The Twisted Scarf

VI

Up in the plant rooms Malcolm Vedder had caught my eye by the way he picked up a flowerpot and held it. As he took a chair across the dining table from Cramer and me, I still thought he was worth another good look, but after his answer to Cramer’s third question I relaxed and concentrated on my sandwiches. He was an actor and had had parts in three Broadway plays. Of course that explained it. No actor would pick up a flowerpot just normally, like you or me. He would have to dramatize it some way, and Vedder had happened to choose a way that looked to me like fingers closing around a throat.

Now he was dramatizing this by being wrought up and indignant about the cops dragging him into an investigation of a sensational murder. He kept running the long fingers of both his elegant hands through his hair in a way that looked familiar, and I remembered I had seen him the year before as the artist guy in The Primitives.

“Typical!” he told Cramer, his eyes flashing and his voice throaty with feeling. “Typical of police clumsiness! Pulling me into this! The newspapermen out front recognized me, of course, and the damned photographers! My God!”

“Yeah,” Cramer said sympathetically. “It’ll be tough for an actor, having your picture in the paper. We need help, us clumsy police, and you were among those present. You’re a member of this flower club?”

No, Vedder said, he wasn’t. He had come with a friend, a Mrs. Beauchamp, and when she had left to keep an appointment he had remained to look at more orchids. If only he had departed with her he would have avoided this dreadful publicity. They had arrived about three-thirty, and he had remained in the plant rooms continuously until leaving with me at his heels. He had seen no one that he had ever known or seen before, except Mrs. Beauchamp. He knew nothing of any Cynthia Brown or Colonel Percy Brown. Cramer went through all the regulation questions and got all the expected negatives, until he suddenly asked, “Did you know Doris Hatten?”

Vedder frowned. “Who?”

“Doris Hatten. She was also—”

“Ah!” Vedder cried. “She was also strangled! I remember!”

“Right.”

Vedder made fists of his hands, rested them on the table, and leaned forward. His eyes had flashed again and then gone dead. “You know,” he said tensely, “that’s the worst of all, strangling — especially a woman.” His fists opened, the fingers spread apart, and he gazed at them. “Imagine strangling a beautiful woman!”

“Did you know Doris Hatten?”

“Othello,” Vedder said in a deep resonant tone. His eyes lifted to Cramer, and his voice lifted too. “No, I didn’t know her; I only read about her.” He shuddered all over and then, abruptly, he was out of his chair and on his feet. “Damn it all,” he protested shrilly, “I only came here to look at orchids! God!”

He ran his fingers through his hair, turned, and made for the door. Levy looked at Cramer with his brows raised, and Cramer shook his head impatiently.

I muttered at Wolfe, “He hammed it, maybe?”

Wolfe wasn’t interested.

The next one in was Bill McNab, garden editor of the Gazette. I knew him a little, but not well, most of my newspaper friends not being on garden desks. He looked unhappier than any of the others, even Mrs. Orwin, as he walked across to the table, to the end where Wolfe sat.

“I can’t tell you how much I regret this, Mr. Wolfe,” he said miserably.

“Don’t try,” Wolfe growled.

“I wish I could, I certainly do. What a really, really terrible thing! I wouldn’t have dreamed such a thing could happen — the Manhattan Flower Club! Of course, she wasn’t a member, but that only makes it worse in a way.” McNab turned to Cramer. “I’m responsible for this.”

“You are?”

“Yes. It was my idea. I persuaded Mr. Wolfe to arrange it. He let me word the invitations. And I was congratulating myself on the great success! The club has only a hundred and eighty-nine members, and there were over two hundred people here. Then this! What can I do?” He turned. “I want you to know this, Mr. Wolfe. I got a message from my paper; they wanted me to do a story on it for the news columns, and I refused point-blank. Even if I get fired — I don’t think I will.”

“Sit down a minute,” Cramer invited him.

McNab varied the monotony on one detail, at least. He admitted that he had left the plant rooms three times during the afternoon, once to accompany a departing guest down to the ground floor, and twice to go down alone to check on who had come and who hadn’t. Aside from that, he was more of the same. He had never heard of Cynthia Brown. By now it was beginning to seem not only futile but silly to spend time on seven or eight of them merely because they happened to be the last to go and so were at hand. Also it was something new to me from a technical standpoint. I had never seen one stack up like that. Any precinct dick knows that every question you ask of everybody is aimed at one of the three targets: motive, means, and opportunity. In this case there were no questions to ask because those were already answered. Motive: the guy had followed her downstairs, knowing she had recognized him, had seen her enter Wolfe’s office and thought she was doing exactly what she was doing, getting set to tell Wolfe, and had decided to prevent that the quickest and best way he knew. Means: any piece of cloth; even his handkerchief would do. Opportunity: he was there — all of them on Saul’s list were.

So if you wanted to learn who strangled Cynthia Brown, first you had to find out who had strangled Doris Hatten, and the cops had already been working on that for five months.

As soon as Bill McNab had been sent on his way, Colonel Percy Brown was brought in.

Brown was not exactly at ease, but he had himself well in hand. You would never have picked him for a con man, and neither would I. His mouth and jaw were strong and attractive, and as he sat down he leveled his keen gray eyes at Cramer and kept them there. He wasn’t interested in Wolfe or me. He said his name was Colonel Percy Brown, and Cramer asked him which army he was a colonel in.

“I think,” Brown said in a cool even tone, “it will save time if I state my position. I will answer fully and freely all questions that relate to what I saw or heard or did since I arrived here this afternoon. To that extent I’ll help you all I can. Answers to any other questions will have to wait until I consult my attorney.”

Cramer nodded. “I expected that. The trouble is I’m pretty sure I don’t give a damn what you saw or heard this afternoon. We’ll come back to that. I want to put something to you. As you see, I’m not even wanting to know why you tried to break away before we got here.”

“I merely wanted to phone—”

“Forget it.” Cramer put the remains of his second cigar, not more than a scraggly inch, in the ashtray. “On information received, I think it’s like this. The woman who called herself Cynthia Brown, murdered here today, was not your sister. You met her in Florida six or eight weeks ago. She went in with you on an operation of which Mrs. Orwin was the subject, and you introduced her to Mrs. Orwin as your sister. You two came to New York with Mrs. Orwin a week ago, with the operation well under way. As far as I’m concerned, that is only background. Otherwise I’m not interested in it. My work is homicide, and that’s what I’m working on now.”

Brown was listening politely.

“For me,” Cramer went on, “the point is that for quite a period you have been closely connected with this Miss Brown, associating with her in a confidential operation. You must have had many intimate conversations with her. You were having her with you as your sister, and she wasn’t, and she’s been murdered. We could give you merry hell on that score alone.”

Brown had no use for his tongue. His face said no comment.

“It’ll never be too late to give you hell,” Cramer assured him, “but I wanted to give you a chance first. For two months you’ve been on intimate terms with Cynthia Brown. She certainly must have mentioned an experience she had last October. A friend of hers named Doris Hatten was murdered — strangled. Cynthia Brown had information about the murderer which she kept to herself; if she had come out with it she’d be alive now. She must have mentioned that to you; you can’t tell me she didn’t. She must have told you all about it. Now you can tell me. If you do we can nail him for what he did here today, and it might even make things a little smoother for you. Well?”

Brown had pursed his lips. They straightened out again, and his hand came up for a finger to scratch his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry I can’t help.”

“Do you expect me to believe that during all those weeks she never mentioned the murder of her friend Doris Hatten?”

“I’m sorry I can’t help.”

Cramer got out another cigar and rolled it between his palms, which was wasted energy since he didn’t intend to draw smoke through it. Having seen him do it before, I knew what it meant. He still thought he might get something from this customer and was taking time out to control himself.

“I’m sorry too,” he said, trying not to make it a growl. “But she must have told you something of her previous career, didn’t she?”

“I’m sorry.” Brown’s tone was firm and final.

“Okay. We’ll move on to this afternoon. On that you said you’d answer fully and freely. Do you remember a moment when something about Cynthia Brown’s appearance — some movement she made or the expression on her face — caused Mrs. Orwin to ask her what was the matter with her?”

A crease was showing on Brown’s forehead. “I don’t believe I do,” he stated.

“I’m asking you to try. Try hard.”

Silence. Brown pursed his lips and the crease in his forehead deepened. Finally he said, “I may not have been right there at the moment. In those aisles — in a crowd like that — we weren’t rubbing elbows continuously.”

“You do remember when she excused herself because she wasn’t feeling well?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, this moment I’m asking about came shortly before that. She exchanged looks with some man nearby, and it was her reaction to that that made Mrs. Orwin ask her what was the matter. What I’m interested in is that exchange of looks. If you saw it and can remember it, and can describe the man she exchanged looks with, I wouldn’t give a damn if you stripped Mrs. Orwin clean and ten more like her.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“You didn’t.”

“No.”

“You didn’t say you’re sorry.”

“I am, of course, if it would help—”

“To hell with you!” Cramer banged his fist on the table so hard the trays danced. “Levy! Take him out and tell Stebbins to send him down and lock him up. Material witness. Put more men on him. He’s got a record somewhere. Find it!”

“I wish to phone my attorney,” Brown said quietly but emphatically.

“There’s a phone down where you’re going,” Levy told him. “If it’s not out of order. This way, Colonel.”

As the door closed behind them Cramer glared at me as if daring me to say that I was sorry too. Letting my face show how bored I was, I remarked casually, “If I could get in the office I’d show you a swell book on disguises; I forget the name of it. The world record is sixteen years — a guy in Italy fooled a brother and two cousins who had known him well. So maybe you ought to—”

Cramer turned from me rudely and said, “Gather up, Murphy. We’re leaving.” He shoved his chair back, stood up, and shook his ankles to get his pants legs down. Levy came back in, and Cramer addressed him. “We’re leaving. Everybody out. To my office. Tell Stebbins one man out front will be enough — no, I’ll tell him—”

“There’s one more, sir.”

“One more what?”

“In the front room. A man.”

“Who?”

“His name is Nicholson Morley. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“Let him go. This is a goddam joke.”

“Yes, sir.”

Levy went. The shorthand dick had collected notebooks and other papers and was putting them into a battered briefcase. Cramer looked at Wolfe. Wolfe looked back at him.

“A while ago,” Cramer rasped, “you said something had occurred to you.”

“Did I?” Wolfe inquired coldly.

Their eyes went on clashing until Cramer broke the connection by turning to go. I restrained an impulse to knock their heads together. They were both being childish. If Wolfe really had something, anything at all, he knew damn well Cramer would gladly trade the seals on the office doors for it sight unseen. And Cramer knew damn well he could make the deal himself with nothing to lose. But they were both too sore and stubborn to show any horse sense.

Cramer had circled the end of the table on his way out when Levy re-entered to report, “That man Morley insists on seeing you. He says it’s vital.”

Cramer halted, glowering. “What is he, a screwball?”

“I don’t know, sir. He may be.”

“Oh, bring him in.” Cramer came back around the table to his chair.