“That helps. Who is Martha Davis?”
Joe Groll said, giving information again, “She means Mrs. Poor. That was her name when she worked in the factory, before she got married. She means Mrs. Poor lolled her husband. That’s on account of jealousy. She’s crazy.”
A quiet but energetic voice came from a new direction. “She certainly is.”
It was Martha, who emerged from a door at the far end and approached the table.
She was pale and didn’t seem any too sure of her leg action, but she made her objective all right. She spoke to the girl, with no sign of violent emotion that I could detect, not even resentment. “Helen, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I think you will be when you have calmed down and thought things over. You have no right or reason to talk like that. You accuse me of killing my husband? Why?”
Very likely Helen would have proceeded to tell her why. She was obviously in the mood for it, and it was one of those set-ups when people blurt things that you couldn’t get out of them an hour later with a stomach pump. Any sap knows that, and Cramer was not quite a sap, so when at that moment a cop entered from the foyer escorting a stranger Cramer motioned with his hand for them to back out. But the stranger was not a backer-out. He came on straight to the table and, since the arrangement showed plainly that Cramer was it, addressed the inspector.
“I’m Conroy Blaney. Where’s Gene Poor?”
Not that he was aggressive or in any way overwhelming. His voice was a tenor squeak and it fitted his looks. I could have picked him up and set him down again without grunting; he had an undersized nose and not much chin, and he was going bald. But in spite of all those handicaps his sudden appearance had a remarkable effect. Martha Poor simply turned and left the room. The expressions on the faces of Helen Vardis and Joe Groll changed completely; they went deadpan in one second flat. I saw at once that there would be no more blurting, and so did Cramer.
As for Blaney, he looked around, saw the body of his partner on the floor, stepped toward it and gazed down at it, and squeaked, “Good heavens. Good heavens! Who did it?”
III
Next morning at eleven o’clock, when Wolfe came down to the office after his two-hour morning session up in the plant rooms, I made my report. He took it, as usual, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, with no visible sign of consciousness. The final chapter was the details given me by Martha Poor, with whom I had managed to have a talk around midnight by pressing Cramer on the client angle and wearing him down. I gave it to Wolfe.
“They came here yesterday in their own car. When they left here, a little before five, they drove to Madison Square Garden and got a program of the afternoon rodeo performance, the reason for that being he had needed to explain his absence from the office and not wanting Blaney to know that he was coming to see you, he had said he was going to the rodeo and wanted to be able to answer questions if he was asked about it. Then they drove up to Westchester. Conroy Blaney has a place up there, a shack in the hills where he lives and spends his evenings and weekends thinking up novelties, and they had a date to see him there and discuss things. Mrs. Poor had persuaded Poor to go, thinking they might reach an agreement, but Poor hadn’t wanted to, and on the way up he balked, so they stopped at a place near Scarsdale, Monty’s Tavern, to debate. Poor won the debate. He wouldn’t go. She left him at the tavern and went on to Blaney’s place alone. The date was for six-fifteen and she got there right on the dot. Are you awake?”
He grunted.
I went on, “Blaney wasn’t there. He lives alone, and the doors were locked. She waited around and got cold. At ten minutes to seven she beat it back to the tavern. She and Poor ate dinner there, then drove back to town, put the car in the garage, and went home. Poor had had no cigar after dinner because they hadn’t had his brand at the tavern and he wouldn’t smoke anything else. He has been smoking Alta Vistas for years, ten to fifteen a day. So he hung up his hat and opened a fresh box. She didn’t see him do it because she was in the bathroom. She heard the sound of the explosion, not very loud, and ran out and there he was. She phoned downstairs, and the elevator man and hall man came and phoned for a doctor and the police. Still awake?”
He grunted again.
“Okay. That’s it. When I returned to the living room everyone had left, including Poor’s leftovers. Some friend had come to spend the night, and of course there was a cop out in the hall. When I got home you were in bed, snoring.”
He had long ago quit bothering to deny that he snored. Now he didn’t bother about anything, but just sat there. I resumed with the plant records. Noon came and went, and still he was making no visible effort to earn five thousand dollars, or even five hundred. Finally he heaved a sigh, almost opened his eyes, and told me, “You say the face was unrecognizable.”
“Yes, sir. As I described it.”
“From something concealed in a cigar. Next to incredible. Phone Mr. Cramer. Tell him it is important that the identity of the corpse be established beyond question. Also that I want to see a photograph of Mr. Poor while still intact.”
I goggled at him. “For God’s sake, what do you think? That she doesn’t know her own husband? She came home with him. Now really. The old insurance gag? Your mind’s in a rut. I will not phone Mr. Cramer merely to put myself on the receiving end of a horse laugh.”
“Be quiet. Let me alone. Phone Mr. Cramer.” And that was all. Apparently he thought he had earned his fee. No instructions to go get Helen Vardis or Joe Groll or Blaney or even Martha Poor. When I phoned Cramer he didn’t laugh, but that was only because he had stopped laughing at Nero Wolfe some time back. I gritted my teeth and went on with the plant records.
At lunch he discussed Yugoslav politics. That was all right, because he never talked business at the table, but when, back in the office, he went through the elaborate operations of getting himself settled with the atlas, I decided to apply spurs and sink them deep. I arose and confronted him and announced, “I resign.”
He muttered testily without looking up, “Nonsense. Do your work.”
