Too Many Women

CHAPTER Twenty-Five

I missed Sunday dinner but not supper.

It was no wonder that under the circumstances Cramer thought he had hooked a real fish and had also made a monkey out of Wblfe. But after half an hour with Rosa and me in his office, beginning to suspect that he had merely got caught on a snag, he left us to Lieutenant Rowcliff and beat it for Centre Street.

Rowcliff didn’t care much for the assignment, since his opinion of me is a perfect match for mine of him. He shot questions at Rosa for an hour or so in his correspondence-school grammar, meanwhile trying to keep me from contributing any kind of sound, let alone a word, and halted only when he was interrupted by the return of a squad man who had been sent to Washington Heights to check with the in-laws.

Not only had father-in-law and mother-in-law verified Rosa’s story, but husband-in-law came back with the squad man to try to raise some hell. He wasn’t going to let his wife be abused and would see to it personally that she wasn’t.

Knowing what had led up to his wife’s departure from his parental apartment in the Sunday dawn, I regarded him with awe. I had noticed on the Naylor-Kerr stationery that the motto of the firm was ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. It struck me that the motto of the male personnel of the stock department appeared to be PROTECT THE WOMAN. Or if they wanted it to have eight words like the firm’s it could be PROTECT YOUR WOMAN NO MATTER WHOSE SHE IS.

That left Rowcliff with nothing to discuss with Rosa except the time she had spent in bed Friday night, especially the hours from ten to twelve, which gave him limited space to turn around in. He sent a man down to Bank Street to see the janitor and the other tenants, but all they could say was that they hadn’t happened to see Miss Bendini come home Friday evening. Finally, around seven o’clock, he adjourned sine die, and I drove Rosa, with her luggage, to her home address, having phoned Wolfe and been told that there was no reason to suppose she had saved anything for him. The husband went with us and then came away with me, and I let him out at a subway station. Knowing by now that his wife’s relations with me were purely on a business basis, he even wanted to buy me a drink.

I spent Sunday evening in the office with my typewriter. Wolfe was there too, but sight was the only one of my five senses that knew about it. When Saul Panzer phoned to make another classified report to Wolfe I arranged for him to meet me downtown in the morning instead of coming to Wolfe’s place. The authorities, looking for him, had phoned his home a few times, and he was going to spend the night at a friend’s apartment. It was just possible that they were eager enough about it to keep an eye on our address, and I still thought it would be polite to give Hester Livsey a chance to do some explaining in a congenial atmosphere.

I fully expected Saul’s check on her to be nothing more than a formality, and so it was. Monday morning I met him and took him with me to the lobby of the building on William Street, and chose a strategic point for overlooking the arriving throng and the stampede for the elevators. I recognized a few of the faces as the feet trotted, walked, marched, and click-clicked on the way to another week’s paycheck. At two minutes to nine I was thinking we had missed her and would have to proceed upstairs, where it would be more awkward and would require arranging, when Saul suddenly pinched me and muttered at me: “To the right, thirty feet, turning now, same hat and coat, behind the tall man with glasses, going on the elevator-” “Okay,” I said as she was swallowed up in the elevator and its door started to close. “How many coats do you think she has? She’s an honest working girl.” “It’s none of my business,” Saul said.

“Meaning, not her honesty, but her name. Yes, you have heard the name. If you happen to be phoning Wolfe and he happens to ask, you can tell him yes, and also tell him I’ll bring her to see him but I don’t know when. I have to find out whether I’m still working here or not. There’s to be a directors’ meeting-you’re not listening.” “I’m looking. Do you know that man”- his eyes were pointing-“gray coat and hat, big and broad, fleshy face, now his back is to us-he’s stepping on the elevator-” “Yeah, I know him. Why?” “I’ve seen him.” “I wouldn’t doubt it.” The combination of Saul’s eyes and the filing equipment in his skull is the equal of any card system yet invented. “You probably saw him August seventeenth, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, crossing Madison Avenue against a light-” “No. I saw him Friday, twice. When Naylor met the woman at First Avenue and Fifty-second Street that man was standing across the street in a doorway looking at them. An hour later, when they parted at Second Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, he was standing forty feet away, again in a doorway, and when the woman walked downtown on Second Avenue he started after her. That’s all I saw because Naylor was on his way and I was tailing him.” “Is this certified?” “For me it is.” “Then me too. In case this head-flattener is going on with his career and picks me next, the man’s name is Sumner Hoff. He works for Naylor-Kerr and his office is in the stock department. File it.” “I will. Is that all here?” I said it was, and Saul went.

I took an elevator to the thirty-fourth floor, not knowing what to expect. It was quite possible that a delegation of executives would be waiting for me, to tell me to get the hell out and stay out. But nobody at all was waiting for me.

It is true that when I got to the arena, skirted it, and started down the long aisle, I was on the receiving end of plenty of assorted glances, but that was only more of the same as last week. I left my coat and hat in my room, emerged immediately, crossed to the other side of the arena, opened the door of Hester Livsey’s room, entered, and shut the door behind me.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

She had straightened up from dusting off her desk. She looked nervous, unhappy, and annoyed. Fritz would have said that she did not have the appearance of a good eater. I did not entirely lose the impression that she was in some kind of trouble that no one but me could understand and no one but me could help her out of, but the most vulgar eye could have seen at a glance that she was in trouble.

That much of it I would have to share.

My name,” I said, “is Archie Goodwin and I work for Nero Wolfe.” “I know that. What do you want?” Evidently everybody in the stock department knew everything. “I’m afraid,” I told her, “that I can’t make my answer quite as direct and to the point as your question. I can tell you what I want, but I’ll have to leave it more or less blank why I want it. I want to date you up-to meet me at five o’clock this afternoon and go to Nero Wolfe’s office with me. He wants to have a talk with you-” “What about?” “You’re so damn gruff,” I complained. “I can’t tell you what about except that it’s connected with the murder of Kerr Naylor, and you could guess that with both eyes shut. Let me try it that way first, just ask you, will you do it?” “Certainly not. Why should I?” “In that case that comes next, why you should. I would have liked it much better without that, but I can’t have everything. Mr. Wolfe has learned a certain fact which has to do with you and Kerr Naylor, and he wants to ask you about it. The nature of the fact is such-” “What is it?” I shook my head. “Its nature is such that if you don’t go and let him ask you about it he will be obliged to give the fact to the police and then there will be no question of letting. You won’t go, you’ll be taken, and the asking atmosphere will be different.” “My God,” she said in a tone with no expression at all, as if she were too stunned to feel anything.

It irritated me. “It’s a good thing for you I’m not a policeman,” I declared.

“You’d better think up a better entrance than that for them if it goes that far.

Your chin’s sagging.” She came to me, abruptly and swiftly, put her hands on me, her open palms flat against my chest so I had to brace myself, raised her face to me, and half commanded, half implored, “What-is-the-fact?” She nearly got the desired result at that. But I stopped it before it reached my tongue and shook my head firmly. “Nope. You’ll get it from Mr. Wolfe.” “You won’t tell me?” “No.” “There isn’t any. I don’t believe it. There isn’t any fact.” “The hell there isn’t.” I was disgusted with her for not doing better. “You’re just like glass to look through. You have just told me that there’s not one fact, but two and maybe more, and you’ve got to know which one Wolfe has.” She had certainly uncovered herself, but she was not floored, and she now showed that she could grab a nettle. She went to the rack in the corner and got her coat and stuck an arm in it.

“I’ll go now,” she said.

“You can’t.” I went to relieve her of the coat. “The one appointment Mr. Wolfe wouldn’t break is the one with the orchids from nine to eleven in the morning.” I glanced at my wrist. “We can leave in an hour and a quarter. I’ll meet you in the lobby at a quarter to eleven.” But she knew what she wanted. “I’m not going to just sit here,” she said, “and if I tried to take dictation-I couldn’t. We can go now and wait for him. Wait here a minute while I tell Mr. Rosenbaum.” Having her coat, I hung it up, and explained that anyway I had an errand in the building that had to be attended to before I could leave. She gave in, but only because she couldn’t help it. I got out of there, not being absolutely sure how I would react if she snapped out of it and started to work on me in earnest. She agreed to meet me in the lobby at 10:45, and I returned to my room, picked up the phone, and called Wolfe and told him to expect us at eleven. I also told him of Saul’s recognition of Sumner Hoff. Then I got the Naylor-Kerr switchboard and gave the extension number of the office of the president.

I had to fight for him that time. He was in an important meeting and couldn’t be disturbed, but I finally persuaded his secretary that no meeting was more important than me that morning and was told to hold the wire. It was a long hold. After five minutes I wondered who was kissing her now, and after three more I suspected I had been left to starve. I had my finger poised ready to start jiggling when the secretary’s voice came.

“Mr. Goodwin?” “Still here and still hoping.” “Please come up to the Board Room on the thirty-sixth floor. You will be admitted.” Her tone implied that that was a break in a thousand, so I thanked her warmly.

On the thirty-sixth floor the executive receptionist told me where the Board Room was, and when I reached it an executive sentinel, outside the door, made sure my name was mine and then opened for me. I walked in looking dignified.

It was up to snuff. The room was big, high-ceilinged, well lighted, and impressive to a rank-and-filer like me, who had only been on the payroll three-fifths of a week. An enormous rug nearly covered the floor. The table, of bleached walnut, was about the size of my bedroom though not the same shape. All around it were roomy armchairs, upholstered in brown leather, twenty or more, with all but four or five of them occupied. There were two chairs at each end of the table and the others were along the sides.

In one of the chairs at the far end sat Jasper Pine. In the other one was a man of whose bulk there was so little left that most of the chair was being wasted.

Age had certainly withered him. At the first glance I recognized him, from a portrait of him on the wall of the president’s office, as old George Naylor, one of the founders of the firm and the father of Mrs. Jasper Pine, Cecily to me, and of Kerr Naylor, deceased.

Pine said, not getting up, “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Archie Goodwin. Goodwin, this is a joint meeting of the Board of Directors and some of the executive staff. It is a special meeting, called to consider the matter of the death of Mr. Kerr Naylor. We have discussed it at some length in all its aspects. The suggestion has been made that we instruct Nero Wolfe, your employer, to continue his investigation and extend it to include Mr. Naylor’s death. Some of those present think that before deciding that point we should-” He stopped because old George Naylor uttered an emphatic word. It was a word often heard among engineers doing field work, truck drivers, and detectives when working under strain, but I wouldn’t have expected it to be used at a directors’ meeting.

The founder added to it, “It’s already decided! Certainly Wolfe continues!” It wasn’t from him, I noted, that his son had got a tenor voice. His was baritone and still had volume and force, though his age was in it too.

There were murmurs. Pine told him with courteous deference but with not quite all the impatience filtered out, “It was agreed, I thought, Mr. Naylor, that we should hear from Goodwin first. Goodwin, tell us what you have done since you came here last Wednesday.” Nothing was said about sitting down, in spite of five empty chairs, so, seeing that one there at my end was vacant, I got into it and adjusted myself comfortably.

“Do you want the high spots,” I asked, “or all the trimmings?” Pine said to go ahead and they would stop me if it was too detailed. I did so. I gave them what I thought should be enough to satisfy, but nothing to compare with one of my all-out performances with Wolfe, and skipping a few items entirely, as for instance my first encounter with Gwynne Ferris when she put on her non-spelling act. They interrupted me whenever they felt like it, to ask questions or make critical comments, and when I got to the scene at the door of Sumner Hoff’s office, where Kerr Naylor told me he knew who killed Waldo Moore, they came at me in pairs and threes. Evidently there were two schools of thought and maybe more.

One bird told me to my teeth, “I knew Kerr Naylor twenty years, Goodwin, and I never knew him to tell a lie. I don’t know you at all!” That specimen had been riding me from the start and I was developing an attitude toward him. His age was about halfway between mine and the founders, he was by far the best-dressed man in the room, he had a wide mouth with full lips, and he loved to interrupt people. I had a retort on its way to the tongue, but old George Naylor got in ahead.

“Nonsense! Kerr was an inveterate liar from the time he was a baby!” That didn’t set the best-dressed man back any. “Of course,” he told me, “Kerr Naylor is dead. But you’re not!” His tone implied that that was regrettable.

“I keep a list,” I said, “of the people who call me a liar. What’s your name?” He smiled at me condescendingly with his wide mouth.

“You’re too old to hit,” I conceded, standing up. “But I know a trick that’s supposed to make dumb animals talk, and it would be fun to try-” “His name’s Ferguson,” a wiry little guy with a mustache tossed in. He had a dry look and a dry voice and was as crisp as Melba toast. “Sit down, Goodwin. Emmet Ferguson. He’s a lawyer and owns most of a bank and has been trying for ten years to have Kerr Naylor made president of this company. The last time the vote went against him nine to five, and-” “Is this proper?” an indignant voice demanded. “With an outsider-” “If you had made Kerr president,” old George Naylor declared, “I would have come down here and kicked him out myself! He was my son, but he couldn’t have run this business!” “He wanted to bad enough,” the wiry little guy muttered.

I had sunk back into my chair and was trying to convey the impression that I wasn’t present, hoping they would go on with the family quarrel, which seemed interesting. They did, long enough for me to infer that the reason Kerr Naylor had refused to be an officer of the company was because.he was holding out for top billing, namely president. Apparently the Board, which of course had the say formally, had been a solid two to one for Pine, but at that Kerr Naylor had had five votes. I wondered which side Cecily had been on and how much weight old George Naylor had been able to pull. About all I got was the general idea, for Pine, presiding, stopped it before long and told me to proceed.

With the question of who was a liar, Kerr Naylor or me, out of the way, or anyhow tabled, I was permitted to continue without many interruptions. I covered the ground adequately, right up to the end, but still omitting details which I thought they could get along without, such as the recent developments concerning Hester Livsey. When I was through they asked questions, with the best-dressed man furnishing more than his share, until Pine put in: “We’ve been at this over two hours, gentlemen, and it’s time we reached some decisions. The first question is what to do about Nero Wolfe. Goodwin, if we instruct Wolfe to continue the investigation, and extend it to include the death of Mr. Naylor, what could he do?” Half of them started to talk. Pine tapped with his gavel and asserted the authority of the chair: “Let Goodwin tell us.” I looked around at them, giving an extra half a second to Emmet Ferguson. “Mr.

Wolfe could catch the murderer,” I stated, “if that’s what you want. He-” “Why not the police?” Ferguson asked offensively. “That’s their job.” “I am not,” I told the table, “going to argue with Babblemouth Ferguson. Shall I go on?” The wiry little guy threw back his head and laughed. Someone said, “Shut up.

Emmet, or we’ll be here all day.” “It all depends,” I said. “If you think something about it is hotter than you like it, call Mr. Wolfe off immediately. If you would just as soon have the murderer caught but don’t really give a damn, let the cops do it, you would be wasting your money on Mr. Wolfe and he comes high. If you feel that you owe it to yourselves or to anyone else to make sure that the job isn’t muffed, and if you suspect that it may require something more than good standard detective work, you need Mr. Wolfe no matter what it costs. As to-” “You weren’t asked for a sales talk,” Ferguson sneered. “You were asked-” I merely lifted my voice. “As to what Mr. Wolfe could do, I don’t know. Nobody ever knows what Mr. Wolfe can do on a case until after he has done it. I could tell you what he has done, but it would take a week, and anyhow most of you have probably already heard some of it.” “I move,” the wiry little guy said, “that we authorize the president to engage Nero Wolfe-” The gavel sounded. “Wait a minute.” Pine addressed me, “Goodwin, will you step out to the reception room and wait there?” I glanced at my wrist. “I’m late for an appointment.” “We all are,” someone growled.

Pine said it wouldn’t take long, and I left.

Judging from the customers distributed around on the chairs in the reception room, some of them looking as if they were running short on patience, the appointments were piling up. One of them I recognized, an Assistant District Attorney, and I wondered which one of the gang in the Board Room he was waiting for. I fully expected to be kept there on my fundament for half an hour or more, and was debating whether to drop down to the lobby and tell Hester Livsey I was held up, when the executive sentinel arrived with word that I was wanted.

Evidently they had agreed with Pine that it was time to can the talk and make some decisions. Unless what they had decided was to ask me more questions.

But no, they had executed. As I approached the table Pine spoke to me.

“Goodwin, we wish to instruct Nero Wolfe to extend his investigation to include the death of Mr. Kerr Naylor. Do you need a letter?” “No, not with all these witnesses. Then it’s a straight murder job, and you might as well take me off the company payroll, with the understanding that I can come and go in the stock department. I assume we get cooperation?” “Certainly.” “Okay. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Wolfe will be expecting you at his office at six o’clock today.” The best-dressed man goggled at me and his mouth came open. He was speechless.

The wiry little guy threw his head back and laughed.

“What for?” Pine asked.

“Skip it,” I said graciously. “Mr. Wolfe can get in touch with him. How did the vote go?” “The vote?” “On hiring Mr. Wolfe.” “That’s an improper question, Goodwin, and you know it. I’ve told-” “Excuse me, Mr. Pine, it’s far from improper.” I sent my eyes around the table.

“In a murder investigation, gentlemen, nothing is improper, and that’s the hell of it for everybody concerned. I told you that I don’t know what Mr. Wolfe will do, but I know what he’ll ask me, and one of his first questions will be who voted not to hire him. If you had let me stay in the room-” “The vote,” the wiry little guy said, “was eleven to four. Those voting no were Fergus on, Wyatt, Volk, and Thomas. The chair of course did not vote, but his remarks indicated that he was for it. My name is Armstrong.” “Much obliged. Now I’ll keep that appointment.”