Before Midnight

Chapter 13

My visit to their office that afternoon probably cost LBA around three grand, maybe even five, for I found occasion later to describe the layout to Wolfe, thinking he should have it in mind when he was deciding on the amount of his bill, which he surely did if I know him.

From the directory in the lobby of the modern midtown skyscraper I learned that LBA had six floors, which opened my eyes and made me pick one. Choosing twenty-two because it was marked Executive, I found the proper elevator, was lifted, and emerged into a chamber that would have been fine for badminton if you took up the rugs. With upholstered chairs here and there sort of carelessly, and spots of light from modern lamps, it was a very cultured atmosphere. Two or three of the chairs were occupied, and at the far side, facing the elevators, an aristocratic brunette with nice little ears was seated at an executive desk eight feet long. When I approached she asked if she could help me, and I told her my name and said I wanted to see Mr. Buff.

“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Goodwin?”

“Yes, but under an alias, Nero Wolfe.”

That only confused her and made her suspicious, but I finally got it straightened out and she used the phone and asked me to wait. I was crossing to a chair when a door opened and Vernon Assa appeared. He stood a moment, wiping his brow and neck with a handkerchief, and then came to me. Short plump men are inclined to sweat, but it did seem that an LBA top executive might have finished wiping before entering the reception room.

“Where’s Mr. Wolfe?” he asked.

“At home. I’ll report. To all of you.”

“I don’t think—” He hesitated. “Come with me.”

We passed through into a wide carpeted hall. The third door on the left was standing open and we turned in. It was a fairly large room and would be a handsome one after the cleaning women had been around, but at present it was messy. The gleaming top of the big mahogany table in the center had most of its gleam spotted with cigarette ashes and stray pieces of paper, and the nine or ten executive-size chairs were every which way. A cigar butt had spilled out of an ash tray onto the mahogany.

Three men, not counting Assa, looked at me, and I looked at them. Talbott Heery wasn’t so broad and tall when he had slid so far forward in his chair that most of him was underneath the table. Buff’s white hair was tousled, and his round red face was puffy. He was seated across from Heery and had to twist around to look at me. Rudolph Hansen’s long thin neck had a big smudge below the right ear. He was standing to one side with his arms folded and his narrow shoulders slumped.

“Goodwin says he’ll report,” Assa told them. “We can hear what he has to say.”

“To all of you,” I said, not aggressively. “Including Mr. O’Garro.”

“He’s in a meeting and can’t be here.”

“Then I’ll wait.” I sat down. “He canceled the agreement, and it wouldn’t do much good to come to an understanding with you if he phones as soon as I get back and cancels it.”

“That was on his own initiative,” Buff said, “and unauthorized.”

“Isn’t he a member of the firm?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll wait. If I’m in the way here, tell me where.”

“Get him in here,” Heery demanded. “He can get the goddam toothpaste account any time.”

They all started clawing, not at me but at each other. I sat and watched the bubbles, and heard them. LBA was certainly boiling over, and I tried to take it in, knowing that Wolfe would want a verbatim report, but it got a little confused. Finally they got it decided, I didn’t know exactly how, and Buff got at a phone and talked, and pretty soon the door opened and Patrick O’Garro was with us. He was still brown all over, and his quick brown eyes were blazing.

“Are you all feeble-minded?” he blurted. “I said I’d go along with whatever you decided. I don’t intend—”

I cut in. “Hold it, Mr. O’Garro. It’s my fault. I came to report for Mr. Wolfe, and you have got to be present. I’m willing to wait, but they’re in a hurry — some of them.”

He said something cutting to Heery, and the others chimed in, and I thought the boiling was going to start again, but Buff got up and took O’Garro’s arm and eased him to a chair. Then Buff returned to his own chair, which was next to me at the left.

“All right, Goodwin,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I took a paper from my pocket and unfolded it. “First,” I announced, “here is a letter to Mr. Hansen, signed by Mr. Wolfe. It’s only one sentence. It says, ‘I here with dismiss you as my attorney and instruct you not to represent me in any matter whatsoever.’ Mr. Wolfe told me to deliver it before witnesses.” I handed it to Assa, he handed it to O’Garro, and he handed it to Hansen. Hansen glanced at it, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

“Proceed,” he said stiffly.

“Yes, sir. There are three points to consider. The first is the job itself and how you people have handled it. In the years I have been with Mr. Wolfe he has had a lot of damn fools for clients, but you have come pretty close to the record. Apparently you—”

“For God’s sake,” O’Garro demanded, “do you call that reporting? We want to know what he’s done!”

“Well, you’re not going to. Apparently you haven’t stopped to realize what the job’s like. I’ll put it this way: if he knew right now who went there and stole the wallet — and killed Dahlmann, put that in too — and all he needed was one additional piece of evidence and he knew he was going to get it tonight — if he knew all that, he wouldn’t tell any of you one single damn thing about it. Not before he had it absolutely sewed up. In the condition of panic you’re in, all of you except Mr. Hansen, I don’t know how much you can understand, but maybe you can understand that.”

“I can’t,” Buff said. “It sounds preposterous. We hired him and we’ll pay him.”

“Then I’ll spell it out. What would happen if he kept you posted on exactly what he had done and was doing and intended to do? God only knows, but judging from the way you’ve been acting this afternoon there would be a riot. One or another of you would be calling every ten minutes to cancel what the last one said and give him new instructions. Mr. Wolfe doesn’t take instructions, he takes a job, and you should have known that before you hired him. — You did, didn’t you, Mr. Hansen? You said that all of you would be at his mercy.”

“Not precisely in that sense.” The lawyer’s eyes, meeting mine, were cold and steady. “But I knew of Wolfe’s methods and manners, yes. I grant that the conflicting messages from us this afternoon were ill-advised, but we are under great pressure. We need to know at least whether any progress is being made.”

“You will, when he is ready to tell you. He’s under pressure too. You have to consider that he’s not working for you... or you... or you... or you... or you. He’s working for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa. I can say this, if the men authorized to speak for the firm want to call it off, it may be possible to make another arrangement. Just a suggestion: do you want to ask Mr. Heery if he cares to take over and have Mr. Wolfe represent him instead of LBA?”

“No!” O’Garro blurted. Assa looked at Hansen and the lawyer shook his head. Buff said, “I can’t see that that would improve the situation any. Our interests are identical.” Heery, sending his eyes around, said, “If you want it that way, say so.”

Nobody said so. I gave them four seconds and went on. “Another point. I’ve told you that Inspector Cramer of Homicide came to see Mr. Wolfe last night. I’m not quoting him, but when he left Mr. Wolfe’s main impression was that he wasn’t completely sold on the idea that one of the contestants killed Dahlmann to get the paper in the wallet. Someone could have killed him for a quite different reason and didn’t take the wallet or anything else, and later one of you went there to see him and found him dead. You looked to see if the wallet was in his pocket, and it was, and you didn’t want it found on his body on account of the risk that what was on the paper might possibly be made public, so you took the wallet and beat it. That would—”

They all broke in. Hansen said, “Absurd. Mr. Wolfe certainly wasn’t—”

“Just a minute,” I stopped him. “Mr. Wolfe told Cramer that he thought it likely that one of the contestants took the wallet, and that he was assuming that whoever killed Dahlmann took the wallet, but that doesn’t mean he can toss Cramer’s idea in the garbage as a pipe dream. He has no proof it didn’t happen like that; all he has is what you men told him. So if he doesn’t want to run the risk of being made a monkey of, which he doesn’t, believe me, he has to keep that on the list of possibles, and in that case how can he tell you what he’s doing and going to do? Tell who? His client is Lippert, Buff and Assa, but there’s no such person as Lippert, Buff and Assa, it would have to be one of you, and it might be the very guy who went to Dahlmann’s place and retrieved the wallet. Therefore—”

“It’s absurd on the face of it,” Hansen said. “It would—”

“Let me finish. Therefore Mr. Wolfe has a double reason not to keep you posted on every move — first, he never does with anybody, and second, one of you could be holding out on him and set to spike him. I don’t think he thinks you are, but it’s a cinch he wouldn’t take that chance. There’s no use trying to persuade me it’s absurd, because Mr. Wolfe is the expert on absurdity, not me, and I wouldn’t undertake to pass it on. That about covers the situation, except this, that he’s fed up with your shoving. I had to disturb him to tell him about the performance you have put on this afternoon because I had to ask him if he wanted me to come up here, and I am now reporting that he is fed up. He is willing to go on with the job only with the understanding that what he is committed to get for you is results as they were outlined, as quickly and satisfactorily as possible, using his best ability and judgment. If you want him to continue on that basis, okay. If not, he might be willing to take on the job for Mr. Heery, but I doubt it, without the consent and approval of LBA, because you’re all in it together.”

“What then?” Hansen asked, colder than ever. “He has dismissed me as his attorney. What would he do?”

“I don’t know, but I can give you a guess, and I know him fairly well. I think he would give Inspector Cramer the whole story as he knows it, including whatever he may have learned since he talked with you people, and forget it.”

“Let him!” O’Garro barked. “To hell with him!”

Buff said, “Take it easy, Pat.”

“I think we’re overlooking something,” Assa said. “We’ve let our personal feelings get involved, and that’s wrong. The one thing we all want is to save the contest, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is whether we’re more likely to do that with Wolfe or without him. Let me ask you this, Goodwin. I agree with Mr. Hansen that Inspector Cramer’s idea is absurd, but just suppose that Wolfe did find evidence, or thought he did, that one of us went to Dahlmann’s apartment and found him dead and took the wallet. Whom would he report it to?”

“That would depend. If LBA was still his client, to LBA. He was hired — these were Hansen’s words — to find out who took the wallet and got the paper. If he did what he was hired to do, or thought he had, naturally he would tell his client and no one else. There would be two offenses involved, swiping a wallet and failing to report discovery of a dead body, but that wouldn’t bother him. But he couldn’t report to a client if he no longer had one, and my guess is he would just empty the bag for Cramer.”

“That,” Hansen said, “is an unmistakable threat.”

“Is it?” I grinned at him. “That’s bad. I thought I was just answering a question. I withdraw it.”

Talbott Heery, across the mahogany top from me, suddenly was up and on his feet, in all his height and breadth, glaring around with no favorites. “If I ever saw a bunch of lightweights,” he told them, “this is it. You know goddam well Nero Wolfe is our only hope of getting out of this without losing most of our hide, and listen to you!” He put two fists on the table. “I’ll tell you this right now: at the end of the contract you’re done with Heery Products! If I had had any sense—”

“Tape it, Tal.” O’Garro’s voice was raised, with a sneer in it. “Go downstairs and tape it! We’ll get along without you and without Nero Wolfe too! I don’t—”

The others joined in and they were boiling again. I was perfectly willing to sit and watch the bubbles, but Oliver Buff arose and took my sleeve and practically pulled me to my feet, and was steering me to the door. His teeth were set on his lower lip, but had to release it for speech. “If you’ll wait outside,” he said, pushing me into the hall. “We’ll send for you.” He shut the door.

Outside could have meant right there, but eavesdropping is vulgar if you can’t distinguish words, and I soon found that I couldn’t, so I moseyed down the wide carpeted hall and on through into the reception room. A couple of the upholstered chairs had customers, but not the same ones as when I had arrived. When I lingered instead of pushing the elevator button the aristocratic brunette at the desk gave me a look, and, not wanting her to worry, I went and told her the evidence was all in and I was waiting for the verdict. She had a notion to give me a smile — I was wearing a dark brown pin-stripe that was a good fit, with a solid tan shirt and a soft wool medium-brown tie — but decided it would be better to wait until we heard the verdict. I decided she was too cagey for one of my temperament, and crossed the rugs over to a battery of large cabinets with glass fronts that covered all of a wall and part of two others. They were filled with an assortment of objects of all sizes, shapes, colors, and materials.

Being a detective, I soon detected what they were: samples of the products of LBA clients, past and present. I thought it was very democratic to have them here in the executive reception room instead of down on a lower floor with the riffraff. Altogether there must have been several thousand different items, from spark plugs to ocean liners to paper drinking cups to pharmaceuticals — though in the case of the liners and trucks and refrigerators, and other bulky items, they had settled for photographs instead of the real thing. There was an elegant little model of a completely equipped super-modern kitchen, about eighteen inches long, that I would have taken home for a doll’s house, if I had had a wife and we had had a child and the child had been a girl and the girl had liked dolls. I was having a second look at the Heery Products section, which alone had over a hundred specimens, and was trying to decide what I thought of yellow for packaging, when the brunette called my name and I turned.

“You may go in,” she said, and darned if the smile didn’t nearly break through. Of course she had had plenty of time to inspect me from behind, and I never had a suit that fitted better. I repaid her with a friendly glance that spoke volumes as I stepped to the door to the inner hall.

In the executive committee room, I suppose it was, I couldn’t tell from their expressions who or what had won. Certainly nobody looked happy or even hopeful. Heery was at a window with his back to us, which I thought was tactful since technically he was not a party. The others eyed me without love as I approached the big table.

Hansen spoke. “We have decided to have Nero Wolfe continue with the case, using his best ability and judgment as you stated, without prejudice to any of our rights and privileges. Including the right to be informed on matters affecting our interests, but leaving that to his discretion for the present.”

I had my notebook out and was jotting it down. That done, I asked, “Unanimous? Mr. Wolfe will want to know. Do you concur, Mr. Buff?”

“Yes,” he said firmly.

“Mr. Assa?”

“Yes,” he said wearily.

“Mr. O’Garro?”

“Yes,” he said rudely.

“Good.” I returned the notebook to my pocket. “I’ll do my best to persuade Mr. Wolfe to carry on, and if you don’t hear from me within an hour you’ll know it’s okay. I’d like to add one little point: as his confidential assistant I’m in it too somewhat, and it interferes with my chores to spend half my time answering your phone calls, so I personally request you to keep your shirts on.”

I turned to go, but Buff caught my sleeve. “You understand, Goodwin, that the time element is vital. Only five days. And we hope Wolfe understands it.”

“Sure he does. Before midnight Wednesday. That’s why he can’t bear to be disturbed.”

I left them to their misery. Passing through the reception room I paused to tell the brunette, “Guilty on all counts. See you up the river.” It was a shock for her.