Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25

by Before Midnight

  “I can’t,” Buff said. “It sounds preposterous. We hired him and we’ll pay him.”

  “Then I’ll spell it out. What would happen if he kept you posted on exactly what he had done and was doing and intended to do? God only knows, but judging from the way you’ve been acting this afternoon there would be a riot. One or another of you would be calling every ten minutes to cancel what the last one said and give him new instructions. Mr. Wolfe doesn’t take instructions, he takes a job, and you should have known that before you hired him.—You did, didn’t you, Mr. Hansen? You said that all of you would be at his mercy.”

  “Not precisely in that sense.” The lawyer’s eyes, meeting mine, were cold and steady. “But I knew of Wolfe’s methods and manners, yes. I grant that the conflicting messages from us this afternoon were ill-advised, but we are under great pressure. We need to know at least whether any progress is being made.”

  “You will, when he is ready to tell you. He’s under pressure too. You have to consider that he’s not working for you … or you … or you … or you … or you. He’s working for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa. I can say this, if the men authorized to speak for the firm want to call it off, it may be possible to make another arrangement. Just a suggestion: do you want to ask Mr. Heery if he cares to take over and have Mr. Wolfe represent him instead of LBA?”

  “No!” O’Garro blurted. Assa looked at Hansen and the lawyer shook his head. Buff said, “I can’t see that that would improve the situation any. Our interests are identical.” Heery, sending his eyes around, said, “If you want it that way, say so.”

  Nobody said so. I gave them four seconds and went on. “Another point. I’ve told you that Inspector Cramer of Homicide came to see Mr. Wolfe last night. I’m not quoting him, but when he left Mr. Wolfe’s main impression was that he wasn’t completely sold on the idea that one of the contestants killed Dahlmann to get the paper in the wallet. Someone could have killed him for a quite different reason and didn’t take the wallet or anything else, and later one of you went there to see him and found him dead. You looked to see if the wallet was in his pocket, and it was, and you didn’t want it found on his body on account of the risk that what was on the paper might possibly be made public, so you took the wallet and beat it. That would—”

  They all broke in. Hansen said, “Absurd. Mr. Wolfe certainly wasn’t—”

  “Just a minute,” I stopped him. “Mr. Wolfe told Cramer that he thought it likely that one of the contestants took the wallet, and that he was assuming that whoever killed Dahlmann took the wallet, but that doesn’t mean he can toss Cramer’s idea in the garbage as a pipe dream. He has no proof it didn’t happen like that; all he has is what you men told him. So if he doesn’t want to run the risk of being made a monkey of, which he doesn’t, believe me, he has to keep that on the list of possibles, and in that case how can he tell you what he’s doing and going to do? Tell who? His client is Lippert, Buff and Assa, but there’s no such person as Lippert, Buff and Assa, it would have to be one of you, and it might be the very guy who went to Dahlmann’s place and retrieved the wallet. Therefore—”

  “It’s absurd on the face of it,” Hansen said. “It would—”

  “Let me finish. Therefore Mr. Wolfe has a double reason not to keep you posted on every move—first, he never does with anybody, and second, one of you could be holding out on him and set to spike him. I don’t think he thinks you are, but it’s a cinch he wouldn’t take that chance. There’s no use trying to persuade me it’s absurd, because Mr. Wolfe is the expert on absurdity, not me, and I wouldn’t undertake to pass it on. That about covers the situation, except this, that he’s fed up with your shoving. I had to disturb him to tell him about the performance you have put on this afternoon because I had to ask him if he wanted me to come up here, and I am now reporting that he is fed up. He is willing to go on with the job only with the understanding that what he is committed to get for you is results as they were outlined, as quickly and satisfactorily as possible, using his best ability and judgment. If you want him to continue on that basis, okay. If not, he might be willing to take on the job for Mr. Heery, but I doubt it, without the consent and approval of LBA, because you’re all in it together.”

  “What then?” Hansen asked, colder than ever. “He has dismissed me as his attorney. What would he do?”

  “I don’t know, but I can give you a guess, and I know him fairly well. I think he would give Inspector Cramer the whole story as he knows it, including whatever he may have learned since he talked with you people, and forget it.”

  “Let him!” O’Garro barked. “To hell with him!”

  Buff said, “Take it easy, Pat.”

  “I think we’re overlooking something,” Assa said. “We’ve let our personal feelings get involved, and that’s wrong. The one thing we all want is to save the contest, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is whether we’re more likely to do that with Wolfe or without him. Let me ask you this, Goodwin. I agree with Mr. Hansen that Inspector Cramer’s idea is absurd, but just suppose that Wolfe did find evidence, or thought he did, that one of us went to Dahlmann’s apartment and found him dead and took the wallet. Whom would he report it to?”

  “That would depend. If LBA was still his client, to LBA. He was hired—these were Hansen’s words—to find out who took the wallet and got the paper. If he did what he was hired to do, or thought he had, naturally he would tell his client and no one else. There would be two offenses involved, swiping a wallet and failing to report discovery of a dead body, but that wouldn’t bother him. But he couldn’t report to a client if he no longer had one, and my guess is he would just empty the bag for Cramer.”

  “That,” Hansen said, “is an unmistakable threat.”

  “Is it?” I grinned at him. “That’s bad. I thought I was just answering a question. I withdraw it.”

  Talbott Heery, across the mahogany top from me, suddenly was up and on his feet, in all his height and breadth, glaring around with no favorites. “If I ever saw a bunch of lightweights,” he told them, “this is it. You know goddam well Nero Wolfe is our only hope of getting out of this without losing most of our hide, and listen to you!” He put two fists on the table. “I’ll tell you this right now: at the end of the contract you’re done with Heery Products! If I had had any sense—”

  “Tape it, Tal.” O’Garro’s voice was raised, with a sneer in it. “Go downstairs and tape it! We’ll get along without you and without Nero Wolfe too! I don’t—”

  The others joined in and they were boiling again. I was perfectly willing to sit and watch the bubbles, but Oliver Buff arose and took my sleeve and practically pulled me to my feet, and was steering me to the door. His teeth were set on his lower lip, but had to release it for speech. “If you’ll wait outside,” he said, pushing me into the hall. “We’ll send for you.” He shut the door.

  Outside could have meant right there, but eavesdropping is vulgar if you can’t distinguish words, and I soon found that I couldn’t, so I moseyed down the wide carpeted hall and on through into the reception room. A couple of the upholstered chairs had customers, but not the same ones as when I had arrived. When I lingered instead of pushing the elevator button the aristocratic brunette at the desk gave me a look, and, not wanting her to worry, I went and told her the evidence was all in and I was waiting for the verdict. She had a notion to give me a smile—I was wearing a dark brown pin-stripe that was a good fit, with a solid tan shirt and a soft wool medium-brown tie—but decided it would be better to wait until we heard the verdict. I decided she was too cagey for one of my temperament, and crossed the rugs over to a battery of large cabinets with glass fronts that covered all of a wall and part of two others. They were filled with an assortment of objects of all sizes, shapes, colors, and materials.

  Being a detective, I soon detected what they were: samples of the products of LBA clients, past and present. I thought it was very democratic to have them here in the executive reception room instead
of down on a lower floor with the riffraff. Altogether there must have been several thousand different items, from spark plugs to ocean liners to paper drinking cups to pharmaceuticals—though in the case of the liners and trucks and refrigerators, and other bulky items, they had settled for photographs instead of the real thing. There was an elegant little model of a completely equipped super-modern kitchen, about eighteen inches long, that I would have taken home for a doll’s house, if I had had a wife and we had had a child and the child had been a girl and the girl had liked dolls. I was having a second look at the Heery Products section, which alone had over a hundred specimens, and was trying to decide what I thought of yellow for packaging, when the brunette called my name and I turned.

  “You may go in,” she said, and darned if the smile didn’t nearly break through. Of course she had had plenty of time to inspect me from behind, and I never had a suit that fitted better. I repaid her with a friendly glance that spoke volumes as I stepped to the door to the inner hall.

  In the executive committee room, I suppose it was, I couldn’t tell from their expressions who or what had won. Certainly nobody looked happy or even hopeful. Heery was at a window with his back to us, which I thought was tactful since technically he was not a party. The others eyed me without love as I approached the big table.

  Hansen spoke. “We have decided to have Nero Wolfe continue with the case, using his best ability and judgment as you stated, without prejudice to any of our rights and privileges. Including the right to be informed on matters affecting our interests, but leaving that to his discretion for the present.”

  I had my notebook out and was jotting it down. That done, I asked, “Unanimous? Mr. Wolfe will want to know. Do you concur, Mr. Buff?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly.

  “Mr. Assa?”

  “Yes,” he said wearily.

  “Mr. O’Garro?”

  “Yes,” he said rudely.

  “Good.” I returned the notebook to my pocket. “I’ll do my best to persuade Mr. Wolfe to carry on, and if you don’t hear from me within an hour you’ll know it’s okay. I’d like to add one little point: as his confidential assistant I’m in it too somewhat, and it interferes with my chores to spend half my time answering your phone calls, so I personally request you to keep your shirts on.”

  I turned to go, but Buff caught my sleeve. “You understand, Goodwin, that the time element is vital. Only five days. And we hope Wolfe understands it.”

  “Sure he does. Before midnight Wednesday. That’s why he can’t bear to be disturbed.”

  I left them to their misery. Passing through the reception room I paused to tell the brunette, “Guilty on all counts. See you up the river.” It was a shock for her.

  Chapter 14

  The next two days, Saturday and Sunday, I found that my personal request had been a mistake. Thursday and Friday had been bad enough, but at least their phone calls had given me something to do now and then, and with them muzzled, or nearly so, my patience got a tougher test than ever. You might think that after putting up with Wolfe for so long I would be acclimatized, and I am up to a point, but he keeps breaking records. After I reported to him in full on my session at LBA, including a description of the premises, there was practically no mention of the case for more than sixty hours. By Monday morning I was willing to believe he had really meant it when he said it would be more feasible after the deadline, and I had to admit that at least it was an original idea to use a deadline for a starting barrier.

  I spent most of the weekend prowling around the house, but was allowed to go out occasionally to walk myself around the block, and even made a couple of calls. Saturday afternoon I dropped in at Manhattan Homicide West on Twentieth Street for a little visit with Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Naturally he was suspicious, thinking that Wolfe had sent me to pry something loose, if only a desk and a couple of chairs, but he also thought I might have something to peddle, so we chatted a while. When I got up to go he actually said there was no hurry. Later, back home, when I reported to Wolfe and told him I was offering twenty to one that the cops were as cold as we were, his only comment was an indifferent grunt.

  Late Sunday afternoon I spent six bucks of LBA money buying drinks for Lon Cohen at Yaden’s bar. I told him I wanted the total lowdown on all aspects of the Dahlmann case, and he offered to autograph a copy of yesterday’s Gazette for me. He was a great help. Among the items of unprinted scuttlebutt were these: Dahlmann had welshed on a ninety-thousand-dollar poker debt. His wallet had contained an assortment of snapshots of society women, undressed. He had double-crossed a prominent politician on a publicity deal. All the members of his firm had hated his guts and ganged up on him. The name of one of the several dozen women he had played games with was Ellen Heery, the wife of Talbott. He had been a Russian spy. He had got something on a certain philanthropist and been blackmailing him. And so on. The usual crop, Lon said, with a few fancy touches as tributes to Dahlmann’s outstanding personality. Lon would of course not believe that Wolfe wasn’t working on the murder, and almost refused to accept another drink when he was convinced that I had no handout for him.

  I gave Wolfe the scuttlebutt, but apparently he wasn’t listening. It was Sunday evening, when he especially enjoys turning the television off. Of course he has to turn it on first, intermittently throughout the evening, and that takes a lot of exertion, but he has provided for it by installing a remote control panel at his desk. That way he can turn off as many as twenty programs in an evening without overdoing. Ordinarily I am not there, since I spend most of my Sunday evenings trying to give pleasure to some fellow being, no matter who she is provided she meets certain specifications, but that Sunday I stuck around. If something did snap on account of the extremely severe tension, as Wolfe had claimed he thought it might, I was going to be there. When I went up to bed, early, he was turning off Silver Linings.

  The snap, if that’s the right word for it, came a little after ten o’clock Monday morning, in the shape of a phone call, not for Wolfe but for me.

  “You don’t sound like Archie Goodwin,” a male voice said.

  “Well, I am. You do sound like Philip Younger.”

  “I ought to. You’re Goodwin?”

  “Yes. The one who turned down your Scotch.”

  “That sounds better. I want to see you right away. I’m in my room at the Churchill. Get here as fast as you can.”

  “Coming. Hold everything.”

  That shows the condition I was in. I should have asked him what was up. I should at least have learned if a gun was being leveled at him. Speaking of guns, I should have followed my rule to take one along. But I was so damn sick and tired of nothing I was in favor of anything, and quick. I dived into the kitchen to tell Fritz to tell Wolfe where I was going, grabbed my hat and coat as I passed the rack, ran down the stoop steps, and hoofed it double quick to Tenth Avenue for a taxi, through the scattered drops of the beginning of an April shower.

  As we were crawling uptown with the thousand-wheeled worm I muttered to the hackie, “Try the sidewalk.”

  “It’s only Monday,” he said gloomily. “Got a whole week.”

  We finally made it to the Churchill, and I went in and took an elevator, ignored the floor clerk on the eighteenth, went to the door of eighteen-twenty-six, knocked, and was told to come in. Younger, looking a little less like Old King Cole when up and dressed, wanted to shake hands and I had no objection.

  “It took you long enough,” he complained. “I know, I know, I live in Chicago. Sit down. I want to ask you something.”

  I thought, my God, all for nothing, he’s got another idea about splitting the pot and yanked me up here to sell it. I took a chair and he sat on the edge of the bed, which hadn’t been made.

  “I just got something in the mail,” he said, “and I’m not sure what to do with it. I could give it to the police, but I don’t want to. The ones I’ve seen haven’t impressed me. Do you know a Lieutenant Rowcliff?”

  �
�I sure do. You can have him.”

  “I don’t want him. Then there’s those advertising men with Dahlmann at that meeting, that’s where I met them, but I’ve seen them since, and they don’t impress me either. I was going to phone a man I know in Chicago, a lawyer, but it would take a lot of explaining on the phone, the whole mess. So I thought of you. You know all about it, and when you were here the other day I offered you a drink. When I offer a man a drink without thinking, that’s a good sign. I can go by that as well as anything. I’ve got to do something about this and do it quick, and the first thing is to show it to you and see what you say.”

  He took an envelope from his pocket, looked at it, looked at me, and handed it over. I inspected the envelope of ordinary cheap white paper, which had jagged edges where it had been torn open. Typewritten address to Mr. Philip Younger, Churchill Hotel. No return address front or back. Three-cent stamp, postmarked Grand Central Station 11:00 PM APR 17 1955. It contained a single sheet of folded paper, and I took it out and unfolded it. It was medium-grade sulphide bond, with nothing printed on it, but with plenty of something typewritten. It was headed at the top in caps: ANSWERS TO THE FIVE VERSES DISTRIBUTED ON APRIL 12TH. Below were the names of five women, with a brief commentary on each. I kept my face deadpan as I ran over them and saw that they were the real McCoy.

  “Well,” I said, “this is interesting. What is it, a gag?”

  “That’s the trouble—or one trouble. I’m not sure. I think it’s the real answers, but I don’t know. I’d have to go to a library and check. I was going to, and then I thought this is dynamite, and I thought of you. Isn’t that the first—hey, I want that! That’s mine!”