Too Many Clients

14

I had no appointment with Mr. or Mrs. Austin Hough, because, first, I hadn't known when 1 would finish with Meg Duncan, and second, I preferred to have one of them alone, it didn't matter which. So when I pushed the button in the vestibule at 64 Eden Street I didn't know if there would be anyone at home. There was. The click came; I opened the door and entered, and mounted the stairs. I wasn't awaited at the door of the apartment as before; he was standing at the top of the second flight. As I reached the landing he backed up a step. He wasn't glad to see me.

"Back again," I said politely. "Did you find your wife yesterday?"

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Nothing startling. A couple of questions. There has been a development that complicates it a little. You probably know about it, the murder of a girl named Maria Perez."

"No. I haven't been out today. I haven't seen a paper. Who is Maria Perez?"

"Not is, was. Then the radio?"

"I haven't turned it on. Who was she?"

"The daughter of the man you saw when you went to that house on Eighty-second Street. Her body was found last night on a North River pier. She was killed, shot, between nine o'clock and midnight. Mr. Wolfe is wondering how you spent the evening. And your wife."

''Balls," he said.

My brows went up in astonishment. He certainly hadn't got that from Robert Browning, though an Elizabethan dramatist might have used it that way. I wasn't up on Elizabethan dramatists. Wherever he had got it, this was a different Austin Hough from the one I had felt sorry for yesterday afternoon - not only that word so used, but his face and bearing. This Hough wasn't asking any favors.

"So," he said, "you want to know how my wife spent last evening? You'd better ask her. Come on." He turned and headed down the hall, and I followed. The door was open. There was no foyer inside. The room, not large, had the furniture of a living room, but the walls were all books. He crossed to a door at the far end, opened it, and motioned me in. Two steps from the sill I stopped dead.

He had killed her. Granting that you shouldn't jump to conclusions, you often do, and for the second time that afternoon I saw a young woman in bed, only this one was completely covered, including her head. Not by a coverlet; a plain white sheet followed her contours, and as we entered there was no sign of movement. A corpse. I stood and stared, but Hough, passing me, spoke.

"It's Archie Goodwin, Dinah. A girl was murdered last night." He turned to me. "What was her name?"

"Maria Perez."

He turned back. "Maria Perez. She lived in that house. Goodwin wants to know what you were doing last evening between nine o'clock and midnight, and I thought you had better tell him. He saw you there in that house yesterday, so I thought he might as well see you now."

Her voice came from beneath the sheet, a mumble that I wouldn't have recognized. "No, Austin, I won't."

"But you will. Don't start it again." He was only a step from the bed. He took it, reached for the top of the sheet, and pulled it back.

I have seen better-looking corpses. The right side of her face was far from normal, but it was nothing compared to the left side. The eye was swollen shut, and the swollen cheek and jaw were the color of freshly sliced calves' liver. Her best curves, of her wide, full mouth, were puffy folds of purple. She was on her back. Her garment had just straps, no sleeves, and from the appearance of her shoulders and upper arms she couldn't have been on her side. I couldn't tell where her one eye was aimed. Hough, one hand holding the sheet, turned to me. "I told you yesterday," he said, "that I wanted her to know I knew, but I couldn't tell her. I was afraid of what would happen if I told her. Now it has happened." He turned to her. "He wants to know where you were between nine o'clock and midnight. Tell him and he'll go."

"I was here." It was a mumble, but I got it. "Where I am now. By nine o'clock I was like this."

"Your husband left you here like this?"

"He didn't leave me. He was here with me."

"Balls," Hough said, to me. "I came here when I left you and Wolfe, and she was here, and I haven't been out of here since. Now you have seen her, and she has told you, and you can go."

"She's your wife, not mine," I said, "but has a doctor seen her?"

"No. I was filling the ice bags when you rang the bell."

I made my eyes go to her. "Shall I send a doctor, Mrs. Hough?"

"No," she said.

"Send her a bottle of champagne," he said.

And I did. That is, I sent champagne, but not to her, on impulse. When I went to Seventh Avenue to get a taxi, after I had phoned Wolfe to report on the Houghs and tell him I was on my way to Mrs. Yeager, I saw a liquor store and went in and asked if he happened to have a bottle of Dom Perignon, and he did. I told him to send it to Mr. Austin Hough, 64 Eden Street, and enclose a card on which I wrote "With the compliments of Archie Goodwin." Preferring to make it a personal matter, I didn't put it on expense. I have often wondered whether he dumped it in the garbage, or drank it himself, or shared it with her.

When I left the taxi in front of 340 East 68th Street, at two minutes past five, I stood for a glance around before going to the entrance. Here was where it had started three days ago. There was where the NYPD car had been double-parked with Purley Stebbins' driver in it. Around the corner was the lunchroom where I had phoned Lon Cohen. As I entered the vestibule to push the button I asked myself, if I had known what was ahead would I have given Mike Collins the extra forty bucks? But I didn't answer because I didn't know what was still ahead.

I didn't know how Wolfe felt about it, but I was more interested in where Mrs. Yeager had been last night than in any of the others. Of course inheriting widows of murdered men always deserve attention, and not only that, she had known that Yeager was not merely two-timing her, he was twenty-timing her. Her shrugging it off was noble if true, and a good line if false. Her wanting to see that room was natural if true, and again a good line if she had seen it before, Sunday night, when she went there to kill him. Her alibi as published, that she had been in the country and hadn't returned to town until Monday morning, might already have been found leaky by the cops. I suspected that it had, since Cramer had had a tail on her yesterday.

One point in her favor, she wasn't in bed. A uniformed maid showed me through an arch into a living room that would have held six of the Houghs', and in a couple of minutes our Client Number Four appeared. I stood. She stopped just inside the arch and said, "So you're on time. Come on." She had a hat on, and a fur stole, not the mink.

"Are we going somewhere?" I asked, approaching.

"Certainly. You're going to show me that room. The car's waiting."

"I'm afraid this isn't a good time, Mrs. Yeager. After what has happened. Sit down and I'll tell you why."

"You can tell me in the car. You said yesterday you'd take me as soon as you got a chance."

"I know. I tried to get you on the phone at ten o'clock last evening but couldn't. You weren't at home?"

"Certainly I was. My son and daughter were here, and some friends." She moved. "Come on."

"Damn the torpedoes!" I told her back. She whirled. For a lump she whirled well.

"What did you say?"

"I said damn the torpedoes. That may be your attitude, but it's not Mr. Wolfe's or mine. I came to tell you why we can't go there now. Since the janitor of that house had a daughter, and last night - "

"I know about that. I told you on the phone. She was murdered."

"Right. And it seems likely that she was murdered by the person who murdered your husband. Incidentally, you may remember that Mr. Wolfe suggested the possibility that you killed your husband, so he thinks it's also possible that you killed Maria Perez. That's why I asked if you were at home last evening. Were you here with your son and daughter and friends all evening? Up to midnight?"

"Yes. I said yesterday, it was years ago that I felt like killing him. You're not complete fools, are you?"

"Not complete, no. All right, you didn't kill him. Or her. Some day I'll be glad to take you to see that room, but not now. It's too risky. A girl who lived there has been murdered, and at any time, day or night, a policeman or assistant district attorney may be there to ask questions of her parents or some of the tenants. There may be a man on the outside to keep an eye on the house. If either you or I was seen entering or inside that house, let alone both of us, good-by. Good-by not only to the job Aiken hired Wolfe for, but also to the one you hired him for. Another thing, you are probably still being followed around."

"They wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't they, though. They did, didn't they? We'll have to postpone it. The room will keep."

"Are you going to take me there or not?"

"Not now. Not today."

"I thought so. There is no such room."

"Oh yes there is. I've seen it. Several times,"

"I don't believe it." Her sharp little eyes were slanted up to mine. "Benedict Aiken invented it, or Nero Wolfe did, or you did. You've been making a fool of me. I suspected it yesterday, and now I know it. Get out of my house. I'm going to call the District Attorney."

I was observing an interesting fact, that two chins can look fully as determined as one. I couldn't possibly talk her out of it, and there was no use trying. I made one stab at it.

"You're looking at me, Mrs. Yeager. Our eyes are meeting. Do I look like a liar?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then you'll have to be shown. You say your car's waiting. With a chauffeur?"

"Certainly."

"Nothing doing. If this house is covered he wouldn't even have to follow to find out where we went unless the chauffeur is a hero. We'll leave together, that doesn't matter, and walk to Second Avenue. You'll wait at the corner, and when I come in a taxi you'll get in. I'll show you whether there' s such a room or not.''

The sharp little eyes were suspicious. "Is this another trick?"

"Why ask me, since I'm a liar? Sure, I'm kidnapping you. In my circle we call it a snatch."

It took her four seconds to decide. "All right, come on," she said, and moved.

Out on the sidewalk she stopped to speak to the chauffeur standing beside a black Lincoln, and then went with me to the corner. From there on I took the standard routine precautions, going uptown a block to get a taxi, and picking her up at the corner. I had the hackie do turns until I was sure we were unaccompanied and then drop us on Madison Avenue in the Seventies. When he was out of sight I flagged another taxi, told the driver 82nd and Amsterdam, and when we got there told him to crawl the block to Columbus. At Columbus, having seen no sign of a city employee, I told him to take 81st Street back to Amsterdam and stop at the corner. There I paid him off and took Mrs. Yeager into a drugstore and, since she suspected tricks, I had her come along to the phone booth and stand at my elbow while I dialed a number and talked. What she heard:

"Mrs. Perez? This is Archie Goodwin. I'm in a drugstore around the corner. I hope we're still friends?… Good. Has a policeman been there?… You didn't? Good… No, that's all right, taking you downtown and having you sign a statement was normal, they always do. Is anyone there now?… Okay. I'm coming there with a woman, we'll be there in two minutes, and I'm taking her up in the elevator. We won't be there long. I may phone you this evening, or I may drop in… No, but I hope there soon will be… Absolutely. I'm your detective."

As I hung up Mrs. Yeager demanded, "Who was that?"

"The mother of the girl who was murdered last night. Since you didn't kill her there's no conflict of interest. Let's go."

We walked the block to 82nd, around the corner, on to Number 156, and in at the basement door. There was no one in the hall, and the door of Maria's room was shut. At the elevator I used the second key and we entered.

Not being a psychologist or a sociologist, I wouldn't know how a middle-aged widow with a double chin is supposed to react on entering a bower that her husband had used for extramarital activities, but whatever the pattern is I'll give any odds you name that Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager didn't follow it. When I switched on the lights she took a couple of steps, stopped, moved her head slowly around to the right, moved it back more slowly and to the left, and turned to face me.

"I apologize," she said.

"Accepted," I said. "Forget it."

She took a few more steps, stopped for another look around, and turned again. "No bathroom?"

I believed it only because I heard it. You haven't that privilege. "Sure," I said, "at the far end. The kitchen's at this end." I pointed. "That gold push plate is on the door.'' I swung my arm around. "There where the silk is tucked; it's a curtain. Drawers behind it."

That ended the conversation, though her inspection took more than half an hour. First she took in the pictures, not collectively, one by one, moving along, tilting her head back for the high ones. No comment. When she slid the curtain aside and began opening drawers I went to a chair and sat. She took nothing out of the drawers and didn't poke in them. She stooped over for a close look at the carpet. She examined the upholstery on the chairs and couches. She twisted her neck up and around to survey the indirect-lighting installation. She pulled the top of the bed coverlet down to see the linen and put it neatly back again. She was in the kitchen a good five minutes, and in the bathroom longer. She did the bathroom last, and when she came out she got her stole from the couch where she had put it, and spoke.

"Do you believe that Julia McGee came here to take dictation?"

"No." I rose. "Do you?"

"Certainly not. Why do you think the person who killed my husband killed that girl?"

"It's complicated. But it's not just a guess."

"Where's her mother? I want to speak to her.''

"Better not, right now." I was moving toward the elevator, and she was coming. "It hit her pretty hard. Some other day.'' I pushed the button, the elevator door opened, and we entered.

Just to get it straight for my own satisfaction, I have tried to figure exactly where we were when the doorbell rang in the basement. We must have been either entering the elevator or on our way down. Anyhow, I didn't hear it, so we emerged below and started up the hall. When we were about halfway to the front Mrs. Perez came out of a door ahead on the right, the one she and Maria had come out of when her husband called her my first time there, went to the street door, and opened it. As I say, I hadn't heard the doorbell, so I supposed she was going out. But she wasn't. Mrs. Yeager and I were right there when Sergeant Purley Stebbins said, "Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Perez, but - " saw us, and stopped.

A mind can do crazy things. Mine, instead of instantly tackling the situation, took a tenth of a second to tell me how lucky I was that Stebbins hadn't been already inside and with Mrs. Perez in the hall when we stepped out of the elevator. That helped a lot, to know I was lucky.

"You?" Stebbins said. He crossed the sill.

"And you, Mrs. Yeager?"

"We were just leaving," I said. "Having had a talk with Mrs. Perez."

"What about?"

"About her daughter. I suppose you know that Mrs. Yeager has hired Mr. Wolfe to find out who killed her husband. She told Cramer yesterday. She has some detective instincts herself. When she read in the paper today that a girl named Maria Perez had been murdered, shot in the head, and she had lived in this street, in the block where Yeager's body had been found, and her body had been taken somewhere and dumped just as Yeager's had been, she got the idea that there was some connection between the two murders. Mr. Wolfe thought it was possible, and so did I. Mrs. Yeager's idea was that Maria Perez might have seen the murderer dumping Yeager's body in the hole, maybe from the sidewalk as she was coming home, or maybe even from inside, from a window. Of course there were difficulties, but Mr. Wolfe thought it wouldn't hurt for me to have a talk with Maria's mother or father, and Mrs. Yeager wanted to come along. It would be a coincidence if you came with the same idea just as we were leaving. Wouldn't it?"

As I was reeling it off I knew how bad it was. First, because it was full of holes, and second, because it wasn't me. When Stebbins barked at me a question like "What about?" my natural answer would be "The weather" or something similar, and he knew it. It was against all precedent for me to oblige with a long, detailed explanation, but I had to, for Mrs. Yeager and Mrs. Perez. It was probably up the flue anyway, but there was a chance that they would catch on and help me save the pieces.

Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought. I knew so much about that house and that room that I didn't sufficiently consider that Stebbins knew nothing whatever about it, that Homicide and the DA had been assuming for three days that Yeager had been killed elsewhere and brought and dumped in that hole because it was convenient, and they had absolutely no reason to connect him with that house. And Mrs. Yeager came through like an angel. She couldn't have done better if I had spent an hour priming her. She offered a hand to Mrs. Perez and said in exactly the right tone, "Thank you, Mrs. Perez. We have both lost someone dear to us. I have to go, I'm late now. We didn't intend to keep you so long and it was very kind of you. I'll phone you later, Mr. Goodwin, or you call me." The door was standing open, and out she went. I could have kissed her on both chins.

Stebbins was eying me as if he would to kick me on both butts, but that was only normal. "What did you ask Mrs. Perez and what did she tell you?" he demanded. He was hoarse, but that was normal too. Wolfe and 1 both have that effect on him, Wolfe more than me.

It was a good question. The way I had sketched it, we had come to ask Mrs. Perez about her daughter's whereabouts and movements Sunday night, and presumably she had told us; and I had no idea where Maria had been Sunday night. An excellent question. So I reverted to type. "What do you suppose I asked her? I wanted to know if it was possible that her daughter had seen someone dumping Yeager's body in that hole and climbing in to put the tarp over him. As for what she said, get the best evidence. She's here. Ask her."

"I'm asking you." Stebbins is not a fool. "And I'm reserving my answer. I don't owe Mrs. Perez anything, but she has a right to decide for herself what she wants to say for the official record. Mrs. Yeager and I were merely people. You're a cop."

And by gum Mrs. Perez came through too. Not as grand a performance as Mrs. Yeager's, but plenty good enough. "What I told him was just the truth," she told Stebbins. "If my daughter saw anything like that Sunday she would tell me, so she didn't."

"Was she home all evening?"

"Yes. Two of her friends came and they watched television."

"What time did the friends come?"

"It was about eight o'clock."

"What time did they leave?"

"Right after eleven o'clock. Right after a program they like every Sunday night."

"Did your daughter go out with them?"

"No."

"Did she leave the house at all that evening?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I'm sure. We always knew where she was."

"You didn't know last night. And any time during the night, Sunday night, she could have gone to the front room and looked out through the window. Couldn't she?"

"Why would she? Why would she do that?"

"I don't know, but she could." Stebbins turned. "All right Goodwin, I'll ride you downtown. You can tell the inspector about it."

"About what? What is there to tell?"

He stuck his chin out. "Look, you. Monday afternoon you began checking on a man that was already dead, two hours before the body was found. When the inspector goes to see Wolfe he finds the widow there, and he gets the usual crap. The widow has hired Wolfe to find out who killed her husband, which may not be against the law but it's against the policy of the New York Police Department. And I come here investigating not that murder but another one, and by God here you are, you and the widow, here in the house where that girl lived, talking with her mother. So you're coming downtown or you're under arrest as a material witness."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No. I said or."

"It's nice to have a choice." I got a quarter from my pocket, flipped it in the air, caught it, and looked at it. "I win. Let's go."

It suited me fine to get him away from Mrs. Perez and out of that house. As I mounted the three steps to the sidewalk I was thinking how different it would be if he had come thirty seconds sooner or we had left the bower thirty seconds later. As I climbed in the PD car I yawned, thoroughly. Having had less than three hours' sleep, I had been needing a good healthy yawn all day but had been too busy.