Murder in E Minor

6

I got Maria inside and shut the door. We were in an entrance hall that had a chandelier and a handsome Oriental rug. I led her to a chair and eased her down as the sobs started. “Where?” I asked. She pointed to an open door at the far end of the hall. “Stay here,” I said. “Don’t try to move.”

The doorway led into a good-sized library with a high ceiling, fireplace, dark paneling, lots of bookshelves, a grand piano, and another Oriental rug, a Kashan. The body was lying facedown on the rug in one corner near a high monk-style writing desk that had a stool behind it. I knelt and made a quick check, but Maria had been right. Milan Stevens was dead, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why: The back of his white shirt was torn and stained dark red, and a fancy long-handled letter opener, one of those made to look like a sword, lay a few feet away. The blood on the opener glistened in the light, and from the look of Stevens’s shirt, that little sword had been run in and out of him several times.

I tried to freeze the scene in my mind, but there wasn’t much to freeze. None of the furniture appeared out of place, and there was no indication of a struggle. A softcover book lay open on the monk’s desk, and I covered my hand with my handkerchief as I turned the pages. It was music, plus a lot of penciled notations that might as well have been in Urdu. For the record, the cover sheet of the music said “Symphony No. 4 in E minor, for Orchestra, by Johannes Brahms, Op. 98.”

I went back to the hall, where Maria was still sitting. She’d stopped crying and now was staring straight ahead. “He is dead, isn’t he?” she asked, blinking.

“Yes. Now listen carefully; I’m going to have to call the police, and I have to do it soon. When they come, tell them everything about the notes, about going to see Mr. Wolfe, all of it. But first, I have two things to do. Please stay right here.” She nodded, but otherwise there was no reaction or expression. Shock was settling in.

I went back to the study and, using the handkerchief again, dialed the number I know best. Wolfe answered after one ring.

“The notes must have been for real,” I said. “Stevens is dead. Stabbed in his study. I’m there now, with Maria, and I’m about to call the police. Instructions?”

I could hear him draw in air and let it out slowly. “No,” he said. “I suppose you’ll have to go to headquarters?”

“Without question,” I said. “And I’ve told Maria not to keep anything from them. I figure it’s going to be a long night. I’ll report first thing in the morning, if they let me out by then.”

“Very well,” Wolfe said with disgust. “Have you eaten?” I assured him that Rusterman’s lamb chops would carry me through the night, and I went back to Maria. She hadn’t moved and gave me another mechanical nod when I told her I was going to the lobby for a couple of minutes.

Tom was still behind the counter. “Excuse me,” I said with what I hoped was a friendly smile. “Did Mr. Stevens have any guests earlier this evening, before Miss Radovich and I got here?”

He looked up with a slightly amused expression. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“He’s asleep,” I said. “And Miss Radovich had been expecting a visitor. She wondered if anyone had come by.”

Tom was sizing me up, trying to decide whether or not I was okay, and he finally made up his mind. “Well... there was one,” he said. “His name was Milner, or something like that. He came in about eight-fifteen, but didn’t stay long — maybe five minutes.”

“His first name?” I asked.

“Didn’t leave one. I just called upstairs to Mr. Stevens and told him Mr. Milner was here, and he said to send him up.”

“Did Mr. Milner say anything to you when he left?”

“Nope. Just walked on out. All I saw was his back going through the lobby.”

“And he was the only caller?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, Tom,” I said. “You’ve leveled with me, and now I’d better tell you something. Mr. Stevens is dead — killed. The police will be here soon.”

I watched his face closely, and got the predictable openmouthed, wide-eyed look. “What? Hey, why didn’t you say that right away?” He jumped up, knocking his chair over. He looked scared. “I can’t tell them anything,” he said, swallowing hard. “It must have been that Milner guy, huh? What should I do when they come?”

“Take it easy,” I said. “They’ll want to know just what you told me. About Mr. Milner, about anything else that might have happened tonight that was unusual. Was there anything?”

He swallowed again and shook his head. “No... a real quiet night. Nothing at all.”

“Okay, Tom. One other thing: Have you ever seen Mr. Milner here before?”

He paused and screwed up his face. “I think so, maybe with Miss Radovich. But I’m not positive — I wouldn’t want to say for sure.”

I said thanks again, and left him at his post to sweat out the cops’ arrival. But they weren’t going to come until somebody called them, which I now had to do fast. When I got back upstairs, I found Maria still in the chair, zombielike. I squeezed her arm lightly and went to the study to dial Homicide South.

“My name is Goodwin,” I told the voice that answered. “I’m reporting a murder.” I gave the address and floor, but the guy wanted more details and my full name. “Just send somebody, and they can get it all firsthand,” I said, hanging up.

It would be five, maybe ten minutes before we got company. I checked on Maria again. “The police will be here soon,” I said. “Are you all right?”

Her face was colorless, and she was shaking. I got her to tell me where the sherry was, and I filled a glass. A few sips seemed to help; she inhaled deeply and attempted a smile.

I knelt on one knee next to her chair. “I’ll take a fast look around the rest of the place before they get here, if you don’t mind. But first — do you know someone named Milner?”

It was as if I’d slapped her. “Jerry. What... how do you know him? How...” She started to get up, but I had my hand on her shoulder.

“He was here earlier tonight,” I said. “That guy at the desk just told me. He also said he thought he’d seen him here before — with you.”

Maria brushed her hair back from her face. “Yes, Jerry and I... we know each other. He’s a violinist with the orchestra. But I don’t see why he would have come here tonight. He knew I would be in rehearsals until at least...” The words trailed off, and she made a face. “Oh, no, no, he could never... no...” She closed her eyes tight and kept shaking her head until I squeezed her shoulder.

“How did he and your uncle get along?”

Maria took a deep breath. “They had very different personalities. There were some arguments, but nothing that would, that...” She turned her palms up and made a gesture of helplessness.

“Were the arguments because of you, Maria?”

She nodded, and the sobs started again. I squeezed her hands and told her to stay put while I prowled.

The place wasn’t luxurious, but it had a solid, substantial feel to it. The rooms were big and well-furnished. The cost of the Oriental rugs alone had to be more than most people spend on all their furnishings in a lifetime, and the paintings included a Cezanne on the living room wall that Lily would covet.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed anywhere. A jewelry box on the dressing table in Maria’s room was stuffed with things that any self-respecting thief would have taken, and gold cufflinks lay on top of the dresser in her uncle’s bedroom.

The apartment had about eight rooms, and I was just finishing my quick tour of them when the doorbell rang. It was two plainclothes detectives and a uniformed cop. I recognized one of the dicks, a guy named Henderson I had met once or twice. He was Central Casting’s idea of what a detective should look like: tall, wavy-haired, square-jawed, and wearing a white trench coat with hardware all over it. But he was also solid, and had a good reputation in the department.

He gave a tight-lipped smile when he saw me. “I’ll be damned, they said a guy named Goodwin had phoned in, but I figured it couldn’t be you, what with Wolfe on the shelf these days.”

I smiled back. “Goes to show you can’t take anything for granted anymore. Have you talked to the hallman yet?”

“I left Mills with him and came straight up. What’s the story?”

“The dead man is Milan Stevens, the conductor of the Symphony. He’s in there,” I said. “This is his niece, Maria Radovich.”

Henderson was momentarily jolted by the news, but quickly recovered and switched on the standard we’re-here-to-help manner for Maria, who stood. “Please sit down, Miss Radovich. You can stay right here for now, but we’ll want to talk to you later, just for a short time.”

I followed Henderson into the study, where his partner and the uniformed man were bending over the body.

“Christ, this guy was big stuff, wasn’t he?” Henderson whispered to me. “This may get Cramer and the commissioner out of bed.”

“Looks like he’s been carved up pretty good,” the other detective said. “Apparently with that letter opener.”

Henderson nodded. “Ed, phone for the M.E.,” he said to the uniform. “Use a handkerchief. Okay, Goodwin, fill me in. How’d you happen to be here?”

I knew I would have to repeat the story several times before dawn, but I gave it all to him, and he made a few notes as I talked.

“And you say Wolfe has those letters to Stevens at home?” he asked when I was done.

I nodded, and Henderson looked around the library. The impact this case would have in the department and around town was just beginning to hit him, and he was measuring his moves. “Goodwin, you’d better come downtown with us later. Right now, I want to talk to her.”

Henderson led Maria into the living room while I stayed and watched the other two combing the study and taking notes. A while later the medical examiner came puffing in with his little black bag, followed by a police photographer. “At least three, maybe four wounds,” the doctor said after a quick check. “I’d say for starters that he’s been dead more than three hours.” My watch read eleven-thirty-five, which didn’t make things very rosy for Maria’s friend Jerry Milner.

The next few hours are best summarized. Maria had to look at the body once more to satisfy the police, and I went downtown, where my least-favorite member of New York’s finest, one Lieutenant George Rowcliff of Homicide, was on duty. He decided to let Inspector Cramer and the commissioner keep snoring so that he could personally handle my interrogation. Over the years, Rowcliff and I have had a relationship that ranges from distaste to outright hatred, but that night made all our previous encounters seem amiable by comparison. Rowcliff has been burned by Wolfe a few times, and he’d never pass a chance to get us into the stew pot. Around headquarters, it was said that he had two goals: to lift Wolfe’s and my licenses, and to make captain — in that order. So far he’d struck out at both, although he came pretty close to the former on the Orrie Cather episode.

“Well, well, well, Goodwin,” he said when we were alone in a dismal office. “I’ve been telling the inspector for months that we hadn’t heard the last of you and that fat egomaniac. He was sure Wolfe had retired, but I knew there was no way you guys could resist publicity forever. And now you’re really in it — up to your necks.”

“Egomaniac? Very good, Rowcliff. You’ve learned a new word. Mr. Wolfe will be so proud of you. I wasn’t aware you knew any with more than two syllables. But can you spell it?”

“Listen, you half-assed smartmouth, this time I’m going to...” Rowcliff s eyes were bulging, which always happens when he loses his temper, and he had to stop talking because if he’d kept on, the stuttering would have started, too. He took a few breaths, then started in with the questioning. It went on, with an occasional assist from a few of his lackeys, for more than two hours. Rowcliff could be very thorough when he put his mind to it. In fact, he asked some of the questions over and over, but I always answered precisely the same way.

“Let me understand this,” he said for about the fourth time. “You’re telling me that the Radovich woman came to you because Stevens had known Wolfe years ago in Europe?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Lieutenant. That’s what she told me.”

“And that you have three notes in your safe at home that threatened Stevens’s life, notes that you didn’t see fit to turn over to the police at the time?”

“That’s what I’ve said.”

“And that Miss Radovich hired you to find out who wrote those notes? What a fine job you great masterminds did on this. You realize, Goodwin, that if you’d come to us with this, Milan Stevens would be alive?”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and admired the peeling paint on the ceiling. “Lieutenant, it’s brought back memories, chatting with you tonight, but I get the feeling that you’re running out of questions. Can’t we get a stenographer in here so I can make a statement?”

“Dammit, Goodwin, I’ll decide when to call the steno!” Rowcliff screamed. “I could have you locked up as an accessory.”

He couldn’t, and we both knew it, but he needed to let off steam, and I needed a pillow and mattress. I could tell I was tired when Rowcliff started stuttering and it didn’t even matter to me. I assumed that by this time Milner had been found and was somewhere in the building, and I was surprised that Rowcliff hadn’t abandoned me to work on him.

Finally, around two-fifteen, he decided I was no longer worth the effort, and a steno came in for my statement. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way home in a patrol car with a sergeant named Foley who didn’t like Rowcliff any more than I did, and who had let me hitch a ride north with him. It was three o’clock when I fell into bed and set the alarm for four hours later.