Before Midnight

Chapter 14

The next two days, Saturday and Sunday, I found that my personal request had been a mistake. Thursday and Friday had been bad enough, but at least their phone calls had given me something to do now and then, and with them muzzled, or nearly so, my patience got a tougher test than ever. You might think that after putting up with Wolfe for so long I would be acclimatized, and I am up to a point, but he keeps breaking records. After I reported to him in full on my session at LBA, including a description of the premises, there was practically no mention of the case for more than sixty hours. By Monday morning I was willing to believe he had really meant it when he said it would be more feasible after the deadline, and I had to admit that at least it was an original idea to use a deadline for a starting barrier.

I spent most of the weekend prowling around the house, but was allowed to go out occasionally to walk myself around the block, and even made a couple of calls. Saturday afternoon I dropped in at Manhattan Homicide West on Twentieth Street for a little visit with Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Naturally he was suspicious, thinking that Wolfe had sent me to pry something loose, if only a desk and a couple of chairs, but he also thought I might have something to peddle, so we chatted a while. When I got up to go he actually said there was no hurry. Later, back home, when I reported to Wolfe and told him I was offering twenty to one that the cops were as cold as we were, his only comment was an indifferent grunt.

Late Sunday afternoon I spent six bucks of LBA money buying drinks for Lon Cohen at Yaden’s bar. I told him I wanted the total lowdown on all aspects of the Dahlmann case, and he offered to autograph a copy of yesterday’s Gazette for me. He was a great help. Among the items of unprinted scuttlebutt were these: Dahlmann had welshed on a ninety-thousand-dollar poker debt. His wallet had contained an assortment of snapshots of society women, undressed. He had double-crossed a prominent politician on a publicity deal. All the members of his firm had hated his guts and ganged up on him. The name of one of the several dozen women he had played games with was Ellen Heery, the wife of Talbott. He had been a Russian spy. He had got something on a certain philanthropist and been blackmailing him. And so on. The usual crop, Lon said, with a few fancy touches as tributes to Dahlmann’s outstanding personality. Lon would of course not believe that Wolfe wasn’t working on the murder, and almost refused to accept another drink when he was convinced that I had no handout for him.

I gave Wolfe the scuttlebutt, but apparently he wasn’t listening. It was Sunday evening, when he especially enjoys turning the television off. Of course he has to turn it on first, intermittently throughout the evening, and that takes a lot of exertion, but he has provided for it by installing a remote control panel at his desk. That way he can turn off as many as twenty programs in an evening without overdoing. Ordinarily I am not there, since I spend most of my Sunday evenings trying to give pleasure to some fellow being, no matter who she is provided she meets certain specifications, but that Sunday I stuck around. If something did snap on account of the extremely severe tension, as Wolfe had claimed he thought it might, I was going to be there. When I went up to bed, early, he was turning off Silver Linings.

The snap, if that’s the right word for it, came a little after ten o’clock Monday morning, in the shape of a phone call, not for Wolfe but for me.

“You don’t sound like Archie Goodwin,” a male voice said.

“Well, I am. You do sound like Philip Younger.”

“I ought to. You’re Goodwin?”

“Yes. The one who turned down your Scotch.”

“That sounds better. I want to see you right away. I’m in my room at the Churchill. Get here as fast as you can.”

“Coming. Hold everything.”

That shows the condition I was in. I should have asked him what was up. I should at least have learned if a gun was being leveled at him. Speaking of guns, I should have followed my rule to take one along. But I was so damn sick and tired of nothing I was in favor of anything, and quick. I dived into the kitchen to tell Fritz to tell Wolfe where I was going, grabbed my hat and coat as I passed the rack, ran down the stoop steps, and hoofed it double quick to Tenth Avenue for a taxi, through the scattered drops of the beginning of an April shower.

As we were crawling uptown with the thousand-wheeled worm I muttered to the hackie, “Try the sidewalk.”

“It’s only Monday,” he said gloomily. “Got a whole week.”

We finally made it to the Churchill, and I went in and took an elevator, ignored the floor clerk on the eighteenth, went to the door of eighteen-twenty-six, knocked, and was told to come in. Younger, looking a little less like Old King Cole when up and dressed, wanted to shake hands and I had no objection.

“It took you long enough,” he complained. “I know, I know, I live in Chicago. Sit down. I want to ask you something.”

I thought, my God, all for nothing, he’s got another idea about splitting the pot and yanked me up here to sell it. I took a chair and he sat on the edge of the bed, which hadn’t been made.

“I just got something in the mail,” he said, “and I’m not sure what to do with it. I could give it to the police, but I don’t want to. The ones I’ve seen haven’t impressed me. Do you know a Lieutenant Rowcliff?”

“I sure do. You can have him.”

“I don’t want him. Then there’s those advertising men with Dahlmann at that meeting, that’s where I met them, but I’ve seen them since, and they don’t impress me either. I was going to phone a man I know in Chicago, a lawyer, but it would take a lot of explaining on the phone, the whole mess. So I thought of you. You know all about it, and when you were here the other day I offered you a drink. When I offer a man a drink without thinking, that’s a good sign. I can go by that as well as anything. I’ve got to do something about this and do it quick, and the first thing is to show it to you and see what you say.”

He took an envelope from his pocket, looked at it, looked at me, and handed it over. I inspected the envelope of ordinary cheap white paper, which had jagged edges where it had been torn open. Typewritten address to Mr. Philip Younger, Churchill Hotel. No return address front or back. Three-cent stamp, postmarked Grand Central Station 11:00 PM APR 17 1955. It contained a single sheet of folded paper, and I took it out and unfolded it. It was medium-grade sulphide bond, with nothing printed on it, but with plenty of something typewritten. It was headed at the top in caps: ANSWERS TO THE FIVE VERSES DISTRIBUTED ON APRIL 12TH. Below were the names of five women, with a brief commentary on each. I kept my face deadpan as I ran over them and saw that they were the real McCoy.

“Well,” I said, “this is interesting. What is it, a gag?”

“That’s the trouble — or one trouble. I’m not sure. I think it’s the real answers, but I don’t know. I’d have to go to a library and check. I was going to, and then I thought this is dynamite, and I thought of you. Isn’t that the first — hey, I want that! That’s mine!”

I had absent-mindedly folded the paper and put it in the envelope and was sticking it in my pocket. “Sure,” I said, “take it.” He took it. “It’s somewhat of a problem. Let me think.” I sat and thought a minute. “It looks to me,” I said, “that you’re probably right, the first thing to do is to check it. But the police are probably still tailing all of you. Have you been going to libraries the last few days?”

“No. I decided not to. I don’t know my way around in any library here, and those two women, Frazee and Tescher, have got too big an advantage. I decided to fight it instead.”

I nodded sympathetically. “Then if a cop tails you to a library now, only two days to the deadline, they’ll wonder why you started in all of a sudden, and they’ll want to know. The man I work for, Nero Wolfe, is quite a reader and he has quite a library. I noticed the titles of the books mentioned on that thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has all of them. Also it wouldn’t hurt any for you to consult him about this.”

“I’m consulting you.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t got the library with me. And if a cop tails you to his place it won’t matter. They know he’s representing Lippert, Buff and Assa about the contest, and all the contestants have been there except you.”

“That’s what I don’t like. He’s representing them and I’m fighting them.”

“Then you shouldn’t have showed it to me. I work for Mr. Wolfe, and if you think I won’t tell him about it you’ll have to take back what you said the other day about not making a fool of yourself for twenty-six years. Crap.”

He looked pleased. “See,” he said, “you remembered that.”

“I remember everything. So the choice is merely whether I tell Mr. Wolfe or you tell him, and if you do you can use his library.”

He was no wobbler. He went and opened a closet door and got out a hat and topcoat. As he was putting an arm in he said, “I don’t suppose you drink in the morning.”

“No, thanks.” I was headed for the door. “But if you want one go ahead.”

“I quit twenty-six years ago.” He motioned for me to precede him, followed, pulled the door shut, and tried it to make sure it was locked. “But,” he added, “now that I can afford little luxuries, thanks to my son-in-law, I like to have some around for other people.” As we turned the corner of the hall he finished, “Some other people.” On the way down in the elevator it occurred to me that he would want the verses to refer to, and I asked if he had them with him, and he said yes.

To make sure whether your taxi is being followed in midtown traffic takes a lot of maneuvering, which takes time, and Younger and I decided we didn’t really give a damn, so except for a few backward glances out of curiosity we skipped it. At the curb in front of the old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth I paid the driver, got out, led the way up the steps to the stoop, and pushed the button. In a moment the door was opened by Fritz, who, as I was taking Younger’s coat, made sure I saw his extended forefinger, meaning that a visitor was in the office with Wolfe. Acknowledging it with a nod, I ushered Younger across the hall into the front room, told him it would be a short wait, and, instead of using the connecting door to the office, which was soundproofed, went around by way of the hall.

Wolfe was in his chair, with half a dozen books in front of him on his desk, but he wasn’t reading. He was frowning at Mrs. James R. Wheelock of Richmond, Virginia, who was in the red leather chair, frowning back at him. The frowns switched to me as I approached. I was a little slow meeting them because it took me a second to get the title of the book on top of the pile: The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple. With that, which was enough, I told Mrs. Wheelock good morning, informed Wolfe that Fritz wanted him in the kitchen for something, and walked out.

When he joined me in the kitchen the frown was gone and there was a gleam in his eye. I spoke first. “I just wanted to ask you if she has any idea who mailed her the answers.”

It got him for half a second. Then he said, “Oh. Mr. Younger got them too?”

“He did. That’s what he wanted to see me about. He’s in the front room. He wanted to find out if the answers are the real thing, and I told him he could use your library, but I see Mrs. Wheelock had the same idea.”

“No. She merely wished to tell me, and consult me. I suggested looking at the books; luckily I had all of them. I hadn’t hoped for anything as provocative as this. Very satisfactory.”

“Yeah. Worth waiting for. A slight comedown for me, to bring home a slab of bacon and find you’re already slicing one just like it, but anyhow we’ve got it. Shall I send mine back?”

“By no means.” He pursed his lips, and in a moment continued, “I’ll tell her. You tell him. Bring him in in three minutes.” He was gone.

I returned to the front room and found Younger on a chair by a window with a sheet of paper in each hand, one presumably being the verses. “You’re not the only one,” I told him. “Mrs. Wheelock got it too, and came to show it to Mr. Wolfe. She’s in there with him now. He has the books, and they’ve checked the answers, and it’s not a gag.”

He squinted at me. “She got — just like this?”

“I haven’t seen it, but of course it is.”

“And they’ve checked it?”

“Right.”

He stood up. “I want to see hers. Where is she?”

“You will.” I looked at my wrist. “In one minute and twenty seconds.”

“I’ll be damned. Then it’s not a frame. That was one thing I thought, that someone was trying to frame me, but I couldn’t see how. She got it in the mail this morning?”

I told him she would no doubt be glad to supply all details, and right at the deadline crossed to open the door to the office and invited him in. He brushed on by, went straight to Mrs. Wheelock, and demanded, “Where’s the one you got?”

I went and took his elbow, called his attention to Wolfe, steered him to a chair, and told Wolfe, “Mr. Younger wants details. Is hers like his and when did she get it and so on.”

Wolfe lifted a sheet of paper from his desk blotter. Younger popped up from his chair and went to him. I joined them, and so did Mrs. Wheelock. It didn’t take much comparing to see that hers was a carbon copy of his. The envelopes, including the postmarks, were the same except for the names. When Younger had satisfied himself on those points he picked up one of the books, Casanova’s Memoirs, and opened it. Mrs. Wheelock told him that wasn’t necessary, they were the right answers, no question about it. She didn’t look as if she had changed her attitude to the food at the Churchill, but the fire back of her dark deep-set eyes was shining through in her excitement. Younger went ahead anyway, finding a page in the book, and we were still grouped at Wolfe’s desk when the phone rang.

I went to my desk to answer it, and got from the receiver the same old refrain. “I want to speak to Mr. Wolfe. This is Talbott Heery.”

But the lid was off, maybe. I told Wolfe, and he took his instrument, and I kept mine.

“This is Nero Wolfe. Yes, Mr. Heery?”

“I’m calling from my office. Harold Rollins, one of the contestants, is here. He just came, a few minutes ago, to show me something he received in the mail this morning. I have it here in my hand. It’s a typewritten sheet of paper, headed, ‘Answers to the five verses distributed on April twelfth,’ and then the names of five women and comments on each. Of course I don’t know whether they are the correct answers or not, but Rollins says they are. He says he came to me because this nullifies the contest, and my company is responsible. I’ll consult my lawyer on that — not Rudolph Hansen — but I’m calling you first. What have you got to say?”

“Not much offhand. Mr. Rollins is with you?”

“He’s in my office. I came to another room to phone. By God, this does it. Now what?”

“That needs a little thought. You may tell Mr. Rollins that he was not singled out. Mrs. Wheelock and Mr. Younger also received sheets in the mail like the one you describe. They are here on my desk — that is, the sheets are. Mrs. Wheelock and Mr. Younger are here with me. Probably all five—”

“We’ve got to do something! We’ve got—”

“Please, Mr. Heery.” For years I have studied Wolfe’s trick of stopping a man without raising his voice, but I still don’t get it. “Something must indeed be done, I agree, but this doesn’t heighten the urgency. Rather the contrary. I can’t discuss it now, and anyway I’m not working for you, but I think this will require a conference of everyone concerned. Please tell Mr. Rollins that he will be expected at a meeting at my office at nine o’clock this evening. I’ll invite the others, and I invite you now. At my office at nine o’clock, unless you hear otherwise.”

“But what are we going—”

“No, Mr. Heery. You must excuse me. I’m busy. Goodbye, sir.”

We hung up, and he turned to the company. “Mr. Rollins got one too and took it to Mr. Heery. It may reasonably be presumed that the other two — Miss Frazee and Miss Tescher — were not excluded. You heard what I said about a meeting here at nine o’clock this evening, and we shall want you with us. You’ll come?”

“We’re here now,” Younger said. “This blows the whole thing sky high and you know it. Why put it off? Get them here now!”

“I don’t want to wait until this evening,” Mrs. Wheelock said, her voice so tense that I inspected her for signs of trembling, but saw none.

“You’ll have to, madam.” Wolfe was blunt. “I have to digest this strange finesse, and consult my clients.” He looked up at the clock. “Only nine hours.”

“You never answered my question,” she complained. “Must I show this to the police and let them take it?” Her sheet was in her hand, and Younger had his.

“As you please — or rather, as you will. If you don’t, when they learn that you got it, as of course they will, they’ll be ruffled, but they are already. Suit yourself.”

I was up and halfway to the door, to escort them out, but they weren’t coming. They wanted to know what was what, then and there. Younger was so stubborn that I finally had to take his arm and put a little pressure on, and by the time I got him to the front, with his hat and coat on, and over the threshold to the stoop, he was in no humor to offer me a drink. They left together, and I hoped Younger would give Mrs. Wheelock a lift back to the hotel. She didn’t have the physique or the vigor for a midtown bus.

I returned to the office and told Wolfe, “I know you like to do your own digesting, but one thing occurs to me. As far as the contest is concerned, it no longer matters who lifted the wallet. They’ve all got the answers now and there’ll have to be a new deal, so what’s left of our job?”

He grunted. “We still have it. You know what I was hired to do.”

“Yes, sir. I ought to. But what if the client has lost interest in what you were hired to do?”

“We’ll handle that contingency when we face it. For the immediate present there is enough to occupy us. I told you that with such tension something was sure to snap, though I must confess that I hadn’t listed this among the possibilities. You will phone the others, all of them, and notify them of the meeting this evening, but from the kitchen or your room. I have to work. I haven’t the slightest idea what course to take at the meeting, and I must contrive one. Now that this has happened we must move quickly, or you will be quite right — there will be no job left. I may need — confound it!”

The phone was ringing. I had it off the cradle automatically before remembering that my base of operations had been moved. An urgent male voice gave me not a request but an order, and I covered the transmitter and turned to Wolfe. “Buff. Exploding. You and only you.”

He reached for his receiver. I stayed with mine.