Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe - Second Confession

by The Second Confession (lit)

  Then it started off just as Wolfe had dictated it.

  I am perfectly willing to hold out on you so as to tell it in a way that will give Wolfe's stratagem the best possible build-up, as you may know by this time, but I am now giving you everything I myself had at the time. That goes for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday up to 8.30 p.m. You know all that I knew, or you will when I add that the third article was revised Sunday and delivered to Lon Monday noon for Tuesday's paper, that Weinbach's final report on the stone verified the first one, that nothing else was accomplished or even attempted, and that during those four days Wolfe was touchier than I had ever known him to be for so long a period. I had no idea what he expected to gain by becoming a ghost writer for Mr Jones and telling the Commies' family secrets.

  I admit I tried to catch up. For instance, when he was up in the plant rooms Friday morning I did a thorough check of the photographs in his desk drawer, but they were all there. Not one gone. I made a couple of other well-intentioned efforts to get a line on his script, and not a glimmer. By Monday I was grabbing the mail each time a delivery came for a quick look, and hoping it was a telegram whenever the doorbell rang, and answering the phone in a hurry, because I had decided that the articles were just a gob of bait on a hook and we were merely sitting on the bank, hoping against hope for a bite. But if the bite was expected in the form of a letter or telegram or phone call, no fish.

  Then Monday evening, in the office right after dinner, Wolfe handed me a sheet from his memo pad covered with his handwriting, and asked, “Can you read that, Archie?” The question was rhetorical, since his writing is almost as easy to read as print. I read it and told him, “Yes, sir, I can make it out.” “Type it on a Gazette letterhead, including the signature as indicated. Then I want to look at it. Address a Gazette envelope to Mr Albert Enright, Communist Party of the USA, thirty-five East Twelfth Street. One carbon, single-space.” “With a mistake or two, maybe?” “Not necessarily. You are not the only one in New York who can type well.” I pulled the machine around, got the paper out and put it in, and hit die keys.

  When I took it out I read it over: June 27,1949.

  Dear Mr Enright: I send this to you because I met you once and have heard you speak at meetings twice. You wouldn't know me if you saw me, and you wouldn't know my name.

  I work at the Gazette. Of course you have seen the series that started on Sunday. I am not a Communist, but I approve of many things they stand for and I think they are getting a raw deal, and anyway I don't like traitors, and the man who is giving the Gazette the material for those articles is certainly a traitor. I think you have a right to know who he is. I have never seen him and I don't think he has ever come to the office, but I know the man here who is working with him on the articles, and I had a chance to get something which I believe will help you, and I am enclosing it in this letter. I have reason to know that it was in the folder that was sent to one of the executives to show him that the articles are authentic. If I told you more than that it might give you a hint of my identity, and I don't want you to know who I am.

  More power to you in your fight with the imperialists and monopolists and warmakers.

  A Friend.

  I got up to hand it to Wolfe and returned to the typewriter to address the envelope. And, though I had done the whole letter without an error, on the envelope I fumbled and spelled Communist “Counimmst', and had to take another one. It didn't irritate me because I knew why: I was excited. In a moment I would know which photograph was going to be enclosed in that letter, unless the big bum dealt me out.

  He didn't, but he might as well have. He opened his drawer and dug, held one out to me, and said, “That's the enclosure. Mail it where it will be collected tonight.” It was the picture, the best one, of the Communist Party membership card of William Reynolds, Number 128-394. I withered him with a look, put the letter and picture in the envelope, sealed it and put a stamp on it, and left the house. In my frame of mind I thought a little air wouldn't hurt me any, so I walked to the Times Square Station.

  I expected nothing more from Wolfe that evening, and that was what I got. We went to bed fairly early. Up in my room undressing, I was still trying to map it, having been unable to sketch one I would settle for. The main stratagem was now plain enough, but what was the follow up? Were we going to start sitting and waiting again? In that case, how was William Reynolds going to be given another name, and when and why and by whom? Under the sheet, I chased it out of my mind in order to get some sleep.

  The next day, Tuesday, until noon and a little after, it looked like more sitting and waiting. It wasn't too dull, on account of the phone. The third article was in that morning's Gazette, and they were wild for more. My instructions were to stall. Lon called twice before ten o'clock, and after that it was practically chain phoning: city editor, managing editor, executive editor, publisher, everybody. They wanted it so bad that I had a notion to write one myself and peddle it for fifteen thousand bucks flat. By noon there would have been nothing to it.

  When the phone rang again a little before lunchtime I took it for granted it was one of them, so instead of using my formula I merely said, “Yep?” “Is this Nero Wolfe's office?” It was a voice I had never heard, a sort of an artificial squeak.

  “Yes. Archie Goodwin speaking.” “Is Mr Wolfe there?” “Yes. He's engaged. Who is it, please?” “Just tell him rectangle.” “Spell it, please?” “R-e-e-t-a-n-g-1-e, rectangle. Tell him immediately. He'll want to know.” The connection went. I hung ut and turned to Wolfe.

  “Rectangle.” “What?” “That's what he said, or rather squeaked. Just to tell you rectangle.” “Ah.” Wolfe sat up and his eyes came clear open. “Get the national office of the Communist Party, Algonquin four two two one five. I want Mr Harvey or Mr Stevens. Either one.” I swivelled and dialled. In a moment a pleasant feminine voice was in my ear.

  Its being pleasant was a shock, and also I was a little self-conscious, conversing for the first time with a female Commie, so I said, “My name's Goodwin, comrade. Is Mr Harvey there? Mr Nero Wolfe would like to speak to him.”

  “You say Nero Wolfe?” “Yes. A detective.” “I've heard the name. I'll see. Hold the wire.” I waited. Accustomed to holding the wire while a switchboard girl or secretary saw, I leaned back and got comfortable, but it wasn't long before a man told me he was Harvey. I signalled to Wolfe and stayed on myself.

  “How do you do, sir,” Wolfe said politely. “I'm in a hole and you can help me if you want to. Will you call at my office at six o'clock today with one of your associates? Perhaps Mr Stevens or Mr Enright, if one of them is available.” “What makes you think we can help you out of a hole?” Harvey asked, not rudely.

  He had a middle bass, a little gruff.

  “I'm pretty sure you can. At least I would like to ask your advice. It concerns a man whom you know by the name of William Reynolds. He is involved in a case I'm working on, and the matter has become urgent. That's why I would like to see you as soon as possible. There isn't much time.” “What makes you think I know a man named William Reynolds?” “Oh, come, Mr Harvey. After you hear what I have to say you may of course deny that you know him if that's the way you want it. This can't be done on the telephone, or shouldn't be.” “Hold the wire.” That wait was longer. Wolfe sat patiently with the receiver at his ear, and I did likewise. In three or four minutes he started to frown, and by the time Harvey's voice came again he was tapping the arm of his chair with a forefinger.

  “If we come,” Harvey asked, “who will be there?” “You will, of course, and I will. And Mr Goodwin, my assistant.” “Nobody else?” “No, sir.” “All right. We'll be there at six o'clock.” I hung up and asked Wolfe, “Does Mr Jones always talk with that funny squeak?

  And did ‘rectangle’ mean merely that the letter from a friend had been received?

  Or something more, such as which commissars had read it?”

  CHAPTER Twenty-One

  I never got to see
the Albert Enright I had typed a letter to, because the associate that Mr Harvey brought along was Mr Stevens.

  Having seen one or two high-ranking Commies in the flesh, and many published pictures of more than a dozen of them, I didn't expect our callers to look like wart hogs or puff adders, but even so they surprised me a little, especially Stevens. He was middle-aged, skinny, and pale, with thin brown hair that should have been trimmed a week ago, and he wore rimless spectacles. If I had had a daughter in high school, Stevens was the guy I would have wanted her to ask for directions in a strange neighbourhood after dark. I wouldn't have gone so far with Harvey, who was younger and much huskier, with sharp greenish-brown eyes and a well-assembled face, but I certainly wouldn't have singled him out as the Menace of the Month.

  They didn't want cocktails or any other liquid, and they didn't sit back in their chairs and get comfortable. Harvey announced in his gruff bass, but still not rude, that they had an engagement for a quarter to seven.

  “I'll make it as brief as I can,” Wolfe assured them. He reached in the drawer and got one of the pictures and extended his hand. “Will you glance at this?” They arose, and Harvey took the picture, and they looked at it. I thought that was carrying things a little too far. What was I, a worm? So when Harvey dropped it on the desk I stepped over and got an eye on it, and then handed it to Wolfe.

  Some day he'll get so damn frolicsome that I'll cramp his style sure as hell. I was now caught up.

  Harvey and Stevens sat down again, without exchanging a glance. That struck me as being overcautious, but I suppose Commies, especially on the upper levels, get the habit early and it becomes automatic.

  Wolfe asked pleasantly, “It's an interesting face, isn't it?” Stevens stayed deadpan and didn't speak.

  “If you like that kind,” Harvey said. “Who is it?” “That will only prolong it.” Wolfe was a little less pleasant. “If I had any doubt that you knew him, none was left after the mention of his name brought you here. Certainly you didn't come because you were grieved to learn that I'm in a hole. If you deny that you know that man as William Reynolds you will have had your trip for nothing, and we can't go on.” “Let's put it this way,” Stevens said softly. “Proceed hypothetically. If we say we do know him as William Reynolds, then what?” Wolfe nodded approvingly. “That will do, I think. Then I talk. I tell you that when I met this man recently, for the first time, his name was not Reynolds. I assume you know his other name too, but since in his association with you and your colleagues he has been Reynolds, we'll use that. When I met him, a little more than a week ago, I didn't know he was a Communist; I learned that only yesterday.” “How?” Harvey snapped.

  Wolfe shook his head. “I'm afraid I'll have to leave that out. In my years of work as a private detective I have formed many connections—the police, the Press, all kinds of people. I will say this: I think Reynolds made a mistake.

  It's only a conjecture, but a good one I think, that he became frightened. He apprehended a mortal peril—I was responsible for that—and he did something foolish. The peril was a charge of murder. He knew the charge could be brought only if it could be shown that he was a Communist, and he thought I knew it too, and he decided to guard against that by making it appear that while pretending to be a Communist he was actually an enemy of communism and wanted to help destroy it. As I say, that is only a conjecture. But—” “Wait a minute.” Apparently Stevens never raised his voice, even when he was cutting in. “It hasn't quite got to where you can prove a man committed murder just by proving he's a Communist.” Stevens smiled, and, seeing what he regarded as a smile, I decided to have my daughter ask someone else for directions. “Has it?” “No,” Wolfe conceded. “Rather the contrary. Communists are well advised to disapprove of private murders for private motives. But in this case that's how it stood. Since we're proceeding hypothetically, I may include in the hypothesis that you know about the death of a man named Louis Rony, run over by a car on the country estate of James U. Sperling, and that you know that William Reynolds was present. May I not?” “Go on,” Harvey rumbled.

  “So we don't need to waste time on the facts that have been made public. The situation is this: I know that Mr Reynolds murdered. Mr Rony. I want to have him arrested and charged. But to get him convicted it is essential to show that he is a member of the Communist Party, because only if that is done can his motive be established. You'll have to accept that statement as I give it; I'm not going to show you all my cards, for if I do so and you choose to support Mr Reynolds I'll be in a deeper hole than I am now.” “We don't support murderers,” Harvey declared virtuously.

  Wolfe nodded. “I thought not. It would be not only blame-worthy, but futile, to try to support this one. You understand that what I must prove is not that William Reynolds is a member of the Communist Party; that can be done without much difficulty; but that this man who was at the scene of Mr Rony's death is that William Reynolds—whatever else he may be. I know of only two ways to accomplish that. One would be to arrest and charge Mr Reynolds and put him on trial, lay the ground by showing that membership in the Communist Party is relevant to his guilt, subpoena you and your associates—fifty of them, a hundred—as witnesses for the State, and put the question to you. ‘Is the defendant, or was he, a member of the Communist Party?’ Those of you who know him, and who answer no, will be committing perjury. Will all of you risk it—not most of you, but all of you? Would it be worth such a risk, to protect a man who murdered as a private enterprise? I doubt it. If you do risk it, I think we can catch you up. I shall certainly try, and my heart will be in it.” “We don't scare easy,” Harvey stated.

  “What's the other way?” Stevens asked.

  “Much simpler for everybody.” Wolfe picked up the photograph. “You write your names across this. I paste it on a sheet of paper. Below it you write, ‘This man in the above photograph, on which we have written our names, is William Reynolds, whom we know to be a member of the Communist Party of the USA.’ You both sign it. That's all.” For the first time they swapped glances.

  “It's still a hypothesis,” Stevens said. “As such, we'll be glad to think it over.” “For how long?” “I don't know. Tomorrow or next day.” “I don't like it.” “The hell you don't.” Harvey's manners were showing. “Do you have to?” “I suppose not.” Wolfe was regretful. “But I don't like to leave a man around loose when I know he's a murderer. If we do it the simple way, and do it now, we'll have him locked up before midnight. If we postpone it—” Wolfe shrugged. “I don't know what he'll be doing—possibly nothing that will block us—” I had to keep a grin back. He might as well have asked them if they wanted to give Reynolds a day or two to do some more articles for the Gazette, because of course that was where he had them. Knowing that was in their minds, I tried to find some sign of it, any sign at all, in their faces, but they were old hands.

  They might have been merely a couple of guys looking over a hypothesis and not liking it much.

  Stevens spoke, in the same soft voice. “Go ahead and arrest him. If you don't get it the simple way you can try the other one.” “No, sir,” Wolfe said emphatically. “Without your statement it won't be easy to get him charged. It can be done, but not Just by snapping my fingers.” “You said,” Harvey objected, “that if we sign that thing that will be all, but it won't. We'd have to testify at the trial.” “Probably,” Wolfe conceded. “But only you two, as friendly witnesses for the prosecution, helping to get a murderer punished. The other way it will be you two and many more, and, if you answer in the negative, you will be shielding a murderer merely because he is a fellow Communist, which will not raise you in public esteem—in addition to risking perjury.” Stevens stood up. “We'll let you know in half an hour, maybe less.” “Good. The front room is soundproofed, or you can go upstairs.” “There's more room outdoors. Come on, Jerry.” Stevens led the way. I went to the front to let them out and then returned to the office. What I saw, re-entering, gave me an excuse to use the grin I h
ad squelched. Wolfe had opened a drawer and got out a sheet of paper and the tube of paste.

  “Before they're hatched?” I inquired.

  “Bah. The screw is down hard.” “Taking candy from a baby,” I admitted. “Though I must say they're no babies, especially Stevens.” Wolfe grunted. “He's third from the top in the American Communist hierarchy.” “He doesn't look it but he acts it. I noticed they didn't even ask what evidence you've got that Reynolds did the killing, because they don't give a damn. All they want is to get the articles stopped and him burned. What I don't get, why did they just swallow the letter from a friend? Why didn't they give Reynolds a chance to answer a question?” “They don't give chances.” Wolfe was scornful. “Could he have proved the letter was a lie? How? Could he have explained the photograph of his membership card?

  He could only have denied it, and they wouldn't have believed him. They trust no one, especially not one another, and I don't blame them. I suppose I shouldn't put paste on this thing until they have written their names on it.” I wasn't quite as cocksure as he seemed to be. I thought they might have to take it to a meeting, and that couldn't be done in half an hour. But apparently he knew more than I did about Stevens' rank and authority. I had let them out at six thirty-four, and at six fifty-two the bell rang and I went to let them in again. Only eighteen minutes, but the nearest phone booth was only half a block away.