“Sure, it’s routine.” He was matter-of-fact. “It was started by my aunt a couple of years ago when his legs went bad, and he has kept it up. How goes it? Have you spotted her?”
“Not to paste a label on.” I aimed a thumb at the cabinet. “What’s this, a dishwasher?”
“Hell no, a chow wagon. Designed by my aunt and made to order. Plug it in any outlet.”
“It’s quite a vehicle.” I moved to it. “Mr. Wolfe ought to have one for breakfast in his room. May I take a look?”
“Sure, go ahead. I’ve got to wash my hands.”
He went to the sink and turned on a faucet. I opened the door of the cabinet. There was room enough inside for breakfast for a family, with many grooves for the shelves so that the spaces could be arranged as desired. I slid a couple of them out and in, tapped the walls, and inspected the thermostat.
“Very neat,” I said admiringly. “Just what I want for my ninetieth birthday.”
“I’ll remember and send you one.” He was patting his hands with a paper towel.
“Do so.” I neared him. “Tell me something. Did Lewent say anything — uh — disagreeable about Miss Riff to you this afternoon?”
He squinted at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m just asking. Did he?”
“No. I haven’t seen Lewent this afternoon, not since he brought you up to my room and left us. Now I’ve answered, why did you ask?”
“Something someone said. Forget it.”
“Who said what?”
I shook my head. “Later. If you don’t want to forget it, I’ll save it for after dinner. We’ll be late for cocktails.”
He tossed the paper towel at a wastebasket, missed it, growled something, went and picked it up and dropped it in, told me to come on, and led the way to the elevator.
The provision for drinks in Huck’s room, which was large and lush with luxury, was ample and varied. They were on a portable bar near the center of the room, and alongside it was Huck in his wheelchair, freshly shaven, his hair brushed with care, wearing a lemon-colored shirt, a maroon bow tie, and a maroon jacket. Also the plaid woolen shawl that had covered his lower half had been replaced by a maroon quilted one. The room was lit softly but well enough, with lamps around — one of them a rosy silk globe at the end of a metal staff clamped to the frame of Huck’s chair. As Thayer and I approached, Huck greeted us.
“Daiquiri as usual, Paul? And you, Mr. Goodwin?”
Having spotted a bottle of Mangan’s Irish in the collection, I asked for that. Huck poured it himself, and Sylvia Marcy passed it to me. She had changed from her nurse’s uniform to a neat little number, a dress of exactly the same color as Huck’s shirt, as well as I could tell in that light; but she hadn’t changed her coo. Mrs. O’Shea stood off to one side, sipping something on the rocks, and Dorothy Riff was there by the bar with a half-emptied long one. With my generous helping of Mangan’s, I backed off a little and looked and listened. I have good eyes and ears, and they have had long training under the guidance of Nero Wolfe, but I couldn’t see a movement or hear a word or tone that gave the faintest hint that one of them knew a body with a crushed skull was lying only fifty feet away, waiting to be found. They talked and got refills and laughed at a story Huck told. It was a nice little gathering, not hilarious, but absolutely wholesome.
At the end Huck made it more wholesome still. Mrs. O’Shea was starting to leave, and he called to her, and when she rejoined us he leaned over to reach a low rack at the side of his chair. Coming up with three little boxes bearing the name of Tiffany, he addressed the females.
“I’m sure you know, you three, that if it weren’t for you my life would be miserable, crippled as I am. It is you who make it not merely bearable, but pleasant, really pleasant, and I’ve been thinking how I can show my appreciation.”
He tapped the top box with a finger. “I was going to give these to you next Wednesday, my birthday, but I decided to do it today on account of Mr. Goodwin. His mission here, at the instance of my brother-in-law, is an imputation against you that I feel is utterly unjustified. Mr. Lewent is my wife’s brother and so must be humored to the limit of tolerance; he was born in this house, and I will never challenge his right to live here and die here; but I want you to know that I have complete confidence in you, all three of you, and to make that as emphatic as possible I’m making this little presentation in the presence of Mr. Goodwin. Mrs. O’Shea?”
He extended a hand with one of the boxes, and the housekeeper stepped up and took it.
“Miss Riff?”
She took hers.
“Miss Marcy?”
She took hers.
As they got their eyes on their loot there were exclamations and expressions of delight. Sylvia Marcy let out a running broad coo that would have brought tears to my eyes if I hadn’t been so busy using them.
“They’re good timekeepers too,” Huck, said, beaming.
Without being too vulgar I managed to get enough of a look to see that the presents were all wristwatches, apparently just alike, and if the red stones were Burma rubies Sylvia’s coo was no exaggeration. Paul Thayer, looking flabbergasted, poured rum into his glass and gulped it down. Mrs. O’Shea, her little box clasped tightly in her hand, hustled from the room, and in a moment I heard the faint hum of the elevator. Before long I heard it again, and the wide door of the room opened and Mrs. O’Shea reappeared, pushing the stainless steel portable oven on rubber tires; it was nearly as tall as she was, and much bigger around. Miss Marcy moved the bar away, and Mrs. O’Shea put the oven there, beside Huck’s chair.
“I’ll just serve the soup?” she suggested.
“Now you know,” Huck reproached her, “I’d rather do it myself.” He swung a shelf of the chair around to make a table, and reached to a rack attached to the oven for a napkin.
There was a general movement toward the door, and I joined it. In the hall Thayer and I were in the rear, and he muttered at me, “The damn old goat’s got a caliph complex. All three of ’em!”
Going to the stairs to descend, we passed within a few feet of the door to Lewent’s room. As far as I could tell, no one gave it a glance.
5
At ten minutes to eight, with the meal nearly over for the five of us at table, I said I didn’t care for coffee, which wasn’t true, excused myself on a pretext, and went up to the third floor, opened the door of Lewent’s room, and entered.
I had decided to discover the body. They had all been agreeable enough at dinner, except Thayer, who was sulking about something, but it was plain that they were humoring me only because Huck had said his brother-in-law must be humored. No one said or did anything that gave me the slightest feeling of a hunch, and as dessert was being served and I took them in — Thayer scowling, and Mrs. O’Shea cold and cocky, and Dorothy Riff smirking at her new wristwatch, and Sylvia Marcy smiling at me like a sympathetic nurse — I had a strong feeling that it would be gratifying to arrange, for each of them, a prolonged interview with a cop, especially a good Homicide man. Also I had to admit that I had got nowhere with my idea of investigating a murder without disclosing that there had been one.
But now, in the narrow passage with the door closed, looking down at the corpse, I was doubling up my fists and setting my jaw. I would never have claimed that I was such a holy terror as a sleuth that no one had better risk a misdemeanor within a mile of me, but someone in this house had certainly had one hell of a nerve to perform on Wolfe’s client like that with me wandering all over the premises. He looked pitiful there on the floor, and even smaller than when he was on his feet and breathing. I was more than willing for the performer to get tagged, the sooner the better, but not by a horde of city employees with me off in a corner being grilled by Lieutenant Rowcliff. On the other hand, at my rate of progress for the past two and a half hours, I would reach first base about a week from Tuesday.