"Did you see any of them this morning?"
"No. Not until Ray came to the kitchen, and that was afternoon."
"Did you hear any of them moving or speaking?"
"No."
"Not even Mr. Ferris in the room above you?"
"No. I suppose he was up and gone before I woke up."
"Did you hear or see anything at all that might be of significance?"
She shook her head. "The police thought I must have, when I was in the kitchen, but I didn't."
Wolfe's head went left, to Raymond Dell in the red leather chair. "Mr. Dell. I know you came downstairs when Miss Annis entered the house with Mr. Goodwin shortly after one o'clock. Before that?"
"Nothing," Dell rumbled.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing. That was when I left my room for the first time. Until then I had seen no one, heard nothing, and seen nothing. I had been asleep."
"Then how did you know there were no oranges?"
Dell's chin jerked up. "What's that? Oh." He ges- tured. "That man Goodwin. I knew because there had been none when I went down for some in the early hours-the late hours. I don't sleep at night; I read. I was reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and when I fin- ished it, at five o'clock perhaps, or six, I wanted or- anges. I always do around that hour. Finding none, I returned to my room and finally dozed."
"So that was customary? You rarely stir before twelve?"
"I never do."
"And at night you read. How do you spend your afternoons?"
Dell frowned. "Could that conceivably apply?"
"Yes. Conceivably."
186 Rex Stout
"I want to be present when you apply it. That would be a revelation worthy of the Cumaean sybil. I baby- sit "
"You what?"
"The current abhorrent term is 'baby-sit.' I have a friend who is a painter, by name Max Eder, who lives in an East Side tenement. His wife is dead. He has a son and daughter aged three and four, and five days a week I am their keeper for five hours, fi-om two till seven. For a stipend. Mondays and Tuesdays I am free to roam the market if I am so inclined. You frown. To offer my talents in television dens. I am so inclined only by necessity."
"What is Mr. Elder's address?"
Dell shrugged, an actor's shrug. "This approaches lunacy. However, it's in the phone book. Three- fourteen Mission Street."
"How long have you been-uh-performing this ser- vice for him?"
"Something over a year."
Wolfe left him. "Mr. Hannah. Since I am now merely asking for what you have already told the police, your whereabouts today from ten-thirty to one, I hope you won't be provoked."
"You do like hell," Hannah blurted. "Parading my conceit, huh? I'm sticking only because I told Martha I would. I left the house a little after nine o'clock and spent a couple of hours around the West Side docks, and then I took a bus downtown and got to the Mushroom Theater a little before twelve. We start rehearsal at noon. Around two o'clock a man came and flashed a badge and said I was wanted for questioning and took me to Forty-seventh Street."
"What were you doing around the docks?"
"I was looking and listening. In the play we're doing, Do As Thou Wilt, I'm a longshoreman, and I want to get it right."
"Where is the Mushroom Theater?"
"Bowie Street. Near Houston Street."
"Do you have a leading role in the play?"
The Homicide Trinity 187
"No. Not leading."
"How many lines have you?"
"Not many. It's not a big part. I'm young and I'm learning."
"How long have you been rehearsing?"
"About a month."
"Have you appeared at that theater before?"
"Once, last fall. I had a walk-on in The Pleasure Is Mine."
"How long did it run?"
"Six weeks. Pretty good for off-Broadway."
"Do you favor any particular spot when you visit the docks?"
"No. I just move around and look and listen."
"Do you do that every day?"
"Hell, no."
"How many times in the past month?"
"Only once before today. A couple of times when I got the part, in November."
I was thinking that at least he had one of the basic qualifications for an actor. He was ready and willing to answer any and all questions about his career, with or without a dare, whether they applied or not. If Wolfe thought it would help to have the plot of Do As Thou Wilt described in detail all he had to do was ask.
But apparently he didn't need it. His head moved. "And you, Mr. Fen-is?"
"I'm feeling a lot better," Noel Ferris said. "When the questions they asked made me realize that I was actually suspected of murder, and I also realized that I had no alibi, it looked pretty dark. Believe me. What if the others had all been somewhere else and could prove it? So I thank you, Mr. Wolfe. I feel a lot better. As for me, I left the house a little after ten and called at four agencies. Two of them would remember I was there, but probably not the exact time. When I got hungry I went back to the house to eat. I can't afford five-dollar lunches, and I can't eat eighty-cent ones. When I entered the house a man was at the phone telling someone that
188 Rex Stout
Tammy Baxter had been murdered and her body was in the parlor."
"What kind of agencies?"
"Casting. Theater and television."
"Do you visit them daily?"
"No. About twice a week."
"And the other five days? How do you pass the time?"
"I don't. It passes me. Two days, sometimes three, I make horses and kangaroos and other animals. I go to a workroom and model them and make molds. Something on the order of Cellini. I get eight dollars for a squirrel. Twenty for a giraffe."
"Where is the workroom?"
"In the rear of a shop on First Avenue. The name of the shop is Harry's Zoo. The name of the owner is Harry Arkazy. He has a sixteen-year-old daughter as beautiful as a rosy dawn, but she lisps. Her name is Ilonka. His son's name-"
"This is not a comedy, Mr. Ferris," Wolfe snapped. He twisted his neck to look at the wall clock. "I engaged to act for Miss Annis only five hours ago and I haven't arranged my mind, so my questions may be at random, but they are not frivolous." His eyes moved to take them in. "Now that I have seen you and heard you I am better prepared, and I can consider how to proceed. I will leave it to Miss Annis to thank you-three of you- for coming." He arose. "I expect to see you again."
Martha was gawking at him. "But Hattie said to tell you everything we told the cops!"
He nodded. "I know. It would take all night. I'll go to that extreme only by compulsion; and if you told them anything indicative they are hours ahead of me and I would only breathe their dust."
Dell boomed. "You call this investigating a murder? Asking me if I had paid my room rent and how I spend my afternoons?"
It was a little odd, the four suspects coming uninvited to empty the bag and being told to go almost before they got started. Noel Ferris, his lip twisted, got up and