When I’m not in the house, especially at night, the front door is always chain bolted, so I had to ring for Fritz to let me in. I went along with him to the kitchen, got a glass and a pitcher of milk, took them to the office, and announced, “Home again, and I brought no company. But I’ve got a tool I think you can pry Pompa loose with, if you want to play it that way. I need some milk on my stomach. My nerves are doubling in brass.”
“What is it?” Marko demanded, out of his chair at me. “What did you—”
“Let him alone,” Wolfe muttered, “until he has swallowed something. He’s hungry.”
V
“If you don’t tell the police about this at once, I will,” Marko said emphatically. He hit the chair arm with his fist. “This is magnificent! It is a masterpiece of wit!”
I had finished my report, along with the pitcher of milk, and Wolfe had asked questions, such as whether I had seen any bloodstains, inside or out, which the cleaners had overlooked. I hadn’t. Wolfe was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, and Marko was pacing back and forth. I was smirking, but not visibly.
“They must release him at once!” Marko exclaimed. “Tell them now! Phone! If you don’t—”
“Shut up,” Wolfe said rudely.
“He’s using his brain,” I informed Marko, “and you’re breaking the rules. Yell at me if you want to, but not at him. It’s not as simple as it looks. If we pass it to the cops it’s out of our hands, and if they’re stubborn and still like the idea of Pompa where are we? We couldn’t get through to that bunch again with anything less than a Sherman tank. If we don’t tell the cops but keep it for our private use, and we monkey around until whoever used a knife on Mrs. Whitten uses it again only more to the point, the immediate question would be how high the judge would set our bail.”
“Including me?” Marko demanded.
“Certainly including you. You especially, because you started the conspiracy to spring Pompa.”
Marko stopped pacing to frown at me. “But you make it impossible. We can’t tell the police, and we can’t not tell the police. Is this what I called a masterpiece?”
“Sure, and you were right. It was so slick that I’m going to ask for a raise. Because there’s a loophole, namely we don’t have to monkey around. We can keep going the way I started. We’ve got a club to use on Mrs. Whitten, which means all of them, and if she hadn’t just been sliced and had her side sewed up we could phone her that we want her down here within the hour, along with the family. As it is, I guess that’s out. The alternative is for Mr. Wolfe and me to get in the car, which is out at the curb, and go there — now.”
I ignored a little grunt from Wolfe’s direction.
“It has been years,” I told Marko, “since I tried to get him to break his rule never to go anywhere outside this house on business, and I wouldn’t waste breath on it now. But this has nothing to do with business. You’re not a client, and Pompa isn’t, and he has told you that he wouldn’t take your money. This is for love, a favor to an old friend, which makes it entirely different. No question of rule-breaking is involved.”
Marko was gazing at me. “You mean go to Mrs. Whitten’s home?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“Would they let you in?”
“You’re damn right they would, if that doctor has phoned her, and it’s ten to one he did.”
“Would it accomplish anything?”
“The least it would accomplish would be that there wouldn’t be a second murder as long as we were there. Beyond that — circumstances might offer suggestions. I might add, not being a candidate for president, that when I went there alone it accomplished a little something.”
Marko wheeled to Wolfe with his arms extended. “Nero, you must go! At once! You must!”
Wolfe’s eyes came half open, slowly. “Pfui,” he said scornfully.
“But it is the only thing! Let me tell you what Archie—”
“I heard him.” The open eyes saw an unfinished glass of beer, and he picked it up and drank. He looked at me. “There was a flaw. You assume that if we withhold this information from the police, and Mrs. Whitten gets killed, we’ll be in a pickle. Why? Technically it is not murder evidence; it has no necessary connection with a committed crime. Legally we are clear. Morally we are also clear. What if we accept and credit Mrs. Whitten’s explanation as she gives it? Then there is no menace to her from the members of her family.”
“You mean you buy it?” I demanded. “That she couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman?”
“Why not?”
I got up, threw up my hands, and sat down again.
“But this is not logical,” Marko protested earnestly. “Your questions indicated that you thought she had lied to the doctor. I don’t see why—”
“Nuts,” I said in disgust. “He knows damn well she lied. If he liked to bet he would give you odds that it was one of the family that cut her up, either in the house or out, and she knows who it was and so do the rest of them. I know him better than you do, Marko. If he did leave his damn house and ride at night through the dangerous streets, when he got there he would have to work like a dog, put all he’s got into it, to nail the one that has it coming. If instead of that he goes to bed and sleeps well, something may happen to simplify matters. That’s all there is to it.”
“Is that true, Nero?” Marko demanded.
“It contains truth,” Wolfe conceded big-heartedly. “So does this. Patently Mrs. Whitten is in danger. Anyone who cuts a five-inch gash in the territory of the eighth rib may be presumed to have maleficent intentions, and probably pertinacity to boot. But though Archie is normally humane, his exasperation does not come from a benevolent passion to prevent further injury to Mrs. Whitten. She is much too old for him to feel that way. It comes from his childish resentment that his coup, which was unquestionably brilliant, will not be immediately followed up as he would like it to be. That is understandable, but I see no reason—”
The doorbell rang. I got up and went for it. I might have left it to Fritz, but I was glad of an excuse to walk out on Wolfe’s objectionable remarks. The panel in our entrance door is one-way glass, permitting us to see out but not the outsider to see in, and on my way down the hall I flipped the switch for the stoop light to get a look.
One glance was enough, but I took a step for another one before turning, marching back to the office, and telling Wolfe, “You may remember that you instructed me to get six people down here — as many of them as possible, you said. They’re here. Out on the stoop. Shall I tell them you’re sleepy?”
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wolfe threw his head back and laughed. He did that about once a year. When it had tapered off to a chuckle he spoke.
“Marko, will you leave by way of the front room? Through that door. Your presence might embarrass them. Bring them in, Archie.”
I went back out, pulled the door wide open, and greeted them.
“Hello there! Come on in.”
“You goddam rat,” Mortimer snarled at me through his teeth.
VI
The two sons were supporting their mother, one on either side, and continued to do so along the hall and on into the office. She was wearing a tan summer outfit, dotted with brown, which I would have assumed to be silk if I had not heard tell that in certain shops you can part with three centuries for a little number in rayon. Eve was in white, with yellow buttons, and Phoebe was in what I would call calico, two shades of blue. My impulse to smile at her of course had to be choked.
Thinking it might prevent an outburst, or at least postpone it, I formally pronounced their names for Wolfe and then saw that their chairs were arranged the way he liked it when we had a crowd, so that he wouldn’t have to work his neck too much to take them all in. Jerome and Mortimer, declining my offer of the big couch for Mom, got her comfortable in the red leather chair, but it was Phoebe who took the chair next to her. Mortimer stayed on his feet. The others sat.