avery Ballou showed. Of those who had been with him in the elevator, one man stayed with him as they went down the lobby, talking. I followed, six steps back, hoping they would separate, and they did, out on the sidewalk. The man went toward Broadway, and Ballou just stood there. I approached, faced him, offered the card, and said, "This will interest you, Mr. Ballou. Is there enough light?"

For a second I thought he was going to snub it, and so did he, but he looked at my face, the manly honest face that had launched a thousand cards, took it, tilted it for better light, and focused on it. I had plenty of time to size him up. His dark gray coat had set him back three Cs, possibly four, and his dark gray hat around forty bucks. His head was the right size for his big solid frame, and his face was a little seamy but had no sag. It still didn't say when he finished with the card, stuck it in his pocket, and looked at me.

"Interest me ?" he asked.

I nodded. "Of course this is no place to discuss it. The best place for that is Nero Wolfe's office. He knows even more than the police do about that pink bedroom and about the man they're holding, and about you. The best time would be now. That's really all I have to say, I'm just the messenger boy. But you have to admit it was considerate of me not to go up to the thirty-fourth floor and give somebody that card to take in."

He turned his head, clear around – to see if there was a cop handy? No. A Rolls-Royce town car had pulled up and stopped, and the uniformed chauffeur was getting out. Ballou turned back to me and asked, "Where is it?"

"West Thirty-fifth Street. Nine-thirty-eight."

"Have you a car?"

"Not here."

"If you ride with me you'll keep your mouth shut."

"Right. I've said my piece."

He stepped to the Rolls and got in, and I followed, and the driver shut the door and got in behind the wheel. As we moved, Ballou told him we would make a stop and gave him the address. As we stopped for a light at the corner I was thinking that it was the first time I had ever delivered a murder suspect to the old brownstone in his own Rolls-Royce. The rest of the way, since we were not speaking, I concentrated on how it handled, and decided it was a little smoother than the Heron but not quite as fast on the take.