“I saw him. He wouldn’t speak to me. He denied me. His mother is coming.”
That was some improvement. Before it had been only “my wife.” Now it was “his mother.” One big unhappy family.
He went on. “I didn’t want her to, but she’s coming. I don’t know whether he’ll speak to her or not. He hasn’t just been arrested, he’s been convicted, and the District Attorney says there can’t be any question about it. What makes you think he’s innocent?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. One of my men has been killed-and I haven’t earned a fee? Pfui. You’ll know about it when the time comes.”
“I want to know about it now.”
“My dear sir.” Wolfe was scornful. “You have fired me. We are adversaries in a lawsuit, or soon will be. Mr. Goodwin will conduct you downstairs.” He turned, picked up a pot, and got a trowelful of the charcoal- osmundine mixture. That, by the way, was fake. You don’t put that mixture in a pot until you have covered the bottom with crock.
From his perch on the stool Herold had him more in profile than full-face. He watched for four pots and then spoke. “I haven’t fired you. I didn’t know what the situation was. I don’t now, and I want to.”
Wolfe asked, not turning, “You want me to go on?”
“Yes. His mother is coming.”
“Very well. Archie, take Mr. Herold to the office and tell him about it. Omit our inference from the contents of Johnny’s pockets. We can’t risk Mr. Cramer’s meddling in that for the present.”
I asked, “Give him everything else?”
“You might as well.”
Getting down off the stool, Herold tripped on his own toe and nearly fell. To give him footwork practice I took him back down by way of the stairs.
He wasn’t much impressed by my outline of the situation, but he had probably had all the impressions he had room for in one day. The guy was in shock. However, when he left we were still hired. He gave me the name of his hotel, and I said we would report any developments. At the door I told him it wouldn’t be a good idea for his wife to come to see Wolfe, because when Wolfe was deep in a case he was apt to forget his manners. I didn’t add that he was apt to forget his manners when he wasn’t deep in a case.
Alone again, I had a notion to try a few phone calls. In discussing an assignment for Orrie we had considered my tail-the party in a tan raglan and a brown snap-brim who had started to stalk me Tuesday afternoon when I left the house to go to the courtroom for a look at Peter Hays. Since there had been no sign of him since, the assumption was that somebody’s curiosity had been aroused by the newspaper ad and he had lost interest after the jury had settled Hays’s hash. We had decided it would be useless to put Orrie on it, since there was nowhere to start, but it wouldn’t do any harm for me to phone a few of the agencies I was acquainted with and chat a little. The chance was slim that one of them had been hired to put a man on me, and slimmer still that they would spill it to me, but things do sometimes slip out in a friendly conversation, and I might as well be trying it as merely sitting on my fanny. I considered it, and decided to hit Del Bascom first, and was just starting to dial when two interruptions came at once. Wolfe came down from the plant rooms and Saul Panzer arrived.
Saul’s face will never tell you a damn thing when he’s playing poker with you, or playing anything else that calls for cover, but he’s not so careful with it when he doesn’t have to be, and at sight of it as I let him in I knew he had something hot.
Wolfe knew it too, and he was on edge. As Saul was turning a chair around he demanded, “Well?”
Saul sat. “From the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“I phoned the apartment at nine-thirty-two and a woman answered and I asked to speak to Ella Reyes. She asked who I was and I said a Social Security investigator. She asked what I wanted with Ella Reyes and I said there was apparently a mix-up in names and I wanted to check. She said she wasn’t there, and she wasn’t sure when she would be, and I thanked her. So already it had a twist. A maid who sleeps in wasn’t there and it wasn’t known when she would be. I went to the apartment house and identified myself to the doorman.”
You should hear Saul identifying himself. What he meant was that after three minutes with the doorman they were on such good terms that he was allowed to take the elevator without a phone call to announce him. It’s no good trying to imitate him; I’ve tried it.
“I went up to Apartment Twelve-B, and Mrs. Irwin came to the door. I told her I had another errand in the neighborhood and dropped in to see Ella Reyes. She said she wasn’t there and still didn’t know when she would be. I pressed a little, but of course I couldn’t overdo it. I said the mix-up had to do with addresses, and maybe she could straighten it out, and asked if her Ella Reyes had another address, perhaps her family’s address, at Two-nineteen East One-hundred-and-twelfth Street. She said not that she knew of, that her Ella Reyes’ family lived on East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street. I asked if she could give me the number, and she went to another room and came back and said it was Three-oh-six East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street.”
Saul looked at me. “Do you want to note that, Archie?” I did so and he resumed. “I went down and asked the doorman if he had noticed Mrs. Irwin’s maid going out this morning, and he said no, and he hadn’t noticed her coming in either. He said Thursday was her night out and she always came in at eight o’clock Friday morning and he hadn’t seen her. He asked the elevator man, and he hadn’t seen her either. So I went to Three- oh-six East One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Street. It’s a dump, a coldwater walk-up. I saw Ella Reyes’ mother. I was as careful as possible, but it’s hard to be careful enough with those people. Anyway, I got it that Ella always came home Thursday nights and she hadn’t showed up. Mrs. Reyes had been wanting to go to a phone and call Mrs. Irwin, but she was afraid Ella might be doing something she wouldn’t want her employer to know about. She didn’t say that, but that’s what it was.
“I spent the rest of the day floundering around. Back at the Irwins’ address the doorman told me that Ella Reyes had left as usual at six o’clock yesterday, alone. Mrs. Reyes had given me the names of a couple of Ella’s friends, and I saw them, and they gave me more names. Nobody had seen her or heard from her. I phoned
