Trouble in Triplicate

VIII

Yes, it got tiresome, lasting as it did a full two hours. At first I got some diversion out of the fact that Jane and Jensen showed no inclination to sit side by side on the sofa and hold hands. God knows where Wolfe had ever found that sofa and the velvet cushions; it had been there when I had first arrived. One or the other of them did sit on it now and again during their restless moving around, but not the two together. Wolfe’s poison had done its work. It was interesting to watch it. The one who had not fired the gun had got suspicious of the other one; and the other one, seeing that, obviously had figured that if he or she tried to be cordial on the basis of what the hell, darling, we couldn’t be murderers, could we, it would be a giveaway, because the one would be thinking, If I’m suspicious why isn’t he or she? Naturally I watched for something, any kind of sign, from which I could get a notion who was the one and who was the other, but now I leaned one way and now the other, and got nowhere.

At seven-thirty we were all invited to the dining room, but they wouldn’t go.

When Fritz brought trays in to us I had no trouble dealing with my share of melon, broiled pork loin wafers, salad with Wolfe’s own dressing, blueberry pie, and coffee, and Jensen was with me nose and nose, but Jane wouldn’t even look at hers. I was, I admit, in no condition to place a bet, even to risk as much as a busted shoestring. The only way I could have solved the problem would have been to blindfold myself and whichever one I touched first was it. Anyway, I was licked before I started, because bold and daring, which were words Wolfe had used, was putting it mildly. He or she had of course arrived at the house with the gun ready, dressed in the handkerchief, in pocket or handbag, but only with the idea of using it if opportunity offered, for it couldn’t possibly have been planned just as it happened. For split-second decision and action I had never seen anything to equal it. Entered the room. Saw, through the open door, Wolfe (supposedly) seated at his desk. Got hand on gun, protected by handkerchief.

Waited. Instant came, in about a minute, when Wolfe’s eyes were closed or he was looking elsewhere, and also, simultaneously, the other one was either looking in the hall or was at the piano with back turned, depending on who was who. Aimed and fired. When the other one glanced in all directions, that provided the chance to put the gun in the vase. The devil of it was, try to crack it. Unless you could make it fairly overwhelming by way of motive or possession of the gun or something else from the buildup, how were you going to get a jury to convict either of them? Not to mention the little item that what was really wanted was conviction not for felonious assault on Hackett, but for the murder of Jensen and Doyle. During the two hours I spoke to Jane three times, at well-spaced intervals, as follows:

1. “Do you want a drink of water or something?”

2. “There’s a door to that bathroom from this room too. Over there. The one from the bathroom to the office is now locked.”

3. “I beg your pardon.”

That was for a yawn. She neither spoke to me nor looked at me. Jensen was about as bad. I don’t remember any two hours in my experience with a lower score on joviality. So I appreciated the break in the monotony when, a little before nine, I heard the doorbell. Since the door from the front room to the hall was also soundproof, that was all I got out of it except for the faint vibration of footsteps and an even fainter sound of voices. But in about three minutes the door to the hall opened and Fritz came in. He shut the door behind him and spoke, not very loud.

“Archie, Mr. Wolfe wants you in the office. Inspector Cramer is there with Sergeant Stebbins. I am to stay here.”

He held out his hand for the gun. I gave it to him and went.

If the situation in the front room had been unjovial, the one in the office was absolutely grim. One glance at Wolfe was enough to see that he was in a state of uncontrollable fury, because his forefinger was making the same circle, over and over, on the surface of his desk. Sergeant Purley Stebbins was standing by the wall, looking official. Inspector Cramer was in the red leather chair, with his face about the color of the chair. Nobody bothered to glance at me.

Wolfe snapped, “Your notebook.”

I crossed to my desk and got book and pencil and sat down. “This,” I observed, “is what comes of my not attending to the doorbell. If we didn’t want company-”

“Pfui.” Wolfe tapped a piece of paper on his desk. “Look at this.”

I arose and looked. It was a search warrant. “The premises… owned and inhabited by said Nero Wolfe… situate…”

Wowie. I was surprised that Cramer was still alive, or Wolfe either.

Cramer growled, holding himself in, “I’ll try to forget what you just said, Wolfe. It was totally uncalled for. Goddam it, you have given me a runaround too many times. There I was, with that gun. A bullet fired from it matched the bullet you sent me and also the two that killed Jensen and Doyle. That’s the gun, and you sent it to me. All right, then you’ve got a client, and when you’ve got a client you keep him right in your pocket. I would have been a goddam fool to come here and start begging you. I’ve begged you before.”

Wolfe had started making the circle again. “I repeat, sir,” he murmured, “that your acceptance of your salary constitutes a fraud on the people of New York and you are a disgrace to an honorable profession.”

Cramer’s face had reached the red of the chair and was going on from there. “Then,” he said, “I won’t try to forget it. We’re going to search this house.” He started to leave the chair.

“If you do you’ll never catch the murderer of Mr. Jensen and Mr. Doyle.”

Cramer dropped back in the chair. “I won’t? You’ll prevent me?”

“Bah.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Next you’ll be warning me formally that obstruction of justice is a crime. I didn’t say that the murderer wouldn’t be caught, I said you wouldn’t catch him. Because I already have.” A grunt came from Purley Stebbins, but no one noticed it but me. I grinned at him.

Cramer said, “The hell you have.”

“Yes, sir. Your report on the gun and bullets settles it. But I confess the matter is a little complicated, and I do give you a formal warning: you are not equipped to handle it. I am.” Wolfe shoved the warrant across the desk. “Tear that thing up.”

Cramer slowly shook his head. “You see, Wolfe, I know you. God, don’t I know you! But I’m willing to have a talk before I execute it.”

“No, sir.” Wolfe was murmuring again. “I will not submit to duress. I would even prefer to deal with District Attorney Skinner. Tear it up, or proceed to execute it.”

That was a dirty threat. Cramer’s opinion of Skinner was one of the defects of our democratic system of government. Cramer looked at the warrant, at Wolfe, at me, and back at the warrant. Then he picked it up and tore. I reached for the pieces and dropped them in the wastebasket.

Wolfe didn’t look gratified because he was still too sore to let any other emotion in, but he did quit murmuring and allowed himself to talk. “Confound it,” he said. “Don’t ever waste your time like that again. Or mine. Can the gun be traced?”

“No. The number’s gone. It dates from about nineteen-ten. And there are no prints on it that are worth a damn. Nothing but smudges.”

Wolfe nodded. “Naturally. A much simpler technique than wiping it clean or going around in gloves.” He glanced at Stebbins. “Please sit down, sir. Your standing there annoys me.” Back to Cramer. “The murderer is in this house.”

“I suspected he was. Is he your client?”

Wolfe let that one go by without even waving at it. Leaning back in his chair, adjusting himself with accompanying grunts, and interlacing his fingers at the Greenwich meridian on his equator, he was ready to forget the search warrant and get down to business. I winked at Purley, but he pretended not to see it. He had his notebook too, but hadn’t put anything in it yet.

“The main complication,” Wolfe said in his purring tone, “is this. There are a man and a woman in the front room. Granting that one of them is the murderer, which one?”

Cramer frowned at him. “You didn’t say anything about granting. You said that you had caught the murderer.”

“So I have. He or she is in there, under guard. I suppose I’ll have to tell you what happened, if I expect you to start your army of men digging, and it looks as though that’s the only way to go about it. I have no army. To begin with, when I received that threat I hired a man who resembles me-superficially-in physical characteristics to be visible, both in this house and on the street, and I kept to my room. Nothing occurred-”

“Not involved, not inter-”

“Please don’t interrupt,” Wolfe snapped. “I’m telling you what happened.”

He did so. I have a high opinion of myself as a reporter of a series of events, but, listening to Wolfe as an expert, I had to admit I couldn’t have done much better. He didn’t waste any words, but he got it all in. Purley nearly bit the end of his tongue off, trying to get it all in his notebook, but I didn’t bother. Wolfe finished. Cramer sat scowling. Wolfe purred, “Well, sir, there’s the problem. I doubt if it can be solved with what we have, or what is available on the premises. You’ll have to get your men started on the indicated lines. I’ll be available for consultation.”

“I wish,” Cramer growled, gazing at him as if he were looking at a puzzle he had seen and worked at many times but had never got solved, “I wish I knew how much dressing you put on that.”

“Not any. I have only one concern in this. I have no client. I withheld nothing and added nothing.”

“Maybe.” Cramer straightened up like a man of action. “Okay, we’ll proceed on that basis and find out. First of all, I want to ask them some questions.”

“I suppose you do.” Wolfe detested sitting and listening to someone else ask questions, especially in his own office. “And Miss Geer is going to be difficult. She wants a lawyer. You are handicapped, of course, by your official status. Which one do you want first?”

Cramer stood up. “I’ve got to see that room before I talk to either of them. I want to see where things are. Especially that vase.”

I was amazed to see that Wolfe was leaving his chair too, knowing his attitude toward all nonessential movement, but as I went to open the door to the front room for them I reflected that while he hated hearing Cramer ask questions, under the circumstances he would hate even more not hearing him, in case conversation got started in the front room. Stebbins tagged in after them, and I brought up the rear.

Jane was seated on the piano bench. Jensen was on the sofa, but arose as we entered. Fritz was standing by a window, his hand with the gun coming up as Jensen moved.

Wolfe said, “This is Inspector Cramer, Miss Geer.” She didn’t make a sound or move a muscle.

Wolfe said, “I believe you’ve met the inspector, Mr. Jensen.”

“Yes, I have.” Jensen’s voice had gone unused so long it squeaked, and he cleared his throat. “So the agreement not to call in the police was a farce too.” He was bitter.

“There was no such agreement. I said that Mr. Cramer couldn’t be kept out of it indefinitely. The bullet that was fired at me-at Mr. Hackett-came from the gun that was found in that vase”-Wolfe pointed at it-“and so did those that killed your father and Mr. Doyle. So the field has become-ah, restricted.”

“I insist,” Jane put in, in a voice with no resemblance to any I had ever heard her use before, “on my right to consult a lawyer.”

“Just a minute now,” Cramer told her in the tone he thought was soothing. “We’re going to talk this over, but wait till I look around a little.” He proceeded to inspect things, and so did Sergeant Stebbins. They considered distances, and the positions of various objects. Then there was this detail: from what segment of that room could a gun send a bullet through the open door to the office and on through the hole in Wolfe’s chair and the one in the wall?

They were working on that together when Wolfe turned to Fritz and asked him, “What happened to the other cushion?”

Fritz was taken aback. “Other cushion?”

“There were six velvet cushions on that sofa. There are only five. Did you remove it?”

“No, sir.” Fritz gazed at the sofa and counted. “That’s right. They’ve been rearranged to take up the space. I don’t understand it. They were all here yesterday when I cleaned in here.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes, sir. Positive.”

“Look for it. Archie, help him. I want to know if that cushion is in this room.”

It seemed like an odd moment to send out a general alarm for a sofa cushion, but since I had nothing else to do at the moment I obliged. Cramer and Purley went on solving a murder and Fritz and I went on hunting the cushion. Jensen watched both operations. Wolfe watched only one-Fritz’s and mine. Jane pretended there was no one in the room but her.

I finally told Wolfe, “It’s gone. It isn’t in here.”

He muttered at me, “I see it isn’t.”

I stared at him. There was an expression on his face that I knew well. It wasn’t exactly excitement, though it always stirred excitement in me. His neck was rigid, as if to prevent any movement of the head, so as not to disturb the brain, his eyes were half shut and not seeing anything, and his lips were moving, pushing out, then relaxing, then pushing out again. I knew it would take more than the loss of a velvet cushion to produce that effect on him. I stared at him.

Suddenly he turned and spoke. “Mr. Cramer! Please leave Mr. Stebbins in here with Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen. You can stay here too, or come with me, as you prefer. Fritz and Archie, come.” He headed for the office.

Cramer, knowing Wolfe’s tones of voice almost as well as I did, spoke to Stebbins and then followed. Fritz and I also followed. So did Jane’s voice.

“This is outrageous! I want-”

I shut the door.

Wolfe waited until he was in his chair before he spoke. “I want to know if that cushion is on the premises. Search the house from the cellar up-except the south room; Mr. Hackett is in there lying down. Start in here.”

Cramer barked, “What the hell is all this about?”

“I’ll give you an explanation,” Wolfe told him, “when I have one. I’m going to sit here and work and must not be disturbed. It may take ten minutes; it may take ten hours. Go in there; stay here; go anywhere, but let me alone.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips started moving. Cramer slid farther back in his chair, crossed his legs, got out a cigar and sank his teeth in it. Searching the office was quite different from searching the front room.

In the first place, it was a lot bigger. Also, there were a lot more places where you could hide a cushion-files, drawers, bookshelves, magazine and newspaper racks, cabinets, miscellaneous. It had a high ceiling, and the steps had to be used for all the upper shelves and file and cabinet compartments. None of them could be ruled out, because the shelves were deep, and it was no trivial job to pull out all those books and slide them back again. Fritz went at it with his usual deliberate thoroughness, and I couldn’t have been called a whirlwind either because I was using my brain along with my hands, trying to work out how and why the fact of a missing cushion crashed into the structure like a comet shattering a world. Now and then a glance at Wolfe showed me that he was still working, his lips moving and his eyes shut. Half an hour or so had passed, maybe a little more, when I heard him let out a grunt. I nearly toppled off the steps, turning to look at him. He was in motion. He picked up his wastebasket, which was kept at the far corner of his desk, held it so that the light shone directly into it, inspected it, shook his head, put it down again, and began opening the drawers of his desk, all the way out, and inspecting their interiors, starting with the top one on the right side. The first two, the one at the top and the one in the middle, apparently didn’t get him anything, but when he yanked out the double-depth one at the bottom as far as it would go, he looked in, bent over closer to see better, stuck a hand in and seemed to be poking around, closed the drawer, got himself erect, and announced: “I’ve found it.”

In those three little words there was at least two tons of self-satisfaction and smirk.

We all goggled at him.

He looked at me. “Archie. Get down off that thing and don’t fall. Look in your desk and see if one of my guns has been fired.”

I stepped down and went and opened the armament drawer. The first one I picked up was innocent. I tried the second with a sniff and a look and reported, “Yes, sir. There were six cartridges and now there are five. Same as the cushions. The shell is here.”

“Tchah! The confounded ass! Tell Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen that they may come in here if they care to hear what happened, or they may go home or anywhere else. We don’t need them. Take Mr. Stebbins upstairs with you and bring Mr. Hackett down here. Use caution and search him with great care. He is an extremely dangerous man and an unsurpassable idiot.”