I stooped over for a quick look and straightened up and told Jeanne Miltan, “He’s dead.” She said peevishly, “Of course he is.” A scream came from the doorway and I yelled in that direction, “Shut up!” and went on to Mrs. Miltan, “Somebody must stay here, and the police of course, and nobody must leave.”
She nodded. “You phone the police. In the office. Nikola, you stay here. I’ll go down to the hall –”
She was moving, but I stopped her. “I’d rather not. You do the phoning. It’s your place and you saw it first. I’ll take the street door. Don’t let anyone in here, Miltan.”
He looked pale as he mumbled. “The col de mort –”
“No, it’s not there. The end of the épée is bare and blunt.”
“It can’t be. It wouldn’t go through.”
“I can’t help that, it’s not there.”
Jeanne Miltan was headed for the door and I followed her. They made way for us. Carla Lovchen was going to say something to me and I shook my head at her. The chinless wonder grabbed at my elbow and I dodged him. People had come up from the floor below and Nat Driscoll came running down the hall with his shirttails flying. At the head of the stairs I wheeled to announce: “Don’t go into the end room, anybody. Ludlow’s in there dead. Nobody is to leave the building.” I saw Donald Barrett moving in my direction and the chinless wonder behind him. “If you two guys would herd everyone downstairs into the office it might simplify matters.”
I disregarded the chatter that broke out and beat it down the steps, with Mrs. Miltan following me. On the ground floor she went to the rear, to the office, and I went to the front, to the door to the street vestibule. I was tempted to keep on going, right on through, and get to a phone and call up Nero Wolfe, but I decided it would be a bad move. If I once got out I might not get back in again, or, if I did, it would be under conditions not nearly so favorable as they were now. Guarding the portal, loyal and true, was the best bet.
From where I stood I could see the inmates straggling down the stairs. They were mostly silent and subdued, but a couple of the female dancing teachers were jabbering. Belinda Reade, the baby doll with a new silk dress, came along to me instead of turning towards the office and said in a determined voice that she had a very important appointment to keep. I told her I had one too so we were in the same boat. Donald Barrett, who was hovering in the background, approached.
“See here,” he said, “I know I’m caught in this God-awful mess. Frightful stink and I’m helpless just because I’m here. But Miss Reade – after all – are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Then my dear fellow, just turn your back and talk to me a moment – and she can just slip out and go to her appointment –”
“And before long a dozen dicks will slip out and trace her and haul her back. Don’t be silly. Have you ever been intimate with a murder before? I guess you haven’t. The worst thing you can do is make them start looking for you. They get upset. Take my advice and – just a minute, Miss Tormic.”
The two Balkans were there, three paces off. The glances that passed back and forth among the four of them, in one second, obviously meant something to them but not to me. Belinda Reade said, “Come on, Don,” and he followed her in the direction of the office. I surveyed the pair of girls. Carla had put a long loose thing with buttons over her fencing costume. Neya had on the green robe, carelessly closed as before, with one hand inside its folds apparently clinging to it.
“There’s no time to talk,” I snapped. “You may be a couple of goons. I don’t know. But I’m asking you a damn straight question, and maybe your life depends on giving me a straight answer.” I took Neya’s eyes with mine. “You. Did you kill that man?”
“No.”
“Say it again. You didn’t?”
“No.”
I switched to Carla. “Did you?”
“No. But I must tell you –”
“There’s no time to tell me anything. That’s the hell of it. But anyhow you can – there they are! Beat it! Quick, damn it!”
They scampered down the hall towards the office and were gone by the time the cops got through the vestibule. It was a pair of flatfeet. I opened the glass-paneled door and when they were in the hall let it close again.
“Hello. Precinct?”
“No. Radio patrol. Who are you?”
“Archie Goodwin, private detective from Nero Wolfe’s office, happened to be here. I was sitting on the lid. I’ll keep.” I pointed. “Back in the office is Mrs. Miltan and others, and two flights up is a corpse.”
“God, you’re snappy. Sit on the lid a little longer, will you? Come on, Bill.”
They tramped to the rear. I stood and played with my fingers. In about two minutes one of them tramped down the hall again and went upstairs. In another two minutes there were fresh arrivals in the vestibule, three dicks in plain clothes, but one glance was enough to tell that they were precinct men, not homicide squad. I gave them a brief picture of it. One of them relieved me at the door, another went for the stairs, and the third went to the office and took me with him.
The radio flatfoot was there, holding his tongue between his teeth while he wrote down names in a notebook. The precinct dick spoke with him a moment and then started in on Mrs. Miltan. I sidled off and made myself unobtrusive alongside the coat rack, resisting a temptation to edge around and get in a few words of advice to the Montenegrin females before the homicide squad arrived, which was when the real fun would start. I decided not to take a chance on starting a mental process even in a precinct man. The clients and employees were scattered all around the office, some sitting, some standing, with no sound coming from them except an occasional muttering. While I was making the round of their faces, without any real expectation of seeing anything interesting or significant, I suddenly saw something right in front of my eyes that struck me as being both interesting and significant. My coat was there on the rack where I had left it, so close my elbow was touching it, and what I saw was that the flap of the left-hand pocket had been pushed inside and the pocket was gaping on account of something in it. That was wrong. I didn’t patronize the kind of tailors Percy Ludlow had, but I was born neat and I don’t go around with my pocket flaps pushed in; and besides, that pocket had been empty.
My hand had started for it instinctively, to reach in for a feel, but I caught the impulse in time and stopped it. I looked around, but as far as I could see no one had me under special observation, either furtive or open. There was no time for a prolonged test of that nature, for the homicide squad would be busting in any minute, maybe less than a minute, and once they arrived the right of self-determination wouldn’t stand a chance.
I reached up and took the hat and coat from the rack and started for the hall door, and had taken three steps when I was halted by a loud growl from behind:
“Hey, you, where you going?”
I turned and spoke loudly but not offensively to the suspicious glare from the precinct dick, “The management is not responsible for hats and coats, and these are mine. There’ll be a lot of company coming and I’d prefer to put them in a locker.”
I moved as I spoke, and sailed on through the door. There was one chance in three that he would actually abandon Mrs. Miltan and take after me, but he didn’t. In the hall, I didn’t even glance toward the left, where the watchdog stood at the entrance, knowing that it was out of the question to bluff a passage to freedom.
Instead I turned right, and it was only five steps to a narrow door I had noticed there. I opened it and saw an uncarpeted wooden stair going down. There was a light switch just inside, but without flipping it on I shut the door behind me and it was pitch-dark, black. With my pencil flashlight for a guide, I descended to the bottom of the stair, quietly but without wasting any time. Playing the light around, I saw that I was in a large low-ceilinged room lined with shelves and with stacks of cartons and shipping cases occupying the middle floor space. I stepped around them and headed for the rear, where I could see the dim rectangles of two windows a few feet apart. I must have been a little on edge, because I stood stiff and motionless and stopped breathing when the beam of my light, directed toward the floor, showed me something sticking out from behind a pile of cartons that I wasn’t expecting to see. It was the toe of a man’s shoe, and it was obvious from its position and appearance that there was a foot in it and the foot’s owner was standing on it. I kept the light on it, steady, and in a few seconds I breathed, moved the light upwards, and put my right hand inside my coat and out again. Then I said out loud but not too loud: