contents of the leather case before Whitten managed to get onto the subject he was really hot about: unit managers.
There were four managers whom Whitten wanted to fire immediately, and one that he wanted to transfer to headquarters in New York. Within five minutes he had got sarcastic and personal, and Pompa was yelling at the top of his voice. Pompa, according to Marko, had always been a yeller and always would be. When Mrs. Whitten, intervening, lined up on her husband's side, it was too much. Pompa yelled that he was done, finished, and through for good, and tramped out and down the stairs. Mrs. Whitten came after him, caught him in the reception hall, and pulled him into the living room. She appealed to him, but he stood pat. She made him sit down, and practically sat on him, and insisted. She was keenly aware, she said, that no one, not even her Floyd, was capable of directing successfully the complex and far-flung Ambrosia enterprise without long and thorough preparation. Her attempt to put her son Mortimer in charge had taught her a lesson. One more year was all she asked of Pompa. She knew he owed no loyalty to her, and certainly not to Floyd, but what about the dead H. R. Landy and Ambrosia itself? Would he desert the magnificent structure he had helped to build? As for the immediate point at issue, she would promise that Floyd should have no authority regarding unit managers for at least six months. Pompa, weakening, stated that Floyd was not even to mention managers. Mrs. Whitten agreed, kissed Pompa on the cheek, took his hand, and led him out of the room and across the reception hall to the stairs. They had been in the living room with the door closed, by Pompa's best guess, about half an hour.
As they started to mount the stairs they heard a noise, a crash of something falling, from the dining room.
Mrs. Whitten said something like 'My God.' Pompa strode to the door to the dining room and threw it open. It was dark in there, but there was enough light from the hall, through the door he had opened, to see that there were people. He stepped to the wall switch and flipped it. By then Mrs. Whitten was in the doorway, and they both stood and gaped. There were indeed people, five of them, now all on their feet: the two Landy sons, Jerome and Mortimer; the two Landy daughters, Eve and Phoebe; and the son-in-law, Eve's husband, Daniel Bahr. As for the noise that had betrayed them, there was an overturned floor lamp.
Pompa, having supposed that these sons and daughters of Ambrosia wealth were miles away on Independence Day weekends, continued to gape. So, for a moment, did Mrs. Whitten. Then, in a voice shaking either with anger or something else, she asked Pompa to go and wait for her in the living room. He left, closing the dining-room door behind him, and stood outside and listened.
The voices he heard were mostly those of Jerome, Eve, Daniel Bahr, and Mrs. Whitten. It was Bahr, the son-in-law – the only one, according to Pompa, not in awe of Mother – who told her what the conclave was for. They had gathered thus secretly and urgently to consider and discuss the matter of Floyd Whitten. Did the intention to train him to become the operating head of Ambrosia mean that he would get control, and eventually ownership, of the source of the family fortune? If so, could anything be done, and what? He, Bahr, had come because Eve asked him to. For his part, he was glad that Mr. and Mrs. Whitten had unexpectedly arrived on the scene, and that an accidental noise had betrayed their presence; they had been sitting in scared silence, as darkness came, for nearly two hours, afraid even to sneak away because of the upstairs windows overlooking the street, talking only in low whispers, which was preposterous conduct for civilized adults. The way to handle such matters was open discussion, not furtive scheming. The thing to do now was to get Whitten down there with them and talk it out – or fight it out, if it had to be a fight.
The others talked some too, but Bahr, the professional word user, had more to use. Pompa had been surprised at Mrs. Whitten. He had supposed she would start slashing and mow them down, reminding them that Ambrosia belonged exclusively to her, a fact she frequently found occasion to refer to, but apparently the shock of finding them there in privy powwow, ganging up on her Floyd, had cramped her style. She had not exactly wailed, but had come close to it, and had reproached them bitterly for ever dreaming that she could forget or ignore their right to a proper share in the proceeds of their father's work. For that a couple of them apologized. Finally Bahr took over again, insisting that they should bring Whitten down and reach a complete understanding. There were murmurs of agreement with him, and when Mrs. Whitten seemed about to vote yes too, Pompa decided it was time for him to move. He walked out the front door and went home.
That was all we had from Pompa. He wasn't there when Mrs. Whitten and her son Jerome and Daniel Bahr went upstairs together to get Whitten, and found him hunched over on the table with a knife in him from the back. It was one of the pointed slicing knives, with an eight-inch blade.
III
Wednesday morning, as I said, in Wolfe's bedroom, when he started to save old Virgil Pompa by getting Mrs. Whitten on the phone before he finished breakfast, instead of getting Mrs. Whitten he got coffee in his windpipe. He coughed explosively, gasped, and went on coughing.
'You shouldn't try to drink when you're mad,' I told him. 'Peristalsis is closely connected with the emotions. Anyhow, I think it was only a butler. Naturally she has brought the hired help in from the country. Do you care whether a butler has heard of you? I don't.'
With the panic finally out of his windpipe, Wolfe took off his yellow silk pajama top, revealing enough hide to make shoes for four platoons, tossed it on the bed, and frowned at me.
'I have to see those people. Preferably all of them, but certainly Mrs. Whitten. Apparently they squirm if she grunts. Find out about her.'
So that was what I spent the day at.
The Homicide Bureau was of course a good bet, and, deciding a phone call would be too casual, I did a few morning chores in the office and then went to 20th Street. Inspector Cramer wasn't available, but I got to Sergeant Purley Stebbins. I was handicapped because my one good piece of bait couldn't be used. It was a fair guess that Mrs. Whitten and the Landy children had given the cops a distorted view of the reason for the secret gathering in the dining room and the two-hour silent sit in the dark – possibly even a fancy lie. If so, it would have helped to be able to give Purley the lowdown on it, but I couldn't. Pompa, when first questioned by the city employees, had stated that when Mrs. Whitten had asked him to go to the living room and wait there for her, he had done so, and had left when he got tired of waiting. The damn fool hadn't wanted to admit he had eavesdropped, and now he was stuck with it. If he tried to change it, or if Wolfe and I tried to change it for him, it would merely make his eye blacker than ever and no one would believe him.
Therefore the best I could do with Purley was to tell him Wolfe had been hired to spring Pompa, and of course that went over big. He was so sure they had Pompa for good that after a couple of supercilious snorts he
