Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 35

The tavern owner shifted uneasily in his chair as Wolfe considered him through lidded eyes. “So now we come to the final leg of our triangle,” he said. “Mr. McCready, a number of the newer residents of the Elmont have been seen in your establishment.”

“So what?” McCready said. “We are right across the street, so it is an obvious place to go. Are you suggesting that it is illegal to have a drink?”

“By no means. It has been almost twenty years since the Volstead Act was repealed. I would like to return to your relationship with Emil Krueger, who you shot dead in your establishment.”

“In self-defense!”

“Perhaps,” Wolfe said, shifting his attention to William Hartz. “Were you acquainted with Mr. Krueger?”

The man in prison garb tensed. “Answer the question!” Cramer prodded.

“Yes... I knew him, but only from having seen him in the tavern.”

“I am going to suggest you knew him very well,” Wolfe said. “He was the other man with you in the attack on Mr. Goodwin, wasn’t he?”

Hartz drank from his water glass, as if hoping to postpone his response. When he set the glass down, he was met with Wolfe’s steady, unrelenting gaze.

“I don’t want to tell you again to answer Mr. Wolfe,” Cramer urged.

“Emil was with me, yes. He... was the one who hit Mr. Goodwin.”

“And this was not the only time the pair of you attacked people, was it?” Wolfe asked.

Hartz looked at Cramer, as if he was about to feel the inspector’s anger yet again. “No, it was not,” he said, his accented voice just above a whisper.

“Tell us about these attacks, Mr. Hartz.”

“Two were of men who played cards at Mr. McCready’s tavern.”

“What happened to them?”

“One, a heavy man, was... shot dead by Krueger.”

“What became of the body?”

“We... put it in the river.”

“And the other one?”

“He was struck on the head by... me on a street, but a car came along. We ran away and left him.”

“So, you do not know what happened to him?” Hartz shook his head.

“Why did you attack these men — and Mr. Goodwin?”

“I was ordered to.”

“By whom?” Wolfe demanded.

“Them,” Hartz said, looking first at Halliwell and then at McCready, neither of whom stirred.

“Why would these two want those individuals harmed?”

“We were told they... they were suspicious and dangerous.”

“Are you going to believe this guy?” Halliwell barked. “He’s just trying to save his own skin. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Were you paid for following these orders?” Cramer put in, ignoring Halliwell’s outburst.

“We were supposed to be given money by Mr. McCready, and Emil went to see him.”

“What was the result of that visit?” Wolfe asked.

Hartz sighed. “Emil, he... he got shot.”

“This man is a goddamn liar!” McCready shouted. “Doug Halliwell is right; he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Krueger came to the bar that night to rob me, it is as simple as that.”

“Mr. Krueger can hardly dispute your version of that encounter,” Wolfe said. “If that encounter came after closing hours, how did he get inside the establishment? I assume you lock the doors at two a.m.”

“He must have been hiding in one of the bathrooms,” McCready said.

“Are those areas not checked when you close up?”

“I must have forgotten that night,” the tavern keeper answered, swallowing hard.

“That night of all nights,” Wolfe observed. “Convenient.”

“Now wait a minute, you are not going to pin a murder on me; I acted in self-defense,” McCready said.

“But you do admit a bullet from your weapon killed Mr. Krueger,” Wolfe said.

“The police have heard my story and have chosen to believe it, as well they should. Who are they going to believe, me or some DP?”

Wolfe turned to Cramer. “When the police arrived at the tavern and found Mr. Krueger’s body, was a weapon found near it?”

“Yes, and with his fingerprints on it. One chamber in the revolver was empty, suggesting it well might have been the gun that killed Miller.”

“As far as could be determined, did that revolver on the floor belong to the dead man?”

“We can’t know that for sure, as it was not licensed,” the inspector said. “A search of Krueger’s room at the Elmont failed to discover any weapon, so we are left to assume that the gun found next to the dead man’s body was one he had carried into the tavern.”

“Let me propose this scenario,” Wolfe said. “Krueger asked for a meeting with Mr. McCready to discuss a payment from him for the murder of Chester Miller and the beatings of two other individuals, including Mr. Goodwin.

“The tavern keeper agreed to a meeting after closing time at the bar. In the ensuing conversation, Krueger demanded payment and likely physically threatened McCready, who then shot the displaced person.”

“This is absolute tripe!” McCready yelled. “Why would I want to have anything to do with a Nazi like Krueger? I told you I barely knew him.”

“So you say. We have already established your dislike for the British,” Wolfe said. “As an Irishman, you have good reason for that dislike, given the ill-treatment your native country endured for centuries at the hands of its neighboring island. However, Irish animus toward Britain during and since the war has come with a by-product: support for Germany and, as a corollary, sympathy for the Nazis. I want to make it clear that by no means do all Irish share this feeling. Many thousands of them supported the Allied cause and fought with valor in the British forces during the war.”

I expected Liam McCready to react to Wolfe’s statement, but he sat on his hands and said nothing.

“What we have here,” Wolfe went on, “is one of several operations by which uncounted numbers of Nazis have anonymously arrived on our shores. As I said earlier, many of the higher-profile members of that odious movement landed in South America. But others, among them concentration camp guards and other staff, military officers, and foot soldiers, have managed to meld into the populace in this country and in this city.”

“What would I have to gain by protecting these people?” McCready argued, jabbing a thump at his chest.

“From what I have been told, many of these recent arrivals have become patrons of your establishment,” Wolfe said, “which of course brings you added revenue. Also, you — and Mr. Halliwell — no doubt extort funds from these recent arrivals in return for your promises of secrecy.”

“You can’t prove that!” Halliwell snapped.

“I will leave it for others to do the verifying,” Wolfe replied. “What I have provided is an outline.”

“Purley, escort these four to the next room,” Cramer ordered.

“Wait a minute,” Halliwell said, “just what is going on here?”

“I will be with all of you shortly,” the inspector said as the quartet rose and were ushered out by the Purley Stebbins. When they had gone, Cramer turned to Wolfe. “The evidence against this bunch seems pretty sparse to me.”

“As I said, you now have an outline, and you have an army to investigate the culpability of each of those individuals, where I have only a handful of agents.”

“What’s in this for you, Wolfe?”

“The satisfaction that I have identified those who assaulted Theodore Horstmann.”

“Huh! Do you have a client?”

“Not that it is any business of yours, but I do, sir.”

Cramer shrugged. “All right, so be it. Needless to say, we are going to give these bastards a real going over — without any physical violence, of course.”

“Of course.”

I could tell the inspector had been appalled at what was revealed, or at least suggested, during the meeting. Here was a cop who had observed a lot of evil in his decades on the force, but this may have topped everything else he had seen. And his hatred of the Axis forces was no doubt deepened by his son’s military service in Australia during the war.