“Archie. Since I’m a stranger to Mrs. Molloy, and you are not, it might be better for you to tell her about the legal situation regarding her husband’s estate.”
She looked at me. In her apartment she had sat with her back to a window, and here she was facing one, but the stronger light gave me no reason to lower my guard.
She squinted at me. “His estate? I thought you wanted to go on from yesterday.”
“We do,” I assured her. “By the way, I told you I wouldn’t be here, but my program was changed. The estate thing is a part of the investigation. We want access to Molloy’s records and papers, and since no will has been found the widow has a right to them, and you’re the widow. Of course you can let us look at anything that’s in the apartment, but there should be some legal steps-for instance, you should be named as administrator.”
“But I don’t want to be administrator. I don’t want anything to do with his estate. I might have wanted some of the furniture, if-” She let it hang. She shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”
“What about cash for your current expenses?”
“I wondered about that yesterday, after you had gone.” Her eyes were meeting mine, straight. “Whether Nero Wolfe was expecting me to pay him.”
“He isn’t.” I looked at Wolfe, and his head moved left, just perceptibly, and back. So we were still keeping our client under our hat. I met her eyes again. “Our interest in the case developed through a conversation with Mr. Freyer, and all we expect from you is information. I asked about cash only because there must be some in your husband’s estate.”
“If there is I don’t want it. I have some savings of my own, enough to go along on a while. I just don’t know what I’m going to do.” She pinned her lower lip with her teeth, and after a moment released it. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I don’t want to be administrator or have anything to do with it. I should have left him long ago, but I had married him with my eyes open and my silly pride-”
“Okay, but it might help if we could take a look at his papers. For instance, his checkbook. Miss Brandt tells me that the furniture in the office was sold, and that before it was taken away some man went through the desks and removed the contents. Do you know about that?”
“Yes, that was a friend of mine-and he had been a friend of my husband’s-Tom Irwin. He said the office should be closed up and I asked him to attend to it.”
“What happened to the stuff he took?”
“He brought it to the apartment. It’s there now, in three cartons. I’ve never looked at it.”
“I would like to. You’ll be here with Mr. Wolfe for quite a while. I could go up to the apartment and do it now if you’re willing to let me have the key.”
Without the slightest hesitation she said, “Of course,” and opened her handbag. It didn’t put her down a notch in my book-her being so trustful with a comparative stranger. All it meant was that with her P.H. convicted of murder she didn’t give a damn about anything at all, and besides, I was the comparative stranger. Glancing at Wolfe and getting a nod, I went to her and took the keys, told her I would let her know if I found anything helpful and would give her a receipt for anything I brought away, and headed for the hall. I had just taken my topcoat from the rack when the doorbell rang, and a look through the one-way glass panel showed me Saul Panzer out on the stoop. Putting the coat back, I opened up.
There are things about Saul I don’t understand and never will. For instance, the old cap he always wears. If I wore that cap while tailing a subject I’d be spotted in the first block. If I wore it while calling on people for information they would suspect I was cuckoo or quaint and draw the curtains. But Saul never gets spotted unless he wants to, and for extracting material from people’s insides nothing can equal him except a stomach pump. While he was hanging up his coat and sticking the cap in its pocket I stepped to the office door to tell Wolfe, and Wolfe said to bring him in. He came, and I followed him.
“Yes?” Wolfe inquired.
Saul, standing, shot a glance at the red leather chair and said, “A report.”
“Go ahead. Mrs. Molloy’s interest runs with ours. Mrs. Molloy, this is Mr. Panzer.”
She asked him how he did and he bowed. That’s another thing about him, his bow; it’s as bad as his cap. He sat down on the nearest yellow chair, knowing that Wolfe wants people at eye level, and reported.
“Two employees of the Metropolitan Safe Deposit Company identified a picture of Michael M. Molloy. They say it’s a picture of Richard Randall, a renter of a box there. I didn’t tell them it was Molloy, but I think one of them suspects it. I didn’t try to find out what size the box is or when he first rented it or any other details, because I thought I’d better get instructions. If they get stirred up enough to look into it and decide that one of their boxes was probably rented under another name by a man who has been murdered, they’ll notify the District Attorney. I don’t know the law, I don’t know what rights the DA has after he has got a conviction, since he couldn’t be looking for evidence, but I thought you might want to get to the box first.”
“I do,” Wolfe declared. “How good is the identification?”
“I’d bank on it. I’m satisfied. Do you want to know just how it went?”
“No. Not if you’re satisfied. How much are they already stirred up?”
“I think not much. I was pretty careful. I doubt if either of them will go upstairs with it, but they might, and I thought you might want to move.”
“I do.” Wolfe turned. “Mrs. Molloy. Do you know what this is about?”
“Yes, I think so.” She looked at me. “Isn’t it what I told you yesterday, the envelope and slip of paper when I was looking for the hockey ticket?”
“That’s it,” I told her.
“And you’ve found out already that my husband was Richard Randall?”
“We have,” Wolfe said, “and that changes the situation. We must find out what is in that box as soon
