Three for the Chair

II

I HAD KNOWN, of course, that that bozo had sunk a blade right in the center of Wolfe’s self-esteem, but I didn’t realize how deep it had gone until that moment. Evidently when he heard me say our client was in there his ears stopped working. He came up out of his chair and took a step toward the door, then stopped, turned, and glared at me.

“Oh,” he said, coming to. “Dead?”

“Right. Strangled.”

“It would be no satisfaction to see him dead.” He looked at the door, at me, sat down, flattened his palms on the table top, and closed his eyes. After a little he opened them. “Confound that wretch,” he muttered. “Alive he gulled me, and now dead he gets me into heaven knows what. Perhaps if we went… but no. I am merely frantic.” He stood up. “Come.” He started for the door.

I got in front of him. “Hold it. I want to go home too, but you know damn well we can’t scoot.”

“I do indeed. But I want a look at our confreres. Come.”

I stood aside and let him lead the way out and down the hall and into the room we had come from. Entering behind him, I shut the door. The two females were still in their corner, but the three men were gathered in a group, apparently having broken the ice. They all looked around at us, and Jay Kensang out, “What, still at large? How is he?”

Wolfe stood and took them in. So did I. At that point there was no particular reason to assume that one of them had tied our client’s necktie, but the client had unquestionably been connected with wiretapping, and they had all been summoned to answer questions about wiretapping. So Wolfe and I took them in. None of them trembled or turned pale or licked his lips or had a fit.

Wolfe spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are fellow members of a professional association, and therefore you might expect me to share with you any information I may have of our common concern. But I have just learned of an event in this building this morning that will cause Mr. Goodwin and me to suffer inconvenience and possibly serious harassment. I have no reason to suppose that any of you were involved in it, but you may have been; and if you weren’t, you would gain nothing by hearing it from me, so I’ll let someone else tell you about it. You won’t have long to wait. Meanwhile, please understand that I mean no offense in staring around at you. I am merely interested in the possibility that one of you is involved. If you -”

“What the hell!” Steve Amsel snorted. His quick black eyes had lit at last. “You got a point?”

“It’s a good script and I like it,” Jay Kerr said. “Go right on.” His voice was thin and high, but that was no sign that he had strangled a man. It was just his voice.

Harland Ide, the banker type, cleared his throat. “If we’re not involved,” he said drily, “we are not concerned. You say in this building this morning? What kind of an event?”

Wolfe shook his head, and stood and stared around. Still no one had a fit. Instead, they talked, and the general feeling seemed to be one of relief that they had been given something to talk about. Steve Amsel suggested that Dol Bonner and Sally Colt should get Wolfe between them and worm it out of him, but the ladies politely declined.

Wolfe was still standing, still taking them in, when the door popped open and Albert Hyatt appeared. Seeing Wolfe, he stopped short and said, “Oh, here you are.” A strand of his smooth hair had got loose. He looked at me. “You too. You came in behind me and saw him, didn’t you?”

I told him yes.

“And left in a hurry?”

“Sure. You had told Mr. Wolfe you had a surprise for him, and I wanted to tell him what it was.”

“You recognized him?”

“I did. The client Mr. Wolfe told you about.”

Wolfe put in, “I would have appreciated the favor of seeing him alive.”

“Perhaps. Of course you have told these people?”

“No, sir.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

Hyatt’s eyes went around. “Apparently you’re all here. Jay Kerr?”

“That’s me,” Kerr admitted.

“Harland We?”

“Here.”

“Steven Amsel?”

Amsel raised a hand.

“Theodolinda Bonner?”

“I’m here, and I’ve been here more than two hours. I am quite willing to -”

“One moment, Miss Bonner. Sally Colt?”

“Here.”

“All right. The hearing I am conducting on behalf of the secretary of state is temporarily suspended, but you will all stay in this room. A dead body has been discovered in a room on this floor. A man presumably murdered. That is of course a matter for the police, and they will want to see you. I can’t say now when the hearing will be resumed, and you will regard your summonses to appear today as in abeyance but not canceled. Don’t leave this room until the police come.” He turned to go. A voice stopped him.

“Who is the murdered man?” It was Harland Ide.

“The police will tell you. That’s not my province, thank God.”

“Mr. Hyatt.” Dol Bonner’s voice was clear and crisp. She was on her feet. “You are Mr. Hyatt?”

“I am.”

“Miss Colt and I had a very early breakfast, and we’re hungry. We are going to get something to eat.”

Damn plucky, I thought. She must have known that a murderer is supposed to feel empty and want a big meal after killing a man. Hyatt told her she’d have to wait until the police came, ignored a protest from Steve Amsel, and left, closing the door.

They looked around at one another. I was disappointed in them. I had on various occasions been cooped up with an assortment of people on account of a murder, but that was the first time they were exclusively private detectives, and you might have thought they would be a little quicker on the ball than most. No. It would have taken an average group maybe a minute to absorb the shock of Hyatt’s announcement and hop on Wolfe and me, and that was about what it took them. Steve Amsel got to it first. He was about half Wolfe’s size, and, facing him close, he had to tilt his head back to give his quick black eyes a straight line.

“So that was the event. Murder.” He didn’t make it “moider” but something in between. “Okay. Who was it?”

Jay Kerr joined in. “Yeah, Goodwin recognized him. Name him.”

Dol Bonner approached, expectantly, with Sally trailing behind her elbow. Harland Ide said, “If I heard correctly, Mr. Wolfe, he was a client of yours?”

They were hemming Wolfe in, and he backed up a step. “I can’t tell you who he was,” he said, “because I don’t know. Neither does Mr. Goodwin. We don’t know his name.”

Sally Colt started to titter and choked it. “Nuts,” Steve Amsel said, disgusted. “But Goodwin recognized him? This a guessing game you thought up?”

“And he was your client?” Jay Kerr squeaked.

“Really, Mr. Wolfe,” Dol Bonner protested, “aren’t you making a farce of it? You, with your reputation? Do you expect us to believe that you took a man as a client without even learning his name?”

“No.” Wolfe compressed his lips. He released them. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am compelled to ask your forbearance. The silliest blunder I have ever made has found me here today, to my deep chagrin and possibly my undoing. What more do you want? What further ignominy? Mr. Goodwin recognized him, he was my client, I don’t know his name, and before and after the period when I worked for him I know nothing whatever about him. That’s all.”

He marched to a chair against the wall, sat, rested his fists on his thighs, and closed his eyes.

I crossed over to him and lowered my voice. “Any instructions?”

“No.” His eyes stayed shut.

“As you know, Gil Tauber is here in Albany. He certainly knows the cops. Shall I go find a phone and alert him in case we could use some information?”

“No.”

Evidently he didn’t feel like chatting. I went over to the confreres, still in a group, and told them, “If you folks want to discuss our ignominy, don’t mind me. You might even say something helpful.”

“Where’s the body?” Steve Amsel asked.

“Room thirty-eight, down the hall.”

“What killed him?”

“His necktie around his throat. I suppose he could have done it himself, but you know how that is. I prefer not, and he might have been calmed down first with a heavy brass ashtray. There was one there on the floor.”

“You and Wolfe came last this morning,” Harland Ide stated. “Did you see him on the way?”

I grinned at him. “Now look,” I objected. “We’ll get enough of that from the cops. Have a heart. We’re fellow members of a professional association. You would grill me?”

“Not at all,” he said stiffly. “I merely thought that if that room is between here and the elevator, and the door was open, you might have seen him, possibly even spoken with him. I certainly did not intend -”

He was interrupted. The door opened and a man entered, a big broad-shouldered ape with not enough features to fill up his big round face. He shut the door, stood, and counted us, with his lips moving, and then pulled a chair over by the door and sat. He had nothing to say.

Again that bunch of pros disappointed me. They knew quite well that the presence of the dick had no bearing on their freedom to converse, and as for being discreet, one glance at his mug should have made it plain that he lacked the mental machinery to register and report anything he heard, granting he could hear. But they clammed up, and stayed clammed for a good half an hour. Just to see, I made a few tries at starting some discourse, but nothing doing. The ladies had gone back to their corner, and I tried them too, and got the impression that Sally would have been willing to relieve the tension with a little give and take, but as for Dol Bonner, definitely not, and she was the boss.

I had just glanced at my wrist watch and seen ten minutes past one when the door opened again. This time there were two of them. The one in front was a six-footer with a long narrow phiz and grizzled hair. He stopped three paces in, sent his eyes around, and told us, “I’m Leon Groom, chief of detectives of the City of Albany.”

He paused, for applause maybe, but didn’t get it. His facial expression was superior, and so was his tone of voice, which was natural under the circumstances. Not often does a chief of detectives get to address an audience composed exclusively of private eyes, a breed they would like to blackball, and not only that, we were all from the big town, which made us mud.

He resumed. “You have been told that there has been a death by violence in a room on this floor, and you’re being detained for questioning. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin will come with me. Now. The rest of you will shortly be taken, one at a time, to view the body.” He aimed a thumb at his companion “This man will ask you what kind of sandwiches you want and they’ll be brought to you. On the City of Albany. You’re Theodolinda Bonner?”

“Yes.”

“A policewoman will be here before long, in case a search of your persons is required.”

“With consent,” Steve Amsel said offensively.

“Certainly with consent. Nero Wolfe? Come along, you and Archie Goodwin.”

Wolfe got up and headed for the door, saying, as he passed me, “Come, Archie.” I was on his payroll, and he wasn’t going to have other people giving me orders.