“Very well.” He leaned back. “As I told you this morning, I thought I might have been hoodwinked and I intended to find out. It was quite possible that that performance here yesterday — getting us on the phone just in time to hear a murder committed — was flummery. Indeed, it was more than possible. Must I expound that?”
“No. Even Cramer suspected it.”
“So he did. But his theory that Bianca Voss had been killed earlier and that another woman, not the murderer, was there beside the corpse, waiting for a phone call, was patently ridiculous. Must I expound that?”
“No, unless it was a lunatic. Anyone who would do that, even the murderer, with the chance that someone might come in any second, would be batty.”
“Of course. But if she wasn’t killed at the time we heard those sounds, she must have been killed earlier, since you phoned almost immediately and sent someone to that room. Therefore the sounds didn’t come from there. Miss Gallant did not dial that number. She dialed the number of some other person whom she had persuaded to perform that hocus-pocus.”
He turned a hand over. “I had come to that conclusion, or call it conjecture, before I went to bed last night, and I had found it intolerable. I will not be mistaken for a jackass. Reading the paper at breakfast this morning, I came upon the item about the death of Sarah Yare, and my attention was caught by the fact that she had been an actress. An actress can act a part. Also she had been in distress. Also she had died. If she had been persuaded to act that part, it would have been extremely convenient — for the one who persuaded her — for her to die before she learned that a murder had been committed and that she had been an accessory after the fact. Certainly that was mere speculation, but it was not idle, and when I came down to the office I looked in the phone book to see if Sarah Yare was listed, found that she was, and dialed her number. Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”
“What for? She was dead.”
“I didn’t lift the receiver. I merely dialed it, to hear it. Before doing so I strained my memory. I had to recall a phenomenon that was filed somewhere in my brain, having reached it through my ears. As you know, I am trained to attend, to observe and to register. So are you. That same phenomenon is filed in your brain. Close your eyes and find it. Stand up. Take your ears back to yesterday, when you were standing there, having surrendered your chair to Miss Gallant, and she was at the phone, dialing. Not the first number she dialed; you dialed that one yourself later. Concentrate on the second one, when, according to her, she was dialing the number of the direct line to Bianca Voss’ office.”
I did so. I got up and stood where I had stood while she was dialing, shut my eyes and brought it back. In ten seconds I said, “O.K. Shoot.”
The sound came of his dialing. I held my breath till the end, then opened my eyes and said positively, “No. Wrong. The first and third and fourth were wrong. I’m not sure about the second, but those three—”
“Close your eyes and try it again. This will be another number.”
The dialing sound came, the seven units. I opened my eyes. “That’s more like it. I would say that was it; anyway the first four. Beyond that, I’m a little lost. But in that case—”
“Satisfactory.” He pushed the phone away and sat back. “The first four were enough. The first number, which you rejected, as I did this morning, was Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, the number of Bianca Voss’ direct line according to the phone book — the number which Miss Gallant pretended to be dialing. The second, which you accepted, was Sarah Yare’s number, Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven.”
“I see.” I sat down and took a gulp of coffee, which had cooled enough for gulping. “Quite a performance.”
He didn’t acknowledge the applause. “So it was still a plausible conjecture, somewhat strengthened, but no more than that. If those people, especially Miss Gallant, could not be shown to have had some association with Sarah Yare, it would be untenable. So I sent you to inquire, and what you found promoted the conjecture to an assumption, and surely a weighty one. What time is it?”
He would have had to twist his neck a whole quarter turn to look at the wall clock. I obliged. “Five to four.”
“Then instructions for your errand must be brief, and they can be.” He mustn’t be late for his afternoon session in the plant rooms. “You will go to Sarah Yare’s address on Thirteenth Street and look at her apartment. Her phone might have been discontinued since that book was issued. I need to know that the instrument is still there and operable before I proceed. If I intend to see that whoever tried to make a fool of me regrets it, I must take care not to make a fool of myself.” He pushed his chair back, gripped the arms and hoisted his bulk. “Have I satisfied you?”
I drank the last of the coffee, now cold, then went to the hall for my coat and hat, and departed.
It was not my day. At the address of the late Sarah Yare on East 13th Street I stubbed my toe again. I was dead wrong about the janitor of that old walk-up. He looked as if anything would go, so I merely told him to let me into Sarah Yare’s apartment to check the telephone, and the bum insisted on seeing my credentials. So I misjudged him again. I offered him a sawbuck and told him I only wanted two minutes for a look at the phone with him at my elbow, and he turned me down. The upshot was that I went back home for an assortment of keys, returned, posted myself across the street, waited a full hour to be sure the enemy was not peeking, and broke and entered, technically.
I won’t describe it; it was too painful. It was an awful dump for a Sarah Yare — even for a down-and-outer who had once been Sarah Yare. But the telephone was there, and it was working. I dialed to make sure, and got Fritz, and told him I just wanted to say hello and would be home in fifteen minutes, and he said that would please Mr. Wolfe because Inspector Cramer was there.
“Is Stebbins with him?”
“No, he’s alone.”
“When did he come?”
“Ten minutes ago. At six o’clock. Mr. Wolfe said to admit him and is with him in the office. Their voices are very loud. Hurry home, Archie.”
I did so. Ascending the stoop and letting myself in, not banging the door, I tiptoed down the hall and stopped short of the office door, thinking to get a sniff of the atmosphere before entering.
Wolfe’s voice came: “... and I didn’t say I have never known you to be right, Mr. Cramer. I said I have never known you to be more wrong. That is putting it charitably, under provocation. You have accused me of duplicity. Pfui!”
“Nuts.” Cramer had worked up to his grittiest rasp. “I have accused you of nothing. I have merely stated facts. The time of the murder was supposed to be established by you and Goodwin hearing it on the phone. Is that a fact? Those five people all have alibis for that time. One of them was here with you. Is that a fact? When I put it to you yesterday that that phone business might have been faked, that she might have been killed earlier, all I got was a run-around. You could challenge it circumstantially, but not intrinsically — whatever that means. Is that a fact? So that if you and Goodwin got to the witness stand you might both swear that you were absolutely satisfied that you had heard her get it at exactly half past eleven. Is that a fact? Giving me to understand that you weren’t interested, you weren’t concerned, you had no—”
“No,” Wolfe objected. “That was broached.”
“You said you had never had any association with any of those people besides what was in your statement, so how could you be concerned, with Bianca Voss dead? Tell me this: did any of them approach you, directly or indirectly, between seven o’clock yesterday and noon today?”