Instead of Evidence

II

In the living room of an apartment on the sixth floor, on Eighty-fourth near Amsterdam Avenue, I stood and looked down at what was left of Eugene Poor. All I really recognized was the gray herringbone suit and the shirt and tie, on account of what the explosion had done to his face, and also on that account I didn’t look much, for while I may not be a softy I see no point in prolonged staring at a face that has entirely stopped being a face.

I asked Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who was sticking close by me, apparently to see that I didn’t swipe Eugene’s shoes, “You say a cigar did that to him?”

Purley nodded. “Yeah, so the wife says. He lit a cigar and it blew up.”

“Huh. I don’t believe it. Yes, I guess I do too, if she says so. They make novelties. Now, that’s a novelty.”

I looked around. The room was full of what you would expect, assorted snoops, all doing the chores, from print collectors up to inspectors, or at least one inspector, namely Cramer himself, who sat at a table near a wall reading the script I had brought him. Most of them I knew, at least by sight, but there was one complete stranger. She was in a chair in a far corner, being questioned by a homicide dick named Rowcliff. Being trained to observe details even when under a strain, I had caught at a glance some of her outstanding characteristics, such as youth, shapeliness, and shallow depressions at the temples, which happen to appeal to me.

I aimed a thumb in her direction and asked Purley, “Bystander, wife’s sister, or what?”

He shook his head. “God knows. She came to call just after we got here and we want to know what for.”

“I hope Rowcliff doesn’t abuse her. I would enjoy a murder where Rowcliff was the one that got it, and so would you.”

I strolled over to the corner and stopped against them, and the girl and the dick looked up. “Excuse me,” I told her, “when you get through here will you kindly call on Nero Wolfe at this address?” I handed her a card. The temples were even better close up. “Mr. Wolfe is going to solve this murder.”

Rowcliff snarled. He always snarled. “Get away from here and stay away.”

Actually he was helpless, because the inspector had sent for me and he knew it. I ignored him and told the temples, “If this person takes that card away from you, it’s in the phone book, Nero Wolfe,” left them and crossed over to Cramer at the table, dodging photographers and other scientists on the way.

Cramer didn’t look up, so I asked the top of his head, “Where’s Mrs. Poor?”

He growled, “Bedroom.”

“I want to see her.”

“The hell you do.” He jiggled the sheets I had brought him to even the edges. “Sit down.”

I sat down and said, “I want to see our client.”

“So you’ve got a client?”

“Sure we have, didn’t you see that receipt?”

He grunted. “Give her a chance. I am. Let her get herself together. Don’t touch that!”

I was only moving a hand to point at a box of cigars there on the table, with the lid closed. I grinned at him. “The more the merrier. I mean fingerprints. But if that’s the box the loaded one came from, you ought to satisfy my curiosity. He smoked two cigars this afternoon at the office.”

He shot me a glance, then got out his penknife and opened the lid and lifted the paper flap. It was a box of twenty-five and twenty-four of them were still there. Only one gone. I inspected at close range, sat back, and nodded. “They’re the same. They not only look it, but the bands say Alta Vista. There would be two of those bands still in the ash tray down at the office if Fritz wasn’t so neat.” I squinted again at the array in the box. “They certainly look kosher. Do you suppose they’re all loaded?”

“I don’t know. The laboratory can answer that one.” He closed the box with the tip of his knife. “Damn murders anyhow.” He tapped the papers with his finger. “This is awful pat. The wife let out a hint or two, and I’ve sent for Blaney. I hope to God it’s a wrap-up, and maybe it is. How did Poor seem this afternoon, scared, nervous, what?”

“Mostly stubborn. Mind made up.”

“What about the wife?”

“Stubborn too. She wanted him to get out from under and go on breathing. She thought they could be as happy as larks on the income from a measly quarter of a million.”

The next twenty minutes was a record — Inspector Cramer and me conversing without a single ugly remark. It lasted that long only because of various interruptions from his army. The last one, toward the end, was from Rowcliff walking up to the table to say:

“Do you want to talk to this young woman, Inspector?”

“How do I know? What about her?”

“Her name is Helen Vardis. She’s an employee of Poor’s firm, Blaney and Poor — been with them four years. At first she showed signs of hysteria and then calmed down. First she said she just happened to come here. Then she saw what that was worth and said she came to see Poor by appointment, at his request, on a confidential matter, and wants us to promise not to tell Blaney because she would lose her job.”

“What confidential matter?”

“She won’t say. That’s what I’ve been working on.”

“Work on it some more. She’s got all night.”

“Yes, sir. Goodwin gave her Nero Wolfe’s card and told her to go to see him.”

“Oh, he did. Go and work on her.” Rowcliff left and Cramer glared at me. “You did?”

I looked hurt. “Certainly. Don’t we have to do something to earn that five grand?”

“I don’t know why, since you’ve already got it. How would you like to go somewhere else? Next thing you’ll be liberating this box of cigars or maybe the corpse, and I can’t spare a squad to watch — now what?”

There was a commotion at the outer door, and it came on through the foyer into the living room in the shape of a municipal criminologist gripping the arm of a wild-eyed young man who apparently didn’t want to be gripped. They were both talking, or at least making noises. It was hard to tell whether they were being propelled by the young man pulling or the cop pushing.

Cramer boomed, “Doyle! What the hell? Who is that?”

The young man goggled around, declaiming, “I have a right— oh!”

It might have been supposed that what had stopped him was the sight of Poor’s body, especially the face, but his eyes weren’t aimed that way. They were focused toward the far corner where Rowcliff was working on the girl. She was focusing back at him, rising slowly to her feet, her lips moving without opening. They stared at each other long enough to count ten, with everyone else in the room knocking off to watch the charade.

The young man said, as if he was conveying information, “There you are.”

She said, as if she didn’t need any information from snakes or rats, “You didn’t lose any time, did you? Now you think you can have her, don’t you?”

He held the stare, showing no reaction except clamping his jaw, and their audience sat tight. In a moment he seemed to realize it was rather a public performance, and his head started to pivot, doing a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. It was a good thorough job of looking, without any waver or pause, so far as I could see, even when it hit the most sensational item, namely, the corpse. During the process his eyes lost their wild look entirely, and when he spoke his voice was cool and controlled. It was evident that his mental operations were enough in order for him to pick the most intelligent face in the bunch, since it was to me he put the question.

“Are you in charge here?”

I replied, “No. This one. Inspector Cramer.”

He strode across and looked Cramer in the eye and made a speech. “My name is Joe Groll. I work for Blaney and Poor, factory foreman. I followed that girl, Helen Vardis, when she left home tonight, because I wanted to know where she was going, and came here. The police cars and cops going in and out made me want to ask questions, and finally I got the answer that a man named Poor had been murdered, so I wanted to find out. Where is Blaney? Conroy Blaney, the partner—”

“I know,” Cramer said, looking disgusted. Naturally he was disgusted, since what he had hoped would be a wrap-up was spilling out in various directions. “We’ve sent for Blaney. Why were you following—”

“That isn’t true!”

More diversions. Helen Vardis had busted out of her corner to join the table group, close enough to Joe Groll to touch him, but they weren’t touching. Instead of resuming their staring match, they were both intent on Cramer.

Looking even more disgusted, Cramer asked her, “What isn’t true?”

“That he was following me!” Helen was mad clear to her temples and pretty as a picture. “Why should he follow me? He came here to—”

She bit it off sharp.

“Yeah,” Cramer said encouragingly. “To what?”

“I don’t know! But I do know who killed Mr. Poor! It was Martha Davis!”

“That helps. Who is Martha Davis?”

Joe Groll said, giving information again, “She means Mrs. Poor. That was her name when she worked in the factory, before she got married. She means Mrs. Poor killed her husband. That’s on account of jealousy. She’s crazy.”

A quiet but energetic voice came from a new direction. “She certainly is.”

It was Martha, who emerged from a door at the far end and approached the table. She was pale and didn’t seem any too sure of her leg action, but she made her objective all right. She spoke to the girl, with no sign of violent emotion that I could detect, not even resentment.

“Helen, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I think you will be when you have calmed down and thought things over. You have no right or reason to talk like that. You accuse me of killing my husband? Why?”

Very likely Helen would have proceeded to tell her why. She was obviously in the mood for it, and it was one of those set-ups when people blurt things that you couldn’t get out of them an hour later with a stomach pump. Any sap knows that, and Cramer was not quite a sap, so when at that moment a cop entered from the foyer escorting a stranger Cramer motioned with his hand for them to back out. But the stranger was not a backer-out. He came on straight to the table and, since the arrangement showed plainly that Cramer was it, addressed the inspector.

“I’m Conroy Blaney. Where’s Gene Poor?”

Not that he was aggressive or in any way overwhelming. His voice was a tenor squeak and it fitted his looks. I could have picked him up and set him down again without grunting; he had an undersized nose and not much chin, and he was going bald. But in spite of all those handicaps his sudden appearance had a remarkable effect. Martha Poor simply turned and left the room. The expressions on the faces of Helen Vardis and Joe Groll changed completely; they went deadpan in one second flat. I saw at once that there would be no more blurting, and so did Cramer.

As for Blaney, he looked around, saw the body of his partner on the floor, stepped toward it and gazed down at it, and squeaked, “Good heavens. Good heavens! Who did it?”