And Be a Villain (23 page)

“I’m sorry it took so long, but he pays my salary and what could I do? As I told you, the announcement has been postponed. He is willing to kill it, but that sort of depends. He thinks it would be appropriate for Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins to help with the windup. He would appreciate it if you will start by delivering eight people at his office as soon as possible. He wants the five who were at the Fraser apartment today, not including the girl, Nancylee, or Cora the cook. Also Savarese. Also Anderson, president of the Hi-Spot Company, and Owen, the public relations man. All he wants you to do is to get them there, and to be present yourselves, but with the understanding that he will run the show. With that provision, he states that when you leave you will be prepared to make an arrest and take the murderer with you, and the announcement he gave WPIT will not be made. You can do the announcing.” I arose and moved, crossing to a chair over by the wall near the door to reclaim my hat and coat. Then I turned:

“It’s after ten o’clock, and if this thing is on I’m not going to start it on an empty stomach. In my opinion, even if all he has in mind is a game of blind man’s bluff, which I doubt, it’s well worth it. Orchard died twenty-five days ago. Beula Poole nine days. Miss Koppel ten hours. You could put your inventory on a postage stamp.” I had my hand on the doorknob. “How about it? Feel like helping?”

Cramer growled at me, “Why Anderson and Owen? What does he want them for?”

“Search me. Of course he likes a good audience.”

“Maybe we can’t get them.”

“You can try. You’re an inspector and murder is a very bad crime.”

“It may take hours.”

“Yeah, it looks like an all-night party. If I can stand it you can, not to mention Mr. Wolfe. All right, then we’ll be seeing you.” I opened the door and took a step, but turned:

“Oh, I forgot, he told me to tell you, this anonymous letter about Elinor Vance is just some homemade bait that didn’t get used. I typed it myself this morning. If you get a chance tonight you can do a sample on my machine and compare.”

O’Hara barked ferociously, “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t like the way I was asked, Commissioner. The only man I know of more sensitive than me is Nero Wolfe.”

I
T WAS NOT SURPRISING that Cramer delivered the whole order. Certainly none of those people could have been compelled to go out into the night, and let themselves be conveyed to Nero Wolfe’s office, or any place else, without slapping a charge on them, but it doesn’t take much compelling when you’re in that kind of a fix. They were all there well before midnight. Wolfe stayed up in his room until they all arrived. I had supposed that while I ate my warmed-over cutlets he would have some questions or instructions for me, and probably both, but no. If he had anything he already had it and needed no contributions from me. He saw to it that my food was hot and my salad crisp and then beat it upstairs.

The atmosphere, as they gathered, was naturally not very genial, but it wasn’t so much tense as it was glum. They were simply sunk. As soon as Elinor Vance got onto a chair she rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands, and stayed that way. Tully Strong folded his arms, let his head sag until his chin met his chest, and shut his eyes. Madeline Fraser sat in the red leather chair, which I got her into before President Anderson arrived, looking first at one of her fellow beings and then at another, but she gave the impression that she merely felt she ought to be conscious of something and they would do as well as anything else.

Bill Meadows, seated near Elinor Vance, was leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head, glaring at the ceiling. Nat Traub was a sight, with his necktie off center, his hair mussed, and his eyes bloodshot. His facial growth was the kind that needs shaving twice a day, and it hadn’t had it. He was so restless he couldn’t stay in his chair, but when he left it there was no place he wanted to go, so all he could do was sit down again. I did not, on that account, tag him for it, since he had a right to be haggard. A Meltette taken from a box delivered by him had poisoned and killed someone, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how his client had reacted to that.

Two conversations were going on. Professor Savarese was telling Purley Stebbins something at length, presumably the latest in formulas, and Purley was making himself an accessory by nodding now and then. Anderson and Owen, the Hi-Spot delegates, were standing by the couch talking with Cramer, and, judging from the snatches I caught, they might finally decide to sit down and they might not. They had been the last to arrive. I, having passed the word to Wolfe that the delivery had been completed, was wondering what was keeping him when I heard the sound of his elevator.

They were so busy with their internal affairs that Traub and I were the only ones who were aware that our host had joined us until he reached the corner of his desk and turned to make a survey. The conversations stopped. Savarese bounded across to shake hands. Elinor Vance lifted her head, showing such a woebegone face that I had to restrain an impulse to take the anonymous letter from my pocket and tear it up then and there. Traub sat down for the twentieth time. Bill Meadows unclasped his hands and pressed his finger tips against his eyes. President Anderson sputtered:

“Since when have you been running the Police Department?”

That’s what a big executive is supposed to do, go straight to the point.

Wolfe, getting loose from Savarese, moved to his chair and got himself arranged in it. I guess it’s partly his size, unquestionably impressive, which holds people’s attention when he is in motion, but his manner and style have a lot to do with it. You get both suspense and surprise. You know he’s going to be clumsy and wait to see it, but by gum you never do. First thing you know there he is, in his chair or wherever he was bound for, and there was nothing clumsy about it at all. It was smooth and balanced and efficient.

He looked up at the clock, which said twenty to twelve, and remarked to the audience, “It’s late, isn’t it?” He regarded the Hi-Spot president:

“Let’s not start bickering, Mr. Anderson. You weren’t dragged here by force, were you? You were impelled either by concern or curiosity. In either case you won’t leave until you hear what I have to say, so why not sit down and listen? If you want to be contentious wait until you learn what you have to contend with. It works better that way.”

He took in the others. “Perhaps, though, I should answer Mr. Anderson’s question, though it was obviously rhetorical. I am not running the Police Department, far from it. I don’t know what you were told when you were asked to come here, but I assume you know that nothing I say is backed by any official authority, for I have none. Mr. Cramer and Mr. Stebbins are present as observers. That is correct, Mr. Cramer?”

The Inspector, seated on the corner of the couch, nodded. “They understand that.”

“Good. Then Mr. Anderson’s question was not only rhetorical, it was gibberish. I shall—”

“I have a question!” a voice said, harsh and strained.

“Yes, Mr. Meadows, what is it?”

“If this isn’t official, what happens to the notes Goodwin is making?”

“That depends on what we accomplish. They may never leave this house, and end up by being added to the stack in the cellar. Or a transcription of them may be accepted as evidence in a courtroom.—I wish you’d sit down, Mr. Savarese. It’s more tranquil if everyone is seated.”

Wolfe shifted his center of gravity. During his first ten minutes in a chair minor adjustments were always required.

“I should begin,” he said with just a trace of peevishness, “by admitting that I am in a highly vulnerable position. I have told Mr. Cramer that when he leaves here he will take a murderer with him; but though I know who the murderer is, I haven’t a morsel of evidence against him, and neither has anyone else. Still—”

“Wait a minute,” Cramer growled.

Wolfe shook his head. “It’s important, Mr. Cramer, to keep this unofficial—until I reach a certain point, if I ever do—so it would be best for you to say nothing whatever.” His eyes moved. “I think the best approach is to explain how I learned the identity of the murderer—and by the way, here’s an interesting point: though I was already close to certitude, it was clinched for me only two hours ago, when Mr. Goodwin told me that there were sixteen eager candidates for the sponsorship just abandoned by Hi-Spot. That removed my shred of doubt.”

“For God’s sake,” Nat Traub blurted, “let the fine points go! Let’s have it!”

“You’ll have to be patient, sir,” Wolfe reproved him. “I’m not merely reporting, I’m doing a job. Whether a murderer gets arrested, and tried, and convicted, depends entirely on how I handle this. There is no evidence, and if I don’t squeeze it out of you people now, tonight, there may never be any. The trouble all along, both for the police and for me, has been that no finger pointed without wavering. In going for a murderer as well concealed as this one it is always necessary to trample down improbabilities to get a path started, but it is foolhardy to do so until a direction is plainly indicated. This time there was no such plain indication, and frankly, I had begun to doubt if there would be one—until yesterday morning, when Mr. Anderson and Mr. Owen visited this office. They gave it to me.”

“You’re a liar!” Anderson stated.

“You see?” Wolfe upturned a palm. “Some day, sir, you’re going to get on the wrong train by trying to board yours before it arrives. How do you know whether I’m a liar or not until you know what I’m saying? You did come here. You gave me a check for the full amount of my fee, told me that I was no longer in your hire, and said that you had withdrawn as a sponsor of Miss Fraser’s program. You gave as your reason for withdrawal that the practice of blackmail had been injected into the case, and you didn’t want your product connected in the public mind with blackmail because it is dirty and makes people gag. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes. But—”

“I’ll do the butting. After you left I sat in this chair twelve straight hours, with intermissions only for meals, using my brain on you. If I had known then that before the day was out sixteen other products were scrambling to take your Hi-Spot’s place, I would have reached my conclusion in much less than twelve hours, but I didn’t. What I was exploring was the question, what had happened to you? You had been so greedy for publicity that you had even made a trip down here to get into a photograph with me. Now, suddenly, you were fleeing like a comely maiden from a smallpox scare. Why?”

“I told you—”

“I know. But that wasn’t good enough. Examined with care, it was actually flimsy. I don’t propose to recite all my twistings and windings for those twelve hours, but first of all I rejected the reason you gave. What, then? I considered every possible circumstance and all conceivable combinations. That you were yourself the murderer and feared I might sniff you out; that you were not the murderer, but the blackmailer; that, yourself innocent, you knew the identity of one of the culprits, or both, and did not wish to be associated with the disclosure; and a thousand others. Upon each and all of my conjectures I brought to bear what I knew of you—your position, your record, your temperament, and your character. At the end only one supposition wholly satisfied me. I concluded that you had somehow become convinced that someone closely connected with that program, which you were sponsoring, had committed the murders, and that there was a possibility that that fact would be discovered. More: I concluded that it was not Miss Koppel or Miss Vance or Mr. Meadows or Mr. Strong, and certainly not Mr. Savarese. It is the public mind that you are anxious about, and in the public mind those people are quite insignificant. Miss Fraser is that program, and that program is Miss Fraser. It could only be her. You knew, or thought you knew, that Miss Fraser herself had killed Mr. Orchard, and possibly Miss Poole too, and you were getting as far away from her as you could as quickly as you could. Your face tells me you don’t like that.”

“No,” Anderson said coldly, “and you won’t either before you hear the last of it. You through?”

“Good heavens, no. I’ve barely started. As I say, I reached that conclusion, but it was nothing to crow about. What was I to do with it? I had a screw I could put on you, but it seemed unwise to be hasty about it, and I considered a trial of other expedients. I confess that the one I chose to begin with was feeble and even sleazy, but it was at breakfast this morning, before I had finished my coffee and got dressed, and Mr. Goodwin was fidgety and I wanted to give him something to do. Also, I had already made a suggestion to Mr. Cramer which was designed to give everyone the impression that there was evidence that Miss Vance had been blackmailed, that she was under acute suspicion, and that she might be charged with murder at any moment. There was a chance, I thought, that an imminent threat to Miss Vance, who is a personable young woman, might impel somebody to talk.”

“So you started that,” Elinor Vance said dully.

Wolfe nodded. “I’m not boasting about it. I’ve confessed it was worse than second-rate, but I thought Mr. Cramer might as well try it; and this morning, before I was dressed, I could devise nothing better than for Mr. Goodwin to type an anonymous letter about you and take it up there—a letter which implied that you had committed murder at least twice.”

“Goddam pretty,” Bill Meadows said.

“He didn’t do it,” Elinor said.

“Yes, he did,” Wolfe disillusioned her. “He had it with him, but didn’t get to use it. The death of Miss Koppel was responsible not only for that, but for other things as well—for instance, for this gathering. If I had acted swiftly and energetically on the conclusion I reached twenty-four hours ago, Miss Koppel might be alive now. I owe her an apology but I can’t get it to her. What I can do is what I’m doing.”

Wolfe’s eyes darted to Anderson and fastened there. “I’m going to put that screw on you, sir. I won’t waste time appealing to you, in the name of justice or anything else, to tell me why you abruptly turned tail and scuttled. That would be futile. Instead, I’ll tell you a homely little fact: Miss Fraser drank Hi-Spot only the first few times it was served on her program, and then had to quit and substitute coffee. She had to quit because your product upset her stomach. It gave her a violent indigestion.”