“Nothing doing. He’s sore enough as it is, and so am I. I’ve wasted a day. I’ve learned that the spot on the tie is human blood, but what-”
“How did you learn that?”
“I had it tested at a laboratory.”
“You did.” His face got redder. “You left the scene of a crime, withholding information. Then you tampered with evidence. If you think-”
“Nuts. Evidence of what? Even with blood it’s not evidence if it isn’t the same type as the victim’s. As for leaving the scene, I wasn’t concerned and no one told me to stay. As for tampering, it’s still a perfectly good spot with just a few threads gone. I had to know if it was blood because if it wasn’t I was going to keep it, and if a court ordered me to fork it over I would have fought it. I wanted to find out who had sent it to me and why, and I still do. But since it’s blood I couldn’t fight an order.” I got the souvenirs from my pockets. “Here. When you’re through with them I want them back.”
“You do.” He took them and looked them over. “There’s a typewriter in Vance’s place. Did you take a sample from it for comparison?”
“You know damn well I didn’t, since he has told you what I said and did.”
“He could forget. Is this the tie you got in the mail this morning and is this the envelope it came in?”
“Yes. Now that’s an idea. I could have got another set from Vance. I wish I’d thought of it.”
“You could have. I know you. I’m taking you down, but we’ll go in first. I want to ask Wolfe a question.”
“I’m not going in, and one will get you ten you won’t get in. He’s not interested and doesn’t intend to be. I could come down after dinner. We’re having lobsters, simmered in white wine with tarragon, and a white wine sauce with the tomalley and coral-”
“I’m taking you.” He aimed a thumb at the car. “Get in.”
4
I GOT HOME well after midnight and before going up two flights to bed hit the refrigerator for leftover lobster and a glass of milk, to remove both hunger and the taste of the excuse for bread and stringy corned beef I had been supplied with at the DA’s office.
Since my connection with their homicide had been short and simple, the twenty seconds I had spent in the Kirk apartment, and my connection with Vance hadn’t been a lot longer, an hour of me should have been more than enough, including typing the statement for me to sign, and it wasn’t until after nine o’clock that I realized, from a question by Assistant DA Mandel, what the idea was. They actually thought that the tie thing might be some kind of dodge that I had been in on, and they were keeping me until they got a report on the stain. So I cooled down and took it easy, got on speaking terms with a dick who was put in a room with me to see that I didn’t jump out a window, got him to produce a deck for some friendly gin, and in two hours managed to lose $4.70. I called time at that point and paid him because he was getting sleepy and it would have been next to impossible to keep him ahead.
I got my money’s worth. Around midnight someone came and called him out, and when he returned ten minutes later and said I was no longer needed I gave him a friendly grin, a good loser, no hard feelings, and said, “So the blood’s the same type, huh?” And he nodded and said, “Yeah, modern science is wonderful.”
So, I told myself as I got the lobster out, I got not only my money’s worth but my time’s worth, and by the time I was upstairs and in my pajamas I had decided that if Wolfe wasn’t interested I certainly was, and I was going to find out who had sent me that tie even if I had to take a month’s leave of absence.
Except in emergencies I get a full eight hours’ sleep, and that was merely a project, not an emergency, so I didn’t get down for breakfast, which I eat in the kitchen, until after ten o’clock. As I got orange juice from the refrigerator and Fritz started the burner under the cake griddle he asked where I had dined, and I said he knew darned well I hadn’t dined at all, since I had phoned that I was at the DA’s office, and he nodded and said, “These clients in trouble.”
“Look, Fritz,” I told him, “you’re a chef, not a diplomat, so why do you keep that up? You know we’ve had no client for a month and you want to know if we’ve hooked one, so why don’t you just ask? Repeat after me, ‘Have we got a client?’ Try it.”
“Archie.” He turned a palm up. “You would have to say yes or no. The way I do it, you can biaiser if you wish.”
I had to ask him how to spell it so I could look it up when I went to the office. Sitting, I picked up the Times, and my brow went up when I saw that it had made the front page. Probably on account of Martin Kirk; the Times loves architects as much as it hates disk jockeys and private detectives. It had nothing useful to add to what I had got from Lon, but it mentioned that Mrs. Kirk had been born in Manhattan, Kansas. Any other paper which had dug up that detail would have had a feature piece about born in Manhattan and died in Manhattan.
After three griddle cakes with homemade sausage and one with thyme honey, and two cups of coffee, I made it to the office in time to have the desks dusted, fresh water in the vase, biaiser looked up, and the mail opened, when Wolfe came down from the plant rooms. I waited until the orchids were in the vase and he had sat and glanced through the mail to tell him that it now looked as if someone had sent me a hot piece of evidence in a homicide, and I intended to find out why, of course on my own time, and anyway he wouldn’t be needing me since apparently there was nobody that needed him.
His lips tightened. “Evidence? Merely a conjecture.”
“No, sir. I took it to Ludlow and it’s human blood. So I gave it to Cramer. Of course you’ve read the Times?”
“Yes.”
“The blood is the same type as Mrs. Kirk’s. If it was or is a floundering numskull, obviously I’d better see-”
The doorbell rang.
I got up and went, telling myself it was even money it was James Neville Vance, but it wasn’t. A glance at the one-way glass panel in the front door settled that. It was a panhandler who had run out of luck and started ringing doorbells-a tall, lanky one pretending he had to lean against the jamb to keep himself upright. Opening the door, I said politely, “It’s a hard life. Good morning.”
He got me in focus with bleary eyes and said, “I would like to see Nero Wolfe. My name is Martin Kirk.”
If you think I should have recognized him from the pictures Lon had shown me, I don’t agree. You should have seen him. I told him Mr. Wolfe saw people only by appointment, but I’d ask. “You’re the Martin Kirk who lives at Two-nineteen Horn Street?”
He said he was, and I invited him in, ushered him into the front room and to a seat, which he evidently needed, went to the office by way of the connecting door, closed the door, and crossed to Wolfe’s desk. “I’m on my own time now,” I told him. “It’s Martin Kirk. He asked to see you, but of course you’re not interested. May I use the front room?”
He took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, then glared at me for five seconds and growled, “Bring him in.”
“But you don’t-”
“Bring him.”