The Zero Clue

2

I told the watchdog I would try to get Nero Wolfe’s autograph for him, and wrote his name in my notebook: Nils Lamm. Meanwhile the girl stood there facing us, frowning at us. She was twenty-three or — four, up to my chin, and without the deep frown her face would probably have deserved attention. Since she showed no trace of embarrassment, staring fixedly at a stranger, I saw no reason why I should, but something had to be said, so I asked her, “Do you want one?”

She cocked her head. “One what?”

“Autograph. Either Mr. Wolfe’s or mine, take your pick.”

“Oh. You are Archie Goodwin, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture too.”

“Then I’m it.”

“I—” She hesitated, then made up her mind. “I want to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

Someone trotted in from the street, a brisk female in mink, executive type, between twenty and sixty, and the girl and I moved aside to clear the lane to the elevator. The newcomer told Nils Lamm she was seeing Leo Heller and refused to give her name, but when Lamm insisted she coughed it up: Agatha Abbey, she said, and he let her take the elevator. The girl told me she had been working all night and was tired, and we went to a bench by the fireplace. Close up, I would still have said twenty-three or — four, but someone or something had certainly been harassing her. Naturally there was a question in my mind about the night work.

She answered it. “My name’s Susan Maturo, and I’m a registered nurse.”

“Thanks. You know mine, and I’m a registered detective.”

She nodded. “That’s why I want to ask you something. If I hired Nero Wolfe to investigate a — a matter, how much would it cost?”

I raised my shoulders half an inch and let them down. “It all depends. The kind of matter, the amount of time taken, the wear and tear on his brain, the state of your finances....”

I paused, letting it hang, to return a rude stare that was being aimed at us by another arrival, a thin tall bony specimen in a brown suit that badly needed pressing, with a bulging briefcase under his arm. When my gaze met his he called it off and turned and strode to the elevator, without any exchange with Nils Lamm.

I resumed to Susan Maturo. “Have you got a matter, or are you just researching?”

“Oh, I’ve got a matter.” She set her teeth on her lip — nice teeth, and not a bad lip — and kept them that way a while, regarding me. Then she went on, “It hit me hard, and it’s been getting worse in me instead of better. I began to be afraid I was going batty, and I decided to come to this Leo Heller and see what he could do, so I came this morning, but I was sitting up there in his waiting room — two people were already there, a man and a woman — and it went all through me that I was just being bitter and vindictive, and I don’t think I’m really like that — I’m pretty sure I never have been—”

Apparently she needed some cooperation, so I assured her, “You don’t look vindictive.”

She touched my sleeve with her fingertips to thank me. “So I got up and left, and then as I was leaving the elevator I heard that man saying your name and who you are, and it popped into my head to ask you. I asked how much it would cost to have Nero Wolfe investigate, but that was premature, because what I really want is to tell him about it and get his advice about investigating.”

She was dead serious and she was all worked up, so I arranged my face and voice to fit. “It’s like this,” I told her, “for that kind of approach to Mr. Wolfe, with no big fee in prospect, some expert preparation is required, and I’m the only expert in the field.” I glanced at my wrist and saw 10:19. “I’ve got a date, but I can spare five minutes if you want to brief me on the essentials, and then I’ll tell you how it strikes me. What was it that hit you?”

She looked at me, shot a glance at Nils Lamm, who couldn’t have moved out of earshot in that lobby if he had wanted to, and came back to me. Her jaw quivered, and she clamped it tight and held it for a moment, then released it and spoke. “When I start to talk about it, it sticks in my throat and chokes me, and five minutes wouldn’t be enough, and anyway I need someone old and wise like Nero Wolfe. Won’t you let me see him?”

I promised to try. I told her that it would be hard to find any man in the metropolitan area more willing to help an attractive girl in distress than I was, but it would be a waste of time and effort for me to take her in to Wolfe cold, and though I was neither old nor wise she would have to give me at least a full outline before I could furnish either an opinion or help. She agreed that that was reasonable and gave me her address and phone number, and we arranged to communicate later in the day. I went and opened the door for her, and she departed.

On the way up in the elevator my watch said 10:28, so I wasn’t on time after all, but we would still have half an hour before Heller’s business day began. On the fifth floor a plaque on the wall facing the elevator was lettered LEO HELLER, WAITING ROOM, with an arrow pointing right, and at that end of the narrow hall a door bore the invitation, WALK IN. I turned left, toward the other end, where I pushed a button beside a door, noticing as I did so that the door was ajar a scanty inch. When my ring brought no response, and a second one, more prolonged, didn’t either, I shoved the door open, crossed the sill, and called Heller’s name. No reply. There was no one in sight.

Thinking that he had probably stepped into the waiting room and would soon return, I glanced around to see what the lair of a probability wizard looked like, and was impressed by some outstanding features. The door, of metal, was a good three inches thick, either for security or for soundproofing, or maybe both. If there were any windows they were behind the heavy draperies; the artificial light came indirectly from channels in the walls just beneath the ceiling. The air was conditioned. There were locks on all the units of a vast assembly of filing cabinets that took up all the rear wall. The floor, with no rugs, was tiled with some velvety material on which a footfall was barely audible.

The thick door was for soundproofing. I had closed it, nearly, on entering, and the silence was complete. Not a sound of the city could be heard, though the clang and clatter of Lexington Avenue was nearby one way and Third Avenue the other.

I crossed for a look at the desk, but there was nothing remarkable about it except that it was twice the usual size. Among other items it held a rack of books with titles that were not tempting, an abacus of ivory or a good imitation, and a stack of legal-size working pads. Stray sheets of paper were scattered, and a single pad had on its top sheet some scribbled formulas that looked like doodles by Einstein. Also a jar of sharpened lead pencils had been overturned, and some of them were in a sort of a pattern near the edge of the desk.

I had been in there ten minutes, and no Heller; and when, at eleven o’clock by schedule, Wolfe came down to the office from his morning session with the orchids, it was desirable that I should be present. So I went, leaving the door ajar as I had found it, walked down the hall to the door of the waiting room at the other end, and entered.

This room was neither air-conditioned nor soundproofed. Someone had opened a window a couple of inches, and the din was jangling in. Five people were here and there on chairs; three of them I had seen before: the big guy in the dark blue topcoat and homburg, the brisk female in mink who called herself Agatha Abbey, and the tall thin specimen with a briefcase. Neither of the other two was Leo Heller. One was a swarthy little article, slick and sly, with his hair pasted to his scalp, and the other was a big blob of an overfed matron with a spare chin.

I addressed the gathering. “Has Mr. Heller been in here?”

A couple of them shook their heads, and the swarthy article said hoarsely, “Not visible till eleven o’clock, and you take your turn.”

I thanked him, left, and went back to the other room. Still no Heller. I didn’t bother to call his name again, since even if it had flushed him I would have had to leave immediately. So I departed. Down in the lobby I again told Nils Lamm I’d see what I could do about an autograph. Outside, deciding there wasn’t time to walk it, I flagged a taxi. Home again, I hadn’t been in the office more than twenty seconds when the sound came of Wolfe’s elevator descending.

That was a funny thing. I’m strong on hunches, and I’ve had some beauts during the years I’ve been with Wolfe, but that day there wasn’t the slightest glimmer of something impending. You might think that was an ideal spot for a hunch, but no, not a sign of a tickle. I was absolutely blithe as I asked Wolfe how the anti-thrips campaign was doing, and later, after lunch, as I dialed the number Susan Maturo had given me, though I admit I was a little dampened when I got no answer, since I had the idea of finding out someday how she would look with the frown gone.

But still later, shortly after six o’clock, I went to answer the doorbell and through the one-way glass panel saw Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide there on the stoop. There was an instant reaction in the lower third of my spine, but I claim no credit for a hunch, since after all a homicide inspector does not go around ringing doorbells to sell tickets to the Policemen’s Annual Ball.

I let him in and took him to the office, where Wolfe was drinking beer and scowling at three United States senators on television.