Murder Is No Joke

Chapter 1

I was a little disappointed in Flora Gallant when she arrived that Tuesday morning for her eleven-o’clock appointment with Nero Wolfe. Her getup was a letdown. One of my functions as Wolfe’s factotum is checking on people who phone for an appointment with him, and when I learned that Flora Gallant was one of the staff of her brother Alec’s establishment on East Fifty-fourth Street, and remembered remarks a friend of mine named Lily Rowan had made about Alex Gallant, I had phoned Lily for particulars.

And got them. Gallant was crowding two others for top ranking in the world of high fashion. He thumbed his nose at Paris and sneered at Rome, and was getting away with it. He had refused to finish three dresses for the Duchess of Harwynd because she postponed flying over from London for fittings. He declined to make anything whatever for a certain famous movie actress because he didn’t like the way she handled her hips when she walked. He had been known to charge as little as eight hundred dollars for an afternoon frock, but it had been for a favorite customer so he practically gave it away.

And so forth. Therefore when I opened the door to admit his sister Flora that Tuesday morning it was a letdown to see a dumpy middle-aged female in a dark gray suit that was anything but spectacular. It needed pressing, and the shoulders were too tight, and her waist wasn’t where it thought it was. As I ushered her down the hall to the office and introduced her to Wolfe, I was thinking that if the shoemaker’s son went barefoot I supposed his sister could too, but all the same I felt cheated.

Her conversation was no more impressive than her costume, at least at the beginning. Seated on the edge of the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe’s desk, the fingers of both hands gripping the rim of the gray leather bag on her lap, she apologized, in a low meek mumble with just a trace of a foreign accent, for asking such an important man as Nero Wolfe to give any of his valuable time to her and her troubles. That didn’t sound promising, indicating as it did that she was looking for a bargain. As she went on with it Wolfe started a frown going, and soon he cut her off by saying that it would take less of his time if she would tell him what her troubles were.

She nodded. “I know. I just wanted you to understand that I don’t expect anything for myself. I’m not anybody myself, but you know who my brother is? My brother Alec?”

“Yes. Mr. Goodwin has informed me. An illustrious dressmaker.”

“He is not merely a dressmaker. He is an artist, a great artist.” She wasn’t arguing, just stating a fact. “This trouble is about him, and that’s why I must be careful with it. That’s why I come to you, and also” — she sent me a glance and then back to Wolfe — “also Mr. Archie Goodwin, because I know that although you are private detectives, you are gentlemen. I know you are worthy of confidence.”

She stopped, apparently for acknowledgment. Wolfe obliged her. “Umph.”

“Then it is understood I am trusting you?”

“Yes. You may.”

She looked at me. “Mr. Goodwin?”

“Right. Whatever Mr. Wolfe says. I only work here.”

She hesitated, seeming to consider if that was satisfactory, decided it was, and returned to Wolfe. “So I’ll tell you. I must explain that in France, where my brother and I were born and brought up, our name was not ‘Gallant.’ What it was doesn’t matter. I came to this country in nineteen-thirty-seven, when I was twenty-five years old, and Alex only came in nineteen-forty-five, after the war was over. He had changed his name to Gallant and entered legally under that name. Within seven years he had made a reputation as a designer, and then — Perhaps you remember his fall collection in nineteen-fifty-three?”

Wolfe grunted no.

Her right hand abandoned its grip on the bag to gesture. “But of course you are not married, and you have no mistress, feeling as you do about women. That collection showed what my brother was — an artist, a true creator. He got financial backing, more than he needed, and opened his place on Fifty-fourth Street. I had quit my job four years earlier — my job as a governess — in order to work with him and help him, and had changed my name to have it the same as his. From nineteen-fifty-three on it has been all a triumph, many triumphs. I will not say I had a hand in them, but I have been trying to help in my little way. The glory of great success has been my brother’s, but I have been with him, and so have others. But now trouble has come.”

Both hands were gripping the bag again. “The trouble,” she said, “is a woman. A woman named Bianca Voss.”

Wolfe made a face. She saw it and responded to it. “No, not an affaire d’amour, I’m sure it’s not that. Though my brother has never married, he is by no means insensible to women, he is very healthy about women, but since you are worthy of confidence I may tell you that he has an amie intime, a young woman who is of importance in his establishment. It is impossible that Bianca Voss has attracted him that way. She first came there a little more than a year ago. My brother had told us to expect her, so he had met her somewhere. He designed a dress and a suit for her, and they were made there in the shop, but no bill was ever sent her. Then he gave her one of the rooms, the offices, on the third floor, and she started to come every day, and then the trouble began. My brother never told us she had any authority, but she took it and he allowed her to. Sometimes she interferes directly, and sometimes through him. She pokes her nose into everything. She got my brother to discharge a fitter, a very capable woman, who had been with him for years. She has a private telephone line in her office upstairs, but no one else has. About two months ago some of the others persuaded me to try to find out about her, what her standing is, and I asked my brother, but he wouldn’t tell me. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t.”

“It sounds,” Wolfe said, “as if she owns the business. Perhaps she bought it.”

Flora Gallant shook her head. “No, she hasn’t. I’m sure she hasn’t. She wasn’t one of the financial backers in nineteen-fifty-three, and since then there have been good profits, and anyway my brother has control. But now she’s going to ruin it and he’s going to let her, we don’t know why. She wants him to design a factory line to be promoted by a chain of department stores using his name. She wants him to sponsor a line of Alec Gallant cosmetics on a royalty basis. And other things. We’re against all of them, and my brother is too, really, but we think he’s going to give in to her, and that will ruin it.”

Her fingers tightened on the bag. “Mr. Wolfe, I want you to ruin her.”

Wolfe grunted. “By wiggling a finger?”

“No, but you can. I’m sure you can. I’m sure she has some hold on him, but I don’t know what. I don’t know who she is or where she came from. I don’t know what her real name is. She speaks with an accent, but not French; I’m not sure what it is. I don’t know when she came to America; she may be here illegally. She may have known my brother in France, during the war. You can find out. If she has a hold on my brother you can find out what it is. If she is blackmailing him, isn’t that against the law? Wouldn’t that ruin her?”

“It might. It might ruin him too.”

“Not unless you betrayed him.” She swallowed that and added hastily, “I don’t mean that, I only mean I am trusting you, you said I could, and you could make her stop and that’s all you would have to do. Couldn’t you just do that?”

“Conceivably.” Wolfe wasn’t enthusiastic. “I fear, madam, that you’re biting off more than you can chew. The procedure you suggest would be prolonged, laborious, and extremely expensive. It would probably require elaborate investigation abroad. Aside from my fee, which would not be modest, the outlay would be considerable and the outcome highly uncertain. Are you in a position to undertake it?”

“I am not rich myself, Mr. Wolfe. I have some savings. But my brother — if you get her away, if you release him from her — he is truly générlux — excuse me — he is a generous man. He is not stingy.”

“But he isn’t hiring me, and your assumption that she is galling him may be groundless.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. Not a reasonable venture. Unless, of course, your brother himself consults me. If you care to bring him? Or send him?”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” She gestured again. “You must see that isn’t possible! When I asked him about her, I told you, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He was annoyed. He is never abrupt with me, but he was then. I assure you, Mr. Wolfe, she is a villain. You are sagace — excuse me — you are an acute man. You would know it if you saw her, spoke with her.”

“Perhaps.” Wolfe was getting impatient. “Even so, my perception of her villainy wouldn’t avail. No, madam.”

“But you would know I am right.” She opened her bag, fingered in it with both hands, came out with something, left her chair to step to Wolfe’s desk, and put the something on his desk pad in front of him. “There,” she said, “that is one hundred dollars. For you that is nothing, but it shows how I am in earnest. I can’t ask her to come so you can speak with her, she would merely laugh at me, but you can. You can tell her you have been asked in confidence to discuss a matter with her and ask her to come to see you. You will not tell her what it is. She will come, she will be afraid not to, and that alone will show you she has a secret, perhaps many secrets. Then when she comes you will ask her whatever occurs to you. For that you do not need my suggestions. You are an acute man.”

Wolfe grunted. “Everybody has secrets.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but not secrets that would make them afraid not to come to see Nero Wolfe. When she comes and you have spoken with her, we shall see. That may be all or it may not. We shall see.”

I do not say that the hundred bucks there on his desk in used twenties was no factor in Wolfe’s decision. Even though income tax would reduce it to sixteen dollars, that would buy four days’ supply of beer. Another factor was plain curiosity: would she come or wouldn’t she? Still another was the chance that it might develop into a decent fee. But what really settled it was her saying. “We shall see” instead of “We’ll see” or “We will see.” He will always stretch a point, within reason, for people who use words as he thinks they should be used. So he muttered at her, “Where is she?”

“At my brother’s place. She always is.”

“Give Mr. Goodwin the phone number.”

“I’ll get it. She may be downstairs.” She started a hand for the phone on Wolfe’s desk, but I told her to use mine and left my chair, and she came and sat, lifted the receiver and dialed.

In a moment she spoke. “Doris? Flora. Is Miss Voss around? ... Oh. I thought she might have come down... No, don’t bother, I’ll ring her there.”

She pushed the button down, told us, “She’s up in her office,” waited a moment, released the button, and dialed again. When she spoke it was another voice, as she barely moved her lips and brought it out through her nose: “Miss Bianca Voss? Hold the line, please. Mr. Nero Wolfe wishes to speak with you... Mr. Nero Wolfe, the private detective.”

She looked at Wolfe and he got at his phone. Having my own share of curiosity, I extended a hand for my receiver, and she let me take it and left my chair. As I sat and got it to my ear Wolfe was speaking.

“This is Nero Wolfe. Is this Miss Bianca Voss?”

“Yes.” It was more like “yiss.” “What do you want?” The “wh” and the “w” were off.

“If my name is unknown to you, I should explain—”

“I know your name. What do you want?”

“I want to invite you to call on me at my office. I have been asked to discuss certain matters with you, and—”

“Who asked you?”

“I am not at liberty to say. I shall—”

“What matters?” The “wh” was more off.

“If you will let me finish. The matters are personal and confidential, and concern you closely. That’s all I can say on the telephone. I am sure you—”

A snort stopped him, a snort that might be spelled “Tzchaahh!” followed by: “I know your name, yes! You are scum, I know, in your stinking sewer! Your slimy little ego in your big gob of fat! And you dare to — owulggh!”

That’s the best I can do at spelling it. It was part scream, part groan, and part just noise. It was followed immediately by another noise, a mixture of crash and clatter, then others, faint rustlings, and then nothing. I looked at Wolfe and he looked at me. I spoke to my transmitter. “Hello hello hello. Hello! Hello?”

I cradled it and so did Wolfe. Flora Gallant was asking, “What is it? She hung up?”

We ignored her. Wolfe said, “Archie? You heard.”

“Yes, sir. If you want a guess, something hit her and she dragged the phone along as she went down and it struck the floor. The other noises, not even a guess, except that at the end either she put the receiver back on and cut the connection or someone else did. I don’t — Okay, Miss Gallant. Take it easy.” She had grabbed my arm with both hands and was jabbering, “What is it? What happened?” I put a hand on her shoulder and made it emphatic. “Take a breath and let go. You heard what I told Mr. Wolfe. Apparently something fell on her and then hung up the phone.”

“But it couldn’t! It is not possible!”

“That’s what it sounded like. What’s the number? The one downstairs?”

She just gawked at me. I looked at Wolfe and he gave me a nod, and I jerked my arm loose, sat at my desk, got the Manhattan book, flipped to the Gs and got the number, PL2-0330 and dialed it.

A cultured female voice came. “Alec Gallant Incorporated.”

“This is a friend of Miss Voss,” I told her. “I was just speaking to her on the phone, in her office, and from the sounds I got I think something may have happened to her. Will you send someone up to see? Right away. I’ll hold the wire.”

“Who is this speaking, please?”

“Never mind that. Step on it. She may be hurt.”

I heard her calling to someone, then apparently she covered the transmitter. I sat and waited. Wolfe sat and scowled at me. Flora Gallant stood for a good five minutes at my elbow, staring down at me, then turned and went to the red leather chair and lowered herself onto its edge. I looked at my wristwatch: 11:40. It had said 11:31 when the connection with Bianca Voss had been cut. More waiting, and then a male voice came.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“This is Carl Drew. What is your name, please?”

“My name is Watson, John H. Watson. Is Miss Voss all right?”

“May I have your address, Mr. Watson, please?”

“What for? Miss Voss knows my address. Is she all right?”

“I must have your address, Mr. Watson. I must insist. You will understand the necessity when I tell you that Miss Voss is dead. She was assaulted in her office and is dead. Apparently, from what you said, the assault came while she was on the phone with you, and I want your address. I must insist.”

I hung up, gently not to be rude, swiveled, and asked Flora Gallant, “Who is Carl Drew?”

“He’s the business manager. What happened?”

I went to Wolfe. “My guess was close. Miss Voss is dead. In her office. He said she was assaulted, but he didn’t say with what or by whom.”

He glowered at me, then turned to let her have it. She was coming up from the chair, slow and stiff. When she was erect she said, “No. No. It isn’t possible.”

“I’m only quoting Carl Drew,” I told her.

“It isn’t possible. He said that?”

“Distinctly.”

“But how—” She let it hang. She said, “But how—” stopped again, turned, and was going. When Wolfe called to her, “Here, Miss Gallant, your money,” she paid no attention but kept on, and he poked it at me, and I took it and headed for the hall. I caught up with her halfway to the front door, but when I offered it she just kept going, so I blocked her off, took her bag and opened it and dropped the bills in and closed it, handed it back, and went and pulled the door open. She hadn’t said a word. I stood on the sill and watched, thinking she might stumble going down the seven steps of the stoop, but she made it to the sidewalk and turned east, toward Ninth Avenue. When I got back to the office Wolfe was sitting with his eyes closed, breathing down to his big round middle. I went to my desk and put the phone book away.

“She is so stunned with joy,” I remarked, “that she’ll probably get run over. I should have gone and put her in a taxi.”

He grunted.

“One thing,” I remarked. “Miss Voss’s last words weren’t exactly généreux. I would call them catty.”

He grunted.

“Another thing,” I remarked, “in spite of the fact that I was John H. Watson on the phone, we’ll certainly be called on by either Sergeant Stebbins or Inspector Cramer or both. When they go into whereabouts Flora will have to cough it up for her own protection. And we actually heard it. Also we’ll have the honor of being summoned to the stand. Star witnesses.”

He opened his eyes. “I’m quite aware of it,” he growled. “Confound it. Bring me the records on Laelia gouldiana.”

No orchid ever called a genius a slimy little ego in a big gob of fat. I remarked on that too, but to myself.