She stopped to swallow. Evidently she wasn’t any prouder of her performance than Wolfe was of his. “He said he had an account in a bank around the corner – my office is at Fiftieth and Madison – and asked me to go there with him. I had an appointment and couldn’t leave the office, so I asked Miss Colt to go.” She turned. “Sally, that’s your part.”
Sally wasn’t looking very gay. “You want me to tell it?”
Dol Bonner said yes, and Sally gave Wolfe her eyes. From my angle, in the electric light, the blue in them didn’t show; they looked almost as black as Amsel’s. “Miss Bonner told me what was required,” she said, “and I went with him around the corner to the Madison Avenue branch of the Continental Trust Company. He took me through the gate in the railing to where there were four men at desks, and went to one of the desks. There was a little stand on the desk with a name on it, Frederick Poggett. The client called the man at the desk Mr. Poggett, and shook hands with him, and told him that in connection with a business transaction he needed to establish his identity, and would Mr. Poggett please identify him. Mr. Poggett said of course, and turned to me and said, ‘This gentleman is Mr. Samuels, a customer of our bank.’ I said, ‘Alan Samuels?’ and he said yes, and then told the client that if it was a matter of credit he would be glad to verify his balance. The client said that wouldn’t be necessary, and we left. We went back to the office and I reported to Miss Bonner.”
She stopped and looked at Dol Bonner, who nodded and took the ball. “In my case, Mr. Wolfe, it wasn’t his secretary he suspected, it was his brother who was living in his house, but that’s just a detail. He paid me in cash, a thousand dollars, and I found out how to arrange for the tap and did so. He was to come to the office at five o’clock every day for the report. The morning after he had got the fifth report he phoned to say that he didn’t need the tap any longer and asked if he owed me anything. I told him yes, another five hundred dollars, and in an hour or so he came in and paid it.”
She made a little gesture. “I never did suspect him. I still say there was no reason to. But when all the publicity about wiretapping started, and then when we were told to report under oath any and all connections we had had with wiretapping, I went to the bank and spoke with Mr. Poggett, taking Miss Colt with me. He remembered the incident, of course. After going to look at the records, he told me that Alan Samuels had opened a checking account at the bank on February eighteenth, giving a business address on Lexington Avenue. He, Poggett, had attended to it. He wouldn’t tell me either the amount or the references Samuels had given, but he did tell me that the balance had been withdrawn, closing the account, on April twentieth, which was the day after Samuels had canceled the tap, and I did get the Lexington Avenue address out of him. Of course I suspected I had been taken in, and I – do you want me to go on? My efforts to trace him?”
“Not unless you found him. Did you?”
“No. I never did. The next time I saw him was in that room today. Dead.”
“You didn’t see him alive first?”
“I did not.”
“Wouldn’t it have been a simple matter to check on your suspicion – either confirm it or allay it?”
“Oh.” She was taken aback. “I left that out. Of course. I went myself to the address in the Bronx. A man named Alan Samuels lived there, but he wasn’t the same man.”
“Did you tell him of your – uh, inadvertent invasion of his privacy?”
“No. I admit I should have, but I didn’t. I was sick about it, and I was sick of it.”
“Did you inform yourself about him – his occupation, his standing, his interests?”
“No. What good would that do?”
“What is his address?”
“I don’t…” She hesitated. “Is that important?”
Wolfe was frowning at her again. “Come, Miss Bonner. When a Bronx phone book will probably supply it?”
She flushed a little. “It merely seems to me that it’s immaterial. Twenty-nine seventy Borchard Avenue, the Bronx.”
Wolfe turned. “Archie. Get Mr. Cohen. Give him that name and address and tell him we would like to have such information as is readily available. Within an hour if possible.”
I got up and went to the phone. The number of the Gazette was one I didn’t have to consult my notebook for. I told them to go right ahead, that I was used to phoning under difficulties, but they politely kept silence. At that evening hour I had New York in twenty seconds, got Lon, and made the request, but it took two minutes to get rid of him. He wanted an exclusive on how we had got arrested and on the kind of knot I had used on Donahue’s necktie, and I had to get rude and hang up on him. As I returned to my chair Wolfe invited the audience, “Do any of you want to ask Miss Bonner any questions?”
Apparently they didn’t.
“I think,” he said, “that we can best show our appreciation of Miss Bonner’s candor by reciprocating it. Mr. Ide? Mr. Amsel? Mr. Kerr?”
Ide sat and pinched the skin over his Adam’s apple. Amsel, his arms still folded on the back of his chair, kept his eyes at Wolfe. Jay Kerr made a noise, but it was only a minor belch.
“I can understand,” Wolfe said, “that by your vocation and training you have developed a high regard for discretion, but I hope you haven’t made a fetish of it. According to Miss Bonner, all of you recognized the dead man. In that case, not only had you met him, but also you had met him under circumstances that made you think it hazardous, or at least imprudent, to pretend to no knowledge of him. As Miss Bonner said, what you have told the police can surely be told here, unless you have reason to fear -”
“What the hell,” Jay Kerr blurted. “Sure, I knew the bastard.”
“There’s ladies here,” Amsel reproached him.
“They’re not ladies, they’re fellow members. Why, wasn’t he a bastard? Look how he played Wolfe and Dol Bonner, two professionals of the highest standards. A skunk. I’ll be glad to ante all I know about him, but I want a drink first.”
“I beg your pardon,” Wolfe apologized, and he meant it. “Away from home I’m not myself, and I even neglect the amenities. Archie? If you please?”
VI
FOR DOL BONNER it was brandy and coffee, for Sally rum and coke, another flaw, for Ide tea with lemon, for Amsel double bourbon with water, for Kerr double scotch on the rocks, for Wolfe two bottles of beer, and for me double milk. I like a drink occasionally, but not when I’m out on bail. Then I need all my faculties.
Kerr had said he wanted a drink first, so while we waited for the supplies to come up Wolfe went back to some details with Dol Bonner, such as the date Donahue had first called on her, but that was just to pass the time. Or maybe not. I was glad Fritz wasn’t there. He suspects every woman who ever crosses the threshold of wanting to take over his kitchen, not to mention the rest of the house. He would have been squirming. Dol Bonner’s caramel-colored eyes and long dark lashes were by no means her only physical attractions, and she was the right age, she had shown some sense and had done a pretty good job of reporting, and she was a companion in misery, having also been made a monkey of by Donahue. Of course if Wolfe hung a murder on her she would no longer be a danger, but I noticed that he had stopped frowning at her. Oh well, I thought, if she hooks him and Sally hooks me we can all solve cases together and dominate the field.