“I apologize,” he said, “for being too free with my accusations. I hope you’ll make allowances. This is by far the worst situation I’ve ever had to deal with. By far. I’ll be expecting and hoping to hear from you.”
By the time I got back from showing him out Wolfe had crossed the hall to the dining room.
Chapter 11
At six-thirty that afternoon I sat on a hard wooden chair in the office of Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum, a smallish room, making a speech.
The audience of three was big enough for the room. At his desk was Mandelbaum, middle-aged, plump, to be classified as bald in two years. At his elbow was a Homicide dick named Randall, tall and narrow, with nothing covering his bones but his skin at the high spots. Jean Estey, in a chair near the end of the desk, around the corner from me, was in a dark gray dress which didn’t go too well with her greenish-brown eyes, but presumably it was the best she had had in stock for the funeral.
The conference, consisting mostly of questions by Mandelbaum and answers by Miss Estey and me, had gone on for ten minutes or so when I felt that the background had been laid for my speech, and I proceeded to make it.
“I don’t blame you,” I told Mandelbaum, “for wasting your time, or even mine, because I know that nine-tenths of a murder investigation is barking up empty trees, but hasn’t this gone on long enough? Where are we? No matter what the facts are, I bow out. If Miss Estey made it all up, you don’t need me to help you try to find out why. If she’s telling the truth and I made her that offer on my own, you told Mr. Wolfe about it on the phone, and he’s the one to put me through the wringer, not you. If Wolfe sent me to make her the offer, as you prefer to believe, what’s all the racket about? He could put an ad in the paper offering to sell a transcript of his talk with Mrs. Fromm to anyone who would pay the price, which might not be very noble and you wouldn’t like it, but what would the charge read like? I came down here at your request, and now I’d like to go home and try to convince my employer that I’m not a viper in his bosom.”
It wasn’t quite that easy, but after another five minutes I was allowed to depart without shooting my way out. Jean Estey didn’t offer to kiss me goodbye.
I really did want to get home, because I would have to eat dinner early in order to keep a date with Orrie Cather. Around five o’clock he had showed up at the office with a report that seemed to justify annoying Wolfe in the plant rooms, and I had taken him up. Wolfe was grumpy but he listened. The salesman at Boudet’s had never seen spider earrings, gold or otherwise, but he had given Orrie a list of names of people connected with manufacturers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers, and Orrie had gone after them, mostly by phone. By four o’clock he had been about ready to report that there had never been a spider earring in New York, when a buyer for a wholesaler suggested that he speak to Miss Grummon, the firm’s shopper.
Miss Grummon said yes, she had seen one pair of spider earrings, and she didn’t care to see more. One day a few weeks ago-she couldn’t give the exact date-walking along Forty-sixth Street, she had stopped to inspect a window display and there they were, two big golden spiders in a green-lined case. She had thought them horrid, certainly not a design to suggest to her employers, and had been surprised to see them displayed by Julius Gerster, since most of the items offered in his small shop showed excellent taste.
So far fine. But Orrie had made straight for Gerster’s shop and had stubbed his toe. He claimed he had made a good approach, telling Gerster he had seen the earrings in the window and wanted to buy them, but Gerster had clammed up from the beginning. He didn’t deny that there had once been a pair of spider earrings in his shop, but neither did he admit it. His position, stated in the fewest possible words, was that he had no recollection of such an item, and if he had displayed it he didn’t remember how or to whom they had been disposed of. Orrie’s position, stated to Wolfe and me in enough words, was that Gerster was a goddam liar and that he wanted permission to pour gasoline on him and light him.
So Orrie and I were to call on Mr. Gerster at his home that evening, not by appointment.
During the day there had been various other occurrences not worth detailing-calls from Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin, who had found nothing to bring in, and nudges from Lon Cohen. One non-occurrence should be mentioned: there had been no word of a replevin by James Albert Maddox. Our lawyer, Parker, was feeling slighted.
I met Orrie at eight o’clock at the corner of Seventy-fourth and Columbus, and we walked east to the number, nearly to Central Park West, through a monotonous drizzle that had started in late afternoon. If New York apartment houses can be divided into two classes, those with canopies and those without, this one was in between. The stanchions were there, from the entrance to the curb, but there was no covering canvas. In the lobby we told the doorman “Gerster,” and kept going to the elevator. The elevator man said it was 11F.
The door was opened by an eighth-grader about the age and build of Pete Drossos, but very neat and clean. The instant I saw him I ditched the strategy we had decided on and elected another. I said to Orrie, “Thanks for bringing me up. See you later.” It took him about a second to get it, which wasn’t bad. He said, “Don’t mention it,” and headed for the elevator. The boy had told me good evening, and I returned it, gave him my name, and said I wanted to see Mr. Julius Gerster. He said, “I’ll tell him, sir. Please wait,” and disappeared. I didn’t cross the sill. Soon a man came, clear up to me before speaking. He was some shorter than me, and older, with a small tidy face and black hair brushed back smooth, fully as neat and clean as his son-at least I hoped it was his son.
He asked politely but coolly, “You wanted to see me?”
“I would like to if it’s convenient. My name’s Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe, the detective. I want to ask you something about the murder of a boy-a twelve-year-old boy named Peter Drossos.”
His expression didn’t change. As I was to see, it never changed. “I know nothing about the murder of any boy,” he declared.
