Rex Stout (15 page)

“You’ll search—” Jean’s eyes were blazing again. “My office! You’ll go through my files! My things!
Damn
you!”

Cramer shrugged. “I’ve been trying to tell you. Where did you get that yarn, Miss Farris?”

Jean stood and looked at him, without breathing. At length her frantic and indignant lungs made a peremptory demand which resulted in a convulsion of her chest as the air rushed in. She paid no attention to it. There were three more inhalations, the last one steady and deep, before she spoke in a firm controlled voice:

“All right. Excuse me for yelling at you. I suppose you like to do work you have a talent for, the same as I
do. I hope—I’ve never been in jail—am I allowed to take along some things? Toilet things and something to sleep in?”

“You can send for ’em later.” It was a growl. “You won’t be needing anything to sleep in to-night. Do you actually mean you’re going to let me take you down?”

“What else can I do?”

“Goddam it, you can answer a plain simple question!”

“No. Really I can’t. Oletha, will you phone Miss Delaney after I’ve gone? Tell her what’s happened—and tell her to be at the office early to-morrow morning and try to keep them from tearing the place to pieces. And tell her—no. I suppose I should have a lawyer. Phone Mr. Raleigh, R, A, L, E, I, G, H. Timothy Raleigh, Cedar Street. There’s no use trying to get him to-night; phone to his office in the morning. If a letter comes …”

Cramer, at the phone, had dialled a number and was talking: “Burke? Cramer. I’ll be down there in about twenty minutes with Jean Farris. Have some men at the side door to cover her if there are any newshounds around, and watch your trap. Phone the commissioner and the D.A. and tell them it looks tough and they may want to sit in. Got that warrant?—Okay. Not to-night, morning will do. Don’t forget the side door.”

He hung up. He scowled at Jean Farris. “So,” he said, “you’re really tough, huh?”

“No, I’m not tough.” Jean was calmly putting on her hat, but grimaced as she pulled it down on the left side. “Unless you mean stubborn. I’m stubborn enough. Come on.”

A
t 10 p.m., Eileen Delaney, on the phone, to Timothy Raleigh: “If you’ll give me a chance I’ll tell you. I’m not sure exactly where she is. The coloured maid heard him say he was taking her to Police Headquarters. That’s where I am now, talking from a booth. In another ten minutes I’ll begin shooting everybody in sight, I swear to God I will. They won’t let me see Inspector Cramer, or any one else who amounts to anything. They won’t tell me definitely whether she’s here, or not, but she must be…. I told you what the maid said, material witness in the Valentine Carew murder case, and Jean had as much to do with that as the man in the moon. She never saw Carew, she met his son about two weeks ago…. How the hell do I know? Then that business about the yarn, I haven’t the slightest idea what it means. I mean I don’t know what it means about murder. All I know is, you have to get busy and get her out…. Damn it, I’m perfectly aware it’s night! Does the law die at sundown? Are you a lawyer? Did you ever hear of bail or habeas corpus or civil rights? If you want to talk to the maid, you can get her at Jean’s apartment, I told her to stay there. I’m going to camp right here….”

At 10.20 p.m., Eileen Delaney, on the phone, to Adele Worthy: “But, Adele, its ridiculous, it’s insane! Jean Farris is as apt to be mixed up in a murder as Albert Einstein! Of course it’s a mistake, but how am I going to get her out of it if they won’t even let me see her or tell me where she is? I’ve phoned three lawyers, and they say they’ll see what they can do, but the poor saps seem to be afraid of the dark…. No, I know you can’t, but you know everybody in town, and surely you can gather enough pull to arrange for them to let me see her, at least. Do you realise, they’ve got her somewhere and
nobody
knows where she is? Good God, it sounds like the Middle Ages! You do what you can, and I’ll call again in half an hour, I’m going to stick here….”

At 10.40 p.m., Adele Worthy, on the phone, to Portia Tritt: “It is terrible, it certainly is. Of course the publicity won’t hurt her any if she comes out of it clean, I’ll bet Ethel Gannon will be working overtime. I can just see her. But we do all love Jean, I know I do, and I phoned two men who may be able to do something, though nobody can get very far in a murder case, and it occurred to me that you used to know Bob Skinner before he became district attorney, and of course he’s the one to reach. Maybe if you would phone him, or even see him, and use your corkscrew voice on him—no offence, Portia dear, but many’s the time and oft you’ve used it to pull a page in the
Bazaar
out of me….”

At 11 p.m., Adele Worthy, on the phone, to a man: “I’m sorry you couldn’t get me, Art; the line’s been busy and I guess it will be until midnight. I’m trying to rescue a damsel in distress. Jean Farris—you know, the designer—has been arrested and is being held at headquarters in connection with the Carew murder case. Some goofy tale about some yarn she used in her weaving—Oh, lord, I forgot you work for a newspaper, I
never think of you as a newspaperman because you’re always so well-dressed and your hair is always combed—but I suppose your colleagues have already got it anyhow….”

At midnight, Sergeant Burke, thoroughly exasperated, to the face of Eileen Delaney: “Damn it, I tell you she’s not
in
jail! She’s engaged with the commissioner and the district attorney! Certainly, you can stay here all week if you want to, and what good will that do you? What do you think, they’re using a rubber hose on her? Piffle! The best thing you can do is go home and go to bed, and let your lawyers get some sleep too….”

At 2 a.m., District Attorney Skinner, in a tired voice, to Jean Farris: “I think that’s far-fetched, to call it torture. We’re only trying to get something it is our right and our duty to get. We’re doing what the people of New York City hired us to do.”

Commissioner Humbert was there too, but they were not upstairs in his spacious and comfortable office. It was Room Nine in the basement—a medium-sized room bare of all furniture but a wooden table, a dozen wooden chairs, and a built-in cupboard. That room had in fact witnessed on occasion employment of the cruder forms of the third degree, but of course not by officials of the eminence of those now present. Humbert, in a grey sack suit, with his hair rumpled, walked slowly up and down, frowning, smoking a cigarette. Skinner in tails and the proper white tie, having come at midnight from a hotel roof, straddled one of the chairs bassackwards, with his arms crossed along its back. In another chair facing him was Jean, keeping herself upright with an effort, her hat off and her hair messy, with a bright light shining in her eyes. On Skinner’s side it was shaded.

She had tried different tactics during the five hours she had been there. From 9 till 10.30, with Inspector
Cramer and two men in uniform, she had replied, had discussed and even argued, on any subject that was far enough removed from the fact she would not disclose. But she found that was dangerous. Once—she could no longer remember how—she had nearly been trapped. With the arrival of Commissioner Humbert, who had blustered and glared at her with his face not more than twelve inches from hers, she had decided to try silence, to refuse to speak at all; simply to keep her mouth shut. At the end of thirty minutes she was amazed to find how difficult it was. Another half-hour and she was clutching the edges of her chair seat to keep from screaming. The antics of Commissioner Humbert and the indignant strutting of his demands could be borne; but Cramer’s calm unceasing persistence, his patient repetition of the same question a dozen, two dozen, times, his trick of compelling her gaze by stopping abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and then when she looked at him, quietly continuing—she felt she couldn’t bear it much longer. She would find it that she had involuntarily clapped her hand to her mouth and would pull it away, back to the edge of her chair. The light in her eyes was intolerable. She tried closing them, but would get dizzy and have to open them again. Cramer’s calm voice went on inexorably; the questions he repeated oftenest were the most trivial ones, as for instance, “Was the bayeta yarn in the warp or the woof?” After the twentieth repetition of that the desire to shout “Woof!” and be rid of it was so irresistible that she had to sink her teeth into her lip; she mustn’t; she had decided not to speak.

It was close to midnight, though she didn’t know it, when she was suddenly dazed with panic at the realisation that someone had clubbed her on the head again and she had crashed. Things were blurred; she was being held by strong arms in a firm unyielding grasp; she
struggled and strained. She became aware of Cramer’s hateful voice:

“Now hold it. I’m just putting you back in the chair.”

So he was. She felt it under her, and found that she had been released. She blinked up at him and demanded, “What happened? Someone hit me—”

“No, they didn’t. Don’t get that idea in your head, Miss Farris. You kept your eyes closed too long and fell off, and I didn’t quite keep you from hitting the floor. Want a drink of water? Or maybe some coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay. I was just asking, how many different kinds of yarn did you use in that material besides the bayeta?”

Jean remembered that she wasn’t speaking.

A little later District Attorney Skinner arrived and was politely introduced. Soon after that, Jean felt a surge of relief when she saw that Cramer was departing. Skinner might be difficult, but he couldn’t possibly be as bad as Cramer. She decided to abandon her policy of silence; she would go crazy if she tried to keep that up all night. She wished that she had accepted the offer of coffee, but she wouldn’t ask for it. She would answer all harmless questions, but slowly, after thinking them over.

Among New York lawyers, District Attorney Skinner was generally considered to be one of the three cleverest cross-examiners in the city.

At two o’clock, her eyes burning, her head buzzing intolerably, and her fingers aching from their desperate grip on the edges of her chair seat, Jean told him she was being tortured. He said he thought that was far-fetched and went on, “You say that because right now your values are all distorted. Naturally. You have to look at it with common sense. What are we actually doing to you? Keeping you up all night, that’s all. Lots of people stay
up all night fairly frequently without any compulsion; I expect you’ve done it yourself occasionally. It’s the compulsion that makes you call it torture, and that’s why I say it’s far-fetched.”

His voice was calm and not high-pitched, but had a rasp in it which was like a steel rake on Jean’s raw nerves. He went on, “We’re as much under compulsion as you are; you should be intelligent enough to see that. We can’t possibly let up on you, and we’re not going to. We’re mighty careful about taking unwarranted liberties with respectable citizens of good standing and good connections. We wouldn’t be doing this if all we had on you was some sort of vague suspicion. You don’t seem to realise what we do have on you. It’s the same, for instance, as if Carew had been shot, and we found the gun that shot him in your possession, and you refused to tell where you got it. The fact that the yarn you used is identical with the piece found in Carew’s hand is an absolutely definite link with the murderer, and it has got to be traced. That’s our compulsion. Aside from the fact that we are the agents of justice, Carew was a millionaire, killed in a sensational manner under bizarre circumstances. More than a month ago. We’ve got nowhere, and the press and the public are howling at us. Now we get—open your eyes! Miss Farris! Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open—”

She dragged them open.

“Now we get a direct trail to the murderer, and you try to keep it blocked. We can’t possibly let up on you, and we’re not going to let you go. With the evidence we have, nothing any lawyer can do will get you out. I’ll be here with you until six o’clock. Inspector Cramer is taking a nap, and at that time he’ll return and go on with it. Sooner or later, of course, you’ll fall asleep, and a matron will put you to bed. We’ll let you sleep a couple of hours
and then wake you up and give you something to eat and resume. It will go on that way.”

Skinner, frowning, pulled at the lobe of his ear and gazed at her. Abruptly he demanded, “Where did you get that yarn, Miss Farris?”

Jean said in a thin and querulous tone, “You might as well let up on me. I don’t care if it goes on this way forever.”

“You will though,” Skinner rasped. “You’ve got a surprise coming. I’ve told you before, and I tell you again frankly, I don’t think your emotions are enough involved for you to hold out. You’re a woman. You’re just trying to shoot square with someone, and that’s not strong enough for a woman. It may be now, but wait until twelve hours from now, or twenty-four. It would be different if a deep emotion were concerned; for instance, if you were shielding a brother or a father or a man you’re in love with. If it is something like that, as I told you, we will let up. In that case, I think you have enough stamina to beat us. We don’t want to waste our time. It can’t be a brother or a father. Is it a man you love, Miss Farris?”

Jean strained to keep her eyes open. Questions like that were dangerous; she had a dim recollection that he had almost caught her, long ago, by starting on that line. She let her eyes close and then strained them open again, and told him, “There’s no use trying that again. I won’t answer anything like that.”

I
n a large room on the 32nd floor of a Madison Avenue building in the Forties, Samuel Aaron Orlik sat at his desk, his arms folded and lips screwed up, staring at the knob of the door twenty feet away. The room was beautifully furnished, in excellent and quiet taste. The polished and spacious top of the desk was bare except for an onyx pen-stand, an empty letter basket, a crystal glass ash tray, and a morning newspaper which displayed a prominent headline:

ARREST IN CAREW MURDER CASE

Orlik moved his right forearm sufficiently to expose the watch on his left wrist: ten after nine. He grunted impatiently, and at that moment there was a soft buzz and he swivelled to reach the phone on its bracket. In a moment he said, “Well, I told you to send him in, didn’t I?” Then he got up and went to the door and opened it. He shook hands with the tall dark young man who presently came down the hall, allowed him precedence in entering and, back in the room, closed the door.