That started a wrangle. It lasted for a quarter of an hour, and got nowhere. Wolfe’s position was that it would be farcical for him to try such a job, since he didn’t have access to the various buildings, offices, dwellings, rooms and enclosures in which Noel Hawthorne might have deposited the will, that to gain such access through the authority of the executor of the estate, the Cosmopolitan Trust Company, would be difficult if not impossible, and that if there was such a will it would be found in good time by the persons who went through the dead man’s papers. May contended that detectives were supposed to find things and that he was a detective.
It came out a tie. Like the man trying to pull up an oak tree who finally quit and muttered, “You can’t pull me up, either.” Miss Hawthorne didn’t actually mutter as she got up and walked out of the office, but she wasn’t admitting she was licked, either by her words or the expression of her face. I let her into the hall, and wasn’t sorry when she accepted my offer to drive her home, since it meant a breath of cooler midnight air. She took off her hat, stuck her chin out, closed her eyes, and let her hair fly as we rolled up Fifth Avenue. The Hawthorne residence on 67th Street, which I eyed with moderate curiosity as I drew up in front, was a big old gray stone four-storied affair with iron grills on the windows, a few doors east of Fifth. May smiled sweetly when she thanked me and said good night.
Back home, I went to the kitchen and snared a glass of milk before proceeding to the office. Wolfe had just finished number two of a pair of beer bottles. I stood sipping milk and looking down at him approvingly. The milk was a little too cold and I took my time sipping.
“Stop smirking!” he yapped.
“Hell, I’m not smirking.” I lowered the back of my lap to the edge of a chair. “I think you’re wonderful. The things you put up with to keep Fritz and Theodore and me off of relief! What do you think of the famous Hawthrone girls?”
He grunted.
“The murder part of it,” I declared, “is a cinch. Titus Ames did it because he wants to dress up like a girl himself and go to Varney College and study science, and on account of loyalty to the alma mater he’s going to have he killed Noel so the science fund would get the million. Now May’s furious because the million has shrunk to a tithe of its former self, and with a daring imagination she sells you a fairy tale about a secret will hid in a hollow tree and that kind of crap—”
“She sold me nothing. Go to bed.”
“Do you give credence to her theory about the second will?”
He put his hands on the rim of the desk, getting ready to push his chair back, and seeing that I beat him to it by arising and striding from the scene. I kept on going, up two flights of stairs, to my own room. There, after finishing the milk, I undraped my form, shaved my legs and removed my eyelashes, and dropped languorously into the arms of the sandman.
When I rolled out at eight in the morning it was tuning up for another hot one. The air coming in at the window made you gasp for more when what you really wanted was less. So I kept the shower moderately cool and selected a palm beach for the day’s apparel. Down in the kitchen Fritz was puffing, having just returned from delivering Wolfe’s breakfast tray to his room on the second floor. Glancing over the Times as I sat negotiating with my orange juice and eggs and rolls, I found no indication that Skinner, Cramer & Co., had opened the big bag of news regarding the death of Noel Hawthorne; there wasn’t any hint of it. Apparently they realized it was going to be a busy intersection and were taking no chances. I poured my second cup of coffee and turned to the sports page, and the phone rang.
I took it there in the kitchen, on Fritz’s extension, and got Fred Durkin’s voice in my ear, in an urgent kind of a whisper that gave me the idea he had stepped on somebody’s foot and got arrested again.
“Archie?”
“Me talking.”
“You’d better come up here right away.”
Then I was sure of it, I asked wearily, “Which precinct?”
“No, listen. Come on up here. 913 West 11th, an old brownstone. I’m here and I’m not supposed to be. Push the button under Dawson and up two flights. I’ll let you in.”
“What the hell kind of a—”
“You come on, and step on it.”
The connection clicked off. I said something expressive. Fritz giggled, and I threw a roll at him which he caught with one hand and threw back, but missed me. I had to gulp the coffee, and it was as hot as hell’s dishwater. Giving Fritz a message for Wolfe, I stopped in at the office for my shoulder strap and automatic just in case, trotted a block to the garage to get the roadster, and headed downtown.
But nobody got shot. I parked a hundred feet east of the number on 11th Street, mounted the stoop to the old-fashioned vestibule, punched the button under Earl Dawson, pushed through when the click came, and went up two flights of narrow dark stairs. A door at the end of the hall opened cautiously and gave me a glimpse of Fred’s map of Ireland. I walked to it, shoved it open and went in, and closed it again.
Fred whispered, “Jesus, I didn’t know what to do.”
I glanced around. It was a big room with nice rugs on a polished floor and comfortable chairs and so forth. No inhabitants were in sight.
“Lovely place you’ve got,” I observed. “It would look better—”
“Shut up,” Fred hissed. He was making for a door to an inner room and crooking a finger at me. “Come here and look.”
I followed him through the door. This room was smaller, with another nice rug, a couple of chairs, a dressing table, a chest of drawers, and a big fine-looking bed. I focused my gaze on the man who was lying on the bed, and saw that he checked with the description Saul had given of the item Naomi Karn had met at Santoretti’s, in spite of a couple of missing details. The blue shirt, gray four-in-hand, and gray tropical worsted coat were there on him, but below them was only white drawers, bare legs, and blue socks and garters. He was breathing like a geyser getting ready to shoot.
Fred, looking down at him proudly, whispered, “He groaned when I pulled his pants off, so I quit.”
I nodded. “He don’t look very dignified. Have you named him yet?”
“Yeah, but it’s a mix-up. It says Dawson downstairs, and this is where he said to bring him, and he had keys, but that’s not his name. His name’s Eugene Davis, and he’s in a law firm; Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis, 40 Broadway.”
Chapter 7
I gave Fred an eye. The comic aspect of things retreated into the wings.
“What makes you think so?” I demanded.
“I frisked him. Look there on the dresser.”
I tiptoed across to inspect the little heap of articles. Among other things, a driving license for Eugene Davis. A membership card in the New York County Bar Association for Eugene Davis, of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis. A pass to the New York World’s Fair 1939, with a picture of him thereon. An accident insurance identification card. Three letters received by Eugene Davis at his business address. Two snapshots of Naomi Karn, one in a bathing suit.
I told Fred, “Go and stay at the hall door and scream if anyone comes. I’m going to browse around.”
I made it snappy but thorough. Davis lay there sucking it in like a bear caught short on Atmosphere common. I covered it all, that bedroom and a smaller one, bathroom, kitchenette, and the big living room, including closets. I would have floated right out of a window if I had found a last will and testament of Noel Hawthorne dated subsequent to March 7th, 1938, but I didn’t. Nor anything else that seemed pertinent to a will or a murder or any phenomenon I was interested in, unless you want to count eight more pictures of Naomi Karn, of various shapes and sizes, three of them inscribed “To Gene,” with dates in 1935 and 1936. Even the refrigerator was empty. I took a parting look at the member of the bar, collected Fred and escorted him out and down to the street and into the roadster, drove around the corner onto Sixth Avenue, drew up at the curb in the morning shadow of the buildings, and demanded: