Trio for Blunt Instruments

2

MOST OF THE HOUSES on Horn Street, which is only three blocks long, could stand a coat of paint, but Number 219, a four-story brick, was all dressed up-the brick cream-colored and the trim dark brown; and the Venetian blinds at the windows matched the bricks. Since Vance was in clover I supposed it was just for him, but in the vestibule there were three names in a panel on the wall with buttons. The bottom one was Fougere, the middle one was Kirk, and the top one was James Neville Vance. I pushed the top one, and after a wait a voice came from a grill. “Who is it?”

I stooped a little to put my mouth on a level with the lower grill and said, “My name is Archie Goodwin. I’d like to see Mr. Vance.”

“This is Vance. What do you want?”

It was a baritone, no trace of a squeak. I told the grill, “I have something that belongs to you and I want to return it.”

“You have something that belongs to me?”

“Right.”

“What is it and where did you get it?”

“Correction. I think it belongs to you. It’s a four-in-hand silk tie, Sutcliffe label, the same color as this house, with diagonal lines the same color as the trim. Cream and brown.”

“Who are you and where did you get it?”

I got impatient. “Here’s a suggestion,” I said. “Install closed-circuit television so you can see the vestibule from up there, and phone me at the office of Nero Wolfe, where I work, and I’ll come back. It will take a week or so and set you back ten grand, but it’ll be worth it to see the tie without letting me in. After you’ve identified it I’ll tell you where I got it. If you don’t-”

“Did you say Nero Wolfe? The detective?”

“Yes.”

“But what- This is ridiculous.”

“I agree. Completely. Give me a ring when you’re ready.”

“But I- All right. Use the elevator. I’m in the studio, the top floor-four.”

There was a click at the door, and on the third click I pushed it open and entered. To my surprise the small hall was not more cream and brown but a deep rich red with black panel-borders, and the door of the do-it-yourself elevator was stainless steel. When I pushed the button and the door opened, and, inside, pushed the 4 button and was lifted, there was practically no noise or vibration-very different from the one in the old brownstone which Wolfe always used and I never did.

Stepping out when the door opened, I got another surprise. Since he had called it the studio I was expecting to smell turpentine and see a clutter of vintage Vances, but at first glance it was a piano warehouse. There were three of them in the big room, which was the length and width of the house.

The man standing there waited to speak until my glance got to him. Undersized, with too much chin for his neat smooth face, no wrinkles, he wasn’t as impressive as his stationery, but his clothes were-cream-colored silk shirt and brown made-to-fit slacks. He cocked his head, nodded, and said, “I recognize you. I’ve seen you at the Flamingo.” He came a step. “What’s this about a tie? Let me see it.”

“It’s the one you sent me,” I said.

He frowned. “The one I sent you?”

“There seems to be a gap,” I said. “Are you James Neville Vance?”

“I am. Certainly.”

I got the envelope and letterhead from my breast pocket and showed them for inspection. “Then that’s your stationery?” He was going to take them, but I held on. He examined the address on the envelope and the message on the letterhead, frowning, lifted the frown to me, and demanded, “What kind of a game is this?”

“I’ve walked two miles to find out.” I got the tie from my side pocket. “This was in the envelope. Is it yours?”

I let him take it, and he looked it over front and back. “What’s this spot?”

“I don’t know. Is it yours?”

“Yes. I mean it must be. That pattern, the colors-they reserve it for me, or they’re supposed to.”

“Did you mail it to me in this envelope?”

“I did not. Why would-”

“Did you phone me this morning and tell me to burn it?”

“I did not. You got it in the mail this morning?”

I nodded. “And a phone call at a quarter past eleven from a man who squeaked and told me to burn it. Have you got a photograph of yourself handy?”

“Why… yes. Why?”

“You have recognized me, but I haven’t recognized you. You ask what kind of a game this is, and so do I. What if you’re not Vance?”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Sure, but why not humor me?”

He was going to say why not, changed his mind, and moved. Crossing the room, detouring around a piano, to a bank of cabinets and shelves at the wall, he took something from a shelf and came and handed it to me. It was a thin book with a leather binding that had stamped on it in gold: THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE by James Neville Vance. Inside, the first two pages were blank; the third had just two words at the bottom: PRIVATELY PRINTED; and the fourth had a picture of the author.

A glance was enough. I put it on a nearby table. “Okay. Nice picture. Any ideas or suggestions?”

“How could I have?” He was peevish. “It’s crazy!” He gave the tie another look. “It must be mine. I can settle that. Come along.”

He headed for the rear and I followed, back beyond the second piano, and then down spiral stairs, wide for a spiral, with carpeted steps and a polished wooden rail. At the bottom, the rear end of a good-sized living room, he turned right through an open door and we were in a bedroom. He crossed to another door and opened it, and I stopped two steps off. It was a walk-in closet. A friend of mine once told me that a woman’s clothes closet will tell you more about her than any other room in the house, and if that goes for a man too there was my chance to get the lowdown on James Neville Vance, but I was interested only in his neckties. They were on a rack at the right, three rows of them, quite an assortment, some cream and brown but by no means all. He fingered through part of one row, repeated it, turned and emerged, and said, “It’s mine. I had nine and gave one to somebody, and there are only seven.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine…” He let it hang. “What on earth…” He let that hang too.

“And your stationery,” I said.

“Yes. Of course.”

“And the phone call telling me to burn it. With a squeak.”

“Yes. You asked if I had any ideas or suggestions. Have you?”

“I could have, but they would be expensive. I work for Nero Wolfe and it would be on his time, and the bill would be bad news. You must know who has access to your stationery and that closet, and you ought to be able to make some kind of a guess about who and why. And you won’t need the tie. It came to me in the mail, so actually and legally it’s in my possession, and I ought to keep it.” I put a hand out. “If you don’t mind?”

“Of course.” He handed it over. “But I might- You’re not going to burn it?”

“No indeed.” I stuck it in my side pocket. The envelope and letterhead were back in my breast pocket. “I have a little collection of souvenirs. If and when you have occasion to produce it for-”

A bell tinkled somewhere, a soft music tinkle, possibly music of the future. He frowned and turned and started for the front, and I followed, back through the open door, and across the living room to another door, which he opened. Two men were there in a little foyer-one a square little guy in shirt sleeves and brown denim pants, and the other, also square but big, a harness bull.

“Yes, Bert?” Vance said.

“This cop,” the little guy said. “He wants in to Mrs. Kirk’s apartment.”

“What for?”

The bull spoke. “Just to look, Mr. Vance. I’m on patrol and I got a call. Probably nothing, it usually isn’t, but I’ve got to look. Sorry to bother you.”

“Look at what?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing, as I say. Just to see that all’s in order. Law and order.”

“Why shouldn’t it be in order? This is my house, officer.”

“Yeah, I know it is. And this is my job. I get a call, I do as I’m told. When I pushed the Kirk button there was no answer, so I got the janitor. Routine. I said I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Very well. You have the key, Bert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ring before you-I’d better come.” He crossed the sill and when I was out closed the door. Four of us in the elevator didn’t leave much room. When it stopped at 2 and they stepped out I stepped out too, into another small foyer. Vance pressed a button on a doorjamb, waited half a minute, pressed it again, kept his finger on it for five seconds, and waited some more. “All right, Bert,” he said and moved aside. Bert put a key in the lock-a Rabson, I noticed-turned it, turned the knob, pushed the door open, and made room for Vance to enter. Then the cop, and then me. Two steps in, Vance stopped, faced the rear, and raised his baritone. “Bonny! It’s Jim!”

I saw it first, a blue slipper on its side on the floor with a foot in it, extending beyond the edge of a couch. I moved automatically but stopped short. Let the cop do his own discovering. He did; he saw it too and went; and when he had passed the end of the couch he stopped shorter than I had, growled, “Godalmighty,” and stood looking down. Then I moved, and so did Vance. When Vance saw it, all of it, he went stiff, gawking, then he made a sort of choking noise, and then he crumpled. It wasn’t a faint; his knees just quit on him and he went down, and no wonder. Even live blood on a live face makes an impression, and when the face is dead and the blood has dried all over one side and the ear, plenty of it, you do need knees.

I don’t say I wasn’t impressed, but my problem wasn’t knees. It took me maybe six seconds to decide. Bert had joined us and was reacting. Vance had grabbed the back of the couch to pull himself up. The cop was squatting for a close-up of the dead face. No one knew if I was there or not, and in another six seconds I wasn’t. I went to the door, easy, let myself out, took the elevator down, and on out to the sidewalk. A police car was double-parked right in front, and the cop at the wheel, seeing me emerge from that house, gave me an eye but let it go at that as I headed west. Approaching Sixth Avenue, I felt sweat trickling down onto my cheek and got out my handkerchief. The sun was at the top on a warm August day, but I don’t sweat when I’m walking, and besides, why didn’t I know it before it collected enough to trickle? There you are. One man’s knees buckle immediately and another man starts sweating five minutes later and doesn’t know it.

It was a quarter to one when I climbed out of a taxi in front of the old brownstone on West 35th Street, mounted the seven steps of the stoop, and used my key. Before proceeding down the hall to the office I used my handkerchief thoroughly; Wolfe, who misses nothing, had never seen me sweat and wouldn’t now. When I entered he was at his desk with the new book, and he took his eyes from it barely enough for a sidewise glance at me as I crossed to my desk. I sat and said, “I don’t like to interrupt, but I have a report.”

He grunted. “Is it necessary?”

“It’s desirable. There’s nearly half an hour till lunch, and if someone comes, for instance an officer of the law, it would be better if you knew about it.”

He let the book down a little. “What the devil are you into now?”

“That’s the report. Ten minutes will do it, fifteen at the outside, even verbatim.”

He inserted a bookmark and put the book on the desk. “Well?”

I started in, verbatim, and by the time I was telling Vance he should install closed-circuit television he was leaning back with his eyes closed. Merely force of habit. When I mentioned the title of the privately printed book he made a noise-he says all music is a vestige of barbarism-and when I came to the end he snorted and opened his eyes.

“I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. “You’ve omitted something. A death by violence, and, not involved and with no commitment, you left? Nonsense.” He straightened up.

I nodded. “You’re not interested and you don’t intend to be, so you didn’t bother to look at it. I was present at the discovery of a dead body, obviously murdered. If I had hung around I would have been stuck. In another minute the cop would have ordered us to stay put, and he would have taken my name and recognized it. When Homicide came, probably Stebbins but no matter who, he would have learned why I was there, if not from me, then from Vance, and he would have taken the envelope and letterhead and necktie, and I wanted them for souvenirs. As I told Vance, they are actually and legally in my possession.”

“Pfui.”

“I disagree. Of course I would have liked to stay long enough to get a sample of that blood to have it compared with the spot on the tie. If it was the same I would be the first to know it and it’s nice to be first. Also of course, Vance will tell them about me, and the question is can I be hooked for obstructing justice if I refuse to hand over the tie? I don’t see how; There’s nothing to connect it with the homicide until and unless her blood is compared with the spot.”

Wolfe granted. “Flummery. Provoking the police is permissible only when it serves a purpose.”

“Certainly. And if James Neville Vance comes or calls to say that he expects to be charged with the murder of Mrs. Kirk, if that’s who she was, partly because of the tie he didn’t send me, and he wants to hire you, wouldn’t it be convenient to have the tie? And the envelope and letterhead?”

“I have no expectation of being engaged by Mr. Vance. Nor desire.”

“Sure. Because you would have to work. I remarked yesterday that the gross take for the first seven months of nineteen sixty-two is nine grand behind nineteen sixty-one. I am performing one of the main functions you pay me for.”

“Not brilliantly,” he said and picked up the book. Merely a childish gesture, since Fritz would enter in eight minutes to announce lunch. I went and opened the safe and stashed my souvenirs on a shelf in the inner compartment.