Tales of the Black Widowers

9. The Lullab y of Broadwa y

For the first time in the history of the Black Widowers, the monthly banquet was being given in a private apartment. Emmanuel Rubin had insisted and his straggly straw-colored beard had waggled strenuously as he argued it out in parliamentary fashion.
He was going to be the next host, he said, and the host was an absolute monarch within the wording of the bylaws and nowhere in the bylaws was the place of meeting specifically fixed.
"According to tradition," began Geoffrey Avalon with the kind of solemnity that befitted his profession as patent lawyer, "we have always met right here."
"If tradition is the master," said Rubin, "why the bylaws?"
And in the end he had had his way, carrying it finally when he pointed out that he was a gourmet cook and Mario Gonzalo had grinned and said, "Let's go and smell him burn the hamburgers."
"I do not serve hamburgers," said Rubin body, but by that time everyone had conceded the point.
So Avalon and James Drake, who had both come in from across the Hudson on the same train, stood in the lobby of Rubin's West Side apartment house and waited for the doorman to pay attention to them. It was quite clear that they could not get in without the doorman's permission by anything short' of violence.
Avalon muttered, "It's the fortress mentality. It's all over New York. You can't go anywhere without having to pass the gimlet eye and being frisked for weapons."
"I don't blame them," said Drake in his soft, hoarse voice. He lit a cigarette. "It's better than being mugged in the elevator."
"I suppose so," said Avalon gloomily.
The doorman turned to them. He was short, round-faced, and bald-headed, with a gray fringe of hair that was repeated in his mustache, which was as short and bristly as Drake's but which occupied a more generous space of upper lip. He did not look in the least formidable but his gray uniform lent him the cachet of authority and, presumably, that was enough to quell the intruder.
"Yes?" he said.
Avalon cleared his throat, and spoke in his most impressively rich baritone in order to conceal the shyness that no one could believe anyone as tall, straight, and impressive as he could have. "We are Dr. Drake and Mr. Avalon calling on Mr. Emmanuel Rubin in 14-AA."
"Drake and Avalon," repeated the doorman. "One minute." He moved to the bank of apartment bells and spoke into the intercom.
The squawking sound of Rubin's voice came clearly. "Send them up. Send them up."
The doorman held the door open for them, but Avalon hesitated on the threshold. "Do you have many incidents here, by the way?"
The doorman nodded importantly. "Sometimes, sir. No matter what you do, things happen! Apartment on the twentieth floor was robbed last year. There was a lady got hurt in the laundry room not too long ago. Things like that happen."
A voice said gently, "May I join you, gentlemen?"
Drake and Avalon both turned to look at the newcomer. There was a perceptible moment in which neither recognized him. And then Drake chuckled briefly, and said, "Henry, when you're not waiting on us at the restaurant, you're beautiful."
Avalon said, considerably more explosively, "Henry! What are you doing...?" He choked it off and looked uncomfortable.
"Mr. Rubin invited me, sir. He said that as long as the dinner was not to be held in the restaurant and I could not have the privilege of waiting on you, then I would be his guest. I believe that was his purpose in insisting the dinner be held here. One would not think it, but Mr. Rubin is a sentimental gentleman."
"Splendid," said Avalon with great enthusiasm, as though to make up for his previous surprise. "Doorman, this gentleman is with us."
Henry hung back. "Would you like to inquire of Mr. Rubin, sir?"
The doorman, having held the door patiently through this, said, "No, that's all right. You go right ahead."
Henry nodded, and all three advanced through the large blue lobby to the bank of elevators.
Drake said, "Henry, I haven't seen an outfit like yours in years. They'll mob you in New York if you go around dressed like that."
Henry looked down upon himself briefly. His suit was a charcoal brown and cut so conservatively that Drake was clearly wondering where the establishment could be found that would have such garments for sale. The shoes were a sober black, the shirt a gleaming white, and the tie, a narrow and somber gray held with a neat tie clip.
Crowning it all was the dark-brown derby which Henry now doffed, holding it lightly by the brim.
"I haven't seen a derby in a long time," said Avalon.
"Or a hat at all," said Drake.
"It is the freedom of the times," said Henry. "We each do our thing now, and this is mine."
Avalon said, "The trouble is that some people consider the thing to do to be molesting women in laundries."
"Yes," said Henry, "I heard what the doorman said. At least we can hope there will be no trouble today."
One of the elevators arrived at the lobby and a lady with a dog got off. Avalon looked inside, right and left, then entered. They rose to the fourteenth floor without trouble.
They were all gathered, or almost all. Rubin was wearing his wife's apron (it had a large "Jane" crocheted on it) and he was looking harried. The sideboard had a full collection of bottles and Avalon had appointed himself an impromptu bartender, after fending off Henry.
"Sit down, Henry," said Rubin in a loud voice. "You're the guest."
Henry looked uncomfortable.
Halsted said, with his very slight stutter, "You've got a nice apartment, Manny."
"It's all right-let me get past you for a minute-but it's small. Of course, we don't have children, so we don't need it much larger, and being in Manhattan has its conveniences for a writer."
"Yes," said Avalon. "I listened to some of the conveniences downstairs. The doorman said women have trouble in the laundry."
"Oh, hell," said Rubin contemptuously. "Some of the dames here want trouble. Ever since the Chinese delegation to the United Nations took over a motel a few blocks down, some of the dowagers here see the yellow menace everywhere."
"And robberies, too," said Drake.
Rubin looked chagrined as though any slur against Manhattan were a personal attack. "It could happen anywhere. And Jane was careless."
Henry, the only one sitting at the table, and with an as yet untouched drink before him, looked surprised-an expression which somehow did not put a single wrinkle into his unlined face. He said, "Pardon me, Mr. Rubin. Do you mean your apartment was entered?"
"Well, yes, the apartment lock can be opened with a strip of celluloid, I think. That's why everyone puts in fancy locks in addition."
"But when was this?" asked Henry.
"About two weeks ago. I'm telling you, it was Jane's fault. She went down the hall to see someone about recipes or something and didn't double-lock the. door. That's just asking for it. The hoodlums have ah instinct for it, a special ESP. She came back just as the bum was leaving and there was a hell of a fuss."
"Did she get hurt?" asked Gonzalo, his ordinarily prominent eyes bulging slightly.
"Not really. She was shook up, that's all. She yelled like anything-about the best thing she could have done. The guy ran. If I'd been there, I'd have taken after him and caught him, too. I'd have-"
"It's better not to try," said Avalon austerely, stirring his drink by moving the ice with his forefinger. "The end result of a chase could be a knife in the ribs. Your ribs."
"Listen," said Rubin, "I've faced guys with knives in my time. They're easy to ban- Hold it, something's burning." He dashed into the kitchen.
There was a knock at the door.
"Use the peephole," said Avalon.
Halsted did, and said, "It's Tom." He opened the door to let Thomas Trumbull in.
Avalon said, "How come you weren't announced?"
Trumbull shrugged. "They know me here. I've visited Manny before."
"Besides," said Drake, "an important government operative like you is above suspicion."
Trumbull snorted and his lined face twisted into a scowl, but he didn't rise to the bait. That he was a code expert all the Black Widowers knew. What he did with it, none of the Black Widowers knew, though all had the same suspicion.
Trumbull said, "Any of you counted the bulls yet?"
Gonzalo laughed. "It does seem a herd."
The bookcases that lined the wall were littered with bulls in wood and ceramic and in all sizes and colors. There were several on the end tables, others on the television set.
"There are more in the bathroom," said Drake, emerging.
"I'll bet you," said Trumbull, "that if we each count all the bulls in the place, we'll each come out with a different answer and every one of them will be wrong."
"I'll bet you," said Halsted, "that Manny doesn't know how many there are himself."
"Hey, Manny," shouted Gonzalo, "how many bulls have you got?"
"Counting me?" called back Rubin, amid the clatter of pottery. He put his head out of the kitchen door. "One thing about eating here is you know damn well you don't get any liver in the appetizer. You're getting an eggplant dish with all kinds of ingredients in it and don't ask the details because it's my recipe. I invented it... And, Mario, that bull will chip if you drop it and Jane knows them all by heart and she'll inspect each one when she comes back."
Avalon said, "Did you hear about the robbery here, Tom?"
Trumbull nodded. "He didn't get much, I understand."
Rubin hustled out, carrying dishes. "Don't help, Henry. Say, Jeff, put down the drink a minute and help me put out the cutlery... It's roast turkey, so all of you get ready to tell me if you want light meat or dark and don't change your mind once you've made it up. And you're all getting stuffing whether you want it or not because that's what makes or-"
Avalon put out the last of the knives with a flourish and said, "What did they get, Rubin?"
"You mean the guy who broke in? Nothing. Jane must have come back just as he started. He messed up some of the items in the medicine chest; looking for drugs, I suppose. I think he picked up some loose change, and my recording equipment was knocked about. He may have been trying to carry off my portable stereo to hock it, but he just had a chance to move it a bit... Who wants music, by the way?"
"No one," shouted Trumbull indignantly. "You start making your damned noise, and I'll steal the stereo and kick every one of your tapes intd the incinerator."
Gonzalo said, "You know, Manny, I hate to say it, but the stuffing is even better than the eggplant was."
Rubin grunted. "If I had a bigger kitchen-" The wail of a siren sounded from outside. Drake jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the open window. "The lullaby of Broadway."
Rubin waved his hand negligently. "You get used to it. If it isn't a fire engine, it's an ambulance; if it isn't an ambulance, it's a police car; if it isn't... The traffic doesn't bother me."
For a moment he seemed lost in thought. Then a look of the deepest malignancy crossed his small face. "It's the neighbors who bother me. Do you know how many pianos there are on this floor alone? And how many record players?"
"You have one," said Trumbull.
"I don't play it at two a.m. at top volume," said Rubin. "It wouldn't be so bad if this were an old apartment house with walls as thick as the length of your arm. The trouble is, this place is only eight years old and they make the walls out of coated aluminum foil. Hell, the walls carry sound. Put your ear to the wall and you can hear noise from any apartment on any floor, three up and three down.
"And it's not as though you can really hear the music and enjoy it," he went on. "You just hear that damned bass, thump, thump, thump, at a subsonic level that turns your bones to water."
Halsted said, "I know. In my place, we've got a couple who have fights and my wife and I listen, but we can never hear the words, just the tone of voice. Infuriating. Sometimes it's an interesting tone of voice, though."
"How many families do you have here in this apartment house?" asked Avalon.
Rubin spent a few moments computing with moving lips. "About six hundred fifty," he said.
"Well, if you insist on living in a beehive," said Avalon, "you have to take the consequences." His neat and graying beard seemed to bristle with high morality.
"That's a real fat hunk of comfort," said Rubin. "Henry, you're going to have another helping of turkey."
"No, really, Mr. Rubin," said Henry, with a kind of helpless despair. "I just can't-" And he stopped with a sigh, since-his plate was heaped high.
He said, "You seem very put out, Mr. Rubin; and somehow I feel there is more to it than someone's piano playing."
Rubin nodded and, for a moment, his lips actually trembled, as though in passion. "You bet it is, Henry. It's that Goddamn carpenter. You might be able to hear him now."
He tilted his head in an attitude of listening and, automatically, all conversation stopped and all listened. Except for the steady whine of traffic outside, there was nothing.
Rubin said, "Well, we're lucky. He isn't doing it now; hasn't for a while, in fact. Listen, everyone, dessert was a kind of disaster and I had to improvise. If anyone doesn't want to eat it, I've got cake from the bakery, which I wouldn't ordinarily recommend, you understand-"
"Let me help this course," said Gonzalo.
"Okay. Anyone but Henry."
"That," said Trumbull, "is a kind of reverse snobbery. Henry, this guy Rubin is putting you in your place. If he weren't so damned conscious that you're a waiter, he'd let you help wait on us."
Henry looked at his plate, still piled high, and said, "My frustration is not so much at being unable to help wait on table, as at being unable to understand."
"Unable to understand what?" asked Rubin, coming in with desserts on a tray. They looked very much like chocolate mousse.
"Are you having a carpenter working in this apartment house?" asked Henry.
"What carpenter?... Oh, you mean what I said. No, I don't know what the hell he is. I just call him a carpenter. He's forever banging. Three in the afternoon. Five in the morning. He's forever banging. And always when I'm writing and want it particularly quiet... How's the Bavarian cream?"
"Is that what this is?" asked Drake, staring at it suspiciously.
"That's what it started out to be," said Rubin, "but the gelatin wouldn't set properly and I had to improvise."
"Tastes great to me, Manny," said Gonzalo.
"Little too sweet," said Avalon, "but I'm not much of a dessert man."
"It is a little too sweet," said Rubin magnanimously. "Coffee coming up in a minute; and not instant, either."
"Banging what, Mr. Rubin?" asked Henry.
Rubin had bustled away, and it wasn't till five minutes afterward, with the coffee poured, that Henry could ask again, "Banging what, Mr. Rubin?"
"What?" asked Rubin.
Henry pushed his chair back from the table. His mild face seemed to set into a harder outline. "Mr. Rubin," he said, "you are the host; and I am the guest of the club at this dinner. I would like to ask a privilege which, as host, you can grant."
"Well, ask," said Rubin.
"As guest, it is traditional that I be quizzed. Frankly, I do not wish to be, since, unlike other guests, I will be at next month's banquet and at the one after that, in my ordinary capacity as waiter, of course, and I prefer-" Henry hesitated.
'You prefer your privacy, Henry?" asked Avalon.
"Perhaps I would not quite put it-" began Henry, and then, interrupting himself, he said, "Yes, I would quite put it that way. I want my privacy. But I want something more. I want to quiz Mr. Rubin."
"What for?" asked Rubin, his eyes widening behind the magnifying effect of his thick-lensed spectacles.
"Something I have heard this night puzzles me and I cannot get you to answer my questions."
"Henry, you're drunk. I've been answering every question."
"Nevertheless, may I quiz you formally, sir?"
"Go ahead."
"Thank you," said Henry. "I want to know about the annoyance you have been having."
"You mean the carpenter, and his lullaby of Broadway?"
"My line," said Drake quietly, but Rubin ignored him.
"Yes. How long has it been going on?"
"How long?" said Rubin passionately. "For months."
"Very loud?" asked Henry.
Rubin thought a while. "No, not loud, I suppose. But you can hear it. It comes at odd moments. You can never predict it."
"And who's doing it?"
Rubin brought his fist down on the table suddenly, so that his coffeecup clattered. "You know, that's it. It isn't the noise so much, irritating though it might be. I could stand it if I understood it; if I knew who it was; if I knew what he was doing; if I could go to someone and ask him not to do it for a while when I'm having particular trouble with a plot line. It's like being persecuted by a poltergeist."
Trumbull held up his hand. "Wait a while. Let's not have any of this poltergeist horse manure. Manny, you're not going to try to bring in the supernatural, here. Let's get one thing straight first-"
Halsted said, "It's Henry that's doing the quizzing, Tom."
"I'm aware of that," said Trumbull, nodding his head frigidly. "Henry, may I ask a question?"
"If," said Henry, "you are about to ask why Mr. Rubin, hearing a, noise, can't tell where it's coming from, it is what I am about to ask."
"Go ahead," said Trumbull. "I'll help myself to more coffee."
Henry said, "Would you answer the question, Mr. Rubin?"
Rubin said, "I suppose it is hard for you all to understand. Let's see now, two of you live across the Hudson, one of you lives down in one of the older sections of Brooklyn, and one of you is in Greenwich Village. Tom lives in a reconverted brownstone. I'm not sure where Henry lives but I'm sure it's not a modern beehive, as Avalon calls it. None of you live in one of these modern apartment complexes with twenty-five stories or more, and twenty-five apartments on a floor, and nice sound-carrying concrete for a skeleton.
"If someone had a good loud record player on, I might be able to tell if it's from upstairs or from downstairs, though I wouldn't bet on it. If I wanted to, I could go from door to door all along this floor, then door to door all along the floor beneath, and again all along the floor above, and I guess I would be able to tell what apartment it is by plastering my ear against the right door.
"If it's just a soft hammering, though, it's impossible to tell. You can listen at a door and it wouldn't help. Sound doesn't carry so much through the air and the door. It goes through the walls. Listen, I've gone from door to door when I got mad enough. I don't know how many times I've crept through the corridors."
Gonzalo laughed. "If you get caught doing that, that doorman downstairs will be getting reports about vicious-looking hoodlums sneaking around."
"That doesn't worry me," said Rubin. "The doorman knows me." A look of coy modesty suddenly dripped over Rubin's face. "He's a fan of mine."
"I knew you had one somewhere," said Trumbull, but Henry pushed at the turkey on his plate and seemed more distressed than ever.
"Suppose your fan isn't on duty," said Gonzalo argu-mentatively. "You've got to have doormen around the clock and your fan has to sleep."
"They all know me," said Rubin. "And this one, the guy at the door now, Charlie Wiszonski, takes the four-to-twelve evening shift weekdays, which is the heavy shift. He's senior man... Look, let me clear the table."
Henry said, "Could you have someone else do that, Mr. Rubin? I want to continue questioning you and I want to get back to the carpenter. If sound carries through the walls and you hear him, don't many other people hear him, too?"
"I suppose so."
"But if he disturbs so many-"
"That's another irritating thing," said Rubin. "He doesn't... Thanks, Roger, just pile all the dishes in the sink. I'll take care of them afterward... This carpenter doesn't seem to bother anyone. During the day husbands are away and so are lots of the wives and the apartment house isn't rich in children. The wives that are home are doing housework. In the evening, everyone has the television set on. What does anyone care for an occasional banging? I care because I'm home night and day and I'm a writer. I care because I'm a creative person who has to do some thinking and needs a little quiet."
"Have you asked others about it?" said Henry. "Oh, occasionally, yes." He tapped his spoon restlessly against the cup. "I suppose your next question is to ask what they said."
"I should guess," said Henry, "from the look of frustration about you, that no one admitted ever hearing it."
"Well, you're wrong. One or two would say something about hearing it once or twice. The trouble is, no one cared. Even if they heard it, they didn't care. New Yorkers get so deadened to noise, you could blow them up and they wouldn't care."
"What do you suppose he's doing to make that noise, whoever he is?" asked Avalon.
Rubin said, "I say he's a carpenter. Maybe not professionally, but he works at it. I could swear he has a workshop up there. I can still swear it. Nothing else will explain it."
"What do you mean, you can still swear it?" asked
Henry.
"I consulted Charlie about it."
"The doorman?"
"What's the good of the doorman?" asked Gonzalo. Why didn't you go to the superintendent? Or the owner?"
"What good are they?" said Rubin impatiently. "All I know about the owner is the fact that he lets the air conditioning blow out every heat wave because he prefers to patch it with the finest grade of chewing gum. And to get the superintendent you have to pull in Washington. Besides, Charlie's a good guy and we get along. Hell, when
Jane had the run-in with the hoodlum, and me not there, Charlie was the one she called."
"Didn't she call the police?" asked Avalon.
"Sure she did. But first Charlie!"
Henry looked terribly unhappy. He said, "So you consulted the doorman about the banging. What did he say?"
"He said there were no complaints. It was the first he had heard of it. He said he would investigate. He did and he swore up and down that there were no carpenter's workshops anywhere in the building. He said he had men go into each apartment to check air conditioners-and that's one sure way of getting in anywhere."
"So then the doorman dropped the matter?"
Rubin nodded. "I suppose so. And that bugged me, too. It bothered me. I could see that Charlie didn't believe me. He didn't think there was any banging. I was the only one to mention it, he said."
"Doesn't Mrs. Rubin hear it?"
"Of course she does. But I have to call it to her attention. It doesn't bother her, either."
Gonzalo said, "Maybe it's some gal practicing with castanets, or some percussion instrument."
"Come on. I can tell something rhythmic from just random banging."
"It could be a kid," said Drake, "or some pet. I lived in an apartment in Baltimore once and I had banging directly overhead, like someone dropping something a few hundred times a day. And that's what it was. They had a dog that kept picking up some toy bone and dropping it. I got them to put down a cheap rug."
"It's no kid and it's no pet," said Rubin stubbornly. "I wish you wouldn't all assume I don't know what I'm hearing. Listen, I worked in a lumberyard once. I'm a pretty fair carpenter myself. I know the sound of a hammer on wood."
"Maybe someone's doing some home repairs," said Halsted.
"For months? It's more than that."
Henry said, "Is that where the situation stands now?
Did you make any other effort to find the source after the doorman failed you?"
Rubin frowned. "I tried but it wasn't easy. Everyone has an unlisted number around here. It's part of the fortress mentality Avalon talks about. And I only know a couple of people to talk to. I tried knocking on the most likely doors and introducing myself and asking and all I got were hard stares."
"I'd give up," said Drake.
"Not I," said Rubin, tapping himself on the chest. "The main trouble was that everyone thought I was some kind of nut. Even Charlie, I think. There's a kind of general suspicion about writers on the part of ordinary people."
"Which may be justified," said Gonzalo.
"Shut up," said Rubin. "So I thought I would present some concrete evidence."
"Such as?" asked Henry.
"Well, by God, I recorded the damned banging. I spent two or three days keeping my senses alert for it and then, whenever it started, I tripped the switch and recorded it. It played hell with my writing but I ended up with about forty-five minutes of banging-not loud, but you could hear it. And it was an interesting thing to do because if you listened to it you could tell just from the banging that the bum is a rotten carpenter. The blows weren't even and strong. He had no control over that hammer, and that kind of irregularity wears you out. Once you get the proper rhythm, you can hammer all day without getting tired. I did that many a time-"
Henry interrupted. "And did you play the recording for the doorman?"
"No. A month ago I went to a higher court."
Gonzalo said, "Then you did see the super?"
"No. There's such a thing as a tenants' organization."
There was a general smile of approval at the table which left only Henry untouched. "Didn't think of that," said Avalon.
Rubin grinned. "People wouldn't in a case like this. That's because the only purpose of the organization is to
get after the landlord. It's as though no one ever heard of a tenant annoying another tenant and yet I'd say that nine-tenths of the annoyances in an apartment house are caused by tenant-tenant interactions. I said that. I-"
Henry interrupted again. "Are you a regular member of the organization, Mr. Rubin?"
"I'm a member, sure. Every tenant is a member automatically."
"I mean do you attend meetings regularly?"
"As a matter of fact, this was only the second meeting I'd attended."
"Do the regular attendees know you?"
"Some of them do. Besides, what difference does that make? I announced myself. Rubin, I said, 14-double-A, and I made my speech. I had my tape recording with me and I held it up and waved it. I said that was the proof some damn fool was a public nuisance; that I had it labeled with dates and times and would have it notarized if necessary and see my lawyer. I said that if the landlord had made that noise, everyone in the audience would be howling for united action against the nuisance. Why not react the same to one of the tenants?"
"It must have been a most eloquent address," growled Trumbull. "A pity I wasn't there to hear you. What did they say?"
Rubin scowled. "They wanted to know who was the tenant who made the noise and I couldn't tell them. So they let it drop. Nobody heard the noise; anyway, nobody was interested."
"When did the meeting take place?" asked Henry.
"Nearly a month ago. And they haven't forgotten about it, either. It was an eloquent address, Tom. I fried them. I did it deliberately. The word was going to spread, and it did. Charlie the doorman said he heard half the tenants talking about it-which was what I wanted. I wanted that carpenter to hear it. I wanted him to know I was after him."
"Surely you don't intend violence, Mr. Rubin," said Henry.
"I don't need violence. I just wanted him to know. It's been pretty quiet the last few weeks, and I'll bet it stays quiet."
"When's the next meeting?" asked Henry. "Next week... I may be there."
Henry shook his head. He said, "1 wish you wouldn't, Mr. Rubin. I think it might be better if you dropped the whole thing."
"I'm not scared of whoever it is."
"I'm sure you're not, Mr. Rubin, but I find the situation peculiar on several counts-" "In what way?" asked Rubin hastily. "I-I- It seems melodramatic, I admit but- Mr. Avalon, you and Dr. Drake arrived downstairs in the lobby just ahead of me. You spoke to the doorman." "Yes, that's right," said Avalon.
"Perhaps I came too late. I may have missed something. It seems to me, Mr. Avalon, that you asked the doorman if there had been any incidents of a distressing nature in the apartment house and he said there had been a robbery in a twentieth-floor apartment the last year and that a woman had been hurt in some fashion in the laundry room."
Avalon looked thoughtful and nodded.
Henry said, "Yet he knew that we were heading for Mr. Rubin's apartment. How is it that he didn't mention that this apartment had been broken into only two weeks before?"
There was a thoughtful pause. Gonzalo said, "Maybe he didn't like to gossip."
"He told us about other incidents. There might have been a harmless explanation, but when I heard of the break-in, I grew perturbed. Everything I've heard since has increased my feeling of uneasiness. He was a fan of Mr. Rubin. Mrs. Rubin had turned to him at the time. Yet he never spoke of it."
"What do you make of it, Henry?" asked Avalon.
"Is he involved, somehow?"
"Come on, Henry," said Rubin at once. "Are you trying to say Charlie is part of a holdup ring?"
"No, but if there is something peculiar going on in this apartment house, it might be very useful to slip the doorman a ten-dollar bill now and then. He might not know what it's for. What is wanted may seem quite harmless to him-but then when your apartment is invaded, it may be that he suddenly understands more than he did before. He feels involved and he won't talk of it any more. For his own sake."
"Okay," said Rubin. "But what would be so peculiar going on here? The carpenter and his banging?"
Henry said, "Why should someone haunt the floor waiting for you and Mrs. Rubin to leave the apartment untenanted and single-locked? And why, when Mr. Avalon mentioned the matter of the woman in the laundry early in the evening, Mr. Rubin, did you promptly dismiss the matter with some reference to the Chinese delegation to the United Nations. Is there a connection?"
Rubin said, "Only that Jane told me some of the tenants were worried about the Chinese getting in here."
"Somehow I feel that is too weak a reason to account for your non sequitur. Did Mrs. Rubin say that the man she had surprised in the apartment was an Oriental?"
"Oh, you can't go by that," said Rubin, drawing his shoulders into an earnest shrug. "What can anyone really notice-"
Avalon said, "Now wait a while, Manny. No one's asking you if the burglar was really Chinese. All Henry is asking is whether Jane said he was."
She said she thought he was; she had the impression he was... Come on, Henry. Are you proposing espionage?"
Henry said stolidly, "Combine all this with the matter of the irregular banging-I believe Mr. Rubin mentioned the irregularity specifically as the sign of a poor carpenter. Might the irregularity be the product of a clever spy? It seems to me that the weak point of any system of espionage is the transfer of information. In this case, there would be no contact between sender and receiver, no intermediate checkpoint, nothing to tap or intercept. It would be the most natural and harmless sound in the world that no one would hear except for the person listening-and, as luck would have it, a writer trying to concentrate on his writing and distracted by even small sounds. Even then it would be considered merely someone hammering-a carpenter."
Trambull said, "Come on, Henry. That's silly." Henry said, "But then what about a break-in where virtually nothing was taken?"
"Nuts," said Rubin. "Jane came back too soon. If she had stayed away five minutes more, the stereo would have been gone."
Trumbull said, "Look here, Henry. You've done some remarkable things in the past and I wouldn't totally dismiss anything you say. Just the same, this is very thin."
"Perhaps I can present evidence."
"What kind?"
"It would involve the recordings Mr. Rubin made of the banging. Could you get them, Mr. Rubin?"
Rubin said, "Easiest thing in the world." He stepped through an archway.
Trumbull said, "Henry, if you think I'm going to listen to some stupid hammering and tell you if it's in code, you're crazy."
"Mr. Trumbull," said Henry, "what connections you have with the government, I don't know, but it is my guess that in a few moments you will want to get in touch with the proper people and my suggestion is that you begin by having the doorman thoroughly questioned, and that-"
Rubin came back, frowning and red-faced. "Funny. I can't find them. I thought I knew exactly where they were supposed to be. They're not there. So much for your evidence, Henry. I'll have to... Did I leave them somewhere?"
"It's the absence that's the evidence, Mr. Rubin," said Henry, "and I think we know now what the burglar was after, and why there's been no hammering since."
Trumbull said hastily, "I'd better make-" Then he paused as the doorbell sounded.
For a moment all were frozen, then Rubin muttered,
"Don't tell me Jane is getting home early." He rose heavily, moved to the door, and peered out the peephole.
He stared a moment, then said, "What the hell!" and flung the door open. The doorman was standing there, red-faced and clearly uneasy.
The doorman said, "It took time to get someone to stand in for me... Listen," he said, his eyes darting uneasily from person to person. "I don't want trouble, but-"
"Close the door, Manny!" cried Trumbull.
Rubin pulled the doorman inside and closed the door. "What is it, Charlie?"
"It's been getting to me. And now someone asked me about troubles here... You did, sir," he said to Avalon. "Then more people came and I think I know what it must be about. I guess some of you are investigating the break-in and I didn't know what was going on but I guess I was out of line and I want to explain. This fellow-"
"Name and apartment number," said Trumbull.
"King! He's in 15-U," said Charlie.
"Okay, come into the kitchen with me. Manny, I'm going to make that phone call on the phone in here." He closed the kitchen door.
Rubin looked up, as though listening. Then he said, "Hammering messages? Who'd believe it?"
"Exactly why it worked, Mr. Rubin," said Henry softly, "and might have continued to work had there not been in the same apartment house a writer of your-if I may say so-marked eccentricity."
Afterword
This story, and the two that follow, did not appear in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but, as I explained in the Introduction, were written especially for the book.
This one is an example of how writing enriches one's life. The business about hearing mysterious banging from one's apartment is taken from actual fact. Someone in my apartment house bangs away at all hours. I've never taken the strong action Manny Rubin took, but have contented myself with shaking my head and gritting my teeth.
I was getting more and more irritated at it and might have worked myself into an ulcer when it occurred to me that I might use it as the central point of a short story. So I did. This one.
Now when I hear the banging (it isn't really so often or so bad) I just shrug cheerfully and remember that it supplied me with a story. Then I don't mind it at all.