“Pfui.” Wolfe scowled. “Can any of them get in after hours?”
“No, not unless they have a key—or are let in by someone who has a key. Up to the time of the press showing, even up to yesterday, the first buyers’ show, there were people there every evening in the rush of getting the line ready, but most times there’s no one there after hours. That’s why I picked last night to go to look for that file.”
“There was no one working there last night?”
“No, not a soul.”
“Who has keys?”
“Let’s see.” She concentrated. “I have one. Bernard Daumery…. Polly Zarella…. Ward Roper. That’s—oh no, Mr. Demarest has one. As my uncle’s executor he is in legal control of the half-interest.”
“Who opens up in the morning and locks up at night?”
“Polly Zarella. She has been doing that for years, since before I came
there.”
“So there are just five keys?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Pah. I can’t depend on you. I myself know of two you haven’t mentioned. Didn’t your uncle have one? He probably let himself in with it last night. And didn’t Jean Daumery have one?”
“I was telling about the ones that are there now,” Cynthia said with a touch of indignation. “I suppose Uncle Paul had one, of course. I don’t know about Jean Daumery’s, but if he had it in his clothes that day fishing it’s at the bottom of the ocean, and i£ he didn’t have it I suppose Bernard has it now.”
Wolfe nodded. “Then we know of four people with keys besides you. Miss Zarella, Mr. Daumery, Mr. Roper, Mr. Demarest. Can you have them here this evening at half-past eight?”
Cynthia gawked. “You mean—here?”
“At this office.”
“But good lord.” She was flabbergasted. “I can’t just order them around! What can I say? I can’t say I want them to help find out who killed my uncle because they don’t know it was my uncle! You must consider they’re much older than I am—all but Bernard—and they think I’m just a fresh kid. Even Bernard is seven years older. After all, I’m only twenty-one—that is, I will be-my God!”
She looked horror-struck, as if someone had poked a window pole at her.
“What now?” Wolfe demanded.
“Tomorrow’s my birthday! I’ll be twenty-one tomorrow!”
“Yes?” Wolfe said politely.
“Happy birthday!” she cried.
“Not this one,” Wolfe stated.
“Look out,” I warned him. “That’s one of a girl’s biggest dates.”
He pushed his chair back hastily, arose, and looked at me.
“Archie. I would like to see those people this evening. Six o’clock would do, but I prefer eight-thirty, after dinner. Go up there with Miss Nieder. She is under suspicion of murder, and has engaged me, and can reasonably expect their co-operation. She is in fact half-owner of that business, and one of them is her partner, one is her lawyer, and the other two are her employees. What better do you want?”
He made for the door, on his way to the elevator.
ONE of my little notions—that I had already exchanged words with Bernard Daumery—turned out to be wrong. Evidently it is not a Seventh Avenue custom for half-owners to act as doortenders at buyers’ shows. At least, contrary to my surmise, it had not been Bernard Daumery who on Monday afternoon had barred Driscoll’s Emporium and had given me a head-to-foot survey before letting me in. I never saw that number again.
Business as usual is one of the few things that the Police Department makes allowances for in handling a homicide. The wheels of commerce must not be stalled unless it is unavoidable. So at the Daumery and Nieder premises eight hours after the discovery of the body, a pug-nosed dick hovering inside near the entrance was the only visible hint that this was the scene of the crime. The city scientists had done all they could and got all that was gettable and had departed. As Cynthia and I entered, the dick recognized me and wanted to know how come, and I told him amiably that I was working for Nero Wolfe and Mr. Wolfe was working for Miss Nieder, pausing just long enough not to seem boorish. I wasn’t worried about Cramer. He knew damn well that if he took drastic steps Wolfe would perform exactly as outlined, and that he had been a plain jackass not to wait until Wolfe had downed the other two rice cakes and had some coffee. If the case got really messy and made him desperate he might explode something, but not today or tomorrow.
Cynthia and I were sitting in Bernard Daumery’s office, waiting for him to finish with some customers in the showroom. It had been his uncle Jean’s room, and was large, light, and airy, with good rugs and furniture, and the walls even more covered with drawings and photographs than in the showroom. We had decided to start with Bernard.
“The trouble with him,” Cynthia was telling me with a frown, “is that he can’t bear to decide anything. Especially if it’s important, you might think he had to wait to see what the stars say or maybe a crystal ball. Then when he does make up his mind he’s as stubborn as a mule. The way I do when I want him to agree about something, I act as if it wasn’t very important—”
The door came open and a man was there. He shut the door and approached her.
“I’m sorry, Cynthia, it was Miss Dougherty of BuIlock’s-Wilshire, and Brackett was with her. She thinks you’re better than ever, and she’s lost her head completely over those three—Oh! Who—?”
“Mr. Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office,” Cynthia told him. “Mr. Daumery, Mr. Goodwin.”
I got up to offer a hand and he took it.
“Nero Wolfe the detective?” he asked.
I told him yes. His exuberance about Miss Dougherty of Bullock’s- Wilshire evaporated without a trace. He sent Cynthia a look, shook his head, though not apparently at her, went to a chair, not the one at his desk, and sat. Cynthia’s statistics had informed me that he was four years younger than me, and I might as well concede them to him. On account of the intimate way he had beamed at Cynthia on entering, naturally I looked upon him as a rival, but to be perfecdy fair to him he was built like a man, he knew where to get clothes and how to wear them, and he was not actually ugly.
Now the exuberance was gone. “This godawful mess,” he glummed. “Where does Nero Wolfe come in?”
“I went to see him,” Cynthia said. “I’ve hired him.”
“What for? To do what?”
“Well—I need somebody, don’t I? After the way the police acted with me?
When they know I came here last night and apparently no one else did?” “But that’s absolutely idiotic! Why shouldn’t you come here?” “All right, I should. But I think they came within an inch of arresting me.” “Then you need a lawyer. Where’s Demarest? Did he send you to Nero
Wolfe?”
Cynthia shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’m going to as soon as—”
“Damn it, you should have seen him first!”
“I’m not taking your time,” Cynthia declared, “to ask you what I should have done. I’ll tend to that, thank you. I want to ask you to do something.”
I thought she was making a bad start and needed help. “May I join in?” I inquired pleasantly.
Bernard scowled at me. “This thing is absolutely crazy,” he complained. “What we ought to do is ignore it! Simply ignore it!”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “that would be innocent and brave, but it might get complicated. If one of you gets charged with murder and locked up it would take a master ignorer—”
“Good God, why should we? How could we? Why would any of us kill a man we never saw or heard of before? The thing for the police to do is find out how he ever got in here—that’s their problem.”
“I completely agree,” I assured him heartily. “The trouble is you’ve got a logical mind and some cops haven’t. So the fact remains that one of you, especially one of you that has a key to this place, is apt to get arrested for murder, and right now the odds strongly favor Miss Nieder because they know she used her key last night. Getting convicted is something else, but she would rather not even be arrested right in the middle of the showings of the fall line. May I go on a minute?”
“We’re busy as the devil,” Bernard muttered.
“I’ll be brief. Miss Nieder has hired Mr. Wolfe. She will consult her lawyer, Demarest, within the hour. But meanwhile—”
The door swung open and a man entered. He too shut the door behind him, half turning to close it gently, and then spoke as he advanced.