Might as Well Be Dead (15 page)

After the two MSDC officers had thoroughly studied a document Parker had handed them we were all escorted through the steel barrier and into a room, not any too big, with three chairs and a narrow table in its center. One of the MSDC officers went out and in a couple of minutes came back, carrying a metal box about twenty-four by eight by six, not normally, but with his fingertips hooked under the bottom edges at front and back. Before an appreciative audience he put it down, tenderly, on the table, and the fingerprint man took the stage, putting his case also on the table and opening it.

I wouldn’t say that he stretched it purposely, playing to the gallery, but he sure did an all-out job. He was at it a good half-hour, covering top, sides, ends, and bottom, with dusters, brushes, flippers, magnifying glasses, camera, and print records which came from a briefcase carried by the Assistant DA. They should have furnished more chairs.

He handled his climax fine, putting all his paraphernalia back in his case and shutting it before he told us, “I identify six separate prints on the box as the same as those on the records marked Michael M. Molloy. Five other prints are probably the same but I wouldn’t certify them. Some other prints may be.”

Nobody applauded. Someone sighed, tired of standing up. Parker addressed the stranger with the rimless cheaters. “That meets the provisions of the order, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” the stranger conceded, “but I think the expert should certify it in writing.”

That started an argument. The expert was allergic to writing. He would maintain his conclusion orally, without reservation, before nine witnesses, but he wouldn’t sign a statement until he had made a prolonged study in the laboratory of his photographs and Molloy’s recorded prints, and his findings verified by a colleague. That wasn’t very logical, but they couldn’t budge him. Finally the stranger said he would stand by his concession that the oral conclusion satisfied the order, and told the MSDC officer to give Parker the box and the key—the duplicate key which had been provided by the MSDC to open the compartment the box had been in. Parker said no, give them to Mr. Degan. But before Degan got them he had to sign a receipt for them.

“All right, open it,” the Assistant DA told him.

Degan stood with a hand resting on the box and sent his quick brown eyes around the arc. “Not in public,” he said, politely but firmly. “This was Mr. Molloy’s box, and I represent his estate by a court order. If you will leave, please? Or if you prefer, I’ll take it to another room.”

Another argument, a free-for-all. They wanted to see the box opened, but in the end had to give up, when the Assistant DA reluctantly agreed with Parker that Degan’s position was legally sound. He left the room, with his bodyguard, and the fingerprint scientist followed them. The two MSDC officers didn’t like it at all, but with the law gone they had no choice, so out they went.

Degan looked at the stranger in rimless cheaters and demanded, “Well, sir?”

“I stay,” the stranger declared. “I represent the New York State Tax Commission.” He was close enough to the table to reach the box by stretching an arm.

“Death and taxes,” Parker told Degan. “The laws of nature and the laws of man. You can’t budge him. Close the door, Archie.”

“Behind you,” Degan said. He was looking at Parker. “As you go out.”

Parker smiled at him. “Oh, come. Mr. Goodwin and I are not the public. We have a status and a legitimate interest. It was through us that you got that box.”

“I know it.” Degan kept his hand on it. “But I am now legally in charge of Molloy’s estate, temporarily at least, and my only proper obligation is to the estate. You’re a lawyer, Mr. Parker, you know that. Be reasonable! What do I actually know about what Nero Wolfe is after or what you’re after? Only what you’ve told me. I don’t say that I think you already know about something that’s in this box, and that I’m afraid Goodwin will grab it and run, but I do say that it’s my responsibility to run no risk of any kind in guarding the estate, and the fact that I got the responsibility through you has nothing to do with it. Isn’t that reasonable?” It was an appeal.

“Yes,” Parker said, “it’s eminently reasonable. I can’t challenge it, and I don’t. But we’re not going to leave. We’re not going to grab anything, or even touch anything unless invited, but we’re going to see what you find in that box. If you summon help and demand that we be put out I doubt if you’ll be obeyed, under the circumstances. If we leave we all leave, and I shall go to Judge Rucker at once and complain that you refuse to open the box in the presence of the widow’s counsel. I believe he would enjoin you from opening it at all, pending a hearing.”

Degan picked up the box.

“Hold it,” I told him. I stepped and closed the door and stepped back. “Mr. Parker has covered most of the ground, but he didn’t mention what we’ll do if you try moving to another room. That’s my department. I’ll stand with my back against the door.” I moved. “Like this. I’m three inches taller than you and fifteen pounds heavier in spite of your belly, and with the box you’ll only have one hand. Of course you can try, and I promise not to hurt you. Much.”

He regarded me, not cordially, and breathed.

“This is a farce,” Parker declared. He came and joined me with his back against the door. “Now. Now or never. Go ahead and open it. If Goodwin leaps for you I’ll trip him. After all, I’m a member of the bar and an officer of the law.”

Degan was a stubborn devil. Even then he took another twenty seconds to consider the situation, after which he moved to the far end of the table, facing us at a distance of twelve feet, put the box down, and lifted the lid. The tax man moved with him and was at his elbow. The raised lid obstructed our view, and the inside was not visible, except to him and the New York State Tax Commission. They stared at it a moment, then Degan put a hand in. When he withdrew it, it held a bundle of lettuce three inches thick, fastened with rubber bands. He inspected it all over, put it on the table beside the box, inserted his hand again, and took out another bundle. And others. Eight of them altogether.

He looked at us. “By God,” he said, with a little shake in his voice, “I’m glad you fellows stayed. Come and look.”

We accepted the invitation. The box was empty. The top bills on five of the bundles were Cs, on two of them fifties, and on the other one a twenty. They were used bills, held tight and compact by the rubber bands. They wouldn’t run as healthy as new stuff, around 250 to the inch, but they were not hay.

“Quite a hoard,” Parker said. “No wonder you’re glad we stayed. If I had been here alone I would have been tempted myself.”

Degan nodded, looking dazed. “I’ll be damned. We’ll have to count it. Will you help count it?”

We obliged him. I moved the chairs up and we sat, Degan at the table end and Parker and I at either elbow, and started in. The tax man was right behind Degan’s shoulder, bending over to breathe down the back of his neck. It took a long while because Degan wanted each bundle counted by all of us, which seemed reasonable, and one of the bundles of fifties had to be gone over six times to reach agreement. When we finished each bundle was topped with a slip of paper with the amount and our initials on it. On another slip Degan listed the amounts and got a total. $327,640.00.

If you don’t believe it I’ll spell it out. Three hundred and twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and forty berries.

Degan looked at Parker. “You expected this?”

“No. I had no expectations whatever.”

He looked at me. “Did you?”

I shook my head. “Same here.”

“I wonder. I wonder what Wolfe expected.”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“I would like to. Is he in his office?”

I looked at my wrist. “He will be for another fifteen minutes. Lunch at one-thirty on Friday.”

“We might make it.” He returned the bundles to the box, locked it, picked it up, and headed for the door, with the New York State Tax Commission practically stepping on his heels. Parker and I followed, and waited outside while he went with an attendant and the tax man to have the box slid into its niche and locked in, and when he rejoined us we mounted together to the street floor. There the tax man parted from us. Except for interested glances from a couple of guards we drew no attention inside, but the press was on the job. As we emerged to the sidewalk a journalist blocked our path and said the public wanted to know what had been found in Molloy’s box, and when we refused to spill it he stayed right with us until we were in the taxi with the door shut.

The midtown traffic kept us from getting to the old brownstone before one-thirty, but since as far as I knew Patrick A. Degan was still a suspect I took him in along with Parker. Herding them into the office, I crossed the hall to the dining room and shut the door. Wolfe, in the big chair with arms, at the far end of the table, had just started operating on an eight-inch ring of ham and sweetbreads mousse.

“You brought visitors,” he accused me.

“Yes, sir. Parker and Degan. I know you won’t work with the feedbag on, but we found a third of a million dollars in used currency in the safe-deposit box, and Degan wants to ask you if you knew it was there. Shall they wait?”

“Have they eaten?”

“No.”

Of course that wouldn’t do. The thought of a hungry human, even a hungry murder suspect, even a hungry woman, in his house, is intolerable. So we had luncheon guests. They and I split the mousse that was waiting for me and while we finished it Fritz manufactured a celery and mushroom omelet. Wolfe tells me there was a man in Marseilles who made a better omelet than Fritz, but I don’t believe it. The guests protested that the mousse was all they wanted, but I noticed that the omelet was cleaned up, though I admit Wolfe took a portion just to taste.

Leaving the dining room, I gave Wolfe a sign, and, letting Parker conduct Degan to the office, he and I went to the kitchen, and I reported on the ceremony of opening the box. He listened with a scowl, but not for me. He hates to stand up right after a meal, and he hates to sit down in the kitchen because the stools and chairs aren’t fit to sit on—for him.

When I was through he demanded, “How sure are you that the box contained nothing but the money?”

“Dead sure. My eyes were glued to him, and they’re good eyes. Not a chance.”

“Confound it,” he muttered.

“My God,” I complained, “you’re hard to satisfy. Three hundred and twenty-seven thou—”

“But only that. It’s suggestive, of course, but that’s all. When a man is involved in a circumstance pressing enough to cause his murder he must leave a relic of it somewhere, and I had hoped it was in that box. Very well. I want to sit down.”

He marched to the office, and I followed.

Parker had let Degan have the red leather chair, and Degan had lit a cigar, so Wolfe’s nose twitched as he got his bulk adjusted in his chair.

“You gentlemen doubtless have your engagements,” he said, “so I apologize for keeping you so long, but I never discuss business at the table. Mr. Goodwin has told me what you found in that box. A substantial nest egg. You have a question for me, Mr. Degan?”

“A couple,” Degan said, “but first I must thank you for the lunch. The best omelet I ever ate!”

“I’ll tell Mr. Brenner. It will please him. And the question?”

“Well.” He blew smoke, straight at his host. “Partly it’s just plain curiosity. Were you expecting to find a large sum of money in the box?”

“No. I had no specific expectation. I was hoping to find something that would forward the job I’m on, as I told you yesterday, but I had no idea what it might be.”

“Okay.” Degan gestured with the cigar. “I’m not a suspicious man, Mr. Wolfe, anyone who knows me will tell you that, but now I’ve got this responsibility. The thought would have occurred to anybody, finding that fortune in that box, what if you knew it was there or thought it was? And now that it’s been found, what if you are figuring that a sizable share of it will be used to pay you for this job you’re doing?”

Wolfe grunted. “Surely that’s a question for me to ask, not answer. What if I am?”

“Then you are.”

“I haven’t said so. But what if I am?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.” Degan took a puff, and this time blew it at Parker. “Frankly, I’m sorry I agreed to this. I did it for a friend who has had a tough break, Selma Molloy, and I wish I hadn’t. I’m on a spot. I know she’s all for the job you’re doing, trying to find grounds for a new trial for Peter Hays, and I am too, personally, so you might think I’d be willing to commit the estate to pay for your services and expenses, but the hell of it is that she says she won’t take the estate or any part of it. That didn’t matter when there were no visible assets to speak of, but now it does. It will go to someone eventually, relatives always turn up when there’s a pile in it, and what will they say if I’ve paid you some of it? You see my problem.” He took a puff.

“I do indeed.” Wolfe’s lips were slightly twisted—one of his smiles. “But you asked the wrong question. Instead of asking
what
if I am you should have asked
if
I am. The answer is no. I shall not demand, or accept if offered, anything from that trove.”

“You won’t? You mean that?”

“I do.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“I have said so.” Wolfe’s lips straightened. “And now that I have answered your questions, I beg you to reciprocate. You knew Mr. Molloy for some years. Have you any knowledge of the source of that money?”

“No. I was absolutely amazed when I saw it.”

“Please bear with me. I don’t challenge you, I’m merely trying to stimulate you. You were intimate with him?”

“Intimate? I wouldn’t say intimate. He was one of my friends, and I did a little business with him from time to time.”

“What kind of business?”

“I bought advice from him now and then.” Degan reached to break cigar ash into the tray. “In connection with investments of my organization. He was an expert on certain areas of the real-estate market.”

“But you didn’t pay him enough to supply an appreciable fraction of that fortune in the box.”