by Rex Stout
Jessup straightened around in the seat, facing front, stretched his legs as far as there was room for, and stared at the dash. I have a theory about that kind of stare in such a situation: the fewer the blinks, the harder the thinking. If it’s as little as three or four blinks a minute he’s thinking as hard as his brain can manage, and Jessup blinked only eleven times in three minutes. Then they began to come faster, and he was back to normal when he turned around again to face Wolfe.
“I’ll tell you something,” he said. “You said I might have cooperated even without a request from Mr Veale. I concur. I might have. By God, I think I would. But your coming at me through him gives it a slant I don’t like, and I want to consider it. I want to confer on it with someone, and I’ll let you know.”
Wolfe was frowning. “Not, I trust, with Mr Haight.”
“Of course not. With the one person whose interests are always identical with mine. My wife. You’ll hear from me soon.”
“The sooner the better.”
Jessup nodded. “Probably this evening. Where can I reach you? At Miss Rowan’s?”
Wolfe, still frowning, said yes, and Jessup opened the door and got out, went to his car, and got in. When he backed at an angle to turn around, a log stopped him and he had to maneuver. That’s why I always park facing out; I like a clean quick exit, aside from the fact that sometimes the situation demands it. As the Ford went jolting along the gulch rim I said, “So now it depends on a woman.”
“He’s an ass,” Wolfe growled. “There are no two people alive whose interests are always identical.”
“Yeah, a lawyer should know better. Also he’s a damn liar. Without the Veale slant he wouldn’t even have given you a nod, let alone come to Whedon’s Graveyard to meet you.” I turned the key and the engine took, and we moved. In three minutes it would be six o’clock, so I was glad I had phoned Lily. As we reached the blacktop I asked him whether he would rather go slow for the bumps, which would prolong it, or take them as they came and get it over with, but got no reply but a glare.
When we were about a mile from Lame Horse he suddenly spoke. “Stop the car.”
His voice was louder than necessary, close to a shout, but it always was in a moving vehicle. Also no “please,” but it was no time or place for etiquette. I slowed, eased off of the blacktop, set the brake, and said, “Yes?”
“Will Mr Stepanian’s telephone be available at this hour?”
“Probably. He has living quarters in the back.”
“If it is, get Saul. What time is it in New York?”
“Eight o’clock. A little after. He’ll be at home. Thursday’s poker night.”
“Get him. I don’t like the possibility, however remote, that we are at table three times a day with a murderer, and for this we don’t need credentials. Tell him we want to know if there was any contact between Miss Kadany or Mr Worthy and Mr Brodell during his visits to New York. Can you get pictures to send him-covertly?”
“Possibly, but I doubt if I need to. She’s an actress, and he’ll have no trouble getting pictures of her. For Worthy, his publisher will almost certainly have some. Perhaps I should ring Miss Rowan first and tell her.”
“You’ll tell her later, or I will. I’ll pay Saul’s fee and expenses.”
“She will want to.”
“Then she may. That’s of no consequence.”
I said okay and released the brake. As I steered back onto the blacktop I filed for future reference his amazing statement that a grand or two, maybe more, was of no consequence.
Chapter 6
The Monroe County Register, eight pages, was published in Timberburg once a week, on Friday afternoon, and copies of it arrived at Vawter’s in Lame Horse around five o’clock. At the cabin we were usually willing to wait until Saturday to get our copy, or even Monday or Tuesday, but that Friday I was at Vawter’s when it came, not by accident, and I got two extra copies. At five-thirty Wolfe and I were in his room discussing an item on the front page which said:
JESSUP PUTS NERO WOLFE
ON HUCKLEBERRY MURDER CASE
Famous New York Sleuth
to Probe Slaying
of Philip Brodell
(Special Exclusive)
County Attorney Thomas R. Jessup announced today that he has arranged with Nero Wolfe, the internationally known private detective, and his confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, to act as special investigators in the inquiry into the murder of Philip Brodell of St. Louis, a guest at the ranch of William T. Farnham, near Lame Horse, on July 25th.
Asked by a Register reporter if he expected Wolfe and Goodwin to get evidence that would strengthen the case against Harvey Greve, who is in the county jail charged with the murder, Jessup said, “Not specifically or necessarily. If I considered the case against Greve to be weak he wouldn’t have been charged and held without bail. It is simply that I learned that Nero Wolfe was available, and this case has aroused intense and nation-wide interest, and I felt that the people of Monroe County, the people of the entire State of Montana, would expect me to use the services of such an outstanding investigator as Nero Wolfe if that was possible, and it was.”
The county attorney added, “Wolfe and Goodwin will of course be under my supervision and control. There will be no additional expense to the county, since they ask no fee, and any evidence they secure will be scrutinized and checked by my office. If they find no new evidence no harm will be done. If they do find new evidence, and my office finds it to be valid and material, I think the people of Monroe County will agree with me that they have rendered us a service.”
Asked if he was aware that it is generally known that Archie Goodwin, who is a guest at the cabin of Miss Lily Rowan, owner of the Bar JR Ranch, has been trying to find evidence that would weaken the case against Greve, not strengthen it, the county attorney stated that the personal opinion or interest of Archie Goodwin, or of anyone else, would not be permitted to affect the performance of his duty.
“What I want,” he said, “and what the people of Monroe County want, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Asked by a Register reporter if he had been consulted about the entry of Wolfe and Goodwin into the investigation, Sheriff Morley Haight said, “No comment.” Further questions got the same reply. “No comment.”
Nero Wolfe, reached by telephone at Miss Rowan’s cabin, where he is also a guest, would say only that he would say nothing because he thought it proper that all information about his participation in the case should come only from County Attorney Jessup.
Word of this development came just as we were preparing to go to press, and we’re giving ourselves a pat on the back at being the first paper in the country to get it into type. It isn’t often a weekly gets a national scoop. We’re sending five copies of this edition to the Library of Congress. Hang onto yours. It may be worth money some day.
Reading it, Wolfe had made a face several times, but in our discussion of it he had criticized only two words. He said “sleuth” was a vulgarism, and “supervision” was jugglery. But he admitted that everybody knows that if an elected person means everything he says he’s a damn fool, so there was no argument.
There had been an argument the previous evening when Jessup had phoned to say he had decided that it would be in the public interest to accept our offer to assist him in the investigation, and we could get our credentials at his office at eleven o’clock in the morning, and Wolfe had said I would go for them. I was a little surprised that Jessup hadn’t said that Wolfe must come too, but probably he was afraid that he would try to talk him into letting us go through the file, which hadn’t been mentioned. The argument had come afterward between Wolfe and me. I had said that my first stop after getting the credentials would be the Presto filling station for some conversation with Gil Haight, and he said no, and I said that aside from the chance of starting something I wanted the satisfaction of seeing his face when I flashed the credentials on him.
“No
,” Wolfe repeated, emphatic. “His alibi can be attacked only through the men who support it, and that can wait until there is nothing better to do.”
“For me,” I said, “there’s nothing better to do than telling Gilbert Haight I’ve got some questions and asking him if he would prefer to go to the county attorney’s office to answer them. So that’s what I’ll do.”
“I said no.”
“But I say yes, and the question is what I do.”
A confrontation. Our eyes were meeting. Mine were just the eyes of a friendly equal who knew he had a point so there was no use squabbling, but his were narrowed to slits. He closed them long enough for a couple of good deep breaths, then opened them to normal. “This is the eighth of August,” he said. “Thursday.”
“Right.”
“Your vacation ended Wednesday, July thirty-first. As you know, I brought a checkbook. Draw a check for your salary for a week and a half, which will cover it to the end of this week and put you on a weekly basis as usual.”
I raised one brow, which I often find helpful because he can’t do it. There were angles both pro and con. Con, I knew the people and the atmosphere and he didn’t; and my taking a leave of absence without pay had been by my decision, not by agreement. Pro, his coming to get me back sooner had been by his decision, not by agreement; and while a grand or two might be of no consequence to him it was to me; and the strain of trying to remember to say please was cramping his style. It took pro about a minute to get the verdict. I figured it on a sheet from my notebook-$600 minus federal income tax withheld $153.75, state income tax $33.00, and Social Security tax $23.88-went and got the checkbook from a dresser drawer, drew a check to the order of Archie Goodwin for $389.37, and handed it to him with a pen, and he signed it and forked it over.
“Okay,” I said, “instructions, please. What’s better to do than riding Gil Haight?”
“I don’t know.” He stood up. “It’s bedtime. We’ll see tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, Friday, the weather horned in. There on the eastern slopes of the Rockies the summer sun bats around.900. There had been only three days in July when you had to bother about a poncho when you saddled your horse. But Friday it was raining, good and steady, when I got up, when I drove to Timberburg, when I got back, late for lunch, and when I drove to Lame Horse a little before five to get the Monroe County Register. I don’t accuse Wolfe of stalling. The credentials, which were “To Whom It May Concern” typed on Jessup’s official letterhead and signed by him-one for each of us-cleared the deck, but I agreed that it was a good idea to wait until the Register had spread the news.
Supper was in the kitchen because it was still raining and the creek terrace was cold and clammy. Lily’s copy of the Register was there on a shelf; presumably she had thought Mimi should know about the new status of two of the guests. The other two guests had seen it; as Wolfe and I entered the kitchen Diana, at the centre table, stopped dishing her plate to look at us as if she had never seen us before, and Wade said, “Congratulations! I didn’t realize you were that famous. When does the ball start rolling?”
I told him not until after supper because we never talked business during a meal. We had decided, after I had made the phone call to Saul, not to tell Lily about it. It would have made her uncomfortable to know that the pasts of two of her guests were being investigated by the other two, and if Saul drew a blank she needn’t ever know. I was a little uncomfortable myself, sitting there passing Diana the salt or asking Wade how the outline was going, and probably Wolfe was too. That made no sense, since they knew darned well they would have been Grade A suspects if they had had any motive, but there was one chance in ten million that Saul would not draw a blank, and in that case there would be a behavior problem not covered by Amy Vanderbilt. Meanwhile, as we dealt with the leg of lamb, green lima beans (from the freezer), Mrs Barnes’s bread, sliced tomatoes, and huckleberry pie with coffee ice cream, I enjoyed watching Diana trying to decide if she should change her technique with us, and if so how. Evidently Wade had decided. For him we were still just fellow guests to discuss things with, like baseball (me) or structural linguistics (Wolfe).
The blaze in the fireplace in the big room had attractions on an evening like that, and the others went there with coffee, but Wolfe and I went to his room, I supposed to consider the better things to do tomorrow. But inside, instead of going to his chair by the window, he stood and asked, “Does Mr Farnham have a telephone?”
I said yes.
“Will he have seen that newspaper?”
I said probably.
“Call him. Tell him we wish to come and discuss matters with him and anyone else available.”
“In the morning?”
“Now.”
I nearly said something silly. My lips parted to say, “It’s raining,” but I closed them before it got out. People get in ruts, including me. Many a time I had known him to postpone sending me on an errand if the weather was bad, and it took something very special, like a chance to get a specimen of a new orchid, to get him out of the house in rain or snow. But evidently this was extra special-getting back home as soon as possible-and, saying nothing, I went down the hall to the big room and across to the table where the phone was, and dialed a number, and after four rings a voice said hello.
“Bill? Archie Goodwin.”
“Oh, hello again. I see you’ve got a badge.”
“Not a badge, just a piece of paper. Apparently you’ve seen the Register.”
“I sure have. You and Nero Wolfe. Now the fur will start to fly, huh?”
“Maybe. We hope so. Mr Wolfe and I would like to drop in for a little talk with you and yours-everybody that’s around-if it’s convenient. Especially Sam Peacock. A good way to pass a rainy evening.”
“Why especially Sam?”
“The man who found the body is always special. But the others too-naturally Mr Wolfe wants to meet the people who saw the most of Brodell. Okay?”
“Sure, why not? Mr DuBois was just saying he would like to meet him. Come ahead.”
He hung up. Lily, with Diana and Wade, was over by the fireplace with her back to it, watching television, and when I asked if we could take the car to run up to Farnham’s she said of course with no question or comment, and I went to my room for ponchos.
I had never seen Wolfe in a hooded poncho of any colour, and the ones Lily stocked were bright red. They were all the same size, barely big enough to take his dimensions, but even so he looked very gay-leaving out his face, which was pretty grim. It was still grim when, leaving the car under the firs at Farnham’s, we splashed around to the front, with a flashlight to spot puddles, and I opened the screen door and knocked on the solid one, which was closed. It was opened by William T. Farnham.
And, after shaking hands with Farnham and getting his help with the poncho, Wolfe put on an act. He always welcomed a chance to show off, but there it served two other purposes: impressing the audience and avoiding shaking so many hands. Besides Farnham there were six people in the room: three men and a woman around a card table over near the fireplace, and two men standing, kibitzing. Wolfe walked over, stopped four paces away, and said, “Good evening. I have been told of you by Mr Goodwin.” He nodded at the woman. “Mrs Amory.”
At the man across from her-round-faced, wide-browed, with his balding process well started: “Dr Robert Amory, from Seattle.”
At the man at her left-late thirties, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, needing a shave: “Mr Joseph Colihan, from Denver.”
At the man at her right-middle forties, foreign-looking, dark skin, bushy eyebrows: “Mr Armand DuBois, also from Denver.”
At the man standing behind Amory-nudging sixty, rough weathered skin, thick gray hair, in working Levi’s and a pink shirt with a tear on one shoulder: “Mr Bert Magee.”
At the man standing back of Colihan, farther off-around thirty, thin scrawny neck, thin bony face, undersized-also in Levi’s, with a shirt that looked like dirty leather, and a red and
white neck rag: “Mr Sam Peacock.”
Farnham, there after disposing of the ponchos, said, “Now I call that a roundup.” Of the six men present, not counting Wolfe and me, he was the only one I would have called handsome-rugged outdoors open-spaces handsome. He asked Wolfe, “How about some wet cheer? Anything from Montana Special to coyote piss, if I’ve got it.”
“He drinks beer,” Armand DuBois said.
Wolfe asked, “What’s Montana Special?”
“Any open moving water but rainwater. Creek or river. Good for you either plain or diluted, but in weather like this it’s better diluted with gargle. Name it. Beer?”
“Nothing now, thank you. Perhaps later. As you know, Mr Goodwin and I have a job to do. But we’re interrupting a game.”
“Bridge isn’t a game,” DuBois said, “it’s a brawl. We’ve been at it all day.” He pushed his chair back and rose. “We would much rather hear you ask questions, at least I would.”
“I hear you’re tough,” Farnham said, “but you don’t look tough. Of course like the dude said to the bronc, you can’t always tell by appearances. Do you want us one at a time or in a herd?”
“One at a time would take all night,” Wolfe said. “We are officially accredited, but we came to inquire, not to harass. Shall we sit?”
They moved. There were two long roomy couches at right angles to the fireplace, and DuBois and Farnham took the card table and chairs away. Knowing that Wolfe would share a couch with others only if there was no alternative, I brought a chair that would take him and put it at the end of the couches, facing the fireplace, and one for me. They got distributed-Farnham, Peacock, Magee, and Colihan on the couch at our left, and DuBois and the Amorys on the one at the right. As she sat, Mrs Amory said to Wolfe, “I’m trying to think of something you can ask me. I’m closer to tight than I’ve been for years after this rainy day and I want to see what I’d say.” She put a hand to her mouth to cover what might have been a burp. “I think I’d make something up.”