Door to Death

VIII

Before we got to the Pitcairn greenhouse Wolfe fell down twice, I fell four times, and Saul once. My better score, a clear majority, was because I was in the lead.

Naturally we couldn’t show a light, and while the snow was a help in one way, in another it made it harder, since enough of it had fallen to cover the ground and therefore you couldn’t see ups and downs. For walking in the dark without making much noise levelness is a big advantage, and there was none of it around there at all, at least not on the route we took.

It had to be all by guess. We left the road and took to the jungle a good three hundred yards short of the entrance, to give the guy in bad humor a wide miss. Almost right away we were mountain climbing, and I slipped on a stone someone had waxed and went down, grabbing for a tree and missing.

“Look out, a stone,” I whispered.

“Shut up,” Wolfe hissed.

Just when I had got used to the slope up, the terrain suddenly went haywire and began to wiggle, bobbing up and down. After a stretch of that it went level, but just as it did so the big trees quit and I was stopped by a thicket which I might possibly have pushed through but Wolfe never could, so I had to detour. The thicket forced me around to the rim of a steep decline, though I didn’t know it until my feet told me three times. It was at the foot of that decline that we struck the brook. I realized what the dark streak was only when I was on its sloping edge, sliding in, and I leaped like a tiger, barely reaching the far bank and going to my knees as I landed, which I didn’t count as a fall. As I got upright I was wondering how in God’s name we would get Wolfe across, but then I saw he was already coming, wading it, trying to hold the skirt of his coat up with one hand and poking his cane ahead of him with the other.

I have admitted I’m no woodsman, and I sure proved it that dark night. I suppose I didn’t subtract enough for the curves of the driveway. I had it figured that we would emerge into the open about even with the house, on the side where the greenhouse was. But after we had negotiated a few more mountains, and a dozen more twigs had stuck me in the eye, and I had had all my tumbles, and Wolfe had rolled down a cliff to a stop at Said’s feet, and I was wishing the evergreens weren’t so damn thick so I could see the lights of the house, I suddenly realized we had hit a path, and after I had turned left on it and gone thirty steps its course seemed familiar. When we reached the edge of the evergreens and saw the house lights there was no question about it: it was the path we knew.

From there on the going was easy and, since the snow was coming thicker, no belly crawling seemed called for as we neared the house. When we reached the spot where the path branched to the left, toward the south of the house, I turned and asked Wolfe, “Okay?”

“Shut up and go on,” he growled.

I did so. We reached the greenhouse at its outer end. I took the key from my pocket and inserted it, and it worked like an angel. I carefully pushed the door open, and we entered, and I got the door shut with no noise. So far so good. We were in the workroom. But was it dark!

According to plan, we took off our snow-covered coats and dropped them on the floor, and our hats. I didn’t know until later that Wolfe hung onto his cane, probably to use on people who screamed or dashed for a phone. I led the way again, with Wolfe against my back and Saul against his, through into the cool room, but it wasn’t cool, it was hot. It was ticklish going down the alley between the benches, and I learned something new: that with all lights out in a glass house on a snowy night the glass is absolutely black.

We made it without displacing any horticulture, and on through the warm room, which was even hotter, into the medium room. When I judged that we were about in the middle of it I went even slower, stopping every couple of feet to feel at the bottom of the bench on my left. Soon I felt the beginning of the canvas, and got hold of Wolfe’s hand and guided him to it. He followed me on a little, and then together we pulled the canvas up and Saul crawled under and stretched out where the body of Dini Lauer had been. Unable to see him, I felt him to make sure he was under before I let the canvas fall. Then Wolfe and I moved on to the open space beyond the end of the benches.

By now it was sure enough that there was no one in the dark greenhouse, and whispers would have been perfectly safe, but there was nothing to say. I took my gun from the holster and dropped it in my side pocket, and moved to the door that opened into the living room, with Wolfe beside me. It was a well-fitted door, but there was a tiny thread of light along the bottom. Now our meanest question would be answered: was the door locked on the inside? I heard the sound of voices beyond the thick door, and that helped. With a firm grasp on the knob, I turned it at about the speed of the minute hand on a clock, and when it came to a stop I pushed slow and easy. It wasn’t locked.

“Here we go,” I muttered to Wolfe, and flung the door open and stepped in.

The first swift glance showed me we were lucky. All three of them were there in the living room — Joseph G., daughter, and son — and that was a real break. Another break was the way their reflexes took the sight of the gun in my hand. One or more might easily have let out a yell, but no, all three were stunned into silence. Sybil was propped against cushions on a divan with a highball glass in her hand. Donald was on a nearby chair, also with a drink. Papa was on his feet, and he was the only one who had moved, whirling to face us as he heard the door open.

“Everybody hold it,” I told them quick, “and no one gets hurt.”

The noise from Joseph G. sounded like the beginning of an outraged giggle. Sybil put hers in words.

“Don’t you dare shoot! You wouldn’t dare shoot!”

Wolfe was moving past me, approaching them, but I extended my left arm to stop him. Shooting was the last thing I wanted, by me or anyone else, since a yell might or might not have been heard by the law out at the entrance but a shot almost certainly would. I stepped across to Joseph G., poked the gun against him, rubbed his pockets, and went to Donald and repeated. I would just as soon have given Sybil’s blue dinner dress a rub, but it would have been hard to justify it.

“Okay,” I told Wolfe.

“This is a criminal act,” Pitcairn stated. The words were virile enough, but his voice squeaked.

Wolfe, who had approached him, shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said conversationally. “We had a key. I admit that Mr. Goodwin’s flourishing a gun complicates matters, but anyway, all I want is a talk with you people. I asked for it this afternoon and was refused. Now I intend to have it.”

“You won’t get it.” Pitcairn’s eyes went to his son. “Donald, go to the front door and call the officer.”

“I’m still flourishing the gun,” I said, doing so. “I can use it either to slap with or shoot with, and if I didn’t intend to when necessary I wouldn’t have it.”

“More corn,” Sybil said scornfully. She hadn’t moved from her comfortable position against the cushions. “Do you actually expect us to sit here and converse with you at the point of a gun?”

“No,” Wolfe told her. “The gun is childish, of course. That was merely a formality. I expect you to converse with me for reasons which it will take a few minutes to explain. May I sit down?”

Father, daughter, and son said “No” simultaneously.

Wolfe went to a wide upholstered number and sat. “I must overrule you,” he said, “because this is an emergency. I had to wade your confounded brook.” He bent over and unlaced a shoe and pulled it off, did likewise with the other one, took off his socks, pulled his wet trousers up nearly to his knees, and then leaned to the right to get hold of the corner of a small rug.

“I’m afraid I’ve dripped a little,” he apologized, wrapping the rug around his feet and calves.

“Wonderful,” Sybil said appreciatively. “You think we won’t drive you out into the snow barefooted.”

“Then he’s wrong,” Pitcairn said furiously. His squeak was all gone.

“I’ll get him a drink,” Donald offered, moving.

“No,” I said firmly, also moving. “You’ll stay right here.” I still had the formality in my right hand.

“I think, Archie,” Wolfe told me, “you can put that thing in your pocket. We’ll soon know whether we stay or go.” He glanced around at them, ending with Joseph G. “Here are your alternatives. Either we remain here until we are ready to leave, and are allowed a free hand for our inquiry into the murder of Miss Lauer on these premises, or I go, return to my office in New York—”

“No, you don’t,” Pitcairn contradicted. He remained standing even after his guest was seated. “You go to jail.”

Wolfe nodded. “If you insist, certainly. But that will merely postpone my return to my office until I get bail, which won’t take long. Once there, I act. I announce that I am convinced of Mr. Krasicki’s innocence and that I intend to get him freed by finding and exposing the culprit. There are at least three papers that will consider that newsworthy and will want to help. All the inmates of this house will become legitimate objects of inquiry and public report. Anything in their past that could conceivably have a bearing on their guilt or innocence will be of interest and printable.”

“Aha,” Sybil said disdainfully, still reclining.

“The devil of it,” Wolfe went on, ignoring her, “is that everyone has a past. Take this case. Take the question of Mr. Hefferan’s purchase of a home and acres surrounding it, only a few miles from here. I’m sure you remember the name — Hefferan. Where did he get the money? Where did a certain member of his family go to, and why? The newspapers will want all the facts they can get, all the more since their employees are not permitted to enter these grounds. I shall be glad to cooperate, and I have had some experience at investigation.”

Joseph G. had advanced a step and then stiffened. Sybil had left the cushions to sit up straight.

“Such facts,” Wolfe went on, “would of course never properly get to a jury trying a man for the murder of Miss Lauer, but they would be of valid concern to the unofficial explorers of probabilities, and the public would like to know about them. They would like to know whether Miss Florence Hefferan still feels any discomfort from the severe choking she got, and whether the marks have entirely disappeared from her throat. They would want to see pictures of her in newspapers, the more the better. They would—”

“You filthy fat louse!” Sybil cried.

Wolfe shook his head at her. “Not I, Miss Pitcairn. This is the inexorable miasma of murder.”

“By God,” Pitcairn said harshly. He was shaking with fury and trying not to. “I wish I had shot you there today. I wish I had.”

“But you didn’t,” Wolfe said curtly, “and here I am. You will have no secrets left, none of you. If Miss Hefferan has run through the money you paid her and needs more, there will be generous bidders for the story of her life in installments. You see the possibilities. There will even be interest in such details as your daughter’s incorrigible talent for picking quarrels, and your son’s nomadic collegiate career. Did he leave Yale and Williams and Cornell because the curriculum didn’t suit him, or because—”

Without the slightest warning Donald abruptly changed moods. After bouncing up to offer to get Wolfe a drink he had returned to his chair and seemed to be put, but now he came out of it fast and made for Wolfe. I had to step some to head him off. He came against me, recoiled, and started a right for the neighborhood of my jaw. The quicker it was settled the better, so instead of trying anything fancy I knocked his fist down with my left, and with my right slammed the gun fiat against his kidney good and hard. He wobbled, then bent, and doubled up to sit on the floor. I disregarded him to face the others, not at all sure of their limitations.

“Stop!” a voice came from somewhere. “Stop it!”

Their eyes left the casualty to turn to the voice. A woman had come from behind some drapes at the side of a wide arch at the far end of the room, and was approaching with slow careful steps. Sybil let out a cry and rushed to her. Joseph G. went too. They got to the newcomer and each took an arm, both talking at once, one scolding and the other remonstrating. They wanted to know how she got downstairs. They wanted to turn her around, but nothing doing. She kept coming, them with her, until she was only a step away from her son, who was still sitting on the floor. She looked down at him and then turned to me.

“How much did you hurt him?”

“Not much,” I told her. “He’ll be a little sore for a day or two.”

Donald lifted his face to speak. “I’m all right, Mom. But did you hear what—”

“Yes, I heard everything.”

“You come back upstairs,” Joseph G. commanded her.

She paid no attention to him. She was no great treat to look at — short and fairly plump, with a plain round face, standing with her shoulders pulled back, probably on account of her injured back — but there was something to her, especially to her voice, which seemed to come from deeper than her throat.

“I’ve been standing too long,” she said.

Sybil started to guide her to the divan, but she said no, she preferred a chair, and let herself be helped to one and to sit, after it had been moved so that she would be facing Wolfe.

Donald, who had managed to get himself back on his feet, went and patted her on the shoulder and told her, I’m all right, Mom.”

She paid no attention to him either. She was gazing straight at Wolfe.

“You’re Nero Wolfe,” she told him.

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “And you’re Mrs. Pitcairn?”

“Yes. Of course I’ve heard of you, Mr. Wolfe, since you are extremely famous. Under different circumstances I would be quite excited about meeting you. I was behind those curtains, listening, and heard all that you said. I quite agree with you, though certainly you know a great deal more about murder investigations than I do. I can see what we have ahead of us, all of us, if a ruthless and thorough inquiry is started, and naturally I’d like to prevent it if I possibly can. I have money of my own, aside from my husband’s fortune, and I think we should have someone to protect us from the sort of thing you described, and certainly no one is better qualified than you. I would like to pay you fifty thousand dollars to do that for us. Half would be paid—”

“Belle, I warn you—” Joseph G. blurted, and stopped.

“Well?” she asked him calmly, and when she had waited for him a moment and he was silent, she went on to Wolfe.

“Certainly it would be foolish to pretend that it wouldn’t be well worth it to us. As you say, everyone has a past, and it is our misfortune that this terrible crime in our house has made us, again as you say, legitimate objects of inquiry. Half of the fifty thousand will be paid immediately, and the other half when — well, that can be agreed upon.”

This, I thought, is more like it. We now have our pick of going to jail or taking fifty grand.

Wolfe was frowning at her. “But,” he objected, “I thought you said that you heard all I said.”

“I did.”

“Then you missed the point. The only reason I’m here is that I’m convinced that Mr. Krasicki did not kill Miss Lauer, and how the devil can I protect him and you people too? No; I’m sorry, madam; it’s true that I came here to blackmail you, but not for money. I’ve stated my price: permission to remain here, with Mr. Goodwin, and so make my inquiry privately instead of returning to my office and starting the hullabaloo you heard me describe. For as brief a period as possible; I don’t want to stay away from home longer than I have to. I shall expect nothing unreasonable of any of you, but I can’t very well inquire unless I am to get answers — as I say, within reason.”

“A dirty incorruptible blackmailer,” Sybil said bitterly.

“You said a brief period,” Donald told Wolfe. “Until tomorrow noon.”

“No.” Wolfe was firm. “I can’t set an hour. But I don’t want to prolong it any more than you do.”

“If necessary,” Mrs. Pitcairn persisted, “I think I could make it more than I said. Much more. I can say definitely that it will be double that.” She was as stubborn as a woman, and she sure was willing to dig into her capital.

“No, madam. I told Mr. Goodwin this evening that my mind was dominated by a single purpose, and it is. I did not go home to dinner. I fought my way through a snowstorm, at night, over strange and difficult terrain. I entered by force, supported by Mr. Goodwin’s gun. Now I’m going to stay until I’m through, or — you know the alternative.”

Mrs. Pitcairn looked at her husband and son and daughter. “I tried,” she said quietly.

Joseph G. sat down for the first time and fastened his eyes on Wolfe’s face.

“Inquire,” he said harshly.

“Good.” Wolfe heaved a deep sigh. “Please get Mr. and Mrs. Imbrie. I’ll need all of you.”