10
It was 1:40 when I left that house. It was 6:10, four and a half hours later, when I said to Austin Hough, ''You know damn well you can't. Come on."
During the four and a half hours I had accomplished a good deal. I had learned that in a large university a lot of people know where an assistant professor ought to be or might be, but no one knows where he is. I had avoided getting trampled in corridors twice, once by diving into an alcove and once by fighting my way along the wall. I had sat in an anteroom and read a magazine article entitled "Experiments in Secondary Education in Japan." I had sweated for fifteen minutes in a phone booth, reporting to Wolfe on the latest developments, including the acquisition of a house by Cesar and Felita Perez. I had taken time out to find a lunch counter on University Place and take in a corned-beef sandwich, edible, a piece of cherry pie, not bad, and two glasses of milk. I had been stopped in a hall by three coeds, one of them as pretty as a picture (no reference to the pictures on the top floor of the Perez house), who asked for my autograph. They probably took me for either Sir Laurence Olivier or Nelson Rockefeller, I'm not sure which.
And I never did find Austin Hough until I finally decided it was hopeless and went for a walk in the direction of 64 Eden Street. I didn't phone because his wife might answer, and it wouldn't have been tactful to ask if her husband was in. The thing was to get a look at him. So I went there and pushed the button in the vestibule marked Hough, opened the door when the click sounded, and entered, mounted two flights, walked down the hall to a door which opened as I arrived, and there he was. He froze, staring. His mouth opened and closed. I said, not aggressively, just opening the conversation, "Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out."
"How in the name of God…" he said.
"How doesn't matter," I said. "We meet again, that's enough. Is your wife at home?"
"No. Why?"
"Why doesn't matter either if she's not here. There's nothing I'd enjoy more than chatting with you a while, but as you mentioned Monday, Mr. Wolfe comes down from the plant rooms at six o'clock, and he's in the office waiting for you. Come along."
He was deciding something. He decided it. "I don't know what you're talking about. I mentioned nothing to you Monday. I've never seen you before. Who are you?"
"I'm Thomas G. Yeager. His ghost. Don't be a sap. If you think it's just my word against yours, nuts. You can't get away with it. You know damn well you can't. Come on."
"We'll see if I can't. Take your foot away from the door. I'm shutting it."
There was no point in prolonging it. "Okay," I said, "I'll answer the question you didn't finish. This afternoon I had a talk with your wife. I got your name and address from an envelope I took from her bag."
"I don't believe it. That's a lie."
"Also in her bag was her driving license. Dinah Hough, born April third, nineteen-thirty, white, hair brown, eyes hazel. She likes champagne. She tilts her head a little to the right when she - "
"Where did you see her?"
"Where doesn't matter either. That's all you'll get from me. I told Mr. Wolfe I'd have you there at six o'clock, and it's a quarter past, and if you want - "
"Is my wife there?"
"No, not now. I'm telling you, Mr. Yeager - excuse me, Mr. Hough - if you don't want all hell to pop you'll take my hand and come along fast."
"Where's my wife?"
"Ask Mr. Wolfe."
He moved, and I sidestepped not to get bumped. He pulled the door shut, tried it to make sure the lock had caught, and headed for the stairs. I followed. On the way down I asked which direction was the best bet for a taxi and he didn't reply. My choice would have been Christopher Street, but he turned right at the corner, towards Seventh Avenue, and won the point. We had one in three minutes, at the worst time of day. He had nothing to say en route. There was a chance, one in ten, that Cramer had a man staked to keep an eye on the old brownstone, but he wouldn't know Hough from Adam, and going in the back way through the passage from 34th Street was complicated, so we rolled to the curb in front. Mounting the stoop and finding the chain bolt was on, I had to ring for Fritz to let us in.
Wolfe was at his desk, scowling at a crossword puzzle in the Observer. He didn't look up as we entered. I put Hough in the red leather chair and went to mine, saying nothing. When a master brain is working on a major problem you don't butt in. In twenty seconds he muttered, "Confound it," slammed his pencil on the desk, swiveled, focused on the guest, and growled, "So Mr. Goodwin rooted you out. What have you to say for yourself?"
"Where's my wife?" Hough blurted. He had been holding it in.
"Wait a second," I put in. "I've told him I talked with his wife this afternoon and got his name and address from items in her bag. That's all."
"Where is she?" Hough demanded.
Wolfe regarded him. "Mr Hough. When I learned Monday evening that a man named Thomas G. Yeager had been murdered, it would have been proper and natural for me to give the police a description of the man who had been here that afternoon impersonating him. For reasons of my own, I didn't. If I tell them about it now I'll give them not a description, but your name and address. Whether I do or not will depend on your explanation of that strange imposture. What is it?"
"I want to know where Goodwin saw my wife and why, and where she is. Until I know that, I'm explaining nothing."
Wolfe closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them. He nodded. "That's understandable. If your wife was a factor, you can't explain without involving her, and you won't do that unless she is already involved. Very well, she is. Monday afternoon, posing as Yeager, you told Mr. Goodwin that you expected to be followed to One-fifty-six West Eighty-second Street. When your wife entered a room in the house at that address at noon today, she found a man there who is in my employ. He notified Mr. Goodwin, and he went there and talked with her. She had keys to the house and the room. That's all I intend to tell you. Now your explanation."
I seldom feel sorry for people Wolfe has got in a corner. Usually they have asked for it one way or another, and anyhow if you can't stand the sight of a fish flopping on the gaff you shouldn't go fishing. But I had to move my eyes away from Austin Hough. His long bony face was so distorted he looked more like a gargoyle than a man. I moved my eyes away, and when I forced them back he had hunched forward and buried his face in his hands.
Wolfe spoke. "Your position is hopeless, Mr. Hough. You knew that address. You knew Yeager's unlisted telephone number. You knew that he frequented that address. You knew that your wife also went there. What did you hope to accomplish by coming here to send Mr. Goodwin on a pointless errand?"
Hough's head raised enough for his eyes to come to me. "Where is she, Goodwin?" It was an appeal, not a demand.
"I don't know. I left her in that room at that address at twenty minutes to two. She was drinking champagne but not enjoying it. The only other person there was the man in Mr. Wolfe's employ. He wasn't keeping her; she was free to go. I left because I wanted to have a look at you, but she didn't know that. I don't know when she left or where she went."
"You talked with her? She talked?"
"Right. Twenty minutes or so."
"What did she say?"
I sent a glance at Wolfe, but he didn't turn his head to meet it, so I was supposed to use my discretion and sagacity. I did so.