Might as Well Be Dead

Chapter 9

Since Patrick A. Degan was the first suspect we had laid eyes on, unless you want to count Albert Freyer or Delia Brandt, naturally I gave him some attention, and I had plenty of opportunity during the hour that the conference lasted. In appearance I wouldn’t have called him sinister — a medium-sized specimen in his early forties with a fair start on a paunch, round face, wide nose, and dark brown eyes that moved quickly and often. He greeted Selma Molloy as a friend, taking her hand in both of his, but not as one who had been bewitched by her into shooting her husband and framing her P.H. for it. I had him mostly in profile during the conference, since he was on a yellow chair facing Wolfe, with Nathaniel Parker on another one between Degan and me. After making the phone call, Mrs. Molloy had returned to the red leather chair. Saul Panzer had retired to one in the rear, over by the bookshelves.

When the situation had been explained to Degan by Mrs. Molloy and she had asked the favor, he wasted five minutes trying to get her to change her mind. When he saw that was no go, he said he would be willing to do what she wanted provided it was legally feasible, and on that point he would have to consult his lawyer. She said of course he would want to ask his lawyer about it, but her lawyer, Mr. Parker, was right there and would explain how it could be done. Not bad for a girl who wasn’t using her faculties. Degan turned his quick brown eyes on Parker, polite but not enthusiastic. Parker cleared his throat and started in. That was the first he had heard that he was Mrs. Molloy’s counsel, since he had had only a minute or two with us before Degan arrived, but he didn’t raise the point.

From there on it got highly technical, and I had a notion, rejected as unprofessional, to give Mrs. Molloy’s faculties a recess by taking her up to the plant rooms and showing her the orchids. Anyone sufficiently interested can call Parker at his office, Phoenix 5-2382, and get the details. What it boiled down to was that there were three different ways of handling it, but one would be much too slow, and which of the other two was preferable? Degan made two phone calls to his lawyer, and finally they got it settled. Parker would start the ball rolling immediately, and Degan agreed to be available for an appearance before a judge on short notice. Parker thought we might get a look at the inside of the safe-deposit box by Monday, and possibly sooner. He was just getting up to go when the phone rang and I answered it.

It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide West. He told me some news, and I asked a few questions, and when he asked me a question I decided I didn’t know the answer and asked him to hold the wire. Covering the transmitter, I turned to Wolfe.

“Stebbins. At eleven-forty-eight last night a man was hit by a car on Riverside Drive in the Nineties, and killed. The body has been identified as that of John Joseph Keems. About an hour ago the car that hit him was found parked on upper Broadway, and it’s hot. It was stolen last night from where it was parked on Ninety-second Street. The fact that it was a stolen car makes Purley think it may have been premeditated murder, possibly in connection with a case Keems was working on, and, knowing that Johnny Keems often does jobs for you, he asks if he was working for you last night. I told him you sometimes hire an operative without telling me, and I’d ask you. I’m asking you.”

“Tell him I’m engaged and you’ll call him back.”

I did so, hung up, and swiveled. Wolfe’s lips were tight, his eyes were half closed, and his temple was twitching. He met my eyes and demanded, “You knew him. How much chance is there that he would have let a car kill him by inadvertence?”

“Practically none. Not Johnny Keems.”

Wolfe’s head turned. “Saul?”

“No, sir.” Saul had got to his feet while I was reporting to Wolfe. “Of course it could happen, but I agree with Archie.”

Wolfe’s head turned more, to the left. “Mrs. Molloy, if Mr. Goodwin was correct when he said that you believe there can be no evidence that will clear Peter Hays, this bitter pill for me is not so bitter for you. Not only can there be such evidence, there will be. Johnny Keems was working for me last night, on this case, and he was murdered. That settles it. You have been told that I thought it likely that Peter Hays is innocent; now I know he is.”

His head jerked right. “Mr. Parker, the urgency is now pressing. I beg you to move with all possible speed. Well?”

I wouldn’t say that Parker moved with all possible speed, but he moved. He made for the hall and was gone.

Degan, lifted from his chair by Wolfe’s tone and manner, had a question. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Yes, sir, I do. Why? Do you challenge it?”

“No, I don’t challenge it, but you’re worked up and I wondered if you realized that you were practically promising Mrs. Molloy that Peter Hays will be cleared. What if you’re giving her false hopes? What if you can’t make good on it? I think I have the right to ask, as an old friend of hers.”

“Perhaps you have.” Wolfe nodded at him. “I concede it. It’s a stratagem, Mr. Degan, directed at myself. By committing myself to Mrs. Molloy, before witnesses, I add to other incentives that of preserving my self-conceit. If the risk of failure is grave for her it is also grave for me.”

“You didn’t have to make it so damned positive.” Degan went to Mrs. Molloy and put a hand on her shoulder. “I hope to God he’s right, Selma. It’s certainly rough on you. Anything more I can do?”

She said no and thanked him, and I went to the hall to let him out. Back in the office, Saul had moved back to a seat up front, presumably by invitation, and Wolfe was lecturing Mrs. Molloy.

“... and I’ll answer your question, but only on condition that henceforth you confide in no one. You are to tell no one anything you may learn of my surmises or plans. If I suspected Mr. Degan, as I did and do, I now have better reason to suspect other friends of yours. Do you accept the condition?”

“I’ll accept anything that will help,” she declared. “All I asked was what he was doing — the man that was killed.”

“And I want to tell you because you may be of help, but first I must be assured that you will trust no one. You will repeat nothing and reveal nothing.”

“All right. I promise.”

Regarding her, he rubbed the end of his nose with a finger tip. It was a dilemma that had confronted him many times over the years. There were very few men whose tongues he had ever been willing to rely on, and no women at all, but she might have facts he needed and he had to risk it. So he did.

“Mr. Keems left here shortly after seven o’clock last evening with specific instructions, to see the three people who were with you at the theater the evening of January third. He was to learn — What’s the matter?”

Her chin had jerked up and her lips had parted. “You might have told me that you suspect me too. I suppose you did, when you said you suspect all of my husband’s associates.”

“Nonsense. His target was not your alibi. He was to learn all the circumstances of the invitation you got to use an extra theater ticket. That was what got you away from your apartment for the evening. Whoever went there to kill your husband certainly knew you were safely out of the way; and not only that, he may have arranged for your absence. That was what Mr. Keems was after. He had the names and addresses of Mr. Irwin and Mr. and Mrs. Arkoff, and he was to report to me at once if he got any hint that the invitation to you was designed. He didn’t report, but he must have got a hint or someone thought he did; and it must have been a betraying hint, since to suppress it someone stole an automobile and killed him with it. That is not palpable, but it’s highly probable, and it’s my assumption until it’s discredited.”

“But then—” She shook her head. “I just don’t believe — Did he see them? Who did he see?”

“I don’t know. As I say, he didn’t report. We’ll find out. I want all you can tell me about that invitation. It came from Mrs. Arkoff?”

“Yes. She phoned me.”

“When?”

“At half-past seven. I told all about it on the — at the trial.”

“I know you did, but I want it first-hand. What did she say?”

“She said that she and Jerry — her husband — had asked Tom and Fanny Irwin to dinner and a show, and she and Jerry were at the restaurant, and Tom had just phoned that Fanny had a headache and couldn’t come and he would meet them in the theater lobby, and Rita — that’s Mrs. Arkoff — she asked me to come, and I said I would.”

“Did you go to the restaurant?”

“No, there wasn’t time, and I had to dress. I met them at the theater.”

“At what time?”

“Half-past eight.”

“They were there?”

“Rita and Jerry were. We waited a few minutes for Tom, and then Rita and I went on in and Jerry waited in the lobby for Tom. Rita told him to leave the ticket at the box office, but he said no, he had told him they’d meet him in the lobby. Rita and I went on in because we didn’t want to miss the curtain. It was Julie Harris in The Lark.”

“How soon did the men join you?”

“It was quite a while. Almost the end of the first act.”

“When does the first act end?”

“I don’t know. It’s rather long.”

Wolfe’s head moved. “You’ve seen that play, Archie?”

“Yes, sir. I would say a quarter to ten, maybe twenty to.”

“Have you seen it, Saul?”

“Yes, sir. Twenty to ten.”

“You know that?”

“Yes, sir. Just my habit of noticing things.”

“Don’t disparage it. The more you put in a brain, the more it will hold — if you have one. How long would it take to get from One-seventy-one East Fifty-second Street to that theater?”

“After nine o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“With luck, if you were in a hurry, eight minutes. That would be a minimum. From that up to fifteen.”

Wolfe turned. “Mrs. Molloy, I wonder that you haven’t considered the possible significance of this. The anonymous call to the police, saying that a shot had been heard, was at nine-eighteen. The police arrived at nine-twenty-three. Even if he waited to see them arrive, and he probably didn’t, he could have reached the theater before the first act ended. Didn’t that occur to you?”

She was squinting at him. “If I understand you — you mean didn’t it occur to me that Jerry or Tom might have killed Mike?”

“Obviously. Didn’t it?”

“No!” She made it a little louder than it had to be, and I hoped Wolfe understood that she was raising her voice not at him, but at herself. It hadn’t occurred to her because the minute she had learned, on getting home that January night, that her husband had been found with a bullet in his head, and that P.H., with a gun in his pocket, had tried to force his way out, she thought she knew what had happened, and it had settled in her like a lump of lead. But she wasn’t going to tell Wolfe that. She told him instead, “There was no reason for Jerry to kill him. Or Tom. Why? And they had been in the bar across the street. Tom came not long after Rita and I went in, and said he needed a drink, and they went and had one.”

“Which one of them told you that?”

“Both of them. They told Rita and me, and we said they must have had more than one.”

Wolfe grunted. “Go back a little. Wouldn’t it have been the natural thing for Mr. Arkoff to leave the ticket at the box office instead of waiting in the lobby?”

“Not the way it was. Rita didn’t ask him to leave it at the box office, she told him to, and he doesn’t like to have her tell him to do things. So she does.” She came forward in her chair. “Listen, Mr. Wolfe,” she said earnestly. “If that man getting killed, if that means what you think it does, I don’t care what happens to anybody. I haven’t been caring what happened to me, I’ve just been feeling I might as well be dead, and I’m certainly not going to start worrying about other people, not even my best friends. But I think this is no use. Even if they lied about being in the bar, neither of them had any reason!”

“We’ll see about that,” he told her. “Someone had reason to fear Johnny Keems enough to kill him.” He glanced up at the clock. “Luncheon will be ready in seven minutes. You’ll join us? You too, Saul. Afterward you’ll stay here to be on hand if Mr. Parker needs you. And Mrs. Molloy, you’ll stay too and tell me everything you know about your friends, and you’ll invite them to join us here at six o’clock.”

“But I can’t!” she protested. “How can I? Now?”

“You said you weren’t going to worry about them. Yesterday morning Peter Hays, talking with Mr. Goodwin, used the same words you have just used. He said he might as well be dead. I intend that both of you—”

“Oh!” she cried, to me. “You saw him? What did he say?”

“I was only with him a few minutes,” I told her. “Except that he might as well be dead, not much. He can tell you himself when we finish this job.” I went to Wolfe. “I’ve got to call Purley. What do I tell him?”

He pinched his nose. He has an idea that pinching his nose makes his sense of smell keener, and a faint aroma of cheese dumplings was coming to us from the kitchen. “Tell him that Mr. Keems was working for me last evening, investigating a confidential matter, but I don’t know with whom he had been just prior to his death; and that we’ll inform him if and when we get information that might be useful. I want to speak with those people before he does.”

As I turned to dial, Fritz entered to announce lunch.