My second tour, Saturday morning, was more thorough, and when, having completed it, I entered the reception hall on my way to the front door, Steck was there.
He spoke. “Could I help you, sir? Were you looking for something?”
I regarded him. What if he was a loyal and devoted old retainer? What if he had been afraid his master was in a state of mind where he might plug somebody, and had pinched the gun to remove temptation? Should I take him up to my room for a confidential talk? Should I take him down to Wolfe? It would make a horse laugh if we unloaded to Cramer, and our client and his family were put through the wringer, and it turned out that the gun had been under Steck’s mattress all the time. I regarded him, decided it would have to be referred to a genius like Wolfe, and told him that I was beyond help, I was just fidgety, but thanked him all the same. When he saw I was going out he opened the door for me, trying not to look relieved.
Whenever possible I go out every morning, sometime between nine and eleven, when Wolfe is up in the plant rooms, to loosen up my legs and get a lungful of exhaust fumes, but it wasn’t just through force of habit that I was headed outdoors. An assistant district attorney, probably accompanied by a dick, was coming to see Jarrell at eleven o’clock, to get more facts about James L. Eber, deceased, and Jarrell and I had agreed that it was just as well for me to be off the premises.
Walking the thirty blocks to the Gazette building, I dropped in to ask Lon Cohen if the Giants were going to move to San Francisco. I also asked him for the latest dope on the Eber murder, and he asked me who Wolfe’s client was. Neither of us got much satisfaction. As far as he knew, the cops were making a strenuous effort to turn up a lead and serve the cause of justice, and as far as I knew, Wolfe was fresh out of clients but if and when I had anything good enough for the front page I would let him know. From there, having loosened up my legs, I took a taxi to 35th Street.
Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms and was at his desk, dictating to Orrie, at my desk. They took time out to greet me, which I appreciated, from two busy men with important matters to attend to like writing to Lewis Hewitt to tell him that a cross of Cochlioda noezliana with Odontoglossum armainvillierense was going to bloom and inviting him to come and look at it. Not having had my usual forty minutes with the morning Times at breakfast, I got it from the rack and went to the couch, and had finished the front-page headlines and the sports pages when the doorbell rang. The man seated at my desk should have answered it, but he was being told by Wolfe how to spell a word which should have been no problem, so I went.
One glance through the panel, at a husky specimen in a gray suit, a pair of broad shoulders, and a big red face, was sufficient. I went and put the chain bolt on, opened the door to the two inches allowed by the chain, and spoke through the crack. “Good morning. I haven’t seen you for months. You’re looking fine.”
“Come on, Goodwin, open up.”
“I’d like to, but you know how it is. Mr. Wolfe is engaged, teaching a man how to spell. What do I tell him?”
“Tell him I want to know why he changed your name to Alan Green and got you a job as secretary to Otis Jarrell.”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself. Make yourself comfortable while I go ask him. Of course if he doesn’t know, there’s no point in your bothering to come in.”
Leaving the door open to the chain, not to be rude, I went to the office and crossed to Wolfe’s desk. “Sorry to interrupt, but Inspector Cramer wants to know why you changed my name to Alan Green and got me a job as secretary to Otis Jarrell. Shall I tell him?”
He scowled at me. “How did he find out? That Jarrell girl?”
“No. I don’t know. If you have to blame it on a woman, take Nora Kent, but I doubt it.”
“Confound it. Bring him in.”
I returned to the front, removed the chain, and swung the door open. “He’s delighted that you’ve come. So am I.”
He may not have caught the last three words, as he had tossed his hat on the bench and was halfway down the hall. By the time I had closed the door and made it back to the office he was at the red leather chair. Orrie wasn’t visible. He hadn’t come to the hall, so Wolfe must have sent him to the front room. That door was closed. I went to my chair and was myself again.
Cramer, seated, was speaking. “Do you want me to repeat it? What I told Goodwin?”
“That shouldn’t be necessary.” Wolfe, having swiveled to face him, was civil but not soapy. “But I am curious, naturally, as to how you got the information. Has Mr. Goodwin been under surveillance?”
“No, but a certain address on Fifth Avenue has been, since eight o’clock this morning. When Goodwin was seen coming out, at a quarter to ten, and recognized, and it was learned from the man in the lobby that the man who had just gone out was named Alan Green and he was Otis Jarrell’s secretary, and it was reported to me, I wasn’t just curious. If I had just been curious I would have had Sergeant Stebbins phone you. I’ve come myself.”
“I commend your zeal, Mr. Cramer. And it’s pleasant to see you again, but I’m afraid my wits are a little dull this morning. You must bear with me. I didn’t know that taking a job under an alias is an offense against society and therefore a proper subject for police inquiry. And by you? The head of the Homicide Squad?”
“I ought to be able to bear with you, I’ve had enough practice. But by God, it’s just about all I—” He stopped abruptly, got a cigar from a pocket, rolled it between his palms, stuck it in his mouth, and clamped his teeth on it. He never lit one. The mere sight of Wolfe, and the sound of his voice, with the memories they recalled, had stirred his blood, and it needed calming down.
He took the cigar from his mouth. “You’re bad enough,” he said, under control, “when you’re not sarcastic. When you are, you’re the hardest man to take in my jurisdiction. Do you know that a man named Eber was shot, murdered, in his apartment on Forty-ninth Street Thursday afternoon? Day before yesterday?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Do you know that for five years he had been Otis Jarrell’s secretary and had recently been fired?”
“Yes, I know that too. Permit me to comment that this seems a little silly. I read newspapers.”
“Okay, but it’s in the picture, and you want the picture. According to information received, Goodwin’s first appearance at Jarrell’s place was on Monday afternoon, three days before Eber was killed. Jarrell told the man in the lobby that his name was Alan Green and that he was going to live there. And he has been. Living there.” His head jerked to me. “That right, Goodwin?”
“Right,” I admitted.
“You’ve been there since Monday, under an assumed name, as Jarrell’s secretary?”
“Right — with time out for errands. I’m not there now.”
“You’re damn right you’re not. You’re not there now because you knew someone was coming from the DA’s office to see Jarrell and you didn’t want to be around. Right?”
“Fifth Amendment.”
“Nuts. That’s for Reds and racketeers, not for clowns like you.” He jerked back to Wolfe, decided his blood needed calming again, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and chewed on it.
He removed it. “That’s the picture, Wolfe,” he said. “We’ve got no lead that’s worth a damn on who killed Eber. Naturally our best source on his background and his associates has been Jarrell and the others at his place. Eber not only worked there, he lived there. We’ve got a lot of facts about him, but nothing with a motive for murder good enough to fasten on. We’re just about ready to decide we’re not going to get anywhere with Jarrell and that bunch and we’d better concentrate on other possibilities, and then this. Goodwin. Goodwin and you.”