Too Many Women

CHAPTER Twenty-Four

I had got behind on sleep too, and I caught up that night, Saturday. But not quite to the extent that Wolfe thought I did. Soon after he had gone up to the roof with Saul my mind had informed me that it was too restless to concentrate on germination records, at least of plants, and I had gone and got the car and driven to Twentieth Street to see what was stirring. Sergeant Purley Stebbins had not thought it necessary, just because for some hours I had enjoyed the important role of last man to see the victim alive, to open all the books for me, but I was allowed to hang around long enough to get an impression that nothing startling had developed. Of course a couple of them took a stab at trying to filter out of me the dope on how Wolfe had learned about Naylor taking a taxi on Fifty-third Street, but I had insisted that I had had nothing whatever to do with it, which was perfectly true. The taxi driver had not yet been collected, though the number of his cab had of course led them straight to where he should have been. He had gone to Connecticut to fish for shad, and a courier had been sent to get him, and I only hoped to God he wouldn’t find him walking back and forth on a river bank with Hester Livsey.

It was because of her that Wolfe thought I got more sleep Saturday night than I really did. Saturday nights I usually take some person of an interesting sex to a hockey or basketball game, or maybe a fight at the Garden, but that one I worked in the office a while after dinner and then announced that I was sleepy.

Taking some doughnuts, blackberry jam, and a pitcher of milk upstairs with me, I sat in the chair I had selected and paid for myself and went over matters. On account of Saul’s description of her clothes, particularly the dark brown hat with a white cloth flower, I knew darned well it had been Hester Livsey he had seen with Naylor. I deny I was in a frenzy, but when a girl has patted a man’s head he should be willing to go to a little trouble to see that she gets a break. Besides, it isn’t often that at first sight, in the very first minute, a girl gives you the feeling that no one on earth but you knows how beautiful she is, and that too seemed to me to be worthy of consideration.

I thought she should have a chance to wipe off the smudge, in case it hadn’t made a stain that wouldn’t come out, and I well knew what the wiping process would be like if we turned her over to Cramer and his bozos. It could be that her walkie-talkie with Naylor had concerned a private matter not connected with what was about to happen to him, and if it had, and if she chose to keep it to herself, she was as likely a prospect as I had ever seen for an all-day and all-night conference with men, coming at her in shifts, who think nothing of taking their coats off in front of ladies. What I had come to my room to consider was whether to go get the car and drive to Westport and have some conversation with her. I decided against it finally, and undressed and went to bed, because if it turned out wrong in the end it would be Wolfe who would have to save the pieces, not me.

Next morning, Sunday, I was in the kitchen finishing breakfast, enjoying the last two swallows of my second cup of coffee and reading the paper, when the doorbell rang. Fritz went to answer it, and when, a moment later, I heard a female voice in the hall I tossed the paper down and went to see.

“A lady, Archie,” Fritz told me.

“Yeah, that’s what you always think. Hello there.” It was Rosa Bendini, Mrs. Harold Anthony, and she was good and scared if I know what emotions look like.

She came down the hall to me and practically demanded, “For God’s sake put your arms around me!” I didn’t regard the request as offensive per se, but Fritz was there, on his way back to the kitchen, and in his Swiss-French way he can be a very tenacious kidder. So I tried to hold her off and spoke sharply, but she kept uttering sounds, possibly even words, and was determined to crawl inside of me. Fritz was staying as an impartial observer. She wasn’t keeping her voice down, we were at the foot of the stairs, and Wolfe was in his room one flight up, eating his breakfast. I picked her up, carried her into the office, deposited her in the red leather chair, and told her roughly: “You look like you just escaped from night court and the chase is hot. Is your husband out front?” “My husband?” She slid forward to the edge of the chair. “Is he here?” “I don’t know, I was asking you, and stay in that chair. After you ran out on me the other night I knocked him flat and made him tame.” I thought it might give her some perspective and steady her to refer to the past. “Have you seen him since?” She didn’t answer that. Apparently her husband was the least of her troubles.

But she slid back again until enough of her fanny was on the chair so she could sit instead of squat, and said so the words could be heard: “The police are after me!” “I’ll shoot the first six and then start throwing rocks. How far back are they?”

She bounced out of the chair and was on my lap before I could even brace myself, requesting me for the second time to put my arms around her, and it seemed less trouble to comply than to argue with her. I gathered her in and held her, and she encircled my neck, twisting her body around so as to make the contact more comprehensive. There have been occasions on which I have held a creature like that and as time passed she has begun to tremble, but this time it was the other way around. She was trembling at first, but gradually it tapered off, and after a while she was warm and quiet against me, with her face burrowing into the side of my neck, which I kept relaxed for her.

Finally she lifted the face an inch to murmur at my ear, “I was so scared I was going to go jump off a pier. I always have been scared of the cops, ever since I can remember, I guess because they came and arrested my brother when I was a little kid.” She kept close against me. “When I got home and the janitor and Isabel-she’s the girl that lives across the hall-when they told me the police had been there three times and they might come back any minute-no, hold me tight, I don’t mind if it’s hard to breathe-I didn’t even go in my room, I just scooted. I ran towards the subway, I don’t know where I thought I was going, and after I got on an uptown express I remembered about Nero Wolfe, so I got off at Thirty-third Street and came here to see him. And you were here! How did that happen? Now you ought to kiss me.” I held her firm enough to keep her from changing position. “I never kiss people before noon except the one I had breakfast with. Then you just got home?” “Yes. Then let’s eat breakfast. Oh, I know how you happened to be here! That piece in the paper! Your name’s Archie Goodwin and you’re Nero Wolfe’s brilliant lieutenant!” “Right. Here you are in the house you didn’t want to come to with me, and look at you. Where were you Friday night and Saturday and Saturday night?” She bit me on the neck.

“Ouch,” I said. “That’s where your husband hit me before I got him. Where were you?” She kissed where she had bit.

“Come on, girlie,” I said realistically.

“You’re going to tell the cops or else, so you might as well practice on me.” That was a mistake. She actually started to tremble. I squeezed all the breath out of her to make her stop and told her with authority, “I go through cops like the wind through Wall Street and it’s quite possible I can arrange to be with you when they are. If so, I ought to know what the score is. Where were you?” She was scared again, and I had to quiet her down and then drag it out of her.

The way she told it, she had gone home early Friday evening to her room-and-bath in Greenwich Village, around nine o’clock, because the man who had taken her out to dinner had got a completely false idea of their program for the evening. She had been asleep for hours when the bell-ringing and door-knocking started, hadn’t answered at first because she was too startled and had suspected it was her dinner host, and later, having crept to the door and heard the caller questioning the girl across the hall, had crawled back into bed and shivered, awake, until morning, afraid of cops. Between six and seven she had got up, dressed, packed a bag, sneaked out, taken the subway to Washington Heights, and gone to the apartment where her husband lived with his parents. The parents had advised her to let the police know where she was so they could come and ask their questions and have it over with, but they hadn’t insisted on it, and it looked as if she had picked a good hole until late Saturday night, or Sunday morning rather, when the husband had got the notion of doing some insisting on a purely personal matter and had gone to her bedroom with that in mind. That situation had developed to a point where the whole household was up and around, and she would have been ordered out into a snowstorm if it had been snowing. She had dressed and packed her bag and got out, and after a spell of random subway riding had collected enough spunk to go to her own address for a reconnaissance.

The news that it had indeed been the cops, and they had been there three times, had finished the spunk, and here she was.

It took a while to tell it. When she got to the end we were no longer glued together, but she was still perched on my lap.

I was irritated. “Damn it,” I said, “you haven’t got a thing for the very hours they’re after, from ten to twelve Friday night. In bed alone, when you could easily have had a witness. Virtue never pays. Did your husband tell you he had been down to headquarters?” “Yes, he told me all about it.” “Did he admit I lammed him?” “Yes,1 wish I had stayed.” “At present you have more important wishes to wish. You’re in for it, girlie, but I’ll see what I can do. What do you like for breakfast? Juice, oatmeal, eggs, ham-” “I like everything except fish. But could I have a bath first? My bag’s in the hall.” That meant that by the time she was through eating it would probably be eleven o’clock and Wolfe would be finished with the plants and downstairs, so when I took her up to the spare room, the south one on the same floor as mine, I first saw that towels and other luxuries were in place and then gave her the kiss to which I had morally committed myself, just to have that out of the way. This time the trembling came where it belonged. I returned to the office, got Wolfe on the house phone and told him about our guest, and then went to the kitchen and arranged with Fritz for her breakfast.

In spite of the companionship record Rosa and I were building up, and in spite of her dimples and her wholehearted way of making me feel at home, I had not adopted the idea that there was nothing much to her character but truth and innocence. It was not vet settled that our professional connection with the death of Moore was ended, and the death of Naylor certainly went with it; therefore I saw no reason why Wolfe shouldn’t do a little work for a change and spend his two hours between plant time and lunch time on one of his thorough exploring jobs with Rosa as the jungle. I sold the idea, stated somewhat differently, to her as she ate breakfast.

It started off nicely, shortly after eleven, with Wolfe behind his desk in the office and Rosa in the red leather chair. She was wearing a very informal cherry-colored rayon something.

“That’s a frightful combination,” Wolfe growled. “That garment and that chair.” “Oh, I’m sorry!” She moved to a yellow one, the one Saul Panzer liked.

That put them on a basis of mutual understanding, and the prospect for an interesting conversation looked bright, but it didn’t get very far. Wolfe had covered nothing but some preliminary details, such as precisely the kind of work an assistant chief filer does, when the doorbell rang. Formerly on occasions calling for discretion, as for instance a fugitive from justice sitting in the office, I had had to finger the curtain back enough to make a slit to see through, but recently we had had a one-way glass panel installed. I still had to persuade myself each time, looking through, that I could see him but he couldn’t see me. Having done so, I returned to the office and told Wolfe: “It’s Mr. Cross. Do you want to see him?” “No. Tell him I’m busy.” “He might have an orchid for you.” I was displeased and allowed my voice to show it.

“Confound it.” Wolfe compressed his lips. “Very well. If you don’t mind. Miss Bendini? Please go up to your-to that room? This shouldn’t take long.” She was up and out like a flash. Going to the hall, I waited until she had mounted the two flights and the door to the south room had been opened and closed. Meanwhile the bell had rung again.

I went and pulled the front door open and protested, “My God, you might give a man time to untwist his ankles.” Inspector Cramer, with Sergeant Purley Stebbins at his heels, wasn’t even polite enough to give me a nod, after all the help I had been to him Friday night. They marched down the hall and into the office, with me in their rear.

“Good morning,” Wolfe said curtly.

“Godalmighty,” Cramer yawped, “so you’re at it again!” “Am I? At what?” “This,” Cramer yawped, “can take one minute or it can take hours! It’s up to you which! What did Kerr Naylor come here for Friday night, what time did he leave, and where did he go?” “That won’t take even a minute, Mr. Cramer. Mr. Naylor wasn’t here Friday night.

I don’t like your manner. I seldom do. Good day, sir.” “Are you saying-” For a moment Cramer was speechless. “Naylor didn’t come to see you at twenty minutes to nine Friday night, the night he was killed?” “No, sir. That’s twice, and that’s enough. You may-” “By God, you’re crazy!” Cramer whirled. “He’s off his nut, Stebbins!” “Yes, sir.” “Bring that man in here.” Purley strode out. Cramer strode to the red leather chair and sat down. I kept my eye on Wolfe, not to miss a signal to take steps to keep Purley and that man, whoever he was, on the outside, but got none. Wolfe had evidently decided that the most exasperating thing he could do was look bored, and was doing so. The only sound was Cramer breathing, enough for all three of us, until footsteps came from the hall. A man entered with Purley behind him. The man was middle-aged and starting to go bald and had shoulders as broad as a barn. He was absolutely out of humor. Purley moved a chair up for him and he plumped himself down.

“This,” Cramer said distinctly and impressively, “is Carl Darst. Friday evening he was hacking with Sealect cab number nine-forty-three, license number WX one-nine-seven-four-four-zero. Darst, who did you pick up on Fifty-third Street between First and Second Avenue?” “The guy you showed me a picture of.” Darst’s voice was husky and not affable.

“He yelled at me. I wish to God he hadn’t. My one Sunday-” “And the man whose body you saw at the morgue?” “Yeah, I guess so. It was hard-sure, it was him.” “That was Kerr Naylor. So was the photograph I showed you. Where did you take him to?” “He told me Nine-fourteen West Thirty-fifth Street and that’s where I took him.”

“That’s this address where we are now?” “Yes.” “What happened when you got here?” “When he paid me he said he wasn’t sure there would be anybody home, so would I wait till he found out, and I waited until he went up the steps and rang the bell, and the door opened and he started talking to someone, and then I shoved off. I didn’t wait until he went inside because he didn’t ask me to.” “But the door opened for him and he spoke with someone?” “Yeah, I can say that much.” “All right, go out to the car and stay there. I may want you in here again. Do you want to ask him any questions, Wolfe?” Wolfe, still bored, shook his head indifferently. Darst got up and left, but Sergeant Stebbins stayed put. Cramer waited until the sound of the front door closing behind Darst came to us and then spoke with the calm assurance of a man who has cards to spare.

“So I say you’re crazy. This is completely Cockeyed and if you can brush this one off I want to hear it. Try telling me that the fact that Naylor came and rang your bell and the door was opened doesn’t prove that he came on in, and then I ask you please to tell me, in that case, how did you happen to know that he got in a cab on Fifty-third Street at half-past eight? Wait a minute, I’m not through. That sounds like good reasoning, don’t it? But if it is, why in the name of God did you phone my office to tell about his taking a taxi, and even give us the number of the cab? Knowing it would be pie to find it. I say you’re crazy. Usually when you’re staging a runaround at least I have a general idea which direction you’re going, but this time you’ll have to spell it out. I would love to hear you.” “Pfui,” Wolfe muttered.

“Okay, phooey. Go on from there.” “Archie,” Wolfe asked me casually, “you went to a movie Friday evening?” “Yes, sir.” “What time did you leave here?” “Right around eight-thirty.” “Then you couldn’t have opened the door for Mr. Naylor.” Wolfe pushed a button on his desk, and in a moment the door to the hall opened and Fritz appeared.

Wolfe addressed him, “Fritz, do you remember that Friday evening after dinner Archie went out? To the movies?” “Yes, sir.” “And that somewhat later, around a quarter to eleven I think, Mr. Cramer called?” “Yes, sir.” “That should identify the evening sufficiently. Did the doorbell ring soon after Archie left?” “Yes, sir.” “You answered it?” “Yes, sir.” “Who was it?” “He didn’t tell me his name. It was a man.” “What did he want?” “He asked for Mr. Goodwin.” “Go on, finish it.” “I told him Mr. Goodwin was out. He asked if Mr. Wolfe was in and I told him yes. After thinking to himself a brief period he asked when Mr. Goodwin would be back and I said probably some time after eleven. I asked him if he wished to leave his name and he said no. He had turned and was going down the steps when I closed the door.” Cramer made a sound which Wolfe ignored. “What time was this?” “It was eight-forty-five when I got back to the kitchen. I made a note, as always-God in heaven!” “What’s the matter?” “I forgot to tell Archie about it! When he returned Inspector Cramer was here, and then he was gone all night and slept late Saturday-this is extremely bad, sir-” “Not at all. It wouldn’t have mattered. Did you tell me about it?” “No, sir. You were reading those three books, and he hadn’t left his name-” “Describe the man.” “He was short, shorter than me, and he wore a coat and hat. He had a small face and looked pinched and worried, as if he wasn’t a good eater.” “All right, Fritz, that’s all, thank you.” Fritz went, closing the door to the hall behind him. Wolfe turned to Cramer.

“Well, sir?” Cramer shook his head. “No,” he said emphatically. “Even with Fritz coached like that I still say you’re crazy. How did you know about Naylor taking a cab and why did you phone-” Wolfe cut him off. “Don’t start shouting at me again. You’ll never learn, I suppose, how to detect when I’m lying and when I’m not. Saturday afternoon a man came to this office and told me he had seen Mr. Naylor taking that taxicab. I questioned him and was satisfied that the facts he gave me were authentic, and I immediately phoned your office and gave those facts to Mr. Stebbins. What the devil is obreptitious about that?” “Who was the man that came to your office?” “No, sir. You don’t need that.” “Excuse me, Inspector,” Purley Stebbins put in.

Cramer glared at him. “What is it?” “Why, if we want any part of this that item won’t worry us. If we buy this it wasn’t Goodwin, so it was one of the boys that do jobs for Wolfe-Gore, Gather, Durkin, Panzer, or Keems. It stands to reason he was tailing Naylor. So either you can bear down on that, or if he’s too damn stubborn we can send out and collect ’em-” The phone rang. I whirled my chair and got it. It was Saul Panzer, desiring, he said to speak to Wolfe.

“Sure,” I said, in a tone you would use to a client you expected to send a nice bill to, “he’s right here, Mr. Platt. By the way, while I’m on the wire, that big downtown law firm that says all it wants is justice, not to mention names, you know, they’re going to try to serve a summons on you and it would be good policy for you to duck it, anyhow for a day or two. There are lots of places you can go besides home. Don’t you agree?” “Nothing simpler,” Saul said, “if I understand you. Who’s there, Cramer?” “Yes, I suppose they’re going to be quite insistent about it. Here’s Mr. Wolfe.”

Wolfe got on. He followed me on the Mr. Platt. Since he signaled me to hang up, meaning that his arrangements with Saul were still none of my business, I got as little out of the conversation as Cramer and Purley did, which was nothing at all. Wolfe’s end was mostly grunts. Purley sneezed. The three of us sat and waited for him, looking at him, until an event occurred which caused us to move our eyes elsewhere.

The door to the hall came open and Rosa Bendini was there among us.

It was a fairly embarrassing situation, with Wolfe still busy on the phone and the two public servants and me sitting staring at her as she stood just inside the door in that cherry-colored thing which, whatever its name might be, was certainly not intended for street wear. I thought of saying something like, “Mabel dear, we’re discussing business with these gentlemen so go back to your room and wait for me,” or something like, “We’re engaged at present, Miss Carmichael, but we’ll see you shortly,” but the first seemed indecent and the second illogical, and no satisfactory substitute got to my tongue in time.

Wolfe, finished, dropped the phone back in its cradle and snapped at her, “What do you mean, coming in here dressed like that? Go back upstairs until I’m ready for you!” His effort, it seemed to me, was no improvement on the ones I had rejected. But no effort would have been good enough. She hadn’t merely blundered in. She came forward, on past Cramer and Purley, clear to me. She might easily have had it in mind to resume her former seat on my lap, so by the time she reached me I was standing up.

“You promised you’d be with me when they are,” she said. That was not strictly true, but close enough for a woman, especially for one who was scared to death of cops. “There’s a police car out in front, so I came to the hall and listened, and that’s who they are, and I knew I’d never get a better chance, with you here and Mr. Wolfe too.” She turned and told Cramer and Purley right to their faces, “My name is Rosa Bendini, or it’s Mrs. Harold Anthony, either one will do, and I live at Four-eighteen Bank Street, second floor, and when a cop came for me Friday night I was there in bed all the time. Now what do you want to ask me?” One thing I approved of, she didn’t hook onto my arm or try to climb into my pocket. She just wanted to say it with me there.

“This,” Cramer declared in as gloaty a tone as I had ever heard from him, “is really rich. How long have you had her hid here, Wolfe? Wasn’t there time enough to train her?” “Mr. Cramer, you’re an imbecile,” Wolfe told him for his information.

I broke in, thinking the best thing now was to mess it up good. “I bolixed it up,” I said regretfully. “Like a damn fool, I told her to bust in when I sneezed, and then Purley sneezed.” I glared at Purley. “How the hell could I know you had a cold?” “Okay.” Cramer rose, still gloating. “I suppose you have some things here, Miss Bendini? Some clothes?” “Yes, but I-” “You have three minutes to change, unless you want to travel around like that.

Go and change.” “No,” Wolfe said. His forefinger was tapping on the desk, which meant he was ready to pick up tigers and knock their heads together. “Stay here, Miss Bendini.” His eyes darted to Cramer. “Have you a warrant? Or are you charging her?” “Nuts. Murder. Material witness.” “Witness to what?” “I’ll tell her, not you.” “Bah. Miss Bendini. I advise you not to leave here unless you are taken by force. Make them carry you.” I intervened for several reasons. First, Wolfe was not following a program but was simply so mad he couldn’t see. Second, Rosa had gone so white and rigid that I doubted if she could walk, especially accompanied by a cop, and I didn’t regard it as desirable to let her be carried out of our house in the costume she had on. Third, while I hadn’t promised her, I had unquestionably given her an inducement.

“Look,” I said to Cramer, “why all the war paint? If you do carry her out, and if she proves to be no more material than I am, with Mr. Wolfe as sore as he is you’ll get blisters. If you don’t like conversing with her here I’ll make an offer, take it or leave it. She changes her clothes, and Purley and I drive her downtown in Mr. Wolfe’s car, and I am present, not too talkative, during your talk with her. I’ll stay as long as she does. When the time comes, unless you are prepared to charge her, she leaves with me. What the hell, I was with you all Friday night, wasn’t I? Well?” “You might,” Wolfe said testily, “ask my permission, Archie.” “This is Sunday.” I told Cramer, “It’s no deal unless you say yes out loud so everybody can hear you. I would prefer to see you carry her and let Mr. Wolfe see what the law can do, but Miss Bendini is like a sister to me. Yes?” “Yes,” Cramer snarled.

I was thinking, as I went for the car, that one of the leading roles had bounced back to us again-the last to see Naylor alive. For a while it had been me. Then Saul Panzer, who had passed it on to the taxi driver. Now it was once more back in the family, with Fritz ticketed for it. Who next?