“A rock not much bigger than your fist. He was hit with it four or five times. It was found there on the ground about twenty feet from the car. Dr. Hutchins is sending it to the laboratory at Helena, but from his own examination he is certain it is the weapon. He says its surface is too rough for fingerprints. It could have been picked up anywhere. As you know, that’s rocky ground.”
“Has anybody got any ideas? Any you’ve heard about?”
“No. Except about you, of course. You were there, and you know how that is. In that note Wolfe says that you are irrevocably committed with me, and he thinks I am with you, and he’s right. I’m stuck with you, and I hope to God I don’t spend the rest of my life regretting it. After my talk with Wolfe I am completely satisfied that you didn’t kill Sam Peacock, but that doesn’t help much. It doesn’t help at all with the squeeze I’m in. Wolfe thinks the two murders are connected, Brodell and Peacock, and I suppose you do.”
“Certainly. Any odds you name, you’ve got a bet.”
“Why?”
“I’ll get to that.” I leaned back and crossed my legs. The chair was a big improvement on the stool in my cell. “Naturally you want to compare what I say with what Mr. Wolfe said. Starting where?”
“The day he came. If it’s more than I want, I’ll tell you.”
I talked. It required no special effort, since I was to reserve nothing relevant. The only point that needed consideration, as I went along, was whether this or that detail belonged in, and I gave most of them the benefit of the doubt and included them. One that I omitted was the phone calls to Saul Panzer; he was two thousand miles from Jessup’s jurisdiction. For the conversations, I gave him summaries of all of them except Wolfe’s with Sam Peacock Friday evening; I reported that verbatim. He was a good listener and interrupted with questions only twice, and he took no notes at all. I ended with the last two relevant conversations, mine with Peggy Truett on the dance floor and mine with Wolfe in the Museum.
“Then,” I said, “we went out to the car and opened the door, and there it was. I doubt if you need or want what happened next, since it’s relevant to me but not to the inquiry. I’m getting hoarse because my throat’s dry. The room service downstairs is none too good. Is there water handy?”
“I’m sorry. I apologize. I should have—” He was out of his chair. “Scotch or rye?”
I said just water would do but scotch would be welcome if it wanted in, and he went to a copper-colored refrigerator in a corner and took things out. A woman would have found only one flaw: he didn’t use a tray. I found none. When he returned to his chair there was on the desk in front of me a man-sized glass containing two ice cubes immersed in whisky, and a pitcher of water, and he had a glass too. I filled mine to the top, put the pitcher in his reach, took a healthy sip, and cleared my throat.
“That helps,” I said, and took another sip. “Now connecting the two murders. Of course the first point is that Mr. Wolfe and I want them to be connected, but there are other points. There at Farnham’s Friday evening Mr. Wolfe let them all hear him concentrate on Sam Peacock, and he made it obvious that he was by no means through with him. It could be that one of them knew that Sam had seen or heard something that Mr. Wolfe must not know about, but it doesn’t have to be. All of Farnham’s crowd were there last night, and one of them may have told somebody how Nero Wolfe had concentrated on Sam.” I took a swallow and put the glass down. “The shortest way to say what I’m saying is to repeat what Mr. Wolfe once told a man: ‘In a world of cause and effect, all coincidences are suspect.’ There were more than two hundred people there last night, maybe three hundred, and one of them was murdered, and which one was it? It was the man who had been alone with Brodell the two days before he was murdered and who was going to be worked on by an expert. I not only suspect that coincidence, I reject it.”
Jessup nodded. “So does Wolfe.”
“Sure. He thinks things through like me. Did my report match his fairly well?”
“Not fairly. Perfectly.”
“He has a good memory. This drink has reminded me that I’m hungry. When I smelled the Sunday dinner downstairs I decided to fast. Mr. Wolfe never talks business during a meal, but I do.” I rose. “May I open that carton?”
He said certainly, and I went and got it and put it on the desk. The knot looked complicated, and I borrowed his knife to cut the cord, opened the flaps, and unpacked. When I finished there was an imposing spread lined up on the desk:
1 can pineapple
1 can purple plums
10 (or more) large paper napkins
8 paper plates
1 jar caviar
1 quart milk
8 slices Mrs. Barnes’s bread
6 bananas
1 plastic container potato salad
4 deviled eggs
2 chicken second joints
1 slab Wisconsin cheese
1 jar pate de foie gras truffe
1 huckleberry pie
6 paper cups
2 knives
2 forks
4 spoons
1 opener combo
1 salt shaker
I said I hoped he was hungry too, and he said he had told Miss Rowan that he would also have me brought on Monday, if circumstances permitted.
“Of course,” he said, “there will be people coming and going tomorrow and it would be a little complicated. Miss Rowan tried all morning to get Luther Dawson but couldn’t reach him. He’s not accessible weekends. He may not get to his office before noon tomorrow but Miss Rowan has his home telephone number, and it’s about a three-hour drive here from Helena. But there will be a judge available tomorrow at any hour. You realize that my position is a little—well, difficult. In a court proceeding in this county I represent the people of the State of Montana, and Haight will insist that I ask for high bail. He may even want me to ask that you be held without bail, but of course I won’t. I have explained the situation to Wolfe and Miss Rowan.”
My mouth was busy with deviled egg. I had the caviar jar open and was working on the pâté. I swallowed. “It’s not the being in that hurts,” I said, “it’s the not being out. After being completely useless for two weeks, I could now do some detective work with a real chance of ringing the bell if I wasn’t locked up.” I slid some of the items toward him. “Help yourself to something. Everything.”
“Thanks.” He reached for a slice of bread and the caviar. “What would you do if you were out?”
“What Haight should be doing but probably isn’t—and Welch too, instead of chaperoning me. Do you want me to describe it?”
“Yes.”
I spread caviar on bread. “I have it all in order after the hours I’ve spent looking at it. How did they get out there back of Vawter’s—Peacock and X? They arranged to meet there. In advance? No. After Peacock arrived, at nine minutes to eleven. They spoke, there on the dance floor, and arranged to meet outside. They left separately, not together, and—”
“That’s merely assumptions.”
“Certainly. That’s all you ever have to start, assumptions. You assume the probables and file the possibles for later if they’re needed. So three things happened there on the dance floor: Peacock and X spoke, and X left, and Peacock left. People saw those three things happen. Find those people. That’s what I would be doing if I were loose. It’s a kindergarten chore, but most detective work is. I said it’s what Haight should be doing, but actually, if he keeps his eyes open when he’s on duty, he shouldn’t have to. If he stayed where he was when I went in to Mr. Wolfe at a quarter past eleven, and that’s another probable, he was right there, not ten steps away from the door they left by. The reason I assume they left separately, I certainly assume that when X left he did not intend that Peacock would be coming back. He had probably already been out there behind Vawter’s for a look, and he may have had the rock in his hand when Peacock came. But those are just details to help pass the time when you’re sitting on a stool in a cell. The question is, who was seen talking w
ith Peacock on the dance floor? And who left the dance floor between eleven-fifteen and midnight?” I knifed a gob of pâté onto a piece of bread and, having finished the whisky, poured milk.
Jessup was forking a second joint to a paper plate. “But,” he objected, “many people leave, don’t they?”
“I wouldn’t say many. Sure, some go out and most of them come back in, but that doesn’t queer it, it merely complicates it. May I have a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil? Anything—that scratch pad.”
He handed me the pad and a pen from his pocket. I chewed bread and pâté and drank milk, which was warm, while deciding how to put it, and then wrote:
NW: I am talking to and with Jessup, as instructed. I’m glad you’re under house arrest because this jail is old and they use too much disinfectant. I suggest that you have Miss Rowan or someone at the ranch find and bring a girl named Peggy Truett. She was a friend of Peacock’s and she probably knows things. She may even know who Peacock went out to meet. I hope Haight doesn’t get to her before you get her to you. I also hope I won’t have to go to St. Louis because now you have stirred him and we should get him right here.
AG
8/11/68
I handed it to Jessup and said, “Read it, and the sooner he gets it the better.”
He read it, and then read it again. “Why this? Why not phone him?”
I shook my head. “That line may be tapped. From what I have been told about Haight and his feeling about you, it could even be that yours is tapped.”
“It’s a hell of a situation, Goodwin.”
“I agree.”
He looked at the sheet. “‘Now you have stirred him.’ Stirred him how?”
“My God, that’s obvious. Of course Peacock might have got killed anyway—for instance, if he was on a blackmail caper and overplayed it—but maybe not. He would probably still be alive if Mr. Wolfe hadn’t started in on him. Of course Haight should have done that long ago, or you should.”
He ignored the dig in his ribs. “Peggy Truett is the girl you were talking with when Peacock arrived.”
“Right. I reserved nothing relevant. If you prefer to get at her yourself I suppose it’s—”
“I don’t.” He looked at the sheet again. “You won’t have to go to St. Louis. A man named Saul Panzer is going. In fact”—he looked at his watch—“he’s there now if his plane was on time.”
“Oh.” I finished spreading an ample layer of caviar on a full slice of bread. “I don’t think I mentioned him, but evidently Mr. Wolfe did. He called him? When?”
“This morning. I drove him to Woody’s. He told Panzer to put another man on the job in New York—I forget his name—”
“Orrie Cather, probably.”
“That’s it. And he told Panzer to take the first available plane to St. Louis and gave him instructions. I think Wolfe has decided—no, not decided, assumed—that one of the persons at Farnham’s had a previous connection with Brodell. We went there when we returned from Woody’s—Wolfe and Miss Rowan and I—and I asked them to allow Miss Rowan to take pictures of them. With her camera. I know nothing about cameras, but apparently she does.”
I nodded. “She knows enough. Did any of them object?”
“No. Farnham didn’t like it, but of course he wouldn’t. She seemed quite expert. I brought the film and a man I know is developing it. I intended to take the prints to Miss Rowan later this evening, but with your message for Wolfe I’ll go now. Or as soon as the prints are ready. I like Miss Rowan’s conception of a snack. She seems to be aware that man cannot live by bread alone. She is leaving early in the morning for Helena to get the prints off to Panzer by air mail and to get Luther Dawson. She is not—You’ll remember that at our previous encounter she ordered me to leave.”
“She suggested that you go and sit in the car. This is good cheese. Have some.”
“And if I didn’t you would drag me. That episode is now forgotten by mutual consent. I’m going to repeat to you a confession that I made to her. Not for quotation. I think I funked it. I should have realized long ago that the conflict between Haight and me could be resolved only by the destruction, the political destruction, of one of us, and I should have seized the opportunity offered by his inefficient investigation of the murder of Philip Brodell. I said I’m stuck with you and Wolfe, and I’m glad I am. If we lose, it will finish me, but I don’t think we will.” He took some cheese.
“Did you say that to Mr. Wolfe?”
“No. I said it to Miss Rowan. His manner is … he doesn’t invite …”
“I know. I have known him quite a while. That’s a good way to put it, he doesn’t invite. Tell him and Miss Rowan that since they’re doing so well without me they don’t need to bother about bail, they might as well save the expense, and anyway I don’t like Dawson. Haight will probably turn me loose when they deliver X to him. Is there room in that refrigerator for what’s left?”
“Certainly. But there will be people here all day.”
“Wait until they’re gone. I probably won’t be hungry sooner anyhow. That disinfected cell doesn’t seem to whet a man’s appetite.” I picked up the can opener. “Plums, or pineapple?”
Chapter 12
I never got around to asking, so I still don’t know what happened to the rest of that snack.
The next time you’re in jail, try this. There are two steps. The first step is to determine whether there is anything helpful and practical that you can be using your mind for. If there is, okay, go ahead and use it. If there isn’t, proceed with the second step. Decide definitely and positively to cut all connections between your mind and you. I understand that something like that is used by people who are trying to go to sleep and can’t make it, but I don’t know how well it works because I never have that problem. Locked in a 6 by 9 cell and wide awake, you’ll be surprised at how the time will go. You will find, if you are anything like me, that your mind knows a thousand tricks and can sneak in through a crack that you didn’t even know was there. For instance, at one point that Monday afternoon, having another try at it, I decided to shut my eyes and look at girls’ and women’s knees, having learned hours ago that you have no chance at all unless you make your eyes see something or your ears hear something or your fingers touch something; and in a cell you have to see or hear or touch things that aren’t there. So I looked at dozens, maybe hundreds of females’ knees, all shapes and sizes and conditions, and was in control and doing fine when all of a sudden I realized that my mind had plugged in and was asking me if I thought that anyone was at that moment looking at Peggy Truett’s knees, and if so was it Nero Wolfe or Sheriff Haight … and what were they saying….
Nuts. I got up and kicked the stool clear to the far wall, at least three feet, and walked to the end wall, at least four feet, and reached to feel the rusty bars at the doll-size window. I knew them by heart.
I am not going to report on the food because you would think I’m prejudiced. I honestly believe they put disinfectant in the oatmeal and the stew.
When footsteps stopped at my door at twenty minutes to six I was lying on the cot with my shoes off, wondering if Jessup still had company in his office. I admit the remains of the snack were a factor, but I was hungrier for news than for grub. The footsteps stopping was nothing; he often stopped to look in to see if I was sawing the bars or making a bomb, but when I heard the key in the lock I moved. I swung my legs around and sat up. The door opened and a man entered and said, “You’re takin’ a walk. Get your shoes on and bring your coat.”
It was Evers, the other full-time deputy. He stood and watched me put my shoes on, and my jacket, and when he told me not to leave anything and stooped to look under the cot I knew I wasn’t going upstairs. I was going out and not coming back. He didn’t have handcuffs, and on the way down the corridor, and then down the side hall of the courthouse, he didn’t care whether I was in front or behind. He opened the door of the sheriff’s office and thumbed me in. There was no one in the anteroom,
and he opened the gate in the railing and jerked his head and said, “On in.” I crossed to the door to the inner room and entered, and he followed.
Haight was there at his desk, busy with papers. The eminent lawyer who looked more like a working ranchman, Luther Dawson, was standing with his back to Haight, looking at a big wall map of Montana. At sight of me he came with a hand out and a hearty welcome. “Well, greetings!” He had a good grip. “I come to deliver you from bondage. All signed and sealed.”
“Fine. Next time I’ll pick a better day than Saturday.” I pointed. “I believe that’s mine.” It was a pile of objects on a table. I went and retrieved my possessions, with Evers at my elbow. Everything was there, including the contents of the card case, which belongs in my breast pocket, and the non-negotiable items in the wallet, which goes in my pants pocket. As I picked up the last item, the ignition key of the station wagon, Evers said, “Sign this,” put a sheet of paper on the table, and offered a pen.
Dawson said, “Let me see it,” and stuck a hand between Evers and me to take it.
“No matter what it says,” I said, “I don’t sign it. I sign nothing.”
Dawson asked, “Were you given a receipt for those things when they took them? An itemized receipt?”
“No, and even if I was, I sign nothing.” I headed for the exit. I didn’t give Haight even a glance, but I have good side vision, and the corner of my eye noted that he was too busy with the papers to look up. Probably Wyatt Earp. There were footsteps behind me, presumably Dawson’s, and out in the hall he came abreast and said, “Miss Rowan’s out in front. In a car. I have something to say, Goodwin.”
I stopped and faced him. Our eyes were exactly on a level. “Not to me,” I said. “Ten days ago today, on Friday, August second, I told you that I thought a man named Sam Peacock might know something that would help, but he had clammed up on me, and probably a famous Montana lawyer like you could pry him loose. And you said you were too busy with important matters. Now nobody is going—”
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