by Rex Stout
“Pfui.” Wolfe sighed. “Wild conjectures have their place in an investigation, Mr. Colvin, no doubt of that, but it is better not to blab them until they are supported by some slender thread of fact. That’s mere moonshine. You have my statement. You may indulge yourself in fantastic nonsense, but don’t pester me with it. Let’s be explicit. Are you calling me a liar?”
“I am!”
“Then there’s no point in going on.” Wolfe left his chair, which had been supporting about 80 per cent of his fanny. “I’ll be in my room, with no interest in any further communication except word that I may leave for home. Since you already have Mr. Goodwin’s story, you won’t need him either. Come, Archie.” He moved.
“Wait a minute!” Colvin commanded. “I’m not through with you! Is your statement absolutely complete?”
Wolfe, having taken a step, halted and turned his head. “Yes.”
“You included a notable incident. That’s what you called it. Was there any other notable incident that you didn’t mention?”
“No. None that I know about.”
“None whatever?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t call it notable that you came here to cook trout for Ambassador Kelefy, that’s what you came for, and when they brought in their creels today and you and the cook cleaned the trout, you did not include the trout in Ambassador Kelefy’s creel? The trout he had caught himself? You don’t call that notable?”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again. “Not especially.”
“Well, I do.” Colvin was bearing down, quite nasty. “The cook, Samek, says that the creels were tagged with the names. You selected the fish from them. Bragan’s had ten and you used nine of them. Ferris’s had nine and you used six. Papps’s had seven and you used five. Ambassador Kelefy’s had eight, all of good size, and you didn’t use one of them. They were still there in the kitchen and Samek showed them to me. Nothing wrong with them as far as I could see. Do you deny this?”
“Oh no.” I caught a little gleam in Wolfe’s eye. “But will you tell me how it relates to the crime you’re investigating?”
“I don’t know. But I call it a notable incident and you didn’t mention it.” Colvin’s head moved. “Ambassador Kelefy, if you will permit me, did you know that Wolfe didn’t cook any of the fish you caught?”
“No, Mr. Colvin, I didn’t. This is rather a surprise.”
“Do you know of any reason for it? Does any occur to you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Kelefy swiveled his head for a glance at Wolfe, and back to the DA. “No doubt Mr. Wolfe can supply one.”
“He certainly can. What about it, Wolfe? Why?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Relate it to the murder, Mr. Colvin. I shouldn’t withhold evidence, of course, but I’m not; the trout are there; scrutinize them, dissect them, send them to the nearest laboratory for full analysis. I resent your tone, your diction, your manners, and your methods; and only a witling would call a man with my conceit a liar. Come, Archie.”
I can’t say how it would have developed if there hadn’t been a diversion. As Wolfe made for the door to the hall with me at his heels, the sheriff, the lieutenant, and the other trooper came trotting across to head us off, and they succeeded, since Wolfe had neither the build nor the temperament to make a dash for it. But only two of them blocked the doorway because as they came the phone rang and the lieutenant changed course to go to the table and answer it. After a word he turned to call to the DA. “For you, Mr. Colvin. Attorney General Jessel.”
Colvin went to get it, leaving the two groups – the six on chairs in the middle of the room, and us four standing at the door – stuck in tableaux. The conversation wasn’t long, and he had the short end of it. When he hung up he turned, pushed back the specs, and announced, “That was Mr. Herman Jessel, attorney general of the state of New York. I phoned him just before calling you together here and described the situation. He has talked with Governor Holland, and is leaving Albany immediately to come here, and wants me to postpone further questioning of you ladies and gentlemen until he arrives. That will probably be around eight o’clock. Meanwhile we will pursue certain other lines of inquiry. Lieutenant Hopp has established a cordon outside to exclude intruders, especially representatives of the press. You are requested to remain inside the lodge or on the veranda.”
He pushed the specs back up.
VI
WOLFE SAT IN THE rainbow chair in his room, leaning back, his eyes closed, his lips compressed, his fingers folded at the apex of his middle mound. I stood at a window, looking out. Fifty paces away, at the edge of the woods, a trooper was standing, gazing up at a tree. I focused on it, thinking a journalist might be perched on an upper branch, but it must have been a squirrel or a bird.
Wolfe’s voice sounded behind me. “What time is it?”
“Twenty after five.” I turned.
“Where would we be if we had left at two o’clock?”
“On Route Twenty-two four miles south of Hoosick Falls.”
“Bosh. You can’t know that.”
“That’s what I do know. What I don’t know is why you didn’t let the ambassador eat his trout.”
“Thirty-four were caught. I cooked twenty. That’s all.”
“Okay, save it. What I don’t know won’t hurt me. I’ll tell you what I think. I think the guy that sent us here to kill Leeson was sending you messages by putting them inside trout and tossing the trout in the river, and some of them were in the ones Kelefy caught, and you had to wait for a chance to get them out when the cook wasn’t looking, and when –”
There was a knock at the door and I went and opened it, and O. V. Bragan, our host, stepped in. No manners. When I shut the door and turned he was already across to Wolfe and talking. “I want to ask you about something.”
Wolfe opened his eyes. “Yes, Mr. Bragan? Don’t stand on ceremony. Indeed, don’t stand at all. Looking up at people disconcerts me. Archie?”
I moved a chair up for the burly six-footer, expecting no thanks and getting none. There are two kinds of executives, thankers and non-thankers, and I already had Bragan tagged. But since Wolfe had taken a crack at him about ceremony I thought I might as well too, and told him not to mention it. He didn’t hear me.
His cold and sharp gray eyes were leveled at Wolfe. “I liked the way you handled Colvin,” he stated.
Wolfe grunted. “I didn’t. I want to go home. When I talk with a man who is in a position to give me something I want, and I don’t get it, I have blundered. I should have toadied him. Vanity comes high.”
“He’s a fool.”
“I don’t agree.” Obviously Wolfe was in no mood to agree with anyone or anything. “I thought he did moderately well. For an obscure official in a remote community his stand with Mr. Ferris and you was almost intrepid.”
“Bah. He’s a fool. The idea that anyone here would deliberately murder Leeson is so damned absurd that only a fool would take it seriously.”
“Not as absurd as the idea that a poacher, with a club from your woodpile as a cane, was struck with the fancy of using it as a deadly weapon. Discovered poachers don’t kill; they run.”
“All right, it wasn’t a poacher.” Bragan was brusque. “And it wasn’t anyone here. But God knows what this is going to mean to my plans. If it isn’t cleared up in a hurry anything can happen. With Leeson murdered here at my lodge, the State Department could decide to freeze me out, and not only that, Ambassador Kelefy could decide he’d rather not deal with me, and that would be worse.”
He hit his chair arm with a fist. “It has got to be cleaned up in a hurry! And God knows it won’t be, the way they’re going at it. I know your reputation some, Wolfe, and I just spoke on the phone with one of my associates in New York. He says you’re straight, and you’re good, and you charge exorbitant fees. To hell with that. If this thing drags along and ruins my plans I’ll lose a thousand times more than any fee you ever charged. I want you t
o go to work on this. I want you to find out who killed Leeson, and damned quick.”
“Sitting here?” Wolfe was bored. “Confined to the lodge and veranda? Another absurd idea.”
“You wouldn’t be. Jessel, the attorney general, will be here in a couple of hours. I know him well, I made a little contribution to his campaign. After I talk with him and he reads your statement, and questions you if he wants to, he’ll let you go. I’ve got a plane at a landing field twelve miles from here, and you and Goodwin will fly to Washington and get busy. I’ll give you some names of people there that can help, and I’ll phone them from here. The way it looks to me, somebody that wanted to finish Leeson decided to do it here. You find him and pin it on him, and quick. I’m not telling you how; that’s your job. Well?”
“No,” Wolfe said bluntly.
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t appeal to me.”
“To hell with appeal. Why not?”
“I am responsible for my decisions, Mr. Bragan, but to myself, not to you. However, I am your guest. I would ride in an airplane only in desperation, and I am not desperate. Again, I want to go home, and Washington is not my home. Again, even if your assumption regarding the murder were correct, it might take so long to find him and expose him that your plans would be beyond salvage. There is a fourth reason even more cogent than those, but I’m not prepared to disclose it.”
“What is it?”
“No, sir. You’re an overbearing man, Mr. Bragan, but I’m a dogged man. I owe you the decent courtesy of a guest, but that’s all, and I decline the job. Archie, someone at the door.”
I was on my way to answer the knock. This time, getting adapted to the etiquette of the place and not wanting to be trampled, I backed up with the door as I opened it, and sure enough, he breezed right in and on past me. It was James Arthur Ferris. Bragan was sitting with his back to the door. When Ferris got far enough to see who it was, he stopped and blurted, “You here, Bragan? Good.”
Bragan blurted back, “Why is it good?”
“Because I was coming to ask Wolfe and Goodwin for a little favor. I was going to ask them to come with me to your room and be present while I said something to you. I’ve learned from experience that it’s advisable to have witnesses present when I’m talking with you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake come off it.” Bragan was fed up. First Wolfe turning him down flat, and now this. “There’s been a murder. A statesman has been murdered. On every radio and TV network, and tomorrow on the front page of a thousand papers. Pull in your horns!”
Ferris, not listening apparently, was squinting down at Wolfe. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll say it here. There’s no danger that you’ll ever have to testify to it or even furnish an affidavit, because Bragan hasn’t got the guts to lie when he knows it’s three to one. I’ll appreciate the favor.” He turned the squint on Bragan, and you wouldn’t think his thin little hyphen of a mouth was much to show hate with, but he certainly managed it. “I just want to tell you what I’m going to do, so you can’t say afterwards that it hit you without warning.”
“Go ahead.” Bragan’s head was tilted back to face the squint. “Let’s hear it.”
“As you know, the attorney general is on his way here. He’s going to ask about the status of our negotiations with Kelefy and Papps, and where Leeson stood. He may not think that had any connection with the murder, but he’s certainly going to ask about it, and not in a meeting like that Colvin, but each of us privately. When he asks me I’m going to tell him.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to tell him the truth. How you had your Paris man working on Kelefy and Papps before they even left home. How you tried to get something on Papps. How you had that woman on the plane with them to try to work on Mrs. Kelefy, only it didn’t go. How you had two men I can name trying to put screws on Leeson, and –”
“Watch it, Ferris. I advise you to watch it. We’re not alone. You’ve got your witnesses.”
“You bet I have. I’ll probably have more when I’m talking to the attorney general. I’m going to tell him how you tried to buy Papps – buy him with cash, your stockholders’ cash. How you finally swung Leeson and had him eating out of your hand. How you got him to arrange this little fishing party, here at your place, so you’d have Kelefy and Papps all to yourself. How Papps didn’t like that and got me invited. And then after we got here, how I worked you into a corner with the dirty swindle you thought you had all set, and yesterday afternoon Leeson began to see the light. It didn’t need much more to cook you good – one more day would have done it. This is the day. This is the day, but Leeson’s not here. That’s what I’m going to tell the attorney general, and I didn’t want to spring it on you without warning. Also I didn’t want you to claim I had, with a big whine, so I wanted witnesses. That’s all.”
Ferris turned and was going. Bragan called to him but he didn’t stop. Bragan got up and made for him, but by the time he reached the door Ferris was through it, pulling it shut as he went. Bragan looked at me without seeing me, said, “By God, and he bought Papps himself!” and opened the door and was gone. I closed it and turned my back on it, and asked Wolfe, “Do I go and warn somebody? Or wait a while and then go find the body?”
“Pleistocene,” he growled. “Saber-toothed hyenas.”
“Okay,” I agreed, “but all the same I think you missed a bet. That gook might actually be able to talk us out of here. If so, consider this. Driving time from here to Thirty-fifth Street, Manhattan, seven hours. Plane from here to Washington, three hours. I take a taxi to the city and start operating, and you hop a plane to New York. Flying to La Guardia, an hour and a quarter. Taxi from La Guardia to Thirty-fifth Street, forty-five minutes. Total traveling time, five hours. Two hours less than it would take to drive there, not to mention the fact that they won’t let us. And in addition, bill Bragan for at least ten grand. You could tell him –”
“Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a book on a shelf in that room – Power and Policy, by Thomas K. Finletter. I’d like to have it.”
It had long been understood that at home he got his own books off of shelves, but I had to admit this was different, so I humored him. Going down the hall I kept my ears open for sounds of combat, but all was quiet. In the big room a trooper sat over by the door. I found the book with no trouble, and returned to Wolfe’s room and handed it to him.
“It occurs to me,” he said, “that a little later there’ll probably be some fussing in the kitchen. They may even undertake to gather at a table for a meal. In the refrigerator are a third of a Ryder ham, half of a roast turkey, tree-ripened olives, milk, and beer. The bread is inedible, but in a cupboard there are some Caswell crackers, and in another cupboard a jar of Brantling’s blackberry jam. If you see anything else you think desirable, bring it.”
He opened the book and settled back in the chair. I wasn’t through with him on the notion of letting Bragan spring us and commit himself to a fee, partly because I had a suspicion that Bragan’s slant on the murder was the best bet in sight, but I thought half an hour with a book might make him more receptive to the idea of a plane ride, so I took to the hall again and on through to the kitchen. The cook, Samek, was there, with an array of dishes and trays and assorted grub scattered around. I said if he didn’t mind I’d cater with a pair of trays for Wolfe and me, and he said go ahead. As I got out a bottle of milk I asked casually, “By the way, I intended to take a look at the trout the ambassador caught. Where are they?”
“They’re not here. The cops took ‘em.”
The loaded trays called for two trips. The second trip, with mine, I met Papps in the hall and exchanged nods with him. Our meal, in Wolfe’s room, went down all right, except that Wolfe drank beer with it, which he seldom does at home, and ruined his palate for the blackberry jam, so he said. I had had milk and my palate let the jam by without a murmur.
After re
turning the trays to the kitchen I headed back for the room, all set to tackle Wolfe on Bragan’s proposition. My chances of selling him were about one in fifty, but I had to do something to pass the time and why not that? Keeping him stirred up was one thing he paid me for. However, it had to be postponed. As I approached I saw that the door was standing open, and as I entered I saw that we had more company. Adria Kelefy was sitting in the chair that I had moved up for Bragan, and the ambassador was getting another for himself, to make it a trio.
I closed the door.
VII
I GOT SNUBBED AGAIN. As I stepped around to a chair off to one side, Wolfe and Mrs. Kelefy merely glanced at me, and the ambassador didn’t even bother to glance. He was talking.
“I am well acquainted,” he was saying, “with Finletter’s theory that in the atomic age we can no longer rely on industrial potential as the dominant factor in another world war, and I think he makes his point, but he goes too far. In spite of that, it’s a good book, a valuable book.”
Wolfe placed a slip of paper in it to mark his place – he dog’s-ears his own books – and put it down. “In any event,” he said, “man is a remarkable animal, with a unique distinction. Of all the millions of species rendered extinct by evolution, we are the only one to know in advance what is going to destroy us. Our own insatiable curiosity. We can take pride in that.”
“Yes indeed.” Evidently Kelefy wasn’t too upset at the prospect. “I had hoped, Mr. Wolfe, to offer you my thanks in happier circumstances. The death of Mr. Leeson has turned this little excursion into a tragedy, but even so, I must not neglect to thank you. It was most gracious of you to grant my request.”
“It was a privilege and an honor,” Wolfe declared. No diplomat was going to beat him at it. “To be chosen as an instrument of my country’s hospitality was my good fortune. I only regret, with you, the catastrophe that spoiled it.”