“I’m not... I’ll come... later.” She got to her feet, took a step, and put her hand on my arm. “Later?”
“It’s already later. Whipple has been in the coop four days, and he’s innocent and you know it.” I took her arm and turned her, masculine but not rough, and she moved. She said she had to tell the maid and headed for a door in the rear, and I thought she might forget to come back, but no. When she returned she had a new look; she had decided to cope. If I had touched her arm I would have been cold-shouldered. But she permitted me to hold her platinum mink and to open and close the door. Down in the lobby, as the hallman opened that door for us, I told him distinctly, “You may keep that slip of paper for a souvenir,” and he almost lost his grip on the door. In the taxi she wasn’t talking; she kept her head turned, looking out the window. Undoubtedly she was doing what I had told Wolfe she would have time for, deciding on her line.
The charade began when we entered the hall of the old brownstone. The front door on the left, which is to the front room, was ajar half an inch, so I knew the office was empty, and Saul knew we had arrived. The whole ground floor is soundproofed, including the doors. She preferred to keep her coat, and I took her to the office, to the red leather chair, told her there would be a brief wait, left, closing the door, and proceeded to the alcove at the end of the hall. Wolfe was there by the hole in the wall with the panel opened. He looked a question, and I nodded. If there had been any important departure from the script, either at his end or mine, we would have had to go to the kitchen to discuss it.
I looked at my watch: 3:18. The wait was to be ten minutes from the time we entered the house, at exactly a quarter past. We stood it out. At 3:24 we both got our eyes at the hole, and it was close quarters. For the twentieth time I decided that the hole must be enlarged.
It was an absolutely perfect performance. All three of them, including Saul, had arrived before two o’clock, and I had been present at the briefing, though not at the rehearsing. Simply perfect. At 3:25 the connecting door to the front room opened and they entered, Saul in the lead, and she turned her head to face them. It can’t be marked against Saul that he didn’t look sinister, he couldn’t, with his big nose and flat ears and high sloping forehead. The first Negro was a big husky guy, as black as Cass Faison, in a blue sweater and gray slacks that hadn’t been pressed since Christmas. The second one was small and wiry, not so black, in a brown suit with light tan stripes, white shirt, and red tie. Neat and clean, but not elegant.
Saul led the way across and stopped at Wolfe’s desk, and they lined up there, side by side, facing Dolly Brooke in the red leather chair, ten feet away. For thirty long seconds they stood, no movement, gazing at her. She gazed back. At one point her jaw moved and I thought she was going to speak, but she didn’t. Of course Saul was counting the seconds. I have timed him on it and he’s never off more than one to a minute. He looked at the other two, and they both nodded. He nodded back and they filed out, not to the front room but to the hall, closing the door behind them.
I slid the panel shut, no noise, and Wolfe and I went to the kitchen. When the door had swung shut he grunted and said, “Satisfactory.”
“Awful corny,” I said, “and awful tough. Why she didn’t scream or throw something or jump up and run I don’t know. I wish I understood women.”
“Pfui. Need you report?”
“No. I followed instructions and she reacted more or less as expected. What I need after that is a drink, and I have six or seven minutes.” I went to a cupboard for a bottle of Big Sandy and to a shelf for a glass, poured, and took a healthy sip. Fritz, who was at the sink sprinkling watercress, said, “There’s milk in the refrigerator.”
“Not when I’ve just watched three grown men bully a poor little woman.” I took a sip.
“She is not little and she may be a murderer.”
“Murderess. You mustn’t call a female Jew a Jewess, and you mustn’t call a female Negro a Negress, but it’s okay to call a female murderer a murderess.” I took a sip.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because they resent it. That’s another civil right, resenting things. I resent being called a private eye or a hawkshaw, so don’t do it.” I looked at my watch, took a sip, put the glass on the big table, and told Wolfe, “Time’s up unless you want to stretch it.”
“I don’t.” He moved and I followed. Saul was in the hall, up front. He had let the other members of the cast out and was standing by, to stop her if she decided to duck. Wolfe sent him a nod, which he had coming, and opened the door to the office.
Dolly Brooke turned her head, jumped up, and demanded, “Who were those men?”
He circled around her to his desk, sat, and regarded her. “Will you please be seated, madam?”
“Tricks,” she said. “Tricks! Who were they?”
“When you stand I must crane. Will you sit?”
She sat down, on the edge of the chair. “Who were they?”
“I may name them later, or may not. Obviously they were identifying you as someone they had seen somewhere. It—”
“Where?”
“Let me finish a sentence. Mr. Goodwin has told you of the information furnished by Mr. Vaughn regarding his movements that Monday evening. As evidence of Mr. Whipple’s innocence that information was invaluable, but it had a flaw. Faced with it, you might say that the account you gave Mr. Vaughn was an invention; that you had not entered the building, even that you had not driven there. Therefore it was necessary to establish the fact that you had entered the building and approximately the times you entered and left. That has been done. The white man was Mr. Saul Panzer, who has no peer as an investigator. The Negroes were reputable citizens who live in Harlem. For the present I withhold their names; you may learn them later, in a courtroom, if the point becomes an issue.”
“Are you...” She let it hang. Her face had taken me along on her trip as she realized she had been flushed out of the tall grass. “You mean they saw me?”
Wolfe turned a palm up. “Could I make it any plainer, madam?”
He sure could. Me, I would have just said yes. I happen to prefer a straightforward lie to one with curves, but I admit it’s a question of personal taste. It isn’t that he wants to have an out; he simply likes them fancy.
She looked at me, saw only a manly truth-loving phiz, returned to Wolfe, and took a skip. “Peter Vaughn,” she said with feeling. “I owe this to him.” Another skip. “My husband.” Still another. “Do the police know?”
“Not yet.” Wolfe opened a drawer and took out a document. “I suppose they’ll have to eventually, but it’s barely possible that they won’t. Archie?”
I arose and took the document and handed it to her and stayed on my feet, since she would soon need a pen.
“Read it,” Wolfe said. “I made it as brief as possible.”
She was a slow reader. I thought she would never finish the first page, and she took even longer with the second. Finally she looked up. “If you think I’m going to sign this,” she said, “you’re crazy.”
“You won’t even consider it?”
“I will not.”
“Get Mr. Cramer, Archie.”
“Who is Mr. Cramer?”
“A police inspector.”
I was at my desk, starting to dial.
“Don’t do that!” she yelled. I could use a nicer word, but a yell is a yell. As I went on dialing, she bounced out of the chair, to me, and grabbed my arm and jerked. She turned to Wolfe and presumably was glaring; her back was to me.
“I won’t squabble,” Wolfe snapped. “You will sign that statement, now, or you will stay until Mr. Cramer comes.” He turned his head and roared. “Saul!”