Rex Stout - And Four to Go

Apparently he hadn’t really swallowed it that she was already dead when we heard the sounds.

Chapter 3

THE NEXT MORNING, Wednesday, eating breakfast in the kitchen with the Times propped up in front of me, which is routine, of course I read the account of the Bianca Voss murder. There were various details that were news to me, but nothing startling or even helpful. It included the phone call from John H. Watson, but didn’t add that he had been identified as Archie Goodwin, and there was no mention of Nero Wolfe. I admit that the cops and the DA have a right to save something for themselves, but it never hurts to have your name in the paper, and I had a notion to phone Lon Cohen at the Gazette and give him an exclusive. However, I would have to mention it to Wolfe first, so it would have to wait until eleven o’clock.

As a matter of fact, another item in the Times came closer to me. Sarah Yare had committed suicide. Her body had been found Tuesday evening in her little walk-up apartment on East Thirteenth Street. I had never written a fan letter to an actress, but I had been tempted to a couple of years back when I had seen Sarah Yare in Thumb a Ride. The first time I saw it I had a companion, but the next three times I was alone. The reason for repeating was that I had the impression I was infatuated and I wanted to wear it down, but when the impression still stuck after three tries I quit. Actresses should be seen and heard, but not touched. At that, I might have given the impression another test in a year or two if there had been an opportunity, but there wasn’t. She quit Thumb a Ride abruptly some months later, and the talk was that she was an alco and done for.

So I read that item twice. It didn’t say that it had been pronounced suicide officially and finally, since she had left no note, but a nearly empty bourbon bottle had been there on a table, and on the floor by the couch she had died on there had been a glass with enough left in it to identify the cyanide. The picture of her was as she had been when I had got my impression. I asked Fritz if he had ever seen Sarah Yare, and he asked what movies she had been in, and I said none, she was much too good for a movie.

I didn’t get to suggest phoning Lon Cohen to Wolfe because when he came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock I wasn’t there. As I was finishing my second cup of coffee a phone call came from the District Attorney’s office inviting me to drop in, and I went and spent a couple of hours at Leonard Street with an assistant DA named Brill. When we got through I knew slightly more than I had when we started, but he didn’t. He had a copy of our statement on his desk, and what could I add to that? He had a lot of fun, though. He would pop a question at me and then spend nine minutes studying the statement to see if I had tripped.

Getting home a little before noon, I was prepared to find Wolfe grumpy. He likes me to be there when he comes down from the plant rooms to the office, and while he can’t very well complain when the DA calls me on business that concerns us, this wasn’t our affair. We had no client and no case and no fee in prospect. But I got a surprise. He wasn’t grumpy; he was busy. He had the phone book open before him on his desk. He had actually gone to my desk, stooped to get the book, lifted it, and carried it around to his chair. Unheard of.

“Good morning,” I said. “What’s the emergency?”

“No emergency. I needed to know a number.”

“Can I help?”

“Yes. I have instructions.”

I sat. He wants you at his level because it’s too much trouble to tilt his head back. “Nothing new,” I said, “at the DA’s office. Do you want a report?”

“No. You will go to Alec Gallant’s place on Fifty-fourth Street and speak with Mr. Gallant, his sister, Miss Prince, Miss Thorne, and Mr. Drew. Separately if possible. You will tell each of them-You read the Times this morning as usual?”

“Certainly.”

“You will tell each of them that I have engaged to make certain inquiries about Miss Sarah Yare, and that I shall be grateful for any information they may be able and willing to furnish. I would like to see any communications they may have received from her, say in the past month. Don’t raise one brow like that. You know it disconcerts me.”

“I’ve never seen you disconcerted yet.” I let the brow down a little. “If they ask me who engaged you what do I say?”

“That you don’t know. You are merely following instructions.”

“If I ask you who engaged you what do you say?”

“I tell you the truth. No one. Or more accurately, I have engaged myself. I think I may have been hoodwinked and I intend to find out. You may be fishing where there are no fish. They may all say they have never had any association with Sarah Yare, and they may be telling the truth or they may not. You will have that in mind and form your conclusions. If any of them acknowledge association with her, pursue it enough to learn the degree of intimacy, but don’t labor it. That can wait until we bait a hook. You are only to discover if there are any fish.”

“Now?”

“Yes. The sooner the better.”

I stood up. “It may take a while if the cops and the DA are working on them, and they probably are. How urgent is it? Do you want progress reports by phone?”

“Not unless you think it necessary. You must get all five of them.”

“Right. Don’t wait dinner for me.” I went.

On the way uptown in the taxi I was using my brain. I will not explain at this point why Wolfe wanted to know if any of the subjects had known Sarah Yare, and if so how well, for two reasons: first, you have certainly spotted it yourself; and second, since I am not as smart as you are, I had not yet come up with the answer. It was underneath. On top, what I was using my brain for, was the phone book. Unquestionably it was connected with his being hoodwinked, since that was what was biting him, and therefore it probably had some bearing on the call that had been made from his office to Bianca Voss, but what could he accomplish by consulting the phone book? For that I had no decent guess, let alone an answer, by the time I paid the hackie at Fifty-fourth and Fifth Avenue.

Alec Gallant Incorporated, on the north side of the street near Madison Avenue, was no palace, either outside or in. The front was maybe thirty feet, and five feet of that was taken by the separate entrance to the side hall. The show window, all dark green, had just one exhibit: a couple of yards of plain black fabric, silk or rayon or nylon or Orlon or Dacron or cottonon or linenon, draped on a little rack. Inside, nothing whatever was in sight-that is, nothing to buy. The wall-to-wall carpet was the same dark green as the show window. There were mirrors and screens and tables and ashtrays, and a dozen or more chairs, not fancy, more to sit in than to look at. I had taken three steps on the carpet when a woman standing with a man by a table left him to come to meet me. I told her my name and said I would like to see Mr. Gallant. The man, approaching, spoke.

“Mr. Gallant is not available. What do you want?”

That didn’t strike me as a very tactful greeting to a man who, for all he knew, might be set to pay eight hundred dollars for an afternoon frock, but of course he had had a tough twenty-four hours, so I kept it pleasant. “I’m not a reporter,” I assured him, “or a cop, or a lawyer drumming up trade. I’m a private detective named Archie Goodwin, sent by a private detective named Nero Wolfe to ask Mr. Gallant a couple of harmless questions-not connected with the death of Bianca Voss.”