II
IT WAS A DUMP, an old five-story walk-up, brick that had been painted yellow about the time I had started working for Nero Wolfe. In the vestibule I pushed the button that was labeled
As Wolfe went to speak to a girl at a desk I sent my eyes on a quick survey. It was the scene of the murder. In the front wall of the room three windows overlooked the street. Against the opposite wall were ranged the three switchboards, with three females with headphones seated at them. They had turned their heads for a look at the company.
The girl at the desk, which was near the end window, had only an ordinary desk phone, in addition to a typewriter and other accessories. Wolfe was telling her, “My name is Wolfe and I’ve just come from the courtroom where Leonard Ashe is being tried.” He indicated me with a jerk of his head. “This is my assistant, Mr. Goodwin. We’re checking on subpoenas that have been served on witnesses, for both the prosecution and the defense. Have you been served?”
With his air and presence and tone, only one woman in a hundred would have called him, and she wasn’t it. Her long, narrow face tilted up to him, she shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”
“Your name, please?”
“Pearl Fleming.”
“Then you weren’t working here on July fifteenth.”
“No, I was at another office. There was no office desk here then. One of the boards took office calls.”
“I see.” His tone implied that it was damned lucky for her that he saw. “Are Miss Hart and Miss Velardi and Miss Weltz here?”
My brows wanted to lift, but I kept them down, and anyway there was nothing startling about it. True, it had been weeks since those names had appeared in the papers, but Wolfe never missed a word of an account of a murder, and his skull’s filing system was even better than Saul Panzer’s.
Pearl Fleming pointed to the switchboards. “That’s Miss Hart at the end. Miss Velardi is next to her. Next to Miss Velardi is Miss Yerkes. She came after-she replaced Miss Willis. Miss Weltz isn’t here; it’s her day off. They’ve had subpoenas, but-”
She stopped and turned her head. The woman at the end board had removed her headphone, left her seat, and was marching over to us. She was about my age, with sharp brown eyes and flat cheeks and a chin she could have used for an icebreaker if she had been a walrus.
“Aren’t you Nero Wolfe, the detective?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he assented. “You are Alice Hart?”
She skipped it. “What do you want?”
Wolfe backed up a step. He doesn’t like anyone so close to him, especially a woman. “I want information, madam. I want you and Bella Velardi and Helen Weltz to answer some questions.”
“We have no information.”
“Then I won’t get any, but I’m going to try.”
“Who sent you here?”
“Autokinesis. There’s a cardinal flaw in the assumption that Leonard Ashe killed Marie Willis, and I don’t like flaws. It has made me curious, and when I’m curious there is only one cure-the whole truth, and I intend to find it. If I am in time to save Mr. Ashe’s life, so much the better; but in any case I have started and will not be stopped. If you and the others refuse to oblige me today there will be other days-and other ways.”
From her face it was a toss-up. Her chin stiffened, and for a second she was going to tell him to go soak his head; then her eyes left him for me, and she was going to take it. She turned to the girl at the desk. “Take my board, will you, Pearl? I won’t be long.” To Wolfe, snapping it: “We’ll go to my room. This way.” She whirled and started.
“One moment, Miss Hart.” Wolfe moved. “A point not covered in the newspaper accounts.” He stopped at the boards, behind Bella Velardi at the middle one. “Marie Willis’s body was found slumped over on the ledge in front of the switchboard. Presumably she was seated at the switchboard when the murderer arrived. But you live here-you and the others?”
“Yes.”
“Then if the murderer was Mr. Ashe, how did he know she was alone on the premises?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps she told him she was. Is that the flaw?”
“Good heavens, no. It’s conceivable that she did, and they talked, and he waited until a light and buzzes had her busy at the board, with her back to him. It’s a minor point, but I prefer someone with surer knowledge that she was alone. Since she was small and slight, even you are not excluded”-he wiggled a finger-”or these others. Not that I am now prepared to charge you with murder.”
“I hope not,” she snorted, turning. She led the way to a door at the end of the room, on through, and down a narrow hall. As I followed, behind Wolfe, I was thinking that the reaction we were getting seemed a little exaggerated. It would have been natural, under the circumstances, for Miss Velardi and Miss Yerkes to turn in their seats for a good look at us, but they hadn’t. They had sat, rigid, staring at their boards. As for Alice Hart,
