He straightened up. “Never do that.”
“It’s good for me. I was nine ounces overweight. Do you comment or do I?”
“You.”
I took a minute. “First, did Stella kill her sister? Two to one she didn’t. She –”
“Only two?”
“That’s the best I’ll give. The most important thing in the world, she said. If it’s still that important when she’s dead, what was it when she was alive? She left the rails twice in my presence. She just can’t stand it. If she went there Saturday morning and – do I need to spell it?”
“No. Why two to one? Why not even or less?”
“Because, on the record, a woman kills her sister only if she hates her or is afraid of her. Stella didn’t. She loved her and wanted to – well, save her. Make it three to one. Anyway, even if she did it, she’s hopeless. Try and prove it. Even if we got enough to satisfy us, Cramer and the DA would never buy it, let alone a jury. So forget her. As for him, no bet. He could have had an elegant motive, anybody could, but as of now the only one visible is that he killed her to stop his wife worrying about her, which is a little farfetched. One thing, though, why did he let me in?”
“So she wouldn’t encounter you in the hall.”
“Possibly, but he could have ordered me out and called a cop if he had to. It’s just a comment; maybe it was because he likes problems, or maybe he thought it would be good for her. More than a comment, a conclusion: if they’re out, they have no idea who is in. She said she couldn’t even try to guess, and I believe her. She’s no good at covering. When I pulled an obvious little dodge, saying that it might have been Orrie who was paying the rent, it wasn’t only her expression, she actually shook her head. Later she said she didn’t know who, but she does. What the hell, so do we.”
“If Orrie was candid.”
“He was. He had the lid off. For comments, I have saved the best for the last. Isabel’s other life. The circle.”
He grunted. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“That expands it. That was to be expected, as soon as you learned that her relations with her sister were restricted. A woman who eats by sufferance, without a contract, would of course prefer not to eat alone. You laugh?”
“I do. Most men wouldn’t put it all on eating. All right, so we have a circle too – as expected. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Godalmighty. I suggest again that we consider Avery Ballou.”
“I am considering him. I wanted first – no matter. We’ll discuss it in the morning after you see Orrie.” He reached for the transcript.
Chapter 6
Where you go to see a man in custody in Manhattan depends partly on why he’s there. It can be a precinct station, a room in the City Prison, a room in the District Attorney’s office, or the paddock. I don’t know how many cops call it the paddock, but Sergeant Purley Stebbins does. It is a bare, smelly room about twelve yards long, split along the center by a steel grill which extends from the middle of a wide wooden counter up to the ceiling, and there are a dozen or so wooden chairs strung along each side of the counter, the same kind of chairs for the visitors and visitees. Democracy.
Seated on one of the chairs on the visitors’ side at ten minutes past ten Tuesday morning, I was not chipper. I had supposed I would see Orrie in a room at the DA’s office until Parker had phoned to say it would be the City Prison, and then I had taken it for granted it would be in a room. But I had been escorted to the paddock, and there I was, with four other visitors spread along the line, the nearest one, a middle-aged fat woman with red eyes, only seven feet away. I would have liked to think they were merely showing what they thought of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but I didn’t. They had decided that Orrie Cather was a murderer, though they hadn’t charged him yet, and were taking no chances. Try to make them eat it.
A door opened in the back wall, the other side of the grill and counter, and Orrie entered, cuffed, with a dick right behind. The dick steered him to a chair opposite me, watched him sit, said, “Fifteen minutes,” and went back to the wall, where another dick was standing. My eyes and Orrie’s met as well as they could through the grill. The rims of his were puffy. He had once admitted to me that he brushed his hair ten minutes every morning, but he hadn’t that morning.
“It could be bugged,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. His cuffed hands were on the counter. “Too risky. Too big a stink.”
“Well, all we can do is keep it low. Parker has told you that Mr. Wolfe and Saul and Fred and I have decided that you didn’t kill her and we’re on it.”
“Yeah, I knew he’d have to. I’m not his Archie Goodwin, but even me he’d have to.”
“I prefer to regard myself as my Archie Goodwin, but we won’t go into that now. I have a couple of questions, but Parker says you wanted to see me. Well?”
“I want you to do me a favor, Archie, a big favor. I want you to see Jill Hardy and tell her –”
“I’ve already seen her. She came to the office yesterday morning, don’t interrupt, and we had a talk. I didn’t know how much you had told her about Isabel Kerr, so I –”
“I have never told her anything about Isabel Kerr. She didn’t know there was an Isabel Kerr. Goddammit, what did you tell her?”
“Same as you, nothing. Of course that’s the favor you were going to ask, and it’s already done. I told her that the cops thought you killed her, and we thought you didn’t, and we were going to investigate, and we knew nothing about Isabel Kerr. Now I have –”
“You’re wonderful, Archie. Wonderful.”
“Put it in writing and I’ll frame it. I have questions, and we haven’t much time. Have you opened up at all?”
“No. I’m a dummy.”
“Stay that way. As you know, Parker agrees. What have they got? We know they got your license and the other objects, since you didn’t get them and I didn’t, and your prints, and her diary, but is that –”
“Her diary?”
“Yeah. You didn’t know she kept one?”
“My God, no.”
“She did, and they have it, so Cramer says. He didn’t say what’s in it. Probably you are, but we want your opinion on another point: would she put his name in it? The name I had to pry out of you.”
“Oh.” He looked at it a few seconds. “I see. That might be a point. I don’t think she would. Of course she had the diary stashed, but even so I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t. She was too cagey. It’s more than just an opinion. I say no.”
I looked at my wrist. Six minutes to go. “Now the question. How many people knew about you and her?”
“Nobody.”
“Nuts. You can’t know that.”
“As far as I know, nobody. You’ve heard me blow, Archie, but you never heard me blow about her. After just a few times with her she scared me. I had had women cotton to me before, but she was hipped. I liked her all right, she was good all right, but she was hipped. After we got started we were never together anywhere except her place. She wanted it that way, and that suited me. But I completely misjudged her. I told her about meeting Jill, you know, just that I had met an airline stewardess, and then like a damn fool I thought I could ease her along to the idea that since I wasn’t her only contact she couldn’t expect to be my only contact. Then I got hipped, for the first time in my life. On Jill. And she – I’ve told you how she took it. She was absolutely going to marry me herself, for God’s sake. I told her my income was about half of what he was spending on that setup, and she said just a room and bath would do us even after the baby came. That kind of crap. I don’t for a minute believe there was going to be a baby, and even if there was, whose would it be? I’m answering your question. I told nobody about her, and I doubt if she told anyone about me.”
“But she told you about other people, didn’t she?”