The Missing Heiress

Chapter 18

When I had told Mason that the individual we’d send to the Riviera would be all business, I knew Wolfe was going to suggest Saul Panzer, and I was right. We both knew Saul never wasted time on a job, although he might appreciate the surroundings. We also realized that if we were to send Orrie Cather, there was the risk that he would find all manner of diversions on the beaches of the Mediterranean and would take his time returning to New York. I told our other client, Lily Rowan, that Saul was headed to France, and she approved.

Within hours and armed with instructions, Saul had booked himself on one of the newly launched overnight flights to Paris with a connecting plane to Nice. He seemed to approve of the assignment, but then, who wouldn’t? A couple of days away from New York’s early spring weather was always welcome.

But before leaving for Europe, Saul told Orrie he was in charge of keeping watch on the Greenwich Village building around the clock, which meant hiring one of Bascom’s men to join Fred and Orrie on the twenty-four-hour surveillance.

“Think it’s worth paying to have that place watched all the time?” I asked Wolfe. “There doesn’t seem to be much going on inside.”

“Normally, I would agree, although something in that building must have interested Mr. Hirsch and his dogsbody.”

“I suppose. Maybe I’m worrying too much about expenses, but if Mason is willing to pony up to send Saul to France, what’s a few bucks on a vigil?”

Just then, the phone squawked, and I started to answer with my usual “Nero Wolfe’s office, Arch—” when I got a “Yeah, yeah, I know the spiel” from Lon Cohen at the Gazette.

“Something just came over the police wire that should interest you,” he said. “A man identified as Everett Carr was found shot dead in a passageway between two buildings in Greenwich Village. If I remember right, and I usually do, you asked for the clips on that very same name sometime back.”

I motioned and Wolfe picked up his receiver. “Any other details?” I asked.

“Carr had been hit, by somebody who pulled the trigger several times, because there were some shell casings on the ground from shots that missed him. He was identified by his wallet. That’s all we have so far.”

“Give me the address.” Lon fed it to me and I thanked him, hanging up and turning to Wolfe. “I’m off,” I said and received the slightest of nods in return.

I got lucky and found a taxi at the Ninth Avenue corner, told the cabbie to step on it, and was in the Village minutes later.

The address Lon gave was on Bank Street, not far from the place we were staking out. I left the taxi a half block from the flashing lights of two squad cars and an ambulance, with its crew in the process of hauling away a bag that certainly had a body inside. There was the usual gaggle of onlookers, along with several uniformed cops and a familiar figure, Sergeant Purley Stebbins of the New York Police Department’s Homicide Squad. For me, a piece of bad luck.

As I approached, he recognized me and did not like what he saw. “Goodwin, I feel I am having a bad dream. What is it about corpses that attracts you?”

“I enjoy watching a pro in action, Purley. I just happened to be in the Village, and I was drawn to all these bright lights.”

“You just ‘happen to be’ in all sorts of places,” he snarled. Purley Stebbins has never liked me, and the feeling is mutual. But somehow, we have managed to coexist for years without doing violence to each other. Call it an uneasy truce.

“So what’s happened here?” I asked, hoping I presented a picture of innocence.

Stebbins narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t have any idea?”

I shrugged. “I was visiting a friend near here, and... well, you know how those things are.”

“No, I don’t know, Goodwin, and I don’t give a good goddamn about your personal life,” Stebbins growled. “I’m busy investigating a murder.”

“Sorry, I won’t get in the way. Who was the poor sap who just got hauled away?”

“Name’s Carr. Now just beat it. You are not welcome here. Do I have to draw you a picture?”

“Not necessary, Purley,” I said, walking away.

When I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe was at his desk, reading. He looked up when I entered the office, his eyebrows raised.

“I got to the place where Carr had been shot and was hoping I could talk to some young cop who would in all innocence answer questions. But that was not to be.”

Wolfe, putting his book down, said, “Sergeant Stebbins.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Inspector Cramer usually sends the sergeant out on the initial investigation of a murder. Consider your good fortune. It could have been worse. You might have run into that cretin Lieutenant Rowcliff.”

“A good point. Anyway, I left, but it was too late. Now we both know damned well that Cramer will be coming to visit. It’s not just a matter of if, but of when.”

Wolfe’s sour expression conceded my point, and he slammed his book shut, rising. “I believe we can expect Mr. Cramer tomorrow morning, probably shortly after eleven. Good night, Archie.”

He had nailed it, all right. At 11:06 the next morning, as we both were in the office, Wolfe with beer and me with coffee, the doorbell rang.

“Admit him,” Wolfe gruffed. “There is nothing to be gained by putting the man off, and we may learn something from his presence.”

Through the one-way glass, I could see a blocky frame that could belong to only one person. I swung the door open and said, “Good morning, Inspector, it begins to look like spring is really on the way.”

His answer sounded something like “Grr” as he pushed by me and barreled down the hall to the office, his overcoat flapping like the wings of an overweight goose taking off.

By the time I got there, Cramer already had lowered himself into the red leather chair he had occupied more times than any other visitor to the brownstone.

Wolfe considered him. “I haven’t seen you for some time, Mr. Cramer. I hope you have been well.”

“I’ve been fine, mainly because I haven’t had occasion to come here lately,” the inspector said, jamming an unlit cigar into his mouth. “But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.”

“A pessimistic view of life, sir,” Wolfe remarked.

“That’s what my job has done to me.”

“Not surprising. You see the worst of the human species, and on a daily basis. You have my sympathy.”

“I don’t need your sympathy, Wolfe. What I need is to know why this man” — he gestured at me with his unlit cigar — “happened to be on a street in Greenwich Village so soon after someone was found shot dead there.”

Wolfe turned to me. “Archie?”

That was my cue to show some of our cards to the inspector. “We have been interested in Everett Carr for some time.”

“Interested — why is that?”

“His sister, Maureen, disappeared, and Mr. Wolfe has been hired to find her. Everett was her only living relative, and he, too, recently had been out of sight as well.”

“Is this true?” Cramer barked, turning to Wolfe.

“Yes. Why would you doubt Mr. Goodwin?”

“Oh, now that’s a question I could have fun with. He’s more slippery than a greased pig and has been as long as I’ve known him. By the way, I’m guessing — and it is an educated guess — that your old pal Cohen at the Gazette tipped you off about Carr’s shooting.”

“Does it matter how Archie learned of the event?” Wolfe asked.

“I suppose not,” Cramer conceded. “What do you know about Everett Carr?”

Wolfe looked in my direction. Another cue for me to open up.

“Everett came from a lot of money, like his sister. But unlike her, he was not the least bit careful with it. He had a gambling addiction from what we’ve learned and spent big bucks on the horses without much success. The last we knew, he had been living at that big YMCA on Thirty-Fourth Street, but he apparently hadn’t been there the last few weeks.”

“What about his sister?” Cramer asked.

“Maureen Carr has been a will-o’-the-wisp,” Wolfe said.

“Which is your fancy way of saying you have failed in your search for her, is that right?”

“Thus far, you are correct, Inspector.”

“Well, this is a side of you I don’t often see, Wolfe. The great detective flummoxed, to use his own word.”

“I prefer ‘temporarily stalemated.’ As you can see, Mr. Goodwin and I have been forthcoming and open. What can you tell us about the death of Mr. Carr?”

“Not a lot, yet. One item you might find interesting, though. Whoever got him must have been really sore at the victim, because several shots were fired, one of which apparently got him in the pump, but a few others missed completely. On the ground, our men found shell casings, and they were nine millimeter.”

“That’s a little unusual,” I put in.

“Yes and no,” Cramer said. “They used to be more unusual here, but since the war ended, we have begun to see them involved in shootings.”

“That’s the ammo Lugers use.”

“Exactly, Goodwin!” Cramer rasped. “GIs have been bringing these German pistols home as souvenirs, I am sorry to say. They have been used in a number of murders, and, maybe saddest of all, in suicides as well.”

“You are of course referring to the alarming number of returning servicemen who have taken their own lives,” Wolfe said.

“I am. Our soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, they have accomplished great things overseas, and they have been praised and honored by the foreign countries they have defended, but it seems some of them haven’t found life back home nearly as welcoming.”

“We appreciate our troops during war, but we, too, often forget our debt to them soon after the guns have been silenced,” Wolfe said.

“Very true,” Cramer replied. “Whose quote is that?”

“Mine. Have you learned anything about Mr. Carr and how he happened to be in Greenwich Village?”

“No. I’ve gone over what was found on his person, and it is not very revealing. His clothes were shabby, and his driver’s license listed that YMCA you mentioned as his address. According to the license, he was fifty-five, meaning he would have been too old to serve during the war. This doesn’t look like a robbery. In his pocket was a money clip with thirty-four dollars in it, and his wristwatch was a cheapie, the kind you can buy at Woolworth’s. He also carried two keys, one of them probably to his room at the Y, and there was a pack of Lucky Strikes with a couple of smokes left in it.

“Besides the driver’s license,” Cramer continued, “his wallet contained a picture of a somewhat young woman, perhaps a girlfriend or his sister, a couple of horse racing tickets — obviously for horses that had finished out of the money — and three addresses with phone numbers, very possibly of bookies, scribbled on a sheet of paper. We plan to call these numbers to see if whoever answers can tell us anything about Carr.”

“How did you find out about the shooting?” I asked.

“A woman living on the block said she faintly heard a shot and called the local precinct. Turns out the murder took place in a narrow passage between two buildings, which may have muffled the noise to some degree. Whoever plugged Carr was facing him, up close in that tight space, suggesting that he may have known his killer.”

“Is violence common in the neighborhood?” Wolfe asked.

“Not really. I can’t remember the last time there was a murder within blocks of what happened,” Cramer said as he rose to leave. “You will let me know if and when you locate the dead man’s sister, won’t you?”

The inspector got no reply from Wolfe as he walked out of the office and down the hall to the front door, which I locked behind him. “At least he didn’t throw his cigar at the wastebasket this time,” I said to Wolfe, who shook his head in disgust and returned to reading his book.