After a meal fully as good as the one Marko had fed us the evening before, the three of us went across the hall to the office. Wolfe got himself arranged in the chair behind his desk, the only chair on earth he really loves; Marko sat on the red leather one; and I stood and had a good stretch.
“Television?” Wolfe inquired politely.
“In the name of God,” Marko protested. “Pompa will die soon, perhaps tonight.”
“What of?”
“Fear, rage, mortification. He is old.”
“Nonsense. He will live to get his eye back, if for nothing else.” Wolfe shook his head. “As you said yesterday, Marko, you’re a Boniface, not a detective. Don’t crack a whip at me. What have you got, Archie?”
“No news.” I pulled my chair away from my desk and sat. “Are we still swallowing Pompa whole?”
“Yes.”
“Then they’re all lying about what they were there for, except Daniel Bahr, Eve’s husband, who merely says it was a family matter which he prefers not to discuss. They say they met to consider a jam Mortimer is in with a female by the name of—”
“No matter. Mrs. Whitten?”
“She’s in on the Be, of course. Probably she clucked them into it. During Landy’s life he was absolutely the rooster, and she merely came along with the flock, but when he died she took command and kept it. She is of the flock, by the flock, and for the flock, or at least she was until Whitten got his hooks in. Since her marriage she has unquestionably been for Whitten, though there has been no sign that she intended to swear off clucking—at least there wasn’t until a month ago, when she installed Whitten in the big comer office that had been Landy’s. Pompa never moved into it. She is fiftyfour, fairly bright, watches her figure, and looks as healthy as she is.”
“Have you seen her?”
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“How could I? She wouldn’t even talk to you on the phone.”
“The son, Mortimer. Is he really in a scrape? Does he urgently need money?”
“Sure, I suppose so, like lots of other people, but this girl trouble is apparently nothing desperate, only enough of a mess so they could drag it in. About people urgently needing money, who knows? Maybe they all do. Jerome owns part of a real estate business, but he’s a big spender. Mortimer could owe a million. Eve and her husband might be betting on horse races, if you want to be trite. Phoebe may want to finance a big deal in narcotics, though that would be pretty precocious at twenty-four. There are plenty—”
“Archie. Quit talking. Report.”
I did so. It filled an hour and went on into the second, my display of all the little scraps I had collected, while Wolfe leaned back with his eyes closed and Marko obviously got more and more irritated. When the question period was finished too Marko exploded.
“Sacred Father above! If I prepared a meal like this my patrons would all starve to death! Pompa will die not of fear but of old age!”
Wolfe made allowances. “My friend,” he said patiently, “when you are preparing a meal the cutlet or loin does not use all possible resource, cunning, resolution, and malice to evade your grasp. But a murderer does. Assuming that Mr. Pompa is innocent, as I do on your assurance, manifestly one of those six people is behind a shield that cannot be removed by a finger’s flick. They may even be in concert, if one of them went upstairs and dealt with Mr. Whitten while Mrs. Whitten and Mr. Pompa were in the living room. But before I can move I must start.” Wolfe looked at the clock on the wall, which said ten past ten, and then at me. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get them down here. As many of them as possible.”
“Yeah. During the week?”
“Tonight. Now.”
I gawked at him. “You don’t mean it.”
“The devil I don’t.” He was positively serious. “You probably can’t do it, but you can try. Confound it, look at Marko! At least you can bring the younger daughter. A woman that age likes to be with you no matter where you go, heaven knows why.”
“It’s my glass eye and wooden leg.” I stood up. “This is Wednesday. Hold your breath until Saturday.” I crossed to the door, and asked over my shoulder, “Have you any suggestions?”
“None. The circumstances may offer one.”
OMIT FLOWERS 365
IV
SINCE there would be no parking problem in the East Seventies at that hour, I decided to take my own wheels and went around the comer to the garage for the car.
On the way uptown I went over it. I was quite aware that Wolfe didn’t really expect me to deliver, not even Phoebe. He merely wanted to get Marko off his neck, and sending me out to pass a miracle was his first and most natural notion, and also the least trouble for him. He knew it would make me sore, so the first thing I decided was not to be sore. When, stopping for a light on Fifth Avenue in the Forties, I caught myself muttering, “The fat lazy bum,” I saw that wasn’t working very good and took a fresh hold.
I parked a few yards west of the house I wanted to get into, on the same side of the street, just back of a dark gray sedan with an MD plate alongside the license. Sitting there with my eyes on the house entrance, which was the sort of granite portal to be expected in that upper-bracket neighborhood, I tried going over it again. I could get the door to open just by pushing the bell button. I could get inside by the momentum of 180 pounds. There were even simple stratagems that would probably get me to Mrs. Whitten. But what about from there on? With the house right there in front of me I got ambitious. It would be nice to make a delivery that Wolfe didn’t expect. The notion of playing it straight, saying that we had been engaged by Pompa and would like to have a conversation with the family, had been rejected before I had got to 42nd Street. I had other notions, some risky, some screwy, and some clever, but nothing that seemed to fit all the requirements. When I looked at my wrist watch and saw 10:40 I decided I had better settle for one and shoot it, did so, and climbed out to the sidewalk. As I swung the car door shut, I saw a man emerging from the entrance I was bound for. The light wasn’t very bright there, but there was plenty to see that it wasn’t either of the sons or the son-in-law. He was past middle age, and he was carrying the kind of black case that means doctor anywhere. He crossed the sidewalk to the gray sedan with an MD plate on it, got in, and rolled away. Naturally, with my training and habits, I automatically noted the license number and filed it.
I walked to the portal, entered the vestibule, and pushed the button. In a moment the door opened enough to show me a baldheaded guy in conventional black, with a big pointed nose, and to show me to him.
“My name is Archie Goodwin,” I informed him, “and I would like to see Mrs. Whitten.”
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He said authoritatively, “No newspapermen are being admitted,” and started to close the door. My foot stopped it after a couple of inches.
“You have newspapermen on the brain,” I told him courteously but firmly. “I happen to be a detective.” I got my card case from my pocket. “Like this.” I pulled my license card, with photograph and thumbprint, from under the cellophane and handed it to him, and he inspected it.
“This does not indicate,” he asserted, “that you are a member of the police force.”
“I didn’t say I was. I merely—”
“What’s the trouble, Borly?” a voice came from behind him. He turned, and the pressure of my foot made the door swing in more. Since an open door is universally regarded as an invitation to enter, I crossed the threshold.
“There’s no trouble, Mr. Landy,” I said cheerfully. “The butler was just doing his duty.” As I spoke two other men came in sight from a door to the right, which made it four to one. I was going on. “My name’s Goodwin, and I work tor Nero Wolfe, and I want to see Mrs. Whitten.”
“The hell you do. On out.” With a gesture he indicated the door he wished me to use. “I said out!”
He took a step toward me. I was mildly confused because I hadn’t expected to have to deal with a whole quartet immediately on entering. Of course it was no trick to spot them, from their pictures in the papers and descriptions. The one outing me, which he might possibly have done since he was a little bigger, up to heavyweight specifications, with a big red face having eyes too far apart, was Mortimer. The one with dark hair slicked back, wirier and smaller and smarter looking, was his elder brother Jerome. The middle-sized one, who looked like a washed-out high school teacher, was their brother-in-law, the famous columnist who was more widespread than AMBROSIA, Daniel Bahr.