When I was seated I spoke to their waiting faces. “No answer to my knock. I’ll have to try again. Meanwhile let’s eat.”
I couldn’t see that their disappointment was anything but plain, wholesome disappointment.
“I can’t eat now,” Caroline said wearily.
“I strongly advise it,” I told her. “I don’t mean a major meal, but something like a piece of melon and a sturgeon sandwich? We can get that here. Then I’ll try again, and if there’s still no answer well see. You can’t stick around here all night.”
“He might show up any minute,” Aubry suggested. “Or he might come in and leave again. Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed up there?”
“Not on an empty stomach.” I was firm. “And I’ll bet Mrs.– What do I call you?”
“Oh, call me Caroline.”
“I’ll bet you haven’t eaten for a week. You may need some energy, so you’d better refuel.”
That was a tough half-hour. She did eat a little, and Aubry cleaned up a turkey sandwich and a hunk of cheese, but she was having a hard time to keep from showing that she thought I was a cold-blooded pig, and Aubry, as the minutes went by, left no doubt of his attitude. It was pretty gloomy. When my coffee cup was empty I told them to sit tight, got up and went out and down the corridor to the men’s room, locked myself in a cubicle against the chance that Aubry might appear, and stayed there a quarter of an hour. Then I returned to the bar and went to their table and told them, “No answer. I phoned Mr. Wolfe, and he has an idea and wants to see us right away. Let’s go.”
“No,” Caroline said.
“What for? Aubry demanded.
“Look,” I said, “when Mr. Wolfe has an idea and wants me to hear it, I oblige him. So I’m going. You can stay here and soak in the agony, or you can come along. Take your pick.”
From their expressions it was a good guess that they were beginning to think that Wolfe was a phony and I was a slob, but since their only alternative was to call the deal off and start hunting another salesman for their line, they had to string along. After Aubry paid the check we left, and in the corridor I steered them to the left and around to an exit on a side street, to avoid the main lobby, because by that time some city employees had certainly responded to Fritz’s anonymous phone call to headquarters, and from remarks they had made I had learned that the Aubrys were known at the Churchill. The doorman who waved up a taxi for us called them by name.
At the house I let us in with my key, and, closing the door, shot the chain bolt. As I escorted them down the hall to the office a glance at my wrist told me it was 8:35, so I hadn’t quite stretched it to the hour and ten minutes Wolfe had specified, but pretty close. He emerged from the door to the dining room, which is across the hall from the office, stood there while we filed in, and then followed, the look on his face as black as the coffee he had just been sipping. After crossing to his desk and lowering his overwhelming bulk into his chair, he growled at them, “Sit down, please.”
They stayed on their feet. Aubry demanded, “What’s the big idea? Goodwin says you have one.”
“You will please sit down,” Wolfe said coldly. “I look at people I’m talking to, especially when I suspect them of trying to flummox me, and my neck is not elastic.”
His tone made it evident that what was biting him was nothing trivial. Caroline sidled to the red leather chair and sat on its edge. Aubry plopped on the yellow one and met Wolfe’s level gaze.
“You suspect?” he asked quietly. “Who? Of What?”
“I think one of you has seen and talked with Mr. Karnow-today. Perhaps both of you.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I reserve that. Whether and when I disclose it depends on you. While complete candor is too much to expect, it should at least be approximated when you’re briefing a man for a job you want done. When and where did you see Mr. Karnow, and what was said?”
“I didn’t. I have never seen him. I told you that. What’s the idea of this?”
Wolfe’s head moved. “Then it was you, madam?”
Caroline was staring at him, her brow creased. “Are you suggesting that I saw my-that I saw Sidney Karnow today?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, I didn’t! I haven’t seen him at all! And I want to know why you’re suggesting that!”
“You will.” Wolfe rested his elbows on the chair arms, leaned forward, and gave her his straightest and hardest look. She met it. He turned his head to the right and aimed the look at Aubry, and had it met again.
The doorbell rang.
Fritz was in the kitchen doing the dishes, so I got up and went to the hall and flipped the switch of the light out on the stoop and took a look through the one-way glass panel of the front door. What I saw deserved admiration. Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West knew that that panel was one-way glass and he was visible, but he wasn’t striking a pose; he just stood there, his big broad pan a foot away from the glass, to him opaque, a dick doing his duty.
I went and opened the door and spoke through the two-inch crack which was all the chain bolt would allow. “Hello there. It wasn’t me, honest.”
“Okay, comic.” His deep bass was a little hoarse, as usual. “Then I won’t take you. Let me in.”
“For what?”
“I’ll tell you. Do you expect me to talk through this damn crack?”
“Yes. If I let you in you’ll tramp right over me to bust in on Mr. Wolfe, and he’s in a bad humor. So am I. I can spare you ten seconds to loosen up. One, two, three, four-”
He cut me off. “You were just up at the Hotel Churchill. You left there about a half an hour ago with a man named Paul Aubry and his wife, and got into a taxi with them. Where are they? Did you bring them here?”
“May I call you Purley?” I asked.
“You goddam clown.”
“All right, then, I won’t. After all these years you should know better. Eighty-seven and four-tenths per cent of the people, including licensed detectives, who are asked impertinent questions by cops, answer quick because they are either scared or ignorant of their rights or anxious to cooperate. That lets me out. Give me one reason why I should tell you anything about my movements or any companions I may have had, and make it good.”
Silence. After a moment I added, “And don’t try to avoid giving me a shock. Since you’re Homicide, someone is dead. Who?”
“Who do you think?”
“Huh-uh. I won’t try to guess because I might guess the right one and I’d be in the soup.”
“I want to be around when you are. Sidney Karnow was killed in his room at the Churchill this afternoon. He had been reported dead in Korea and had just turned up alive, and had learned that his wife had married Paul Aubry. As if I was telling you anything you don’t know.”
He couldn’t see my face through the crack, so I didn’t have to bother about managing it. I asked, “Karnow was murdered?”
“That’s the idea. He was shot in the back of the head.”
“Are you saying I knew about it?”
“Not so far. But you knew about the situation, since you were there with Aubry and the woman. I want ‘em, and I want ‘em now, and are they here? If not, where are they?”