Death on Deadline (18 page)

A
FEW MINUTES AFTER AUDREY
MacLaren’s exit, Wolfe left the office himself for his vertical journey to the orchids. I studied the check she’d written and pronounced it genuine before putting it in the safe, where it would stay until I walked it to the bank in the morning.

Now that we at last had a client, I needed to get moving before Wolfe lost interest, which for him is an occupational hazard. I dialed a number from memory and Lon answered on the second ring.

“Lord, what now?” he sighed, using his long-suffering tone.

“A grade-B favor, to be charged to our account,” I shot back. “Your security people log everyone in and out of the building, don’t they? Even employees?”

“Right.”

“We—make that Mr. Wolfe—would like to know when on Friday night the following people left the building: Bishop, Dean, MacLaren, and the four Haverhill musketeers.”

“So those are your suspects?”

“Ask the man who pays my wages,” I said blandly. “You know me—the faithful dog who never questions his master, but just goes out day after day to bring in the newspaper from the bushes or the puddle or wherever the kid threw it.”

“Spare me,” Lon groaned. “I’ll get what you want, if only to shut you up. And please, don’t remind me again of all the scoops you’ve given us.” He promised he’d call back before dinner, and I thanked him profusely, while promising not to bring up scoops again.

My next call was to Elliot Dean at his law office. The phone was answered by a woman who sounded like she had marbles in her mouth. She didn’t seem overly anxious to connect me with Dean, even after I pointed out that he was expecting the call. I got put on hold, and after ninety-five seconds by my digital watch, marbles-mouth was back. “Mr. Dean will speak to you now,” she gabbled.

“Yes?” His mood, I could tell, was not festive.

“Archie Goodwin, from Nero Wolfe’s office,” I said. “I’m calling to set up that appointment for tomorrow. I believe Mr. Bishop talked to you about it.”

I could hear a deep breath, then a cough. “Yes, he did,” Dean said hoarsely. Another deep breath. “As you know, tomorrow is the memorial service for Harriet.”

“At ten-thirty, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.” A short silence. Dean was obviously hoping I’d let him off the hook for the day, but I didn’t say anything. The silence continued for fifteen seconds before he broke it.

“Very well, I could come in the afternoon, I suppose, but I just don’t see the need for any of this.”

“What about two-thirty?”

More pausing and deep breathing before he finally agreed to come, but only for a short time and only because Bishop had asked him to. “I think all this murder talk is damn silly—worse than silly; it’s sensationalizing a very tragic time for a lot of us.” There was a catch in his voice, and for a moment I thought he was going to break down, but he stopped himself. I said nothing for fear he’d change his mind and cancel the date. Besides, he seemed determined to have the last word, so I just said we would see him tomorrow.

Seconds after I hung up, the phone rang. “Okay, Archie, here’s what you asked for,” Lon said. “MacLaren was the first one out of the building Friday, at six-twenty-seven. The others all were still around when Harriet’s body was found, so they of course stayed much longer, what with the police and everything. Scott signed out at nine-twenty, Dean at nine-fifty-one, Carl at ten-fourteen, and David and Donna and Carolyn all at ten-fifty-four. And if you have any other chores, please tell me now; I’d like to get out of here at a decent hour for a change.”

I said he was perilously close to being owed yet another of Fritz’s dinners and told him he should go home, put his feet up, and unwind with a double Scotch. He had a short answer, one word actually, but it’s best omitted from these pages.

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at six, I was at my desk typing some dictation he’d given me earlier in the day. Because the sound of my typewriter irritates him when he’s reading, drinking beer, pouting, or doing anything else in the office, I try to get my work out of the way during his sessions with the orchids. I stopped in mid-letter and swiveled to face him as he rang for beer.

“Mr. Dean was a little grumpy when I talked to him, but he’ll be here tomorrow at two-thirty,” I reported. “Also, you wanted to know when people left the
Gazette
office on Friday night. Here are the times,” I went on, reciting from memory, although I also had them written down in my notebook.

When I finished, I looked up. Wolfe had taken his first sip of beer and was opening his book.

“I hope I’m not keeping you from your reading,” I said.

“You’re not,” he replied, shifting his fundament in his custom-made chair.

“Thank heaven for that,” I muttered, turning back to the typewriter and attacking the keys.

I would like to report that major progress was made over the next twenty and one-half hours, but that would be a gross exaggeration. To start with, Wolfe had to suffer through my typing before dinner, and while we consumed Fritz’s curried beef roll followed by peach pie a la mode, he got even by lecturing on why Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
was the greatest book ever written by a foreigner about this country. I listened politely, but didn’t add anything—I was still hot about his casual attitude in the office.

After dinner I called Lily and caught her on a rare free night, the result being that we went dancing at the Churchill. One of the many satisfying aspects of our relationship is that nobody gets miffed when the other calls with a spontaneous invite. We know each other well enough that neither of us gives a damn what the rule-books say. As with Wolfe, etiquette does not dictate to us.

Anyway, we had our usual fine time, and it was made even nicer because I knew that if I’d stayed home, I would probably have got into a dandy set-to with Wolfe that would have ended with me quitting or getting fired.

Tuesday morning after breakfast, I went up to the plant rooms, where Theodore had the arrangement of rare Cattleyas he and Wolfe had put together to send to Harriet’s memorial service. A delivery truck was coming at nine-thirty to take them to the church. I thought briefly about going to the service myself, but quickly vetoed it. I couldn’t figure out what there would be to gain. They’d all act solemn and dignified, and no horns would sprout on the murderer, assuming he or she was present. And besides, I’d be viewed by the mourners as a circling vulture, not an enticing prospect. Nuts to the whole idea.

I did, however, deposit Audrey’s check, so I guess it’s fair to say something got accomplished. After the walk to the bank, I continued east and north, swinging by the out-of-town newspaper stand to get fresh copies of MacLaren’s products. Call me a glutton for punishment.

This time they had all three of his dailies from Monday, and I paged them on the stroll home. Each had a six-paragraph article a few pages into the paper on Harriet’s death. It was second-day stuff, identically worded, and it mentioned Nero Wolfe’s astounding claim that she was murdered. At the end of each story was a box referring to an editorial titled “Murder Mongering.”

I stopped at Thirty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue long enough to read one of the editorials. It was about Wolfe, of course, and it started by stating that “It is despicable that the tragic death of a noble woman, New York
Gazette
chairman Harriet Haverhill, is being exploited by a publicity-hungry private investigator.” It went on to call Wolfe “an unprincipled charlatan” and concluded thus: “Although we do not presume to tell the law-enforcement officials of the great city of New York how to do their jobs, it seems to us that the recent actions of Nero Wolfe may well be grounds for the revocation of his license to practice. We know that his behavior would not be tolerated in this community.”

It was ten-forty when I got back to the office. Although all three editorials were identically worded, I opened each paper to that page and placed them on Wolfe’s desk blotter on top of the day’s mail. I was still sore at him, so when he walked in at eleven I kept my eyes on the books I was balancing.

He settled in behind the desk, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking up. I could hear the rustle of newspaper. “A childish redundancy,” he grunted.

“What is?” I couldn’t keep my head down any longer.

“‘Unprincipled charlatan,’” he sneered, tossing the papers aside and attacking the mail. He made a couple of stabs at starting a conversation, but I wasn’t having any, and it was more of the same at lunch.

We were back in the office with coffee when the doorbell rang at two-thirty-five. The Elliot Dean I saw through the one-way panel looked older than he had a few days earlier. Maybe because his eyes were red-rimmed. I matched his somber face with my own as I opened the door and gestured him in. He muttered I something, wheezed indignantly while I took his raincoat and hung it up on the big old walnut rack, and marched by me into the office, homing in on the red leather chair and nodding to Wolfe as he sat.

“I’m only here because Carl Bishop asked me to come,” he announced curtly, smoothing his white hair. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes, no more. And I should say before we start that I don’t approve of this monstrous murder talk. For that matter, I don’t approve of
you.
” He took a long, wheezing breath, which turned his face purple.

Wolfe cocked an eye at him. “As Pope wrote, ‘Be candid where we can.’ I appreciate candor, sir; it allows us to dispense with the trivialities that masquerade as friendship at the outset of a discussion. And given the short time you are allotting Mr. Goodwin and me, an economy of words is doubly essential.”

Dean started to reply, but Wolfe held up a hand. “Please, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll do what I can to honor your desire for brevity. You knew Mrs. Haverhill for many years, and indeed were her confidant, her closest adviser. Are you utterly convinced that she took her own life?”

“Of course,” Dean bristled. “What other explanation is there?”

“I’ve obviously been wondering that myself. In the days before her death, would you have guessed her to be a candidate for self-destruction?”

Dean shifted in his chair and began to wheeze again. “She was under a lot of pressure, with
that man
making his move to take over and all.”

“But was it a pressure intense enough to fuel a suicide?”

“Lord, I don’t know!” Dean wailed, spreading his long arms, palms up. “I wouldn’t have thought so, knowing Harriet, but I guess it must have been.” He stared at the floor in front of Wolfe’s desk, shaking his head. For a minute I thought he was going to cry.

“Very well.” Wolfe nodded. “I understand you spoke to Mrs. Haverhill last Friday morning. I’m interested in the essence of that conversation.”

“See here,” Dean spluttered, “I was in with Harriet almost every day. That was not unusual.”

“I’m not suggesting it was,” Wolfe said quietly. “But she may have said something—perhaps it seemed insignificant to you at the time—that might provide insight into what happened just a few hours later. For instance, what about her mood? You of all people would be sensitive to even subtle changes in her behavior.”

Dean made a noise somewhere between a wheeze and a groan. “I
said
she was under a lot of pressure. Of course it showed, and it wasn’t subtle. Harriet was a strong, strong woman, but that bastard MacLaren had gotten to her. She was tenser than I can ever remember.”

“Did she ask you to come to see her?”

“Yes. As you are aware, I have an office in the
Gazette
Building, as well as my firm’s offices downtown. Lately I’d been spending the greater amount of my time at the newspaper, to be nearer Harriet, because of … this takeover business.” His little mustache quivered.

“Did she discuss the takeover with you?”

Dean nodded. “She’d just seen Donna, and from their conversation, it was obvious she was going to sell her shares. ‘That’s one of them gone,’ Harriet told me, and she smacked her fist on her desk as she said it.”

“Did she talk to you about the other two, David and Scott?”

The purple was easing out of Dean’s cheeks. “She was going to see David later that morning, and she held out almost no hope there. For that matter, neither did I, although I didn’t bother telling her what I thought. She was depressed enough as it was.”

“You knew her stepson would sell out?”

“Of course,” Dean said irritably. “David is a drunken opportunist who doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone but himself. He knew he’d never have the chance to run the paper, thank God for that, so he was delighted with the opportunity to make a financial killing. It was obvious to anybody who knew him.”

“That leaves the nephew. What did Mrs. Haverhill say about him?”

“Harriet thought she might be able to hold on to him.”

“By offering him the job of publisher?”

“What! Where did you hear that?” Dean croaked. “Absolute nonsense. She may have liked Scott better than David, but make him publisher—never!” He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “He didn’t have the brains or toughness, and she knew it.”

Wolfe raised his shoulders a quarter-inch and let them drop. “It was just speculation. I thought perhaps that was the kind of enticement necessary to keep his shares in the fold.”

Dean leaned forward in the chair. His face was getting mottled again. We were really putting him through the wringer. “Harriet may have wanted desperately to keep the paper away from MacLaren, but she wasn’t
that
desperate. I can assure you that she never would have placed Scott in that position. The man’s a liar and a cheat and Harriet knew all too well that he’d destroy the paper in no time if she handed it over to him—”

“Even if it were her only hope of keeping control of the paper away from Mr. MacLaren?”

Dean nodded vigorously. “As she told you when we were here last week, she felt confident of holding Scott on her side by offering him one of the three chairs on that board of trustees she was setting up. When I talked to her Friday, she was still taking that tack.”

“Did she have a contingency plan if he balked?”