He didn’t sound much like Paladin. Or even an office manager. “If you don’t mind,” I said, “Miss Vassos would like to come in and pack a bag. She has hired Nero Wolfe to find out who killed Dennis Ashby, and she’ll stay at his house until he does. Of course, since you think her father killed Ashby, I don’t suppose—”
“I don’t think her father killed Ashby.”
“No? Then why did you tell the police that he had found out that Ashby had seduced her?”
He hauled off and swung at me. He meant well, but was so slow that I could have landed a poke while he was still on his backswing. Elma was quicker, jumping between us. He was going through with it anyhow, looping around her, and he would finally have reached the target if I had moved my head eight inches to the left and waited till he got there, but instead I caught his wrist and jerked it down and gave it a twist. That twist hurts, but he didn’t squeak. Elma, between us, turned to face me, protesting, “I told you he wouldn’t!”
“I didn’t,” he said.
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“Okay, you can come along for a talk with Nero Wolfe. You can carry her bag. If there are two, we’ll each take one. Go ahead, Miss Vassos, I won’t let him hurt me. If he gets me down I’ll yell.”
She slipped in past him. Busch looked at his wrist and felt at it, and I told him it might swell a little. He turned and went inside, and I followed. It was a medium-sized room, very neat, good enough chairs and nice plain rugs, a TV set in a corner, magazines on a table, shelves with books. A framed picture on top of the book shelves looked familiar and I crossed over, and darned if it wasn’t Wolfe on the cover of Tick magazine. That had been more than a year ago. I allowed myself a healthy grin as I thought of how Sergeant Stebbins, or anyone else from Homicide, had felt when he came to have a look at the home of a murderer and found a picture of Nero Wolfe in a place of honor. I would have liked to take it and show it to Wolfe. I had heard him quote what someone said, that no man is a hero to his valet, but apparently he could be to his bootblack.
When Elma came out of an inner room with a suitcase and a small bag, Busch, who had put his overcoat on, went to relieve her of the load. I looked at my watch: five fifty-five. Wolfe would be down from the plant rooms by the time we got there.
“I’ll take one,” I offered. “Better give the wrist a rest.”
“The wrist’s all right,” he said, trying not to set his jaw.
A hero.
5
There can be such a thing as too damn much self-control. I should have resigned that day, for the forty-third time, when Wolfe glared at me and said, “I won’t see him.” It was inexcusable, being childish in front of a client. Leaving Busch in the front room, I had gone with Elma to the office, explained why I had told Parker to leave Busch out, reported the episode at Graham Street, said that I had checked with the janitor on the way out and he had admitted that he had let Busch into the Vassos apartment, and asked if he wanted Elma present while he talked with Busch; and he said, “I won’t see him.” Top that. He knew he was going to have to see a bunch of them and he was paying a lawyer to pull a stunt that would make them come, but that would be tomorrow and this was today and he was reading a book, and I hadn’t phoned to warn him. I should have walked out on him, but there was Elma, so I merely said, “He can have my room and I’ll sleep here on the couch.”
His eyes narrowed at me. He knew I meant it and that I wouldn’t back down, and that it was his fault for starting it in front of a witness. If I had just sat and met his gaze it would have had to end either by his firing me or my quitting, so I arose, said I would take Miss Vassos’ luggage up to her room, shook my head no at her on my way to the hall, picked up the bag and suitcase, mounted the two flights, put them in the South Room, returned to the landing, and stood and listened.
That simplified it for him. With me there it would have been impossible; with me gone, all he had to do was to get her to say that it might help if he talked to Busch. Which he did. I could hear the voices, though not the words, for three minutes; then nothing; and then voices again, including Busch’s. I descended. Of course I kept my eyes straight ahead as I entered and crossed to my desk, detouring around Busch, who was in one of the yellow chairs that had been drawn up to face Wolfe’s desk. Wolfe was talking.
“... and I intend to do so. I’m not obliged to account for the springs of my interest Call it pique. Mr. Vassos kept my shoes presentable and never failed me; it won’t be easy to replace him; and whoever deprived me of his services will be made to regret it Let’s consider you, since you’re here. Discovered by Mr. Goodwin and Miss Vassos in her apartment, you affected concern for her welfare. Real concern, or assumed?”
Busch was sitting straight and stiff, his palms on his knees. “I don’t have to account to you either,” he declared, louder than necessary. “How do I know what you’re going to do?”
“You don’t But you will. I won’t debate it. Go. You’ll be back.”
I gritted my teeth. He was taking the trick after all. He was putting him out, with a dodge that tied my tongue. If there had been a cliff handy I would have pushed him off. But it didn’t work. Busch looked at Elma, who was in the red leather chair. That turned his head so I couldn’t see his face, but there must have been a question on it, for she answered it.
“He’s going to do what he says, Mr. Busch. He’s going to make a monkey of an inspector named Cramer. If he wants you to tell him anything — and if you want to—”
“I want— Will you marry me?”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Will you marry me?”
She stared, speechless.
“Effective, Mr. Busch,” Wolfe growled. His dodge wasn’t going to work. “For establishing briefly and cogently that your concern is real, admirable. Then you don’t believe that Miss Vassos was seduced by Mr. Ashby?”
“No. I know she wasn’t.”
“You told Mr. Goodwin that you don’t know who told the police that she had been.”
“I don’t.”
“But you knew that someone had.”
“I didn’t exactly know. I knew that the police thought that, or suspected it, from questions they asked me.”
“Was that why you were so concerned for Miss Vassos’ welfare that you went to her home last night and persuaded the janitor to let you in and repeated the performance today?”
“It was partly that, but I would have done that anyway. Yesterday she was worried about her father because he hadn’t come home, and I tried to find out if he was in the building. Then last night the news came that he was dead, his body had been found. I phoned her home and there was no answer, and I went there, and there was no word from her today, and the police didn’t know where she was, so I went again. I know what you’re getting at, you want to know if I was there waiting for her because I was worried about her or because I wanted to kill her. Because someone must want to kill her, someone must have lied about her to her father and then lied to the police.”
Wolfe nodded. “You’re assuming that her father believed the lie and killed Ashby and then killed himself.”
“No, I’m not. I only know he might have. I haven’t seen her, I haven’t had a chance to talk with her. I could talk with her about this all right From the way I’m talking to you, you probably think I’m a pretty good talker, that I don’t have any trouble speaking my piece, but I’ve been wanting for more than a year to tell her how I feel, that I know how wonderful she is, that there’s no girl on earth like her, that I have never—”
“Yes. You established that point by asking her to marry you. She has probably grasped it As you will no doubt hear from her when you get a chance, she is certain that her father would not have believed such a lie about her, so he did not kill Ashby, so he did not kill himself. Therefore I need to know as much as possible about people’s movements at the critical times. According to the medical examiner as reported in the paper, Peter Vassos landed at the bottom of that cliff and died between ten o’clock and midnight Monday evening. Since Miss Vassos certainly won’t marry you if you killed her father, let’s eliminate you. Where were you those two hours?”