Plot It Yourself

Chapter 12

I ate lunch that day, two hamburgers and a glass of milk, at the office of the Bronx District Attorney, in the room of an assistant DA named Halloran whom I had never seen before. I ate dinner, if two corned-beef sandwiches and lukewarm coffee in a paper cup can be called dinner, in the office of the District Attorney of the County of New York, in the room of an assistant DA named Mandelbaum whom I knew quite well from various contacts on other occasions. When I finally got back to the old brownstone on West 35th Street it was going on ten o’clock. Fritz offered to warm up the lamb loaf and said it would be edible, but I told him I was too tired to eat and might nibble a snack later.

It was nearly eleven when I finished reporting to Wolfe. Actually I knew very little more than I had when Mrs Ogilvy had left the cloister and I had dialed SP 7-3100, but Wolfe was now trying to find a straw to grab at. He wanted everything I had, every sight and sound of my twelve-hour day, even including the session at the Bronx DA’s office, though Halloran had known nothing of the background. He had me repeat my conversation with Mrs Ogilvy three times. He almost never asks me to repeat anything even once, but of course he was desperate. When there was nothing left to ask me he still had a question; he wanted to know what conclusions I had drawn.

I shook my head. “You draw the conclusions. I only make guesses. I guess we might as well quit. I guess this bird is too fast and too slick. I guess he hasn’t left one little crumb for the cops, either with Simon Jacobs or Jane Ogilvy, and as for us, I guess he’s a step ahead and intends to stay ahead. I guess we had better consider how to approach Alice Porter so we can get to her a little sooner than we have the others-say when she’s been dead only an hour or two.”

Wolfe grunted. “I have already considered her.”

“Good. Then she may still be warm.”

“I have also acted. Saul and Fred and Orrie have her under surveillance. Also Miss Bonner and that operative in Miss Bonner’s employ. Miss Corbett.”

My brows went up. “You don’t say. Since when?”

“Shortly after you called this morning. Orrie is there now. Since four o’clock he has been there in concealment with the house in view. His car is nearby, also in concealment. Miss Corbett, with a rented car, is posted near the junction of the dirt road and the surfaced road. Saul will relieve Orrie at midnight, and Miss Corbett will leave. Fred and Miss Bonner will take over at eight in the morning. Miss Corbett phoned at seven-thirty that Alice Porter was at home and had had no visitors.”

My brows were still up. “I must say that when you consider, you consider. At that rate Oshin’s ten grand won’t last long. I don’t say it’s being wasted, but you may remember that when he asked me which one of the four we should go for I said that Alice Porter has just made her claim on Amy Wynn and is expecting to collect, so she probably wouldn’t be open for a deal. Also you know how she reacted to my approach.”

Wolfe nodded. “But that was before her manuscript had been found and we learned that it had been written by her, not by the person who wrote the others. He may or may not know about that; probably he does. In any case, even if it is likely that she would scorn any inducement we can offer her, he may not think so. He is bold and ruthless, and he is now close to panic. If he thinks her as great a menace as Jane Ogilvy he won’t hesitate. Saul and Fred and Orrie, and Miss Bonner and Miss Corbett, have full instructions. Anyone who approaches Alice Porter is to be suspected. If possible he is to be stopped before he strikes, but of course he can’t be challenged until it is apparent that he intends to strike.”

“Yeah.” I was looking at it. “It’s a problem. Fred or Orrie is there, in broad daylight, and someone drives up to the house and goes in. There’s no decent cover within a hundred yards of the house. He can’t possibly get close enough to see if it’s just a lightning-rod salesman or a friend, without being seen. All he can do is wait until the company goes and then wait for Alice Porter to show, or go to a phone and dial her number and see if she answers. If it’s X, she’s a goner. I admit we’ll have him.”

He grunted. “Can you do better?”

“No, sir. I’m not complaining. What about Kenneth Rennert? If X is in a panic he might do him next.”

“That’s possible, but I doubt it. Rennert may not even know who X is; he may merely have imitated him. He wrote not a story but a play outline, and we haven’t seen it.”

“Okay.” I glanced at the clock: eleven-twenty-three. “I suppose Saul will call when he goes on at midnight, and Orrie will call after he is relieved?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll expect them. What else for me? Have I a program?”

“No.”

“Then I have a suggestion. I don’t like it, but I have it. Across the street from Rennert’s address is a tailor shop with a nice clean window. For five bucks a day the owner would let me use it to look through, with a chair to sit on. After dark I could move across the street, to be closer. I am almost as good as Saul Panzer at remembering faces. When Rennert’s body is discovered and they decide when he was killed, I would know who had been there. If it was someone I recognized, for instance a member of the Joint Committee on Plagiarism, I could even name him. I can start right now. I hate that kind of a job, who doesn’t, but I’ve been sent twice now to see people who were already dead, and that’s enough.”

He shook his head. “Two objections. One, you need sleep. Two, Mr Rennert is not at home. As I said, his operation may have been solely on his own and he may have had no connection with X, but I haven’t ignored him. I rang his number twice this morning and twice this afternoon, and got no answer. At three o’clock Saul went there, and, getting no response to his ring, saw the building superintendent and asked when he had last seen Mr Rennert. Early last evening Mr Rennert told the building superintendent that he would leave today to spend the Memorial Day weekend in the country and would return on Monday. He didn’t say where in the country.”

“If we knew where we could ring him and warn him to keep away from poison ivy. It would be nice to hear his voice.”

“I agree. But we don’t.”

“I could scout around in the morning and probably find out. We have a lot of names of people he has borrowed money from.”

He vetoed it. He said he wanted me at hand, and a call might come at any time of the day or night from Saul Panzer or Fred Durkin or Orrie Cather or Dol Bonner or Sally Corbett that would require immediate action. Also Philip Harvey had phoned twice, and Cora Ballard once, to ask if he could be present at a meeting of the NAAD council on Monday, and they would probably phone again tomorrow, and he didn’t want to listen to them. That settled, he went up to bed. At eleven-forty-two Saul Panzer called, from a booth in Carmel, to say that he was on his way to relieve Orrie Cather. At twelve-eighteen Orrie called, also from Carmel, to report that the light had gone out a little before eleven in Alice Porter’s house, and presumably she was safe in bed. I mounted two flights to mine.

Friday morning I was pulling my pants on when Fred Durkin phoned that he was on his way to relieve Saul, and Dol Bonner was with him, to go on post near the junction of the blacktop and the dirt road. I was in the kitchen, pouring hot maple syrup on a waffle, with the Times propped on the rack, when Saul phoned to say that when he left at eight o’clock Alice Porter had been hoeing in the vegetable garden. I was in the office, re-reading copies of the statements I had given the two assistant DAs, when Cora Ballard phoned to ask if Wolfe would come to the NAAD council meeting, which would be held at the Clover Club on Monday at twelve-thirty. If Wolfe preferred to join them after lunch two o’clock would do, or even two-thirty. When I reminded her that he never left the house on business she said she knew that, but this was an emergency. I said it wasn’t much of an emergency that set a meeting three days off, and she said that with authors and dramatists two or three weeks was the best she could usually do, and anyway it was the Memorial Day weekend, and could she speak with Mr Wolfe. I told her he wasn’t available and it wouldn’t do any good even if he was, and what he would certainly say was that he would send me. If they wanted me, let me know.

I was filing the copies of the statements in the folder marked PLAGIARISM, JOINT COMMITTEE ON when Inspector Cramer phoned to say that he would drop in for a few minutes about a quarter past eleven. I told him he would probably be admitted. I was listening to the ten-o’clock news broadcast when Lon Cohen phoned to say it was high time I loosened up. They had five different pictures of me in the morgue, and they would run the best one, the one that made me look almost human, as the discoverer of Jane Ogilvy’s body, if I would supply some interesting detail like why had two people who had collected damages on plagiarism charges been croaked within forty-eight hours. Any fool knew damn well it wasn’t coincidence, so what was it? I told him I would ask the DA and call him back.

I was tearing yesterday’s page from Wolfe’s desk calendar when the president of the National Association of Authors and Dramatists phoned. His name was Jerome Tabb. I had read one of his books. Wolfe had read four of them, and all four were still on the shelves, none of them dog-eared. They had all been A’s. He was a VIP even by Wolfe’s standards, and Wolfe would undoubtedly have liked to speak with him, but the rule was never buzz the plant rooms for a phone call except in extreme emergency. Tabb had just had a call from Cora Ballard, and he wanted to tell Wolfe how important it was for him to be present at the council meeting on Monday. He was leaving town for the weekend, and he would like me to give Wolfe this message, that the officers and council of the NAAD would deeply appreciate it if he would arrange to meet with them.

When Wolfe came down at eleven I reported the phone calls in chronological order, which put Tabb last. When I finished he sat and glared at me but said nothing. He was stuck. He knew that I knew he would like to speak with Jerome Tabb, but he couldn’t very well jump me for obeying the rules. So he took another tack. Glaring at me, he said, “You were too emphatic with Miss Ballard and Mr Tabb. I may decide to go to that meeting.” Absolutely childish. It called for a cutting reply, and one was on its way to my tongue when the doorbell rang and I had to skip it.

It was Cramer. When I opened the door he marched by me with no greeting but an excuse for a nod, and on to the office. I followed. Wolfe told him good morning and invited him to sit, but he stood.

“I’ve only got a minute,” he said. “So your theory was right.”

Wolfe grunted. “My theory and yours.”

“Yeah. It’s too bad that Ogilvy girl had to die to prove it.”

He stopped. Wolfe asked, “Will you sit? As you know. I like eyes at a level.”

“I can’t stay. The Ogilvy homicide was in the Bronx, but obviously it’s tied in with Jacobs’s, so it’s mine. You can save me a lot of time and trouble. If we have to we can find out from about fifty people how many of them you told that you were going to put the squeeze on Jane Ogilvy, and which ones, but it’s simpler to ask you. So I’m asking.”

“Mr Goodwin has already answered that question several times. To the District Attorney.”

“I know he has, and I don’t believe him. I think you bungled again. I think you picked certain people out of the bunch that had known you were going after Jacobs-I don’t know how you picked them, but you do-you picked certain ones and let them know you were going after Jane Ogilvy. Then you sent a man or men, probably Panzer and Durkin, to cover her, and they slipped up. Maybe they didn’t know about that lane in back. Maybe they didn’t even know about that building she called the cloister. Cloister my ass. I want to know who you told and why. If you won’t tell me I’ll find out the hard way, and when we get this cleared up and we know which one killed her, and we know he killed her because he knew you were going after her, and he knew because you or Goodwin had told him, this will be the time you lose a leg. I’ve got just one question: are you going to tell me?”

“I’ll answer it in a moment.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “First I remind you that you are to return that stuff to me by seven o’clock this evening-less than eight hours from now. You haven’t forgotten that?”

“No. You’ll have it.”

“Good. As for your question, I don’t resent it. I blundered so lamentably with Simon Jacobs that it’s no wonder you suspect me of an even bigger blunder with Jane Ogilvy. If I had I would confess it, abandon the case, and close my office permanently. I didn’t. No one knew of our intention to tackle Jane Ogilvy but Mr Goodwin and me.”

“So you’re not telling.”

“There’s nothing to tell. Mr Goodwin has-”

“Go to hell.” He turned and marched out. I went to the hall to see that when the door banged he was outside. As I stepped back in the phone rang. It was Mortimer Oshin, wanting to know if Philip Harvey had notified Wolfe that his arrangement with the committee was terminated. I said no, apparently that was to be discussed by the NAAD council on Monday. He said that if and when it was terminated he wanted to engage Wolfe personally, and I said it was nice to know that.

Wolfe, not bothering to comment on Cramer, told me to take my notebook and dictated a letter to a guy in Chicago, declining a request to come and give a talk at the annual banquet of the Midwest Association of Private Inquiry Agents. Then one, a long one, to a woman in Nebraska who had written to ask if it was possible to fatten a capon so that its liver would make as good a pate as that of a fattened goose. Then others. I agree in principle with his notion that no letter should go unanswered, but of course he can always hand one to me and say, “Answer that,” and often does. We were on one to a man in Atlanta, saying that he couldn’t undertake to find a daughter who had left for New York a month ago and had never written, when Fritz announced lunch. As we were crossing the hall the phone rang, and I went back to get it. It was Fred Durkin.

“I’m in Carmel.” He had his mouth too close to the transmitter, as usual. He’s a good operative, but he has his faults. “The subject left the house at twelve forty-two and got in her car and drove off. She had been wearing slacks, but she had changed to a dress. I had to wait till she was out of sight to leave cover, then I went to my car and followed, but of course she was gone. Dol Bonner’s car wasn’t at her post, so she picked her up. Neither of their cars is parked here in the centre of town. Shall I ask around to find out which way they went?”

“No. Go back and hide your car again and take cover. Somebody might come and wait there for her.”

“It’s a hell of a long wait.”

“Yeah, I know. The first two weeks are the hardest. Study nature. There’s plenty of it around there.”

I joined Wolfe in the dining room, took my seat, and relayed the news. He grunted and picked up his napkin.

An hour and ten minutes later we were back in the office, finishing with the mail, when the phone interrupted; and when a soft but businesslike voice said, “This is Dol Bonner,” I motioned to Wolfe to get on.

“Yes, Miss Bonner,” I said. “Where are you?”

“In a phone booth in a drugstore. At twelve forty-nine the subject’s car came out of the dirt road and turned left on the blacktop. I followed. She went to the Taconic State Parkway, no stops, and headed south. At Hawthorne Circle she took the Saw Mill River. I nearly lost her twice but got her again. She left the West Side Highway at Nineteenth Street. She put her car in a parking lot on Christopher Street and walked here, five blocks. I found a space at the kerb.”

“Where is here?”

“This drugstore is at the corner of Arbor Street and Bailey Street. She went in the vestibule at Forty-two Arbor Street and pushed a button, and waited half a minute, and opened the door and entered. That was eight minutes ago. I can’t see the entrance from the booth, so if you want-”

“Did you say Forty-two?”

“Yes.”

“Hold it.” I turned to Wolfe. “Amy Wynn lives at Forty-two Arbor Street.”

“Indeed. This is Nero Wolfe, Miss Bonner. Can you see the entrance from where your car is parked?”

“Yes.”

“Then go to your car. If she comes out, follow her. Mr Goodwin will join you if you’re still there when he arrives. Satisfactory?”

We hung up. We looked at each other. “Nonsense,” Wolfe growled.

“Close to it,” I agreed. “But it’s possible. You told them Wednesday that it could be that one of them was it. If I had voted, Amy Wynn wouldn’t have been my choice, but it’s possible. Simon Jacobs was no athlete. If she had him in a car she could have sunk a knife in him. Certainly Jane Ogilvy would have been no problem. And for Alice Porter she has a double motive-not only to keep her from blabbing the Ellen Sturdevant operation but also to settle the claim Alice Porter has made against her. That’s one way to settle a claim out of court. I wouldn’t think she would pick her own apartment as the best place for it, but you said she was close to panic-only you said ‘he.’ Also she might have some original and nifty plan for getting rid of a body. She or he is quite a planner, you can’t deny that. I could go and drop in on her and say I’m making the rounds of the committee members, to ask them not to fire you. If I was too late to save Alice Porter’s life I would at least be in time to interfere with her body-disposal plan.”

“Pfui.”

“Cramer won’t think it’s phooey if Alice Porter is number three, another homicide in his jurisdiction, and he learns that you had Dol Bonner there in a car with her eye on the door. Your crack about closing your office permanently may turn out-”

The phone rang, and I got it. It was Reuben Imhof. He asked for Wolfe, and Wolfe got on.

“Something interesting,” Imhof said. “I just had a phone call from Amy Wynn. Alice Porter rang her this morning and said she wanted to come and see her. If Miss Wynn had told me about it, I would probably have advised her not to see her, but she didn’t. Anyway, Alice Porter is there with her now, in her apartment. She offers to settle her claim for twenty thousand dollars cash. Miss Wynn wants to know if I think she should accept the offer. I told her no. It looks to me as if the two murders have got Alice Porter scared. She suspects they were committed by the man who got her to make the claim on Ellen Sturdevant, and if he’s caught he may talk, and she’ll be sunk, and she wants to get what she can quick and clear out. What do you think?”

“You are probably correct. My offhand opinion.”

“Yes. That’s the way it looks. But after I hung up I wasn’t so sure I had given Miss Wynn good advice. Alice Porter would probably take half the amount she named, even less. If Miss Wynn can get a general release for, say, five thousand dollars perhaps that’s what she ought to do. If she doesn’t she may eventually have to pay ten times that, or more. On the other hand, if you or the police get the man you’re after and rip it open, she won’t have to pay anything. So I’m asking you. Shall I call Miss Wynn and advise her to make a deal if she can get one for ten thousand or less, or not?”

Wolfe grunted. “You can’t expect me to answer that. Miss Wynn is not my client, and neither are you. As a member of the committee you may ask me if I expect to expose that swindler and murderer.”

“All right, I do.”

“The answer is yes. Soon or late, he is doomed.”

“That suits me. Then I won’t call her.”

Wolfe cradled the phone and gave me a look, with a corner of his mouth slanting up.

“Okay.” I left my chair. “I only said it was possible. Would it be a good idea for me to help Dol Bonner tail her back to Carmel?”

“No.”

“Any special instructions for Miss Bonner?”

“No. Presumably she will find Miss Corbett at her post.”

I beat it.