Noreen nodded again, and I allowed her two minutes to whip out her compact and repair her face. She was so chagrined she didn’t say another word, and I managed to hustle her out the front door at ten-fifty-seven.
Four minutes later, the groaning of the elevator told me Wolfe was descending from his two-hour séance with the orchids.
I got the usual morning greeting from him as he detoured around the corner of the desk, placed a raceme of Oncidium schilleriana in the vase on the blotter, and lowered himself into his favorite chair. “Before you start in on the mail, most of which is junk or just a cut above it, I have a report and a question,” I said.
He gave me his standard raised-eyebrows look, and I went on. “First off, our client just left here. She dropped by to tell me she had killed Linville.”
“Twaddle,” Wolfe snorted, ringing for beer.
“Of course it’s twaddle. I gave her a short — and mild — sample of police interrogation and sent her packing.”
“A sophomoric attempt to shield a sibling. I would have expected better from her,” Wolfe said peevishly.
“Agreed. Anyway, on to the question. I’m curious as to why you didn’t deign to meet with Mr. Pamsett when he stopped in last night. The poor lug spent two hours in the front room with our wonderful selection of magazines before I got home and talked to him.”
“He had no appointment,” Wolfe sniffed, starting in on the mail.
“Right, but we are working on a case, or so I’ve been led to believe. Now, I admit I’m a pretty damn good interrogator, but I also concede that you, being, as we all know, a genius, will often unearth information or form observations that elude me. Such might have been the case had you made the effort to see Mr. Pamsett.”
Wolfe looked up from his mail with an expression that conveyed irritation. “Since I did not, I will be forced to rely upon your admittedly limited skills. Report.”
I gave him a verbatim of our conversation, during which he kept his eyes closed. “Do you believe Mrs. James was with him in his apartment, as they both have stated?” Wolfe asked when I finished.
“I do. Her I could suspect of lying, but probably not Pamsett. He strikes me as the type who’s a lousy liar — old school tie and all that. I’d give seven-to-two he’s telling it straight. But say they were together until even midnight. What does that prove? Either of them could have easily gotten over to Linville’s garage on East Seventy-seventh Street in time to use that tire iron on him. As you recall from Cramer and all the newspaper stories, he was killed after midnight.”
“How would either of them know where he kept his car?” Wolfe posed.
I shrugged. “Even Michael James presumably didn’t know. By his own admission, if one chooses to believe it, he was hanging around outside the apartment and just happened to see Linville pulling into the garage. After all, it’s only a few doors from his building. But if that’s a feasible explanation for Michael James, it also becomes feasible for Pamsett or Megan.”
“Among others,” Wolfe said.
“Yeah, interesting, isn’t it? On the night Linville cashes in, Doyle James, who lives much of the time over in Jersey, just happens to be in New York. And to add whipped cream to the sundae, this man-about-town has no alibi for that night, at least not for the time of death. Where’s Noreen? Out walking till after twelve, no witnesses. Where’s Polly Mars? At home, alone, no witnesses. Where’s Rojek? At home, alone, no witnesses. Even that stooge Halliburton says he was home alone by that time. In fact, if I hadn’t gotten home by a quarter past twelve and been let in by Fritz, even I wouldn’t have an alibi. And then...”
I stopped talking because Wolfe couldn’t hear me. He was leaning back with his eyes closed and his lips pushing out and in, out and in. When he’s like that, there’s no reaching him. Even he can’t explain what happens to him during these times. But I’m convinced that if Fritz were to carry in a steaming plate of grilled starlings, which may well be his favorite dish, and wave it under his nose at a time like this, Wolfe wouldn’t awaken. As I always do during these occurrences, I sat silently at my desk and timed the lip exercise. Fourteen minutes had passed when Wolfe blinked awake and sat up straight.
“Archie, does our car have a tire iron?”
“Sure, they all do, of one kind or another.”
“What does ours look like?”
“Beats me. I’ve never had to use it.”
“Get it, and bring it to me. Now.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering if this time Wolfe’s cylinders had misfired during his trance. I got up, left the office as Wolfe was ringing for beer, and went out the front door, heading for the garage on Tenth Avenue between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth where we’ve always kept our cars. At the garage, I said “Hi” to Bill Curran, who runs the place, and told him I wanted something from the Mercedes.
“Sure, Arch, it’s in the usual spot,” he said, going back to waxing his own car, a green Jaguar that he babies as if it were his only child, although I know for a fact he has three kids at home. Our Mercedes was indeed in its usual spot, toward the back of the garage on the street level, between a Bentley and another Jaguar. I opened the trunk with my key and found the fabric pouch of tools, which looked as if it had never been touched. I checked to make sure there was a tire iron inside and took the whole pouch with me, waving again to Bill as I left.
Back in the office, Wolfe was well along on his first bottle of beer of the day. “Here’s the tool kit,” I told him, knowing he wouldn’t recognize one if it fell on him. “And here’s the tire iron.” I pulled it out and handed it across the desk. “By the way, I talked to Lon this morning, and he has heard nothing about the finding of a murder weapon, so Cramer apparently has kept it under wraps.”
Wolfe took the iron in both hands, turning it and scrutinizing it. “Is this similar to the one Mr. Stebbins showed you?”
“Looks identical,” I said. “L-shaped, and the same length.”
“Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. “Call Miss James and inform her that I have completed my investigation. Tell her I would like her to be here tonight, at nine o’clock. Also, I want Michael, Doyle, and Megan James present, as well as Mr. Pamsett, Mr. Rojek, and Miss Mars. And Miss Rowan too.”
“As you ordain,” I said. “Care to fill your faithful lapdog in on what this is all about?”
“After the calls have been made,” Wolfe said, sliding the tire iron into a desk drawer and picking up his book.
I got all of them, and they agreed to come, but not without a struggle. Noreen was easy, though; she was excited that something apparently had gotten resolved, and although she tried to ask me questions, I could tell her — honestly, this time — that I was as much in the dark as she. While I had her on the line, she asked, or maybe told, both her mother and her brother to come along. I could hear muffled grumbling in the background from a voice that sounded like Megan’s, and then the Dragon Lady herself was on the line. “What is all this about a meeting?” she shrilled. “Haven’t we indulged you and Wolfe enough?” I told her, in my most diplomatic tone, that it wasn’t a matter of indulging me or Wolfe, but of acceding to her own daughter’s wishes, which seemed to take most of the wind out of her sails. I got Lily next, and she was full of questions, but I deflected them and she said she’d of course make it.
It took me several calls and messages and callbacks to get the others, and it was after lunch when I finished. I reached Rojek at his Wall Street office; he grumbled but said he’d come when I said Noreen wanted him there. I had to get Polly Mars through her answering service. When she called back, she insisted that she had a night assignment, which I told her to drop. She did, not without some grousing about permanently lost income. Pamsett claimed a previous engagement too, but I pressed him, saying everybody else would be present, and he gave in. Doyle James was the hardest to locate, but by mid-afternoon he had checked in and said we could count on him.