Might as Well Be Dead

Chapter 14

How much Wolfe likes to show the orchids to people depends on who it is. Gushers he can stand, and even jostlers. The only ones he can’t bear are those who pretend they can tell a P. stuartiana from a P. schilleriana but can’t. And there is an ironclad rule that except for Fritz and me, and of course Theodore, who is there all the time, no one goes to the plant rooms for any other purpose than to look at orchids.

Since he refuses to interrupt his two daily turns up there for a trip down to the office, no matter who or what, there have been some predicaments over the years. Once I chased a woman who was part gazelle clear to the top of the second flight before I caught her. The rule hasn’t been broken more than a dozen times altogether, and that afternoon was one of them. He was in no better mood at four o’clock than an hour earlier. Fred Durkin had come with a report on William Lesser. He was twenty-five years old, lived with his parents in Washington Heights, had been to Korea, was a salesman for a soft-drink distributor, and had never been in jail. No discoverable connection with the Arkoffs or Irwins. No one who had heard him announce that a man named Molloy was going to cart his girl off to South America and he intended to prevent it. No one who knew he had a gun. And more negatives. Wolfe asked Fred if he wanted to try Delia Brandt, disguised as the editor who wanted the magazine article, and Fred said no. As I said before, Fred knows what he can expect of his brains and what he can’t. He was told to go and dig some more at Lesser, and went.

Orrie Cather, who came while Fred was there, also drew a blank. The man and woman who had seen the car hit Johnny Keems were no help at all. They were sure the driver had been a man, but whether he was broad or narrow, light or dark, big or little, or with or without a clipped mustache, they couldn’t say. Wolfe phoned Patrick Degan at his office and got eight names and addresses from him, friends and associates of Molloy who might furnish some hint of where the pile had come from, and told Orrie to make the rounds.

No word from Saul Panzer.

At half-past four I went to answer the doorbell, and there was the predicament on the stoop. I didn’t know it was the predicament; I thought it was just our client, James R. Herold of Omaha, coming for a progress report; so I swung the door wide and welcomed him and took his things and ushered him to the office and moved a chair so he would be facing me. I told him on the way that Wolfe wouldn’t be available until six o’clock but I was at his service. I admit that with the light from the window on his face I should have guessed he hadn’t come merely for a report. He looked, as he hadn’t before, like a man in trouble. His thin straight mouth was now tight and drawn, and his eyes were more dead than alive. He spoke. “I’d rather see Wolfe but I guess you’ll do. I want to pay him to date, the expenses. I’d like to have an itemized account. Lieutenant Murphy has found my son, and I’ve seen him. I won’t object if you want to add a small fee to the expenses.”

At least I know a predicament when it pushes my nose in. When a man as pigheaded as Wolfe has ironclad rules he’s stuck with them. If I went upstairs to him and broke the news there wasn’t a chance. He would tell me to tell Herold that he would like to discuss the matter and would be down at six o’clock; and it was ten to one, and clear from the look on Herold’s face and the tone of his voice, that he wouldn’t wait. He would say we could mail him a bill and up and go.

So I stood up. “About the fee,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to decide that. That’s up to Mr. Wolfe. Come along and we’ll see what he says. This way.”

I used the elevator instead of the stairs because the noise it made would notify Wolfe that something drastic was happening. Pushing the button to bring it down, entering with the ex-client and pushing the button marked R for roof, my mind wasn’t on the predicament at all, it was on Murphy. If I had had him there I wouldn’t have said a word. I wouldn’t have bothered with words. As we stopped at the top and the door slid open I told Herold, “I’ll lead the way, if you don’t mind.”

It’s hard to believe anyone could go along those aisles without seeing the array of color at all, but my mind was on Murphy. I don’t know where Herold’s was. Wolfe wasn’t in the first room, the cool one, nor in the second, the medium, nor in the third, the tropical, and I went on through to the potting room. He was with Theodore at the bench, and turned to glare at us with a pot in one hand and a bunch of sphagnum in the other. With no greeting for the man who, in his ignorance, he thought was still his client, he barked at me, “Why this intrusion?”

“To report,” I said. “Mr. Herold just came, and I told him you were engaged and took him to the office, and this is what he said. Quote.” I recited Herold’s little speech verbatim, and ended, “Unquote.”

He had several choices. The rule that nobody came to the roof except to look at orchids had already been broken, by me. He could break the other one by going down to the office with us, or he could tell Herold that he would join him in the office at six o’clock, or he could throw the pot at me. He chose none of them. He turned his back on us, put the pot on the bench, tossed the sphagnum aside, got a trowelful of the charcoal and osmundine mixture from the tub, and dumped it into the pot. He reached for another pot and repeated the operation. And another. When six pots had been prepared he turned around and spoke.

“You have a record of the expenses, Archie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Invoice them, including the commitments for today, and add the fee. The fee is fifty thousand dollars.”

He turned to the bench and picked up a pot. I said, “Yes, sir,” turned to go, and told Herold, “Okay, he’s the boss.”

“He’s not my boss.” He was staring at Wolfe’s back, which is an eyeful. “You don’t mean that. That’s ridiculous!” No reaction. He took a step and raised his voice. “You haven’t earned any fee at all! Lieutenant Murphy phoned me last night, and I took a plane, and he arranged for me to see my son. Do you even know where he is? If you do, why didn’t you tell me?”

Wolfe turned and said quietly, “Yes, I know where he is. I suspect you, Mr. Herold.”

“You suspect me? Of what?”

“Of chicanery. Mr. Murphy has his own credit and glory to consider, and so couldn’t be expected to toot my horn, but I do not believe he made no mention of the part I’ve played. He’s not an utter fool. I think you came here aware that I have earned a fee and conceived a shoddy stratagem to minimize it. The fee is fifty thousand dollars.”

“I won’t pay it!”

“Yes, you will.” Wolfe made a face. “I don’t run from contention, sir, but this sort of squabble is extremely distasteful. I’ll tell you briefly how it will go. I’ll render my bill, you’ll refuse to pay it, and I’ll sue you. By the time the action goes to trial I shall be armed with evidence that I not only found your son, which is what you hired me to do, but that I also freed him from a charge of murder by proving his innocence. Actually I doubt if you’ll let it go to trial. You’ll settle.”

Herold looked around, saw a big comfortable chair, moved to it, and sat. Presumably he had had a tough day.

“That’s my chair,” Wolfe snapped. He can snap. “There are stools.”

Three sound reasons: one, he didn’t like Mr. Herold; two, he wanted to squash him; and three, if it went on he might want the chair himself. If Herold got to his feet and stayed on them he was still a contender; if he stayed in the chair he was cornered; if he took to a stool he was licked. He went to a stool and got on it. He spoke, not squabbling.

“Did you say you can prove his innocence?”

“No. Not now. But I expect to.” Wolfe propped the back of his lap against the bench. “Mr. Goodwin saw him and talked with him Wednesday morning, day before yesterday, and established that he is your son. He didn’t want you to be notified. That’s an understatement. Did you speak with him today?”

“I saw him. He wouldn’t speak to me. He denied me. His mother is coming.”

That was some improvement. Before it had been only “my wife.” Now it was “his mother.” One big unhappy family.

He went on. “I didn’t want her to, but she’s coming. I don’t know whether he’ll speak to her or not. He hasn’t just been arrested, he’s been convicted, and the District Attorney says there can’t be any question about it. What makes you think he’s innocent?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. One of my men has been killed — and I haven’t earned a fee? Pfui. You’ll know about it when the time comes.”

“I want to know about it now.”

“My dear sir.” Wolfe was scornful. “You have fired me. We are adversaries in a lawsuit, or soon will be. Mr. Goodwin will conduct you downstairs.” He turned, picked up a pot, and got a trowelful of the charcoal-osmundine mixture. That, by the way, was fake. You don’t put that mixture in a pot until you have covered the bottom with crock.

From his perch on the stool Herold had him more in profile than full-face. He watched for four pots and then spoke. “I haven’t fired you. I didn’t know what the situation was. I don’t now, and I want to.”

Wolfe asked, not turning, “You want me to go on?”

“Yes. His mother is coming.”

“Very well. Archie, take Mr. Herold to the office and tell him about it. Omit our inference from the contents of Johnny’s pockets. We can’t risk Mr. Cramer’s meddling in that for the present.”

I asked, “Give him everything else?”

“You might as well.”

Getting down off the stool, Herold tripped on his own toe and nearly fell. To give him footwork practice I took him back down by way of the stairs.

He wasn’t much impressed by my outline of the situation, but he had probably had all the impressions he had room for in one day. The guy was in shock. However, when he left we were still hired. He gave me the name of his hotel, and I said we would report any developments. At the door I told him it wouldn’t be a good idea for his wife to come to see Wolfe, because when Wolfe was deep in a case he was apt to forget his manners. I didn’t add that he was apt to forget his manners when he wasn’t deep in a case.

Alone again, I had a notion to try a few phone calls. In discussing an assignment for Orrie we had considered my tail — the party in a tan raglan and a brown snap-brim who had started to stalk me Tuesday afternoon when I left the house to go to the courtroom for a look at Peter Hays. Since there had been no sign of him since, the assumption was that somebody’s curiosity had been aroused by the newspaper ad and he had lost interest after the jury had settled Hays’s hash. We had decided it would be useless to put Orrie on it, since there was nowhere to start, but it wouldn’t do any harm for me to phone a few of the agencies I was acquainted with and chat a little. The chance was slim that one of them had been hired to put a man on me, and slimmer still that they would spill it to me, but things do sometimes slip out in a friendly conversation, and I might as well be trying it as merely sitting on my fanny. I considered it, and decided to hit Del Bascom first, and was just starting to dial when two interruptions came at once. Wolfe came down from the plant rooms and Saul Panzer arrived.

Saul’s face will never tell you a damn thing when he’s playing poker with you, or playing anything else that calls for cover, but he’s not so careful with it when he doesn’t have to be, and at sight of it as I let him in I knew he had something hot.

Wolfe knew it too, and he was on edge. As Saul was turning a chair around he demanded, “Well?”

Saul sat. “From the beginning?”

“Yes.”

“I phoned the apartment at nine-thirty-two and a woman answered and I asked to speak to Ella Reyes. She asked who I was and I said a Social Security investigator. She asked what I wanted with Ella Reyes and I said there was apparently a mix-up in names and I wanted to check. She said she wasn’t there, and she wasn’t sure when she would be, and I thanked her. So already it had a twist. A maid who sleeps in wasn’t there and it wasn’t known when she would be. I went to the apartment house and identified myself to the doorman.”

You should hear Saul identifying himself. What he meant was that after three minutes with the doorman they were on such good terms that he was allowed to take the elevator without a phone call to announce him. It’s no good trying to imitate him; I’ve tried it.

“I went up to Apartment Twelve-B, and Mrs. Irwin came to the door. I told her I had another errand in the neighborhood and dropped in to see Ella Reyes. She said she wasn’t there and still didn’t know when she would be. I pressed a little, but of course I couldn’t overdo it. I said the mix-up had to do with addresses, and maybe she could straighten it out, and asked if her Ella Reyes had another address, perhaps her family’s address, at Two-nineteen East One-hundred-and-twelfth Street. She said not that she knew of, that her Ella Reyes’ family lived on East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street. I asked if she could give me the number, and she went to another room and came back and said it was Three-oh-six East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street.”

Saul looked at me. “Do you want to note that, Archie?” I did so and he resumed. “I went down and asked the doorman if he had noticed Mrs. Irwin’s maid going out this morning, and he said no, and he hadn’t noticed her coming in either. He said Thursday was her night out and she always came in at eight o’clock Friday morning and he hadn’t seen her. He asked the elevator man, and he hadn’t seen her either. So I went to Three-oh-six East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street. It’s a dump, a coldwater walk-up. I saw Ella Reyes’ mother. I was as careful as possible, but it’s hard to be careful enough with those people. Anyway, I got it that Ella always came home Thursday nights and she hadn’t showed up. Mrs. Reyes had been wanting to go to a phone and call Mrs. Irwin, but she was afraid Ella might be doing something she wouldn’t want her employer to know about. She didn’t say that, but that’s what it was.

“I spent the rest of the day floundering around. Back at the Irwins’ address the doorman told me that Ella Reyes had left as usual at six o’clock yesterday, alone. Mrs. Reyes had given me the names of a couple of Ella’s friends, and I saw them, and they gave me more names. Nobody had seen her or heard from her. I phoned Mrs. Irwin twice during the afternoon, and I phoned headquarters once an hour to ask about accidents, of course not mentioning Ella Reyes. My last call to headquarters, at five o’clock, I was told that the body of a woman had been found behind a pile of lumber on the Harlem River bank near One-hundred-and-fortieth Street, with nothing on it to identify it. The body was on its way to the morgue. I went there, but the body hadn’t arrived yet. When it came I looked at it, and it fits Mrs. Molloy’s description of Ella Reyes — around thirty, small and neat, coffee with cream. Only the head wasn’t neat. The back of the skull was smashed. I just came from there.”

I stood up, realized that that didn’t help matters any, and sat down. Wolfe took a long deep breath through his nose, and let it out through his mouth.

“I needn’t ask,” he said, “if you communicated your surmise.”

“No, sir. Of course not. A surmise isn’t enough.”

“No. What time does the morgue close?”

That’s one way I know he’s a genius. Only a genius would dare to ask such a question after functioning as a private detective for more than twenty years right there in Manhattan, and specializing in murder. The hell of it was, he really didn’t know.

“It doesn’t close,” Saul said.

“Then we can proceed. Archie. Call Mrs. Molloy and ask her to meet you there.”

“Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “There are very few women I would ask to meet me at the morgue, and Mrs. Molloy is not one of them. Anyway, her phone may be tapped. This sonofabitch probably taps lines in between murders to pass the time. I’ll go and get her.”

“Then go.”

I went.