She shook her head. “Nobody.”
“Dr. Gamm,” Fleming said.
“Oh, of course,” she said.
“Her doctor?” I asked.
Fleming nodded. “Ours too. An internist. He’s — you might say — a friend of mine. He plays chess. When Isabel had a bad case of bronchitis a couple of years ago I—”
“Nearly three years ago,” she said.
“Was it? I recommended him. He’s a widower with two children. We have had him and Isabel here two or three evenings for bridge, but she wasn’t very good at it.”
“She was terrible,” Stella Fleming said.
“No card sense,” Fleming said. “His name is Theodore Gamm with two Ms. His office is on Seventy-eighth Street in Manhattan.”
Presumably he was helping with the problem, and I fully appreciated it; at least, by gum, I had one name and address. I got my notebook out and wrote it down to show that I was on the ball.
“He can’t tell you anything,” she said, perfectly calm, but suddenly she was on her feet, trembling, her hands tight fists, her eyes hot. “Nobody can! They won’t, they won’t! Get out! Get out!”
Fleming, up too, had an arm across her shoulders, but she didn’t know it. If I had sat tight she would probably have soon got organized again, but I hadn’t had a bite since breakfast. I nodded at Fleming, and he nodded back, and I went to the foyer for my hat and coat and let myself out. As I entered the elevator, William said, “So you got in, huh?” and I said, “Thanks to you, pal, telling both of them I was there.” Outside it was even colder, but the Heron started like an angel, as it damn well should, and I headed for the Grand Concourse.
When I entered the office, a little after half past six, Wolfe was at his desk, scowling at a document two inches thick — part of the transcript of the Rosenberg trial, which he had sent for after reading the first three chapters of Invitation to an Inquest. My desk was clean, no memos or messages about phone calls. I yanked a sheet from my pocket notebook and sat studying it until Wolfe cleared his throat, whereupon I rose and handed it to him.
“There,” I said. “The name and address of the doctor who treated Isabel Kerr when she had bronchitis nearly three years ago.”
He grunted. “And?”
“You’ll appreciate it more if I lead up to it. I spent an hour with Mr. and Mrs. Barry Fleming. Now or after dinner?”
He looked at the clock. Thirty-five minutes to anchovy fritters. “Is it urgent?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then it can wait. Saul called twice. Nothing. Fred will join him in the morning. I rang Mr. Parker, and he came after lunch and I described the situation, everything relevant except the name of Avery Ballou. He telephoned later. He had seen Orrie, and he has arranged for you to see him in the morning at ten o’clock. He thinks it advisable.”
“Has Orrie been charged? Homicide?”
“No.”
“But no bail?”
“No. Mr. Parker doesn’t wish to press it.” He glanced at the sheet I had handed him. “What’s this? Did this man kill her?”
“No, he cured her. I’m very proud of it. It’s the crop.”
“Pfui.” He dropped it and resumed with the transcript.
Business is taboo at the dinner table, but crime and criminals aren’t, and the Rosenberg case hogged the conversation all through the anchovy fritters, partridge in casserole with no olives in the sauce, cucumber mousse, and Creole curds and cream. Of course it was academic, since the Rosenbergs had been dead for years, but the young princes had been dead for five centuries, and Wolfe had once spent a week investigating that case, after which he removed More’s Utopia from his bookshelves because More had framed Richard III.
He let up only when we were back in the office and had finished with coffee. He pushed the tray aside and asked if it had to be verbatim, and I said yes and proceeded. When I told about the deal with William he pursed his lips, not objecting, merely reacting to the fact that the fifteen bucks was down the drain, since we couldn’t expect to bill Orrie. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes and quit reacting, as usual, until I had finished.
He opened his eyes and demanded, “You had no lunch? None at all?”
I shook my head. “If I had gone out it might have cost a C to get back up. William is a mooch.”
He straightened up. “Never do that.”
“It’s good for me. I was nine ounces overweight. Do you comment or do I?”
“You.”
I took a minute. “First, did Stella kill her sister? Two to one she didn’t. She—”
“Only two?”
“That’s the best I’ll give. The most important thing in the world, she said. If it’s still that important when she’s dead, what was it when she was alive? She left the rails twice in my presence. She just can’t stand it. If she went there Saturday morning and — do I need to spell it?”
“No. Why two to one? Why not even or less?”
“Because, on the record, a woman kills her sister only if she hates her or is afraid of her. Stella didn’t. She loved her and wanted to — well, save her. Make it three to one. Anyway, even if she did it, she’s hopeless. Try and prove it. Even if we got enough to satisfy us, Cramer and the DA would never buy it, let alone a jury. So forget her. As for him, no bet. He could have had an elegant motive, anybody could, but as of now the only one visible is that he killed her to stop his wife worrying about her, which is a little farfetched. One thing, though, why did he let me in?”
“So she wouldn’t encounter you in the hall.”
“Possibly, but he could have ordered me out and called a cop if he had to. It’s just a comment; maybe it was because he likes problems, or maybe he thought it would be good for her. More than a comment, a conclusion: if they’re out, they have no idea who is in. She said she couldn’t even try to guess, and I believe her. She’s no good at covering. When I pulled an obvious little dodge, saying that it might have been Orrie who was paying the rent, it wasn’t only her expression, she actually shook her head. Later she said she didn’t know who, but she does. What the hell, so do we.”
“If Orrie was candid.”
“He was. He had the lid off. For comments, I have saved the best for the last. Isabel’s other life. The circle.”
He grunted. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“That expands it. That was to be expected, as soon as you learned that her relations with her sister were restricted. A woman who eats by sufferance, without a contract, would of course prefer not to eat alone. You laugh?”
“I do. Most men wouldn’t put it all on eating. All right, so we have a circle too — as expected. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Godalmighty. I suggest again that we consider Avery Ballou.”
“I am considering him. I wanted first — no matter. We’ll discuss it in the morning after you see Orrie.” He reached for the transcript.
Chapter 6
Where you go to see a man in custody in Manhattan depends partly on why he’s there. It can be a precinct station, a room in the City Prison, a room in the District Attorney’s office, or the paddock. I don’t know how many cops call it the paddock, but Sergeant Purley Stebbins does. It is a bare, smelly room about twelve yards long, split along the center by a steel grill which extends from the middle of a wide wooden counter up to the ceiling, and there are a dozen or so wooden chairs strung along each side of the counter, the same kind of chairs for the visitors and visitees. Democracy.
Seated on one of the chairs on the visitors’ side at ten minutes past ten Tuesday morning, I was not chipper. I had supposed I would see Orrie in a room at the DA’s office until Parker had phoned to say it would be the City Prison, and then I had taken it for granted it would be in a room. But I had been escorted to the paddock, and there I was, with four other visitors spread along the line, the nearest one, a middle-aged fat woman with red eyes, only seven feet away. I would have liked to think they were merely showing what they thought of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but I didn’t. They had decided that Orrie Cather was a murderer, though they hadn’t charged him yet, and were taking no chances. Try to make them eat it.