A Family Affair

Chapter 5

The dinner paid for by Harvey H. Bassett in an upstairs room at Rusterman’s Friday evening, October 18, had been stag. The guests:

Albert O. Judd, lawyer

Francis Ackerman, lawyer

Roman Vilar, Vilar Associates, industrial security

Ernest Urquhart, lobbyist

Willard K. Hahn, banker

Benjamin Igoe, electronics engineer

Putting that here, I’m way ahead of myself and of you, but I don’t like making lists and I wanted to get it down. Also, when I typed it that Wednesday to put on Wolfe’s desk, I looked it over to decide if one of them was a murderer and if so which one, and you may want to play that game too. Not that it had to be one of them. The fact that they had been present when Bassett left the slip of paper among the bills on the tray didn’t make them any better candidates than anyone else for who could have been with him in a stolen automobile on West Ninety-third Street around midnight a week later with a gun in his hand, but we had to start somewhere, and at least they had known him. Possibly one of them had given him the slip of paper.

I got to bed Tuesday night at twenty past one, almost exactly twenty-four hours after the bomb had interrupted me before I got my pants off. It was a good bet that I would be interrupted before I got them on again Wednesday morning by an invitation from the DA’s office, but I wasn’t, so I got my full eight hours, and I needed them, and it was ten minutes to ten when I entered the kitchen, went to the refrigerator for orange juice, told Fritz good morning, and asked if Wolfe had had breakfast, and Fritz said yes, at a quarter past eight as usual.

“Was he dressed?”

“Of course.”

“Not of course. He was played out, he said so himself. He went up?”

“Of course.”

“All right, have it your way. Any word for me?”

“No. I’m played out too, Archie, all day the phone ringing and people coming, and I didn’t know where he was.”

I went to the little table and sat and reached to the rack for the Times. It had made the front page, a two-column lead toward the bottom and continued on page 19, where there were pictures of both of us. Of course I was honored because I had found the body. Also of course I read every word, some of it twice, but none of it was news to me, and my mind kept sliding off. Why the hell hadn’t he told Fritz to send me up? I was on my third sausage and second buckwheat cake when the phone rang, and I scowled at it as I reached. Again of course, the DA.

But it wasn’t; it was Lon Cohen of the Gazette.

“Nero Wolfe’s office, Arch—”

“Where in God’s name were you all day yesterday, and why aren’t you in jail?”

“Look, Lon, I—”

“Will you come here, or must I go there?”

“Right now, neither one, and quit interrupting. I admit I could tell you twenty-seven things that your readers have a right to know, but this is a free country and I want to stay free. The minute I can spill one bean I know where to find you. I’m expecting a call so I’m hanging up.” I hung up.

I will never know whether there was something wrong with the buckwheat cakes or with me. If it was the cakes, Fritz was played out. I made myself eat the usual four to keep him from asking questions and finding out that he had left something out or put too much of something in.

In the office I pretended it was just another day — dusting, emptying the wastebaskets, changing the water in the vase, opening the mail, and so forth. Then I went to the shelf where we keep the Times and the Gazette for two weeks, got them for the last four days, and took them to my desk. Of course I had read the accounts of the murder of Harvey H. Bassett, but now it was more than just news. The body had been found in a parked Dodge Coronet on West Ninety-third Street near Riverside Drive late Friday night by a cop on his rounds. Only one bullet, a.38, which had entered at exactly the right spot to go through his pump and keep going, clear through. It had been found stuck in the right front door, so the trigger had been pulled by the driver of the car, unless Bassett had pulled it himself, but by Monday’s Times that was out. It was murder.

I was on Tuesday’s Gazette when the sound came of the elevator descending. My watch said 11:01. Right on schedule. I swiveled and as Wolfe entered said brightly, “Good morning. I’m having a look at the reports on Harvey H. Bassett. If you’re interested, I’m through with the Times.”

He put a raceme of orchids which I didn’t bother to identify in the vase on his desk, and sat. “You’re spleeny. You shouldn’t be. After that night and yesterday, you might sleep until noon, and there was no urgency. As for Mr. Bassett, I keep my copies of the Times in my room for a month, as you know, and I took—”

The doorbell. I went to the hall for a look and stepped back in. “I don’t think you’ve ever met him. Assistant District Attorney Coggin. Daniel F. Coggin. Friendly type with a knife up his sleeve. Handshaker.”

“Bring him,” he said, and reached for the pile of mail.

So when I ushered the member of the bar in after giving him as good a hand as he gave and taking his coat and hat, Wolfe had a circular in one hand and an unfolded letter in the other, and it wouldn’t have been polite to put him to the trouble of putting one of them down, so Coggin didn’t. Evidently, though he hadn’t met him, he knew about his kinks. He just said heartily, “I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wolfe, so I welcome this opportunity.” He sat, in the red leather chair, and sent his eyes around. “Nice room. A good room. That’s a beautiful rug.”

“A gift from the Shah of Iran,” Wolfe said.

Coggin must have known it was a barefaced lie, but he said, “I wish he’d give me one. Beautiful.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re a busy man, and I’ll be as brief as possible. The District Attorney is wondering why you and Mr. Goodwin were — well, couldn’t be found yesterday, though that isn’t how he put it — when you knew you were wanted and needed. And your telephone wasn’t answered. Nor your doorbell.”

“We had errands to do and did them. No one was here but Mr. Brenner, my cook, and when we are out he prefers not to answer bells.”

Coggin smiled. “He prefers?”

Wolfe smiled back, but his smile shows only at one corner of his mouth, and it takes good eyes to see it. “Good cooks must be humored, Mr. Coggin.”

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Wolfe. I haven’t got a cook, can’t afford it. Now. If you’re wondering why I came instead of sending for you, we discussed it at the office. What you said to Inspector Cramer yesterday. Considering your record and your customary — uh — reactions. It was decided to have your license as a private investigator revoked at once, but I thought that was too drastic and suggested that upon reflection you might have realized that you had been — uh — impetuous. I have in my pocket warrants for your arrest, you and Mr. Goodwin, as material witnesses, but I don’t want to serve them. I would rather not. I even came alone, I insisted on that. I can understand, I do understand, why you reacted as you did to Inspector Cramer, but you and Goodwin can’t withhold information regarding the murder of a man in your house — a man you had known for years and had talked with many times. I don’t want you and Goodwin to lose your licenses. He can take shorthand and he can type. I want to leave here with signed statements.”

When Wolfe is facing the red leather chair he has to turn his head a quarter-circle to face me. He turned. “Your notebook, Archie.”

I opened a drawer and got it, and a pen. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and spoke.

“When Pierre Ducos died by violence in a room of my house at — The exact time, Archie?”

“One-twenty-four.”

“One-twenty-four a.m. on October twenty-ninth, comma, nineteen seventy-four, comma, I knew nothing about him or any of his affairs except that he was an experienced and competent restaurant waiter. Period. Archie Goodwin also knew only that about him, comma, plus what he had learned in a brief conversation with him when he arrived at my house shortly before he died. Period. All of that conversation was given verbatim by Mr. Goodwin in a signed statement given by him to a police officer that night at my house. Period. Therefore all knowledge that could possibly be relevant to the death by violence of Pierre Ducos known to either Mr. Goodwin or me at the moment his body was discovered by Mr. Goodwin has been given to the police. Paragraph.

“Since that moment — dash — the moment that the body was discovered — dash — Mr. Goodwin and I have made various inquiries of various persons for the purpose of learning who was responsible for the death of Pierre Ducos in my house, comma, and we are going to continue such inquiries. Period. We have made them and shall make them not as licensed private investigators, comma, but as private citizens on whose private premises a capital crime has been committed. Period. We believe our right to make such an inquiry cannot be successfully challenged, comma, and if such a challenge is made we will resist it. Period. That right would not be affected by revocation of our licenses as investigators. Paragraph.

“Information obtained by us during our inquiry may be divulged by us, comma, or it may not, comma, either to the police or to the public. Period. The decision regarding disclosure will be solely at our discretion and will. Period. If the issue is raised of our responsibilities as private citizens it will of course be decided by the proper legal procedures. Period. If our licenses have not been revoked our responsibilities as private investigators will not be involved. Period. If they have been revoked those responsibilities will not exist. Paragraph.

“We will continue to cooperate with the police to the extent required by law — dash — for instance, comma, we will permit entry at any reasonable time to the room where the crime occurred. Period. We approve and applaud a vigorous effort by the police to find the culprit and will continue to do so. Period.”

He opened his eyes and straightened up. “On my letterhead, single-spaced, wide margins, four carbons. All to be signed by me, and by you if you wish. Give the original to Mr. Coggin. Mail one carbon to Mr. Cramer. Take one to Mr. Cohen and offer it as an item for publication in the Gazette tomorrow. If he rejects it, make it a two-column display advertisement in ten-point. Take one to the Times and offer it, not as an advertisement. If Mr. Coggin interferes by serving his warrants and arresting us before you get it typed, on being taken into custody I will exercise my right to telephone a lawyer, dictate it to Mr. Parker’s secretary, and tell him what to do.”

He turned his head the quarter-circle. “If you wish to comment, Mr. Coggin, you’ll have to raise your voice. Mr. Goodwin will not use a noiseless typewriter.”

Coggin was smiling. “It’s not up to your usual standard. A lousy cheap bluff.”

“Then call it. I believe that’s the idiom for the proper reaction to a cheap bluff.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Surely it’s obvious; it was to Mr. Cramer. I do approve and applaud the effort by the police to do their duty under law, but in this case I hope they fail. I invite you to have a look at the room upstairs directly over my bedroom. A man was killed in it as I lay asleep. I intend to find the man who did it and bring him to account, with the help of Mr. Goodwin, whose self-esteem is as wounded as my own. He took him to that room.”

His fingers curled into the palm. “No. Not a bluff. I doubt if I am taking a serious risk, but if so, then I am. The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized. You know what I told Mr. Cramer we will do if we are charged and taken, so there is no need to repeat it.” His head turned. “Type it, Archie.”

I swiveled and swung the machine around and got paper and carbons. Much of the room shows in the six-by-four mirror on the wall back of my desk, so I knew I wasn’t missing anything while I hit the keys, because Coggin’s mouth stayed shut. His eyes were aimed in my direction. The amount of copy was just right, wide-margined, for a nice neat page. I rolled it out, removed the carbon paper, and took it to Wolfe, and he signed all of them, including the one we would keep, and I signed under him without bothering to sit.

And when I handed the original to Coggin he said, “I’ll take the carbons too. All of them.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I only work here and I like the job, so I follow instructions.”

“Give them to him,” Wolfe said. “You have the notebook.”

I handed them over. He put the original with them, jiggled them on the little stand to even the edges, folded them, and stuck them in his inside breast pocket. He smiled at Wolfe. Of course the typing and signing had given him seven minutes to look at all angles. “Probably,” he said, “you could name him right now and you only have to collect the pieces.” He palmed the chair arms for leverage and got to his feet. “I hope there’ll be other warrants, not for material witnesses, and I hope I have it and you get ten years with no parole.” He turned and stepped, but halfway to the door he stopped and turned to say over his shoulder, “Don’t come, Goodwin. You smell.”

When the sound came of the front door closing, I crossed over for a look. He was out. I crossed back and said, “So you didn’t give me an errand because you knew one of them would come. Wonderful.”

He grunted. “I have told you a dozen times, sarcasm is the most futile of weapons. It doesn’t cut, it merely bounces off. Why did he want the carbons?”

“Souvenirs. Autographs. Signed by both of us. Someday they’ll be auctioned off at Sotheby’s.” I looked at my watch. “It’s twenty minutes to noon. Things will be all set for lunch and the customers won’t start coming until nearly one. Or have you a better place to start than Felix?”

“You know I haven’t. We want everything he knows about Mr. Bassett and his guests that evening. Unless — you have slept on it, so I ask again, does Philip know what was on that slip of paper?”

“It’s still no. As I said, he was unloading. He thinks the name on it might have been Archie Goodwin. Pierre told him he wondered about it. All right, I probably won’t be here for lunch.”

“A moment. One detail. If Felix supplies names, even one, and you get to him, it might serve to tell him that Pierre told you that he saw one of them hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper. It might. Consider it.”

“Yeah. And Pierre’s dead.”

I went to the hall and to the rack for my coat. No hat. The thermometer outside said 38, more like December than October, no sun, but I have rules too. No hat before Thanksgiving. Rain or snow is good for hair.