Her eyes were staying straight at me, hardly a blink. “So,” I said, “we had no case on our hands, and he started some inquiries. One thing we learned, a fact that hasn’t been published, was that nothing about the FBI, no notes or documents, was found by the police in your son’s apartment. Perhaps you knew that.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I supposed you did, so I mentioned it. We have learned some other facts which I have been instructed not to mention. You’ll understand that. Mr. Wolfe wants to save them until he has enough to act on. But yesterday afternoon a man told him that he knows that an FBI agent killed your son, and he backed it up with some information. I won’t give you his name, or the information, but he’s a reliable man and the information is solid, though it isn’t enough to prove it. So Mr. Wolfe wants all he can get from people who were close to your son — for instance, people to whom he may have told things he had learned about the FBI. Of course you are one of them, and so is Miss Hinckley. And Mr. Yarmack. I was told to make it clear to you that Mr. Wolfe is not looking for a client or a fee. He is doing this on his own and doesn’t want or expect anyone to pay him.”
Her eyes were still on me, but her mind wasn’t. She was considering something. “I see no reason...” she said, and stopped.
I waited a little, then said, “Yes, Mrs. Althaus?”
“I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. I have suspected it was the FBI, ever since Mr. Yarmack told me that nothing about them was found in the apartment. So has Mr. Yarmack, and so has Miss Hinckley. I don’t think I am a vindictive woman, Mr. Goodwin, but he was my—” Her voice was going to quiver, and she stopped. In a moment she went on. “He was my son. I am still trying to realize that he — he’s gone. Did you know him? Did you ever meet him?”
“No.”
“You’re a detective.”
“Yes.”
“You’re expecting me to help you find — to fix the blame for my son’s death. Very well, I want to. But I don’t think I can. He rarely spoke to me about his work. I don’t remember that he ever mentioned the FBI. Miss Hinckley has asked me that, and Mr. Yarmack. I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything about it, I’m truly sorry, because if they killed him I hope they will be punished. It says in Leviticus ‘Thou shalt not avenge,’ but Aristotle wrote that revenge is just. You see, I have been thinking about it. I believe—”
She turned to face the arch. A door had closed, and there were voices, and then a girl appeared. As she approached I got up, but Mrs. Althaus kept her chair. The pictures in the Gazette file understated it. Marian Hinckley was a dish. She was an in-between, neither blonde nor brunette, brown hair and blue eyes, and she moved straight and smooth. If she wore a hat she had ditched it in the foyer. She came and gave Mrs. Althaus a cheek kiss, then turned to look at me as Mrs. Althaus pronounced my name. As the blue eyes took me in I instructed mine to ignore any aspect of the situation that was irrelevant to the job. When Mrs. Althaus invited her to sit I moved a chair up. As she sat she spoke to Mrs. Althaus. “If I understood you on the phone — did you say Nero Wolfe knows it was the FBI? Was that it?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t get it straight,” Mrs. Althaus said. “Will you tell her, Mr. Goodwin?”
I described it, the three points: why Wolfe was interested, what had made him suspicious, and how his suspicion had been supported by what a man told him yesterday. I explained that he didn’t know it was the FBI, and he certainly couldn’t prove it, but he intended to try to and that was why I was there.
Miss Hinckley was frowning at me. “But I don’t see... Has he told the police what the man told him?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I guess I didn’t make it plain enough. He thinks the police know it was the FBI, or suspect it. For instance, one thing he wants to ask you people: Are the police keeping after you? Coming back again and again, asking the same questions over and over? Mrs. Althaus?”
“No.”
“Miss Hinckley?”
“No. But we’ve told them everything we know.”
“That doesn’t matter. In a murder investigation, if they haven’t got a line they like, they never let up on anybody, and it looks as if they have let up on everybody. That’s one thing we need to know. Mrs. Althaus just told me that you and Mr. Yarmack both think that the FBI killed him. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Yes, it is. Because there was nothing about the FBI in his apartment.”
“Do you know what there might have been? What he had dug up?”
“No. Morris never told me about things like that.”
“Does Mr. Yarmack know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“How do you feel about it, Miss Hinckley? Whoever killed Morris Althaus, do you want him caught? Caught and dealt with?”
“Of course I do. Certainly I do.”
I turned to Mrs. Althaus. “You do too. All right, it’s a good bet that he never will be caught unless Nero Wolfe does it. You may know that he doesn’t go to see people. You’ll have to go to him, to his house — you and Miss Hinckley, and, if possible, Mr. Yarmack. Can you be there this evening at nine o’clock?”
“Why...” She had her hands clasped. “I don’t... What good would it do? There’s nothing I can tell him.”
“There might be. I often think there’s nothing I can tell him, but I find out I’m wrong. Or if he only decides that none of you can tell him anything, that will help. Will you come?”
“I suppose...” She looked at the girl who had been expecting to be her daughter-in-law.
“Yes,” Miss Hinckley said. “I’ll go.”
I could have hugged her. It would have been relevant to the job. I asked her, “Could you bring Mr. Yarmack?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try.”
“Good.” I rose. “The address is in the phone book.” To Mrs. Althaus: “I should tell you, it’s next to certain that the FBI has a watch on the house and you will be seen. If you don’t mind, Mr. Wolfe doesn’t. He’s perfectly willing for them to know he is investigating the murder of your son. Nine o’clock?”
She said yes, and I went. In the foyer the maid came and wanted to hold my coat, and not to hurt her feelings I let her. Down in the lobby, from the look the doorman gave me as he opened the door I deduced that the hallman had told him what I was, and to be in character I met the look with a sharp and wary eye. Outside, some snowflakes were doing stunts. In the taxi, headed downtown, again I ignored the rear. I figured that if they were on me, which was highly likely, maybe one cent of each ten grand of Wolfe’s income tax, and one mill of each ten grand of mine, would go to pay government employees to keep me company uninvited, which didn’t seem right.
Wolfe had just come down from the plant rooms after his four-to-six afternoon session with the orchids and got nicely settled in his chair with The Treasure of Our Tongue. Instead of going on in and crossing to my desk as usual, I stopped at the sill of the office door, and when he looked up I pointed a finger straight down, emphatically, turned, and beat it to the stairs to the basement and on down. Flipping the light switch, I went and perched on the pool table. Two minutes. Three. Four, and there were footsteps. He stood at the door, glared at me, and spoke.
“I won’t tolerate this.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I could write it.”
“Pfui. Two points. One, the risk is extremely slight. Two, we can use it. As you talk you can insert comments or statements at will which I am to disregard, notifying me by raising a finger. I shall do the same. Of course making no reference to Mr. Cramer; we can’t risk that; and maintaining our conclusion that the FBI killed that man, and we intend to establish it.”