“Yes. First when.”
“Between nine o’clock last evening and three o’clock this morning. That may be narrowed down later. It was murder, because her own car ran across her chest and was there, nosed into a roadside opening, when the body was found. There was a bruise on the side of her head; she was probably hit with something and knocked out before the car was run over her. Then the-”
I stopped because she had made a sound, call it a moan, and shut her eyes. “Do you have to be utterly brutal?” Margot Tedder asked. The daughter, a couple of years younger than her brother Noel, was at the other end of the couch. From hearsay, she was a pain in the neck who kept her chin up so she could look down her nose; from my personal knowledge, she was a nice slender specimen with real possibilities if she would round out a little and watch the corners of her mouth, and, seeing her walk or dance, you might have thought her hips were in a cast.
“I didn’t do it,” I told her. “I’m just telling it.”
“You haven’t said where,” Jimmy Vail said. “Where was it?”
Mrs Vail’s eyes had opened, and I preferred to tell her, since she was the client. “Iron Mine Road. That’s a narrow rocky lane off of Route One Twenty-three. Route One Twenty-three goes into Route Thirty-five seven miles east of Katonah, not far from the state line.”
Her eyes had widened. “My God,” she said, staring at me. “
“Wait a minute, Althea,” Frost commanded her. “I must speak with you privately. This is dangerous business, extremely dangerous. You should have told me Monday when you got that note. As your counselor, I instruct you to say nothing more to anyone until you have talked with me. And I don’t- Where are you going?”
She had left the couch and was heading for the door. She said over her shoulder, “I’ll be back,” and kept going, on out. Jimmy moved. He went halfway to the door, stopped and stood, his back to us, and then came back to the fireplace. Ralph Purcell, Mrs Vail’s brother, said something to Frost and got no response. I had never seen Purcell and knew next to nothing of him, either hearsay or personal knowledge. Around fifty, take a couple of years either way, with not much hair left and a face as round as his sister’s, he had a habit I had noticed: when someone started to say something he looked at someone else. If he was after an effect he got it; it made you want to say something to him and see if you could keep his eye.
Noel Tedder, who was leaning against George Washington, asked me, “What’s this about suspecting her? Suspecting her of what?” The lawyer shook his head at him, and Margot said, “What’s the difference now? She’s dead.” Purcell was looking at me, and I was deciding what to say to him and try to hold his eye when Mrs Vail came in. She had an envelope in her hand. She came back to the couch, sat on the edge, and took papers from the envelope. Frost demanded, “What have you got there? Althea, I absolutely insist-”
“I don’t care what you insist,” she told him. “You’re a good lawyer, Andy, Harold thought so and so do I, and I trust your advice on things you know about, you know I do, but this is different. I told you about it because you could tell me about the legal part of it, but now I don’t need just
I shook my head. “He never leaves the house on business. If you want to see him he’ll be available at six-”
“No. I don’t feel like-no. I can tell you. Can’t I?”
“Certainly.” I got my notebook and pen from a pocket, went to a chair near the end of the couch, and sat.
She looked around. “I want you to hear it, all of you. You all knew Dinah. I’m sure you all thought of her as highly as I did-I don’t mean you all liked her, that’s not it, but you thought she was very competent and completely reliable. But apparently she-but wait till you hear it.” She fingered in the papers, extracted one, handed it to me, and looked around again. “I’ve told you about the note I got Monday morning, saying they had Jimmy and I would get a phone call from Mr Knapp. Nero Wolfe has it. And I’ve told you, haven’t I-yes, I did-that when the phone call came Monday afternoon Dinah listened in and took it down. Later she typed it from her notes, and that’s it. Read it aloud, Mr Goodwin.”
A glance had shown me that the typing was the same as the note, the same faint letters, but on a better grade of paper and a different size, 8Ѕ by 11. I read it to them:
MRS VAIL: This is Althea Vail. Are you-
KNAPP: I’m Mr Knapp. Did you get the note?
MRS VAIL: Yes. This morning. Yes.
KNAPP: Is anyone else on the wire?
MRS VAIL: No. Of course not. The note said-
KNAPP: Keep it strictly to yourself. You had better if you want to see your Jimmy again. Have you got the money?
MRS VAIL: No, how could I? I only got the note-
KNAPP: Get it. You’ve got until tomorrow. Get it and put it in a suitcase. Five hundred thousand dollars in used bills, nothing bigger than a hundred. You understand that?
MRS VAIL: Yes, I understand. But where is my husband? Is he-
KNAPP: He’s perfectly all right. Safe and sound, not a scratch on him. That’s absolutely straight, Mrs Vail. If you play it straight, you can count on us. Now listen. I don’t want to talk long. Get the money and put it in a suitcase. Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, put the suitcase in the trunk of your blue sedan, and don’t forget to make sure the trunk’s locked. Take the Merritt Parkway. Leave it at the Westport exit, Route 33. You know Route 33?
