Over My Dead Body

Chapter Seven

Neva Tormic was the first to arrive for the party. It was close to midnight when I went to answer the bell, saving Fritz the trouble of putting his slippers in commission and glad of a chance to stretch my legs even that much.

"Hallo," I said in polite surprise, for three of them crossed the threshold, and I knew all of them. First Neya Tormic, then Carla Lovchen, and bringing up the rear, Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Purley and I had often been enemies, and even friends once or twice. While I helped with wraps he said:

"This other one coupled on and I would have had to use force to separate her. So I thought if she's not wanted we can do the separating here."

"Sure," I agreed, "let Cramer do it. He ought to be here any minute. You go on to the kitchen-you know the way-and Fritz'll give you a pork tenderloin sandwich with onion grass."

He looked wistful. "I guess I won't let her out of my sight-"

"Pooh! Pooh! My dear fellow, this is a conference, and Mr Wolfe and I are conferees. Breaded pork tenderloin and steaming black coffee?"

So he headed for the kitchen and I herded the Balkans into the office.

I was afraid Wolfe might be skittish, confronted with two Montenegrin females at once, but he stood up and greeted them like a man. I had chairs already arranged. It was the first time I had seen Neya in anything but her fencing costume with robe. She was natty in a dark-brown suit and brown oxfords, with no foreign touch as far as I could see, but my interest in women's clothes is not technical. Her eyes were as black as two prunes in a dish of cream, but there was a little flush on her cheeks, which may have been from the cold outdoors.

She said, with the eyes aimed at him, "You are Nero Wolfe."

Wolfe nodded just perceptibly. He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on the desk and his fingers linked together. Having seen him scrutinize a lot of people, I was aware that he was putting on a special and rare performance.

She said, "You sent a policeman to bring me here. I don't understand that."

"Inspector Cramer sent him."

"But you must have permitted it." There was a swift movement of her head; a characteristic arrested toss that I had observed that afternoon. "Or suggested it."

"Yes, Miss Tormic. I arranged it. A certain fact was exposed which required immediate action in order to save Mr Goodwin from arrest. He is my confidential assistant, and I wouldn't welcome the ignominy of bailing him out of jail. Or perhaps instead of a fact, it's a lie. We'll find out. I thought it better to do so in the presence of Inspector Cramer, and besides, I want to see how you behave under pressure."

"I can stand pressure."

"Good. We'll see."

She smiled at him. When her mouth was composed the don't-touch-me was in command, but when she smiled it was all come-hither. "Have you told him that I am your adopted daughter?"

Wolfe frowned and turned to me. "Is the man who brought them in the kitchen?"

"Yes, sir. It's Stebbins. You know Sergeant Stebbins."

He nodded. "Nevertheless, Miss Tormic, I think we'll discuss that later. I haven't told the police that you are my daughter. For the present, it is desirable that I should not be suspected of so intimate a prejudice. Do you agree to that?"

"I should think. " She hesitated. The smile had gone. "Of course, I'll do whatever you say; but. " She smiled again. "I'd like to have that paper back, the record of adoption which you signed. I want to hang on to that. I admit it's pure selfishness, because I know what it might mean to be the daughter of Nero Wolfe. I proved that by sending for you when I got into trouble. Of course, since I've never seen you since I was three years old, I can't be expected to show violent affection and throw my arms around you and kiss you-"

"No, indeed," Wolfe agreed hastily. "There's no question of. it's a matter of responsibility, and that's all. My responsibility. I was sane, in the legal sense, when I assumed it. As for the records of adoption, I would prefer, if you don't mind-but that's probably Mr Cramer. Unless it's Madame Zorka."

"Zorka!" exclaimed Carla Lovchen in surprise.

But it was Cramer, ushered in by Fritz. He glanced sharply around, offered a curt collective greeting, and, finding his usual chair occupied by Neya Tormic, took one at the left of Carla Lovchen.

"Where's the Zorka woman?" he demanded.

"Not here yet," I told him.

"Where's Stebbins?"

"In the kitchen eating our food."

He grunted and looked at Carla. "I told him to bring Miss Tormic."

Carla said, "I came along," in a tone that indicated an intention to stay.

"I see you did. Well, Mr Wolfe?"

"We'll wait for Madame Zorka. In the meantime, what did the commissioner learn from the Consul-General?"

Cramer glowered at him.

"Oh, come," Wolfe said testily, "don't degrade discretion into secretiveness. If either of these girls killed Mr Ludlow, they certainly knew who he was. The fact that you have found that out might frighten them into betraying something. If they didn't kill him, what's the difference?"

Cramer growled, "To-morrow's papers will have it anyway, I suppose. They always do. Ludlow was a confidential agent of the British Government."

"Indeed. What was he doing at the fencing studio? Working or playing?"

"The consul doesn't know. Ludlow reported direct to London. They're trying to get someone in London now. It's five o'clock in the morning there. I told you before that this looks-"

He stopped to let me answer the phone. It was a call for him, and I made room for him to take it at my desk.

After he had listened a while he used profanity again. That made it evident he had got more than a minor irritation, since he had old-fashioned ideas about swearing in front of ladies, and he had strong principles to which he steadfastly adhered when they didn't interfere with his work. Finally he cut the connexion, banging the thing into the cradle, went back and sat down, and sighed clear to his belt.

He glared at Wolfe and demanded, "What was the big idea of getting this Zorka down here? Spill it!"

Wolfe shook his head. "Wait till she gets here. Was that her on the phone? Isn't she coming?"

"Coming hell. She's skipped!"

"Skipped?"

"Gone! Left! Departed! And you knew she was going to! You had me send a man up there on a run-around! Damn you, Wolfe, I've told you twenty times that some day-"

"Please, Mr Cramer." Wolfe was frowning in distaste. "I beg you, sir. I don't make a game of run sheep run out of a murder. I hadn't the faintest notion that Madame Zorka intended to skip. She telephoned here-what time, Archie?"

I glanced at my pad. "Eleven twenty-one."

"Thank you. And told us something. Archie told her he would get Miss Tormic and call on her at her apartment, from where she was talking. Then we made a brief investigation and decided it would be better to have the matter discussed with you present. As you know, I never go out on business, so we asked you to bring them here. Since her phoning here was by her own volition, and since she expected Archie and Miss Tormic to call, it is odd that she should leave her apartment."

"Yeah. Especially with a bag and a suitcase."

Wolfe's brows went up. "But I presume you were having her followed?"

"No! Why should we? Have I got a million men on the squad to tail everybody on the premises every time there's a homicide? Nuts! I sent a man to get her and bring her here. She wasn't there. Downstairs they told him that she went out with a bag and suitcase ten minutes before he arrived."

"Any trail?"

"They're after it."

"Pfui." Wolfe looked around at us. "Well, here we are. Under the circumstances, the best thing we can do is to proceed without her."

"Go ahead," Cramer said grimly.

Wolfe leaned back and half closed his eyes, and Miss Tormic was possibly unaware that he was watching her like a hawk. "As I say, Madame Zorka phoned here at eleven twenty-one. She stated that shortly after the murder was discovered, when everyone was together up there in the office, she saw Miss Tormic put something into the pocket of Mr Goodwin's coat, which was hanging on a rack. She hadn't mentioned the incident to the police and her conscience was bothering her because she thinks murder is terrible. So she had decided to phone Mr Goodwin and tell him that she intended to inform the police at once-"

Cramer barked at Neya, "What did you put in Goodwin's pocket?"

She kept her eyes levelled at Wolfe and paid no attention to him.

Wolfe said in his tone of authority, "Just a moment. I arranged this meeting, and I'm handling it. Archie told Madame Zorka he would get Miss Tormic and go to see her. Of course he was stalling. He went to the hall to investigate, and there was something in the pocket of his overcoat which he had not put there. He didn't take it out. He left it there undisturbed, and it was decided to phone you and get Miss Tormic and Madame Zorka down here. That's all so far. Archie, go get the coat."

I went to the hall and removed it from the hanger and took it back and laid it on Wolfe's desk, with the guilty pocket uppermost.

Wolfe said, "Please, Mr Cramer, it seemed preferable that you should have the first look at it."

Even when he said that he didn't look at Cramer, but kept watching Neya. Cramer advanced and stuck his hand in the pocket and pulled the thing out. I was right at his elbow, beside myself with curiosity as to what it might be. He stared at the rolled-up bunch of canvas clenched in his fist, then put it down on the desk and unrolled it. The stains were now the colour of dark mahogany. As the little metal doo-dad was disclosed to our gaze I permitted myself an ejaculation of astonishment.

Wolfe said, "I suspected that. Your two missing objects, Mr Cramer, aren't they?"

Cramer said to me through his teeth, "So that's why you took a powder."

I gave him a cold, hard eye. "Guess again. You heard what Mr Wolfe said-"

He wheeled on Neya. "You!" he said with his jaw still clamped. "Let's have it." He grabbed the glove, with the col de mort nested in the palm, and stuck it under her nose. "Did you put that in Goodwin's pocket?"

She nodded her head. "Yes, I did."

That undamped his jaw. He goggled at her, and I guess I joined him. She was all right. Her hands were clasped tight on her lap and she sat stiff, but she certainly showed no signs of hysteria. Cramer opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, tramped to the door and pulled it open and bellowed:

"Stebbins! Come here!"

Purley came trotting, with a startled and embarrassed look on his big face because he was trying to chew and swallow at the same time. Cramer motioned to the chair he had been occupying and growled, "Sit down there and take your notebook."

"Wait a minute," Wolfe put in. "Are you charging Miss Tormic?"

"No." Cramer didn't look at him. "I'm asking her. Any objections? If so, I can take her downtown."

"None at all. I prefer it here. We're four to two."

"I don't care if you're a hundred to two." Cramer exhibited the objects to the sergeant. "Put down that I showed her this canvas gauntlet and this steel thing with a point and asked her if she put them in Goodwin's overcoat pocket, and she replied, 'Yes, I did.' " He confronted Neya Tormic. "Now. You state that you put these two things into Goodwin's overcoat pocket while it was hanging on a rack in the office of Miltan's studio not long after Ludlow's dead body was discovered. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill Percy Ludlow?"

She said in a good clear voice, "You've asked me that before, and I said 'no.' "

Carla Lovchen blurted, "She can explain-"

"Shut up, please!-Do you still say no?"

"Yes."

"Did you take this steel thing off of the end of the йpйe after it had gone through Ludlow's chest?"

"No."

"Did you take it off the йpйe with this glove on your hand and then discover there was blood on the glove, and you would have to get rid of both of them?"

"No. I never-"

"When did you take this thing out of the cabinet in Miltan's office?"

"I didn't take it out."

"You put these two things in Goodwin's pocket, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You had them then, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get them?"

"I found them in the pocket of my robe-the green robe I put on over my fencing costume."

"What do you mean, you found them?"

"I just mean that. Isn't that a good word-found?"

"Sure, it's a swell word. It's a beaut. How and when and why did you find them?"

"Just a moment, Mr Cramer." It was Wolfe, in a tone that meant business. "Miss Tormic is a stranger in this country. Either I advise her to say nothing whatever and I get a lawyer for her, or I will tell her one or two things myself-at this point."

"What do you want to tell her?"

"You will hear it." Wolfe wiggled a finger. "Miss Tormic. It is unlikely that you will be charged with murder as long as the alibi furnished by Mr Faber is unimpeached. That is, remains good. You can, however, be put under arrest as a material witness-a device to prevent you from running away-and then be released under a bond to appear when needed. You have been asked to give a circumstantial account of your connexion with the instrument of murder, which you have admitted was in your possession shortly after the crime was committed. Your words are being taken down by a stenographer. If you give that account, you will be committed to it as the truth, so it had better be the truth. If you refuse to give it, you will probably be arrested as a material witness. You must decide for yourself. Have I made it clear?"

"Yes," she said, and smiled at him. "I think I understand that all right. There's no reason why I shouldn't tell the truth; it's the only thing I can do-now." She shifted her eyes to Cramer. "It was in the office, when we were all in there, waiting for the police to come. I put my hand in the pocket of my robe and there was something in there. It's a big pocket, quite big. I started to pull it out to see what it was, but the feel of it told me it must be a fencing glove. I tried to think what to do. I knew it shouldn't be there-I mean I knew I hadn't put it there. For a minute I was scared, but I made myself think. Mr Ludlow had been killed in the fencing room where I had been fencing with him, and there I was with a wadded-up glove in my pocket, and if we were searched. " She upturned a palm. "I looked around for a place to put it and saw Mr Goodwin's coat. I knew it must be his, because the others were all upstairs in their lockers, and I knew he had come there anyway to get me out of trouble-so I went over to it and when I thought no one was looking I took it out of my pocket and put it in his."

"Very much obliged-"

"Shut up, Goodwin! Do you realize what you're trying to tell me, Miss Tormic?"

"I. I think I do."

"You're trying to tell me that you had a bulky thing like that in your pocket and didn't know it."

"So am I," I put in. "The same goes for me."

"I know damn well it does! Did I ask you to close your trap? What about it, Miss Tormic?"

She shook her head. "I don't know-of course I was excited. It's a loose robe and it's a big pocket. I had it on-you saw it."

"Yeah, I saw it. So you admit you concealed evidence of a crime?"

"Is that. wrong?"

"Hell, no. Oh, my, no. And do you know who put it in your pocket?"

"No."

"Of course you don't. Or when?"

"No." Neya frowned. "I have thought about that. I left the robe in the locker room, lying on a bench, when I went to the end room to fence. After I left Mr Ludlow there and met Mr Faber in the hall, I stopped in the locker room to leave my pad and glove and mask, and put on the robe and went with Mr Faber to the alcove. Whoever put the glove in my pocket, I don't think they did it until afterwards, because I think I would have noticed it. After the porter started to yell, we were all running around and jostling against each other-and I suppose someone did it then. that's the only way I can explain how it might have happened-"

"And you knew nothing about it."

"I knew nothing about it until I felt something in my pocket there in the office."

"And you were scared. You were just simply perfectly innocent."

"Yes. I was. I am."

"Sure. But though you were perfectly innocent, you didn't tell the police about it, and you weren't going to tell about it, and you never would have told about it, if Madame Zorka hadn't reported that she saw you do it and you were afraid to deny it!" He was yapping into her face at a range of thirty inches. "Huh?"

"I-" She swallowed, "I think I might. But the way I thought about it, I thought Mr Goodwin would find it in his pocket and turn it over to you, and it wouldn't matter whether you knew it had ever been in my pocket or not."

"Then you thought wrong. Mr Goodwin doesn't turn things over to the police. Mr Goodwin climbs a fence and runs home to papa and says see what I got, and papa says-"

"Nonsense!" Wolfe cut in sharply. "We'll dispose of that point now. You know what I told you; I don't need to repeat it. Granted that your suppositiiious assumpiion is correct, that Archie knew it was in his pocket and ran away with it, and that we concealed it from you, you can't possibly establish it as a fact, so why the devil waste time harping on it? Especially in view of a fact that is established, that when Madame Zorka's phone call caused us to investigate the overcoat pocket, we immediately communicated with you."

"You had to!"

Wolfe grimaced. "I don't know. Had to? Ingenuity can nearly always create an alternative if none exists. Anyway, we did. And if we hadn't, but had proceeded without you, your two missing objects would still be missing, for when Archie and Miss Tormic called on Madame Zorka she would have been gone, and the compulsion of her threatened exposure would have been removed. So you owe your possession of these two objects to us. You owe your knowledge of a suspicious circumstance, Madame Zorka's flight with a bag and suitcase, to us. And you owe your knowledge of the manner in which the criminal disposed of the glove and col de mort to the courageous candour of my client."

Cramer, standing, stared down at him, and as far as I could see his face was not glowing with gratitude.

He said, "So she's your client, is she?"

"I told you so."

"You said tentatively. You said you'd decide when you had met her."

"I have met her."

"All right, you've met her. Is she your client?"

"She is."

Cramer hesitated, then turned slowly and looked down at Neya. His gaze had concentration, but no acute hostility; and I suppressed a grin. I knew what was eating him. He was well aware that the time had yet to come when he would successfully pin a murder charge on any man, woman or child whom Nero Wolfe had accepted as a client, and he was strongly tempied to call it a day then and there as far as Neya Tormic was concerned and throw in another line. He even, half unconsciously, favoured Carla Lovchen with a sidewise suspicious glance, but he returned to Neya and, after a moment, wheeled again to Wolfe.

"Faber gives her an alibi. Okay. But you don't need to be told that an alibi works both ways. What if Faber thought she needed one and so he provided it? And she thought she needed it too, and accepted it and confirmed it? Without maybe realizing that while Faber was giving her an alibi, what he was really doing was arranging one for himself?"

Wolfe nodded. "An old trick, but still a good one. That's quite possible, of course. Will you have some beer?"

"No."

"You, Miss Tormic, Miss Lovchen?"

He got their declinations, pressed the button and went on: "This thing's messy, Mr Cramer. It looks as if I'm going to have to find out who killed Mr Ludlow, unless you do it first yourself. You certainly aren't going to get anywhere badgering my client. Look at her. I'll have a little talk with her after you leave, and one thing I shall tell her is to hang on to the Faber alibi, for the present, even if it was fabricated by him. True, it protects Faber, but it also protects her. If and when you can point a suspicion at Faber, especially a motive, let me know and we'll discuss the alibi business."

"You suspect her of lying yourself!"

"Not specifically. Anyone would tell a lie, at least by acquiescence, rather than stand trial for murder. By the way, about this Mr Faber. You are entirely wrong in your suspicion that he wasn't a stranger to me. I never saw him or heard of him in my life before to-day. Is he by any chance another confidential government agent?"

Cramer eyed him. "How did you know that if he was such a stranger to you?"

"I didn't. Mere conjecture. If I had known it I wouldn't have asked. Not British, is he?"

"No."

"Of course not. He might as well display an emblem on an armband. Archie and I don't like him. It's a pity my client's alibi depends on him; I would prefer to establish her innocence without that. Do you suppose the attack on Ludlow was the eagle clawing the lion?"

"I don't suppose. It was a human being murdering a man."

"Yes, it was that, all right." Wolfe glanced up at the clock. "It's well past midnight, and I want to have a little talk with Miss Tormic. Is there anything else you want to ask her?"

"She's an alien. I ought to have her under bond."

"She won't skip, at least not to-night, and we can arrange for the bond to-morrow if you insist on it."

Cramer grunted. "She's important. She had the murder weapon in her possession. I'd like to have her come to my office to-morrow morning at nine o'clock and see Lieutenant Rowcliff."

Wolfe frowned. "Mr Rowcliff is the officer who came here once with a warrant and searched my house."

"Yeah. You don't forget that, do you?"

"No, Neither do you- Come in. Yes, Fritz?" On account of the barricade of chairs, Fritz had to talk over the top of Neya Tormic's head. He was stiffly formal, as was his invariable custom when there were ladies present, not from any sense of propriety but from fear. Whenever any female, no matter what her age or appearance, got inside the house, he was apprehensive and ill at ease until she got out again.

"A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr Stahl. He was here this afternoon."

Wolfe said to show him in.