Too Many Women

CHAPTER Twenty-Seven

A week went by. Seven days and seven nights. They brought us to another Monday, the last day of March, and they brought us nowhere else at all.

It was the longest dry spell we have ever had on a murder case. When I finished breakfast that second Monday morning and put on my coat and hat to go downtown for the start of another week at the office of Naylor-Kerr, Inc., if Wolfe had intercepted me to tell me to type for him a summary of the headway made during the week, it wouldn’t have delayed me more than ten seconds. I could merely have stepped into the office for a blank sheet of paper and handed it to him-or, if he wanted it in triplicate, three sheets. That would have covered the accomplishments not only of me, but of everybody-Wolfe himself, Saul Panzer, Bill Gore, Orrie Gather, Fred Durkin, Johnny Keems, and Inspector Cramer with his entire army.

The cops had done everything they were supposed to do and then some. Their scientists, with microscopes and chemicals, had demonstrated that Naylor’s body had been carried in the tonneau, on the floor, of the car that had run over him, proving that he had been either killed or stunned somewhere else and transported to Thirty-ninth Street for the last act. The theory was that the body had been where the murderer didn’t want it to be, so he had needed to take it somewhere else, and why not Thirty-ninth Street again if it was as suitably deserted as it had been before? He could choose a moment when no one was in sight for dumping it out of the car, and if someone appeared before he could back the car up and run over it he could merely decide not to add that touch, and step on the gas.

Naturally the curiosity of the cops was aroused by the fact that the murderer had thought it undesirable for people to know where Naylor was killed and what with, so a few platoons worked on that. In their effort to find out where the car had been the scientists used the microscope on every particle of dust and dirt from the tires, and even from underneath the chassis. Purley told me that one of them had sold himself on the notion that the car had been in Passaic, New Jersey, but had found no other buyers. Otherwise no results.

Something over two hundred units of personnel of the stock department were conversed with, anywhere from one to five times. Rosa Bendini and her husband, Gwynne Ferns, Sumner Hoff, Hester Livsey, and Ben Frenkel were among the most popular but were by no means the only ones. The assumption was that the murderer of Naylor had also killed Waldo Moore, but it was not allowed to exclude other possibilities, and since at least half of the people on the thirty-fourth floor might conceivably have felt murderous about either one or the other, there was plenty of territory to move around in. It would have been a good training school, Purley told me, for any rookie wanting to learn how to trace movements and check alibis, there were so many different kinds.

That operation was not confined to the thirty-fourth floor. Up on the thirty-sixth, on the executive and directorial level, the approach was of course somewhat different, since vice-presidents and directors are more sensitive and bleed easier than typists or heads of sections, but the job was actually just as thorough, especially when the days and nights stretched into a week without even one measly little lead. The police elite who worked on it found the normal tangle of jealousies and rivalries, and inclinations to trip and shove, but it all added up to nothing really helpful, including the movement-tracing and alibi-checking. The most promising angle, on the face of it, was Kerr Naylor’s attempt to have Jasper Pine booted out and himself made president, but that too produced no bacon because, first, Naylor had been after the president’s job for years and was getting nowhere, and second, Pine had been in bed asleep the night Naylor was killed, as Wolfe and Cramer and I had learned from Cecily.

Not satisfied with all the wonderful raw material at Naylor-Kerr, the cops had tried other places too. They had broadened out to include everybody either Moore or Naylor had been known to associate with, getting the same amount of nothing that they got on William Street. On Wolfe’s hint that there might be something phony about Sumner Hoff’s account of his movements from six to eight o’clock, they had questioned both Hoff and Hester several times, and had also tried other lines of inquiry, with no result. By Saturday afternoon, eight days after Naylor’s death, they had got so desperate that Lieutenant Rowcliff himself invited me to go along for their third examination of Naylor’s papers and effects, but I found them just as uninteresting as the cops had, except for a document of forty-six handwritten pages in which Naylor had set down his program for the firm of Naylor-Kerr, Inc., if and when he became president. His list of executives and directors that he intended to get rid of might have been helpful if the list hadn’t been so damn long.

Meanwhile all Wolfe was doing was getting upset. True, he was paying five operatives besides me-Panzer, Gore, Durkin, Keems, and Gather-but that wasn’t costing him anything since it would all go on the client’s bill. And what do you suppose the last four were doing? It might be supposed, naturally, that they were developing some subtle and intricate plan which Wolfe had cooked up with his celebrated finesse and imagination. Haha. They were tailing Hester and Sumner, which was exactly what they would have been doing if Naylor-Kerr, wanting to hire an investigator, had picked an agency at random from the Red Book. That was how far Wolfe’s genius had got him on this case. As for Saul Panzer, I had not heard his instructions, but I knew he had the photograph which Hester Livsey had sent us at Wolfe’s request, and I suspected he was going around town asking people to guess who it was.

The reports covering Hester’s and Sumner’s movements from Gore, Durkin, Keems, and Gather weren’t even worth filing. But our four men were having fun, because the subjects were also being tailed by the cops and that made it more sociable.

I am not being snooty. I can’t afford it, because during that long dry spell I was being as futile as everybody else. I performed occasional and miscellaneous errands which aren’t worth telling about, but most of the time I was at William Street, in the stock department, trying to kid somebody. The only meal I ate at home was breakfast because I worked overtime. Monday evening I took Rosa to dine and dance. Tuesday I took Gwynne Ferris. Wednesday I made a try for Hester.

First she said she would go and then a couple of hours later reneged, stating that she had tried to cancel another engagement and couldn’t. My guess was that Sumner Hoff was handling things and that if I tried for the next evening or the next I would only get humiliated and perhaps a start on an inferiority complex, so I passed it up and made a stab at a possible fresh source of gossip which weighed around a hundred and fifty and went by the name of Elise Grimes. She proved to be unprofitable no matter what I was after, and Thursday I repeated with Rosa and Friday with Gwynne. I won’t go so far as to say the time and effort were wasted, but I had to be stern with myself to persuade me that it was entirely proper, nothing but routine really, to put it on the client’s expense account.

Wolfe and I, during that week, had three hot arguments about Hester Livsey and Sumner Hoff. I lost the first one, when I took the stand that we should let the cops have a try at them. Wolfe was dead against it. He said, first, that Cramer would be sore and suspicious because we had held it back so long; second, that Cramer wouldn’t do a real job on them because he wouldn’t be sure we weren’t trying to put something over and Saul was lying; and third, that even if he took Saul for gospel, it would be two against one and Hester and Hoff would probably hold fast. I hated to agree with him but had to.

The other two arguments ended in a tie. I insisted that Hester and Hoff should be got to the office one at a time, offering to do the getting myself no matter how they felt about it, and Wolfe should give them the works. He maintained it was hopeless. He would have nothing to go on, he said, but one little fact regarding which they had agreed to lie, and they knew we knew they were lying.

It was stalemate, and he would have nowhere to start from. I said it was the only crack we had found anywhere and he ought to try to get a wedge in it anyhow. He flatly refused. I thought at the time he was just being contrary, but it may be that he was already considering the experiment that he finally decided to try on Sunday evening and didn’t want to run any risk of spoiling it.

At least it wasn’t laziness. He was really working. With a minimum of pestering from me he agreed that the executives and directors required some attention, and even took my advice where to begin, so I had the satisfaction, Thursday morning, of putting the bee on Emmet Ferguson. At first he was going to sneer me right off the phone, but a few well-chosen dirty insinuations put him where he belonged, and at two o’clock he came tearing into Wolfe’s office with his ten-dollar Sulka tie off center, full of words and ready for war. Wolfe spent two hours on him, and when he finally tore out again two things were perfectly plain: one, Ferguson would always vote against hiring Wolfe or me by anyone for anything, at any time, and two, if Wolfe and I should run short on morals and resort to a frame for the murders, we would heartily agree on who to pick for the victim.

I would say that probably nobody engaged with the investigation of Naylor’s death got a single thing out of that whole week, except me. Not only were there those opportunities to study women, which any detective under eighty should be glad to have, at the client’s expense, but also I got season tickets for both the Giants and the Yankees. And not by mail or messenger; Cecily brought them herself. When I got home Thursday after midnight I found Wolfe still up, reading apparently only one book, at his desk in the office.

He grunted at me. “Where have you been?” “I told you where I was going. With Rosa. At one time, months ago it seems, I thought she thought her husband killed Moore, but I’m beginning to think she did it herself. She has a great deal of vitality.” He shuddered. “The plant records are getting badly behind and Theodore needs them.” “They sure are,” I agreed. “I can’t help it if this case is so tough that I have to work days and nights both.” I yawned. “You got me that job down there. You told me to use my organs as the occasion suggests and my capacities permit.” I yawned. “I guess I’ll go to bed.” “No. Mrs. Pine is coming. She telephoned that she wants to give you your baseball tickets and I told her you would be home shortly.” “My God. Shouldn’t you-let us be alone?” “No. I want to see her. Anyhow, that’s what she really wants. Why the devil should she want to give you baseball tickets?” That, it seemed to me, called for an argument, and I sat down to give it my attention, but before I got a word out I had to get up again because the doorbell rang. I went down the hall, glanced through the one-way panel, opened the door, and invited her in.

She put out a hand and exchanged a firm friendly clasp with me, gave me a warm wholesome smile, looked searchingly at my face and nodded-to herself, not to me-and said cheerfully: “I could see you would be like that even when you were all red and bruised. Is that fat man in there? I’d like to see him.” Without waiting for clearance she was on her way, and I followed her down the hall and into the office. She offered no hand to Wolfe, only a polite nod with a good evening, and took the straight-backed chair she had used before, after I had moved it up for her.

“I surmised, madam,” Wolfe said peevishly, “that you wished to see me as well as Mr. Goodwin.” “Not particularly,” she declared. “Except that it is always a satisfaction to remind a man-especially a conceited one like you -that I was right. If you had done what I asked you to my brother would not have been killed.” “Pah. He wouldn’t?” “Certainly not.” Mrs. Pine looked at me. “You know perfectly well, Archie, that you are responsible, spreading it around that he told you he knew who killed Waldo Moore. If you had stayed away from there as I wanted you to it wouldn’t have happened. Not that you’re to blame, since you work for this Mr. Wolfe and have to do what he tells you to.” She smiled at me. “Oh, here are those tickets.” She opened her bag, a medium-sized embroidered thing with a gold frame, fingered in it, and produced an envelope. I crossed to get it, and thanked her, trying to speak like a pet. She asked if I would dispose of her wrap, and I took it-this time it was chinchilla-and put it on the couch.

Apparently she was in mourning, as her gray and black dress covered a lot of pink skin that had been visible the other time.

“I doubt,” Wolfe muttered, “if that conclusion is sound. Your brother had adopted a policy of jaunty indiscretion long before Mr Goodwin got there.

Besides, you said last week that Mr. Moore’s death was accidental. Now you’re assuming that he was murdered and that the murderer killed your brother to anticipate disclosure. You can’t have it both ways, madam.” He was wasting logic on her again.

She completely ignored it. “My brother jaunty? Good lord!” She added, “The funeral was yesterday.” Whether she was merely stating a deplorable fact, or whether she meant to imply that it was up to us to have the funeral repealed or nullified, there was no way of telling. Evidently it was the former, for she didn’t follow through on it, but sent me an unsmiling glance.

“You see, Archie, this wouldn’t have happened if you had taken my suggestion and quit working for him and started your own business. How much will it cost?” “Eleven thousand, four hundred and sixty-five dollars,” I told her.

“That much?” “Yeah, inflation.” “It seems high, but we’ll see.” She switched back to Wolfe. “What are you going to do now?” “I have engaged,” he said, “to catch the murderer of your brother.” “I know you have, but what are you going to do?” “Catch him. Or her.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Now, madam, wouldn’t you like to help?” “No,” she said decisively. “I am not vindictive.” She glanced over her shoulder.

“Will you close that door, Archie? Or bring me my wrap?” Preferring the door idea, I went and closed it.

Meanwhile she was going on, “The police have been asking about the relationship between my brother and me, which is impertinent and ridiculous. One of them, a vulgar little bald man, openly resented it because I am not prostrated with grief! Actually I was extremely fond of my brother, but my feelings about him and about his death are my private affair and concern no one else. The wish that was dearest to him, the wish to become the active directing head of the firm our father founded, was utterly hopeless because he wasn’t fitted for it. He should have been either a policeman or a fireman-that was what he wanted when he was a little boy. You can’t make him a policeman or a fireman by finding out who killed him. Anyway, I don’t think he was killed-not deliberately. I think it was an accident. What do you think, Archie?” “I think what you do, Mrs. Pine.” I gave her a personalized grin. “I mean what you think, not what you say you think. If you’re leading up to a cash offer for proof that it was an accident, forget it, no one could deliver, not even us. Is that what you came for?” “No.” She smiled at me. “Those tickets came today and I wanted to get them to you, and I wanted to see how your face looks.” She was leaning forward to see me better. “You must have extremely good blood, to heal so rapidly. How old are you?” “Thirty-three.” “Wonderful! Men in their twenties are so raw. Have you got a list of that eleven thousand, four hundred and sixty-five dollars?” Wolfe made an emphatic sound without words, arose, told the visitor good evening, and left the room. In a moment we heard the opening and closing of the door of his elevator.

“There is no list,” I said in a hurt tone. “If your trust in me is so shaky that you have to see lists…And speaking of my blood, it ought to be good, since I’m half gypsy.” I crossed to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s why I can understand things, without knowing exactly how, that even Mr. Wolfe can’t understand. About these two deaths, Waldo Moore and your brother-” She began to laugh, a real laugh, from her throat and on out.

“You certainly don’t understand me!” she declared, and laughed some more. “Your father’s name is James Arner Goodwin, and you were born in Canton, Ohio, in nineteen-fourteen. Your mother’s maiden name was Leslie. You have two brothers and two sisters. No, no gypsy. I’m a very cautious woman, Archie, cautious and dependable.” She stood up, abruptly, and I must admit not clumsily. “The reason I want to see a list is to make sure you’re including everything. Let’s sit on the couch and talk about it.” We were alone, with the whole floor to ourselves. Fritz had gone to his bed in the basement. I had been up and around all of eighteen hours, Cecily probably not more than twelve. It was not a situation that could be handled with half-measures.

“This,” I said, “is dangerous. Mr. Wolfe already suspects me. You’ll have to go, for my sake. If I stay here alone with you he’ll think I’m double-crossing him on this case and he’ll have my license revoked, and then I couldn’t go into business for myself even if you wanted me to. When this case is finished we’ll talk…and talk…and talk…but you’ll have to go now, Mrs. Pine.” I thought I might as well clinch it, and added, “Cecily.”