Over My Dead Body Read online

“Why not?”

  “It isn’t necessary. I don’t know what is in your mind, but I saw you looking at Miss Tormic, you who were supposed to be here as her friend. If you want to know whether she and Mr Ludlow were smoking cigarettes, ask her.”

  “I will. I intend to. But how could I do her any harm by discussing the matter with the porter?”

  “I don’t know. You may mean no harm. But this affair of yesterday and to-day is ended. It was bad. It could have turned out very badly for our business. It is a very delicate matter, the tone of a place like this. A breath may destroy it. Even if you mean no harm to Miss Tormic or to us, I shall tell the porter not to answer your questions if you do see him. I am plain-spoken. Nor may you go to the salle d’armes and inspect the pads to see if the strap of one is broken.”

  “What makes you think I wanted to?”

  “Because I don’t take you for a fool. If you were curious about the smoking, naturally you would also be curious about the broken strap.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Anyhow, you used the right word. I was just curious. As you know, I’m a detective, and I guess we get into bad habits. But if you’re aware of the reputation of Nero Wolfe, you’re also aware that he dishes out trouble only to people who have asked for it.”

  She gazed at me a moment, turned and closed the sliding door of the cabinet, and then returned to me. “This morning,” she said, “my husband was saying that he would engage Mr Wolfe to investigate the disappearance of Mr Driscol’s diamonds. Miss Tormic was present. She declared that she had engaged Nero Wolfe to act in the matter in her behalf. Shortly afterwards her friend, Miss Lovchen, asked permission to go out on an errand. It is not only detectives who are curious. I am sometimes curious. If I were to ask—”

  She stopped with her mouth open, her body stiffening. Miltan spun on his heel to face the door to the hall. I did the same. The yell that had split the air sounded like something that you might expect but would certainly resent if you found yourself alone in a jungle at night.

  When the second yell came all three of us were running for the door. Miltan was ahead, and in the hall he bounded for the stairs with us after him. There were no more yells, but sounds of commotion, steps and voices, came from above, and on the second floor landing we were impeded by people who popped out of doors. Miltan was a kangaroo; I couldn’t have caught him for a purse. At the top of the second flight we were brought to a halt by obstructions. A coloured man was wriggling, his arms held by the chinless wonder; Nat Driscoll, in his shirt but no trousers, was jumping up and down; the two Balkans, in fencing costumes, were backed against the wall; Zorka, in gold-leaf undies and that was all, was standing apart and systematically screaming. Before Miltan could make any progress or I could get around him, I felt myself brushed aside and Jeanne Miltan was there.

  “What?” she demanded in a tone that would have stopped a hurricane. “Arthur! What is it?”

  The coloured man stopped wriggling and rolled his eyes at her and said something I didn’t get, but apparently she did, for she started off on a lope down the hall. I was close behind her and there were steps behind me. She went to the last door, the end room. It was standing open and she passed through, taking the curve without slowing down. She jerked to a halt, saw it there on the floor, and walked over to it. I was beside her. It was Percy Ludlow, lying on his side, so tilted that he would have been on his back if he hadn’t been propped up by the protruding point of the épée which was sticking clear through him.

  Chapter Four

  Jeanne Miltan said something foreign and then stood and stared down at it with her face frozen. I heard a gasp from Miltan behind me, and other noises, and turned and saw them ganged in the doorway.

  “Keep out of here,” I said. “All of you.”

  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 mart—”

  “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 runing down the hall with his shirt-tails 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 favourable 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 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 is 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 Neva’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-panelled door and when they were in the hall le
t 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 lefthand 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. 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 towards 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 towards 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:

  “Don’t move. I’m aiming a gun at where you are and I’m nervous. If your hands are empty stick them out beyond the edge. If they’re not empty—”

  A sound came from behind the cartons that was something between a moan and a squeal. I let my right hand fall and stepped forward with a grunt of disgust and put the light on him, where he was flattened against the pile of cartons.

  “For the love of Mike,” I said, absolutely exasperated.

  “What the hell are you scared of?”

  He moaned. “I seen him.” His eyes were still rolling. “I tell you I done seen him.”

  “So did I seen him. Look here, Arthur, I have no time to waste arguing with you about primitive superstitions. What are you going to do, stay here and moan?”

  “I ain’t going back up there—don’t you try it—don’t you touch me, I’m telling you—”

  “Okay.” I laid the light on a carton, returned the pistol to my holster, and put on my coat and hat. Then I retrieved the light. “I’m going out the back way to see that no one escapes. The best thing you can do is stay right where you are.”

  “I mean don’t I know it,” he groaned.

  “Fine. Have you got the key for that door?”

  “They’s a bolt, that’s all.”

  “What’s outside, a court with a high fence around it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any door in the fence?”

  “No, sir.”

  Overhead, namely on the floor of the office directly above, I heard the tread of dozens of heavy shoes on heavy feet. The company had come, I even thought I detected the sound of Inspector Cramer’s number twelves. As I moved, I had a piece of luck; the beam of my light passed over a boy’s size step-ladder standing by the shelves. I went for it, arranged for a diversion by warning Arthur to yell for help if he heard anyone else coming down, found the rear door and unbolted it, and skipped through with the step-ladder.

  The court was fairly large, maybe 30 x 40, and paved with concrete, and the solid board fence was two feet over my head. There was plenty of light from the windows of the buildings. I trotted across to the rear, leaned the ladder against the fence, mounted, and looked over into the adjoining court. It was the same size as the one I was in, with a miscellaneous clutter of vague objects scattered around and one object not so vague: a bulky person dressed in white, including an apron and a chefs cap, apparently doing breathing exercises from the way he stood there and puffed. Ten feet back of him a blaze of light came from a door standing open.

  I grabbed the top of the fence and pulled myself up and perched there, teetering. At the noise he looked up, startled, but before he could start screeching I demanded:

  “Did you see that cat?”

  “What cat?”

  “My wife’s cat. A yellow, long-haired fiend. It got loose and jumped out a window and climbed this fence. If you—” I lost my balance and toppled over and landed flat on the concrete on his side. As I picked myself up I cussed appropriately. “If I find the little darling I’ll strangle the damn thing. If you’ve been standing here you must have seen it.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “You must have. Okay, then you didn’t; but it came here. It must have smelled the grub in the restaurant—”

  I was on my way and kept going. He started after me, but with slow acceleration, so I went through the open door unimpeded. It was a large room, full of noise, cookery smells, and activity. Without coming to a stop I inquired above the noise, “Did a cat come in here?” They stared at me and a couple shook their heads. There was one with a loaded tray, in waiter’s uniform, headed for a swinging door, and I got on his heels and followed him thr
ough. At the other end of a pantry corridor another swinging door let us into the restaurant proper—purple and yellow leather, gleaming chromium, gleaming white tables—with waiters fussing around waiting for the evening’s customers. One of them blocked me and I snapped at him, “Catching a cat,” and went on around. In the foyer the sucker usher gave me an astonished look and the hat-check girl started for me instinctively, but I merely repeated, “Catching a cat,” and kept going, on through two more doors and then up to the sidewalk.

  I was, of course, on 49th Street. My impulse was to hoof it around a couple of corners to 48th Street and get the roadster, but it was parked only a few yards from the entrance to Miltan’s, so I voted unanimously for discretion and hopped into a taxi. On its cushion, bumping along downtown on Park Avenue, I maintained the discretion by not attempting to explore my overcoat pocket, considering that if things got complicated and aggravating enough the taxi-driver might be asked questions about what he had seen in his mirror. So I just sat and let him bump me down to 35th Street and cross-town to the number of Wolfe’s house.

  As I passed through the front hall I tossed my hat on a hook, but kept my overcoat on. In the office Wolfe sat at his desk, and in front of him was the metal box that was kept on a shelf in the safe, to which he alone had a key, and which he had never opened in my presence. I had always supposed that it contained papers too private even for me, but for all I knew it might have been stuffed with locks of hair or the secret codes of the Japanese Army. He put something into it and shut the lid and frowned at me.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  I shook my head. “No soap. I might have been able to bring her if I had had a chance to exert my charm, but on account of circumstances beyond my control—”

  “Circumstances forcing you to return here alone?”

  “Not exactly forcing, no, sir. You may remember that on the phone I mentioned a bird named Percy Ludlow who said that your daughter was getting his cigarettes out of his coat at his request. Well, somebody murdered him.”