Gambit

Kalmus wouldn't want you waiting Jor him down here, that's sure,' and headed for 141 the open door of the do-it- yourself elevator. Entering after us, he pushed a button, the door closed, and we were lifted. On the fourth floor the foyer was just a cell, four feet square, merely to provide walls for a door. Dobbs had taken a ring of keys from a pocket, but before he used one he pushed the button on the jamb and waited a full half a minute?in case Kalmus was in but had preferred not to answer our ring from downstairs. Evidently not. He used the key, opened the door, entered and flipped a wall switch, and there was light?plenty of it, though indirect, from troughs at the ceiling along two of the walls. 'There you are, Miss Sarah,' he said. 'It's not the way it used to be, is it?' 'No, it isn't, Dobbsy.' She started a hand out but took it back. You don't shake the hand of a man you're tricking. But apparently it's all right to kiss him. Anyway, she did?a peck on the cheek?and said, 'Did you hear that? Dobbsy!' 'You bet I heard it. You just bet I did.' He bowed to her, and it could have been a butler bowing or an ambassador from somewhere in Africa. 'I hope you don't have long to wait,' he said, and went. When the door had closed behind him Sally flopped onto the nearest chair. 'My God,' she groaned. 'How awful. I didn't want to come. Will you hurry, Archie? Will you 142 please hurry?' I told her to relax, took my hat and coat off and dropped them on a chair, and glanced around. It was a big room, and by no means bare, and of course there would be a bedroom and bath, and a kitchenette. Even if I had been after some specific object like a bottle of arsenous oxide it would have been a three-hour job if done right, and since I expected nothing so obvious but merely hoped for something, no matter what, that would open a crack to let in a little light, the whole night wouldn't be too much. Say it was a single piece of paper, a letter or a record of something; one item alone, the books in the shelves that lined the wall on the right, to the ceiling, would take hours. And Kalmus might show any second. I decided to have a look at the bedroom first and started for a door at the left, but on the way I caught something from the corner of my eye and stopped and turned. Then I moved. It was Kalmus. He was on the floor in front of a couch, and the couch hid him from view until you passed the end of it. He was fully dressed, on his back with his legs straight out. After glancing at Sally and seeing that she was still on the chair, her head bent forward and her face covered by her hands, I squatted. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, the pupils dilated, his face was purple, his tongue was sticking out, and there was dried froth around his mouth and nose. With the froth dry there j 143 I ? was no use trying for a pulse or a breath. I poked a finger into a deep crease around his neck, felt something besides skin, and leaned closer for a look, forcing the crease open. It was cord, the kind used for Venetian blinds, with a knot under his left ear, and the surplus ends had been tucked under his shoulder. I told myself then and there to remember to ask the murderer, when we had him, if he had tucked the cord in consciously because he liked things neat, or if his mind had been occupied and he had done it without thinking. It was one of the most remarkable details I have ever seen or heard of about a death by violence. I was resisting the temptation to pull it out to see how much there was of it when there was a sound behind me, and I twisted around and then sprang up. Sally was there, staring down, her mouth hanging open, and she was starting to sag as I reached her. Not wanting a faint to deal with, I picked her up, carried her to a chair at the other side of the room, put her in it, pushed her head forward, down to her knees, and kept my hand there, at the back other nice neck. She was limp and there was no resistance, but she wasn't out. I knelt beside her, in case she went. 'So you were wrong,' I said, 'dead wrong. It you hadn't been wrong you wouldn't have come to Nero Wolfe, but to hell with that now. Do you hear me?' No answer. 144 'Damn it, do you hear me?' 'Yes.' It wasn't loud, but it was audible. 'Is he dead?' 'Certainly he's dead. He?' 'How?' 'Strangled. There's a cord around his throat.' I took my hand away, and her head started up, slow, and I stood up. 'Do you think you can walk?' 'I don't... want to walk.' Her head was up. 'That's too bad. Will I have to carry you down and put you in a cab?' 'Archie.' Her head tilted back to look up at me. Her jaw started working, out of control, and she stopped to manage it. She made it, and asked, 'He killed himself?' 'No. I'll be glad to help you straighten your mind out later but now I have things to do. He was murdered. I don't want you here when the cops come. I'd rather explain why we came and got Dobbs to let us in without your help. Do you want to spend the night answering questions?' 'No.' 'Can you make it down and get a taxi? Mr Wolfe will be expecting you. I'll phone him.' 'I think ... I'll go home.' 'You will not. Absolutely not. Either you give me your word that you'll go straight back there or you stay here and take it. Well?' 'I don't want to stay.' 'Will you go to Nero Wolfe and do what 145 he says?' 'Yes.' 'Okay. Can you stand? Can you walk?5 She could. I didn't help her. I went to the door and opened it, and she came, none too steady but she made it. Propping the door open with my foot, I reached for the elevator button and pushed it, and when it came and the door opened she entered and pushed the button, and the door closed. I went back in, crossed to a table in a corner where I had seen a phone, lifted the receiver, and dialed the number I knew best. Wolfe's voice came: 'Yes?' He never has answered the phone properly and never will. The,' I said. 'In Kalmus's apartment. Everything worked fine as planned. Sally did all right, and Superintendent Dobbs brought us up and let us in and left. But Kalmus was here and still is. He's stretched out on the floor with a cord tight around his neck. He has started to cool off, but of course skinny ones cool faster. At a guess, he has been dead around three hours. He didn't tie the cord himself, and anyway the loose ends are neatly tucked under his shoulder.' Silence for five seconds, then: 'Pfui.' 'Yes, sir. I agree. I have bounced Sally, she just left, and, if she stays conscious and keeps her promise, she will be there in about ten minutes. I have a suggestion. Send her up to bed and have Doc Vollmer come. He may find 146 that she needs a sedative and shouldn't see any callers, official or otherwise, until sometime tomorrow. I'll notify the law right away, since they'll learn from Dobbs what time he let us in. Have you any instructions?' 'No. Confound it.' 'Yes, sir. Absolutely. I assume I don't tell the law what we had in mind when we came, since what was in our minds is none of their damned business. You wondered why Kalmus didn't show up this evening, and when I tried his number there was no answer, so we came to ask him. Will that do?' 'Yes. Must you stay?' 'Oh, no. I'm staying because I like it here. Tell Fritz I may be there for breakfast and I may not.' I hung up and took a couple of seconds to shake my head at the phone with my lips tight. Must I stay. Only a genius could ask such a damn fool question. Still shaking my head, I picked up the phone and dialed another number I knew: WA9-8241. I dialed that instead of Headquarters because I preferred to tell Inspector Cramer himself, or at least Sergeant Purley Stebbins, if either of them was on duty. 147 CHAPTER ELEVEN A couple of electricians had installed a juke box inside my skull, and they were still there, testing it to see how many selections it could play simultaneously. About a dozen, apparently, judging from the noise. Also they were jumping up and down to find out how much vibration it could stand. Or maybe it wasn't a juke box, it was a band, and they were all jumping up and down. If I wanted to see which it was I would have to turn my eyes around to look inside, and in the effort to do that my lids came open, and there facing me was the clock on my bedstand. I quit trying to reverse my eyes and concentrated on the clock. Seventeen minutes past eleven. The noise was neither a juke box nor a band; it was the house buzzer. Someone somewhere had a finger on the button and was keeping it there. Nuts. I could stop it by reaching for the cord and yanking it loose. But it takes a hero to do something as sensible as that, and I wasn't awake enough to be a hero, so when I reached I got the phone instead of the cord, brought it to the neighborhood of my mouth, and said, 'Now what?' Wolfe's voice came: 'I'm in the kitchen. What time did you get home?' 'Nine minutes to seven, and had three fingei & 148 of bourbon while I was fixing a bowl of milk toast. I intended to sleep through until dinner. Why are you in the kitchen?' 'Mr Cramer is in the office. Have you anything I should know?' 'Yes. Lieutenant Rowcliff's stutter is getting worse. Sergeant Stebbins has a bandage on the middle finger of his left hand, probably got bit by a pigeon he was trying to put salt on the tail of. An assistant DA named Schipple whom I never met before has amended the Constitution; a man is guilty until he proves he's innocent. That's all. In my answers to ten thousand questions and in the statement I signed there was nothing to affect your program if you have one. I didn't even admit in so many words that Sally is your client. As for Kalmus, he was hit on the back of the head, probably with a heavy metal ash tray that was there on a table, before the cord was tied around his throat. The cord was from one of the window blinds there in the room. The ME's on-the-spot guess was that he had been dead two to five hours. Where's Sally?' 'In the south room.' (Even after three nights, not 'in her room.') 'Dr Vollmer is attending. Before he dosed her last evening I told her why you went to that apartment?when she is asked. How soon can you be down?' 'Oh, six hours. What does Cramer want? He can't want me, he had me off and on all night. Does he want Sally?' 149 'I don't know. When he arrived I came to the kitchen and Fritz took him to the office. He may presume to quote something you said, even something in your statement, and you should be present. Can you be down in ten minutes?' 'Yes, but I won't. Twenty. Tell Fritz I would appreciate orange juice and coffee.' He said certainly and hung up, and I stretched out on my back and yawned good and wide before reaching to switch the electric blanket off. On my feet, before I closed the open window I stuck my head out for a whiff of winter air, which helped a little, enough to rouse me to the point where I could put my pants on right side front and my shoes on the right feet. More than that couldn't be expected. All night, in between sessions with dicks and the assistant DA, I had considered the situation with Kalmus out of it, and had decided that the best idea would be for the morning mail to