So after he went up to the plant rooms I phoned the office of Blaney and Poor and got Joe Groll. No persuasion was required. His tone implied that he would be glad to talk with anybody, any time, anywhere, after business hours. He would be free at five-thirty. I told him I’d be waiting for him at the corner of Varick and Adams in a brown Wethersill sedan.
He was twenty minutes late. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologized as he climbed in front beside me. “I only quit being a GI hero two months ago, and they gave me my old job back, and it keeps me busy catching up.”
His glance at me was a question, but I postponed answering it, because my eye being used to taking in things, I had noticed something on the sidewalk in the twilight. Sure enough, as I let the clutch in and we slid away from the sidewalk, somebody’s desire to find a taxi got practically frantic. To oblige, I took my time. When I saw in the mirror that a taxi had actually been snagged, I fed gas and went ahead. Then I answered the question his glance had asked.
“I don’t sport a ruptured duck because I didn’t get over to kill any Germans. They gave me a majority so I could run errands for Nero Wolfe while he was winning the war. There’s a bar and grill on Nineteenth Street that has good Scotch. All right?”
He didn’t object, so I kept my course, crowding no lights so as not to complicate matters for the taxi behind. Its driver was no bargain, because when I pulled up in front of Pete’s Bar & Grill, instead of going on by the sap swerved toward the curb not more than thirty yards back.
In addition to good Scotch, Pete’s had booths partitioned to the ceiling, which furnished privacy. Seated in one of them, I was surprised to realize that you could make out a case for calling Joe Groll handsome. They had overdone it a little on the ears, but on the whole he was at least up to grade if not fancy. After we got our drinks I remarked casually, “As I told you on the phone, I want to discuss this murder. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe. Poor and his wife came to see him Tuesday afternoon, to tell him Blaney was going to dissolve the partnership by killing Poor.”
He nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“Oh. The cops told you?”
“No, Martha told me yesterday. Mrs. Poor. She asked me to come up and help about things — the funeral.” He made a gesture. “Gosh, one lousy civilian funeral makes more fuss than a thousand dead men over there did.”
I nodded. “Sure, the retail business always has more headaches than the wholesale.” I sipped my highball. “I don’t go for this theory that it was Helen Vardis that killed Poor. Do you?”