Death of a Dude nwo-44

by Rex Stout

  I was as useless there as a bridle without a bit, and I went out to the Gallery. Sheriff Haight was still there, with his feet up on Woody’s desk, with a magazine. He had a glance for me but no words, and I had none for him. I stepped across for a look at the greatest sentence in American literature, which put me an arm’s length from him, counted to a hundred, and turned around. Yes. The deputy was there. I thought of three different remarks to make to him, all witty, vetoed all of them, crossed to the door at the back, opened it and passed through, and shut it.

  I was in Woody’s kitchen, which was fully as modern as the one at the cabin, though much smaller. Next came the bedroom and bath, also small and functional, and then the room that Lily called the Museum. It was big, about 24 by 36, with six windows, and it contained one or more specimens of nearly every item Woody’s father had peddled. Name it and Woody would show it-anything from eight different brands of chewing tobacco, plug and twist, in a glass case, to an assortment of lace curtains on a rack. The heaviest item was a 26-inch grindstone, not mounted, and the biggest one was a combination churn and ice-cream freezer. About the only things in the room that didn’t qualify were the chairs and the lights and the shelves of books, which were all in hard covers. No paperbacks; it was Woody’s personal library.

  When I entered, two of the books were on a small table by the wall and one was in the hands of Nero Wolfe, who was in a big, roomy chair by the table. At his left was a reading lamp and at his right, on the table with the other two books, were a glass and two beer bottles, one empty and one half full. He was so well fixed that I should have about-faced and beat it, but he looked up and said, “Indeed.”

  Meaning where the hell have you been. So I moved a chair to face him, sat, and said, “I told you he would be late. He just came.”

  “You have spoken with him?”

  “No. I doubt if I should.”

  “Why? Is he drunk?”

  “No. But I have a case to put. Haight is still there and shows no sign of leaving. So I get Sam, now or later, and bring him, and in an hour, or six hours, either you get something or you don’t. If you don’t, you’ve wasted a lot of time and energy, which would be regrettable but that often happens. If you do, and when Sam leaves Haight is still there, what will happen will be worse than regrettable. Haight will-”

  “I am not obtuse, Archie.” He closed the book with a finger in at his place.

  “I concede that.”

  “Isn’t that”-he aimed a thumb-“an outside door?”

  “Yes. I’m not obtuse either. I suppose you saw the brawny baboon who was standing there when I came, and you may have noticed that he followed me inside. That’s a deputy sheriff, Ed Welch. I’m his subject for the evening. If I ushered Sam Peacock out the front entrance and around to the back, to that door, he would be close behind, and Haight would be even keener to work on him when he left. Of course leaving by that door wouldn’t help; Welch would be out there waiting for him. I’m not sure we weren’t both a little obtuse, especially me. I might have known Haight would be here. I should have hunted Sam up this afternoon, or even at suppertime, instead of that goddam real Montana trout deal. So all you have to show for tonight is a trout recipe which you will of course pass on to Fritz, and a subtle sentence in ancient classical Armenian. Tomorrow is Sunday and Sam will probably have a day off, but I’ll find him and bring him. The more I look at it, the more I like Sam Peacock. I do not believe that Brodell had no suspicion that there was someone in the neighbourhood who would like to get him, and I also do not believe that during all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday, and part of Thursday, he didn’t say a single word that would provide a hint. Didn’t I say that, or something like it, three days ago?”

  “Not three. Two. Thursday afternoon. You said you had tried to use what you called my ‘filter job’ on him, and he wouldn’t cooperate.”

  “He certainly wouldn’t. You got more out of him last night than I had in three tries. But now it’s you, not just me, and you’re official, and he knows it. I suggest that we now leave by the back door and I drive you to where your bed is so you can get a night’s sleep, and tomorrow I’ll bring him. I’ll come back for the others.”

  He made a face. “What time is it?” he growled.

  I looked. “Twenty-four minutes to midnight.”

  “I’m in the middle of an exposition that is refreshing my memory.” He poured beer and opened the book. “Perhaps you should tell Miss Rowan we are going.”

  I said it wasn’t necessary, that we usually stayed until around one o’clock, and went to look over his shoulder to see what was refreshing his memory. It was a volume of Macaulay’s Essays, and he was on Sir William Temple, of whom I had no memory to be refreshed. I moved around, with my eyes and sometimes my hands on museum pieces, but my mind was on people, specifically Morley Haight and Ed Welch. I was not admiring them. If a sheriff and his top deputy are so strong on law and order that they stay on the job Saturday night, they could find better things to do than try to trip up a pair of worthy citizens who had been authorized by the county attorney to investigate a crime in their territory. They needed to have their noses pushed in, and I considered three or four possible ways of taking a stab at it when I got back, but none of them was good enough.

  It was close to midnight when Wolfe finished the beer, closed the book, switched the lamp off, picked up the other two books, went to return them to their places on the shelves, and asked me, “The glass and bottles?”

  At home, at that time of night, he would have taken them to the kitchen himself, but this was far away and called for allowances, and I made them and obliged. When I returned from the kitchen he was in another chair, bending over to turn a corner of a rug up for inspection. He knew a lot about rugs and I could guess what he was thinking, but he didn’t even grunt. He put the corner down and got up, and I went and opened the back door, which had a Murdock lock, and he came. He asked if we should turn the lights out and I said no, I would when I returned.

  Outside, a little light from the draped windows helped some for the first twenty yards, but when we turned the corner of the deepest wing of Vawter’s it was good and dark, with no moon and most of the stars behind clouds.

  We took it easy on the rough ground. No other car had joined the station wagon there in back of the building. I had taken the ignition key but hadn’t locked the doors, and, leading the way, and regarding it as common courtesy, not pampering, to open the door for Wolfe on his side, I did so. That gave us light, the ceiling light, and the light gave us news. Bad news. We both saw it through the closed window. On the rear seat. Rather, partly on the seat. His torso was on the seat, but his head was hanging over the edge and so was most of his legs.

  Wolfe looked at me and took a step so I could open the door. I didn’t want to touch the damn door or anything else, but it was possible that he was breathing, even in that position, so I pressed the latch and pulled it open and leaned in. The best quick test is to lay something light and fluffy on the nostrils, but nothing that would do was handy and I reached for a wrist. No perceptible pulse, but that proved only that if the blood was moving it was dawdling. The wrist was warm, but of course it would be since I had seen him on the dance floor only an hour ago. The only blood in sight was some blobs on his bruised ear, and I stretched across to get fingertips on his skull and felt a deep dent. I backed out and stood and said, “It’s barely possible he’s alive. I stay here and you go in. You’ll have to tell that sheriff sonofabitch, and that’s a lousy break too. Tell him to bring a doctor, there are at least two there.” I reached in the front to the dash and got the flashlight, switched it on, and focused it on the entrance to the passage between the buildings. “That’s the shortest way. Here.” I offered him the flashlight but he didn’t take it. He spoke.

  “Wouldn’t it be possible to-”

  “You know damn well it wouldn’t. There’s one chance in a million he’s alive, and if so he may talk again. You don’t have to tell him it�
��s Sam Peacock, just say a man. Here.”

  He took the flashlight and went.

  Chapter 10

  The human mind is a jumbo joke, at least mine is. There were a dozen or more urgent questions it could have been considering as Wolfe disappeared in the passage, but what it was asking was, how will Lily get home? I had that answered, fairly satisfactorily, and was deciding what to work on next when I heard footsteps in the passage. It was Haight, with a flashlight, presumably Lily’s. He came, looked in at the news, turned to me, and asked, “Is this your car?”

  He couldn’t have asked a dumber question if he had tried all night. How could it be my car if I didn’t have one and he knew it? “You’ll find the registration card,” I said, “in the dash compartment. Is a doctor coming?”

  “Get in the front seat,” he said, “and stay there.” He transferred the flashlight to his left hand and aimed it at my eyes and put his right hand on the butt of the gun at his belt.

  “I prefer,” I said, “not to touch any part of the car. If I wanted to blow I probably wouldn’t have waited here for you. I’m pretty sharp in an emergency. Is a doctor coming?”

  “I ordered you to get in the front seat.” He pulled the gun out.

  “Go climb a mountain, with all respect.”

  It was a relevant question, was he actually dumb enough to think I might scoot or jump him, or was he just being J. Edgar Hoover? I haven’t answered it definitely, even yet, because it got complicated by the sound of stumbling feet in the passage, and Haight pointed the flashlight that way as a baldheaded man in a loud plaid sports jacket came into view. It was Frank Milhaus, M.D., whom I knew by sight but had not met. He stopped at the rear end of the station wagon and looked around, and Haight said, “In the car, Frank,” and he came and looked in. He turned to Haight and asked, “What happened to him?”

  “You tell me,” Haight said.

  By stooping and putting his right foot in and his left knee on the seat, Milhaus got his eyes and hands where they could see and feel. In three minutes he came back out and said, “His head was hit hard at least three times. I think he’s gone, but I can’t be sure until-here he comes.”

  It was Ed Welch, with a flashlight in one hand and something black in the other. He came and looked at the object in the station wagon and said, “That’s Sam Peacock.” For the lowdown on anything, you couldn’t beat the law officers of Monroe County. Milhaus took the black thing, a doctor’s kit case, put it on the front seat, opened it, took out a stethoscope, and again maneuvered in to what had now been officially identified as Sam Peacock. In a couple of minutes he came out again, said, “He’s dead,” and started folding the stethoscope tubes.

  “That’s final?” Haight asked.:

  “Of course it’s final. Death is always final.”

  “Anything besides the blows on the head?”

  “I don’t know.” He put the stethoscope in the case, shut it, and picked it up. “He’s dead, evidently by violence, and I’m not the coroner.”

  “We’ll get him out where you can look him over.”

  “Not me. As you know, I’ve had a run-in that I don’t care to repeat.”

  He started off. Haight said something to his back, but he kept going, to the passage, and was gone. Haight turned to me and said, “You’re under arrest. Get in the front seat.”

  “Charged with what?” I asked.

  “Held for questioning will do for now. Material witness. Get in the front seat.”

  “You’re in the saddle,” I said. “For now. But every inch of this car is going to be-”

  I stopped because of the kind of movement Ed Welch made with his shoulder as he took a step toward me. It meant what it usually means. His right fist came around for my jaw, not a jab or a hook, but in orbit. By the time it got there my jaw was some six inches to the rear, and it went on by. But Haight was moving too, to my right, with his gun out, and he poked it in my ribs, the lower ones. Welch was starting another swing, and when it came I did a fancy job of dodging; I turned my head just enough so that it connected, but on a slant. It wouldn’t have toppled a window dummy, but I staggered, lost my balance, and went down flat on the ground.

  Welch kicked me, probably aiming for my head, but there wasn’t enough light and it got my shoulder. I don’t like to report what he said because you probably won’t believe it, but it’s a fact and I’ll include it. He said, “Resisting arrest.” With no one to hear him but Haight and me. I sent my eyes right and left into the darkness, thinking there might be an audience he had wanted to impress, but no. Then he said, “Get up, you.”

  I stayed flat on the ground for the same reason that I had gone down, because I knew what would happen if I stayed on my feet. Perhaps I haven’t made it clear enough, the mood I was in after those two weeks of fizzles, and then Wolfe coming, and then Gil Haight out. And now Sam Peacock gone. The edge I was on was just too damn thin. If I had stayed upright, either I would have put both Welch and Haight on the ground, and don’t think I couldn’t, or I would have got a bullet or bullets in me. So there I was with a sharp pebble under my hip and a bigger one under my shoulder.

  Welch said, very rude, “Goddam you, get up.”

  I thought he was going to kick me again and so did he, but Haight said, “He’s pissed his pants. If Milhaus leaks there’ll soon be a mob out here. Go in and send Farnham out, and Evers if you find him quick, and phone Doc Hutchins to come and come fast. The body’s not supposed to be moved until he sees it, for Christ’s sake.”

  I know exactly how long I stayed down. Forty-two minutes, from 12:46 to 1:28. I like to keep track of important events. As far as Haight and Welch were concerned I could have been up much earlier, since they soon had all they could do with the arrivals from three directions-through the passage and around the corners of Vawter’s and the Hall of Culture. Whether the word had been started by Dr Milhaus, who obviously had no love for Haight, or by Farnham or even Welch himself, here they came, and for half an hour I had a good worm’s-eye view of Haight waving his gun and squawking, and Welch shoving, and Bill Farnham trying to guard both sides of the station wagon at once. At that, they did the job. The only man who got close enough to the car to touch it was Dr Hutchins, the coroner, who arrived at 1:19. By that time Haight had recruited three or four men to lend a hand with the crowd, and two more to bring their cars for illumination from their headlights, and things were pretty well under control. At 1:28 Haight was standing just four steps from me, talking with Dr Hutchins, and I thought I might as well see if he was still set on getting me into the front seat, and got to my feet. I leaned over to brush my slacks off, and when I straightened up Ed Welch was there. His right hand wasn’t a fist; it couldn’t be because it held a pair of handcuffs. His left hand started for my right one, but missed it because I extended both of mine, to give him no excuse for wrist-twisting, and he snapped the cuffs on. They were one of the newer models, nice and shiny.

  “My car’s out front,” he said. He pointed to the passage. “That way.” He gripped my arm.

  The crowd may have thinned a little, but there were more than a hundred pairs of eyes to watch their officer of the law escort his prisoner, obviously dangerous since he was manacled, away from the scene of the crime. I used my pair of eyes too, and as we neared the end of the passage I saw her, Lily, standing at the edge of the beam from one of the headlights. Diana and Wade and Pete Ingalls were with her. They waved to me, and I waved back-with both hands, of course-and Lily called, “Woody took him.” That was a relief. I had been half expecting that when we got to the car Wolfe would be in it, also handcuffed, and that would be too high a price even for me.

  But there was someone in the car, a Mercury sedan, double-parked in front of Vawter’s. It was Gil Haight, in the driver’s seat. As Welch opened the rear door Gil swiveled his head around on his long neck, and as I climbed in I said distinctly, “Nice mahrnin’,” and Gil laughed. Not a mean laugh, just a nervous laugh. Welch got in beside me and pulled the
door shut and said, “Okay, Gil, roll. Your dad said to tell you to come right back.”

  It was a quarter past two when we pulled up at the kerb in front of the courthouse in Timberburg, and nobody had said a word. When three men ride that many bumps and curves together and no one speaks there’s a bad circuit somewhere, and on that occasion probably two-between Welch and me, and between Gil and Welch. When Welch and I were out and the door shut, he said, “Tell your dad I’ll be right here,” and Gil said, “Yeah.” Four teen-agers, two male and two female, passing by, stopped to look when they saw I was handcuffed, so Welch had an audience again as he took me to the steps and up to the entrance. In the big lobby he steered me to the side hall at the right, and along it, and when we got to the door I had entered sixteen hours earlier, not handcuffed, he stopped, got a ring of keys from a pocket, and used one. That surprised me because I had supposed that by that time someone would be on post in the sheriff’s office to channel communications. Welch flipped the wall switch for light, motioned me through the gate in the railing and to a chair at the end of a desk, and sat at the desk.

  He asked me a loaded question: “Your pants dry yet?” Since it was loaded I ignored it. He opened a drawer, took out a pad of printed forms, wrote on it at the top with a ballpoint pen-presumably the date and hour-and asked me two factual questions: “Your name’s Archie Goodwin? A-R-C-H-I-E?”

  “I want to phone my lawyer,” I said.

  He grinned at me. He meant it to be a mean grin, and it was. “Every Friday night,” he said, “Luther Dawson goes to his cabin up in the hills south of Helena. There’s no phone and-”

  “Not Dawson. I want to phone Thomas R. Jessup.”