“I stayed at the club. I ate dinner there and hadn’t quite finished when the news came that Mion had killed himself. So I’m still behind that ice cream and coffee.”
“That’s too bad. When you phoned Mion, did you again try to persuade him not to press his claim against Mr. James?”
Grove’s head straightened up. “Did I what?” he demanded.
“You heard me,” Wolfe said rudely. “What’s surprising about it? Naturally Mrs. Mion has informed me, since I’m working for her. You were opposed to Mion’s asking for payment in the first place and tried to talk him out of it. You said the publicity would be so harmful that it wasn’t worth it. He demanded that you support the claim and threatened to cancel your contract if you refused. Isn’t that correct?”
“It is not.” Grove’s black eyes were blazing. “It wasn’t like that at all! I merely gave him my opinion. When it was decided to make the claim I went along.” His voice went up a notch higher, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible. “I certainly did!”
“I see.” Wolfe wasn’t arguing. “What is your opinion now, about Mrs. Mion’s claim?”
“I don’t think she has one. I don’t believe she can collect. If I were in James’ place I certainly wouldn’t pay her a cent.”
Wolfe nodded. “You don’t like her, do you?”
“Frankly, I don’t. No. I never have. Do I have to like her?”
“No, indeed. Especially since she doesn’t like you either.” Wolfe shifted in his chair and leaned back. I could tell from the line of his lips, straightened out, that the next item on the agenda was one he didn’t care for, and I understood why when I saw his eyes level at Clara James. I’ll bet that if he had known that he would have to be dealing with that type he wouldn’t have taken the job. He spoke to her testily. “Miss James, you’ve heard what has been said?”
“I was wondering,” she complained, as if she had been holding in a grievance, “if you were going to go on ignoring me. I was around too, you know.”
“I know. I haven’t forgotten you.” His tone implied that he only wished he could. “When you had a drink in the Churchill bar with your father and Judge Arnold, why did they send you up to Mion’s studio to see him? What for?”
Arnold and James protested at once, loudly and simultaneously. Wolfe, paying no attention to them, waited to hear Clara, her voice having been drowned by theirs.
“... nothing to do with it,” she was finishing. “I sent myself.”
“It was your own idea?”
“Entirely. I have one once in a while, all alone.”
“What did you go for?”
“You don’t need to answer, my dear,” Arnold told her.
She ignored him. “They told me what had happened at the conference, and I was mad. I thought it was a holdup — but I wasn’t going to tell Alberto that. I thought I could talk him out of it.”
“You went to appeal to him for old times’ sake?”
She looked pleased. “You have the nicest way of putting things! Imagine a girl my age having old times!”
“I’m glad you like my diction, Miss James.” Wolfe was furious. “Anyhow, you went. Arriving at a quarter past six?”
“Just about, yes.”
“Did you see Mion?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t there. At least—” She stopped. Her eyes weren’t glistening quite so much. She went on, “That’s what I thought then. I went to the thirteenth floor and rang the bell at the door to the studio. It’s a loud bell — he had it loud to be heard above his voice and the piano when he was practicing — but I couldn’t hear it from the hall because the door is soundproofed too, and after I had pushed the button a few times I wasn’t sure the bell was ringing so I knocked on the door. I like to finish anything I start, and I thought he must be there, so I rang the bell some more and took off my shoe and pounded on the door with the heel. Then I went down to the twelfth floor by the public stairs and rang the bell at the apartment door. That was really stupid, because I know how Mrs. Mion hates me, but anyway I did. She came to the door and said she thought Alberto was up in the studio, and I said he wasn’t, and she shut the door in my face. I went home and mixed myself a drink — which reminds me, I must admit this is good scotch, though I never heard of it before.”
She lifted her glass and jiggled it to swirl the ice. “Any questions?”
“No,” Wolfe growled. He glanced at the clock on the wall and then along the line of faces. “I shall certainly report to Mrs. Mion,” he told them, “that you were not grudging with the facts.”
“And what else?” Arnold inquired.
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
That they didn’t like. I wouldn’t have supposed anyone could name a subject on which those six characters would have been in unanimous accord, but Wolfe turned the trick in five words. They wanted a verdict; failing that, an opinion; failing that, at least a hint. Adele Bosley was stubborn, Rupert the Fat was so indignant he squeaked, and Judge Arnold was next door to nasty. Wolfe was patient up to a point, but finally stood up and told them good night as if he meant it. The note it ended on was such that before going not one of them shelled out a word of appreciation for all the refreshment, not even Adele, the expert on public relations, or Doc Lloyd, who had practically emptied the bourbon bottle.
With the front door locked and bolted for the night, I returned to the office. To my astonishment Wolfe was still on his feet, standing over by the bookshelves, glaring at the backbones.
“Restless?” I asked courteously.
He turned and said aggressively, “I want another bottle of beer.”
“Nuts. You’ve had five since dinner.” I didn’t bother to put much feeling into it, as the routine was familiar. He had himself set the quota of five bottles between dinner and bedtime, and usually stuck to it, but when anything sent his humor far enough down he liked to shift the responsibility so he could be sore at me too.
It was just part of my job. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “I counted ’em. Five. What’s the trouble, a whole evening gone and still no murderer?”
“Bah.” He compressed his lips. “That’s not it. If that were all we could close it up before going to bed. It’s that confounded gun with wings.” He gazed at me with his eyes narrowed, as if suspecting that I had wings too. “I could, of course, just ignore it— No. No, in view of the state our clients are in, it would be foolhardy. We’ll have to clear it up. There’s no alternative.”
“That’s a nuisance. Can I help any?”
“Yes. Phone Mr. Cramer first thing in the morning. Ask him to be here at eleven o’clock.”
My brows went up. “But he’s interested only in homicides. Do I tell him we’ve got one to show him?”
“No. Tell him I guarantee that it’s worth the trouble.” Wolfe took a step toward me. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve had a bad evening and I’ll have another bottle.”
“You will not. Not a chance.” Fritz had come in and we were starting to clear up. “It’s after midnight and you’re in the way. Go to bed.”
“One wouldn’t hurt him,” Fritz muttered.
“You’re a help,” I said bitterly. “I warn both of you, I’ve got a gun in my pocket. What a household!”
V
For nine months of the year Inspector Cramer of Homicide, big and broad and turning gray, looked the part well enough, but in the summertime the heat kept his face so red that he was a little gaudy. He knew it and didn’t like it, and as a result he was some harder to deal with in August than in January. If an occasion arises for me to commit a murder in Manhattan I hope it will be winter.
Tuesday at noon he sat in the red leather chair and looked at Wolfe with no geniality. Detained by another appointment, he hadn’t been able to make it at eleven, the hour when Wolfe adjourns the morning session with his orchids up in the plant rooms. Wolfe wasn’t exactly beaming either, and I was looking forward to some vaudeville. Also I was curious to see how Wolfe would go about getting dope on a murder from Cramer without spilling it that there had been one, as Cramer was by no means a nitwit.