by Rex Stout
"Certainly I did."
"Beyond possibility of doubt?"
"Certainly. I saw her face when I got turned and that was when she tore loose and ran. And she spoke to me."
"What did she say?"
"I'm not sure of the words, but it was something like 'I'll kill you too.' That's what I thought it was, but later I thought it must be wrong because I thought Pompa had killed my husband and I didn't realize she could have done it. But now that my daughter remembers about the open door, and I remember it too, I see that must have been it – what she said."
"That's a lie!" Julie blurted, not at Mrs. Whitten, since she wasn't speaking to her, but at Wolfe. She was fully as pale as Mrs. Whitten had been the evening before, but not like a corpse, anything but. She was blurting on. "I didn't say that! I said 'You killed him and I'll kill you!' And I wish I had – oh, I wish I had!"
"You came close to it," Wolfe growled. He let his eyes come halfway open, now that he had them. "I should explain to both of you that I've merely been trying to get started. Please forget each other, as far as possible, and listen to me. If we're going to work this out together you need to know how I got where I am now."
The doorbell rang. Under the circumstances it was up to Fritz, but on the other hand we didn't want any trivial interruptions just then, so I scooted for the hall, closing the office doors as I went. One glance through the glass panel showed that my point was well taken. Inspector Cramer was there. He was alone, so I didn't bother with the chain bolt but put my foot where it would keep the door to a six-inch crack. I spoke through the crack to his big broad shoulders and his round, red, but by no means flabby face.
"Good morning. What have I done now?"
"We sent a man," he snapped, "to see Mrs. Whit-ten about something, and he was told she's here. What's Wolfe up to? I want to see her."
"I never know what he's up to, but I'll go ask him. He'll want to know how it stands. Is there a warrant for her?"
"Hell no. A warrant for what?"
"I merely asked. Kindly withdraw your toe."
I banged the door shut, went to the office, and told Wolfe, "The man about the chair. The one with a gash in it. He learned more or less accidentally that it's here, and that made him curious, and he wants to talk.
He has no signed paper and no idea of getting one. Shall I tell him you're busy?"
I was sure he would say yes, but he didn't. Instead, he decoded it. "Is it Mr. Cramer?"
"Yes, sir." He knew darned well it was, since I had started years ago calling Cramer that.
"He wants to speak with Mrs. Whitten?"
"One of his men did, probably about some trifle, and found out she was here. What he really wants is to see if you're getting up a charade."
"He's barely in time. If he engages to let me proceed without interruption until I've finished, admit him."
"I don't like it. He's got Pompa."
"He won't have him long. We're waiting for you. I want a record of this."
I didn't like it at all, but when Wolfe has broken into a gallop what I like has about the weight of an undersized feather from a chicken's neck.
I returned to the front and opened to a crack again and told the inspector, "Mrs. Whitten is in the office with him, chatting. So is Miss Julie Alving, toy buyer at Meadow's, who was formerly on good terms with the late Whitten. You may have heard of her."
"Yeah, I have. What the hell is he trying to pull?"
"You name it. I'm just the stenographer. You have a choice. Being an inspector, you can go somewhere for lunch and then take in a ball game, or you can give me your sacred word of honor that you'll absolutely keep your mouth shut until and unless Wolfe hands you the torch. If you choose the latter you're welcome, and you can have a chair to sit on. After all, you have no ticket even for standing room, since neither of those females is under a charge."
"I'm a police officer. I'm not going to tie myself –"
"Don't haggle. You know damn well where you stand. I'm needed in there to take notes. Well?"
"I'm coming in."
"Under the terms as I stated?"
"Yes."
"Strictly clam?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Otherwise you'd better bring a bulldozer if you ever want in again." I swung the door open.
Wolfe greeted him curtly and left it to me to introduce him to the ladies. It wasn't surprising that he hadn't met Mrs. Whitten, since his men had settled on Pompa as a cinch after a few hours' investigation and therefore there had been no occasion for their superior officer to annoy the widow. He acknowledged the introductions with stingy nods, gave Wolfe a swift keen glance that would have liked to go on through his hide to the interior, and indicated that he intended to keep his vow by taking a chair well out of it, to the rear and right of Mrs. Whitten.
Wolfe spoke to him. "Let's put it this way, Mr. Cramer. You're here merely as a caller waiting to see me."
"That will do," Cramer growled.
"Good. Then I'll proceed. I was just starting to explain to these ladies the manner and extent of my progress in an investigation I'm on."
"Go ahead."
From there on Wolfe ignored Cramer completely. He looked at Julie and Mrs. Whitten. "What persuaded me," he said conversationally, "of Mr. Pompa's innocence, and who engaged me to prove it, are details of no importance. Neither is it important why, when Mr. Goodwin wanted to contrive an entree to Mrs. Whitten, he hit on the stratagem of saying he wished to speak with her on behalf of Miss Alving."
Julie made a sound.
"Oh, it was a lie," he told her. "We use a great many of them in this business, sometimes calculated with great care, sometimes quite at random. This one was extremely effective. It got Mr. Goodwin admitted to Mrs. Whitten at once, though she was in bed with a gash in her side, having just narrowly escaped from an attempt on her life."
Cramer let out a growl, no doubt involuntary, and stood up. Wolfe ignored him and went on to his female audience.
"That, of course, is news to Mr. Cramer, and there will be more for him, but since he's merely waiting to see me I'll finish with you ladies. The success –"
"You not only lie," Mrs. Whitten said harshly, "you break your promise. You promised that if we answered your questions you wouldn't report the attack on me to the police."
"No," Wolfe said curtly. "I do not break promises. It was implied, not explicit, and it was without term, and assuredly not for eternity. Certainly I could not be expected to keep that information to myself if and when it became necessary evidence for the disclosure of a murderer. It has now become necessary."
"It has?" She wasn't so harsh.
"Yes."
"Then – go on."
He did. "The success of Mr. Goodwin's device for getting to Mrs. Whitten was highly suggestive. True, her husband had been intimate with Miss Alving at one time, but he had discarded her before his marriage. Then why should the name of Miss Alving get quick entry to Mrs. Whitten at such a moment? There had to be a good reason, but I could only guess. Among my guesses was the possibility that the assault on Mrs. Whitten had been made by Miss Alving, but that's all it was at the time, one of a string of guesses. However, when Mr. Goodwin reported that detail to me we already had a good deal more. He had, in a keen and rapid stroke, discovered why Mrs. Whitten had been put to bed by a doctor, and, on account of her determination not to let it be known, had provided us with a powerful instrument to use on her. It was indeed powerful. It got her out of bed after midnight and brought her down here to see me, accompanied by her family."
"When, last night?" Cramer demanded.
Wolfe glared at him. "Sir, you are committed. Later you'll get all you want. Now I'm working."
"Who told you he discarded me?" Julie asked. I thought her voice sounded much like Mrs. Whitten's, and then I realized that it wasn't the voices that were similar, it was the emotions. It was hate.
"The source was Mr. Pompa," Wolfe told her. "If the word was unfortunate and offends
you, I am sorry. It may not fit the occasion at all. To go on. Last evening, looking at those people and hearing them, I concluded that none of them was capable of trying to kill their mother. I couldn't exclude the possibility, but I could tentatively reject it, and I did. But that brought Miss Alving in again. Mrs. Whitten claimed that not only could she not identify her assailant, she didn't even know whether it was a man or a woman. That was absurd. It was of course intrinsically improbable, but it was made absurd by the question, if she had no idea who the attacker was why was she going to such lengths to keep the incident from disclosure? Even leaving her bed to come to see me in the dead of night? Therefore she knew who had attacked her, and desperately wanted no one else to know. I excluded her children, as I have said, whom she might have shielded through love or pride, and I knew of no one else in that category. But not only love rides with pride; hate also does. There was Miss Alving again."
Wolfe shook his head. "Miss Alving was still only a guess, though now a much more likely one. It was worth having a try at her. The device Mr. Goodwin had used on Mrs. Whitten got an encore. He went to see Miss Alving and told her that I wished to speak with her on behalf of Mrs. Whitten. It worked beautifully. For a department buyer in a great department store to leave her post in the middle of the morning on her private affairs is by no means routine or casual, but Miss Alving did that. She came here at once with Mr. Goodwin. My guess was now good enough to put to the test, and Miss Alving's reaction removed all doubt, though she did her best. Mr. Goodwin brought Mrs. Whitten down, and that made the situation impossible for both of you. You have both admitted that the attack on Mrs. Whitten was made by Miss Alving. That is true, Miss Alving?"
"Yes." Julie tried to swallow. "I wish I had killed her."
"A very silly wish. It is true, Mrs. Whitten?"
"Yes." Mrs. Whitten's expression was not a wishing one. "I didn't want it to be known because I knew – I knew my husband wouldn't. I hadn't thought of the open door, and so I didn't realize that she had killed him. She had waited for six long months, waited and hoped, hoping to get him back." Mrs. Whitten's eyes left Wolfe, and they were hot with hate and accusation as they fixed on Julie. "But you couldn't! He was mine, and you couldn't have him! So you killed him!"
"That's a lie," Julie said, deadly quiet and low. "It's a lie and you know it. I did have him. He was mine all the time, and you knew it. You found it out."
Wolfe pounced. "What's that?" he snapped. "She found it out?"
"Yes."
"Look at me, Miss Alving. Let her go. Look at me. You are in no danger; there was no open door. When did she find it out?"
Julie's head had slowly turned to face him. "A month ago."
"How do you know?"
"He wrote me that he didn't dare to come – where we met – because she had learned about it. He was afraid, terribly afraid of her. I knew he was a coward. Don't ever fall in love with a coward."
"I'll guard against it. Have you got the letter?"
She nodded. The pallor was gone and her face was flushed, but her voice was quiet and dull. "I have all of them. He wrote eleven letters in that month, but I never saw him again. He kept saying he would come soon, and he would as soon as he could, but he was a coward."
"Did he tell you how she learned about it?"
"Yes, it was in the first letter."
"And when he died, and you knew she had killed him, you thought you would avenge him yourself, was that it?"
"Yes. What else could I do?"
"You might – but no matter. You loved him?"
"I do love him."
"Did he love you?"
"Yes – oh, yes!"
"Better than he loved his wife?"
"He hated her. He despised her. He laughed at her."
Mrs. Whitten made a choking noise and was out of her chair. But I, rather expecting a little something, was on my feet too, and in front of her. She started to stretch a hand to me and then sat down again. Thinking it remotely possible that she had a cutlery sample in her bag, I stood by.
Wolfe spoke to her. "I should tell you, madam, that I've had you in mind from the first. When you discovered your family secretly gathered in the dining room you were not yourself. Instead of upbraiding and bullying them, which would have been in character, you appealed to them. What better explanation could there be of that reversal in form than that you knew your husband was upstairs dead, you having killed him with one swift stab in the back as you passed behind him, leaving him to go down after Mr. Pompa? Your shrewd and careful plan to have it laid to Pompa was badly disarranged by the awful discovery that your sons and daughters were there too; no wonder you were upset. Your plan was not only shrewd and careful, but long and deep, for when, a month ago, you learned of your husband's infidelity, what did you do? Drive him out with a blast of fury and contempt? No. Understand him and forgive him and try to win him all for you? No. You displayed the blooming and ripening of your affection and trust for him by announcing that he was to be put in control of the family business. That made it certain, you thought, that when you chose your moment and he died, you would be above suspicion. And indeed you were, but you had bad luck. It was ruthless, but wise, to arrange for the police to have a victim at hand, but you had the misfortune to select for that role a man who was once a good cook – indeed, a great one."
Wolfe jerked his head up. "Mr. Cramer, you are no longer committed. I don't know how you handle a case like this. You have a man in jail charged with murder, but the murderer is here. How do you proceed?"
"I need things," Cramer rasped. He was flabbergasted and trying not to show it. "I need those letters. What's that about an open door? I need –"
"You'll get all of it. I mean what happens immediately? What about Mrs. Whitten?"
"That's no problem. There are two men in my car out front. If her wound didn't keep her from riding down here last night it won't keep her from riding downtown now."
"Good." Wolfe turned to Julie. "I was under an obligation to you. I told you that I thought I could arrange it so that Mrs. Whitten would not prosecute, if you would help me. You have unquestionably helped me. You have done your part. Do you agree that I have done mine?"
I don't think she heard a word of it. She was looking at him but not seeing him. "There was a notice in yesterday's paper," she said, "that his funeral would be today at four o'clock, and it said omit flowers. Omit flowers!" She seemed to be trying to smile, and suddenly her head dropped into her hands and she shook with sobs.
XI
I stood facing the door of the South Room, in the hall on the third floor, with my hand raised. Wolfe, positively refusing to do it himself, had left it to me. I knocked. A voice told me to come in, and I entered.
Phoebe tossed a magazine onto the table and left the chair. "You certainly took long enough. Where's Mother?"
"That's what I came to tell you."
Her face changed and she took a step and demanded, "Where is she?"
"Don't push. First I apologize. When you pulled that gag about the front door being open I thought you knew that one of you in the dining room had killed Whitten, and possibly even you had been involved in it, and you thought maybe Mr. Wolfe was getting warm and you wanted to fix an out. Now I know how it was. You couldn't believe Pompa had done it, and you knew none of you had, so it was your mother. So it was her you wanted the out for. Therefore it seems to me I should apologize, and I do."
"I don't want your apology. Where is my mother?"
"She is either at Police Headquarters or the District Attorney's office, depending on where they took her. I don't know. She is, or soon will be, charged with murder. Mr. Wolfe did most of it of course, but I had a hand in it. For that I don't apologize. You know damn well she's a malicious and dangerous woman – look at her framing Pompa – and while I appreciate the fact that she's your mother, she is not mine. So much for her. You are another matter. What do you want me to do? Anything?"
"No."
She hadn't
batted an eyelash, nor turned pale, nor let a lip quiver, but the expression of her eyes was plenty.
"What I mean," I told her, "I got you down here, and you're here alone now, and I would like to do anything at all that will help. Phone somebody, drive you somewhere, get a taxi, send your things to you later –"
"No."
"Okay. Fritz will let you out downstairs. I'll be in the office typing, in case."
That was the last chat I had with her for a long time, until day before yesterday, a month after her mother was sentenced by Judge Wilkinson. Day before yesterday, Tuesday afternoon, she phoned to say she had changed her mind about accepting my apology, and would I care to drive her up to Connecticut and eat dinner with her at Ambrosia 26? Even if I hadn't had another date I would have passed. An Ambrosia may be perfectly okay as a source of income, but with the crowd and the noise it is no place to make any progress in human relations.
Door to Death
I
Nero Wolfe took a long stretching step to clear a puddle of water at the edge of the graveled driveway, barely reached the grass of the lawn with his left foot, slipped, teetered, pawed wildly at the air, and got his sixth of a ton of flesh and bone balanced again without having actually sprawled.
"Just like Ray Bolger," I said admiringly.
He scowled at me savagely, which made me feel at home though we were far from home. More than an hour of that raw and wet December morning had been spent by me driving up to northern Westchester, with him in the rear seat on account of his silly theory that when the inevitable crash comes he'll lose less blood and have fewer bones broken, and there we were at our destination in the environs of the village of Katonah, trespassers on the estate of one Joseph G. Pitcairn. I say trespassers because, instead of wheeling up to the front of the big old stone mansion and crossing the terrace to the door like gentlemen, I had, under orders, branched off onto the service drive, circled to the rear of the house, and stopped the car at the gravel's edge in the neighborhood of the garage. The reason for that maneuver was that, far from being there to see Mr. Pitcairn, we were there to steal something from him.