“I don’t know. I supposed she was at home until you said Goodwin was told she had gone with her bag and suitcase. I’ll tell you something. I don’t like the way you’re handling this and I’m going to tell Miss Tormic so. She ought to have a good lawyer, anyway, and I’ll see that she gets one. If she lets you out, how much cash will you take not to peddle this fairy tale to the police about her putting something in Goodwin’s pocket?”
I got up and took a step toward him, but Wolfe shook his head at me. “No, Archie. Let me –”
I said, “Excuse me. There are times when you get mad and there are times when I get mad. I’ll make a concession. I was going to hit him and then talk, but I’ll talk first.”
I put my face fourteen inches from Barrett’s. “You. I am restraining myself. You have implied that this office has a stooling department. What evidence have you got to back that up? Talk like a man whether you are one or not. I warn you I’m mad. Have you got any evidence?”
“I … I didn’t mean –”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Are you sorry you said it?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say it to oblige me. I’d rather you refused to say it. You are sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Marshmallows,” I muttered, and went back to my chair.
Wolfe said, “You’ll have to learn to control that, Archie. Physical duress, unless carried to an intolerable extreme, is a miserable weapon.” He wiggled a finger at Barrett. “Not that I object to duress when it’s necessary, as it is now. It doesn’t matter what it was that moved Madame Zorka to tell you about her phone call to me; the fact is that she did so; nor does it matter what form of persuasion you used on her. It’s obvious that you hid her, or at least you know where she is, since it was you who got her to pack up and go –”
Barrett started off. I circled around him on the lope to head him off at the door. Wolfe snapped at his back:
“Come back here! Unless you want everyone sniffing on the trail of Bosnian forest concessions and Yugoslav credits –”
I admit that Wolfe’s form of duress was more effective than mine. Mine had made him eat a bite of crow, but Wolfe’s apparently drained him of his blood. Three steps from the door he stopped and stiffened, and his cheeks went pasty. He turned slowly then, to face Wolfe. I went back to my chair and sat and enjoyed looking at him.
He wet his lips with his tongue, twice. Then he moved, clear to the corner of Wolfe’s desk, and squeaked down at him: “What are you talking about? Do you know what you’re talking about?”
“Certainly. About banditry. A euphemism for it is international finance. In this case represented by the well-known firm of Barrett & De Russy.”
“And what about it?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I furnish no details, Mr. Barrett. You know them better than I do. The precise amount of the credits held by your firm, for instance, and the extent of its relations with the Donevitch gang. I don’t need to supply details in order to blackmail you, which is all I’m after. I merely want to see Madame Zorka, and I’m sure you’ll help me on that rather than have this Yugoslav foray exposed to a lot of disconcerting curiosity.”
Barrett, motionless and silent, gazed at him. Southwest of his ear, above the edge of his starched white collar, I could see the tendons on his neck standing out. Finally he squeaked again:
“Who are you working for?”
“For Miss Tormic.”
“I asked you, who are you working for? Rome?”
“I am working on a murder case. My client is Neya Tormic. My only interest –”
“Oh, skip it. Do you think I’m a boob?” The international financier put the tips of eight fingers on the desk and gave them some weight. “Look here. I understand perfectly that no matter who you’re working for, you wouldn’t be tipping me off just for your health. If you’ll put this damn pet gorilla of yours on a leash, I’m quite willing to discuss details and terms – subject of course to consultation with my associates –”
“Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “I might have known it would make you ugly. Now how the devil am I going to convince you that my only concern is the welfare of my client?”
“I don’t know. If I were you I wouldn’t try.” Barrett’s voice had lost its squeak and assumed a tone that might have sold me on the idea he was really tough if I hadn’t already caught a glimpse of the yellow. “I don’t know how far you’re in, but I presume you know what you’re doing. If you do, I don’t need to tell you that it’s too dangerous a game for anybody to try any private hijacking.”
“I said blackmail.”
“All right, blackmail. Who are you selling out and what’s your price?”
I let it pass. If he was going to wholesale his insults, it would save trouble to wait till he was finished and then collect in a lump sum.
Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “Will you sit down, sir?”
“I’m all right standing.”
“Then please back up. I’m not comfortable with my head tilted. Now listen. Get it out of your head that I represent any interest, either friendly or hostile to you, in your Balkan enterprise. I don’t. Then, you wonder, how did I learn of it? What’s the difference? I did. Next you must somehow manage to believe that I do not want a slice of the loot. Incredible and even immoral as that must seem to a man of your instinct and training, I don’t. I want just one thing. I want you to conduct Mr. Goodwin to Madame Zorka, wherever you have put her, and he will bring her here. That’s all. Unless you do that, I shall send information at once, to three different quarters, of your firm’s projected raid on the property of the people of Yugoslavia. You know better than I do the sort of hullabaloo that would start. Don’t complicate matters by assuming for me a cupidity and corruption beyond the limits I have set for myself. You’re suffering from an occupational disease. When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn’t occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere. I beg you, understand that I want Madame Zorka and nothing else. Beyond that I do not and shall not represent any threat to you – unless, of course, it should turn out that it was you who murdered Percy Ludlow.”
Wolfe shifted his eyes to me. “Archie, I’m afraid there’s no help for it. Mr. Barrett will take you to Madame Zorka. You will bring her here.”
“What if she’s skipped town?”
“I doubt it. She can’t have got far. Take the roadster and go after her. Hang onto Mr. Barrett.”
“That’s the part I don’t like, hanging onto Barrett.”
“I know. You’ll have to put up with it. It may be only –” He switched to Barrett. “Where is she? How far away?”
The financier was standing there trying to concentrate, with his gaze fastened on Wolfe and his lips working. He made them function: “Damn you, if you let this out –”
Wolfe said curtly, “I’ve told you what I want, and that’s all I want. Where is she?”
“She’s – I think – not far away.”
“In the city?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Don’t try any tricks with Mr. Goodwin. They make him lose his temper.”
“I’m coming back with them. I want to talk –”
“No. Not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. Don’t let him in, Archie.”
“Okay.” I was on my feet. “For God’s sake, let’s step on it, or my bed will think I’m having an affair with the couch. I only wish I was.”
He didn’t like going, leaving Wolfe there within three feet of a telephone and all that intimate knowledge of Bosnian forests buzzing in his head, but I eased him into the hall and on out into the November night.
I had rather expected to find a Minerva town car waiting at the curb, considering his category, but there wasn’t anything there at all, and we had to hoof it to Eighth Avenue before we could ambush a taxi at that ungodly hour. We piled in, me last, and he told the driver Times Square.
As we jolted off I surveyed him disapprovingly. “Don’t tell me you left her standing on the sidewalk.”
Disregarding that, he twisted himself on the cushion to face me in a confidential manner. “See here, Goodwin,” he demanded, “you’ve got to help me. I’m in a bad hole. It wouldn’t have done any good to try to persuade Wolfe that I don’t know where Zorka is, because he was convinced that I do. But the fact is, I don’t know.”