“Ring before you-I’d better come.” He crossed the sill and when I was out closed the door. Four of us in the elevator didn’t leave much room. When it stopped at 2 and they stepped out I stepped out too, into another small foyer. Vance pressed a button on a doorjamb, waited half a minute, pressed it again, kept his finger on it for five seconds, and waited some more. “All right, Bert,” he said and moved aside. Bert put a key in the lock-a Rabson, I noticed-turned it, turned the knob, pushed the door open, and made room for Vance to enter. Then the cop, and then me. Two steps in, Vance stopped, faced the rear, and raised his baritone. “Bonny! It’s Jim!”
I saw it first, a blue slipper on its side on the floor with a foot in it, extending beyond the edge of a couch. I moved automatically but stopped short. Let the cop do his own discovering. He did; he saw it too and went; and when he had passed the end of the couch he stopped shorter than I had, growled, “Godalmighty,” and stood looking down. Then I moved, and so did Vance. When Vance saw it, all of it, he went stiff, gawking, then he made a sort of choking noise, and then he crumpled. It wasn’t a faint; his knees just quit on him and he went down, and no wonder. Even live blood on a live face makes an impression, and when the face is dead and the blood has dried all over one side and the ear, plenty of it, you do need knees.
I don’t say I wasn’t impressed, but my problem wasn’t knees. It took me maybe six seconds to decide. Bert had joined us and was reacting. Vance had grabbed the back of the couch to pull himself up. The cop was squatting for a close-up of the dead face. No one knew if I was there or not, and in another six seconds I wasn’t. I went to the door, easy, let myself out, took the elevator down, and on out to the sidewalk. A police car was double-parked right in front, and the cop at the wheel, seeing me emerge from that house, gave me an eye but let it go at that as I headed west. Approaching Sixth Avenue, I felt sweat trickling down onto my cheek and got out my handkerchief. The sun was at the top on a warm August day, but I don’t sweat when I’m walking, and besides, why didn’t I know it before it collected enough to trickle? There you are. One man’s knees buckle immediately and another man starts sweating five minutes later and doesn’t know it.
It was a quarter to one when I climbed out of a taxi in front of the old brownstone on West 35th Street, mounted the seven steps of the stoop, and used my key. Before proceeding down the hall to the office I used my handkerchief thoroughly; Wolfe, who misses nothing, had never seen me sweat and wouldn’t now. When I entered he was at his desk with the new book, and he took his eyes from it barely enough for a sidewise glance at me as I crossed to my desk. I sat and said, “I don’t like to interrupt, but I have a report.”
He grunted. “Is it necessary?”
“It’s desirable. There’s nearly half an hour till lunch, and if someone comes, for instance an officer of the law, it would be better if you knew about it.”
He let the book down a little. “What the devil are you into now?”
“That’s the report. Ten minutes will do it, fifteen at the outside, even verbatim.”
He inserted a bookmark and put the book on the desk. “Well?”
I started in, verbatim, and by the time I was telling Vance he should install closed-circuit television he was leaning back with his eyes closed. Merely force of habit. When I mentioned the title of the privately printed book he made a noise-he says all music is a vestige of barbarism-and when I came to the end he snorted and opened his eyes.
“I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. “You’ve omitted something. A death by violence, and, not involved and with no commitment, you left? Nonsense.” He straightened up.
I nodded. “You’re not interested and you don’t intend to be, so you didn’t bother to look at it. I was present at the discovery of a dead body, obviously murdered. If I had hung around I would have been stuck. In another minute the cop would have ordered us to stay put, and he would have taken my name and recognized it. When Homicide came, probably Stebbins but no matter who, he would have learned why I was there, if not from me, then from Vance, and he would have taken the envelope and letterhead and necktie, and I wanted them for souvenirs. As I told Vance, they are actually and legally in my possession.”
“Pfui.”
“I disagree. Of course I would have liked to stay long enough to get a sample of that blood to have it compared with the spot on the tie. If it was the same I would be the first to know it and it’s nice to be first. Also of course, Vance will tell them about me, and the question is can I be hooked for obstructing justice if I refuse to hand over the tie? I don’t see how; There’s nothing to connect it with the homicide until and unless her blood is compared with the spot.”
Wolfe granted. “Flummery. Provoking the police is permissible only when it serves a purpose.”
“Certainly. And if James Neville Vance comes or calls to say that he expects to be charged with the murder of Mrs. Kirk, if that’s who she was, partly because of the tie he didn’t send me, and he wants to hire you, wouldn’t it be convenient to have the tie? And the envelope and letterhead?”
“I have no expectation of being engaged by Mr. Vance. Nor desire.”
“Sure. Because you would have to work. I remarked yesterday that the gross take for the first seven months of nineteen sixty-two is nine grand behind nineteen sixty-one. I am performing one of the main functions you pay me for.”
“Not brilliantly,” he said and picked up the book. Merely a childish gesture, since Fritz would enter in eight minutes to announce lunch. I went and opened the safe and stashed my souvenirs on a shelf in the inner compartment.
3
INSPECTOR CRAMER of Homicide South came at ten minutes past six.
I had been functioning all afternoon, I don’t say brilliantly. During lunch, in the dining room across the hall, while listening to Wolfe’s table talk with one ear, I decided to make myself scarce while I considered the matter. There was no sense in getting out on a limb just for the hell of it, and a homicide dick might show any minute, so as we left the table I told Wolfe that since we had no expectations or desires I was going out on some
