Before Midnight Page 5

  Eighteen-twenty-six was about halfway down a long corridor. There was no one in sight anywhere except a chambermaid with towels, and I concluded that the city employees hadn’t invaded the hotel itself for surveillance. My first knock on the door of eighteen-twenty-six got me an invitation to come in, not too audible, and I opened the door and entered, and saw that LBA had done well by their guests. It was the fifteen-dollar size, with the twin beds headed against the wall at the left. On one of them, under the covers, was Old King Cole with a hangover, his mop of white hair tousled and his eyes sick.

  I approached. “My name’s Archie Goodwin,” I told him. “From Nero Wolfe, on behalf of Lippert, Buff and Assa.” There was a chair there, and I sat. “We need to clear up a few little points about the contest.” “Crap,” he said.

  “That won’t do it,” I stated. “Not just that one word. Is the contest crap, or am I, or what?”

  He shut his eyes. “I’m sick.” He opened them. “I’ll be all right tomorrow.”

  “Are you too sick to talk? I don’t want to make you worse. I don’t know how serious a heart flutter is.”

  “I haven’t got a heart flutter. I’ve got paroxysmal tachycardia, and it is never serious. I’d be up and around right now if it wasn’t for one thing—there are too many fools. The discomfort of paroxysmal tachycardia is increased by fear and anxiety and apprehension and nervousness, and I’ve got all of ‘em on account of fools.”

  He raised himself on an elbow, reached to the bedstand for a glass of water, drank about a spoonful, and put the glass back. He bounced around and settled on his side, facing me.

  “What kind of fools?” I asked politely.

  “You’re one of ‘em. Didn’t you come to ask me where I got the gun I shot that man Dahlmann with?”

  “No, sir. Speaking for Nero Wolfe, we’re not interested in the death of Dahlmann except as it affects the contest and raises points that have to be dealt with.”

  He snorted: “There you are. Crap. Why should it affect the contest at all? It happened to be last night that someone went there and shot him—some jealous woman or someone who hated him or was afraid of him or wanted to get even with him—and just because it happened last night they think it was connected with the contest. They even think one of us did it. Only a fool would think that. Suppose when he held up that paper, suppose I believed him when he said it was the answers, and I decided to kill him and get it. Finding out where he lived would have been easy enough, even the phone book. So I went there, and getting him to let me in was just as easy, I could tell him there was something about the agreement that I thought ought to be changed and I wanted to discuss it with him. Getting a chance to shoot him might be a little harder, since he might have a faint suspicion I had come to try to get the paper, but it could be managed. So I kill him and take the paper and get back to my hotel room, and where am I?”

  I shook my head. “You’re telling it.” “I’ve dug a hole and jumped in. If they go on with the contest on the basis of those answers, I’ve ruined my chances, because they’ll hold us here in the jurisdiction, or if I leave for Chicago before the body is found they’ll invite me back and I’II have to come, and if I send in the right answers before my deadline I couldn’t explain how I got ‘em. If they don’t go on with those answers, if they void them and give us new verses, all I’ve got for killing a man is the prospect of being electrocuted. So they’re fools for thinking one of us did it. Crap.”

  “There’s another possibility,” I objected. “What if you were a fool yourself? I admit your analysis is absolutely sound, but what if the sight of that paper and the thought of half a million dollars carried you away, and you went ahead and did it and didn’t bother with the analysis until afterward? Then when you did realize it and saw where you were, for instance in the District Attorney’s office, I should think your heart would flutter no matter what name you gave it. I know mine would.”

  He turned over on his back and shut his eyes. I sat and looked at him. He was breathing a little faster than normal, and a muscle in his neck twitched a couple of times, but there was no indication of a crisis. I had not scared him to death, and anyway, I had only promised Tim Evarts that I wouldn’t find a corpse, not that I wouldn’t make one.

  He turned back on his side. “For some reason,” he said, “I feel like offering you a drink. You look a little like my son-in-law, that may be it. There’s a bottle of Scotch in my suitcase that he gave me. Help yourself. I don’t want any.”

  “Thanks, but I guess not Another time.”

  “As you please. About my being a fool, I was one once, twenty-six years ago, back in nineteen-twenty-nine. I had stacked up a couple of million dollars and it all went. Fifty million others were fools along with me, but that didn’t help any. I decided I had had enough and got me a job selling adding machines, and never touched the market again. A few years ago my son-in-law made me quit work because he was doing very well as an architect, and that was all right, I was comfortable, but I always wanted something to do, and one day I saw the advertisement of this contest, and the first thing I knew I was in it up to my neck. I decided to make my daughter and son-in-law a very handsome present.”

  He coughed, and shut his eyes and breathed a little, then went on. “The point is that it’s been twenty-six years since I made a fool of myself, and if you and those other fools only knew it, once was enough. There’s only one thing you can tell me that I’m interested in, and that’s this, what are they going to do about the contest? As it stands now it’s a giveaway, and I’ll fight it. That young woman, Susan Tescher—she lives here in New York and she’s a researcher for Clock magazine. She’s working on it right now—and here I am. I’ll fight it.”

  “Fight it how?” I asked.

  “That’s the question.” He passed his finger tips over his right cheek and then over his left one. “I haven’t shaved today. I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you one idea I had.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He had his eyes steady on me, and they didn’t look so sick. “You strike me as a sensible young man.”

  “I am.”

  “It’s just possible that Miss Tescher is a sensible young woman. If she tries to bull it through on the basis of what was agreed last night, after what has happened, she may end up by wishing she’d never heard of the damn contest. I think the rest of us might get together with her and suggest that we split it up five ways. The first five prizes total eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars, so that would make it one hundred and seventy-four thousand apiece. That ought to satisfy everybody, and I don’t see why you people would object to it. As it stands now—was that a knock at the door?”

  “It sounded like it.”

  “I told them I didn’t want��� oh well. Come in!”

  The door opened slowly and there was Carol Wheelock, without coat or hat. As I left my chair she stopped, and apparently was about to turn and scoot, but I spoke. “Hello there. Come on in.”

  “Leave the door open,” Younger said.

  “I’m here,” I told him.

  “I know you are. With a woman in my hotel room the door stays open.”

  “I shouldn’t have come.” She stood. “I should have phoned, but with all the wiretapping—”

  “It’s all right.” I was moving another chair up. “Mr. Younger is resting because he had a little paroxysm, nothing serious.”

  “Crap,” Younger said. “Sit down. I want to talk to you anyway.”

  She still hesitated, then came on and sat. If she had eaten anything there was no noticeable result. She looked at me. “Does he know about Miss Frazee?”

  I shook my head. “I hadn’t got to that yet.”

  She looked at Younger. “I couldn’t reach Miss Tescher, and I wanted to speak to you before Mr. Rollins. You know Miss Frazee is the head of the Women’s Nature League. You remember it was mentioned last evening, and Mr. Dahlmann was very witty about it. He thought it would be amusing for her to win a p
rize, and of course she was going to, one of the first five.”

  “I didn’t think he was witty,” Younger declared.

  She didn’t press it, “Well, he thought he was. What I wanted to tell you, three hundred women, members of her league, have been working with Miss Frazee on the contest, and she has sent them the verses we got last night by long distance telephone, and they’re working on them now—three hundred of them.”

  “Just a minute,” I put in. “As Mr. Wolfe told you, she said they helped her, but not that they have the new verses. That’s an assumption. I admit it has four legs.”

  Younger had raised himself to an elbow, and the open front of his pajama top showed a hairy chest. “Three hundred women?” he demanded.

  “Right. So I doubt if you can sell Miss Frazee on your plan to split it five ways. You’ll have to think up-”

  “Get out!” he commanded. Not me; it was for Mrs. Wheelock. “Get out of here. I’m getting up and I haven’t got any pants on. ��� -Wait a minute! You’ll be in your room? Stay in your room until you hear from me. I’m going to find Rollins and the three of us are going to fight. We’ll blow it so high they won’t find any pieces. Stay in your room!”

  He gave the covers a kick, proving he had been right about the pants, and she ran. I looked at my watch, and took my hat from the back of the chair.

  “I have an appointment,” I told him, “and anyway, you’re going to be busy.”

  Chapter 7

  Up in the plant rooms on the roof it was Cattleya mossiae time. In the cool room, the first one you enter from the vestibule, the Odontoglossums were sporting their sprays, and in the middle room, the tropical room, two benches of Phalaenopsis, the hardiest of all to grow well, were crowding the aisle with racemes two feet long, but at mossiae time the big show was in the third room. Of Wolfe’s fourteen varieties of mossiae my favorite was reineckiana, with its white, yellow, lilac, and violet. But then, passing through, I only had time for a glance at them.

  Wolfe, in the potting-room, washing his hands at the sink and talking with Theodore, growled at me. “Couldn’t it wait?”

  “Just rhetoric,” I said. “It’s ten to six and Miss Tescher may be there when you come down, and you might want a report on Younger before you see her. If not, I’ll go look at orchids.”

  “Very well. Since you’re here.”

  I gave it to him verbatim. He had no questions and no comments. By the time I finished he had his hands and nails clean and had moved to the workbench to frown at a bedraggled specimen in a pot.

  “Look at this Oncidium varicosum,” he grumbled. “Dry rot in April. It has never happened before and there is no explanation. Theodore is certain—”

  The buzz of the house phone kept me from learning what Theodore was certain of. Instead, I learned what had upset Fritz downstairs: “Archie, you only told me to admit a Miss Susan Tescher. She has come, but there are three men with her. What do I do?”

  “Are they in?”

  “Of course not. They’re out on the stoop and it has started to rain.”

  I said I’d be right down, told Wolfe Miss Tescher had arrived with outriders, and beat it. I rarely use the elevator, and never squeeze in together with Wolfe’s bulk. Descending the three flights to the main hall, and taking a look through the one-way glass panel, I saw that Fritz’s count was accurate. One female and three males were standing in the April shower, glaring in my direction but not seeing me. The men were strangers but not dicks unless they had changed brands without telling me, and it seemed unnecessary to let them get any wetter, so I went and unbolted the door and swung it open, and in they came. A remark about rain being wet might have been expected from the males, but they started removing their coats with no remarks at all. The female said in a clear strong capable voice, “I’m Susan Tescher.”

  I told her who I was and hung her coat up for her. She was fairly tall, slender but not thin, and not at all poorly furnished with features. From a first glance, and I try to make first glances count, everything about her was smart, with the exception of the earrings, which were enameled clock dials the size of a quarter. She had gray eyes and brassy hah-and very good skin and lipstick.

  As we were starting for the office the elevator door opened and Wolfe emerged. He stopped, facing her.

  “I’m Susan Tescher,” she said.

  He bowed. “I’m Nero Wolfe. And these gentlemen?”

  She used a hand. “Mr. Hibbard, of the legal staff of Clock.” Mr. Hibbard was tall and skinny. “Mr Schultz, an associate editor of Clock.” Mr. Schultz was tall and broad. “Mr. Knudsen, a senior editor of Clock.” Mr. Knudsen was tall and bony.

  I had edged on ahead, to be there to get her into the red leather chair, which was where Wolfe always wanted the target, without any fuss. There was no problem. The men were perfectly satisfied with the three smaller chairs I placed for them, off to my right and facing Wolfe at his desk. All three crossed their legs, settled back, and clasped their hands. When I got out my notebook Schultz called Hibbard’s attention, and Hibbard called Knudsen’s attention, but there was no comment.

  “If you please,” Wolfe asked, “in what capacity are these gentlemen present?”

  He was looking at them, but Miss Tescher answered. “I suppose you know that I am assistant director of research at Clock.”

  “At least I know it now.”

  “The publicity about the contest, after what happened last night and this morning, and my connection with it, was discussed at a conference this afternoon. I can tell you confidentially that Mr. Tite himself was there. I thought I would be fired, but Mr. Tite is a very fair man and very loyal to his employees. All my work on the contest was done on my own time—of course I’m a highly trained researcher. So it was decided that Mr. Hibbard and Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Schultz should come with me here. They want to be available for advice if I need it”

  “Mr. Hibbard is a counselor-at-law?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he your attorney?”

  “Why-I don’t-” She looked at Hibbard. He moved his head, once to the left and back again. “No,” she said, “he isn’t.” She cocked her head. “I want to say something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I came here only as a favor to Lippert, Buff and Assa, because Mr. Assa asked me to. The conditions for breaking the tie in the contest were agreed to last evening by all of us and they can be changed only by changing the agreement, and it remains the same. So there is really nothing to discuss. That’s the way it looks to me and I wanted you to understand it.”

  Wolfe grunted. She went on, “But of course there’s nothing personal about it-I mean personal towards you. I happen to know a lot about you because I researched you two years ago, when you were on the list of cover prospects for Clock, but don’t ask me why they didn’t use you because I don’t know. Of course there are always dozens on the list, and they can’t all—”

  Knudsen cleared his throat, rather loud, and she looked at him. There was no additional signal that I caught, but evidently she didn’t need one. She let it lay. Returning to Wolfe, “So,” she said, “it’s not personal. It’s just that there is nothing to discuss.”

  “From your point of view,” Wolfe conceded, “there probably isn’t. And naturally, for you, as a consequence of the peculiar constitution of the human ego, your point of view is paramount. But your ego is bound to be jostled by other egos, and efforts to counteract the jostling by ignoring it have rarely succeeded. It is frequently advisable, and sometimes necessary, to give a little ground. For example, suppose I ask you for information in which you have no monopoly because it is shared with others. Suppose I ask you: at the meeting last evening, after Mr. Dahlmann displayed a paper and said it contained the answers, what remarks were made about it by any of the contestants? What did you say, and what did you hear any of them say?”

  “Are you supposing or asking?”

  “I’m asking.”

  She looked at Knudsen. His hea
d moved. At Schultz. His head moved. At Hibbard. His head moved. She returned to Wolfe. “When Mr. Assa asked me to come to see you he said it was about the contest, and that has no bearing on it.”

  “Then you decline to answer?”

  “Yes, I think I should.”

  “The police must have asked you. Did you decline to answer?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you anything about what the police asked me or what I said to them.”

  “Nor, evidently, anything about what the other contestants have said to you or you have said to them.”

  “My contact with the other contestants has been very limited. Just that meeting last evening.”

  Wolfe lifted a hand and ran a finger tip along the side of his nose a few times. He was being patient. “I may say, Miss Tescher, that my contact with the other contestants, mine and Mr. Goodwin’s, has been a little broader. Several courses have been suggested. One was that all five of you agree that the first five prizes be pooled, and that each of you accept one-fifth of the total as your share. The suggestion was not made by my clients or by me; I am merely asking you, without prejudice, would you consider such a proposal?”

  She didn’t need guidance on that one. “Of course I wouldn’t. Why should I?”

  “So you don’t concede that the manner of Mr. Dahlmann’s death, and the circumstances, call for reconsideration of anything whatever connected with the contest?”

  She pushed her head forward, and it reminded me of something, I couldn’t remember what. She said slowly and distinctly and positively, “I don’t concede anything at all, Mr. Wolfe.”

  She pulled her head back, and I remembered. A vulture I had seen at the zoo-exactly the same movement. Aside from the movement there was no resemblance; certainly the vulture hadn’t looked anything like as smart as she did, and had no lipstick, no earrings, and no hair on its head.