Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

'Yes.'

'Stop interrupting. Mr. Wolfe never does. I didn't have to touch her to check. I mean it. There was a bruise on the forehead and a big dent in the skull, two inches above and back of the left ear. On the floor, three feet from her right shoulder, was a marble ashtray which looked heavy enough to dent a thicker skull than hers probably was. There were purple spots on an arm and a leg. Cadaveric lividities to you. Her forehead was good and cold, and -'

'You said you didn't touch her.'

'I touch with my fingers. I don't call applying a wrist to a forehead or a leg touching. The leg was cold too. It had been a corpse for at least five hours and probably more. The ashtray had been wiped. There were butts and ashes on the carpet but no particles on the tray. I was in there a total of about six minutes. The idea of staying to look for things didn't appeal to me.' I put a hand in a pocket and got something. 'Here are your keys.'

He didn't see them. His jaw was clamped. He unclamped it to say, 'Playing you. For God's sake. Playing you.'

'Naturally I'm curious.'

He got up and went through a doorway. I tossed the keys onto a table by a window and looked around. It was a good-sized room with three windows, with furniture that would do all right for a bachelor who wasn't fussy. The only light was from a pair of bulbs in a wall bracket, but there was a lamp by an easy chair that wasn't turned on. Orrie came back with a bottle and two glasses and offered me one, but I said no thanks, I had just dined. He put one glass down and poured in the other, took a healthy gulp, made a face, and sat down.

'Playing you,' he said. 'Nuts. Now you ask me where I've been since eight o'clock this morning and can I prove it.'

I shook my head. 'Since I'm merely curious, that would be stretching it. If I wanted to be nasty I would have opened up by barking at you something like, 'Why did you leave the ashtray on the floor?' Of course we do have to consider facts, such as the fact that I may be the only one besides you who knows that her being dead pulls a thorn for you. A bad thorn in deep. So of course I'm curious about one detail. Did you kill her?'

'No. My God, Archie. Am I a sap?'

'No. You're no mental giant, but you're not a sap. It would be nice if you could sell me. After all, you pulled me in, you knew I was going there today. It would be extra nice if you were covered.'

'I'm not covered.' He was staring at me but possibly not seeing me. He took a mouthful of whiskey and swallowed it twice. 'As I told you, I'm on a job for Bascom. I was out at eight and picked up a subject a little before nine and was on him all day. It was -'

'Single tail?'

'Yes. Just routine. From nine-nineteen until twelve-thirty-five I was in the lobby of an office building.'

'No company?'

'No.'

'Then I'm still curious. You would be if we traded spots, you know damn well you would, but that's all I am, just curious. Do you want to ask me anything?'

'Yes, I do. You had gloves and keys, I don't mean mine. You knew there might be something there. Why didn't you take a quick look?'

I grinned at him. 'You don't mean that.'

'The hell I don't.'

I nodded. 'Now and then you are a sap.' I stood up. 'As you know, Orrie, and as I know, you think it would be fine if you had my job. That's all right, there's nothing wrong with ambition. But what if you had got too ambitious? What if you knew there was nothing there to point to you? What if you had arranged for one man, me, to go there at a quarter past four, and for another man, maybe a cop on an anonymous tip, to arrive a few minutes later? It wouldn't have hooked me for murder, since the ME would set the time, but I would have the keys on me, not only yours, and the rubber gloves, and that would have been good for at least a couple of years. Of course I didn't really believe it, but being the nervous type -'

'Balls.' He was staying put, his head tilted back. 'What are you going to do?'

I looked at my wrist. 'Dinner will be half over, and anyway I ate. I'm going home and eat two helpings of creme Genoise. You crush eight homemade macaroons and soak them in half a cup of brandy. Put two cups of rich milk, half a cup of sugar, and the finely cut rind of a small orange into -'

'So clown it!' he yelled. 'Are you going to tell Wolfe?'

'I'd rather not.'

'Are you?'

'As it stands now, no.'

'Or Saul or Fred?'

'No. Nor Cramer nor J. Edgar Hoover.' I went to the couch for my hat and coat. 'Don't do anything you wouldn't expect me to do. You know what doctors call professional courtesy?'

'Yeah.'

'I sincerely hope you won't need any.'