“If you ask me, they are,” Eve snapped.
“This is blackmail and actionable,” Bahr declared.
“Okay, she goes home and you call the goddam cops,” was Mort’s contribution.
“If she stays,” Phoebe said firmly, “I stay.”
Mrs. Whitten found use for a long deep sigh for about the thousandth time. Twice during the session I had been sure she was going to faint. But there was plenty of life in her eyes as she met Wolfe’s gaze. “You said you would speak to me privately about Miss Alving.”
“Yes, madam, I did.”
“Then you could do that in the morning. I’m afraid I couldn’t listen now —I’m pretty tired.” Her hands, on her lap, tightened into fists and then relaxed. She turned to her younger daughter. “Phoebe, you’ll have to go home and get things for us.” She went back to Wolfe. “Your spare room—will it do for two?”
“Admirably. There are twin beds.”
“Then my daughter Phoebe will be with me. I don’t think you need to fear for my safety—I’m sure she won’t kill me in my sleep. Tomorrow afternoon, if I’m still here, you will have to excuse me. My husband’s funeral will be at four o’clock.”
“Mother,” Jerome said quietly, “let me take you home.”
She didn’t use breath to answer him, but asked Wolfe, “Will I have to walk upstairs?”
“No indeed,” Wolfe said, as if that made everything fine and dandy. “You may use my elevator.”
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Vffl
THE fact is we have two spare rooms. Wolfe’s room is at the rear of the house on the second floor, which he uses because its windows face south, and there is another bedroom on that floor in front, unoccupied. On the third floor my room is the one at the front, on the street, and there is another spare at the rear which we call the South Room. We put Mrs. Whitten and Phoebe there because it is large, and has better furniture and rugs, its own bathroom, and twin beds. I had told them where I could be found in case of fire.
I heard a noise. That put it up to me to decide whether I was awake or asleep, and I went to work on it. But I didn’t feel like working and was going to let it slide when there was another noise.
“Mr. Goodwin.”
Recognizing the name, I opened my eyes. An attractive young woman in a blue summer negligee, with hair the color of maple sirup, was standing at the foot of my bed. There was plenty of daylight from the windows to get details.
“I didn’t knock,” she said, “because I didn’t want to disturb anyone.”
“You’ve disturbed me,” I asserted, swinging my legs around and sitting on the bed’s edge. “What for?”
“I’m hungry.”
I looked at my wrist. “My God, it’ll be time for breakfast in three hours, and Fritz will bring it up to you. You don’t look on the brink of starvation.” She didn’t. She looked all right.
“I can’t sleep and I’m hungry.”
“Then eat. The kitchen is on the same—” I stopped, having got enough awake to remember that (a) she was a guest and (b) I was a detective. I slipped my feet into my sandals, arose, told her, “Come on,” and headed for the door. Halfway down the first flight I thought of a dressing gown, but it was too hot anyway.
Down in the kitchen I opened the door of the refrigerator and asked her, “Any special longing?”
“No, just food. Bread and meat and milk would be nice.”
We got out an assortment: salami, half a Georgia ham, pate, cheese, cucumber rings, Italian bread, and milk. She volunteered to slice some ham, and was very nifty at it. Now that she had broken my sleep I saw no reason to let her monopolize things, so I joined in. I took the stool and let her have the chair. I had happened to notice before that: she had good teeth, and
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now I also noticed that they knew how to deal with bread and meat. She chewed as if she meant it, but with no offense.
We made conversation. “When I heard my name and opened my eyes and saw you,” I told her, “I supposed it was one of two things. Either you had been drawn to my room as a moth to a candle, or you wanted to tell me something. When you said you were hungry it was a comedown. However —” I waved a hand, and on the way back it snared a slice of salami.
“I don’t think there’s much moth in me,” she said. “And you’re not so hot as a candle, with your hair like that and in those wrinkled pajamas. But I do want to tell you something. The hunger was just an opening.”
“My pajamas always get wrinkled by the middle of the week no matter how careful I am. What’s on your mind?”
She finished with a bite of cheese. Then she drank some milk. Then she arranged for her eyes to meet mine.
“We’re more apt to do some good if you’ll tell me something. What makes you think Pompa didn’t kill Floyd Whitten?”
That got me wide awake and I hastily shifted things around inside my head. Up to then the emphasis had been on this interesting, informal, earlymorning, intimate association with a really pretty specimen, but she had made it quite different. Having never seen H. R. Landy, I didn’t know how much she looked like her father, but her manner and tone as she asked that question, and the look in her fine young eyes, had sure come straight from the man who had built up a ten-million-dollar business.
I grinned at her. “That’s a swell way to repay me for getting up to feed you. If we have any evidence it’s Mr. Wolfe’s, not mine, so ask him. If we haven’t any you wouldn’t be interested.”
“I might be. Try me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of boring you. More milk?”
“Then I’ll bore you. I know Pompa pretty well. I have been with him a lot the past two years, working with him—I suppose you know that. He’s an awful old tyrant in some ways, and he certainly is pig-headed, but I like him. I don’t believe he would have killed Floyd Whitten for the only motive he had, and I know darned well he wouldn’t have killed him by stabbing him in the back.”
I frowned. “What kind of a dodge is this? You’re out of my reach. Have you told that to the cops?”
“Of course not. I haven’t told it to you, either, in case they ask me, and anyhow it’s just my opinion. But that’s what I think, and you see what it means. If Pompa didn’t do it then one of us did, and I know we didn’t. Or take it the way you’re looking at it, that that’s a lie, that we’re all lying together—even so, there’s no way on earth of proving we’re lying, so it goes back on Pompa and he’ll have to suffer for it. But I’ve told you what I think
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about him, and so I wonder if he has told the police all the details, and if they believe him. I would like to help him if I can—1 mean it. Has he told about the front door being open?”
“I don’t know. What front door, up at your house?”
She nodded. “As we told you, I left the room several times during that half-hour, to make sure Mother and Pompa were still in the living room. And each time, all the time, the front door wasn’t closed. It was standing a little open. I supposed that when Mother came down to keep Pompa from going, he had already opened the front door to leave when she stopped him, and they neglected to close it when they went into the living room. That must have been it, because I had looked out there before, before Mother and Pompa came down, and so had Eve and Jerome, and the front door had been closed up to then.”
I was letting the tingles inside of me enjoy themselves, and staying deadpan. “That’s very interesting,” I granted. “You’ve told about this, have you?”
“No, I haven’t mentioned it. I don’t know—1 just didn’t mention it. It didn’t occur to me until this evening, from the questions Mr. Wolfe asked, how important it was. Of course the door being open meant that any time during that half-hour someone could have gone in and upstairs, and killed Floyd, and out again. So I wonder if Pompa has told about it He must know it, since he must have opened the door himself and not dosed it. I thought maybe he had told about it and they hadn’t believed him. But they would have to believe him if I said I saw the door open too. Wouldn’t they?”