“I must have your address, Mr. Watson. I must insist. You will understand the necessity when I tell you that Miss Voss is dead. She was assaulted in her office and is dead. Apparently, from what you said, the assault came while she was on the phone with you, and I want your address. I must insist.”
I hung up, gently not to be rude, swiveled, and asked Flora Gallant, “Who is Carl Drew?”
“He’s the business manager. What happened?”
I went to Wolfe. “My guess was close. Miss Voss is dead. In her office. He said she was assaulted, but he didn’t say with what or by whom.”
He glowered at me, then turned to let her have it. She was coming up from the chair, slow and stiff. When she was erect she said, “No. No. It isn’t possible.”
“I’m only quoting Carl Drew,” I told her.
“It isn’t possible. He said that?”
“Distinctly.”
“But how-” She let it hang. She said, “But how-” stopped again, turned, and was going. When Wolfe called to her, “Here, Miss Gallant, your money,” she paid no attention but kept on, and he poked it at me, and I took it and headed for the hall. I caught up with her halfway to the front door, but when I offered it she just kept going, so I blocked her off, took her bag and opened it and dropped the bills in and closed it, handed it back, and went and pulled the door open. She hadn’t said a word. I stood on the sill and watched, thinking she might stumble going down the seven steps of the stoop, but she made it to the sidewalk and turned east, toward Ninth Avenue. When I got back to the office Wolfe was sitting with his eyes closed, breathing down to his big round middle. I went to my desk and put the phone book away.
“She is so stunned with joy,” I remarked, “that she’ll probably get run over. I should have gone and put her in a taxi.”
He grunted.
“One thing,” I remarked. “Miss Voss’s last words weren’t exactly
He grunted.
“Another thing,” I remarked, “in spite of the fact that I was John H. Watson on the phone, we’ll certainly be called on by either Sergeant Stebbins or Inspector Cramer or both. When they go into whereabouts Flora will have to cough it up for her own protection. And we actually heard it. Also we’ll have the honor of being summoned to the stand. Star witnesses.”
He opened his eyes. “I’m quite aware of it,” he growled. “Confound it. Bring me the records on Laelia gouldiana.”
No orchid ever called a genius a slimy little ego in a big gob of fat. I remarked on that too, but to myself.
Chapter 2
SURE I APPRECIATE IT,” Cramer declared. “Why shouldn’t I? Very thoughtful of you. Saves me time and trouble. So it was eleven-thirty-one when you heard the blow?”
Inspector Cramer, big and brawny with a round red face and all his hair, half of it gray, had nothing to be sarcastic about as he sat in the red leather chair at six-thirty that Tuesday afternoon, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. It was his reaction, not to the present circumstances, but to his memory of other occasions, other experiences he had undergone in that room. He had to admit that we had saved him time and trouble when I had anticipated his visit by typing out a complete report of the session with Flora Gallant that morning, including the dialogue verbatim, and having it ready for him in duplicate, signed by both Wolfe and me. He had skimmed through it first, and then read it slowly and carefully.
“We heard no blow, identifiably,” Wolfe objected. His bulk was comfortably arranged in his oversize chair back of his desk. “Mr. Goodwin wrote that statement, but I read it, and it does not say that we heard a blow.”
Cramer found the place on page four and consulted it. “Okay. You heard a groan and a crash and rustles. But there
“Not when we heard the groan,” I corrected. “After that there were the other noises, then the connection went, and I said hello a few times, which was human but dumb. It was when I hung up that I looked at my watch and saw eleven-thirty-one. The groan had been maybe a minute earlier. Say eleven-thirty. If a minute is important.”
“It isn’t. But you didn’t hear the blow?”
“Not to recognize it, no.”
He went back to the statement, frowning at it, reading the whole first page and glancing at the others. He looked up, at Wolfe. “I know how good you are at arranging words. This implies that Flora Gallant was a complete stranger to you, that you had never had anything to do with her or her brother or any of the people at that place, but it doesn’t say so in so many words. I’d like to know.”
“The implication is valid,” Wolfe told him. “Except as related in that statement, I have never had any association with Miss Gallant or her brother, or, to my knowledge, with any of their colleagues. Nor has Mr. Goodwin. Archie?”
