Three Witnesses

“Yeah, I thought so. I’ll be along shortly. Twentieth Street?”

“Now. With me.”

“Again no. I have to ask Mr. Wolfe if there’s anything we wouldn’t want to bother you with, and if so what. Where do I go, Twentieth Street?”

“Yes, and not tomorrow.”

“Right. Glad to oblige. The subjects are here at my elbow, so if you’ll just descend the steps-and be careful, don’t fall.”

He muttered something I didn’t catch, turned, and started down. When he was at the bottom of the seven steps I removed the bolt, swung the door open, and told our former clients, “Okay. In return for the sandwiches and coffee, here’s a suggestion. Don’t answer a single damn question until you have got a lawyer and talked with him. Even if-”

I stopped because my audience was going. Aubry had her arm as they crossed the stoop and started down. Not wishing to give Purley the pleasure of having me watch him take them, I shut the door, replaced the bolt, and returned to the office. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed.

“I’m wanted,” I told him. “Do I go?”

“Of course,” he growled.

“Are we saving anything?”

“No. There’s nothing to save.”

“The letters from Karnow to his wife are in my desk. Do I take them and turn them over?”

“No. They are her property, and doubtless she will claim them.”

“Did I discover the body?”

“Certainly not. To what purpose?”

“None. Don’t worry if I’m late.”

I went to the hall for my hat and beat it.

III

SINCE I WASN’T ITCHING to oblige Homicide, and it was a pleasant evening for a walk, I decided to hoof it the fifteen blocks to Twentieth Street, and also to do a little chore on the way. If I had done it in the office Wolfe would have pulled his dignity on me and pretended to be outraged, though he knew as well as I did that it’s always desirable to get your name in the paper, provided it’s not in the obituary column. So I went to a phone booth in a drugstore on Tenth Avenue, dialed the Gazette number, asked for Lon Cohen, and got him.

“Scrap the front page,” I told him, “and start over. If you don’t want it I’ll sell it to the Times. Did you happen to know that Paul Aubry and his wife, Mrs. Sidney Karnow to you, called on Nero Wolfe this afternoon, and I went somewhere with them, and brought them back to Mr. Wolfe’s office, and fifteen minutes ago Sergeant Purley Stebbins came and got them? Or maybe you don’t even know that Karnow was murd-”

“Yeah, I know that. What’s the rest of it? Molasses you licked off your fingers?”

“Nope. Guaranteed straight as delivered. I just want to get my employer’s name in the paper. Mine is spelled, A-R-C-H-”

“I know that too. Who else has got this?”

“From me, nobody. Only you, son.”

“What did they want Wolfe to do?”

Of course that was to be expected. Give a newspaperman an inch and he wants a column. I finally convinced him that that was all for now and resumed my way downtown.

At Manhattan Homicide West on Twentieth Street I was hoping to be assigned to Lieutenant Rowcliff so I could try once more to make him mad enough to stutter, but I got a college graduate named Eisenstadt who presented no challenge. All he wanted was facts, and I dished them out, withholding, naturally, that I had entered the room. It took less than an hour, including having my statement typed and signed, and I declined his pressing invitation to stick around until Inspector Cramer got in. I told him another fact, that I was a citizen in good standing, or fair at least, with a known address, and could be found if and when needed.

Back at the office Wolfe was yawning at a book. The yawn was an act. He wanted to make it clear to me that losing a fee of five grand was nothing to get riled about. I had a choice: either proceed to rile him or go up to bed. They were equally attractive, and I flipped a quarter and caught it. He didn’t ask me what I was deciding because he thought I wanted him to. It was heads, and I told him my session at Homicide wasn’t worth reporting, said good night, and mounted the two flights to my room.

In the morning, at breakfast in the kitchen, with Fritz supplying me with hot griddle cakes and the paper propped in front of me, I saw that I had given Lon not one inch but two. He had stretched it because it was exclusive. Aside from that, there was a pile of miscellaneous information, such as that Karnow had an Aunt Margaret named Mrs. Raymond Savage, and she had a son Richard, and a daughter Ann, now married to one Norman Horne. There was a picture of Ann, and also one of Caroline, not very good.

I seldom see Wolfe in the morning until eleven, when he comes down from the plant rooms, and that