Home to Roost

V

New York can have pleasant summer evenings when it wants to, and that was one of them — warm but not hot and not muggy. I paid the taxi driver when he rolled to the curb at the address on Fifty-first Street east of Lexington, got out, and took a look. In bright sunshine the old gray brick building would probably show signs of wear and tear, but now in twilight it wasn’t too bad. Entering the vestibule, I scanned the tier of names on the wall panel. The one next to the top said DEVLIN — BERK. I pushed the button, shoved the door open when the click came, went in, glanced around for an elevator and saw none, and started to climb stairs. Three flights up a door stood open, and there waiting was Delia Devlin.

I told her hello, friendly but not profuse. She nodded, not so friendly, hugged the wall to let me pass, shut the door, and went by me to lead the way through an arch into a living room. I sent my eyes around with an expression of comradely interest. The chairs and couch were attractive and cool in summer slips. There were shelves of books. The windows were on the street, and there were three doors besides the arch, two of them standing open and one not quite closed.

She sat and invited me to. “I can’t imagine,” she said in a louder voice than seemed necessary, in spite of the street noises from the open windows, “what you want to ask me that’s so mysterious.”

Sitting, I regarded her. Only one corner lamp was on, and in the dim light she wasn’t at all bad looking. With smaller ears she would have been a worthy specimen, with no glare on her.

“It’s not mysterious,” I protested. “As I said on the phone, it’s private and confidential, that’s all. Mr. Wolfe felt it would be an imposition to ask you to come to his office again, so he sent me. Miss Berk is out, is she?”

“Yes, she went to a show with a friend. Guys and Dolls.”

“Fine. It’s a good show. This really is confidential, Miss Devlin. So we’re alone?”

“Certainly we are. What is it, anyhow?”

There were three things wrong. First, I had a hunch, and my batting average on hunches is high. Second, she was talking too loud. Third, her telling me where Carol Berk was, even naming the show, was off key.

“The reason it’s so confidential,” I said, “is simply that you ought to decide for yourself what you want to do. I doubt if you realize what lengths other people may go to help you decide. You say we’re alone, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit—”

I sprang up, marched across to the door that wasn’t quite closed, thinking it the most likely, and jerked it open. Behind me a little smothered shriek came from Delia Devlin. In front of me, backed up against closet shelves piled with cartons and miscellany, was Carol Berk. One look at her satisfied me on one point — what her eyes were like when something happened that really aroused her.

I stepped back. Delia Devlin was at my elbow, jabbering. I gripped her arm hard enough to hurt a little and addressed Carol Berk as she emerged from the closet. “My God, do I look like that big a sap? Maybe your sidewise glance isn’t as keen as you think—”

Delia was yapping at me. “You get out! Get out!”

Carol stopped her. “Let him stay, Delia.” She was calm and contemptuous. “He’s only a crummy little stooge, trying to slip one over for his boss. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

She moved. Delia, protesting, caught her arm, but she pulled loose and left through one of the open doors. There were sounds in the adjoining room, then she appeared again with a thing on her head and a jacket and handbag, and passed through to the foyer. The outer door opened and then closed. I crossed to a window and stuck my head out and in a minute saw her emerge to the sidewalk and turn west.

I went back to my chair and sat. The open closet door was unsightly, and I got up and closed it and then sat again. “Just forget it,” I said cheerfully. “The closet was a bum idea anyhow; she would have stifled in there. Sit down and relax while I try and slip one over for my boss.”

She stood. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

“Then you shouldn’t have let me in. Certainly you shouldn’t have stuck Miss Berk in that closet. Let’s get it over with. I merely want to find out whether you have any use for ten thousand dollars.”

She gawked. “Whether I what?”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

She went to a chair and sat, and I shifted position to be more comfortable facing her. “First I want to tell you a couple of things about murder investigations. In—”

“I’ve heard all I want to about murder.”

“I know you have, but that’s one of the things. When you get involved in one it’s not a question of what or how much you want to hear. That’s the one question nobody asks you. Until and unless the Rackell case is solved, with the answers all in, you’ll be hearing about it the rest of your life. Face it, Miss Devlin.”

She didn’t say anything. She clasped her hands.

“The other thing about murder investigations. Someone gets murdered, and the cops go to work on it. Everybody that might possibly have a piece of useful information gets questioned. Say they question fifty different people. How many of the fifty answer every question truthfully? Maybe ten, maybe only four or five. Ask any experienced homicide man. They know it and they expect it, and that’s why, when they think it’s worth it, they go over the same questions with the same person again and again, after the truth. They often get it that way and they nearly always do with people who have cooked up a story, something they did or saw, with details. Of course you’re not one of those. You haven’t cooked up a detailed story. You have only answered a simple question ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes.’ They can’t catch you—”

“What question? What do you mean?”

“I’m coming to it. I want—”

“Do you mean I lied? About what?”

I shook my head, not to call her a liar. “Wait till I get to it. You would of course show shocked surprise if I made the flat statement that Fifi Goheen murdered Arthur Rackell by changing his capsules at the restaurant that evening and that you saw her do it. Naturally you would, since the police have asked you if you saw anyone perform that action or any part of it, and you have answered no. Wouldn’t you?”

She was frowning, concentrated. Her hands were still clasped. “But you — you haven’t made any such statement.”

“Right. I’d rather put it another way. Nero Wolfe has his own way of investigating and his own way of reaching conclusions. He has concluded that if he sends me to see you, to ask you to tell the police that you saw Fifi Goheen substituting the capsules, it will serve the interest of truth and justice. So he sent me, and I’m asking you. It will be embarrassing for you, but not so bad. As I explained, it won’t be the first time they’ve had somebody suddenly remembering something. You can say you and Miss Goheen have been friends and you hated to come out with it, but now you see you have to. You can even say I came here and persuaded you to speak, if you want to, but you certainly shouldn’t mention the ten thousand dollars. That—”

“What ten thousand dollars?”

“I’m telling you. Mr. Wolfe has also concluded that it would not be reasonable to expect you to undergo such embarrassment without some consideration. He has made a suggestion to Mr. and Mrs. Rackell, and they have agreed to provide a certain sum of money. Ten thousand of it will come to you, in appreciation of your cooperation in the cause of justice. It will be given you in cash, in currency, within forty-eight hours after you have done your part — and we’ll have to discuss that, exactly what you’ll tell the police. Speaking for Nero Wolfe, I guarantee the payment within forty-eight hours, or, if you want to, come down to his office with me now and he’ll guarantee it himself. Don’t ask me what it was that made him conclude that Fifi Goheen did it and that you saw her, because I don’t know. Anyhow, if he’s right, and he usually is, she’ll only be getting what she deserves. You know that’s true.”

I stopped. She sat motionless, staring at me. There wasn’t much light, and I couldn’t tell anything from her eyes, but they looked absolutely blank. As the seconds grew to a minute and on I began to think I had literally stupefied her, and I gave her a nudge.

“Have I made it plain?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, “you’ve made it plain.”

Suddenly a shudder ran over her whole body, her head dropped forward, and her hands lifted to cover her face, her elbows on her knees. The shudder quit, and she froze like that. She held it so long that I decided another nudge was required, but before I got it out she straightened up and demanded, “What made you think I would do such a thing?”

“I don’t think. Mr. Wolfe does the thinking. I’m just a crummy little stooge.”

“You’d better go. Please go!”

I stood up and I hesitated. My feeling was that I had run through it smooth as silk, as instructed, but at that point I wasn’t sure. Should I make a play of trying to crowd her into a yes or no, or leave it hanging? I couldn’t stand there forever, debating it with her staring at me, so I told her, “I do think it’s a good offer. The number’s in the phone book.”

She had nothing to tell my back as I walked to the foyer. I let myself out, descended the three flights, walked to Lexington, found a phone booth in a drugstore, and dialed the number I knew best. In a moment Wolfe’s voice was in my ear.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m in a booth. I just left her.”

“In what mind?”

“I’m not sure. She had Carol Berk hid in a closet. After that had been attended to and we were alone I followed the script, and she was impressed. I’m so good at explaining things that she didn’t have to ask questions. The light wasn’t very good, but as far as I could tell the prospect of collecting ten grand wasn’t absolutely repulsive to her, and neither was the idea of flipping Miss Goheen into the soup. She was torn. She told me to go, and I though it wise to oblige. When I left she was in a clinch with herself.”

“What is she going to do?”

“Don’t quote me. But I told her we’d have to discuss exactly what she would tell the cops, so we’ll hear from her if she decides to play. Do you want my guesses?”

“Yes.”

“Well. On her spilling it to the cops, the one thing that would spoil it, forty to one against. That isn’t how her mind will work. On her deciding to play ball with us, twenty to one against. She’s not tough enough. On her just keeping it to herself, fifteen to one against. On general principles. On her telling Miss Goheen, ten to one against. She hates her too much. On telling Carol Berk, two to one against, but I wouldn’t dig deep on that one either way. On her telling Mr. H, even money, no matter who is a Commie and who isn’t. It would show him how fine and bighearted and noble she is. She could be, at that. It has been done. Is Saul there?”

“Yes. I never spent anybody’s money, not even my own, on a slimmer chance.”

“Especially your own. And incidentally sticking my neck out. You don’t know the meaning of fear when it comes to sticking my neck out. Do we proceed?”

“What alternative is there?”

“None. Has Saul got his men there?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him to step on it and meet me at the northeast corner of Sixty-ninth and Fifth Avenue. She could be phoning Heath right now.”

“Very well. Then you’ll come home?”

I said I would, hung up, and got out of the oven. Nothing would have been more appreciated right then than a large coke-and-lime with the ice brushing my lips, but it was possible that Delia was already phoning him and he was at home to get the call, so I marched on by the fountain and out. A taxi got me to the corner of Sixty-ninth and Fifth in six minutes. My watch said 9:42.

I strolled east on Sixty-ninth and stopped across the street from the canopied entrance of the towering tenement of which Henry Jameson Heath was a tenant. It was no casing problem for me, since Saul Panzer had been there in the afternoon to make a survey and spot foxholes. That was elaborate but desirable, because it was to be a very fancy tail, using three shifts of three men each, with Saul in charge of one, Fred Durkin of the second, and Orrie Gather of the third. Fifteen skins an hour that setup would cost, which was quite a disbursement on what Wolfe had admited was a one-in-twenty chance. Seeing no one but a uniformed doorman in evidence around the canopy, I moseyed back to the corner.

A taxi pulled up and three men got out. Two of them were just men whose names I knew and with whose records I was fairly familiar, but the third was Saul Panzer, the one guy I want within hearing the day I get hung on the face of a cliff with jet eagles zooming at me. With his saggy shoulders and his face all nose, he looks one-fifth as strong and hardy, and one-tenth as smart, as he really is. I shook hands with him, not having seen him for a week or so, and nodded to the other two.

“Is there anything to say?” I asked him.

“I don’t think so. Mr. Wolfe filled me in.”

“Okay, take it. You know the Homicide boys may be on him too?”

“Sure. We’ll try not to trip on ’em.”

“You know it’s a long shot and the only bet we’ve got? So lose him quick, what do we care.”

“We’ll lose him or die.”

“That’s the spirit. That’s what puts statues of private detectives in the park. See you on the witness stand.”

I left them. My immediate and urgent objective was Madison Avenue for a coke-and-lime, but I went a block north to Seventieth Street. Sixty-ninth Street now belonged to Saul and his squad.