Archie in the Crosshairs

Chapter 9

When I returned to the office, Wolfe was seated behind his desk again. “Well, that was one cute trick,” I told him as I dropped into my own chair. “Running off and hiding in the kitchen while I questioned the young lady. What were you out doing there, harassing poor Fritz again about whether or not chives should be used in tomato tarts?”

“I never harass Fritz.”

“Hah! Of course you do, let me count the ways. For starters, there was the episode with the onions in the shad roe, and—”

“Twaddle!”

“No, sir, not twaddle. Anyway, you certainly shifted into what for you represents high gear on your way out the door. Afraid the ever-so-demure Miss Hutchinson was going to make a pass at you?”

“Are you quite through, Mr. Goodwin?”

“Yeah, I am, at least on the subject of your hightailing it out of the office as though you were running away from a horde of rampaging elephants. But I also noticed that you did your best to talk her out of hiring us. A man would think you didn’t need the money.”

“I merely explained the situation to her. I believe you will agree that she is owed that much from us.”

“Okay, if that’s your story, you should by all means stick to it. What do you think of our potential client?”

He made a face. “A naïf, an emotional child.”

“Agreed, but an extremely rich one. Do we proceed?”

“How much of what she told us do you think is veracious?” As I mentioned earlier, Wolfe somehow got it in his head years ago that I am an expert on women, and that that expertise extends to my ability to detect anything untrue or misleading that is spoken by a member of the female species.

“Maybe eighty percent, or slightly less,” I said. “For one, I have to wonder whether her breakup with the Italian Don Juan happened as she described it. I also have to question the depth of her commitment to young Mr. Mercer, he of the airplane manufacturing millions. It seems to me that she was very easily wooed by the Italian gentleman — if he can be so termed. Actually, gigolo comes to mind as an apt description.”

“Hardly the correct usage of the word,” Wolfe chided. “In most definitions, a gigolo is one who lives off the wealth of a woman. In this instance, it would appear that Mr. Veronese is in possession of substantial wealth of his own.”

I sighed. “Okay, would you accept cad? Or maybe rogue?”

Wolfe shrugged. “Just before Miss Hutchinson arrived, you mentioned a telephone call from that man. Also, have you heard from Saul?”

I gave Wolfe a verbatim report on my brief conversation with our nameless pest, then filled him in on Saul’s findings and my conversation with Cordelia after he had left the room. He was silent for more than a minute, then came forward in his chair. “Confound it, let Miss Hutchinson know we will attempt to locate and stop her blackmailer. But make it clear to her that we cannot proceed without speaking to members of her family and possibly to other acquaintances of hers as well. Be firm about this.”

“I am always firm. But you know the young lady will not like that.”

“Of course she won’t. She seems determined to keep her Italian indiscretion from those closest to her. But the young woman said at least one sensible thing when she sat in that chair.”

“That we pay for our sins?”

“Precisely, and part of her payment must almost surely be the exposure of her liaison, at least if she has any hope of avoiding blackmail.”

“She may not go along with it.”

“Then my hands are tied,” Wolfe said, turning both palms up. “As you know very well, I will not undertake any investigation that restricts our ability to question those who may have pertinent information.”

“What if we concoct a scenario in which Cordelia takes a valuable diamond necklace — a treasured gift from her father — on the trip to Italy, and it gets lifted from her hotel room? We can use that in our questioning of the family as the reason for the blackmail. And we could—”

“Utter nonsense!” Wolfe spat. “You know better than to propose such a preposterous contrivance. Is it necessary for me to point out its fallacies to you?”

“Okay, so maybe I was reaching a bit,” I said. “Cordelia didn’t think the idea was so hot, either.”

“That much speaks well for her. She is — yes, what is it, Fritz?”

“Pardon me for interrupting,” he said from the doorway, “but this morning, I was dusting in the front room, and I found something you should see.”

“Can’t you bring whatever it is in here?”

“No, sir, I cannot.”

Wolfe frowned and pursed his lips. “Very well,” he grumped, reluctantly levering himself upright. “Show us.”

We walked into the front room, and a stern-faced Fritz pointed at the window, which looks out onto Thirty-Fifth Street. About halfway up the pane, there were two circular indentations, although the glass had not been broken. Wolfe looked questioningly at me.

“Yeah, made by bullets, and judging by the size, from a thirty-eight. I can probably find the shells under the window.”

“No, do not go outside, Archie,” said Wolfe. “For the moment, we will stipulate that we have been fired upon. Did you hear anything last night, Fritz?”

“No, sir.”

“Probably a silencer. It’s a good thing we had bulletproof glass installed some years back,” I said.

“Not bulletproof, bullet-resistant,” Wolfe corrected. “As you are well aware, no glass can be made completely impenetrable. Had someone wanted to puncture that window, he could easily have found a firearm strong enough to accomplish the job.”

“So this is another warning?”

“Clearly. The front room is almost never occupied, so the shots that were fired, even had they entered the room, likely would not have been lethal.”

“But for the sake of argument, how would our anonymous shooter know the front room doesn’t get used much?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, a feature several years ago in the Times went into great detail about our operations, including the layout of the house,” Wolfe said. “As you may remember, none of us — including you and Fritz — agreed to talk to the writer. But unnamed sources, probably clients or suspects who had been here, provided a great deal of detail, especially about the first floor.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that damned piece, or else I put it out of my mind,” I said.

Fritz looked nervously from Wolfe to me and back again during our conversation, like someone watching a tennis match. “Does this mean we will have to leave here?” he asked.

“Not at the moment,” Wolfe replied, “although it is possible that at some point we will temporarily relocate. For now, however, we shall stand our ground and take the necessary precautions.”

Wolfe’s statement was meant to be reassuring, but one look at Fritz Brenner’s face was enough to realize those words had not achieved the desired effect. When we were seated back in the office and Fritz had returned to the kitchen, Wolfe turned to me. “Fritz is understandably shaken. Do you feel the same way?”

“Well, it is hardly a picnic to realize someone is targeting you. But am I about to jump ship? Of course not. I say we stick it out right here and learn who’s got it in for us, or rather, for me.”

“Would you suggest we abandon any thoughts of trying to identify Miss Hutchinson’s blackmailer and concentrate on the individual who seeks to bedevil us? Note that I use the plural pronoun.”

“Call me an old softy, but I’ve grown fond of our young Cordelia — oh, not in a romantic sense, mind you. She’s hardly my type, but she is something of a damsel in distress. And at the risk of sounding crass, she is rich and, like it or not, we need money.”

Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes. They were still closed three minutes later when the doorbell rang.

I went down the hall, saw the figure through the glass in the front door, and returned to the office. “Cramer,” I said.

Wolfe opened his eyes and raised his brows. “Again? All right, let him in.”

I followed orders, and after he marched down the hall to the office, the inspector planted his substantial fundament in the red leather chair and glowered at Wolfe. “Well?” he barked.

“‘Well’ indeed, Mr. Cramer. I had not expected to see you so soon after your last visit.”

“I hadn’t expected to be here again myself, but you have a way of attracting attention.”

“I assure you such is not my intent.”

“Uh-huh. Whether you know it or not — and I suspect you do — shots were fired at one of your windows sometime within the last day, probably last night.”

“Extraordinary,” Wolfe said.

“Isn’t it? Ever since the other shots were fired at Goodwin that night, we have had this house under surveillance. And this morning about six, the men in one of our cars passing by spotted two circular impressions, caused by bullets, in the window of your front room.”

“How do you know they were caused by bullets?” Wolfe asked.

“These were found under the window,” Cramer said, reaching into his suit jacket pocket and pulling out two shell casings, which he laid on the desk blotter. “They’re thirty-eight caliber and could’ve been fired from either a revolver or an automatic. Interesting that those earlier shells were also thirty-eights. Or would you term that ‘extraordinary,’ too?”

“I suppose I should be flattered at your concern for our welfare,” Wolfe said. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks, and please don’t flatter yourself. The department’s concern is for the safety of everyone who passes by and lives on this block, not just you and Goodwin. Care to tell me now what this is all about?”

“Over the years, I have made numerous enemies, which is hardly a surprise to you. Apparently, one or more of them now seeks retribution.”

“You seem very calm about the whole business,” Cramer snorted. “Do you have any clue as to who that might be?”

“No, I do not.”

“To repeat a question I asked on my last visit: Are you now working on a case?” I smiled inwardly at how my boss would answer.

“At the moment, I do not have a commission,” Wolfe stated.

“So you say. And you have no idea who’s after your scalp, not even an educated guess?”

Wolfe sighed and placed his hands, palms down, on the desk. “Mr. Goodwin and I are now in the process of reviewing past cases in an attempt to determine who might most wish us ill.”

“That could be one long list,” Cramer deadpanned. “Let us know if you want help from the department.”

“That is a most generous offer, sir.”

“Not really. If anything happens to you, all hell will break loose in the press, and from the commissioner on down, we will be roundly castigated for failing to protect New York’s best-known private investigator. For instance, I can only imagine how the Gazette, your buddy Lon Cohen’s paper, would react. They would probably call for my head, but what else is new? They and the other papers have been doing that off and on for years.”

“Thank you for putting the situation in perspective,” Wolfe said.

“My pleasure,” the inspector responded, with no pleasure whatsoever evident in his tone. He rose slowly and walked out of the office and down the hall, and I followed along, bolting the door behind him.