“My God,” I said with feeling.
“Shut that door!” the cop barked. “No, don’t touch it!”
“I already have.”
“I saw you. Beat it! No! What’s your name?”
“Goodwin. Archie Goodwin. This is Nero Wolfe’s house, and—”
“I know it is. And I know about you. Is this your cab?”
“Certainly not. I’m not a hackie.”
“I know you’re not. I mean—” He stopped. Apparently he had realized that the function of a prowl cop on finding a corpse is not to argue with onlookers. His head jerked around. “Climb out, Bill. DOA. I’ll call in.” The cop behind the wheel wiggled out, and the one in command wiggled in, and I mounted the stoop and sat down beside my client, noting that she had removed the cap and apparently had stashed it.
I kept my voice low, though it wasn’t necessary since the cop was talking on his radio. “In about eight minutes,” I said, “experts will begin arriving. They will not be strangers to me. Since as far as I know you merely came to get me to tell you how to win a bet, when they start asking questions I’ll be glad to answer them if you want to leave it to me. I’ve had practice answering questions.”
She was gripping my arm again. “You looked in. You saw—”
“Shut up, and I don’t beg your pardon. You talk too much. Even if I still lived and worked here we wouldn’t go inside because it wouldn’t be natural, with cops in a prowl car finding a corpse in a taxi parked at the curb — oh, I haven’t mentioned that, that there’s a dead woman in the taxi. I mention it now because naturally I would, and naturally I would stick around to watch developments. I’m talking to keep you from talking, since naturally we would talk. Not only have I had practice answering questions, but I know some of the rules. There are only three methods that are any good in the long run. You have strong fingers.”
“I’m sorry.” Her grip relaxed a little, but she held on. “What are the three methods?”
“One. Button your lip. Answer nothing whatever. Two. Tell the truth straight through. The works. Three. Tell a simple basic lie with no trimmings, and stick to it. If you try a fancy lie, or a mixture of truth and lies, or part of the truth but try to save some, you’re sunk. Of course I’m just talking to pass the time. In the present situation, as far as I know, there is no reason why you shouldn’t just tell the truth.”
“You said to leave it to you.”
“Yes, but they won’t. There are very few people in their jurisdiction they wouldn’t rather leave it to than me, on account of certain — here they come. We can stop talking. Naturally we would watch.”
An official car I had seen before rolled to a stop behind the prowl car, and Inspector Cramer of Homicide West climbed out.
III
If you are surprised that an inspector had come in response to a report that a corpse had been found, I wasn’t. The report had of course given the location, in front of 918 West 35th Street, and that address held memories, most of them sour, for the personnel at Homicide West, from Cramer down. A violent death that was in any way connected with Nero Wolfe made them itch, and presumably the report had included the item that Archie Goodwin was present and had stuck his nose in.
My client and I watched the routine activities from our grandstand seat. They were swift, efficient, and thorough. Traffic was detoured at the corner of Ninth Avenue. A section of the street and sidewalk was roped off to enclose the taxi. Floodlights were focused on the taxi and surroundings. A photographer took shots from various angles. Pedestrians from both directions were shunted across the street, where a crowd gathered behind the rope. Some twenty city employees, in uniform and out, were on the scene in less than half an hour after the cop had made the radio call — five of them known to me by name and four others by sight. The second floodlight had just been turned on when Cramer came around the front of the taxi, crossed to the steps and mounted the first three, and faced me. Since I was sitting, that made our eyes level.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go in. I might as well have you and Wolfe together, and this woman too. That may simplify it. Open the door.”
“On the contrary,” I said, not moving, “it would complicate it. Mr. Wolfe is in the office reading a book and knows nothing of all the excitement, and cares less. If I went in and told him you wanted to see him, and what about, you know what he would say and so do I. Nothing doing.”
“Who came here in that taxi?”
“I don’t know. I know nothing whatever about the taxi. When I came out it was there at the curb.”
“When did you come out?”
“Twenty minutes past nine.”
“Why did you come out?”
“To find a place to spend the night. I have quit my job, so if you’re determined to see Mr. Wolfe you’ll have to ring the bell.”
“You’re telling me you’ve quit?”
“Right. I don’t work here any more.”
“By God. I thought you and Wolfe had tried all the wrinkles there are, but this is a new one. Do you expect me to buy it?”
“It’s not a wrinkle. I meant it. I wouldn’t sign a pledge never to sleep here again, that depends on Mr. Wolfe’s handling of a certain problem, but when I left the house I meant it. The problem has no connection with that taxi or what’s in it.”
“Did this woman leave the house with you?”
“No. When I opened the door, coming out, she was coming up the stoop. She said she wanted to see Nero Wolfe, and when I told her I no longer worked for him, and anyway he probably wouldn’t see her, she said she guessed that for what she wanted I would be better than him. She offered to pay me fifty dollars for consultation on how to win a bet she had made, and we sat here to consult. We had been here fifteen or twenty minutes when the prowl car came along and stopped by the taxi, which had been standing there when I left the house, and naturally I was curious and went to take a look. The cop asked me my name and I told him. When he went to his radio to report I came back to my client, but we didn’t do much consulting on account of the commotion. That’s the crop.”
“Had you ever seen this woman before?”
“No.”
“What was the bet she wanted to consult about?”
“That’s her affair. She’s here. Ask her.”
“Did she come in that taxi?”
“Not to my knowledge. Ask her.”
“Did you see her get out of the taxi?”
“No. She was halfway up the stoop when I opened the door.”
“Did you see anyone get out of the taxi? Or near it?”
“No.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ask her.”
His head moved. “Is your name Judith Bram?”
That was no news for me, since my view through the open door had included the framed picture of the hackie and her name. As well as I had been able to tell in the dim light, the picture was not of my client.
“No,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Mira Holt. Mira with an I.” Her voice was clear and steady.
“Did you drive that taxi here?”
“No.”
“Did you come here in it?”
“No.”
So she had picked method three, a simple basic lie.
“Did you have an appointment to see Nero Wolfe?”
“No.”
“Where do you live?”
“Seven-fourteen East Eighty-first Street.”
“What is your occupation?”
“Modeling. Mostly fashion modeling.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes, but I don’t live with my husband.”
“What’s your husband’s name?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. “Waldo Kearns. I use my own name.”