by Rex Stout
"Nuts," he hissed.
"Okay, come on. Mrs. Pitcairn is with us. Don't stop to shut the door after you."
I returned to the living room, crossed to the open door by which the others had left, stood with my back to the voices I could hear in the distance, and watched Saul enter, cross to another door at the far end, which led to the reception hall, and disappear. Then I went and hung the socks on the frame of a magazine rack near a radiator grille, and beat it to the kitchen.
They were gathered around an open cupboard door. After exchanging glances with me Wolfe brought that phase of the investigation to a speedy end and suggested a return to the living room. On the way there Sybil insisted that her mother should go back upstairs, but didn't get far. Mrs. Pitcairn was sticking, and I privately approved. Not only did it leave Saul an open field, but it guaranteed him what he needed most – time. Even if they had wanted to adjourn until morning Wolfe could probably have held them, but it was better this way.
"Now," Wolfe said, when he had got settled in the chair of his choice again with the rug around his feet, "look at it like this. If the police were not completely satisfied with Mr. Krasicki they would be here asking you questions, and you wouldn't like it but you couldn't help it. You are compelled to suffer my inquisition for quite a different reason from the one that would operate in the case of the police, but the result is the same. I ask you questions you don't like, and you answer them as you think best. The police always expect a large percentage of the answers to be lies and evasions, and so do I, but that's my lookout. Any fool could solve the most difficult of cases if everyone told the truth. Mr. Imbrie, did you ever hold Miss Lauer in your arms?"
Imbrie, with no hesitation and in a voice unnecessarily loud, said, "Yes!"
"You did? When?"
"Once in this room, because I thought she wanted me to, and she knew my wife was watching us and I didn't. So I thought I would try it."
"That's a lie!" Vera Imbrie said indignantly.
So the first crack out of the box he had one of them calling another a liar.
Neil spoke sternly to his wife. "I'm telling you, Vera, the only thing to do is tell it straight. When the cops left I thought it was all over, but I know about this man and he's tough. We're not going to do any monkeying about murder. How do I know who else saw me? I'm not going to tell him no, I never went near that girl, and then have someone else say they saw me."
"That's the spirit," Sybil said sarcastically. "We'll all confess everything. You lead the way, Neil."
But within three minutes Neil was lying, saying that his wife hadn't minded a bit catching him trying to make a pass at Dini Lauer. He maintained that she had just passed it off as a good joke.
It went on for over two hours, until my wrist-watch said five minutes to three, and I'm not saying it was dull because it was interesting to watch Wolfe bouncing the ball, first against one and then another, and it was equally interesting to see them handling the returns. But though it wasn't dull it certainly didn't seem to me that it was getting us anywhere, particularly when Wolfe was specializing in horticulture. He spent about a third of the time finding out how they felt about plants and flowers, and actually got into an argument with Joseph G. about hairy begonias. It was obvious what he had in mind, but no matter what they said it wasn't worth a damn as evidence, and I suspected him of merely passing the time waiting for Saul, and hoping against hope as the minutes dragged by.
Aside from horticulture he concentrated mainly on the character and characteristics of Dini Lauer. He tried over and over again to get them started on a free-for-all discussion of her, but they refused to oblige, even Neil Imbrie. He couldn't even get a plain unqualified statement that Sybil would have preferred to take care of her mother herself, their position apparently being that if they gave him an inch he'd want a mile. He certainly didn't get the inch.
As I glanced at my watch at five to three Wolfe pronounced my name.
"Archie. Are my socks dry?"
I went and felt them and told him just about, and he asked me to bring them to him. As he was pulling the first one on Mrs. Pitcairn spoke.
"Don't bother with the wet shoes, since you're going to sleep here. Vera, there's a pair of slippers –"
"No, thank you," Wolfe said energetically. He got the other sock on and picked up a shoe. "Thank heaven I get them big enough." He got his toes in, tugged and pushed, finally got the shoe on and tied the lace, and straightened up to rest. In a moment he tackled the second shoe. By the time he got it on the silence was as heavy as if the ceiling had come down to rest on our heads.
Pitcairn undertook to lift it. "It's nearly morning," he rasped. "We're going to bed. This has become a ridiculous farce."
Wolfe sighed from all the exertion. "It has been a farce from the beginning," he declared. He looked around at them. "But I didn't make it a farce, you did. My position is clear, logical, and invulnerable. The circumstances of Miss Lauer's death – the use of Mrs. Imbrie's morphine, the preknowledge of the fumigation, and others – made it unarguable that she was killed by a familiar of these premises. Convinced with good reason, as I was and am, that Mr. Krasicki didn't do it, it followed that one of you did. There we were and there we are. I had no notion who it was; I forced my way in here to find out; and I'm going to stay until I do – or until you expel me and face the alternative I have described. I am your dangerous and implacable enemy. I have had you together; now I'll take you one by one; and I'll start with Mrs. Pitcairn. It will soon be dawn. Do you want to take a nap first, madam?"
Mrs. Pitcairn was actually trying to smile. "I'm afraid," she said in a firm full voice, "that I made a mistake when I offered to pay you to protect us from publicity. I'm afraid it made a bad impression on you. If you misunderstood – who is that?"
It was Saul Panzer, entering from behind the drapes where she had previously concealed herself for eavesdropping. He was right on the dot, since the arrangement had been for him to walk on at three o'clock unless he got a signal.
Most of us could get our eyes on him without turning, but Wolfe, in his chair with a high wide back, had to lean over and screw his head around. While he was doing that Donald was rising to his feet, and Joseph G. and Imbrie were both moving. I moved faster. When I had passed them I whirled and snapped, "Take it easy. He came with us and he don't bite."
They started ejaculating and demanding. Wolfe ignored them and asked Saul, "Did you find anything?"
"Yes, sir."
"Useful?"
"I think so, yes, sir." Saul extended a hand with a piece of folded paper in it.
Wolfe took it and commanded me, "Archie, your gun."
I already had it out. It wasn't desirable to have them anywhere near Wolfe while he examined Saul's find. I poked the barrel against Joseph G. and told him, "More formality. Back up."
He was still ejaculating but he went back, and the others with him, and I turned sideways enough to have all in view. Wolfe had unfolded the sheet of paper and was reading it. Saul was at his right hand, and he too was displaying a gun.
Wolfe looked up. "I should explain," he said, "how this happened. This is Mr. Saul Panzer, who works for me. When you went to the kitchen with me he entered from the greenhouse, went upstairs, and began to search. I was not satisfied that the police had been sufficiently thorough." He fluttered the paper. "This proves me right. Where did you find it, Saul?"
"I found it," Saul said distinctly, "under the mattress on the bed in the room of Mr. and Mrs. Imbrie."
Vera and Neil both made noises, and Neil came forward to where my arm stopped him.
"Take it easy," I advised him. "He didn't say who put it there, he just said where he found it."
"What is it?" Mrs. Pitcairn inquired, her voice not quite as firm.
"I'll read it," Wolfe told her. "As you see, it's a sheet of paper. The writing is in ink, and I would judge the hand to be feminine. It is dated December sixth, yesterday – no, since it's past midnight, the day before yeste
rday. It says:
"Dear Mr. Pitcairn:
"I suppose now I will never call you Joe, as you wanted me to. I am quite willing to put my request in writing, and I only hope you will put your answer in writing too. As I told you, I think your gift to me should be twenty thousand dollars. You have been so very sweet, but I have been sweet too, and I really think I deserve that much.
"Since I have decided to leave here and get married I don't think you should expect me to wait more than a day or two for the gift. I'll expect you in my room tonight at the usual time, and I hope you'll agree how reasonable I am."
Wolfe looked up. "It's signed 'Dini,'" he stated. "Of course it can be authenti –"
"I never saw it!" Vera Imbrie cried. "I never –"
But her lines got stolen. For my part, I didn't even give her a glance. Their faces had all been something to see while Wolfe had read, as might have been expected, but by the time he had reached the third sentence it was plain that Donald was in for something special in the way of moods. First his face froze, then it came loose and his mouth opened, and then the blood rushed up and it was purple. He was a quick-change artist if I ever saw one, and, as I say, I had no glance to spare for Vera Imbrie when she cried out. Then Donald took over.
"So that's why you wouldn't let me marry her!" he screamed, and jumped at his father.
I had the gun, sure, but that was for us, not for them if and when their ranks broke. The women were helpless, and Neil Imbrie would have had to be bigger and faster than he was to stop that cyclone.
Donald toppled his father to his knees more by bodily impact than by his swinging fists, kicked him down the rest of the way, and bent over him screaming, "You thought I was no man! But I was with her! I loved her! For the first time – I loved her! And you wouldn't let me and she was going away and now I know! By God, if I could kill her I can kill you too! I can! I can!"
It looked as if he might try to prove it, so I went and grabbed him, and Saul came to help.
"Oh, my son," Mrs. Pitcairn moaned.
Wolfe looked at her and growled, "Mr. Krasicki is a woman's son too, madam." I didn't think he had it in him.
X
At six o'clock the next afternoon but one I was at my desk in the office, catching up on neglected details, when I heard the sound of Wolfe's elevator descending from the plant rooms, and a moment later he entered, got himself comfortable in his chair back of his desk, rang for beer, leaned back, and sighed with deep satisfaction.
"How's Andy making out?" I asked.
"Considering the blow he got, marvelously."
I put papers in a drawer and swiveled to face him.
"I was just thinking," I said, not offensively, "that if it hadn't been for you Dini Lauer might still be alive and giving males ideas. Ben Dykes told me an hour ago on the phone that Donald has admitted, along with other things, that her telling him she was leaving and going to get married was what put him into a mood to murder. If you hadn't offered Andy a job he wanted to take he might not have got keyed up enough to talk her into marrying him – or anyhow saying she would. So in a way you might say you killed her."
"You might," Wolfe conceded, taking the cap from one of the bottles of beer Fritz had brought.
"By the way," I went on, "Dykes said that ape Noonan is still trying to get the DA to charge you for destroying evidence. Burning that letter you wrote to Pitcairn, signing Dini's name."
"Bah." He was pouring and watching the foam. "It wasn't evidence. No one ever saw what was on it. It could have been blank. I merely read it to them – ostensibly."
"Yeah, I know. Anyhow the DA is in no position to charge you with anything, let alone destroying evidence. Not only has Donald told it and signed it, how she was his first and only romance, how his parents threatened to cross him off the list if he married her, how he begged her not to marry Andy and she laughed at him, how he got her to split a bottle of midnight beer with him and put morphine in hers, and even how he lugged her into the greenhouse to make it nice for Andy – not only that, but Vera Imbrie has contributed details of some contacts between Donald and Dini which she saw."
Wolfe put down the empty glass and got out his handkerchief to wipe his lips. "That of course will help," he said complacently.
I grunted. "Help is no word for it. Would it do any good to ask you exactly what the hell you would have done if they had all simply sneered when you read that letter?"
"Not much." He poured more beer. "I knew one of them was toeing a thin and precarious line, and probably more than one. I thought a good hard jolt would totter him or her, no matter who it was, and possibly others. That was why I had Saul find it in the Imbries' room; they had to be jolted too. If all of them had simply sneered, it would at least have eliminated Mr. Pitcairn and his son, and I would have proceeded from there. That would have been a measurable advance, since up to that point a finger pointed nowhere and I had eliminated no one but Andy, who –"
He stopped abruptly, pushed his chair back, arose, muttered, "Good heavens, I forgot to tell Andy about those Miltonia seedlings," and marched out.
I got up and went to the kitchen to chin with Fritz.
About The Author
Rex Stout, the creator of Nero Wolfe, was born in Noblesville, Indiana, in 1886, the sixth of nine children of John and Lucetta Todhunter Stout, both Quakers. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Wakarusa, Kansas. He was educated in a country school, but by the age of nine he was recognized throughout the state as a prodigy in arithmetic. Mr. Stout briefly attended the University of Kansas, but he left to enlist in the Navy and spent the next two years as a warrant officer on board President Theodore Roosevelt's yacht. When he left the Navy in 1908, Rex Stout began to write free-lance articles and worked as a sightseeing guide and an itinerant bookkeeper. Later he devised and implemented a school banking system which was installed in four hundred cities and towns throughout the country. In 1927 Mr. Stout retired from the world of finance and, with the proceeds of his banking scheme, left for Paris to write serious fiction. He wrote three novels that received favorable reviews before turning to detective fiction. His first Nero Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance, appeared in 1934. It was followed by many others, among them, Too Many Cooks, The Silent Speaker, If Death Ever Slept, The Doorbell Rang, and Please Pass the Guilt, which established Nero Wolfe as a leading character on a par with Erle Stanley Gardner's famous protagonist, Perry Mason. During World War II, Rex Stout waged a personal campaign against Nazism as chairman of the War Writers' Board, master of ceremonies of the radio program "Speaking of Liberty," and member of several national committees. After the war he turned his attention to mobilizing public opinion against the wartime use of thermonuclear devices, was an active leader in the Authors' Guild, and resumed writing his Nero Wolfe novels. Rex Stout died in 1975 at the age of eighty-nine. A month before his death he published his seventy-second Nero Wolfe mystery, A Family Affair. Ten years later, a seventy-third Nero Wolfe mystery was discovered and published in Death Times Three.