Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 45

by Please Pass the Guilt

  I suppose Wolfe has been surprised by things people have said as often as you or me, but his ego has arranged with him not to show it and he rarely does. But that got him. His eyes stretched wide, as wide as I have ever seen them, then they narrowed at her, half closed, and he cleared his throat.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Have you told the police?”

  “No. I have told no one. No one knows about it except Miss Haber and me. I have hoped the police would get him. Why haven’t they found out where and how he got the bomb? My god, are they any good at all? It has been more than two weeks. Now, after what you have said, I have got to do something and I want you to tell me what. How much do you know? Do you know that there was to be a directors’ meeting at five o’clock that day to decide who would be the new president of CAN?”

  “Yes. And that it would be either your husband or Mr. Browning.”

  She nodded. “And they were both to be at the meeting, and give their ideas about policy and what they thought should be done, and answer questions, and then leave, and we would discuss it and then vote. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s how it was. If you have read the papers, you know that Amory Browning kept a certain brand of whisky in that bottom drawer of his desk.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that every afternoon around four o’clock he took a drink of it.”

  “That has been said, yes.”

  “Well, he did. Every afternoon, between four and five o’clock. Everybody knew it. All right, now I’m telling you what you have guaranteed not to repeat. My husband went to that room and opened that drawer to put something in the whisky. It was my idea. Do you know what LSD is?”

  “Yes. Lysergic acid diethylamide.”

  “My god, you can pronounce it. Well, I got some. You don’t need to know how I got it. Miss Haber knows. I got some, it was a powder, and I put it in a little plastic container, and I persuaded my husband to use it. The police know he had it. It was in a pocket of his jacket. You didn’t know about that.”

  “No.”

  “They haven’t told about it. I think they haven’t told anyone but me, and I told them I knew nothing about it. He was going to put it in the whisky. Almost certainly Browning would take a drink before he went to that meeting at five o’clock. We didn’t know what that amount of LSD would do to him—of course we didn’t know how full the bottle would be. But there was a good chance it would do enough for him to make a bad impression at that meeting, and it was understood and agreed that we would make a final decision that day. All right, now you know why he went to that room and opened that drawer.”

  Wolfe nodded. “I probably do. It isn’t likely that you would trump up a tale of such an exploit—and the police have the LSD. You said that Miss Haber knows how you got it. Did she also know how you planned to use it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anyone else know?”

  “Yes. Amory Browning.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “My credulity will stretch only so far, madam. Obviously you are going to tell me that Mr. Browning murdered your husband.”

  “That’s right. He did.” Her head turned. “Charlotte?”

  Miss Haber’s mouth opened, and closed. She lifted a hand, and dropped it. “Please, Mrs. Odell,” she said. “I don’t think—You tell him. Please?”

  “Well, you’re here.” Mrs. Odell went back to Wolfe. “There are strong people,” she said, “and there are weak people, and Miss Haber is one of the weak ones. She’s extremely competent, but weak. She found out for me how to get some LSD, and in fact she got it for me, about a month ago. Then she found out what I was going to do with it by eavesdropping on us—my husband and me. Then she phoned Amory Browning and told him what we were going to do. I didn’t know that until three days after my husband died. So she was weak three times—getting the LSD for me without knowing what I wanted it for, and phoning Browning, and telling me. You said the most important question is who knew my husband was going to that room and open that drawer. All right, three people knew: Miss Haber and me, and Amory Browning. And she told Browning four days before it happened, so he had plenty of time to get the bomb.”

  Wolfe was frowning at her with his chin down. “A remarkable performance,” he said. “Extraordinary. You seem not to be aware that—”

  She cut in. “I’m not through. About Browning getting the bomb. Do you watch television?”

  “Rarely.”

  “About three months ago, CAN had a one-hour special they called ‘Where the Little Bombs Come From.’ Did you see it?”

  “No.”

  “Lots of people thought it told too much about what bombs are made of and who makes them, but it really didn’t, because they changed all the names and didn’t give any addresses. That program was Browning’s idea and his staff did all the research, so getting one would have been easy for him. If you mean it would have been remarkable for him to get a bomb in four days and know how to use it, it wouldn’t.”

  Wolfe was still frowning. “I didn’t mean that. I meant your performance. That is of course one detail to be considered, but before considering details I must know if I’m going to be concerned with them. If I take the job, what do you expect me to do?”

  “I expect you to tell me what to do, and I suppose help me do it. I want Amory Browning indicted and tried and convicted, but I do not want what I have told you to be known. I am not going to sit in a witness chair and tell what my husband and I did and answer questions about it. How many things have you done that you wouldn’t want everyone to know about?”

  “Perhaps a thousand. Adulterating a rival’s whisky is not one of them, but tastes and methods differ.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Miss Haber. Do you corroborate what Mrs. Odell has told me of your share in this affair?”

  The secretary swallowed. I had her in profile, but apparently her eyes were straight at him. She said “Yes,” but it was barely audible, and she repeated it louder, “Yes, I do.”

  “You got some LSD at her request?”

  “Yes, but I’m not going to tell how I got it.”

  “I don’t need to know, at least not now. And you learned how she was going to use it by overhearing conversations she had with her husband?”

  “Yes. I thought I had a right to know. LSD is illegal. It can’t be sold legally and you can’t even have it in your possession.”

  “And you decided to tell Mr. Browning about it? Why?”

  “Because I was afraid it might kill him. The amount I got and gave Mrs. Odell—it was about four tablespoons—I didn’t know what it would do. If the whisky bottle was only half full, or even less, and Mr. Odell put all that LSD in it—from the little I knew I thought it would kill him. I would be an accessory to a murder, and anyway I didn’t want to help kill a man. It may be what Mrs. Odell said, that I’m one of the weak ones—anyhow, I didn’t want to be a murderer.”

  “How did you communicate with Mr. Browning? Did you write to him?”

  “I phoned him. I phoned him Friday evening, from a booth, at his place in the country. I didn’t tell him my name. I didn’t tell him any names. I just told him that Tuesday afternoon someone was going to put a dangerous drug in the whisky in his desk drawer and he had better not drink it. He wanted to ask questions, but I hung up. Of course I supposed he would suspect it would be Mr. Odell, but I certainly didn’t suppose he would do what he did.”

  “Where is his country place?”

  “In Connecticut. Westport.”

  “You say you phoned him Friday evening. Which Friday?”

  “The Friday before it happened. Four days before.”

  “That was May sixteenth.”

  “Was it?” It took her only a moment, not a long one, to figure it. “That’s right. May sixteenth.”

  “You phoned him at what hour?”

  “Around nine o’clock. A little after nine. When I thought he would have finished dinner.”

  “How sure are you it was M
r. Browning?”

  “Oh, quite sure. He answered the phone himself, and I know his voice. I have heard him on the phone at least a dozen times, when he has called Mr. Odell at home.”

  Wolfe regarded her. “And you didn’t tell Mrs. Odell you had warned him.”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you did tell her, three days after Mr. Odell died. Why?”

  “Because—well, I had to. I said I didn’t want to be a murderer, but I was one. If I hadn’t made that phone call, Mr. Odell would still be alive, and maybe Mr. Browning would too. The LSD might not have hurt him at all. To go right on being with Mrs. Odell every day—I had to tell her.”

  Wolfe turned to the prospective client. “That was two weeks ago. Why haven’t you dismissed her?”

  “That’s a silly question,” Mrs. Odell said. “She might tell anyone. She might tell the police. I’m not hiring you to analyze what Miss Haber has done—or what I have done. I want to know how we can make Browning pay for what he did without telling what we did.”

  Wolfe closed his eyes, and the forefinger of his right hand started making little circles on his desk blotter. But he wasn’t tackling a tough one; his lips didn’t move. So he had made his decision and was merely considering whether he should ask more questions before announcing it. In half a minute he quit making circles, lifted his hand to give his forehead a rub, and swiveled to look at me. If they hadn’t been there he would have put it into words: “You got me into this. I concede the desirability of a fee, but you got me into this.”

  Having looked it, long enough to count ten, he swiveled back to her. “Very well. It’s an impossible job, but I’ll accept the retainer. My fee will be based on effort and risk, not on accomplishment. I’ll need facts, many facts, but it’s nearly dinner time, and anyway I want them at first hand. Archie, list these names: Mr. Browning. Mr. Abbott. Mr. Falk. Mr. Meer. Mrs. Browning. Miss Lugos. Miss Venner.” Back to the client: “Will you have those people here tomorrow evening at nine o’clock?”

  She stared at him. “I will not. How can I?”

  “I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. They were associates of your husband, who was murdered. They should be willing to help you learn who murdered him, and you are concerned at the lack of progress in the official investigation and have engaged my services. Shouldn’t they sacrifice an evening at your request?”

  “They might. I don’t want to ask them. And I won’t.”

  Wolfe picked up the check and held it out. “Take it. You have wasted your time and mine. You want a miracle, and miracles are not in my repertory. Give me the receipt.”

  “My god,” she said, “you are highhanded. What can they tell you?”

  “I don’t know, and I need to know. If there is a fact that will help me do what you want done, I want it. If you think I may inadvertently disclose what you have told me, even a hint of it, if you think me capable of such ineptitude, you were a ninny to come to me at all.”

  She was chewing her lip. “Is this the only—do you have to do this?”

  “If I take the job as you defined it, yes.”

  She looked at me, and saw only an open, intelligent, interested, sympathetic phiz.

  “Damn it,” she said. “Give me the list.”

  6

  since the state of the bank account had been responsible for the state of my nerves for at least six weeks, it might be supposed that ten o’clock Monday morning would find me at the door of the Continental Bank and Trust Company, waiting for it to open so I could deposit the check, but I wasn’t. I knew darned well that Wolfe would not be firmly and finally committed until Mrs. Odell came through, and I couldn’t blame him. Of the people on the list I had given her, there wasn’t one that he could tell me to go and bring with any right or reason to expect me to fill the order, and if he expected to fill her order, he had to get some questions answered, and not just by her and Miss Haber. So it was possible that the twenty grand would have to be returned, and if so, it would be neater to return her check than to deposit it and then have to draw one of Wolfe’s.

  And at four o’clock Monday afternoon, it became about ten to one that she was going to get her check back. She had done fine with the invitations; she reported by phone that all of them had said yes. The hitch was that when she told me she would come a little early, around half past eight, I had to tell her, as instructed by Wolfe, that he had decided she shouldn’t come at all. She wasn’t invited and wouldn’t be admitted. So she blew her top. I tried to explain why, but she wouldn’t listen. She commanded me to get Wolfe to change his mind and ring her, and if she hadn’t heard from me by four-thirty, she would tell them not to come. I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was going on an errand, ran, not walked, to the garage on Tenth Avenue where the Heron sedan that Wolfe owns and I drive is kept, made it to Sixty-third and Madison in nineteen minutes, probably a record for that time of day, and was inside the Odell mansion at 4:28. If I reported that conversation verbatim you would think I was tooting my horn, so I’ll merely say that I sold her. I explained that when Browning told lies, as he surely would, if she was there she would almost certainly horn in, and if she expected Wolfe to get results she would have to let him do it his way. Also, of course, if she told them not to come, the deal was off and she would have to find someone who would do it her way, and obviously she didn’t have any or she wouldn’t have gone to Wolfe and given him a check for twenty grand. She didn’t like it, but she lumped it.

  Then, leaving, I got a break. I had had to double-park, on Sixty-third Street, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that no city employee had happened by to put a ticket on the windshield. The return trip took thirty-one minutes. When Wolfe came down at six o’clock and I reported, he didn’t even say “Satisfactory.” He merely scowled and rang for beer. His outlook was bleak. It was now settled that he was going to have to work, and with an obstreperous female for a client.

  They all came. The first to arrive, Sylvia Venner, showed a little before nine, and the last, Kenneth Meer, at 9:08. Cass R. Abbott rated the red leather chair on two counts: he was the president of CAN, and, being close to seventy, he had seniority. So I put him there. For the others I had placed two rows of yellow chairs facing Wolfe’s desk. I have a sort of rule that when there is company and one of them is, or is supposed to be, a murderer, the place for him or her is the front row nearest to me, so that was where I put Amory Browning. Next to him was his wife, and then Theodore Falk. In the back row Kenneth Meer was in the middle, with Helen Lugos on his right and Sylvia Venner on his left. The only one I had ever seen before was Kenneth Meer. When I let him in, he had looked me in the eye and asked, “More tricks?” and I said, “No, and we have made no use of that one. If anyone here knows about your bloody hands, he didn’t learn it from us.”

  Since you’re meeting them, you should see them. Cass R. Abbott, the president, looked like one. The mop of well-tended white hair, which he had a right to be proud of and probably was, was a good cap for the well-arranged, long, pale face. Amory Browning, who would soon be president if he wasn’t otherwise engaged, didn’t rate it on looks. If he was fifty-two, which would have been my guess, he had probably been pudgy for about five years, and he would be bald in another five. Theodore Falk, the Wall Street Falk, was about the same age, but he had kept himself lean and limber and had a deep tan. He probably played tennis. You have already seen Kenneth Meer’s long, pointed nose and wide, square chin.

  As for the females, I would have recognized Sylvia Venner from the dozen or so times I had seen her do “The Big Town,” the program Browning had bounced her from. She was easy to look at, especially when she was using certain muscles to show her dimples, but TV girls, like all actresses, are always working at it and if you get really interested you have to make allowances. I don’t want to be unfair to Mrs. Browning merely because our client had her husband tagged for murder, but the truth is she was scrawny. I could give details, but why rub it in? She was about her husba
nd’s age, and she was scrawny, and facts are facts. Helen Lugos, Browning’s secretary, was the one you would have to see with your own eyes, because she was the kind with whom details like color of eyes and hair, and shape of face, and kind of mouth don’t really tell it. She was probably three or four years under thirty, but that was only another unimportant detail. The point was that I had put her in the back row chair the other side of Kenneth Meer because that was where I could see her best and oftenest without turning my head much. I would have liked to put her in the red leather chair where I would have had her full face, but of course that was the president’s place. Hers was the kind of face that is different from any two angles.

  I had invited orders for liquids, but they had all been declined, and when Kenneth Meer was in and seated, I went to Wolfe’s desk and gave the kitchen button three stabs, and in a moment he came, detoured between the red leather chair and the wall to his desk, sat, and sent his eyes around. As I pronounced the seven names, he gave each of them a nod—his nod, about an eighth of an inch.

  “On behalf of Mrs. Odell,” he said, “I thank you for coming. She intended to be here, but she conceded my point that her presence would make our discussion more difficult, both for you and for me. I know, of course, that you have all been questioned at length by officers of the law, and I shall not try to emulate them, either in pertinacity or in scope. I frankly admit that I strongly doubt if I’ll get what Mrs. Odell wants. She hired me to learn who killed her husband, and the prospect is forlorn. Apparently no one knows whether his death was premeditated, or fortuitous—except the person who put the bomb in the drawer.”

  His eyes went right, then left. “What information I have has come from three sources: the newspapers, Mrs. Odell, and four or five journalists who have worked on the case and with whom Mr. Goodwin is on friendly terms. There is no agreement among the opinions they have formed. One of them thinks that Mr. Odell went to that room and opened that drawer, and put the bomb in it, in order to—”