“Do you remember what she said?”
Carlucci looked sheepish. “I was mainly embarrassed to be in the middle of something, you know? She was carrying on and I just wanted to get out of there. I don’t like scenes. But the woman didn’t seem to notice me anyway. She was crying, that I know for sure, and she said something like ‘Money is not why I’m here.’ And then she really lit into the poor guy. She called him a bastard and a few other things that were even worse. She stood on the bottom step, right there” — Carlucci pointed a stubby finger out through the glass doors — “and yelled at him. Really yelled. You’d have heard her a block away, maybe even two.”
“Then what?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Then she left. Stormed past me like I was invisible — which truth to tell was what I wanted to be. After she tore out of here, Mr. Childress just looked down at me from the front door and shook his head. Didn’t say a word. But then, what could he say? I dunno who felt worse, him or me. I still get embarrassed just talking about it. It was a real scene. Hey, mind if I ask you a question?”
“Why not? I’ve just asked you a few.”
He crossed beefy arms over his chest and coughed nervously. “You think that woman might have been the reason Mr. Childress bumped himself off?”
“It’s certainly worth considering,” I told him. “Did you see her on any other occasions?”
“Not that I remember for sure,” Carlucci said, shaking his head slowly and looking like he was straining to probe the dimmest recesses of his mind. “Mr. Childress had, well... he seemed to know quite a few women. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean anything bad by that. There was one lady, he told me about her, who came sometimes to use his computer. I think he said she was a writer, like him. Named Rice I think, or something like that. Said he wanted me to know about her because he’d given her a key to his place. Then there was the beautiful one who came to see him sometimes. I think maybe they was engaged or something. She was a real looker, dark hair, face like a movie star. Do you happen to know if she’s somebody famous?”
“Sorry, I don’t. And you don’t remember seeing any of them here the day Mr. Childress killed himself?” I asked, purposely repeating a question I had posed to him six days earlier.
“No. See, I was away part of that day, including when he shot himself. Went to the hardware store and then to visit my sister. She’s been sick, had a stroke.”
He passed the consistency test. “You remember seeing anybody visit him in the day or two before he died?”
A shrug. “Nah, like I said, I don’t pay much attention to who comes and goes around here. None of my business, you know?”
I said I knew and thanked him for his time.
Fifteen
A cab piloted by a gabby, neatly bearded Bulgarian who claimed to speak six languages fluently dropped me back at the brownstone at ten-fifty. I had my key poised at the lock when Fritz pulled the front door open.
“Archie, it’s good that you’re back before he comes down from the plants,” he said over the cacophony of hammering, drilling, and yelling that came from the elevator shaft. “A woman is in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the front room door. “She arrived at ten-thirty-five and demands to see you or Mr. Wolfe. She is a peri — the best-looking woman who has come here in years — except for Miss Rowan, of course.”
“Ever the diplomat,” I responded, making a note to look up peri in the dictionary. “Does our guest happen to be named Debra Mitchell?”
Fritz beamed. His faith in me had been confirmed. “I should have known you had met her before. You attract beautiful women like the flame draws the moth. You need to learn to share.”
“In all honesty, I don’t really think you’d enjoy being with this one,” I told him. “I concede her beauty, but from what I have observed of the lady so far, that beauty is, to use the old cliché, only skin-deep.”
Fritz nodded soberly. “Perhaps. But sometimes that is enough.”
“So you say, and you might be right. Actually, the two of you might just find happiness together at that. You could admire her creamy complexion and raven hair and she would doubtless admire your shad roe with Creole sauce. She seems like the type who enjoys the finer things of life, and your cuisine certainly falls into that category. But all of that remains for the two of you to work out. Right now, though, I had better see her before the lord of the manor makes his perilous descent. How’s his mood this morning?”
“About the same as yesterday,” Fritz responded glumly. He shook his head. “I don’t know what bothers him most, the lack of an elevator or the terrible noise involved in getting a new one. He is more irritable than usual.”
“And having a woman in the house will hardly improve that condition. Well, I’m off to see the peri,” I said, opening the door to the front room. Debra Mitchell, dressed in a pleated, eggshell-colored skirt and a red blazer, was seated on the sofa flipping pages of The New Yorker. She looked up, unsmiling.
“Sorry you had to wait,” I said amiably, getting a whiff of her perfume, which smelled like something Lily likes to wear. “But then, I was not informed you were coming.”
“I didn’t know it myself,” was the cool reply. “It was spur-of-the-moment. I suppose I could have called, but I prefer seeing the people I’m speaking to. I want to know what progress you and Nero Wolfe are making in finding out who murdered Charles.” The last sentence was spoken in the tone of one used to getting her way.
I gave the woman points for directness if not for tact. “Technically, neither Mr. Wolfe nor I have to answer that question, as you are not our client,” I said, still amiable. “However, in this house we try not to get hung up on technicalities. If you’ll excuse me, I will see if Mr. Wolfe is available,” I told her.
“Are you going to just leave me here waiting, like that Frenchman who answered the door did?” she snapped.
“He is Swiss, and, not incidentally, he also happens to be the finest chef in the world, no contest,” I snapped back. I know Wolfe has said more than once that a guest is a jewel resting on a cushion of hospitality; but this particular jewel, glittering as she was, had flaws to the degree where I didn’t feel much like playing the role of the hospitality cushion — or doormat.
“I will be gone no more than two minutes; time me on that beautiful watch of yours,” I told her, stepping into the hall and closing the door behind me. If Fritz ever learned that she had called him a Frenchman, it would be all over between them. I vowed to keep silent.
Instead of using the soundproofed connecting door, I walked the eight paces along the hall to the office, where Wolfe was getting settled behind his desk. “Good morning, Archie. Did you sleep well?” he asked as he arranged his seventh of a ton and rang for beer. It was nice to see that even in time of crisis, he held to certain social niceties.
“I slept the sleep of the innocent,” I assured him. “But enough about my somnolence. At this moment, a person who may be a key figure in our current investigation awaits in the front room. I feel it is important that you see this individual.”
He bristled. “Who is she?”
“I don’t recall using a gender-specific pronoun,” I said, trying to look hurt.
“Archie, you are as transparent as the crystal in a Czechoslovakian chandelier. I repeat my question.”