by Rex Stout
"And I just sit here? What's the idea, do you think those gorillas are coming back? I don't. They're not even watching the front. What was the matter with leaving Fred and Johnny here and letting me go to Fifty-fifth Street to do my own scouting? That might have been sensible, if you want me to see Mike Walsh by seven o'clock. All I'm suggesting is a little friendly chat. I've heard you admit you've got lots of bad habits, but the worst one is the way you dig up odd facts out of phone calls and other sources when my back is turned and then expect me…" I waved a hand.
Wolfe said, "Nonsense. When have my expectations of you ventured beyond your capacity?"
"Never. How could they? But, for instance, if it's so important for me to see Mike Walsh it might be a good idea for me to know why, unless you want him wrapped up and brought here."
Wolfe shook his head. "Not that, I think. I'll inform you, Archie. In good time." He reached out and touched the button, then sighed and pushed the tray away. "As for my sending Johnny and letting you sit here, you may be needed. While you were out Mr. Muir telephoned to ask if he might call here at half past two. It is that now-"
"The devil he did. Muir?"
"Yes. Mr. Ramsey Muir. And as for my keeping you in ignorance of facts, you already interfere so persistently with my mental processes that I am disinclined to furnish you further grounds for speculation. In the present case you know the general situation as well as I do. Chiefly you lack patience, and my exercise of it infuriates you. If I know who killed Harlan Scovil since talking with Mr. Lindquist over long distance I think I do- why do I not act at once? Firstly because I require confirmation, and secondly because our primary interest in this case is not the solution of a murder but the collection of a debt. If I expect to get the confirmation I require from Mr. Walsh, why do I not get him at once, secure my confirmation, and let the police have him? Because the course they would probably take, after beating his story out of him, would make it difficult to collect from Lord Clivers, and would greatly complicate the matter of clearing Miss Fox of the larceny charge. We have three separate goals to reach, and since it will be necessary to arrive at all of them simultaneously-but there is the doorbell. Mr. Muir is three minutes late."
I went to the hall and took a look through the panel. Sure enough, it was Muir. I opened up and let him in. From the way he stepped over the door sill and snapped out that he wanted to see Wolfe, it was fairly plain that he was mad as hell. He had on a brown plaid topcoat cut by a tailor that was out of my class, but twenty-five years too young for him, and apparently he wasn't taking it off. I motioned him ahead of me into the office and introduced him, and allowed myself a polite grin when I saw that he wasn't shaking hands any more than Wolfe was. I pushed a chair around and he sat with his hat on his knees.
Wolfe said, "Your secretary, on the telephone, seemed not to know what you wished to see me about. My surmise was, your charge against Miss Clara Fox. You understand of course that I am representing Miss Fox."
"Yes. I understand that."
"Well, sir?"
The bones of Muir's face seemed to show, and his ears seemed to point forward, more than they had the day before. He kept his lips pressed together and his jaw was working from side to side as if all this emotion in his old age was nearly too much for him. I remembered how he had looked at Clara Fox the day before and thought it was remarkable that he could keep his digestion going with all the stew there must have been inside of him.
He said, "I have come here at the insistence of Mr. Perry." His voice trembled a little, and when he stopped his jaw slid around. "I want you to understand that I know she took that money. She is the only one who could have taken it. It was found in her car." He stopped a little to control his jaw. "Mr. Perry told me of your threat to sue for damages. The insinuation in it is contemptible. What kind of a blackguard are you, to protect a thief by hinting calumnies against men who… men above suspicion?"
He paused and compressed his lips. Wolfe murmured, "Well, go on. I don't answer questions containing two or more unsupported assumptions."
I don't think Muir heard him; he was only hearing himself and trying not to blow up. He said, "I'm here only for one reason, for the sake of the Seaboard Products Corporation. And not on account of your dirty threat either. That's not where the dirt is in the Seaboard Products Corporation that has got to be concealed." His voice trembled again- "It's the fact that the president of the corporation has to satisfy his personal sensual appetite by saving a common thief from what she deserves! That's why she can laugh at me! That's why she can stand behind your dirty threats! Because she knows what Perry wants, and she knows how-"
"Mr. Muir!" Wolfe snapped at him. "I wouldn't talk like that if I were you. It's so futile. Surely you didn't come here to persuade me that Mr. Perry has a sensual appetite."
Muir made a movement and his hat rolled from his knees to the floor, but he paid no attention to it. His movement was for the purpose of getting his hand into his inside breast pocket, from which he withdrew a square manila envelope. He looked in it and fingered around and took out a small photograph, glanced at it, and handed it to Wolfe. "There," he said, "look at that."
Wolfe did so, and passed it to me. It was a snapshot of Clara Fox and Anthony D. Perry seated in a convertible coupe with the top down. I laid it on the edge of the desk and Muir picked it up and returned it to the envelope. His jaw was moving. He said, "I have more than thirty of them. A dectective took them for me. Perry doesn't know I have them. I want to make it clear to you that she deserves -.. that she has a hold on him…"
Wolfe put up a hand. "I'm afraid I must interrupt you again, Mr. Muir. I don't like photographs of automobiles. You say that Mr. Perry insisted on your coming here. I'll have to insist on your telling me what for."
"But you understand-"
"No. I won't listen. I understand enough. Perhaps I had better put a question or two. Is it true that you have recovered all of the missing money?"
Muir glared at him. "You know we have. It was found under the back seat of her car."
"But if that was her car in the photograph, it has no back seat."
"She bought a new one in August. The photograph was taken in July. I suppose Perry bought it. Her salary is higher than any other woman in our organization."
"Splendid. But about the money. If you have it back, why are you determined to prosecute?"
"Why shouldn't we prosecute? Because she's guilty! She took it from my desk, knowing that Perry would protect her! With her body, with her Qesh, with her surrender-"
"No, Mr. Muir." Wolfe's hand was up again. "Please. I put the question wrong, I shouldn't have asked why. I want to know, are you determined to prosecute?"
Muir clamped his lips. He opened them, and clamped them again. At last he spoke, "We were. I was."
"Was? Are you still?"
No reply. "Are you still, Mr. Muir?"
"I… no."
"Indeed." Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "You are prepared to withdraw the charge?"
"Yes… under certain circumstances."
"What circumstances?"
"I want to see her." Muir stopped because his voice was trembling again. "I have promised Perry that I will withdraw the charge provided I can see her, alone, and tell her myself." He sat up and his jaw tightened. "That… those are the circumstances."
Wolfe looked at him a moment and then leaned back. He sighed. "I think possibly that can be arranged. But you must first sign a statement exonerating her."
"Before I see her?"
"Yes."
"No. I see her first." Muir's lips worked. "I must see her and tell her myself. If I had already signed a statement, she wouldn't… no. I won't do that."
"But you can't see her first." Wolfe sounded patient. "There is a warrant in force against her, sworn to by you. I do not suspect you of treachery, I merely protect my client. You say that you have promised Mr. Perry that you will withdraw the charge. Do so. Mr. Goodwin will type the statement, you will sign it, and
I will arrange a meeting with Miss Fox later in the day."
Muir was shaking his head. He muttered, "No. No… I won't." All at once he broke loose worse than he had in Perry's office the day before. He jumped up and banged his hand on the desk and leaned over at Wolfe. "I tell you I must see her! You damn blackguard, you've got her here! What for? What do you get out of it? What do you and Perry…"
I had a good notion to slap him one, but of course he was too old and too little. Wolfe, leaning back, opened his eyes to look at him and then closed them. Muir went on raving. I got out of my chair and told him to sit down, and he began yelling at me, something about how I had looked at her in Perry's office yesterday. That sounded as if he might really be going to have a fit, so I took a step and got hold of his shoulders with a fairly good grip and persuaded him into his chair, and he shut up as suddenly as he had started and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping his face with his hand trembling.
As he did that and I stepped back, the doorbell rang. I wasn't sure about leaving Wolfe there alone with a maniac, but when I didn't move he lifted his brows at me, so I went to see who the customer was.
I looked through the panel. It was a rugged-looking guy well past middle age in a loose-hanging tweed suit, with a red face, straight eyebrows over tired gray eyes, and no lobe on his right ear. Even without the ear I would have recognized him from the Times picture. I opened the door and asked him, what he wanted and he said in a wounded tone, "I'd like to see Mr. Nero Wolfe. Lord Clivers."
XII
I NODDED. "Right. Hop the sill."
I proceeded to tax the brain. Before I go on to describe that, I'll make a confession. I had not till that moment seriously entertained the idea that the Marquis of Clivers had killed Harlan Scovil. And why not? Because like most other people, and maybe especially Americans, there was a sneaky feeling in me that men with noble titles didn't do things like that. Besides, this bird had just been to Washington and had lunch at the White House, which cinched it that he wasn't a murderer. As a matter of fact, I suspect that noblemen and people who eat lunch at the White House commit more than their share of murders compared to their numerical strength in the total population. Anyhow, looking at this one in the Sesh, and reflecting that he carried a pistol and knew how to use one, and considering how well he was fixed in the way of motive, and realizing that since Harlan Scovil had been suspicious enough to make an advance call on Nero Wolfe he might easily have done the same on the Marquis of Clivers, I revised some of the opinions I had been forming. It looked wide open to me.
That flashed through my mind. Also, as I disposed of his hat and stick and gloves for him, I wondered if it might be well to arrange a little confrontation between Muir and the marquis, but I didn't like to decide that myself. So I escorted him to a seat in the front room, telling him Wolfe was engaged, and then returned to the hall and wrote on a piece of paper, "Old man Clivers," and went to the office and handed the paper to Wolfe.
Wolfe glanced at it, looked at me, and winked his right eye. I sat down. Muir was talking, much calmer but just as stubborn. They passed it back and forth for a couple of minutes without getting anywhere, until Wolfe said, "Futile, Mr. Muir. I won't do it. Tell Mr. Perry that I shall proceed with the program I announced to him this morning. That's final. I'll accept nothing less than complete and unconditional exoneration of my client. Good day, sir. I have a caller waiting."
Muir stood up. He wasn't trembling, and his jaw seemed to be back in place, but he looked about as friendly as Mussolini talking to the world. He didn't say anything. He shot me a mean glance and looked at Wolfe for half a minute without blinking, and then stooped to pick up his hat and straightened up and steered for the door. I followed and let him out, and stood on the stoop a second watching him start off down the sidewalk as if he had half a jag on. He was like the mule in the story that kept running into trees; he wasn't blind, he was just so mad he didn't give a damn.
I stood shaking my head more in anger than in pity, and then went back to the office and said to Wolfe, "I would say you hit bottom that time. He's staggering. If you called that foxy, what would you say if you saw a rat?"
Wolfe nodded faintly. I resumed, "I showed you that paper because I thought you might deem it advisable to let Clivers and Muir see each other. Unexpected like that, it might have been interesting. It's my social instinct."
"No doubt. But this is a detective bureau, not a fashionable salon. Nor a menagerie- since Mr. Muir is plainly a lecherous hyena. Bring Lord Clivers."
I went through the connecting door to the front room, and Clivers looked around, surprised at my entering from a new direction. He was jumpy. I pointed him ahead and he stopped on the threshold and glanced around before venturing in. Then he moved spryly enough and walked over to the desk. Wolfe took him in with his eyes half shut, and nodded.
"How do you do, sir." Wolfe indicated the chair Muir had just vacated. "Be seated."
Clivers did a slow-motion circle. He turned all the way around, encompassing with his eyes the bookshelves, the wall maps, the Holbein reproductions, more bookshelves, the three-foot globe on its stand, the engraving of Brillat-Savarin, more bookshelves, the picture of Sherlock Holmes above my desk. Then he sat down and looked at me with a frown and pointed a thumb at me.
"This young man," he said.
Wolfe said, "My confidential assistant, Mr. Goodwin. There would be no point in sending him out, for he would merely find a point of vantage we have prepared, and set down what he heard."
"The devil he would." Clivers laughed three short blasts, haw-haw-haw, and gave me up. He transferred the frown to Wolfe. "I received your letter about that horse. It's preposterous."
Wolfe nodded. "I agree with you. All debts are preposterous. They are the envious past clutching with its cold dead fingers the throat of the living present."
"Eh?" Clivers stared at him. "What kind of talk is that? Rot. What I mean to say is, two hundred thousand pounds for a horse. And uncollectible."
"Surely not." Wolfe sighed. He leaned forward to press the button for Fritz, and back again. "The best argument against you is your presence here. If it is uncollectible, why did you come? Will you have some beer?"
"What kind of beer?"
"American. Potable."
"I'll try it. I came because my nephew gave me to understand that if I wanted to see you I would have to come. I wanted to see you because I had to learn if you are a swindler or a dupe."
"My dear sir." Wolfe lifted his brows. "No other alternatives? Another glass and bottle, Fritz." He opened his and poured. "But you seem to be a direct man. Let's not get mired in irrelevancies. Frankly, I am relieved. I feared that you might even dispute the question of identity and create a lot of unnecessary trouble."
"Dispute identity?" Clivers glared. "Why the devil should I?"
"You shouldn't, but I thought you might. You were, forty years ago in Silver City, Nevada, known as George Rowley?"
"Certainly I was. Thanks, I'll pour it myself."
"Good." Wolfe drank, and wiped his lips. "I think we should get along. I am aware that Mr. Lindquist's claim against you has no legal standing on account of the expiration of time. The same is true of the claim of various others; besides, the paper you signed which originally validated it is not available. But it is a sound and demonstrable moral obligation, and I calculated that rather than have that fact shown in open court you would prefer to pay. It would be an unusual case and would arouse much public interest.
Not only are you a peer of England, you are in this country on an important and delicate diplomatic mission, and therefore such publicity would be especially undesirable. Would you not rather pay what you owe, or at least a fraction of it, than permit the publicity? I calculated that you would. Do you find the beer tolerable?"
Clivers put down his glass and licked his lips. "It'll do." He screwed up his mouth and looked at Wolfe. "By God, you know, you might mean that."
"Verily, sir."
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br /> "Yes, by God, you might. I'll tell you what I thought. I thought you were basing the claim on that horse with the pretense that it was additional to the obligation I assumed when I signed that paper. The horse wasn't mentioned in the paper. Not a bad idea, an excellent go at blackmail. It all sounds fantastic now, but it wasn't then. If I hadn't signed that paper and if it hadn't been for that horse I would have had a noose around my neck. Not so damn pleasant, eh? And of course that's what you're doing, claiming extra for the horse. But it's preposterous. Two hundred thousand pounds for a horse? I'll pay a thousand."
Wolfe shook his head. "I dislike haggling. Equally I dislike quibbling. The total claim is in question, and you know it. I represent not only Mr. and Miss Lindquist but also the daughter of Gilbert Fox, and indirectly Mr. Walsh; and I was to have represented Mr. Scovil, who was murdered last evening." He shook his head again. "No, Lord Clivers. In my letter I based the claim on the horse only because the paper you signed is not available. It is the total claim we are discussing, and, strictly speaking, that would mean half of your entire wealth. As I said, my clients are willing to accept a fraction."