Three For The Chair (5 page)

I got it from the drawer.

WEDNESDAY MORNING, after having breakfast in the kitchen with Fritz, as usual, while Wolfe was having his up in his room, also as usual, I got started on the instructions. They were simple, but it proved to be not so simple to carry them out. The first and main item was to phone Doctor Buhl and arrange for him to be at the office at eleven o'clock, when Wolfe would come down from the plant rooms, and bring Anne Goren with him. To begin with, I didn't get hold of him until nearly noon. From nine o'clock until ten all I got was his answering service and the information that he was out making calls. I left word for him to ring me, but he didn't. From ten o'clock on I got his office nurse. She was courteous and sympathetic, in a subdued way, the first three times I phoned, but after that got a little brusque. The doctor, still out making the rounds, had been told of my request to be rung, and she couldn't help it if he had been too busy. When he finally called I couldn't very well ask him to arrive with Miss Goren at eleven, since it was already a quarter to twelve, so I suggested three o'clock, and got a flat no. Neither three nor any other hour. He had told Wolfe all he had to tell about the death of Bertram Fyfe, but if Wolfe wished to speak with him on the phone he could spare two minutes. Consulted, Wolfe said no, not on the phone. Deadlock.

The upshot was that after lunch I got the car from the garage and drove the forty miles, up the West Side Highway and out the Sawmill River Parkway, to Mount Kisco, and found that Buhl's office was in a big white house in a big green lawn. I had been told he would see me after his p.m. office hours, which were from two to four, but there were still five patients in the waiting room when I arrived, so I had a nice long visit with the usual crop of magazines before the nurse, who had been with him at least sixty years, passed me through.

Buhl, seated at a desk, looking tired but still distinguished, told me abruptly, 'I have calls to make and I'm late. What is it now?'

I can be abrupt too. 'A question,' I said, 'raised by a relative of the deceased. Did someone substitute something else for the morphine'Mr. Wolfe doesn't want to pass it on to the cops without giving it a look himself, but if you would prefer -'

'Morphine'You mean the morphine administered to Bert Fyfe?'

'Yes, sir. Since the question has been -'

'That damn fool. Paul, of course. It's absurd. Substituted when and by whom?'

'Not specified.' I sat down, uninvited. 'But Mr. Wolfe can't just skip it so he'd appreciate a little information. Did you give the morphine to the nurse yourself?'

From the look he gave me I expected to be told to go climb a tree, preferably one about ready to topple, but he changed his mind and decided to get it over with. 'The morphine,' he said, 'came from a bottle in my case. I took two quarter-grain tablets from the bottle and gave them to the nurse, and told her to give one to the patient as soon as the dinner guests had left, and the other one an hour later if necessary. She has told me that the tablets were administered as directed. To suppose that something was substituted for them is fantastic.'

'Yes, sir. Where did she keep them until the time came to administer them?'

'I don't know. She is a competent nurse and completely reliable. Do you want me to ask her?'

'No, thanks, I will. Could there be any question about your bottle of morphine'Could it have been tampered with?'

'Not possible. No.'

'Had you got a fresh supply recently ' I mean, put a fresh supply in that bottle?'

'No. Not for two weeks at least. Longer, probably.'

'Would you say there is any chance ' say one in a million ' that you took the tablets from the wrong bottle?'

'No. Not one in a billion.' His brows went up. 'Isn't this a little superfluous'From what David told me yesterday I gathered that Paul's suspicions were directed at the man who came to New York with Bert ' Mr. Arrow.'

'Maybe so, but Mr. Wolfe is being thorough. He's a thorough man.' I stood up. 'Many thanks, doctor. If you wonder why I drove clear up here just for this, Mr. Wolfe is also careful. He doesn't like to ask questions about an unexpected death on the phone.'

I left him, went back out to the car, and rolled off. The route back to the parkway took me through the center of town, and on a red brick building on a corner, a very fine location, I saw the sign: TUTTLE'S PHARMACY. That was as good a place as any for a phone, so I parked down the block and walked back to it. Inside, it was quite an establishment ' up-to-date, well-furnished, well-stocked, and busy, with half a dozen customers on stools at the fountain and three or four others scattered around. One of them, at a counter in the rear, was being waited on by the proprietor himself, Vincent Tuttle. I crossed to a phone booth, dialed the operator, asked for the number I knew best, and in a moment had Wolfe's voice in my ear.

'From a booth,' I told him, 'in Tuttle's pharmacy in Mount Kisco. Quoting Doctor Buhl, the idea of a switch on the morphine is absurd and fantastic. As for its source, he gave two quarter-grain tablets to the nurse from his private stock. Do I proceed?'

'No.' It was a growl, as always when he was interrupted in the plant rooms. 'Or rather, yes, but first some further inquiry in Mount Kisco. After you left I considered the question of the hot-water bags, and I may have hit on the answer ' or I may not. At any rate, it's worth trying. See Mr. Paul Fyfe and ask him what happened to the ice cream. You will remember -'

'Yeah, he bought it at Schramm's, to take back to Mount Kisco for a Sunday party, and took it to Bert's apartment and put it in the refrigerator. You say you want to know what happened to it?'

'I do. See him and ask him. If he accounts for it, check him thoroughly. If he doesn't, see if Mr. or Mrs. Tuttle can, and check them. If they can't, ask Miss Goren when you see her about the morphine. If she can't, find Mr. Arrow and ask him. I want to know what happened to that ice cream.'

'You certainly do. Tell me why so I'll have some idea what I'm after.'

'No. You are not without discretion, but there's no point in subjecting it to an unnecessary strain.'

'You're absolutely right, and I appreciate it deeply. Tuttle's right here, so shall I see him first?'

He said no, to see Paul first, and hung up. As I left the booth and the store and headed for the address of Paul's real-estate office, down the street a block, I was looking around inside my skull for a connection between Schramm's famous mango ice cream and the hot-water bags in Bert Fyfe's bed, but if it was there I couldn't find it. Which was just as well, if there really was one, because I hate to overwork my discretion.

I found Paul on the second floor of an old wooden building, above a grocery store. His office was one small room, with two desks and some scarred old chairs which had probably been allotted to him when the family split up the paternal estate. Seated at the smaller desk was a woman with a long thin neck and big ears, about twice Paul's age, who was perfectly safe even with him. Paul, at the other desk, didn't get up as I entered.

'You?' he said. 'You got something?'

I looked at the woman, who was fiddling with some papers. He told her she could go, and she merely plunked a weight down on the papers, got up, and left. No amenities at all.

When the door had closed behind her I answered him. 'I haven't got something, I'm just after something. Mr. Wolfe sent me up here to ask Doctor Buhl about the morphine and to ask you about the ice cream. The last we heard it was still in the refrigerator in your brother's apartment. What happened to it?'

'Well, for God's sake.' He was staring at me, at least with his good eye. It was hard to tell what the one with the shiner was doing. 'What the hell has that got to do with anything?'

'I don't know. With Mr. Wolfe, I often don't know, but it's his car and tires and gas, and he pays my salary, so I just humor him. It's the simplest and quickest way for you too, unless there's something about the ice cream you'd rather keep to yourself.'

'There's not a damn thing about the ice cream.'

'Then I won't have to bother to sit down. Did you bring it to Mount Kisco for the Sunday party you mentioned?'

'No. I didn't come back to Mount Kisco until Sunday night.'

'But you were in New York again the next day, Monday, for the funeral ' and to call on Miss Goren again. Did you get the ice cream then?'

'Look,' he said, 'we'll leave Miss Goren out of this.'

'That's the spirit,' I said warmly. 'I'm all for gallantry. But what happened to the ice cream?'

'I don't know and don't give a damn.'

'Did you see it or touch it at any time after you put it in the refrigerator Saturday afternoon?'

'I did not. And if you ask me, this is a lot of crap. I don't know where that fat slob Wolfe got his reputation, but if this is the way he carries on an investi ' What's the big rush?'

I had got as far as the door. Turning as I opened it, I said politely, 'Nice to see you,' and went.

Backtracking to Tuttle's pharmacy, I found there had been a turnover of customers, but business was still humming. Tuttle's shiny dome loomed behind a showcase of cosmetics. Catching his eye, I crossed over and told him I would like to have a couple of minutes when he was free, and then went to the fountain and ordered a glass of milk. It was nearly all down when he called to me, and beckoned, and I emptied the glass and followed him to the rear, behind the partition. He leaned against a counter and said it was a surprise, seeing me up there.

'A couple of little errands,' I told him. 'To ask Doctor Buhl about the morphine, and to ask you about the ice cream. I've already asked Paul Fyfe. You remember he bought some ice cream at Schramm's Saturday afternoon and took it to Bert's apartment and put it in the refrigerator, intending to take it home with him.'

Tuttle corrected me. 'I remember he said he did. What about it?'

'Mr. Wolfe wants to know what became of it. Paul says he doesn't know. He says he never saw it again after he put it in the refrigerator. Did you?'

'I never saw it at all.'

'I thought you might have. You and your wife stayed there Saturday night. Sunday morning your brother-in-law was there dead, but even so you must have eaten something. I thought you might have gone to the refrigerator for something for breakfast, and you might have noticed the ice cream.'

'We had breakfast sent up.' Tuttle was frowning. 'There was no equipment there for cooking. But now that I think of it, I believe Paul mentioned the ice cream Saturday evening at the dinner table. He said something about my ice cream here not comparing with Schramm's and asked why I didn't carry it, and I told him Schramm's products were sold only at their own stores, and anyway it was too expensive. Then I believe my wife mentioned it on Sunday, when she went to the refrigerator for some ice for drinks.'

'Did you eat any of it Sunday'Or bring it home with you?'

'No. I said I never saw it. We stayed at the apartment until Monday and came home after the funeral.'

'You don't know what became of it?'

'I do not. I suppose it's still there. Unless that man Arrow ' why don't you ask him?'

'I will. But first, since I'm here, I guess I'll ask your wife. Is she around?'

'She's at home, up on Iron Hill Road. I can phone her and tell her you're coming, or you can speak with her on the phone. But I fail to see what that ice cream has to do with the death of my brother-in-law. What's the connection?'

It seemed to me that that reaction was rather late, but it could have been that since he was only an in-law he didn't want to butt in. 'Search me,' I told him. 'I just run errands. Why don't we get your wife on the phone, and I may not have to bother her by going there?'

He turned to a phone on the counter, dialed a number, got it, told his wife I wanted to ask her something, and handed me the transmitter. Louise, not being an in-law, said at once that it was ridiculous to annoy them about something utterly irrelevant, but after a little give and take she told me what she knew, which was nothing. She had never seen the ice cream, though she had probably seen the package. Getting ice from the refrigerator Sunday afternoon, she had noticed a large paper bag on the bottom shelf, and, on returning to the living room, had mentioned it to her husband and her brother David, who was there, saying that she thought it was Paul's ice cream and asking if they wanted some. They had declined, and she had not looked into the paper bag. She had no idea what had happened to it. I thanked her, hung up, thanked her husband, and beat it.

Next stop, 48th Street, Manhattan.

IN VIEW OF the parking situation, or rather the non-parking situation, I have given up using the car for midtown errands, so I left the highway at 46th Street and drove to the garage. I could have phoned a progress report to Wolfe from there, but the house is just around the corner, and I went in person instead of phoning, and got a surprise. In response to my ring it wasn't Fritz who unbolted the door for me, but Saul Panzer. Saul, with his big nose taking half the available area of his narrow little face, looks at first glance as if he might need help to add two and two. Actually he needs help for nothing whatever. He is not only the best of the four or five operatives Wolfe calls on as required, he's the best anywhere.

'So,' I greeted him, 'you got my job at last, huh'Please show me to the office.'

'Got an appointment?' he demanded, closing the door. Then he followed me down the hall and in.

Wolfe, behind his desk, grunted at me. 'Back so soon?'

'No, sir,' I told him. 'This is just a stopover after leaving the car at the garage. Do you want a report on Paul and Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle before I go on?'

'Yes. Verbatim, please.'

With him verbatim means not only all the words but also all the actions and expressions, and I sat down and gave them to him. He is the best listener I know, usually with his elbow on the chair arm, his chin resting on his fist, and his eyes half closed.

When I had finished he sat a moment and then nodded. 'Satisfactory. Proceed with the others. Since you won't need the car may Saul use it?'

That wasn't as chummy as it sounds. It had long been understood that the car was his one piece of property on which I had the say.

'For how long?' I inquired.

'Today, tonight, and possibly part of tomorrow.'

I looked at my wrist and saw 6:55. 'There's not much left of today. Okay. Do I ask for what?'

'Not at the moment. It may be to chase a wild goose. What about your dinner?'

'I don't know.' I arose. 'If I find the ice cream I can eat that.' I headed for the door, turned there to suggest, 'Saul can eat the goose,' and left.

Flagging a taxi at Tenth Avenue and riding uptown, and across 48th Street to the East Side, a part of the thousand-wheeled worm, I admitted that he must have a glimmer of something, since Saul's daily rate was now fifty bucks, quite a bite out of a measly grand, but I still couldn't tie up the ice cream and the hot-water bags. Of course he might be sending Saul on a different trail entirely, and as far as keeping it to himself was concerned, I had long ago stopped letting that get on my nerves, so I just tabled it.

The number, on 48th between Lexington and Third, belonged to an old brick four-story that had been painted yellow. In the vestibule two names were squeezed on the little slip by the button next to the top ' 'Goren' and 'Poletti.' I pushed the button, and, when the clicks came, opened the door and entered, and went up two flights of narrow stairs, which were carpeted and clean for a change. Turning to the front on the landing, I got a surprise. A door had opened, and standing on the sill was one named neither Goren nor Poletti. It was Johnny Arrow, squinting at me.

'Oh,' he said. 'I thought maybe it was that Paul Fyfe.'

I advanced. 'If it's convenient,' I said, 'I'd like to see Miss Goren.'

'What about?'

He needed taking down a peg. 'Really,' I said. 'Only yesterday you were bragging about taking her to dinner. Don't tell me you've already been promoted to watchdog. I want to ask her a question.'

For a second I thought he was going to demand to know the question, and so did he, but he decided to chuckle instead. He invited me in, ushered me through an arch into a living room that was well cluttered with the feminine touch, disappeared, and in a minute was back.

'She's changing,' he informed me. He sat. 'I guess you called me about bragging.' His drawl was friendly. 'We just got back from the ball game a little while ago, and now we're going out for a feed. I was going to phone you this morning.'

'You mean phone Nero Wolfe?'

'No, you. I was going to ask you where you bought that suit you had on last night. Now I'd like to ask you where you bought the one you've got on now, but I guess that's a little personal.'

I was sympathetic. Realizing that a guy who had spent five years in the bush, and who, in New York, found himself suddenly faced with the problem of togging up for a ladylove, was in a tough spot, especially if he could scrape up only ten million bucks, I gave him the lowdown from socks to shirts. We were on ornamental vests, pro and con, when Anne Goren came floating in, and at sight of her I regretted the steer I had given him. I would have been perfectly willing to feed her myself if I hadn't been working.

'Sorry I made you wait,' she told me politely. 'What is it?' She didn't sit, and we were up.

'A couple of little points,' I said. 'I saw Doctor Buhl this afternoon, and expected he would phone you, but since you were out he couldn't. First about the morphine he gave you Saturday to be given to Bertram Fyfe. He says he took two quarter-grain tablets from a bottle he had, and gave them to you, with directions. Is that correct?'

'Wait a minute, Anne.' Arrow was squinting at me. 'What's the idea of this?'

'No special idea.' I met the brown eyes through the squint. 'Mr. Wolfe needs the information to clear this thing up, that's all. ' Do you object to giving it, Miss Goren'I asked Doctor Buhl where you kept the tablets until the time came to administer them, and he told me to ask you.'

'I put them in a saucer and put the saucer on top of the bureau in the patient's room. That is standard procedure.'

'Sure. Would you mind going right through it'From the time Doctor Buhl gave you the tablets?'

'He handed them to me just before he left, and after he left I went to the bureau and put them in the saucer. The instructions were to give one as soon as the guests had gone, and one an hour later if it seemed desirable, and that's what I did.' She was being cool and professional. 'At ten minutes past eight I put one of the tablets in my hypo syringe with one c.c. of sterile water, and injected it in the patient's arm. An hour later he was asleep but a little restless, and I did the same with the other tablet. That quieted him completely.'

'Have you any reason to suspect that the tablets in the saucer had been changed by someone'That the ones you gave the patient were not the ones Doctor Buhl gave you?'

'Certainly not.'

'Look here,' Johnny Arrow drawled, 'that's a kind of a nasty question. I guess that's enough.'

I grinned at him. 'You're too touchy. If the cops ever got started on this they'd hammer away at her for hours. Five people have admitted they were in the patient's room after Doctor Buhl left, including you, and the cops would go over that with her forward, backward, sideways, and up and down. I don't want to spoil her appetite for dinner, so I merely ask her if she saw anything suspicious. Or heard anything. You didn't, Miss Goren?'

'I did not.'

'Then that's that. Now the other point. You may or may not know that Paul Fyfe brought some ice cream to the apartment and put it in the refrigerator. It was mentioned at the dinner table, but you weren't there. Do you know what happened to the ice cream?'

'No.' Her voice sharpened. 'This seems pretty silly. Ice cream?'

'I often seem silly. Just ignore it. Mr. Wolfe wants to know about the ice cream. You know nothing at all about it?'

'No. I never heard of it.'

'Okay.' I turned to Arrow. 'This one is for you too. What do you know about the ice cream?'

'Nothing.' He chuckled. 'You can get as nasty as you want to with me, after that squeeze you put on me last night, but don't try getting behind me. I'm going to keep you right in front.'

'From the front I use something else. You remember Paul Fyfe mentioned the ice cream at the dinner table?'

'I guess I do. I had forgotten about it.'

'But you never saw it or touched it?'

'No.'

'Or heard anything about what happened to it?'

'No.'

'Then I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. You'll be doing yourself one too, because it's the quickest way to get rid of me. Where are you going for dinner?'

'I've got a table reserved at Rusterman's.'

He was certainly learning his way around, possibly with Anne's help. 'That's fine,' I said, 'because it's only a block out of the way. I want you to take me to the Churchill Towers apartment and let me look in the refrigerator.'

It was a good thing I had taken the trouble to brief him on tailors and haberdashers. But for that he would probably have refused, and I would have had to go and persuade Tim Evarts, the house dick, to oblige, and that would have cost both time and money. He did balk some, but Anne put in, saying it would take less time to humor me than to argue with me, and that settled it. It seemed likely that in the years to come Anne would do a lot of settling, and then and there I decided to let him have her. She permitted him to help her get a yellow embroidered stole across her bare shoulders, and he got a black Homburg from a table. On our way downstairs, and in the taxi we took to the Churchill, I could have coached him on black Homburgs, when and where and with what, but with Anne present I thought it advisable to skip it.

The Churchill Towers apartment, on the thirty-second floor, had a foyer about the size of my bedroom, and the living room would have accommodated three billiard tables with plenty of elbow space. There was an inside hall between the living room and the bedrooms, and at one end of the hall was a serving pantry, with an outside service entrance. Besides a long built-in stainless-steel counter, the pantry had a large warmer cabinet, an even larger refrigerator, and a door to a refuse-disposal chute, but no cooking equipment. Arrow and Anne stood just inside the swinging door, touching elbows, as I went and opened the door of the refrigerator.

The freezing compartment at the top held six trays of ice cubes and nothing else. On the shelves below were a couple of dozen bottles ' beer, club soda, tonic ' five bottles of champagne lying on their sides, a bowl of oranges, and a plate of grapes. There was no paper bag, big or little, and absolutely no sign of ice cream. I closed the door and opened the door of the warmer cabinet. It contained nothing. I opened the door of the disposal chute and stuck my head in, and got a smell, but not of ice cream.

I turned to the hooker and the hooked. 'All right,' I told them, 'I give up. Many thanks. As I said, this was the quickest way to get rid of me. Enjoy your dinner.' They made gangway for me, and I pushed through the swinging door and on out.

When Wolfe had asked me what about dinner I had told him I didn't know, but I knew now. I could be home by 8:30, and that afternoon, preparing for one of Wolfe's favorite hot-weather meals, Fritz had been collecting eight baby lobsters, eight avocados, and a bushel of young leaf lettuce. When he had introduced to them the proper amounts of chives, onion, parsley, tomato paste, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, paprika, pimientos, and dry white wine, he would have Brazilian lobster salad as edited by Wolfe, and not even Wolfe could have it all stowed away by half past eight.

He hadn't. I found him in the dining room, at table, starting on deep-dish blueberry pie smothered with whipped cream. There was no lobster salad in sight, but Fritz, who had let me in, soon entered with the big silver platter, and there was plenty left. Wolfe's ban on business during meals is not only for his own protection but other people's too, including me, so I could keep my mind where it belonged, on the proper ratio of the ingredients of a mouthful. Only after that had been attended to, and my share of the blueberry pie, and we had crossed the hall to the office, where Fritz brought coffee, did he ask for a report. I gave it to him. When I had described the climax, the empty refrigerator ' that is, empty of ice cream ' I got up to refill our coffee cups.

'But,' I said, 'if you have simply got to know what happened to it, God knows why, there is still one slender hope. David wasn't on my list. I was going to phone from the Churchill to ask if you wanted me to try him, but I wanted some of that lobster. He was there in the apartment most of Sunday. Shall I see him?'

Wolfe grunted. 'I phoned him this afternoon, and he was here at six o'clock. He says he knows nothing about it.'

'Then that's the crop.' I sat and took a sip of coffee. Fritz' coffee is the best on earth. I've done it exactly as he does, but it's not the same. I took another sip. 'So the gag didn't work.'

'It is not a gag.'

'Then what is it?'

'It is a window for death. I think it is ' or was. I'll leave it at that for tonight. We'll see tomorrow, Archie.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I don't like the slant of your eye. If you're thinking of badgering me, don't. Go somewhere.'

'Glad to. I'll go have another piece of pie.' I took my cup and saucer and headed for the kitchen.

I spent the rest of the evening there, chewing the rag with Fritz, until his bedtime came, eleven o'clock, and then went to the office to lock the safe and tell Wolfe good night, and mounted the two flights to my room. I have been known to feel fairly well satisfied with myself as I got ready for bed after a day's work, but not that night. I had failed to learn the fate of the ice cream. I hadn't the faintest notion where the ice cream came in. I didn't know what a window for death was, though I knew what it had been on a winter night twenty years ago. One of the noblest functions of a man is to keep millionaires from copping pretty girls, and I hadn't moved a finger to stop Arrow. And the case was no damn good anyhow, with a slim chance of getting any more out of it than the thousand bucks, and with the job limited to deciding whether to call the cops in or not. It was a bad setup all the way. Usually I'm asleep ten seconds after I hit the pillow, but that night I tossed and turned for a full minute before I went off.

The trouble with mornings is that they come when you're not awake. It's all a blur until I am washed and dressed and have somehow made my way down to the kitchen, and got orange juice in me, and I'm not really awake until the fourth griddle cake and the second cup of coffee. But that Thursday morning it was accelerated. As I picked up the glass of orange juice I became aware through the blur that Fritz was putting stuff on a tray, and glanced at my wrist.