Death of a Dude nwo-44

by Rex Stout

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to send Mr Goodwin to St. Louis, I need him here, but we shall see.” He got to his feet. “It’s astonishing how frequently grown men, apparently sane, get the notion that they can conceal facts that are easily ascertainable. I’ll bear in mind, Mr DuBois, that you have invited harassment, and I may oblige you.”

  He moved, and so did I, across to the rack in an alcove for the ponchos and flashlight. They all stayed put, but as I was pulling my hood over, here came Farnham to the rack, and he got a poncho and put it on and went and opened the door. It was pretty late in the day for him to be getting polite, and I supposed he was going out for some little errand, but he came across to the car with us. The rain had let up but there was plenty of drip from the firs. Farnham opened the door of the station wagon for Wolfe to get in, and then he held it open and did his little errand. He spoke. “I don’t want you to get the idea that I have tried to conceal any facts. Some facts are other people’s business and some aren’t. I don’t think anybody around here knows that Phil Brodell’s father has got a mortgage on my place and there’s no reason why they should, but if Goodwin goes to St. Louis and sees Brodell, of course that’s one fact he’ll get, and you might as well get it from me.”

  Wolfe grunted. “A substantial mortgage?”

  “Goddammit, yes!” He slammed the door shut harder than necessary.

  Chapter 7

  At a quarter past ten Saturday morning I opened a door on the first floor of the Monroe County courthouse in Timberburg and entered-a door with a glass panel that had painted on it in big bold black gilt-edged letters:

  MORLEY HAIGHT

  SHERIFF

  Inside, not even turning my head for a glance at the county employee seated at a table inside the railing, I kept going, on through the gate in the railing, across to a door in the left wall, opened it, and stepped in.

  I admit it wouldn’t be correct to say I was in pursuit of a fugitive from justice, but the man I had had in tow had broken loose, and it would have been a pleasure to bulldog him. I had not been cocky. Arriving at the Presto gas station twenty minutes ago, at 9:55, I had pulled over to the edge of the gravel, got out, asked the help politely if Gil was around, and gone where his thumb pointed, on through the bright sun to the shady inside. Gilbert Haight, over to the left, stacking cans of oil on a shelf, twisted his long neck for a look at me, twisted it back to see his hand place a couple of cans nice and even, turned around, and said, “Nice mahrnin’.”

  If it had been yesterday instead of today and I had just come from Jessup’s office with the credentials, I would have had a little fun, but now it was just a job. “Better than yesterday,” I said. “That was quite a rain.”

  “It sure was.”

  “Maybe we could sit somewhere for a little talk?”

  He nodded. “I knew you’d be comin’.”

  “Naturally. If your father still says you mustn’t talk to me maybe I should see him first. I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I bet you wouldn’t. He don’t say that. He says the law’s the law. He knows the law. But this is no place to talk, people comin’ and goin’. I suppose you’ve got some kind of a paper from the county attorney.”

  I got an envelope from a pocket, took from it the “To Whom It May Concern,” unfolded it, and handed it to him. He read it twice, taking his time, handed it back, and said, “It looks legal to me. I guess the best place to talk is right there in his office, where it sure will be legal. My sister’s got my car so we’ll go in yours. Miss Rowan’s.”

  I could have said something like “Father knows best,” but didn’t bother. He put a few more cans in place, went out and told his colleague he was leaving for a while-his privilege, since his father owned the place-and came and joined me on the front seat of the station wagon. It was only half a mile to the courthouse. As usual on a Saturday morning all the nearby parking spots were occupied, but I turned in, swung around the courthouse to the rear, and on past a sign that said OFFICIAL CARS ONLY. One, I was now official, and two, his name was Haight. The rear door of the courthouse was standing open, and I led the way in and headed down the long hall to the front, where the main stairs were. We passed doors on both sides, but the three on the left were criss-crossed with iron bars because that was the old part of the county jail. Entering the big lobby, I turned right toward the stairs, but halfway there I stopped and wheeled because I no longer had company. He had headed back toward the opening to a side hall and was turning into it on the trot. I had no desire to stop him but wanted to know, not just guess, so I got to the hall fast, in time to see him open a door and go in-and as I said, the door was shut when I reached it.

  The county employee at the table barked something and jumped up as I crossed, quick, to the inner door and on in. I stopped short of the desk and said, “What the hell, as long as it’s legal.”

  You haven’t met Sheriff Morley Haight, which is fair enough, because he hadn’t met himself. Lily and I, having had occasion to discuss him, had done so. His basic idea of a Western sheriff was Wyatt Earp, so that was how he dressed, but obviously the modern way to tote a gun was on a belt like a state trooper’s, so he did, though he knew he shouldn’t. An even bigger difficulty was that he was a born loudmouth, a natural roof-raiser, and of course that wouldn’t do at all for a Wyatt Earp. As if that wasn’t enough, he had told various people, two of whom I had met, that when there was a problem to handle he always asked himself what J. Edgar Hoover would do. The product was a personality mess that couldn’t have been made any worse even by a trained psychoanalyst.

  Since he had known what I would do as soon as he heard about my credentials from Jessup, and since he had told his son what to do, my marching in was no surprise for him and he didn’t pretend it was. He just squinted at me, his Wyatt Earp squint, and growled, “What kept you?”

  His son Gil, who was standing over by a tier of filing cabinets, had got his long-limbed setup, including his extra inch and a half of neck, straight from Dad, and of course that wasn’t ideal for a sheriff, but he had got elected anyway and that’s the test-lick your handicaps. One of his dodges was keeping his shoulders up and back to make them look broader, and he was doing that now.

  There was a plain wood chair at the end of his desk, and I went and took it. “Mr Wolfe thought there were better things to do yesterday,” I said politely. “This will be the first time I ever questioned a murder suspect with a sheriff listening. Do we want a stenographer?”

  “We don’t need one.” He opened a desk drawer, fingered in it, brought papers out, and selected one. “Here’s an extra copy of a signed statement by one of the suspects I questioned.” He held it out and I took it. “I guess you can read?”

  I didn’t bother to bat that back. The exhibit was typewritten on a plain 8��-by-11 sheet, single-spaced and wide-margined:

  Timberburg, Montana

  July 27, 1968

  I, Gilbert Haight, living at 218 Jefferson Street, Timberburg, Montana, hereby state that on Thursday, July 25, 1968, I was at the Presto Gas Station on Main Street continuously from 12:50 p.m. to 2:25 p.m. The times given in this statement are exact within five minutes, and are all for the aforesaid Thursday, July 25.

  From 2:35 p.m. to 4:25 p.m., continuously, I was with Miss Bessie Boughton at her home at 360 Willow Street, Timberburg. From 4:40 p.m. to 5:05 p.m., continuously, I was with Mr Homer Dowd at his place of business, the Dowd Roofing Company, on Main Street, Timberburg. From 5:20 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., continuously, I was with Mr Jimmy Negron at his chicken farm on Route 27 south of Timberburg.

  Gilbert Haight

  Witness: Effie T. Duggers

  The names were typed below the signatures. Apple-pie order.

  Of course he expected me either to tackle Gil on the alibi, trying to find a crack, or to get personal with him about his relations with Alma Greve and his contacts with Philip Brodell, so I had to do something else. There weren’t many alternatives. I folded the document carefully, po
cketed it, narrowed my eyes at him, and said the way Wyatt Earp would have said it, “That seems to account for him, subject to a check, but what about you? Where were you from two p.m. to six p.m. on Thursday, July twenty-fifth?”

  The reaction was even better than expected. His hand went to his belt and for half a second I thought he was actually going to draw; his eyes bugged; and he roared like a bull at the touch of the branding iron, “You goddam New York punk!” He then jerked his chair back and started up, but I don’t know how fast or far he came because I was walking out and my back was turned. On through the anteroom and down the hall and out to the car.

  Having been to 360 Willow Street once before, I didn’t have to get directions. It was a neat little one-story white cottage with a narrow concrete walk leading to the three steps up to a little covered porch. I hadn’t been inside because Miss Boughton had spoken her few words to me through the screen door, but this time she pushed it open and I entered. Obviously she too had been expecting me, though she didn’t say so. All she said, after inviting me in and taking me to a neat little room with two windows, and one wall covered nearly to the ceiling with shelves of books, was that I should have phoned because she often spent weekends at her brother’s ranch. Before she sat on the biggest chair of the three available she had to pick up an embroidery frame with work in progress that was there on the seat. Probably the Thomas Jefferson that decorated the back of my chair had come from that frame.

  “I had Gilbert Haight in my political-science class for two years,” she said. “When I started teaching thirty-eight years ago, they called it history.”

  I gave her a cordial smile. Evidently we weren’t going to bother about approach, but I asked if she would like to see my credentials from the county attorney.

  She shook her head, making glints dart at me as the light from a window bounced from the thick lenses of her gold-rimmed cheaters, which were too big for her little round face. “Gilbert saw it,” she said. “He just told me on the phone. Of course it wouldn’t have been proper for me to talk when you were here before, since you were just a stranger I knew nothing about, but now I’ll be glad to. Some people are criticizing Tom Jessup for getting outsiders like Nero Wolfe and you to help, but that’s parochial and narrow-minded. I thoroughly approve. Tom’s a good boy, I had him back in nineteen forty-three, a war year. We are all citizens of this great Republic, and it’s your Constitution just as much as it’s mine. What do you want to know?”

  “Just a few little facts,” I said. “Since you teach political science of course you know that when a crime is committed, for instance homicide, anyone with a known motive is asked some questions, and his answers should be checked. Gilbert Haight says he was here with you for part of a certain afternoon a couple of weeks ago. So of course he was. Right?”

  “Yes. He came about half past two and left about half past four.”

  “What day of the week was it?”

  “It was a Thursday. Thursday, July twenty-fifth.”

  “How sure are you it was that day?”

  Her lips parted to show two even rows of little white teeth. I wouldn’t have called it a grin, but she probably thought it was. “I suppose,” she said, “there is no man or woman anywhere who has answered more questions than I have in the last thirty-eight years. You get so you know exactly what questions to expect, and I decided the best way to answer that one would be to tell you the whole thing. When I heard the next day about that man being shot I said to myself, ‘Now Gilbert won’t have to tar and feather him.’ “

  “Oh,” I said.

  She nodded and I got more glints. “You probably want to know why he was here two whole hours that day. It took that long to persuade him. I won’t say he looks on me as his mother-he was only four years old when his mother died-because I’m not cut out to be a mother, I’m too intellectual, but I’m not bragging when I say that. Gilbert isn’t the only boy who has come to me for advice when he had a problem. He had told me all about that problem-that girl he wanted to marry, and that man. When he came here that day he was all worked up because the man had come back and he had decided he had to do something but didn’t know what. The first thing he asked me, he wanted my advice how he could force him to marry her.”

  “He must have a shotgun.”

  “Of course, every boy has a shotgun, but the trouble was more her than the man. With her it was double trouble. One trouble was Gilbert still wanted to marry her himself, and the other was that she was saying that she hated Philip Brodell and never wanted to see him again. So I told him he didn’t need anybody’s advice on that because he couldn’t take it, no matter what it was. Even if he could somehow force him, there was no possible way he could force her, and on top of that, if he still wanted to marry her himself where would he be if she had a husband? I told him he wasn’t thinking it through. I always tell my boys and girls the first thing to learn is to think things through. George Washington did and John Adams did and Abraham Lincoln did.”

  “And you do.”

  “I certainly try to. So then he proposed another idea. Did you know that more than ninety per cent of the duels fought in this country took place west of the Mississippi?”

  “If you mean on television, yes.”

  “I don’t mean television, I mean history. I have researched it. They didn’t call them duels, but that’s what they were, and they didn’t happen often until our forefathers got west of that river. It’s an important historical fact, and my boys and girls are always interested in it. I don’t think���” She shut her eyes and compressed her lips.

  She opened her eyes and went on. “I was trying to remember if Gilbert used that word that day, ‘duel.’ I’m pretty sure he didn’t. He just said he would take two guns, hand guns, and he would give one to Philip Brodell and they would shoot it out, and he wanted my advice on the details, how to arrange it, and where, and how many cartridges in each gun-he said he would need only one-all the details. Of course I had to talk him out of it.”

  “Why of course?”

  “Well, there were several things wrong with it, but the worst one was that historically-I mean our Western history-each man used his own gun, and probably Brodell didn’t have one, and who was going to check the one Gilbert gave him? There would have to be at least two other men in on the preparations, and who would they be, willing to get involved in violent death like that? Because Gilbert can shoot, and he would have killed him. So I had to talk him out of it, but I had to suggest something else and I did.”

  “Let me guess. Tar and feathers.”

  “That’s not a guess, I already told you. Tarring and feathering isn’t as Western as the American duel, because it didn’t always move along with the frontier. I’ve never been sure it was a good idea to give it up. If it was done by law, not just by a mob, and if you want a penalty to be effective, especially as a deterrent, tarring and feathering would be better than a fine or a month in jail. Wouldn’t you think twice before you’d risk being tarred and feathered?”

  “I think twice before I risk a fine. Tarring and feathering, three times at least.”

  She nodded and the glints came. “The way it looked to me, the main point was to get that man away from here, so he would stay away, and if he was tarred and feathered, that should do it. Gilbert tried to argue that it wouldn’t settle anything, but that was just talk, he really liked the idea because the one thing he couldn’t stand was the man coming back. He knew he was back ten minutes after he got off the bus that Monday. Some friend told him. You have friends like that, we all have. We decided he would need eight or ten boys to help him-he said he could get as many as he wanted-and the best time would be Saturday night at Lame Horse because Brodell would almost certainly be there, at Woody’s. I suppose you know about Saturday nights at Woody’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “We decided all the details-where to get the tar and feathers.”

  “Homer Dowd and Jimmy Negron.”

  Her chin jerked
up and she frowned. “You knew all about it.” From her tone, she would have sent me to the principal’s office if it had been handy.

  Not wanting to leave under a cloud, I explained. “No, I only knew where he said he went when he left here-to the Dowd Roofing Company and Negron’s chicken farm, but I didn’t know why.” I rose. “So he was completely sold on tar and feathers?”

  “He wasn’t sold. He didn’t have to be. He just realized it was the best solution for his problem. Are you going? I haven’t told you much. All I’ve done, you asked me how sure I was it was that day, and I told you. What else do you want to know?”

  “I want to know who shot Philip Brodell.” I sat down. “You said Gilbert-I’ll quote it-you said, ‘He had told me all about that problem, that girl he wanted to marry and that man.’ If you can spare the time I would appreciate it if you’ll tell me everything he told you about Brodell.”

  “Well��� there was the question of rape. Statutory rape. She was eighteen years old. But Gilbert couldn’t start an action.”

  “I know, and Mr and Mrs Greve didn’t. But what did he say about Brodell? You may know that I don’t believe Harvey Greve shot him, and I’m trying to think it through. Gilbert might have said something about him that would give me a hint.”

  “Not to me. I feel sorry for you, Mr Goodwin. You have my sympathy. But I can’t help you with your problem.”

  “Of course you think Harvey Greve shot him.”

  “Did I say I do?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t you say it. He’s innocent until a jury of his peers says he’s guilty. That’s one of the glories of our great Republic.”

  “It sure is. So are you. Citizens like you.” I stood up. I wasn’t exactly sore at her; it was just that a man doesn’t like having a gate shut in his face any better than a horse does. I said, “I don’t quite see how you fit advising him to commit assault and feathers, which is a felony, into the Constitution of our great Republic, but that’s your problem. Think it through.”