“Take it easy,” I said. “They’ll want to know just what you told me. About Mr. Milner, about anything else that might have happened tonight that was unusual. Was there anything?”
He swallowed again and shook his head. “No... a real quiet night. Nothing at all.”
“Okay, Tom. One other thing: Have you ever seen Mr. Milner here before?”
He paused and screwed up his face. “I think so, maybe with Miss Radovich. But I’m not positive — I wouldn’t want to say for sure.”
I said thanks again, and left him at his post to sweat out the cops’ arrival. But they weren’t going to come until somebody called them, which I now had to do fast. When I got back upstairs, I found Maria still in the chair, zombielike. I squeezed her arm lightly and went to the study to dial Homicide South.
“My name is Goodwin,” I told the voice that answered. “I’m reporting a murder.” I gave the address and floor, but the guy wanted more details and my full name. “Just send somebody, and they can get it all firsthand,” I said, hanging up.
It would be five, maybe ten minutes before we got company. I checked on Maria again. “The police will be here soon,” I said. “Are you all right?”
Her face was colorless, and she was shaking. I got her to tell me where the sherry was, and I filled a glass. A few sips seemed to help; she inhaled deeply and attempted a smile.
I knelt on one knee next to her chair. “I’ll take a fast look around the rest of the place before they get here, if you don’t mind. But first — do you know someone named Milner?”
It was as if I’d slapped her. “Jerry. What... how do you know him? How...” She started to get up, but I had my hand on her shoulder.
“He was here earlier tonight,” I said. “That guy at the desk just told me. He also said he thought he’d seen him here before — with you.”
Maria brushed her hair back from her face. “Yes, Jerry and I... we know each other. He’s a violinist with the orchestra. But I don’t see why he would have come here tonight. He knew I would be in rehearsals until at least...” The words trailed off, and she made a face. “Oh, no, no, he could never... no...” She closed her eyes tight and kept shaking her head until I squeezed her shoulder.
“How did he and your uncle get along?”
Maria took a deep breath. “They had very different personalities. There were some arguments, but nothing that would, that...” She turned her palms up and made a gesture of helplessness.
“Were the arguments because of you, Maria?”
She nodded, and the sobs started again. I squeezed her hands and told her to stay put while I prowled.
The place wasn’t luxurious, but it had a solid, substantial feel to it. The rooms were big and well-furnished. The cost of the Oriental rugs alone had to be more than most people spend on all their furnishings in a lifetime, and the paintings included a Cezanne on the living room wall that Lily would covet.
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed anywhere. A jewelry box on the dressing table in Maria’s room was stuffed with things that any self-respecting thief would have taken, and gold cufflinks lay on top of the dresser in her uncle’s bedroom.
The apartment had about eight rooms, and I was just finishing my quick tour of them when the doorbell rang. It was two plainclothes detectives and a uniformed cop. I recognized one of the dicks, a guy named Henderson I had met once or twice. He was Central Casting’s idea of what a detective should look like: tall, wavy-haired, square-jawed, and wearing a white trench coat with hardware all over it. But he was also solid, and had a good reputation in the department.
He gave a tight-lipped smile when he saw me. “I’ll be damned, they said a guy named Goodwin had phoned in, but I figured it couldn’t be you, what with Wolfe on the shelf these days.”
I smiled back. “Goes to show you can’t take anything for granted anymore. Have you talked to the hallman yet?”
“I left Mills with him and came straight up. What’s the story?”
“The dead man is Milan Stevens, the conductor of the Symphony. He’s in there,” I said. “This is his niece, Maria Radovich.”
Henderson was momentarily jolted by the news, but quickly recovered and switched on the standard we’re-here-to-help manner for Maria, who stood. “Please sit down, Miss Radovich. You can stay right here for now, but we’ll want to talk to you later, just for a short time.”
I followed Henderson into the study, where his partner and the uniformed man were bending over the body.
“Christ, this guy was big stuff, wasn’t he?” Henderson whispered to me. “This may get Cramer and the commissioner out of bed.”
“Looks like he’s been carved up pretty good,” the other detective said. “Apparently with that letter opener.”
Henderson nodded. “Ed, phone for the M.E.,” he said to the uniform. “Use a handkerchief. Okay, Goodwin, fill me in. How’d you happen to be here?”
I knew I would have to repeat the story several times before dawn, but I gave it all to him, and he made a few notes as I talked.
“And you say Wolfe has those letters to Stevens at home?” he asked when I was done.
I nodded, and Henderson looked around the library. The impact this case would have in the department and around town was just beginning to hit him, and he was measuring his moves. “Goodwin, you’d better come downtown with us later. Right now, I want to talk to her.”
Henderson led Maria into the living room while I stayed and watched the other two combing the study and taking notes. A while later the medical examiner came puffing in with his little black bag, followed by a police photographer. “At least three, maybe four wounds,” the doctor said after a quick check. “I’d say for starters that he’s been dead more than three hours.” My watch read eleven-thirty-five, which didn’t make things very rosy for Maria’s friend Jerry Milner.
The next few hours are best summarized. Maria had to look at the body once more to satisfy the police, and I went downtown, where my least-favorite member of New York’s finest, one Lieutenant George Rowcliff of Homicide, was on duty. He decided to let Inspector Cramer and the commissioner keep snoring so that he could personally handle my interrogation. Over the years, Rowcliff and I have had a relationship that ranges from distaste to outright hatred, but that night made all our previous encounters seem amiable by comparison. Rowcliff has been burned by Wolfe a few times, and he’d never pass a chance to get us into the stew pot. Around headquarters, it was said that he had two goals: to lift Wolfe’s and my licenses, and to make captain — in that order. So far he’d struck out at both, although he came pretty close to the former on the Orrie Cather episode.
“Well, well, well, Goodwin,” he said when we were alone in a dismal office. “I’ve been telling the inspector for months that we hadn’t heard the last of you and that fat egomaniac. He was sure Wolfe had retired, but I knew there was no way you guys could resist publicity forever. And now you’re really in it — up to your necks.”
“Egomaniac? Very good, Rowcliff. You’ve learned a new word. Mr. Wolfe will be so proud of you. I wasn’t aware you knew any with more than two syllables. But can you spell it?”
“Listen, you half-assed smartmouth, this time I’m going to...” Rowcliff s eyes were bulging, which always happens when he loses his temper, and he had to stop talking because if he’d kept on, the stuttering would have started, too. He took a few breaths, then started in with the questioning. It went on, with an occasional assist from a few of his lackeys, for more than two hours. Rowcliff could be very thorough when he put his mind to it. In fact, he asked some of the questions over and over, but I always answered precisely the same way.
“Let me understand this,” he said for about the fourth time. “You’re telling me that the Radovich woman came to you because Stevens had known Wolfe years ago in Europe?”