“A tray, please,” Wolfe told him. “The madrilène is ready?”
“Yes sir.”
“And the pudding?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A bowl of each, cheese with water cress, and hot tea.”
When Fritz turned and went I would have liked to go along, to tell him that there could be something worse than having no client.
5
An hour later, when the doorbell rang again, Kirk was still there and still the client, and I would still have had to toss a coin to decide where I stood on the question, did he or didn’t he?
Wolfe had of course refused to either talk or listen until the tray had come and gone. Kirk had said he couldn’t eat, but when Wolfe insisted he tried, and if a man can swallow anything he can swallow Fritz’s madrilène with beet juice, and after one spoonful of his lemon sherry pudding with brown sugar sauce there’s no argument. The cheese and water cress were still on the tray when I took it to the kitchen, but the bowls were empty.
When I returned Wolfe had started in. “... so I’ll reverse the process,” he was saying. “I’ll tell you and then ask you. Are you sufficiently yourself to comprehend?”
“I’m better. I didn’t think I could eat I’m glad you made me.” He didn’t look any better.
Wolfe nodded. “The brain can be hoodwinked but not the stomach. First, then, your statement that you didn’t kill your wife is of course of no weight. I have assumed that you didn’t for reasons of my own, which I reserve. Do you know or suspect who did kill her?”
“No. There are— No.”
“Then attend. An item in yesterday’s mail to this house was an envelope addressed to Mr. Goodwin, typewritten. A paper inside had a typewritten note saying, ‘Archie Goodwin, keep this until you hear from me, JNV.’ The envelope and paper were the engraved stationery of James Neville Vance. Also in the envelope was a four-in-hand necktie, cream-colored with brown diagonal stripes, and it had a spot on it, a large brown stain.”
Kirk was squinting, concentrating. “So that’s how it was. They never told me exactly...”
“They wouldn’t. Neither would I if I weren’t engaged in your interest. At a quarter past eleven yesterday morning Mr. Goodwin got a phone call, and a voice that squeaked, presumably for disguise, said it was James Neville Vance and asked him to burn what he had received in the mail. Mr. Goodwin, provoked, went to Two-nineteen Horn Street and was admitted by Vance, who identified the tie as one of his but denied that he had sent it. As Mr. Goodwin was about to go a policeman arrived who wanted access to your apartment, and he was with Mr. Vance and the policeman when your wife’s body was discovered, but he left immediately. Later he took—”
“But what—”
“Don’t interrupt. He took the tie to a laboratory and learned that the spot was human blood. He gave the tie, and the envelope and letterhead, to a law officer who had been told of the tie episode by Mr. Vance, and the police have established that the blood is the same type as your wife’s. You say they think they can prove that you killed your wife. Did they take your fingerprints?”
“Yes. They — I let them.”
“Could your fingerprints be on that envelope and letterhead?”
“Of course not. How could they? I don’t understand—”
“If you please. Mr. Vance told Mr. Goodwin that he had nine ties of that pattern and gave one to somebody. Did he give it to you? Cream with brown stripes.”
Kirk’s mouth opened and stayed open. The question was answered.
“When did he give it to you?”
“About two months ago.”
“Where is it now?”
“I suppose — I don’t know.”
“When you moved to a hotel room two weeks ago you took personal effects. Including that tie?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice. I took all my clothes, but I wasn’t noticing things like ties. I’ll see if it’s there.”
“It isn’t.” Wolfe took a deep breath, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Kirk looked at me, blinking, and was going to say something, but I shook my head. He had said enough already to make me think it might have been better all around if I had burned the damned souvenirs and crossed it off. He put his palms to his temples and massaged.
Wolfe opened his eyes and straightened up. He regarded Kirk, not cordially. “It’s a mess,” he stated. “I have questions of course, but you’ll answer them more to the point if I first expound this necktie tangle. Are your wits up to it? Should you sleep first?”
“No. If I don’t — I’m all right.”
“Pfui. You can’t even focus your eyes properly. I’ll merely describe it and ignore the intricacies. Assuming that the blood on the tie is in fact your wife’s blood, there are three obvious theories. The police theory must be that when you killed your wife the blood got on the tie, either inadvertently or by your deliberate act, and to implicate Vance you used his stationery to mail it to Mr. Goodwin. It was probably premeditated, since you had the stationery at hand. I don’t ask if that was possible; the police must know it was. You had been in his apartment, hadn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Frequently?”
“Yes. Both my wife and I — yes.”
“Is there a typewriter in his apartment?”
“There’s one in his studio.”
“You could have used it Is there one in your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“More subtly, you could have used that, thinking it would be assumed — but that’s one of the intricacies I’ll ignore for the moment So much for the police theory. Rejecting it because you didn’t kill your wife, I need an alternative, and there are two. One: Vance killed her. It would take an hour or more to talk that out, all its twists respecting the tie. He had it on and blood got on it, and he used it to call attention to himself in so preposterous a manner that it would inevitably be shifted to you; but in that case he had previously retrieved the tie he had given you, so it had been premeditated for at least two weeks. If the tie he gave you is in your hotel room, that will be another twist. Still another: he thought it possible that Mr. Goodwin would burn it as requested on the phone, and if so he would admit he had sent it, since it would no longer be available for inspection, saying he had found it somewhere on his premises and intended to get Mr. Goodwin to investigate, but changed his mind.”
“But why? I don’t see...”
“Neither do I. I said it’s a mess. The other alternative: X killed your wife and undertook to involve both Vance and you. Before considering him, what about Vance? If he killed her, why? Did he have a why?”
Kirk shook his head. “If he did — No. Not Vance.”
“She wasn’t much of a wife. Your phrase. Granting that no woman is much of a wife, did she have distinctive flaws?”
He shut his eyes for a long moment, opened them, and said, “She’s dead.”
“And you’re here because the police think you killed her, and they are digging up every fact about her that’s accessible. Decorum is pointless. At your trial, if it comes to that, her defects will become public property. What were they?”
“They were already public property — our little public.” He swallowed. “I knew when I married her that she was promis — no, she wasn’t promiscuous, she was too sensitive for that. She was incredibly beautiful. You know that?”