I went and got my coat from the rack, no hat, let myself out, descended the seven steps to the sidewalk, walked to Tenth Avenue and around the corner to the garage, and got the 1961 Heron sedan which Wolfe owns and I drive.
4
At one-fifteen p.m. Clark Hobart, District Attorney of Westchester County, narrowed his eyes at me and said, “You’re dry behind the ears, Goodwin. You know what you’re letting yourself in for.”
We were in his office at the Court House, a big corner room with four windows. He was seated at his desk, every inch an elected servant of the people. With a strong jaw, a keen eye, and big ears that stuck out. My chair was at an end of the desk. In two chairs in front of it were Captain Saunders of the State Police and a man I had had contacts with before, Ben Dykes, head of the county detectives. Dykes had fattened some in the two years since I had last seen him; what had been a crease was now a gully, giving him two chins, and when he sat his belly lapped over his belt. But the word was that he was still a fairly smart cop.
I met Hobart’s eyes, straight but not belligerent. “I’d like to be sure,” I said, “that you’ve got it right. They reported to you before I was brought in. I don’t suppose they twisted it deliberately, I know Ben Dykes wouldn’t, but let’s avoid any misunderstanding. I looked at the corpse and identified it as Dinah Utley. Captain Saunders asked me how well I had known her, and I said I had met her only once, yesterday afternoon, but my identification was positive. Dykes asked where I had met her yesterday afternoon, and I said at Nero Wolfe’s office. He asked what she was there for, and I said Mrs. Jimmy Vail had told her to come, at Mr. Wolfe’s request, so he could ask her some questions in connection with a confidential matter which Mrs. Vail had hired him to investigate. He asked me what the confidential matter was, and I—”
“And you refused to tell him.”
I nodded. “That’s the point. My refusal was qualified. I said I was under instructions from Mr. Wolfe. If he would tell me where the body had been found, and how and when and where she had died, with details, I would report to Mr. Wolfe, and if a crime had been committed he would decide whether it was reasonable to suppose that the crime was in any way connected with the matter Mrs. Vail had consulted him about. I hadn’t quite finished when Captain Saunders broke in and said Dinah Utley had been murdered and I damned well would tell him then and there exactly what she had said to Mr. Wolfe and what he had said to her. I said I damned well wouldn’t, and he said he had heard how tough I thought I was and he would take me where we wouldn’t be disturbed and find out. Evidently he’s the salt-of-the-earth type. Ben Dykes, who is just a cop, no hero, insisted on bringing me to you. If what I’m letting myself in for is being turned over to Captain Saunders, that would suit me fine. I have been thinking of going to a psychiatrist to find out how tough I am, and that would save me the trouble.”
“I’ll be glad to do you that favor,” Saunders said. He moved his lips the minimum required to get the words out. Someone had probably told him that that showed you had power in reserve, and he had practiced it before a mirror.
“You’re not being turned over,” Hobart said. “I’m the chief law officer of this county. A crime has been committed. Dinah Utley was murdered. She was with you not many hours before she died, and as far as we know now, you were the last person to see her alive. Captain Saunders was fully justified in asking for the details of that interview. So am I.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t ask, he demanded. As for the crime, where and when? If a car ran over her this—”
“How do you know a car ran over her?” Saunders snapped.
I ignored him. “If a car ran over her this morning here on Main Street, and people who saw the driver say he was a dwarf with whiskers and one eye, I doubt if Mr. Wolfe will think his talk with her yesterday was relevant. Having seen the body, I assume that either a car ran over her or she was hit several times with a sledgehammer though there are other possibilities.” I turned a hand over. “What the hell, Mr. Hobart. You know Mr. Wolfe knows the rules.”
He nodded. “And I know how he abuses them — and you too. Dinah Utley wasn’t killed here on Main Street. Her body was found at ten o’clock this morning by two boys who should have been in school. It was in a ditch by a roadside, where it—”
“What road?”
“Iron Mine Road. Presumably it once led to an iron mine, but now it leads nowhere. It’s narrow and rough, and it come to a dead end about two miles from Route One Twenty-three. The body—”
“Where does it leave Route One Twenty-three?”
Saunders growled, in his throat, not parting his lips. He got ignored again.
“About two miles from where Route One Twenty-three leaves Route Thirty-five,” Hobart said. “South of Ridgefield, not far from the state line. The body had been rolled into the ditch after death. The car that had run over her was there, about a hundred feet away up the road, headed into an opening to the woods. The registration for the car was in it, with the name Dinah Utley and the address Nine Ninety-four Fifth Avenue, New York twenty-eight. Also in it was her handbag, containing the usual items, some of them bearing her name. It has been established that it was that car that ran over her. Anything else?”
“When did she die?”
“Oh, of course. The limits are nine o’clock last evening and three o’clock this morning.”
“Were there traces of another car?”
“Yes. One and possibly two, but on grass. The road’s gravelly, and the grass is thick up to the gravel.”
“Anyone who saw Dinah Utley or her car last night, or another car?”
“Not so far. The nearest house is nearly half a mile away, east, toward Route One Twenty-three, and that stretch of road is seldom traveled.”
“Have you got any kind of a lead?”
“Yes. You. When a woman is murdered a few hours after she goes to see a private detective it’s a fair assumption that the two events were connected and what she said to the detective is material. Were you present when she talked with Wolfe?”
“Yes. It’s also a fair assumption that the detective is the best judge as to whether the two events were connected or not. As I said Dinah Utley didn’t come to see Mr. Wolfe on her own hook; she came because Mrs. Vail told her to, to give him some information about something Mrs. Vail wanted done.” I got up. “Okay, you’ve told me what I can read in the paper in a couple of hours. I’ll report to Mr. Wolfe and give you a ring.”
“That’s what you think.” Saunders was on his feet. “Mr. Hobart, you know how important time is on a thing like this. You realize that if you let him go in twenty minutes he’ll be out of your jurisdiction. You realize that he has information that if we get it now it might make all the difference.”
I grinned at him. “Can you do twenty pushups? I can.”
Ben Dykes told Hobart, “I’d like to ask him something,” and Hobart told him to go ahead. Dykes turned to me, “There was an ad in the Gazette yesterday headed ‘to Mr. Knapp’ with Nero Wolfe’s name at the bottom. Did that have anything to do with why Mrs. Vail told Dinah Utley to go to see Wolfe?”
The word that Dykes was still a fairly smart cop seemed to be based on facts. The grin I gave him was not the one I had given Saunders. “Sorry,” I said, “but I’m under orders from the man I work for.” I went to the District Attorney. “You know the score, Mr. Hobart. It would be stretching a point even to hold me for questioning as it stands now, and since I wouldn’t answer the questions, and since Mr. Wolfe wouldn’t talk on the phone or let anyone in the house until he gets my report, I suppose we’ll have to let Captain Saunders go without. But of course it’s your murder.”