“I did not see her legs. Do your typing. I like to hear you typing. If you are typing you can’t talk.”
To humor him I typed, which as it turned out was just as well, since that neat list of facts was going to be needed before bedtime. It was finished when Fritz entered at eight o’clock to announce dinner, the main item of which was a dish called by Wolfe and Fritz “Cassoulettes Castelnaudary,” but by me boiled beans. I admit they were my favorite beans, which is saying something. The only thing that restrained me at all was my advance knowledge of the pumpkin pie to come.
Back in the office, where the clock said nine-forty, I was just announcing my intention of catching a movie by the tail at the Rialto when the phone rang. It was Inspector Cramer, whose voice I hadn’t heard for weeks, asking for Wolfe. Wolfe picked up his receiver, and I stuck to mine so as to get it firsthand.
“Wolfe? Cramer. I’ve got a paper here, taken from the pocket of a dead man, a receipt for five thousand dollars, signed by you, dated today. It says you have information to give the police if he dies. All right, he’s dead. I don’t ask you to come up here, because I know you wouldn’t, and I’m too busy to go down there. What’s the information?”
Wolfe grunted. “What killed him?”
“An explosion. Just give—”
“Did it kill his wife too?”
“Naw, she’s okay, only overcome, you know. Just give—”
“I haven’t got the information. Mr. Goodwin has it. Archie?”
I spoke up. “It would take quite a while, Inspector, and I’ve got it all typed. I can run up there—”
“All right, come ahead. The Poor apartment on Eighty-fourth Street. The number is—”
“I know the number. I know everything. Sit down and rest till I get there.”
II
In the living room of an apartment on the sixth floor, on Eighty-fourth near Amsterdam Avenue, I stood and looked down at what was left of Eugene Poor. All I really recognized was the gray herringbone suit and the shirt and tie, on account of what the explosion had done to his face, and also on that account I didn’t look much, for while I may not be a softy I see no point in prolonged staring at a face that has entirely stopped being a face.
I asked Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who was sticking close by me, apparently to see that I didn’t swipe Eugene’s shoes, “You say a cigar did that to him?”
Purley nodded. “Yeah, so the wife says. He lit a cigar and it blew up.”
“Huh. I don’t believe it. Yes, I guess I do too, if she says so. They make novelties. Now, that’s a novelty.”
I looked around. The room was full of what you would expect, assorted snoops, all doing the chores, from print collectors up to inspectors, or at least one inspector, namely Cramer himself, who sat at a table near a wall reading the script I had brought him. Most of them I knew, at least by sight, but there was one complete stranger. She was in a chair in a far corner, being questioned by a homicide dick named Rowcliff. Being trained to observe details even when under a strain, I had caught at a glance some of her outstanding characteristics, such as youth, shapeliness, and shallow depressions at the temples, which happen to appeal to me.
I aimed a thumb in her direction and asked Purley, “Bystander, wife’s sister, or what?”
He shook his head. “God knows. She came to call just after we got here and we want to know what for.”
“I hope Rowcliff doesn’t abuse her. I would enjoy a murder where Rowcliff was the one that got it, and so would you.”
I strolled over to the corner and stopped against them, and the girl and the dick looked up. “Excuse me,” I told her, “when you get through here will you kindly call on Nero Wolfe at this address?” I handed her a card. The temples were even better close up. “Mr. Wolfe is going to solve this murder.”
Rowcliff snarled. He always snarled. “Get away from here and stay away.”
Actually he was helpless, because the inspector had sent for me and he knew it. I ignored him and told the temples, “If this person takes that card away from you, it’s in the phone book, Nero Wolfe,” left them and crossed over to Cramer at the table, dodging photographers and other scientists on the way.
Cramer didn’t look up, so I asked the top of his head, “Where’s Mrs. Poor?”
He growled, “Bedroom.”
“I want to see her.”
“The hell you do.” He jiggled the sheets I had brought him to even the edges. “Sit down.”
I sat down and said, “I want to see our client.”
“So you’ve got a client?”
“Sure we have, didn’t you see that receipt?”
He grunted. “Give her a chance. I am. Let her get herself together. Don’t touch that!”
I was only moving a hand to point at a box of cigars there on the table, with the lid closed. I grinned at him. “The more the merrier. I mean fingerprints. But if that’s the box the loaded one came from, you ought to satisfy my curiosity. He smoked two cigars this afternoon at the office.”
He shot me a glance, then got out his penknife and opened the lid and lifted the paper flap. It was a box of twenty-five and twenty-four of them were still there. Only one gone. I inspected at close range, sat back, and nodded. “They’re the same. They not only look it, but the bands say Alta Vista. There would be two of those bands still in the ash tray down at the office if Fritz wasn’t so neat.” I squinted again at the array in the box. “They certainly look kosher. Do you suppose they’re all loaded?”
“I don’t know. The laboratory can answer that one.” He closed the box with the tip of his knife. “Damn murders anyhow.” He tapped the papers with his finger. “This is awful pat. The wife let out a hint or two, and I’ve sent for Blaney. I hope to God it’s a wrap-up, and maybe it is. How did Poor seem this afternoon, scared, nervous, what?”
“Mostly stubborn. Mind made up.”
“What about the wife?”
“Stubborn too. She wanted him to get out from under and go on breathing. She thought they could be as happy as larks on the income from a measly quarter of a million.”
The next twenty minutes was a record — Inspector Cramer and me conversing without a single ugly remark. It lasted that long only because of various interruptions from his army. The last one, toward the end, was from Rowcliff walking up to the table to say:
“Do you want to talk to this young woman, Inspector?”
“How do I know? What about her?”
“Her name is Helen Vardis. She’s an employee of Poor’s firm, Blaney and Poor — been with them four years. At first she showed signs of hysteria and then calmed down. First she said she just happened to come here. Then she saw what that was worth and said she came to see Poor by appointment, at his request, on a confidential matter, and wants us to promise not to tell Blaney because she would lose her job.”
“What confidential matter?”
“She won’t say. That’s what I’ve been working on.”
“Work on it some more. She’s got all night.”
“Yes, sir. Goodwin gave her Nero Wolfe’s card and told her to go to see him.”
“Oh, he did. Go and work on her.” Rowcliff left and Cramer glared at me. “You did?”
I looked hurt. “Certainly. Don’t we have to do something to earn that five grand?”
“I don’t know why, since you’ve already got it. How would you like to go somewhere else? Next thing you’ll be liberating this box of cigars or maybe the corpse, and I can’t spare a squad to watch — now what?”