Too Many Women

CHAPTER Twenty-Six

At the far side of the executive reception room were a couple of phone booths, and I dived into one of them on my way through and dialed a number. Ordinarily when I’m not there Fritz answers, but that time it was Wolfe himself.

“Where the devil are you?” he demanded. “It’s eight minutes past eleven!” I didn’t resent it because I knew he wasn’t being critical. He regards going from one place to another place in New York City as being one of the most hazardous feats a man can undertake, and he was worried about me.

“I have,” I declared importantly, “just left a directors’ meeting. You were hired to investigate Naylor’s death by a vote of eleven to four, and I would greatly appreciate it as a personal favor if you will manage to frame a heel named Emmet Ferguson for it. When you see him you’ll agree with me. I’ll be there with Miss Livsey in fifteen minutes.” Late as I was, I had no fear that Hester would have got tired waiting for me.

She wanted that fact. And I was right. She was standing, looking uneasy, patient, and beautiful, by the mailbox on the William Street side of the lobby.

But as I approached she turned her head to say something to a man there at her elbow, and I was thrown off my stride for an instant as I recognized the man. It was Sumner Hoff, with his hat and coat on.

I stopped in front of them and spoke to her. “I’m sorry to be so late, but I was detained upstairs. This way’s best for a taxi-” “You know Mr. Hoff,” she said. “He’s going with us.” I had expected that on account of his hat and coat. I looked down my nose at him. “Come ahead. If Mr. Wolfe decides you’re not welcome I’ll know how to handle it since you showed me last week.” “I’ll do the handling,” he snapped.

“Well, don’t be rough with me,” I said plaintively.

When we found a taxi, which was easy at that time of day, he helped Hester in and then followed her, planting himself in the middle and leaving me the near corner, so he would be between us. That’s the right idea, brother, I thought, don’t forget the good old stock department motto, protect your woman. It was gratifying to see that although he was a civil engineer and therefore an aristocrat he didn’t set himself up above the others but stuck to the code.

Frankly, considering his imminent double chin, it seemed to me that Hester was running low on knights, but it was quite possible he had some good points I hadn’t noticed.

At our destination he kept it plain that he was doing the handling-out of the taxi, up the stoop, through the door, and down the hall to the office. I hoped he wouldn’t mind that I took the initiative to do the introducing.

“You may remember,” I told Wolfe, “that last Thursday a person named Sumner Hoff, when I entered his office in a friendly manner, told me to get out and called me a goddam snoop. This is him. It might be thought he came to apologize, but no. He came along, he says, to do the handling.” “Indeed.” Wolfe reached to pour beer. “Sit down, Miss Livsey. Sit down, Mr.

Hoff. Will you have some beer?” They accepted the chairs but not the beer. Wolfe, who thinks foam is fine for the upper lip, was drinking, so I filled in, as I lowered myself into my chair.

“I might add that if you prefer to speak with Miss Livsey privately I would have no objection to performing an engineering operation on Hoff and removing him.” “No, thank you.” Wolfe put his glass down, wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, and leaned back. “Perhaps later.” He looked at Hoff and told him, “Handle it.” “I will,” Hoff said aggressively, “when I know what it is.” “Ah. You must have extraordinary resources, to be prepared for all conceivable phenomena. I have been engaged by the firm you work for to investigate the death of Mr. Naylor. I tell you that so you’ll know what I’m doing.” Wolfe’s eyes went to Hester. “Miss Livsey, I believe you told a policeman at Westport that you knew nothing about Mr. Naylor and that your association with him was restricted to your role as an obscure employee in his department. Is that correct?” “Don’t answer him,” Hoff snapped, starting to handle it.

“Certainly I’ll answer,” Hester said. She was in the red leather chair, facing the window. “I’ll answer that. Those weren’t my words, but it amounted to that, yes. Mr. Goodwin told me that you had learned a certain fact about Mr. Naylor and me, and that if I came here you would tell me what it was. What-” “There is no such fact,” Hoff snapped, “and we want to know what you’re talking about!” Wolfe pointed a finger. “That door,” he said, “leads to what we call the front room. The wall and door are soundproofed. I suppose, Mr. Hoff, you’d better go in there.” “Oh, no. I’m staying here.” Protect your woman.

“Nonsense. Even if you weren’t flabby Mr. Goodwin could put you anywhere I told him to. Archie. If Mr. Hoff interrupts again remove him, I don’t care where.” “Yes, sir.” “Without ceremony.” “Yes, sir.” “You keep still, Sumner,” Hester admonished him. “All I want is what Mr. Goodwin asked me to come for,” she told Wolfe. “There can’t be any fact about Mr. Naylor and me. What is it?” “When was the last time you saw Mr. Naylor, Miss Livsey?” “Don’t ans-” Hoff began. I had started for him before he finished the first syllable. He didn’t bite it off, the words just stopped coming, and I saw to my regret that I would never have the pleasure of plugging him. He wasn’t up to it.

There might be occasion for shoving him or bundling him, but he would never rate a real sock. I sat down again.

Anyhow, Hester didn’t obey. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I saw him at the office some time Friday, but I didn’t notice and I don’t remember.” Wolfe shook his head. “Not at the office. At six-thirty-eight Friday afternoon you met him at the corner of First Avenue and Fifty-second Street, walked back and forth with him over an hour, and parted from him at seven-forty-one at Second Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. What were you talking about?” Hester was wide-eyed. “That isn’t so,” she asserted in a loud voice, unnecessarily loud.

“No? What did I get wrong?” “All of it’s wrong. It isn’t so.” “You didn’t see Mr. Naylor after office hours on Friday?” “No. I didn’t.” So far so good. Obviously her talk with Naylor had been about something she didn’t want to broadcast, and naturally she would deny it as long as that seemed feasible. I had not yet reported to Wolfe on her awful fumble that morning in her office, and I saw no need for it now, since he had the high card and all he had to do was play it.

“It’s no good, Miss Livsey,” Wolfe said. “Abandon it. I have a witness.” “You can’t have,” she declared. “You can’t have a witness to my being with Mr.

Naylor where you said, because I couldn’t have been there, because I was somewhere else. Friday afternoon I left the office at five o’clock and went to Grand Central Station and went to the soda fountain on the lower level and had a sundae. I had intended to catch a train to Westport, but at the office that day Mr. Hoff had said he wanted to talk with me about something and we had made an appointment. We met there at the soda fountain at six o’clock. We talked there a while and then went upstairs to the waiting-room and talked some more. He persuaded me to go to the theater with him and take a later train to Westport.

By that time it was too late to eat in a restaurant and make it to the theater, so we ate in that big cafeteria near the station on Forty-second Street. Then we had bad luck and couldn’t get seats for the show we wanted to see and we went to a movie instead-The Best Years of Our Lives. Then I caught the eleven-fifty-six to Westport. Then the next day, Saturday, Mr. Hoff-he knew where I was-he came to Westport and said it was my duty to cooperate with the authorities, so I came to New York and went to the District Attorney’s office and told them what I have told you and answered their questions. So when you say you have a witness-well, I’d like to know who the witness is.” I was thinking to myself savagely, you will, my beautiful little liar, you’ll know all right. But I only felt it; I didn’t look it. I kept my face deadpan.

Wolfe didn’t. He looked concerned and apologetic. “It seems,” he said, “that you had facts for me, not me for you. I do have a witness, Miss Livsey, but manifestly a mistaken one. Of course you certify all this, Mr. Hoff?” “I do,” Hoff said emphatically.

“Then that settles it. I owe you an apology, Miss Livsey, which is a rare debt for me to incur. As for my witness-I wonder if you’ll do me a favor. Will you send me a photograph of yourself-a good one, as recent as possible?” “Why-” Hester hesitated.

“Certainly,” Hoff agreed for her. “I don’t know what for, but certainly she will.” “Good. I’ll appreciate it. Today, if possible, by messenger collect. The witness may have an idea of going to the police and there’s no use getting them more confused than they are already.” Wolfe was out of his chair. “Good day, Miss Livsey. Good day, Mr. Hoff. Thank you for coming.” I went to the hall with them. At the door Hester told me, offering a hand, “I’m sorry if I was impolite this morning, Mr. Goodwin. I guess I was upset.” “Don’t mention it,” I told her eyes. “You were nervous. Everybody in the neighborhood of a murder gets nervous, sometimes even the murderer himself.” I returned to the office, resumed my chair, and sat and glared at Wolfe as he opened a fresh bottle, poured, waited until the foam was exactly a quarter of an inch below the rim of the glass, and drank. He put the glass down empty and used his tongue on his upper lip first and then his handkerchief. When company was present he omitted the tongue part.

“Superficially neat,” he muttered at me, “but they’re a pair of idiots.” “Enravished,” I said, “is no word for it. I’m absolutely nuts about her. Did you notice that she even named the movie they went to? She left out the kind of sundae she had. That was an oversight. One thing you didn’t know about, but I doubt if it would have mattered, all I told her was that you had a fact you wanted to ask her about, and she was so anxious to know which fact that she nearly lost her pants. There was a time when the mere thought of her pants would have made my heart beat. Anyhow, our fact isn’t the only one, I’ll guarantee that. What do we do now, feed her to the animals?” “No.” Wolfe was grim. “I doubt if Mr. Cramer could shake them. Even if he could, she sat there and told me that preposterous lie and I will not tolerate it. What about Saul? Did he look twice?” “No. Not a chance. He spotted her himself and said yes, and with Saul you know how good that is. Even if she has a twin, it was her. Also, as I told you, he spotted Sumner Hoff.” I snorted. “Protect your woman.” “What?” “Nothing. It’s a motto. The corny performance we have just witnessed has got me voting for the stock department again. When I left the directors’ meeting I was voting for the thirty-sixth floor, murder on the highest executive level, but not now. What I would really like is to combine the two. I hate to leave Emmet Ferguson out of it.” “Tell me about the directors’ meeting.” I did so, and hoped he was listening. That was open to question because he kept his eyes open. When he doesn’t close his eyes while I am making a report it usually means that part of his mind is on something else, and I never know how big a part. On that occasion I suspected it was more than half, knowing as I did what he was doing with it. He was peeling strips of hide off of Hester Livsey and sprinkling salt on the exposed tissue. She had diddled him good. He had counted on getting from her, at a minimum, a hint as to where the path either entered the thicket or left it, and all he had got was a barefaced lie with Sumner Hoff to back it up.

When I finished the report, instead of asking questions or making comments, he muttered that he wished to speak to Mr. Cramer, and when the connection was made he told Cramer that in checking alibis and tracing movements of people for Friday evening a special effort should be made in the case of Sumner Hoff for the two hours from six to eight. Cramer naturally wanted to know why, since the hours they were concentrating on were from ten to midnight, and Wolfe’s refusal to explain naturally got growls. Wolfe hung up, sighed deeply, and leaned back and then in a matter of seconds had to straighten up again when a call came from Saul Panzer.

Saul made a report, a brief one, with me off the wire. Wolfe took it with no remarks but grunts, told Saul to come to the office at six that afternoon, and added: “That confounded woman is a nincompoop. Has Mr. Cramer reached you? Of course not. Now you may let him. Let him find you. Tell him about Mr. Naylor but make no reference to Miss Livsey or Mr. Hoff. Leave them out. They have concocted a story that can’t be disproven except by your word. It would be two to one, and Mr. Cramer would keep you for hours and perhaps days, accomplishing nothing.

You’d better go to see him and finish with him so you can be here at six o’clock.” Wolfe hung up and glowered at me.

“Archie. At least we’ve been hired to do a job and we know what the job is.

After lunch go back down there and use your eyes, ears, and tongue as the occasion suggests and your capacities permit.” He glanced at the wall clock.

“Get Durkin, Gore, Gather, and Keems. I want them all here at six o’clock. If they’re working and need an inducement give them one. That woman is going to regret this.”