The Doorbell Rang

Chapter 6

My watch said 4:35 as I entered a drugstore near Grand Central, consulted the Manhattan phone book, went to a booth and shut the door, and dialed a number.

From the Gazette files, and from Lon Cohen by word of mouth off the record, I had filled a dozen pages of my notebook. I have it here now, but all of it in print would also take a dozen pages, so I’ll report only what you need to understand what happened. Here are the principal names:

It didn’t look very promising for an approach. I considered the stage personality, but her whirl with Althaus had ended more than a year ago, and besides, a couple of previous experiences had taught me that actresses are better from the fifth or sixth row. The two editors would hang up. Father probably had nothing. Marian Hinckley would stiff-neck me. The best bet was mother, and it was her number I looked up and went to the booth to dial.

First, of course, to get her to the phone. To the female who answered I gave no name; I merely told her, in an official tone, to tell Mrs. Althaus that I was talking from a booth and an FBI man was with me and I must speak to her. It worked. In a couple of minutes another voice came.

“Who is this? An FBI man?”

“Mrs. Althaus?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Archie Goodwin. I’m not an FBI man. I work for Nero Wolfe, the private investigator. The FBI man is not here in the booth with me; he is with me because he is following me. Tailing me. He will follow me to your address, but that doesn’t matter to me if it doesn’t to you. I must see you — now if possible. It will—”

“I am not seeing anybody.”

“I know. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“He has been told by a man he knows well that your son Morris was killed by an agent of the FBI. That’s why I am being followed. And that’s why I must see you. I can be there in ten minutes. Did you get my name? Archie Goodwin.”

Silence. Finally: “You know who killed my son?”

“Not his name. I don’t know anything. I only know what Mr. Wolfe has been told. That’s all I can say on the phone. If I may make a suggestion, we think Miss Marian Hinckley should know about this too. Perhaps you could phone her and ask her to come, and I can tell both of you. Could you?”

“I could, yes. Are you a newspaper reporter? Is this a trick?”

“No. If I were this would be pretty dumb, you’d only have me bounced. I’m Archie Goodwin.”

“But I don’t...” Long pause. “Very well. The hallman will ask you for identification.”

I told her of course, and hung up before she could change her mind.

When leaving the house I had decided that I would completely ignore the tail question, but I couldn’t help it if my eyes, while scouting the street for an empty taxi, took notice of standing vehicles. However, when I was in and rolling, up Madison Avenue and then Park, I kept facing front. To hell with the rear.

It was a regulation Park Avenue hive in the Eighties — marquee, doorman hopping out when the taxi stopped, rubber runner saving the rug in the lobby — but it was Grade A, because the doorman did not double as hallman. When I showed the hallman, who was expecting me, my private investigator license he gave it a good look, handed it back, and told me 10B, and I went to the elevator. On the tenth floor I was admitted by a uniformed female who took my hat and coat, put them in a closet, and conducted me through an arch into a room even bigger than Lily Rowan’s where twenty couples can dance. I have a test for people with rooms that big — not the rugs or the furniture or the drapes, but the pictures on the walls. If I can tell what they are, okay. If all I can do is guess, look out; these people will bear watching. That room passed the test fine. I was looking at a canvas showing three girls sitting on the grass under a tree when footsteps came and I turned. She approached. She didn’t offer a hand, but she said in a low, soft voice, “Mr. Goodwin? I’m Ivana Althaus,” and moved to a chair.

Even without the picture test I would have passed her — her small slender figure with its honest angles, her hair with its honest gray, her eyes with their honest doubt. As I turned a chair to sit facing her I decided to be as honest as possible. She was saying that Miss Hinckley would come soon, but she would prefer not to wait. She had understood me to say on the phone that her son had been killed by an agent of the FBI. Was that correct?

Her eyes were straight at me, and I met them. “Not strictly,” I told her. “I said that someone told Mr. Wolfe that. I should explain about Mr. Wolfe. He is — uh — eccentric, and he has certain strong feelings about the New York Police Department. He resents their attitude toward him and his work, and he thinks they interfere too much. He reads the newspapers, and especially news about murders, and a couple of weeks ago he got the idea that the police and the District Attorney were letting go on the murder of your son, and when he learned that your son had been collecting material for an article about the FBI he suspected that the letting go might be deliberate. If so, it might be a chance to give the police a black eye, and nothing would please him better.”

Her eyes were staying straight at me, hardly a blink. “So,” I said, “we had no case on our hands, and he started some inquiries. One thing we learned, a fact that hasn’t been published, was that nothing about the FBI, no notes or documents, was found by the police in your son’s apartment. Perhaps you knew that.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I supposed you did, so I mentioned it. We have learned some other facts which I have been instructed not to mention. You’ll understand that. Mr. Wolfe wants to save them until he has enough to act on. But yesterday afternoon a man told him that he knows that an FBI agent killed your son, and he backed it up with some information. I won’t give you his name, or the information, but he’s a reliable man and the information is solid, though it isn’t enough to prove it. So Mr. Wolfe wants all he can get from people who were close to your son — for instance, people to whom he may have told things he had learned about the FBI. Of course you are one of them, and so is Miss Hinckley. And Mr. Yarmack. I was told to make it clear to you that Mr. Wolfe is not looking for a client or a fee. He is doing this on his own and doesn’t want or expect anyone to pay him.”

Her eyes were still on me, but her mind wasn’t. She was considering something. “I see no reason...” she said, and stopped.

I waited a little, then said, “Yes, Mrs. Althaus?”

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. I have suspected it was the FBI, ever since Mr. Yarmack told me that nothing about them was found in the apartment. So has Mr. Yarmack, and so has Miss Hinckley. I don’t think I am a vindictive woman, Mr. Goodwin, but he was my—” Her voice was going to quiver, and she stopped. In a moment she went on. “He was my son. I am still trying to realize that he — he’s gone. Did you know him? Did you ever meet him?”

“No.”

“You’re a detective.”

“Yes.”

“You’re expecting me to help you find — to fix the blame for my son’s death. Very well, I want to. But I don’t think I can. He rarely spoke to me about his work. I don’t remember that he ever mentioned the FBI. Miss Hinckley has asked me that, and Mr. Yarmack. I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything about it, I’m truly sorry, because if they killed him I hope they will be punished. It says in Leviticus ‘Thou shalt not avenge,’ but Aristotle wrote that revenge is just. You see, I have been thinking about it. I believe—”

She turned to face the arch. A door had closed, and there were voices, and then a girl appeared. As she approached I got up, but Mrs. Althaus kept her chair. The pictures in the Gazette file understated it. Marian Hinckley was a dish. She was an in-between, neither blonde nor brunette, brown hair and blue eyes, and she moved straight and smooth. If she wore a hat she had ditched it in the foyer. She came and gave Mrs. Althaus a cheek kiss, then turned to look at me as Mrs. Althaus pronounced my name. As the blue eyes took me in I instructed mine to ignore any aspect of the situation that was irrelevant to the job. When Mrs. Althaus invited her to sit I moved a chair up. As she sat she spoke to Mrs. Althaus. “If I understood you on the phone — did you say Nero Wolfe knows it was the FBI? Was that it?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t get it straight,” Mrs. Althaus said. “Will you tell her, Mr. Goodwin?”

I described it, the three points: why Wolfe was interested, what had made him suspicious, and how his suspicion had been supported by what a man told him yesterday. I explained that he didn’t know it was the FBI, and he certainly couldn’t prove it, but he intended to try to and that was why I was there.

Miss Hinckley was frowning at me. “But I don’t see... Has he told the police what the man told him?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I guess I didn’t make it plain enough. He thinks the police know it was the FBI, or suspect it. For instance, one thing he wants to ask you people: Are the police keeping after you? Coming back again and again, asking the same questions over and over? Mrs. Althaus?”

“No.”

“Miss Hinckley?”

“No. But we’ve told them everything we know.”

“That doesn’t matter. In a murder investigation, if they haven’t got a line they like, they never let up on anybody, and it looks as if they have let up on everybody. That’s one thing we need to know. Mrs. Althaus just told me that you and Mr. Yarmack both think that the FBI killed him. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Because there was nothing about the FBI in his apartment.”

“Do you know what there might have been? What he had dug up?”

“No. Morris never told me about things like that.”

“Does Mr. Yarmack know?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“How do you feel about it, Miss Hinckley? Whoever killed Morris Althaus, do you want him caught? Caught and dealt with?”

“Of course I do. Certainly I do.”

I turned to Mrs. Althaus. “You do too. All right, it’s a good bet that he never will be caught unless Nero Wolfe does it. You may know that he doesn’t go to see people. You’ll have to go to him, to his house — you and Miss Hinckley, and, if possible, Mr. Yarmack. Can you be there this evening at nine o’clock?”

“Why...” She had her hands clasped. “I don’t... What good would it do? There’s nothing I can tell him.”

“There might be. I often think there’s nothing I can tell him, but I find out I’m wrong. Or if he only decides that none of you can tell him anything, that will help. Will you come?”

“I suppose...” She looked at the girl who had been expecting to be her daughter-in-law.

“Yes,” Miss Hinckley said. “I’ll go.”

I could have hugged her. It would have been relevant to the job. I asked her, “Could you bring Mr. Yarmack?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try.”

“Good.” I rose. “The address is in the phone book.” To Mrs. Althaus: “I should tell you, it’s next to certain that the FBI has a watch on the house and you will be seen. If you don’t mind, Mr. Wolfe doesn’t. He’s perfectly willing for them to know he is investigating the murder of your son. Nine o’clock?”

She said yes, and I went. In the foyer the maid came and wanted to hold my coat, and not to hurt her feelings I let her. Down in the lobby, from the look the doorman gave me as he opened the door I deduced that the hallman had told him what I was, and to be in character I met the look with a sharp and wary eye. Outside, some snowflakes were doing stunts. In the taxi, headed downtown, again I ignored the rear. I figured that if they were on me, which was highly likely, maybe one cent of each ten grand of Wolfe’s income tax, and one mill of each ten grand of mine, would go to pay government employees to keep me company uninvited, which didn’t seem right.

Wolfe had just come down from the plant rooms after his four-to-six afternoon session with the orchids and got nicely settled in his chair with The Treasure of Our Tongue. Instead of going on in and crossing to my desk as usual, I stopped at the sill of the office door, and when he looked up I pointed a finger straight down, emphatically, turned, and beat it to the stairs to the basement and on down. Flipping the light switch, I went and perched on the pool table. Two minutes. Three. Four, and there were footsteps. He stood at the door, glared at me, and spoke.

“I won’t tolerate this.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I could write it.”

“Pfui. Two points. One, the risk is extremely slight. Two, we can use it. As you talk you can insert comments or statements at will which I am to disregard, notifying me by raising a finger. I shall do the same. Of course making no reference to Mr. Cramer; we can’t risk that; and maintaining our conclusion that the FBI killed that man, and we intend to establish it.”

“But actually we don’t.”

“Certainly not.” He turned and went.

So I was foxed. His house, his office, and his chair. But I had to admit, as I mounted the steps, that pigheaded as he was, it wasn’t a bad idea. If they really had an electronic ear on the office, which I didn’t believe, it might even be a damned good idea. When I entered the office he was back at his desk and I went to mine, and as I sat he said, “Well?”

He should have had a finger raised. He never wastes breath by saying “Well?” when I return from an errand; he merely puts the book down, or the beer glass, and is ready for me to speak.

I raised a finger. “Your guess that they might have hit on the FBI theory at the Gazette, and be working on it, wasn’t so good.” I lowered the finger. “Lon Cohen didn’t mention it, so I didn’t. They haven’t got a theory. He let me go through the files, and we talked, and I got a dozen pages of names and assorted details, some of which might possibly be useful.” I raised a finger. “I’ll type it up at the usual five dollars a page.” I lowered the finger. “Next I phoned Mrs. David Althaus from a booth, and she said she would see me, and I went. Park Avenue in the Eighties, tenth-floor apartment, all the trimmings you would expect. Pictures okay. I won’t describe her because you’ll see her. She quotes Leviticus and Aristotle.” Finger raised. “I wanted to quote Plato but couldn’t work it in.” Finger lowered. “I had asked her on the phone to ask Marian Hinckley to come, and she said she would be there soon. She said she had understood me to say on the phone that her son had been killed by an agent of the FBI and was that correct. From there on you had better have it verbatim.”

I gave it to him, straight through, knowing that I had said nothing we wouldn’t be willing for the FBI to hear. Leaning back with his eyes closed, he wouldn’t have been able to see a raised finger, so I couldn’t make any insertions. When I finished he grunted, opened his eyes, and said, “It’s bad enough when you know there’s a needle in the haystack. When you don’t even—”

The doorbell rang. Going to the hall for a look, I saw a G-man on the stoop. Not that I recognized him, but it must be — the right age, the broad shoulders, the manly mug with a firm jaw, the neat dark gray coat. I went and opened the door the two inches allowed by the chain bolt and said, “Yes, sir?”

He blurted through the crack, “My name’s Quayle and I want to see Nero Wolfe!”

“Spell it, please?”

“Timothy Quayle! Q,U,A,Y,L,E!”

“Mr. Wolfe is engaged. I’ll see.”

I went to the office door. “One of the names in my notebook. Timothy Quayle. Senior editor at Tick-Tock magazine. The hero type. He slugged a reporter who was annoying Marian Hinckley. She must have phoned him about you soon after I left.”

“No,” he growled.

“It’s half an hour till dinner. Are you in the middle of a chapter?”

He glowered at me. “Bring him.”

I returned to the front, slid the bolt, and swung the door open, and he entered. As I was shutting the door he told me I was Archie Goodwin, and I conceded it, took care of his coat and hat, and led him to the office. Three steps in he stopped to glance around, aimed the glance at Wolfe, and demanded, “Did you get my name?”

Wolfe nodded. “Mr. Quayle.”

He advanced to the desk. “I am a friend of Miss Marian Hinckley. I want to know what kind of a game you’re playing. I want an explanation.”

“Bah,” Wolfe said.

“Don’t bah me! What are you up to?”

“This is ridiculous,” Wolfe said. “I like eyes at a level. If you can only blather at me, Mr. Goodwin will put you out. If you will take that chair, change your tone, and give me an acceptable reason why I should account to you, I may listen.”

Quayle opened his mouth and shut it again. He turned his head to look at me, there on my feet, apparently to see if I was man enough. I would have liked it just as well if he had decided I wasn’t, for after that night and day I would have welcomed an excuse to twist another arm. But he vetoed it, went to the red leather chair and sat, and scowled at Wolfe. “I know about you,” he said. Not so blathery, but not at all sociable. “I know how you operate. If you want to hook Mrs. Althaus for some change, that’s her lookout, but you’re not going to drag Miss Hinckley in. I don’t intend—”

“Archie,” Wolfe snapped. “Put him out. Fritz will open the door.” He pushed a button.

I stepped to about arm’s length from the red leather chair and stood looking down at the hero. Fritz came, and Wolfe told him to hold the front door open, and he went.

Quayle’s situation was bad. With me standing there in front of him, if he started to leave the chair I could get about any hold I wanted while he was coming up. But my situation was bad too. Removing a 180-pound man from a padded armchair is a problem, and he had savvy enough to stay put, leaning back. But his feet weren’t pulled in enough. I started my hands for his shoulders, then dived and got his ankles and yanked and kept going, and had him in the hall, on his back, before he could even try to counter, and then the damn fool tried to turn to get hand leverage on the floor. At the front door I braked when Fritz got his arms and held them down.

“There’s snow on the stoop,” I said. “If I let you up and give you your hat and coat, just walk out. I know more tricks than you do. Right?”

“Yes. You goddam goon.”

“Goodwin. You left out the D,W,I, but I’ll overlook it. All right, Fritz.”

We let go, and he scrambled to his feet. Fritz got his coat from the rack, but he said, “I want to go back in. I’m going to ask him something.”

“No. You have bad manners. We’d have to bounce you again.”

“No you wouldn’t. I want to ask him something.”

“Politely. Tactfully.”

“Yes.”

I shut the door. “You can have two minutes. Don’t sit down, don’t raise your voice, and don’t use words like ‘goon.’ Lead the way, Fritz.”

We filed down the hall and in, Fritz in front and me in the rear. Wolfe, whose good ears hear what is said in the hall, gave him a cold eye as he stopped short of the desk, surrounded by Fritz and me.

“You wanted an acceptable reason,” he told Wolfe. “As I said, I am a friend of Miss Hinckley. A good enough friend so that she called me on the phone to tell me about Goodwin — what he said to her and Mrs. Althaus. I advised her not to come here this evening, but she’s coming. At nine o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going—” He stopped. That wasn’t the way. It came hard, but he managed it. “I want to be here. Will you... May I come?”

“If you control yourself.”

“I will.”

“Time’s up,” I said, and took his arm to turn him.