Meegan stopped, and I looked up from the notebook. He said aggressively, “I’m repeating that that sounded phony to me.”
“Go right ahead. You’re telling it.”
“I say it was phony. A photographer might use hundreds of models in a year, and he might forget, but not a painter. Not a picture like that. I got a little tactless with him, and then I apologized. He said he might be able to refresh his memory and asked me to phone him the next day. Instead of phoning I went back the next day to see him, but he said he simply couldn’t remember and doubted if he ever could. I didn’t get tactless again. Coming in the house, I had noticed a sign that there was a furnished apartment to let, and when I left Chaffee I found the janitor and rented it, and went to my hotel for my bags and moved in. I knew damn well my wife had modeled for that picture, and I knew I could find her. I wanted to be as close as I could to Chaffee and the people who came to see him.”
I wanted something too. I wanted to say that he must have had a photograph of his wife along and that I would like to see it, but of course I didn’t dare, since it was a cinch that he had already either given it to the cops, or refused to, or claimed he didn’t have one. So I merely asked, “What progress did you make?”
“Not much. I tried to get friendly with Chaffee but didn’t get very far. I met the other two tenants, Talento and Aland, but that didn’t get me anywhere. Finally I decided I would have to get some expert help, and that was why I went to see Nero Wolfe. You were there, you know how that came out-that big blob.”
I nodded. “He has dropsy of the ego. What did you want him to do?”
“I’ve told you.”
“Tell it again.”
“I was going to have him tap Chaffee’s phone.”
“That’s illegal,” I said severely.
“All right, I didn’t do it.”
I flipped a page of the notebook. “Go back a little. During that week, besides the tenants here, how many of Chaffee’s friends and acquaintances did you meet?”
“Just two, as I’ve told you. A young woman, a model, in his studio one day, and I don’t remember her name, and a man that was there another day, a man that Chaffee said buys his pictures. His name was Braunstein.”
“You’re leaving out Philip Kampf.”
Meegan leaned forward and put a fist on the table. “Yes, and I’m going to leave him out. I never saw him or heard of him.”
“What would you say if I said you were seen with him?”
“I’d say you were a dirty liar!” The red eyes looked redder. “As if I wasn’t already having enough trouble, now you set on me about a murder of a man I never heard of! You bring a dog here and tell me to pat it, for God’s sake!”
I nodded. “That’s your hard luck, Mr. Meegan. You’re not the first man that’s had a murder for company without inviting it.” I closed the notebook and put it in my pocket. “You’d better find some way of handling your troubles without having people’s phones tapped.” I arose. “Stick around, please. You may be wanted downtown anyhow.”
He went to open the door for me. I would have liked to get more details of his progress with Ross Chaffee, or lack of it, and his contacts with the other two tenants, but it seemed more important to have some words with Chaffee before I got interrupted. As I mounted the two flights to the top floor my wristwatch said twenty-eight minutes past ten.
V
“I KNOW THERE’S no use complaining,” Ross Chaffee said, “about these interruptions to my work. Under the circumstances.” He was being very gracious about it.
The top floor was quite different from the others. I don’t know what his living quarters in front were like, but the studio, in the rear, was big and high and anything but crummy. There were sculptures around, big and little, and canvases of all sizes were stacked and propped against racks. The walls were covered with drapes, solid gray, with nothing on them. Each of two easels-one much larger than the other-held a canvas that had been worked on. There were several plain chairs and two upholstered ones, and an oversized divan, nearly square. I had been steered to one of the upholstered numbers, and Chaffee, still in his smock, had moved a plain one to sit facing me.
“Only don’t prolong it unnecessarily,” he requested.
I said I wouldn’t. “There are a couple of points,” I told him, “that we wonder about a little. Of course it could be merely a coincidence that Richard Meegan came to town looking for his wife, and came to see you, and rented an apartment here just nine days before Kampf was murdered, but a coincidence like that will have to stand some going over. Frankly, Mr. Chaffee, there are those, and I happen to be one of them, who find it hard to believe that you couldn’t remember who modeled for an important figure in a picture you painted. I know what you say, but it’s still hard to believe.”
“My dear sir.” Chaffee was smiling. “Then you must think I’m lying.”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But you do, of course.” He shrugged. “To what end? What deep design am I cherishing?”
“I wouldn’t know. You say you wanted to help Meegan find his wife.”
“No, not that I wanted to. I was willing to. He was a horrible nuisance.”
“He must have been a first-class pest.”
“He was. He is.”
“It should have been worth some effort to get rid of him. Did you make any?”
“I have explained what I did-in a statement, and signed it. I have nothing to add. I tried to refresh my memory. One of your colleagues suggested that I might have gone to Pittsburgh to look at the picture. I suppose he was being funny.”
A flicker of annoyance in his fine dark eyes, which were as clear and bright as if he had had a good eight hours of innocent slumber, warned me that I was supposed to have read his statement, and if I aroused a suspicion that I hadn’t he might get personal.
I gave him an earnest eye. “Look, Mr. Chaffee. This thing is bad for all concerned. It will get worse instead of better until we find out who killed Kampf. You men in this house must know things about one another, and maybe some things connected with Kampf, that you’re not telling. I don’t expect a man like you to pass out dirt just for the hell of it, but any dirt that’s connected with this murder is going to come out, and if you know of any and are keeping it to yourself you’re a bigger fool than you look.”
“Quite a speech.” He was smiling again.
“Thanks. You make one.”
“I’m not as eloquent as you are.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t believe I can help you any. I can’t say I’m a total stranger to dirt; that would be smug; but what you’re after-no. You have my opinion of Kampf, whom I knew quite well; he was in some respects admirable but had his full share of faults. I would say approximately the same of Talento. I have known Aland only casually-certainly not intimately. I know no more of Meegan than you do. I haven’t the slightest notion why any of them might have wanted to kill Philip Kampf. If you expect-”
A phone rang. Chaffee crossed to a table at the end of the divan and answered it. He told it yes a couple of times, and then a few words, and then, “But one of your men is here now… I don’t know his name, I didn’t ask him… He may be, I don’t know… Very well, one-fifty-five Leonard Street… Yes, I can leave in a few minutes.”