Murder in E Minor

5

Because I function best on at least eight hours’ sleep, it was nine-thirty when I rolled out and showered, and almost ten by the time I got to the kitchen. Fritz had my copy of the Times propped up on the rack at the small table where I eat, and a steaming pot of coffee was ready, along with wheatcakes and bacon. I nodded to him and attacked the paper, but I could feel his eyes as I read and sipped the coffee. I finally looked up.

“Archie, how was last night?” he asked, kneading his hands. “Was the food all right? Did everything go well?”

“The tournedos were out of this world, your best work. Mr. Cohen praised them at least three times. He said it was the finest meal he’d had in years.”

“Archie...” Fritz’s dark eyes implored. “You know what I am asking you. Is he working again?”

I started in on the wheatcakes before answering. “It’s possible. Even probable. I have some instructions, but I’ll never be able to concentrate on them unless I can eat in peace.” Fritz reddened and quickly turned away to begin working on lunch.

In fact, I did have instructions, but they were slender. Wolfe had said last night he would take the case, but only with the proviso (his word) that Maria Radovich deliver her uncle to the house for a conversation. At that point, I had accused him of trying to dodge work by setting up an impossible requirement, but he insisted that he had to see the potential victim. “Only Mr. Stevens is likely to give us an accurate accounting of who his enemies might be, at least those within the orchestra,” Wolfe had said. “It is almost surely a nest of eccentrics, and no one knows them better than he. That his niece can’t — or won’t — be of much help has become obvious.” I was also to go through the Gazette files on Stevens and his previous orchestral jobs and find any other information the clips might contain.

It was ten-thirty when I went to the office, opened the morning mail, and tried to call Maria with the mixed news that Wolfe would take the case — if she could deliver Uncle Milos to West Thirty-fifth Street. No answer. She was probably at a dance rehearsal, and Stevens was in his office at Symphony Hall, I supposed. I then called Lon and had better luck. He was through with his meeting and said to come on over.

“I’m still sated from last night,” Lon said when I got to his office on the twentieth floor. “Please send my regards again to Fritz. Now for business: our librarian knows you’re coming down to go through some clips. You can’t take anything out of the morgue — house rules. But there’s a photocopying machine right there. And, Archie, if something big is about to happen at the Symphony, don’t forget your friends.”

Ten minutes later, I was set up in the corner of a high-ceilinged dingy room with a stack of envelopes labeled “NY Symphony,” one fat envelope per year, plus another, thinner envelope that read: “Stevens, Milan, NY Symph. Conduc, 1975-date.”

There wasn’t much in the clips that we hadn’t already learned from Maria or Lon, but I was interested in the biography of Stevens that ran just after his appointment. It called him a “Yugoslav by birth” and gave his original name. It was mostly basic material: marriage and divorce, previous positions, awards, and a brief mention that his niece would be living with him in New York. The few direct quotes were general ones where he said things like “The New York Symphony is one of the world’s great orchestras” and “I’m overwhelmed by the appointment.” I made a photocopy of the biography, along with one of a particularly negative concert review the Gazette critic had done last year calling Stevens “unimaginative in his selections of music, uninspired in his leadership, and unimpressive at the podium.”

Wolfe was at his desk reading and drinking beer when I walked in at five minutes to one. “There’s not a lot to report,” I said, replying to his questioning glance. “I’ve been to the Gazette and have some clips on Stevens.” I laid them on his blotter. “Nothing exciting, except that their biography includes his given name, which must have eluded at least a few of their nine hundred thousand readers.”

Wolfe wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of a scowl. He spread the photocopies on his desk and began reading. After two minutes, he looked up. “Has he agreed to come?”

“I haven’t gotten to Maria, or anybody else at home,” I said, turning again to the phone. “I’ll try again now.”

“Later, after lunch,” he said, hauling his bulk out of the chair and making for the dining room.

I’m sure Fritz’s potato pancakes were superb, but for the second time in two days, my taste buds were on automatic pilot. When we were back in the office with coffee, I made another call to the Stevens-Radovich apartment. There was an answer this time, but not what I wanted. The maid said Maria wasn’t expected home until late that night, so I left a message for her to call me — whenever she got in. “We can try going directly to Stevens,” I suggested. “He’s probably over at Symphony Hall right now.”

Wolfe slowly set his book down, dog-earing a page. “No, Archie, our commitment is to Miss Radovich, not Mr. Stevens. Any communication with her uncle must be done through her, or with her approval.”

I swiveled around, ready to argue, but the book was open and in front of his face again. After five minutes of thinking dark thoughts, I got up noisily and went to the hall, grabbing my coat from the rack and slamming the front door behind me. A light rain had begun, blending with my mood. I pulled up my collar and headed east, cooling off as I went. I was being unfair to Wolfe, I argued with myself. After all, he had agreed to take the case, although on one condition. And it was obviously going to be up to me to fulfill that condition. I turned north on Eighth Avenue and ducked into a diner where I sometimes stop for coffee. This time I ordered milk from the counterman, who had only one other customer, an old guy about six stools down who was hunched over a bowl of chili.

I took a few sips of the milk and went to the pay phone to look up the number of Maria’s dance troupe, which had its studio on Forty-sixth Street in the theater district. I dialed and got a female voice, along with music in the background.

“Yes, Miss Radovich is here,” the voice said, “but she’s in the middle of a rehearsal right now. They should be taking a break in a few minutes.” I left my name and gave her the pay-phone number. I was on the third glass of milk, with a slice of peach pie thrown in, when the phone rang. “Mr. Goodwin?” Her voice was still breathless, although this time it could have been from the dancing.

After I assured her it was me despite the different phone number, the questions started tumbling out.

“Hold it,” I said. “Now catch your breath and listen while I fill you in. Mr. Wolfe says yes, he’ll take your money and try to solve the problem. But you’ve got to do something for us.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Miss Radovich, you’ve got to persuade your uncle to come to Mr. Wolfe’s house for a talk.”

Several seconds passed, and when she spoke, she sounded desperate. “You know he won’t do that — I couldn’t get him to.”

“Look, Miss Radovich, when you first called, I wouldn’t have given a Canadian dime for our chances of waking up Mr. Wolfe. I’m happy to say I was wrong. Now he’s awake, but he’s also stubborn, very stubborn. He wants to see Milan Stevens in his office. Now, if you don’t think you can pull it off, I’ll be glad to come over, and we can talk to him together.”

“No!” she replied in something between a whisper and a shout. “If you came, he would be horribly angry both with you and with me. I must get back to rehearsal now, and we practice again after dinner, so I won’t be home until late, almost midnight. But then I will ask Uncle Milos. I promise you.” I repeated that I’d be happy to be there for moral support, but that only rattled her more. I gave up and said I’d wait to hear.

The rain had stopped, and I needed exercise, so I walked. By the time I got home, it was a little after four, which put Wolfe in the plant rooms and meant I probably wouldn’t see him again that day: I was taking Lily to the Rangers game after an early supper at Rusterman’s.

If I ever decide to spend the rest of my life with one woman — a less-than-even bet — that woman will be Lily Rowan. That is, if she ever decides to spend the rest of her life with one man, and you’ll have to ask her about the odds on that yourself. All of which may give you some idea about our relationship.

Lily’s late father came over from Ireland and discovered that New York could use some new sewers, so he spent a lifetime building them and getting rich and powerful in the process and determining who should be elected to what office in the city and the state and sometimes Congress. Today, Lily lives in a penthouse just off Park Avenue, and at least one of her French Impressionist paintings has curators at four museums drooling.

This is fine, but more important to me are dark blue eyes and hair just a shade darker than cornsilk and the best-looking legs between Paris and Chicago, legs that are not only great to ogle, but which also move around a dance floor better than any others I’ve ever been with. Not to mention that each of us seems to have the other measured pretty well all the time, so nobody worries about playing parts or faking emotions.

“Escamillo, my love,” Lily said over coffee after dinner, “methinks your mind is a long way from Irish colleens and hockey games. No, don’t try to deny it,” she said, reaching across to squeeze my arm. “Maybe it’s intuition or whatever those women’s magazines have taken to calling it these days, but all the way down to my toes, I have a feeling that Nero Wolfe’s back at work. Or maybe it’s because you’ve scratched your right cheek just below the ear at least four times tonight, which only happens when you’re nervous, and you’re only nervous when you’re on a case. Of course I’d kill to know all about it, but you know damn well I’m not going to ask.”

I grinned and leaned across the booth to kiss Lily’s cheek — just below the right ear. “Now I see why you do so well against me when we play poker,” I said. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I rub my chin when I pair up or that my left eye twitches when I fill a straight?” She answered with a wink.

True to her word, Lily didn’t bring up the subject of Wolfe again, and I made sure my right hand stayed away from my face. The Rangers beat Boston six-five on a short-handed goal with less than three minutes to play. We cheered as loudly as any of the seventeen thousand others in the Garden, but our enthusiasm dissolved into awkward silence as soon as we were outside.

“I’m aware,” Lily said after we’d gotten a cab, “that you’re a million miles away right now. I was planning to ask you in for a brandy, but if you want to take a rain check, that’s fine. It wouldn’t hurt me to get to bed at a decent hour for a change.”

“You know of course that your knack of saying and doing precisely the right thing at the right time makes you totally irresistible to me,” I said.

“Of course I know it. I’ve bought a table for a benefit at the Churchill two weeks from tonight, and I expect you to be my consort.”

“Consider it done,” I said as we pulled up to her building. I went as far as the lobby with her, and we kissed while the hallman tactfully kept his head buried in a paperback. “Take care, Escamillo,” she said, easing out of my grasp and planting the tip of her finger on my nose. “I want to hear all about what you and Wolfe are up to — when you’re ready to talk about it.”

Back in the cab, I gave the driver a Forty-sixth Street address. About halfway through the hockey game, I’d made up my mind to try to catch Maria at her rehearsal and take her home. On the way, I hoped, I could talk her into introducing me to Uncle Milos.

My watch said eleven-fifteen when the cabbie slid to the curb in front of a brick building on a dark stretch a half-block east of Broadway. There was a stationery store at street level, with a doorway on one side with a sign above it that said “Elmar Dance Company, 2nd Floor.” I walked up a long, creaky stairway, moving toward a light at the top and the sounds of what I assumed must be dance music. The stairs ended at a small reception area with a desk and a lumpy couch and dusty photographs of dancers hanging at cockeyed angles on the walls. A hallway led farther back, to where the music was coming from.

Just as I started in the direction of the sound, a tall blonde with lots of eye makeup and an overnight case popped out of a doorway about halfway down, obviously on her way out.

“Hi, who you lookin’ for?” she asked, showing a mouthful of teeth that deserved to be in a chewing-gum ad. When I answered, she said Maria was changing. “Why don’t you take a seat? She’s got to pass you to get out of here.”

Three more dancers, two of them lookers, sailed by chattering before Maria came out, wearing slacks and with her hair tied back in a scarf. She saw me and stopped, but before she could say anything, I was up and smiling.

“The more I thought about it, the more I felt I should take you home tonight. Come on, we can get a cab over on Broadway. And on the way, I’ll tell you why we should see your uncle together.”

Maria frowned and shook her head. “No, I’ve told you he won’t talk to you when he finds out why you’ve come. Please, I promised on the telephone that I’d ask him tonight about seeing Mr. Wolfe.”

Walking to Broadway and then on the cab ride north, I kept pressing Maria, but whatever charm Wolfe thinks I have with women wasn’t working on this one. Her one concession was to let me come into the building with her, but only as far as the lobby. I would wait there while she went up to talk to her uncle. Then, if she needed reinforcements, she’d call down for me. I wasn’t wild about the plan, because Stefanovic didn’t sound like the type to let his niece talk him into a damn thing. But I wasn’t getting a choice.

The cab squealed to a stop in front of an undistinguished brick building in the first block east of Park. I was expecting a little more class, at least a doorman, but this place looked like dozens of other fifty-year-old buildings in the area. I paid the driver, and we went into a small, dimly lit lobby. “Tom, this is Mr. Goodwin; he’s going to wait for me here,” Maria said to the hallman, a young, weak-chinned guy who looked up from behind the counter and nodded. “I’ll come down or call down for him in a few minutes.”

I hope so, I thought as she went up in the elevator. I plopped down on one of the dark red sofas and started thumbing through a magazine that was on the coffee table. No more than two minutes had passed when the phone at the front desk rang. “Mr. Goodwin, Miss Radovich wants you to go on up,” Tom said. “It’s the ninth floor, the door to your right as you get off the elevator. You can’t miss it; there’re only two apartments to the floor.”

Either Uncle Milos wasn’t home or Maria had gotten some fast results one way or the other. Ready for the worst, I tried to prepare an approach to him as the automatic elevator growled its way up to nine. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when the doors opened.

Maria was standing in the doorway of the apartment, or more correctly, leaning against one side of it. Her eyes were open wide, but she barely acknowledged me. I put an arm around her for support as her legs began to fold up. “On the floor...” she said, covering her face with her hands. “Dead, dead, dead...”