Rex Stout - And Four to Go

His voice came. “Yes, Archie?”

“It’s full of fish. Swarming. Sarah Yare bought her clothes there for two years and they all loved her. I’m phoning to ask about Flora Gallant. I’ve seen all the others, but Flora isn’t around. My guess is that she’s at the DA’s office. Do I stick until she comes?”

“No. Satisfactory.”

“Any further instructions?”

“No. Come home.”

Chapter 4

IN THE OFFICE, after a late lunch of corned-beef hash with mushrooms, chicken livers, white wine, and grated cheese, which Fritz apologized for because he had had to keep it warm too long, I gave Wolfe a full report of the fishing trip, including all dialogue. When I had finished he nodded, took in air through his nose all the way down, and let it out through his mouth.

“Very well,” he said, “that settles it. You will now go-”

“Just a minute,” I cut in. “It doesn’t settle it for me. It was bad enough up there, not knowing the score, and before I do any more going I want a little light. Why did you pick on Sarah Yare, and where did the phone book come in?”

“I have an errand for you.”

“Yeah. Will it keep for ten minutes?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then why?”

He leaned back. “As I told you this morning, I thought I might have been hoodwinked and I intended to find out. It was quite possible that that performance here yesterday-getting us on the phone just in time to hear a murder committed-was flummery. Indeed, it was more than possible. Must I expound that?”

“No. Even Cramer suspected it.”

“So he did. But his theory that Bianca Voss had been killed earlier and that another woman, not the murderer, was there beside the corpse waiting for a phone call, was patently ridiculous. Must I expound that?”

“No, unless it was a lunatic. Anyone who would do that, even the murderer, with the chance that someone might come in any second, would be batty.”

“Of course. But if she wasn’t killed at the time we heard those sounds she must have been killed earlier, since you phoned almost immediately and sent someone to that room. Therefore the sounds didn’t come from there. Miss Gallant did not dial that number. She dialed the number of some other person whom she had persuaded to perform that hocus-pocus.”

He turned a hand over. “I had come to that conclusion, or call it surmise, before I went to bed last night, and I had found it intolerable. I will not be mistaken for a jackass. Reading the Times at breakfast this morning, the item about the death of Sarah Yare, my attention was caught by the fact that she had been an actress. An actress can act a part. Also she had been in distress. Also she had died. If she had been persuaded to act that part, it would be extremely convenient-for the one who persuaded her-for her to die before she learned that a murder had been committed and she had been an accessory after the fact. Certainly that was mere speculation, but it was not idle, and when I came down to the office I looked in the phone book to see if Sarah Yare was listed, found that she was, and dialed her number. Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”

“What for? She was dead.”

“I didn’t lift the receiver. I merely dialed it, to hear it. Before doing so I strained my memory. I had to recall an experience that was filed somewhere in my brain, having reached it through my ears. As you know, I am trained to attend, to observe, and to register. So are you. That same experience is filed in your brain. Close your eyes and find it. Take your ears back to yesterday, when you were standing there, having surrendered your chair to Miss Gallant, and she was at the phone, dialing. Not the first number she dialed; you dialed that one yourself later. The second one, when, according to her, she was dialing the number of the direct line to Bianca Voss’s office. Close your eyes and let your ears and brain take you back. Insist on it.”

I did so. I got up and stood where I had stood while she was dialing, shut my eyes, and brought it back. In ten seconds I said, “Okay.”

“Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to dial it. Compare.”

The sound came of his dialing. I held my breath till the end, then opened my eyes and said positively, “No. Wrong. The first and third and fourth were wrong. The second might-”

“Close your eyes and try it again. This will be another number. Say when.”

I shut my eyes and took five seconds. “Go.”

The dialing sound came, the seven units. I opened my eyes. “That’s more like it. That was it, anyway the first four. Beyond that I’m a little lost. But in that case-”

“Satisfactory. The first four were enough. The first number, which you rejected, as I did this morning, was Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, the number of Bianca Voss’s direct line according to the phone book-the number which Miss Gallant pretended to be dialing. The second was Sarah Yare’s number, Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”

“Well.” I sat down. “I’ll be damned.”

“So it was still a plausible surmise, somewhat strengthened, but no more than that. If those people, especially Miss Gallant, could not be shown to have had some association with Sarah Yare, it was untenable. So I sent you to explore, and what you found promoted the surmise to an assumption, and a weighty one. What time is it?”

He would have had to twist his neck a whole quarter-turn to look at the wall clock, whereas I had only to lower my eyes to see my wrist. I obliged. “Five to four.”

“Then instructions for your errand must be brief, and they can be. You will go to Sarah Yare’s address on Thirteenth Street and look at her apartment. Her phone might have been discontinued since that book was issued. I need to know that the instrument is still there and operable before I proceed. If I intend to see that whoever tried to make a fool of me regrets it, I must take care not to make a fool of myself. Have I furnished the light you wanted?”

I told him it was at least a glimmer and departed on the errand. If you think I might have shown fuller appreciation of his dialing display, I beg to differ. There is no point in assuring a man that he is a genius when he already knows it. Besides, I was too busy being sore at me. I should have thought of it myself. I certainly should have caught on when I saw him with the phone book.

It was not my day. At the address of the late Sarah Yare on East Thirteenth Street I stubbed my toe again. One thing I think I’m good at is sizing up people, and I was dead wrong about the janitor of that old walk-up. He looked as if anything would go, so I merely told him to let me into Sarah Yare’s apartment to check the telephone, and the bum insisted on seeing my credentials. So I misjudged him again. I offered him a sawbuck and told him I only wanted two minutes for a look at the phone with him at my elbow, and when he turned me down I showed him a twenty. He just sneered at it. By that time we were bitter enemies, and if I had showed him a C he would probably have spit on it. The upshot was that I went back home for an assortment of keys, returned, posted myself across the street, waited nearly an hour to be sure the enemy was not peeking, and broke and entered, technically.