Death of a Demon

Chapter 5

I stood across the street from the Hazen house, on 37th Street between Park and Lexington, for a look. It was brick, painted gray with green trim, four stories, narrower than Wolfe’s brownstone, with the entrance three steps down from the sidewalk. I noted those details just for the record, but they weren’t important. What was important was that there was a tiny sliver of light at the lower part of the right edge of one of the three windows on the third floor — a sliver that you might leave if you weren’t quite thorough enough when you arranged a drape.

I didn’t know where Hazen’s room was; that could be it. It could be a Homicide man looking things over, but it wasn’t probable; they had had ten hours. It could be the maid who slept in, but why, at 9:30 at night? Her room certainly wasn’t third floor front. Whoever it was and whatever he was doing, I decided not to interrupt him by ringing. I crossed over, descended the three steps, used the key, opened the door with care, entered, closed it with more care, and stood and listened while my eyes adjusted to the dark. For half a minute there was no sound from any direction; then there was something like a bump from up above, followed by a voice, male, very faint. Unless he was talking to himself there was more than one. Thinking there might be occasion for activity, I took off my overcoat and put it on the floor, and my hat, and then tiptoed along the hall, feeling my way, found the stairs, and started up.

Halfway up I stopped. Had there been another voice, a soprano? There had. There was. Then the baritone again. I went on up, with more care now and slower, keeping to the end of the steps next the wall. In the hall on the second floor there was a little light coming from above, enough to catch outlines. Up the second flight I went even slower, since each step might bring me within range. The voices had stopped, but there were tapping sounds. On the fourth step I could get my eyes to the level of the floor by stretching. The hall was the same as the floor below, and the light was coming from a half-open door at its front end. All I could see inside was a chair and part of a bed and drapes over a window, and the back of a woman’s head over the back of the chair, silvery hair under a black pancake hat.

I might have stayed put until the voices came again, and now I could get words, but a staircase is not a good tactical position, the light was on them, not me, and at the top I would be nearly out of range through the opening. I moved. As I put my weight on the next to last step the tapping stopped and the baritone came. “There’s no sense in this.” I made the landing and across to the wall. The soprano came. “There certainly isn’t, Mr. Khoury.” I started along the wall toward the door. Another female voice came, pitched lower. “I don’t think it’s here. It could be in Lucy’s room, that would be like him.” Then another man’s voice, a deeper one. “All right, we’ll try it,” and the door swung wide and the man was there, on the move.

I’m not proud of the next two seconds. I was alerted and he wasn’t, and I think I am fairly fast. My excuse is that I was in the middle of a careful step, putting my toe down, but anyway he was at me before I was set, and he damn near toppled me. When you’re thrown off balance by impact you only make it worse if you try to get purchase on your way down, so I let myself go, brought my knees up to my chin as I hit the floor, rolled to get my feet at his middle, and let him have it. He was plenty heavy, but it tore him loose and sent him bouncing off the wall. As I sprang to my feet another man was through the door and coming. I sidestepped and ducked, jerking my right back, and hooked him in the kidney. He doubled up and hugged himself, and I kept going to the corner, whirled, had the Marley in my hand, and showed it.

“Come right ahead,” I said, “if you want your skull cracked.”

The first man, the heavy one, was propped against the wall, panting. The smaller one was trying to straighten up. There was a woman in the doorway, the one who had been in the chair, and another one behind her.

“Also,” I said, “this thing is loaded, so don’t try reaching for a cigarette. Inside, everybody, and take it easy. I would prefer to get you in the shoulder or leg, but I’m not a very good shot.”

The heavy man said, “Who are you?”

“Billy the Kid. Come on, into the room, and no gymnastics. Go to the far side and face the wall.”

They moved. As they approached the door the women backed off, and they entered and I followed. The woman with silvery hair started to chatter at me, but I wiggled the gun and told her to go to the wall. When they were there I went over the men from behind, felt no weapons, told them to stay put, and sidestepped to the bed. There were coats and hats on it, and the women’s bags. I had the men tagged; the husky one was Ambrose Perdis, the shipping magnate, whose picture I had seen here and there, and I had heard the other one called Khoury; but I needed introductions to the women. As I opened one of the bags and dumped its contents on the bed Perdis turned around and I spoke. “Hold it. I’m giving you a break. Shall I come and slap you with the gun? Turn around.”

He turned. A leather case from the bag was stuffed with credentials — driver’s license, credit cards, others. Some of them said Anne Talbot and others Mrs. Henry Lewis Talbot. That was the young woman, whose attractions, both from the front and the rear, were so obvious that they had caught my eye even though my eyes were busy. There was a leather keyfold and I snapped it open to inspect the keys, and compared one of them with the key to the house which I had in my pocket. It didn’t match. I returned the items to the bag one by one and picked up the other bag and dumped it. The woman with silvery hair was Mrs. Victor Oliver. There was no key in her bag like the one I had, and nothing of interest. I examined the pockets of the coats, all four of them, and found no key.

As I stepped around the end of the bed I allowed myself a grin at a detail I had observed; they all had gloves on — not rubber ones secured for the occasion, just gloves. “Now that I know your names,” I said, “It’s only fair that you should know mine. Archie Goodwin. I work for a man you may have heard of, Nero Wolfe, the private detective. He has been hired by Mrs. Barry Hazen, and I have her key to the house and her written authority to enter. I need to know which one of you has a key and I’m going to find out. You may turn around, but stay where you are. You will take off your clothes and pile them on the floor, including your shoes and socks or stockings, but I think not your underwear. I’ll see.”

They were facing me at four paces. Anne Talbot said, “I won’t. It’s outrageous.” She was extremely easy to look at.

“Pooh,” I said. “Pretend you’re at the beach or a pool. Do you want me to peel you? Don’t think I wouldn’t.”

“We have no key,” Mrs. Oliver said. She was easy to look away from, with her flabby jowl and little yellow eyes set deep. “The maid let us in. She has gone out, but when she comes back you can ask her.”

“She’ll deny it,” Jules Khoury said. He was the baritone, a wiry swarthy specimen with no hips.

“Look,” I said, “you’re four to one. If you make me do it the hard way it will be rough. I’ll give you two minutes to get your clothes off.” I raised my wrist to see my watch without dropping my eyes. “Start with the gloves. I want them too.”

“Is this necessary?” Perdis demanded. “Is it so important how we got in?”

“Yes. There were no keys in Hazen’s pockets. Twenty seconds gone.”

I am enough of a gentleman to turn my back or at least avert my eyes when a lady is undressing, but one of those ladies might possibly have had a gun on her leg, so I forgot my manners. It took the men twice as long as the women. I decided to let Anne Talbot keep her bra and panties; she would have had no reason to bury the key as deep as that. Mrs. Oliver’s girdle was so tight she couldn’t have slipped a key inside even if she had tried. Khoury had jockeys, no undershirt. Perdis had a baby blue silk altogether, to the knees. I had them turn around, and then used a foot to rake Perdis’ pile across the rug, out of range of a kick.

It took longer than it should on account of the gun in my hand, and of course I not only looked for the key but for any other item that might be helpful. No soap. Khoury had a keyfold and Perdis a key ring, but no soap. It wasn’t much of a letdown because I had expected it when they all shed and turned their backs. If one of them had had Hazen’s key he would either have tried to ditch it or produced it and tried to explain it. Now that I was certain none of them had a cannon or a bomb I could relax a little. I told them to dress, went to the stand at the head of the bed, lifted the receiver from the phone, and was dialing a number when Perdis’ voice came.

“Wait a minute! One minute!” He had a touch of accent. “I have something to say. You are calling the police?”

“No.” I cradled the receiver. “Say it fast and short.”

He was handicapped for man-to-man talk, with his shirt on but his pants in his hands. “You are not a policeman,” he said.

“No. I told you who I am.”

“He’s Archie Goodwin,” Anne Talbot said. “I’ve seen him at the Flamingo.”

“You are a private detective,” Perdis said.

“Right.”

“Then you do things for money. We will pay you fifty thousand dollars if you will leave this house and forget that you have been here. Half of it in cash tomorrow morning and the other half later. We will give you a satisfactory guarantee, perhaps something in writing.”

“How much later?”

“That’s hard to say. It is delicate. We would need to be sure of your forgetting until certain difficulties have ended.”

“That’s pretty vague. Get your clothes on and we’ll see.” I picked up the phone and dialed, and he started toward me. I showed the gun, but he kept coming, saying something, and I dropped the phone and moved to meet him, and damned if he didn’t swerve around me and dart for the phone. I had intended to tap him with the gun, not caring for bruised knuckles, but his swerve got him on the wrong side, so I took him from behind, with my left arm hooked under his chin and my hip at his rump, and levered him up and over. He landed on his hands and knees nine feet away. I said, “Cut out the horseplay and put your pants on,” and went to the phone and dialed. After nine buzzes Wolfe’s voice came. “Yes?”

“Me. Could we use fifty grand?”

A grunt. “In the box?”

“No. I haven’t got it yet. I’m in Hazen’s bedroom. There are four people with me, two men and two women, lined up against the wall. The four that came to dinner last night. They were in this room looking for something and hadn’t found it. Perdis just off—”

“One of them has Hazen’s key.”

“No. I had them strip and went through their clothes. They say the maid let them in. She’s not here; of course they greased her. Perdis just offered me fifty grand to go away and forget I was here. I’ll split it with you. He would probably double it.”

“Pfui. Are you intact?”

“Sure. I’m calling just to tell you to expect us, say in half an hour, maybe less.”

Silence. He would have to work, not tomorrow, but now — and two women. Then: “I suppose I must,” and he hung up.

Perdis had joined the others at the wall. As I cradled the phone he spoke. “We will double it. One hundred thousand dollars.”

“Skip it.” I moved to the foot of the bed. “What would I tell my wife if I had one? You heard me tell Nero Wolfe to expect us in half an hour, but you have a choice. You can leave and go your ways and try to forget you were here, and I’ll phone Inspector Cramer and report this incident, omitting nothing. Or you can come and talk it over with Nero Wolfe, and he may or may not care to bother Cramer about it. You may have two minutes to consider it.” I looked at my wrist.

“Listen, Mr. Goodwin,” Anne Talbot said. She had her clothes on, and with or without them she was highly ornamental. “We were looking for something that belongs to us. We’re not thieves. We’re respectable—”

I cut her off. “Sorry, but don’t waste it on me. I just run errands. It’s either Nero Wolfe or the police. If you pick Nero Wolfe there will be a slight delay because I have a little chore to do in this room. You will take your things and go downstairs and on out, and get two taxis. You will get into one of the taxis and wait there in front of the house, and have the other one there for me. I’ll be down soon, probably in a couple of minutes. There’s one complication: if you split and one or two of you prefer to go somewhere else, I’ll phone the police immediately. I would rather not, but I’d have to.”

Two of them, Perdis and Mrs. Oliver, started to speak, but I shut them off and moved away from the bed. Anne Talbot went to the bed and got her coat, and Khoury went and held it for her, and then got his own. Anne Talbot said to Perdis and Mrs. Oliver, “Is there any alternative?” Perdis went and got Mrs. Oliver’s coat and took it to her, and she went to the bed for her bag.

Perdis was the last one out. When he had started down the stairs I shut the door, put a chair against it, went to the chest of drawers, a big heavy piece at the left wall, and took out the bottom drawer. There was a folded blanket in it. I squatted at the opening. The board that the drawer slid on, solid, not a plywood panel, was flush and snugly fitted, no play to it. I tried to get its edge with my thumbnails; nothing doing. I got out my pocketknife, stuck the point of the blade in the crack at the center, just barely in, pried gently, and up it came. The front edge of the board was beveled. Very neat. I put my hand in, felt metal, got a finger under, and here came the box. It was steel, anything but flimsy, twelve inches by six and about two inches deep, and weighed a good four pounds, with a lock not to be opened with a nail file. I shook it and heard no movement, which didn’t prove anything. With the board down, I replaced the drawer, moved the chair away from the door and opened it, and went to the head of the stairs. No sound of voices from below. If I had gone down and joined them in the hall carrying a steel box which I must have found in Hazen’s room they would have made quite a party of it. I descended a flight, stood to listen half a minute, and went on down. They had turned on the light in the lower hall. My hat and coat were there on the floor. I put the Marley in the holster, put on the hat and coat, sopped the box under the coat, with my hand in my pocket holding it, turned out the light, and opened the door.

They had followed instructions to a T. Two taxis were there, and they were in the one in the rear, all four of them. After glancing in I told the driver to follow my taxi, went and got in and gave the driver the address, and we rolled.