by Rex Stout
“I don’t think. I don’t know you. I don’t know anything.”
“I know him,” the father said. He was looking at Wolfe. “He wanted to come here because he thought… what he said. I didn’t know what to think, but I was afraid. I was mortally afraid that I was responsible. Now perhaps I wasn’t; I can hope I wasn’t. And I wanted to come for another reason. They are going to arrest him. They think he killed her. They are going to charge him with murder. We need your help.”
Wolfe tightened his lips.
Whipple went on. “I came and asked your help when I shouldn’t have. That was wrong, and I bitterly regret it. I thought at the time I was justified, but I wasn’t. I hated to tell my son about it, but I had to. He had to know. Now I must ask your help. Now it would be right for me to remind you of that speech. ‘But if you shield him because he is your color there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate-’”
“That’s enough,” Wolfe snapped. “It isn’t pertinent. It has no bearing on the present situation.”
“Not directly. But you persuaded me to help you by prescribing adherence to the agreements of human society. I was an ignorant boy, immature, and you tricked me-I don’t complain, it was a legitimate trick. I don’t say this is analogous, but you had a problem and asked me to help, and I have one and I’m asking you to help. My son is going to be charged with murder.”
Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “They have questioned him for hours and aren’t holding him.”
“They will. When they’re ready.”
“Then he will need a lawyer.”
“He’ll need more than a lawyer. The way it looks. He’ll need you.”
“You may be exaggerating his jeopardy.” Wolfe went to Dunbar. “Are you under control, Mr. Whipple?”
“No, I’m not,” he said.
“I’ll try you anyway. You said they think you killed her. Is that merely your fancy or has it a basis?”
“They think it has a basis, but it hasn’t.”
“That begs the question. I’ll try again. Why do they think it has a basis?”
“Because I was there. Because she and I-we were friends. Because she was white and I’m black. Because of the billy, the club that killed her.”
Wolfe grunted. “You’ll have to elucidate. First the club. Was it yours?”
“I had it. It’s a club that had been used by a policeman in a town in Alabama to beat up two colored boys. I got it-it doesn’t matter how I got it, I had it. I had had it on my desk at the office for several months.”
“Was it on your desk yesterday?”
“No. Susan-” He stopped.
“Yes?”
Dunbar looked at his father and back at Wolfe. “I don’t know why I stopped. I’ve told all this to the police, I knew I had to, because it was known. Miss Brooke had rented and furnished a little apartment on One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street, and the club was there. She had taken it there.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
“Have the police found your fingerprints on it?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I think it had been wiped.”
“Why do you think it had been wiped?”
“Because they didn’t say definitely that it had my fingerprints on it.”
Fair enough. Apparently he had got control. Answering questions will often do that.
“A reasonable assumption,” Wolfe conceded. “So much for the means. As for the opportunity, you were there, but there is the question of your prior movements yesterday, say from noon on. Of course the police went into that thoroughly. Tell me briefly. I am examining the official assumption that you killed her.”
Dunbar was sitting straighter. “At noon I was at my desk in the office. At a quarter to one I met two men at a restaurant for lunch. I was back at the office a little before three. At four o’clock I went to a conference in the office of Mr. Henchy, the executive director. It ended a little after six, and when I went to my room there was a message on my desk. Miss Brooke and I had arranged to meet at the apartment at eight o’clock, and the message was that she had phoned that she couldn’t get there until nine or a little later. That was convenient for me because I had a dinner engagement with one of the men who had been at the conference. It was twenty-five minutes past eight when we parted at the subway entrance on Forty-second Street, and it was five minutes past nine when I got to One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street and entered.”
“And discovered the body.”
“Yes.”
Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Will it jar you to tell me what you did?”
“No. She was there on the floor. There was blood, and I got some on my hands and my sleeve. For a while, I don’t know how long, I didn’t do anything. The club was there on a chair. I didn’t touch it. There was no use getting a doctor. I sat on the bed and tried to think, to decide what to do. I suppose you think that wasn’t natural, with her there dead on the floor, for me to be worrying about me. Maybe it wasn’t, but that’s what I did. You wouldn’t ever understand because you’re white.”
“Pfui. You’re a man, and so am I.”
“That’s what you say. Words. I knew I had to face it or do something with-with it. I would have, too, but I just barely had sense enough to know I wouldn’t get away with it. It couldn’t be done. I went and looked in the phone book for the number of police headquarters and dialed it. That was at twenty minutes to ten. I had been there over half an hour.”
“The delay was ill-advised but explicable. You have come to grief, certainly, but a murder charge? What will they do for motive?”
Dunbar stared. “You don’t mean that. A Negro and a white girl?”
“Nonsense. New York isn’t Utopia, but neither is it Dixie.”
“That’s right. In Dixie I wouldn’t be sitting in a fine big room telling a famous detective about it. Here in New York they’re more careful about it; they take their time. But about motive, with a Negro they take motive for granted. He’s a shine, he’s a mistake, he was born with motives white men don’t have. It may be nonsense, but it’s the way it is.”
“With the scum, yes. With dolts and idiots.”
“With everybody. Lots of them don’t know it. Most of them up here wouldn’t say that word, nigger, but they’ve got that word in them. Everybody. It’s in them buried somewhere, but it’s not dead. Some of them don’t know they’ve got it and they wouldn’t believe it, but it’s there. That’s what I knew I’d have to face when I sat there on the bed last night and tried to decide what to do.”
“And you made the right decision. Disposing of the body, however ingeniously, would have been fatal.” Wolfe shook his head. “As for your comments about that word, nigger, its special significance for you distorts your understanding. Consider the words that are buried in you but not dead. Consider even the ones that are not buried, that you use: for instance, ‘fat ape.’ May I assume that a man who resembles an ape, or one who is fat, or both, could not expect just treatment or consideration from you? Certainly not. The mind or soul or psyche-take the term you prefer-of any man below the level of consciousness is a preposterous mismash of cesspool and garden. Heaven only knows what I have in mine as synonyms for ‘woman’; I’m glad I don’t know.”
He turned to the father. “Mr. Whipple. The best service I could render you, and your son, would be to feed you. Say an omelet with mushrooms and watercress. Twenty minutes. Do you like watercress?”
Whipple blinked his bleary eyes. “Then you’re not going to help us.”
“There’s nothing I can do. I can’t fend the blow; it has landed. Your assumption that your son will be charged with murder is probably illusory. You’re distraught.”
Whipple’s mouth twitched. “Mushrooms and watercress. No, thank you.” His hand went inside his jacket and came out with a checkfold. He opened it. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. I o
wed you.”
“Mr. Goodwin’s trip. To Racine.”
“You didn’t authorize it. I sent him.” Wolfe pushed his chair back and stood up. “You will excuse me. I have an appointment. I’m sorry I undertook that job; it was frivolous. And I deplore your misfortune.” He headed for the door.
He was fudging. It was 3:47, and his afternoon session in the plant rooms was from four to six.
5
Fifty hours went by.
Like you and everyone else, I have various sources of information about what goes on: newspapers, magazines, radio, television, taxicab drivers, random talk here and there, friends, and enemies. I also have two special ones: Lon Cohen, confidential assistant to the publisher of the Gazette, and a woman who is on intimate terms, not familial, with a certain highly distinguished citizen, for whom I once did a big favor. But the news of the arrest of Dunbar Whipple came from none of those sources; it came from Inspector Cramer of Homicide South, whom I couldn’t exactly call an enemy and wouldn’t presume to call a friend
During the two days I had not only read the newspapers but had also phoned Lon Cohen a couple of times to ask if there was anything hot about the Susan Brooke murder that wasn’t being printed. There wasn’t, unless you would call it hot that her brother Kenneth had socked an assistant district attorney on the beak, or that there was nothing to the rumor that it was being hushed up that she had been pregnant. She hadn’t been. Of course a lot was being printed: that her handbag, on a table in the apartment, had had more than a hundred dollars in it; that an expensive gold pin had been on her dress and a ring with a big emerald had been on her finger (I had seen the ring); that she had bought a bottle of wine at a package store, and several items at a delicatessen, shortly before eight o’clock; that her mother was prostrated and inaccessible; that everyone at the ROCC had been or was being questioned; and so on. The News came out ahead on shots of Susan Brooke, with one in a bikini on a Puerto Rico beach, but the Gazette had the best one of Dunbar Whipple. Handsome and jaunty.
I wasn’t surprised when, at 6:03 Thursday afternoon, Inspector Cramer showed. I had been expecting him or Sergeant Purley Stebbins, or at least a phone call, since Wednesday noon, when Lily Rowan had phoned to tell me she had had an official caller. Of course they had done a routine check on Susan Brooke’s recent activities, of course someone at the ROCC had told them about her lunch with Miss Lily Rowan and Lily’s contribution to the cause, of course they had called on Miss Rowan, and of course Lily had told the caller about me, since someone else would-for instance, the hallman-if she didn’t. So I had been expecting company, and when the doorbell rang and I saw Cramer’s burly figure and round red face and battered old felt hat on the stoop, I went and opened up and said, peeved, “You took your time. We’ve been expecting you for days.”
He spoke to me as he entered. Sometimes he doesn’t; he just tramps down the hall. The fact that he spoke, and even thanked me for taking his hat and coat, showed that he had come not to claim but to ask. When he entered the office, naturally he didn’t offer a hand, since he knows that Wolfe is not a shaker, but before he lowered his fanny onto the red leather chair he uttered a polite greeting and actually made a try at being sociable by asking, “And how are the orchids?”
Wolfe’s brows went up. “Passable, thank you. A pot of Miltonia roezli has fourteen scapes.”
“Is that so.” Cramer sat and pulled his feet in. “Busy? Am I interrupting something?”
“No, sir.”
“No case and no client?”
“Yes. None.”
“I thought possibly you were on a job for Dunbar Whipple. I thought possibly he hired you when he was here Tuesday with his father.”
“No. It didn’t seem to me that he was sufficiently menaced to require my services.”
Cramer nodded. “That’s possible. It’s also possible that it seemed to you he was a murderer, so you bowed out. I say ‘bowed out’ because you did have a client. His father.”
“Did I?”
“Sure. We know all about that, including Goodwin’s trip to Racine. Since you’re out of it, I might as well be frank. He’s at the district attorney’s office and when he leaves he’ll be taken to a cell. He’ll be formally charged in the morning. I’ll-”
“Murder?”
“Yes. I’ll frankly admit that if you had told me you had taken him on I would have expected answers to a lot of questions, and Goodwin would have been wanted downtown. Now he may not have to go.” He turned to me. “In your check on Susan Brooke, what did you find out about her relations with Dunbar Whipple?”
I looked at Wolfe. He shook his head and looked at Cramer. “If you please. Is the decision definite to hold Dunbar Whipple without bail on a murder charge?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”
“Has he a lawyer?”
“Yes. He’s at the district attorney’s office now.
“His name, please?”
“Why?”
Wolfe turned a palm up. “Must I get it from the morning paper?”
Cramer turned both palms up. “Harold R. Oster. A Negro. Counsel for the Rights of Citizens Committee.”
Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie, get Mr. Parker.”
I got the phone. I didn’t have to consult the book for either of the numbers, office or home, of Nathaniel Parker, the member of the bar. Knowing he was often at his office after hours I tried that one first and got him. Wolfe took his phone, and I stayed on.
“Mr. Parker? I need some information confidentially. You will not be quoted. Do you know a lawyer named Harold R. Oster?”
“I know of him. I’ve met him. He’s with the Rights of Citizens Committee. He handles civil rights cases.”
“Yes. How efficient would he be as counsel for a man charged with murder?”
“Oh.” Pause. “Dunbar Whipple?”
“Yes.”
“Are you on that?”
“I merely want information.”
“You usually do. Well… confidentially, I would say no. He has ability, no doubt of that, but in my opinion he might take a wrong line in a case where-a Negro killing a white woman. I mean charged with killing her. If I were Dunbar Whipple, I would want a different kind of man. Of course I may be completely wrong, but-”
“Enough, Mr. Parker, wrong or not. Thank you. You won’t be quoted.” Wolfe hung up and turned. “Archie. Did Dunbar Whipple kill Susan Brooke?”
I know him so well. Anyone might suppose he was showing off to Cramer, showing him how eccentric and unique he was, but no. He merely wanted to know what I would say. If we had been alone I would have told him that one would get him ten that Dunbar was innocent, but with Cramer there I preferred to skip the odds.
“No,” I said.
He nodded. “Get Mr. Whipple.”
Before turning to the phone I shot a glance at Cramer. Chin down, eyes narrowed, and lips tight, he was glued to Wolfe. He knows him fairly well too, and he suspected what was coming.
It would have cramped Wolfe’s style a little if Whipple hadn’t been at home, but he was. He answered the phone. I started to tell him that Mr. Wolfe wanted to speak to him, but Wolfe was at his phone and cut in.
“This is Nero Wolfe, Mr. Whipple. Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I owe you an apology. You were right, and I was wrong. I have just learned that your son is being held on a charge of murder. I am convinced that the charge is unfounded. If you want my services on your son’s behalf, I offer them without fee. My previous undertaking to discharge my obligation to you was fatuous; I should have said no. Now I say yes.”
Silence. Then: “His lawyer phoned an hour ago that he would probably be home by eight o’clock.”
“His lawyer was wrong. I have more accurate information. Do you accept my offer?”
“Yes. Of course. We’ll pay all we can.”
“You’ll pay nothing. My self-esteem needs repairs. But there’s a question: the approval of your
son and his lawyer.”
“They’ll approve. I know they will. But how did you learn-are you sure…”
“Yes. A policeman is sitting here in the chair you sat in. When you have the approval of your son and his lawyer, let me know and I’ll proceed. I must talk with you and the lawyer.”
“Of course. I knew this-I knew it would happen, but now that-now that-”
“Yes. Some time has been lost. Let me know.” He hung up and swiveled.
Cramer asked, cold and slow, “What kind of a goddam play is this?”
Wolfe pinched his nose. “I believe I have never told you of an experience I had years ago at a place in West Virginia. I wanted to leave and come home, and I wanted a certain favoc from a certain man. A young colored man made it possible for me to realize both desires. His name was Paul Whipple. I hadn’t seen him since until ten days ago-no, eleven. Now I’ll even the score.”
“The hell you will. You can’t possibly know that Dunbar Whipple didn’t kill that girl. The only way you could know that would be if you thought you knew who did kill her.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea who killed her.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s obvious that when Goodwin was checking on her he dug up something that you intend to use to pull one of your goddam fancy stunts. You’re not going to. I told you that if you had taken him on Goodwin would have been wanted downtown, and now I’m telling you that I’m taking you too. To the district attorney.” He rose. “If you want it done right, you’re under arrest as material witness. Come on.”
Wolfe, in no hurry, put his hands on the desk rim to push his chair back, arose, and got the edge of his vest between thumbs and forefingers to pull it down. “We shall of course stand mute and get bail tomorrow. May we have two minutes to call Mr. Parker? Get him, Archie.”
I slanted my eyes up at Cramer, waiting politely for permission, since I was under arrest. He stood and breathed for ten seconds. He spoke. “You told Whipple that the charge against his son is unfounded. Let’s hear you reply to what I said, that if you say Dunbar Whipple didn’t kill her you think you know who did.”