There was no use hanging around because if Reams had gone to call at the District Attorney's office by request, which was highly
Method Three for Murder 93
probable, there was no telling when he would be back. I had got Gilbert Irving's business address from the phone book, on Wall Street, but there was no use going there at that early hour. However, I had also got his home address, on East y8th Street, and I might catch him before he left, so I hoofed it along Ferrell Street back to civilization and flagged a taxi.
It was 9:15 when I climbed out in front of the number on ySth Street, a tenement palace with a marquee and a doorman. In the lobby another uniformed sentry sprang into action, and I told him, 'Mr. Gilbert Irving. Tell him a friend of Miss Holt.' He went and used a phone, returned and said, 'Fourteen B,' and watched me like a hawk as I walked to the elevator and entered. When I got out at the fourteenth floor the elevator man stood and watched until I had pushed the button and the door had opened and I had been invited in.
The inviter was no maid or butler. She might have passed for a maid in uniform, but not in the long, flowing, patterned-silk number which she probably called a breakfast gown. Without any suggestions about my hat she said, 'This way, please,' and led me across the hall, through an arch into a room half as big as Reams' garden, and over to chairs near a corner. She sat on one of them and indicated another for me.
I stood. 'Perhaps the man downstairs didn't understand me,' I suggested. 'I asked for Mr. Irving.'
'I know,' she said. 'He isn't here. I am his wife. We are friends of Miss Holt, and we're disturbed about the terrible--about her difficulty. You're a friend of hers?' Her voice was a surprise because it didn't fit. She was slender and not very tall, with a round little face and a little curved mouth, but her deep strong voice was what you would expect from a female sergeant. Nothing about her suggested the claws Judy Bram had mentioned, but they could have been drawn in.
'A new friend,' I said. 'I've known her twelve hours. If you've read the morning paper you may have noted that she was sitting on the stoop of Nero Wolfe's house with a man named Archie Good win when a cop found the body in the taxi. I'm Goodwin, and she has hired me to find out things.'
94 3 0* Wolfe's Door
She adjusted the gown to cover a leg better. 'According to the radio she has hired Nero Wolfe. She was arrested in his house.'
'That's a technical point. We're both working on it. I'm seeing people who might have some information, and Mr. Irving is on my list. Is he at his office?'
'I suppose so. He left earlier than usual.' The leg was safe, no exposure above the ankle, but she adjusted the gown again. 'What kind of information? Perhaps I could help?'
I couldn't very well ask if her husband had told her that Mira had told him she was going to drive Judy's cab. But she wanted to help. I sat down. 'Almost anything might be useful, Mrs. Irving. Were you and your husband also friends of Phoebe Arden?'
'I was. My husband knew her, of course, but you couldn't say they were friends.'
'Were they enemies?'
'Oh, no. It was just that they didn't hit it off.'
'When did you see her last?'
'Four days ago, last Friday, at a cocktail party at Waldo Reams' house. I was thinking about it when you came. She was so gay. She was a gay person.'
'You hadn't seen her since?'
'No.' She was going to add something, but checked it.
It was so obvious that I asked, 'But you had heard from her? A letter or a phone call?'
'How did you know that?' she demanded.
'I didn't. Most detective work is guessing. Was it a letter?'
'No.' She hesitated. 'I would like to help, Mr. Goodwin, but I doubt if it's important, and I certainly don't want any notoriety.'
'Of course not, Mrs. Irving.' I was sympathetic. 'If you mean, if you tell me something will I tell the police, absolutely not. They have arrested my client.'
'Well.' She crossed her legs, glancing down to see that nothing was revealed. 'I phoned Phoebe yesterday afternoon. My husband and I had tickets for the theater last evening, but about three o'clock he phoned me that a business associate from the West Coast had arrived unexpectedly, and he had to take him to dinner. So I phoned Phoebe and we arranged to meet at Morsini's at a
Method Three for Murder 95
quarter to seven for dinner and then go to the theater. I was there on time, but she didn't come. At a quarter past seven I called her number, but there was no answer. I don't like to eat alone at a place like Morsini's, so I waited a little longer and then left word for her and went to Schrafft's. She didn't come. I thought she might come to the theater, the Majestic, and I waited in the lobby until after nine, and then I left a ticket for her at the box office and went in. I would tell the police about it if I thought it was important, but it doesn't really tell anything except that she was at home when I phoned around three o'clock. Does it?'
'Sure it does. Did she agree definitely to meet you at Morsini's or was it tentative?'
'It was definite. Quite definite.'
'Then it was certainly something that happened after three o'clock that kept her from meeting you. It was probably something that happened after six-thirty or she would have phoned you--if she was still alive. Have you any idea at all what it might have been?'
