Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 43 Page 4

  By the time the Gazette went to press on Thursday, June first, the date of the last clipping, the police had got nowhere. They didn’t even claim that anyone had been invited in for questioning, let alone name a suspect; they only said that the investigation was being vigorously pursued, which was probably true, since they hate a hit-and-run and don’t quit until it’s absolutely hopeless, and even then they don’t forget it.

  There was nothing about Elinor Denovo that I didn’t already know, except that she was vice-president of Raymond Thorne Productions, Inc. Miss Amy Denovo had been interviewed but hadn’t said much. Raymond Thorne had said that Mrs. Denovo had made valuable contributions to the art of television production and her death was a great loss not only for his company but for the whole television industry and therefore for the country. I thought he should make up his mind whether television was an art or an industry.

  I put the file on Lon’s desk, waited until he had finished at a phone, and said, “Many thanks. I was curious about a detail. The latest item is June first. Would you know if there has been any progress since?”

  He got at a phone, the green one this time, pressed a button, and in a moment talked, and then waited. While he waited another phone buzzed, and stopped when he pushed a button. In a couple of minutes he told the green phone, “Yeah, sure.” In another couple of minutes he cradled it, turned to me and said, “Apparently it’s dead. Our last word, more than a month ago, was that we might as well cross it off. They had only one man still on it. But now of course, with Nero Wolfe horning in, it’s far from dead. So it was murder. I don’t expect you to name him, even off the record, but I want enough for a box.”

  I was on my feet. “Journalists,” I said, “are the salt and pepper of the earth. I would enjoy discussing that with you, but I’m on my way to a rustic swimming pool in the middle of a tailor-made glade in the Westchester woods, and I’m twenty hours late. I said it was something trivial, but have it your way. Yes, it was murder, and the driver of the car was the skunk who topped my three aces with four deuces Thursday night. I hope they get him.”

  I turned and went.

  But down in the lobby I went to a phone booth, dialed a number I didn’t have to look up, gave my name, asked if Sergeant Stebbins was around, and after a long wait got his voice:

  “Stebbins. Something up, Archie?”

  He must have just won a bet or got a raise. He called me Archie only about once in two years, and sometimes he wouldn’t even say Goodwin but made it just you. I returned the compliment, “Nothing with a bite, Purley, just a routine question, but to answer it you may have to look at a file. You may have forgotten it, it was nearly three months ago—a hit-and-run on East Eighty-third Street, a woman named Elinor Denovo—”

  “We haven’t forgotten it. We don’t forget a hit-and-run.”

  “I know you don’t, I was just being impolite for practice. Someone asked me if you’ve dug up a lead on it, and of course I didn’t know. Have you?”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Oh, Mr. Wolfe and I were discussing crime and whether cops are as good as they ought to be, and he mentioned this Elinor Denovo. As you know, he misses nothing in the papers. I said you would probably get that one, and I was curious. Of course I’m not asking for any inside dope …”

  “There isn’t any dope, inside or outside. It’s hanging. But we’re not forgetting it.”

  “Right. I hope you get him. Nobody likes a hit-and-run.”

  Walking to Forty-third Street for the car, I had to concede that I had got no relief at all for the itch.

  Chapter 4

  You would suppose that at ten minutes to ten Monday morning, as I sat in a taxicab headed uptown, with the box on the seat beside me and the breast pocket of my jacket bulging with envelopes containing letters to twelve savings banks because I never lug a brief case if I can help it, my mind would be on the morning’s program, but it wasn’t. It was on the hour just past, or part of it, instead of the one just ahead. I don’t like to have people bellow at me, particularly not Wolfe.

  Also I had had only six hours’ sleep, a full two hours less than I need and nearly always get. Getting home after midnight Sunday, I had decided against typing twelve letters before turning in, and so had to set the alarm for seven o’clock. When it went off I opened one eye to glare at it, but I knew I would have to hustle, much as I hate hustling before breakfast, and in six minutes, maybe seven, I was on my feet. At 7:45 I was at the little table in the kitchen where I eat breakfast, on the last swallow of orange juice, and Fritz was crossing to me with the grilled ham and corn fritters, and at 8:101 was in the office at the typewriter. At 9:15 I finished the twelfth letter and had started folding and putting them in envelopes when the doorbell rang, and I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass in the front door, and saw a big burly male with a big round red face topped by a big battered broad-brimmed felt hat. The hat alone would have been enough. Inspector Cramer of Homicide South must be the only man in New York who wears such a hat on a hot sunny day in August.

  Nuts, I thought, let him ring. But it must be just for me, since he knew Wolfe was never available before eleven o’clock, so I went and opened the door and said, “Good morning and greetings, but I’m busy and I’m in a rush. I really mean it.”

  “So am I.” It was gruff, but it always is. “I’m just stopping by on my way down. Why did you call Stebbins on that hit-and-run?”

  “What the hell, I told him why.”

  “I know you did. Also I know you and I know Wolfe. Discussing crime my ass. All right, discuss it with me now. I want to know why you’re working on that hit-and-run.”

  “I’m not. Mr. Wolfe isn’t.” I glanced at my wrist. “I would like to ask you in for some give and take, you know I enjoy that, but I’ve got a date. Except for what was in the papers, I know absolutely nothing about that hit-and-run, and neither does Mr. Wolfe. No one has consulted with me about it. The only client we’ve got is a girl who can’t find her father and wants us to.” I glanced at my wrist. “Damn it, I’ll be late.” I started the door around. He opened his mouth, clamped it shut, about-faced, and started down the seven steps of the stoop. His PD car was there, double-parked. By the time he reached it I was back in the office.

  Time was short, but it was quite possible that Cramer would phone while I was gone, and Wolfe didn’t know about my call to Purley Stebbins. He is not to be disturbed short of an emergency when he is up in the plant rooms, but he had to be told, so I took the house phone and pushed a button, and after a wait his voice came.

  “Yes?”

  “Me in a hurry. Cramer was here just now, stopping on his way downtown. I haven’t had a chance to tell you that Saturday afternoon I rang Stebbins and—”

  “I’m busy!” he bellowed and hung up.

  I assumed he had just found a thrip on a favorite plant or dry rot on a pseudobulb, but as I said, I do not like to be bellowed at. If Cramer called they could discuss crime. When the letters were in the envelopes and in my pocket I still had a chore left, ringing Mortimer M. Hotchkiss, the vice-president who bossed the Thirty-fourth Street branch of the Continental Bank and Trust Company. That didn’t take long; he was always glad to be of service to a depositor—not me, Nero Wolfe—whose balance never went below five figures and sometimes hit six. That done, I got the box from the safe and was off. Nothing was in it but the money; the letter was on a shelf with some other classified items.

  At the Eighty-sixth Street branch I found that Hotchkiss had been prompt. I was only six steps inside when a man at a desk got up and motioned me over and asked if I was Mr. Goodwin, and then took me inside the rail and along an aisle to a door at the front. He opened it and bowed me in, and there was Amy Denovo on a chair facing a big glass-topped desk. Behind the desk was a middle-aged banker with a whiny dome and rimless cheaters. As I crossed he rose and offered a hand, saying that it was a pleasure, Mr. Goodwin, a real pleasure, which was par, since Hotchkiss was a vice-president a
nd he wasn’t I said, “Mr. Atwood?” and he said yes and told me to sit, but after telling Amy good morning I put the box on the desk, fished the key from my pocket and used it, and opened the lid wide. Then I sat. Atwood had started to, but was up again, staring at the contents of the box. It rated a stare, even from a banker.

  “That belongs to Miss Denovo,” I said. “I assume that Mr. Hotchkiss told you that I work for Nero Wolfe. Miss Denovo has engaged Mr. Wolfe’s services, and I’m here for her. That’s two hundred and forty-four thousand dollars, all in centuries. Miss Denovo would like to have twelve bank checks for twenty grand each, payable to her, and the remaining four grand deposited in her account.”

  “Certainly,” he said. He looked at her and back at me. “That’s quite a … quite a … certainly. Do you want … it will take a while, a little while—counting it and making out the checks.”

  I nodded. “Sure. Certainly. Anyway, if you’re not too busy, we’d like to discuss something with you.”

  “Cer—I’ll be glad to, Mr. Goodwin.” His hand started for the phone on the desk, but he changed his mind. He closed the lid of the box, tucked it under his arm, said he would be back soon, and went.

  When the door was shut Amy asked, “What’s he going to do?”

  “His duty,” I said. “The slogan of this bank is: THE BANK YOU CAN BANK ON. You have crossed and uncrossed your ankles three times. Relax.”

  What “soon” means depends on the circumstances. For there and then I would have supposed about five minutes, but twelve had passed when the door opened and Atwood entered, closed the door, crossed to his desk, and sat. He looked at me, then at her, and back at me, trying to decide which one the bank wanted to bank on it. “It will take a little while,” he said. “You wanted to discuss something?”

  “Right,” I said. “Of course a bank is choosy about handing out information about its customers, but I am speaking for Miss Denovo. Her mother had an account here for nine years. Naturally, when you saw what was in that box you wondered where it came from. We think a lot of it came from your bank.”

  He gawked at me. A banker shouldn’t gawk, but he did. He opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again to say, “I’ll ask you to explain that statement, Mr. Goodwin.”

  “I’m going to. Every month for twenty-two years Mrs. Elinor Denovo cashed a bank check for a thousand dollars. She always asked for and got it in hundred-dollar bills. That’s where the contents of that box came from. She never spent a dollar of it. From your expression I suppose you’re thinking this may be leading to something ugly, blackmail for instance, but it isn’t. It’s perfectly clean. The point is, we have assumed that Mrs. Denovo cashed the checks here, probably a hundred of them in nine years, and her daughter wants to know the name of the bank that drew them. She would also like to know if they were payable to Elinor Denovo, or to cash or bearer.”

  His eyes went to Amy and he thought he was going to ask her something, but returned to me. His face had cleared some, but he was still a banker and always would be. He spoke. “As you said, Mr. Goodwin, banks are choosy about giving out information regarding their customers. They should be.”

  “Sure. I wasn’t crabbing.”

  “But since it’s Miss Denovo, and it’s about her mother, I’m not going to, uh, hem and haw. I don’t have to consult my staff to answer your questions. As a man of wide experience, you probably know that it is considered proper and desirable for a bank official to keep informed about the—well, call it habits, of the customers. I have known about those checks cashed by Mrs. Denovo for several years. One each and every month. They were drawn by the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company, the main office on Broad Street, payable to bearer.” He looked at Amy and back at me. “As a matter of fact, I tell you frankly that I’m obliged to you. Any banker, if someone walked in with a quarter of a million dollars in currency, would be … well, curious. He should be. You understand that. So I’m glad you told me … well, I’m obliged to you. And to you, Miss Denovo.” He actually grinned—a real, frank grin. “A bank you can bank on. But that’s all I can tell you about those checks because it’s all I know.”

  “It’s all we wanted.”

  “Good.” He rose. “I’ll see how they’re getting on.” He went. When the door was shut Amy started to say something, but I shook my head at her. There were probably ten thousand rooms in the five boroughs that were bugged. The office of the top guy at a branch bank might be one of them, and if so that was no place to discuss any part of a secret that the client had kept the lid on for most of her life, or even give a hint. So to pass the time, since it wouldn’t be sociable just to sit and stare back at Amy, I got up and went to take a look at the titles of books on shelves at the wall, and when International Bank Directory caught my eye I slid it out, opened it at New York, and turned to the page I wanted.

  I would have said that the odds were at least a million to one against one of the officers or directors of the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company being someone we had a good line to, and when I saw that name, Avery Ballou, the second one on the alphabetical list of the Board of Directors, I said, “I’ll be damned,” so loud that Amy twisted around.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  I told her nothing was the matter, just the contrary; we had just got a break I would explain later.

  The rest of the errand at the bank was merely routine. At eleven o’clock Amy and I were sitting at a table in a drugstore on Madison Avenue, her with coffee and me with a glass of milk. The twelve letters had been dropped into a mailbox at the corner and the empty box was beside me on a chair. I had told her why I had shushed her at the bank, and about the break, of course not mentioning Ballou’s name, and had offered to bet her a finif that we would spot her father within three days, but she said she wouldn’t bet against what she wanted. At 11:10 I said I had to make a phone call, went to the booth, dialed the number I knew best, and after eight rings got what I expected.

  “Yes?”

  He knows darned well that’s no way to answer a phone, but try to change him.

  “Me,” I said. “In a drugstore with the client, having refreshments. The letters have been mailed, with enclosures, and she is taking the box home as a souvenir of her mother or father, I don’t know which. Three items. First, what I started to tell you this morning when you bellowed at me. Cramer may phone, so you ought to know that I rang Stebbins Saturday afternoon. I told him that you and I were discussing crime the other day and the hit-and-run that killed a woman named Elinor Denovo came up, and I wondered if they had got a lead. He told Cramer, and of course Cramer thinks that the simplest question from you or me means that we’ve got something hot. I told him that we only knew what we read in the papers. If he phones you—”

  “Pfui. What else?”

  “Second, you said Friday evening that my next stop after the bank would be Raymond Thorne. Any change?”

  “No.”

  “Third, the bank was pie. The checks were drawn by the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company, the third largest bank in town, payable to bearer, and I took a look at it in the International Bank Directory. I won’t mention his name on the phone, but you remember that one winter evening about a year and a half ago a man sat in the office and said to you, quote, ‘I have never spent an hour in a pink bedroom,’ end quote. Well, he’s on the Board of Directors of the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company.”

  “Indeed.” A five-second pause. “Satisfactory.”

  “All of that. The kind of break you read about. Shall I take him first instead of Thorne?”

  “I think not.” Another pause. “It needs reflection.”

  “Okay. Don’t stand in the hall at lunchtime. I may not make it.”

  When I got back to the table Amy had started her third cup of coffee. As I sat she said, “I’ve been thinking. You’re wonderful, Mr. Goodwin. Simply wonderful. I wish … I want to call you Archie.”

  “Try it and see what happens. I might like it. Since you say your mother was be
ing sarcastic when she tagged you Amy I suppose you wish your name was Araminta or Hephzibah, or you pick it.”

  “I could pick a better one.”

  “I’ll bet you could. Now we have a problem. I have to ask people countless questions about your mother, a few of those whose names you gave me yesterday, and I am to start with Raymond Thorne. You’ll phone him and tell him you’re sending me and you hope he’ll cooperate, but I can’t just say I’m after men your mother knew in the summer of nineteen forty-four—that’s when the genes met—since you don’t want anyone to know or even suspect that it’s a father hunt. So I have a suggestion, approved by Mr. Wolfe, which we expect you to approve.”

  “Oh, I’ll approve anything you—” She stopped and tightened her lips. Then she smiled. “Listen to me. You might think I had no brains at all. Tell me and we’ll see.”

  I told her.

  Chapter 5

  The office of Raymond Thorne Productions was on the sixth floor of one of the newer steel-and-glass hives on Madison Avenue in the Forties. Judging from its size, and the furniture and fixtures, and the cordial smile of the receptionist, the television art, or maybe industry, was doing fine. Also I had to wait twenty minutes to get in to Thorne, though he had told Amy on the phone that his door would always be open for her or anyone she sent.

  Of course I wasn’t suspecting that he might himself be the target. In her letter Elinor had told Amy that she hadn’t seen or heard from her father since four months before she was born, and there was no reason to suppose that that might be flam and she had seen him every work day for twenty years. The idea that a detective should suspect everything that everybody says is a good general rule, but there’s a limit.