'Did you hear any of them moving or speaking?'
'No.'
'Not even Mr. Ferris in the room above you?'
'No. I suppose he was up and gone before I woke up.'
'Did you hear or see anything at all that might be of significance?'
She shook her head. 'The police thought I must have, when I was in the kitchen, but I didn't.'
Wolfe's head went left, to Raymond Dell in the red leather chair. 'Mr. Dell. I know you came downstairs when Miss Annis entered the house with Mr. Goodwin shortly after one o'clock. Before that?'
'Nothing,' Dell rumbled.
'Nothing?'
'Nothing. That was when I left my room for the first time. Until then I had seen no one, heard nothing, and seen nothing. I had been asleep.'
'Then how did you know there were no oranges?'
Dell's chin jerked up. 'What's that? Oh.' He ges- tured. 'That man Goodwin. I knew because there had been none when I went down for some in the early hours-the late hours. I don't sleep at night; I read. I was reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and when I fin- ished it, at five o'clock perhaps, or six, I wanted or- anges. I always do around that hour. Finding none, I returned to my room and finally dozed.'
'So that was customary? You rarely stir before twelve?'
'I never do.'
'And at night you read. How do you spend your afternoons?'
Dell frowned. 'Could that conceivably apply?'
'Yes. Conceivably.'
186 Rex Stout
'I want to be present when you apply it. That would be a revelation worthy of the Cumaean sybil. I baby- sit '
'You what?'
'The current abhorrent term is 'baby-sit.' I have a friend who is a painter, by name Max Eder, who lives in an East Side tenement. His wife is dead. He has a son and daughter aged three and four, and five days a week I am their keeper for five hours, fi-om two till seven. For a stipend. Mondays and Tuesdays I am free to roam the market if I am so inclined. You frown. To offer my talents in television dens. I am so inclined only by necessity.'
'What is Mr. Elder's address?'
Dell shrugged, an actor's shrug. 'This approaches lunacy. However, it's in the phone book. Three- fourteen Mission Street.'
'How long have you been-uh-performing this ser- vice for him?'
'Something over a year.'
Wolfe left him. 'Mr. Hannah. Since I am now merely asking for what you have already told the police, your whereabouts today from ten-thirty to one, I hope you won't be provoked.'
'You do like hell,' Hannah blurted. 'Parading my conceit, huh? I'm sticking only because I told Martha I would. I left the house a little after nine o'clock and spent a couple of hours around the West Side docks, and then I took a bus downtown and got to the Mushroom Theater a little before twelve. We start rehearsal at noon. Around two o'clock a man came and flashed a badge and said I was wanted for questioning and took me to Forty-seventh Street.'
'What were you doing around the docks?'
'I was looking and listening. In the play we're doing, Do As Thou Wilt, I'm a longshoreman, and I want to get it right.'
'Where is the Mushroom Theater?'
'Bowie Street. Near Houston Street.'
'Do you have a leading role in the play?'
The Homicide Trinity 187
'No. Not leading.'
'How many lines have you?'
'Not many. It's not a big part. I'm young and I'm learning.'
'How long have you been rehearsing?'
'About a month.'
'Have you appeared at that theater before?'
'Once, last fall. I had a walk-on in The Pleasure Is Mine.'
