by Rex Stout
So back in the office after dinner Wolfe put his coffee cup down and said, “Four days and nights of nothingness,” and I put mine down and said, “No argument.”
“Confound it,” Wolfe said, “ask questions.”
“If there were any good ones,” I said, “you would ask them yourself. All right, Jill Hardy. Why did she want my arms around her? Because she had killed Isabel Kerr and was going to confess and wanted to soften me up but Cramer interrupted?”
“I don’t want chaff. I want a question.”
“So do I. Stella Fleming. She is subject to fits, for instance going for me with claws. But if she had one Saturday morning and killed her sister, would she have gone back that evening and got the superintendent to let her in so she could discover the body? I don’t believe it. A thousand to one.”
“Negative,” he muttered. “Something positive.”
“Try this. Barry Fleming. Why did he invite me in, knowing how his wife was? Because I had told him we were going to clear Orrie, and he wanted to find out if we knew or suspected that he had killed Isabel. That’s positive.”
“But vain without a motive.”
“Oh, if you want motive. Mrs. Ballou. Her chat with me was a production. She’s really a hellcat and nuts about her husband. Boiling with jealousy. Only in that case I’m a sap and you’ll have to fire me.”
“I’ll consider it. Mr. Ballou.”
I shook my head. “Your turn. You had him.”
“I reject him, provisionally. Cracking that woman’s skull with an ashtray was an act of passion, not within his compass. There is a question: why would he like to know when Orrie first heard his name? Why is it not important now but still he would like to know?”
I shook my head again. “We’d better skip that. Probably curiosity as to whether it coincided with a change he noticed in the way she reacted to Kipling and Service and London. That wouldn’t interest you. I agree on his compass. All right, Miss Jackson. She’s yours too, you wished her well.”
“No. Yours.”
“Thank you. There is nothing she couldn’t and wouldn’t do if it appealed to her. But if she had any reason for wanting Isabel dead I would have to see it in color, with sound. Talking with ten of their mutual friends, Saul or Fred would surely have got a hint, especially Saul. And they didn’t. Anyway, she’s crossed off since you wished her well. So we’re down to Dr. Gamm.”
“Pfui.”
“I agree. We’re down to nothing. You told us Sunday evening that we have never had less, and you can say it again. Not a sign of a crack anywhere. I was thinking during dinner, while you were commenting on what they intend to do to Ellis Island, that maybe you should make a deal with Cramer. I mean it. His scientists didn’t miss an inch of that apartment, and there’s a chance that whoever killed her left his prints somewhere, at least one. They latched on to Orrie so fast that they have probably filed other possibilities. Offer to trade Cramer all we have for all the prints they got. With your word of honor, which he knows is good. It wouldn’t sink Orrie any deeper, and it just might give us a lead. As it stands, there isn’t one single damn item on the program for tomorrow.”
His jaw was set. “No,” he said.
“No what? If you prefer -”
The doorbell rang. I went, took a look, stuck my head back in, and said, “Mr. Ballou. He doesn’t look jaunty.”
Chapter 10
If Avery Ballou had somehow dropped all his stack, and had been kicked out of his job as president of the Federal Holding Corporation, he wouldn’t have starved. I have never seen a neater job of wrapping and taping than he had done on the little package he put on Wolfe’s desk before he sat down. Any shipping room in town would have grabbed him. I am assuming that he had done it himself on account of what was in it, but I admit it might have been packaged at the bank. The seams in his face were deeper than ever, and he looked as tired as his wife had felt. Seated, he lowered his head and rubbed his brow with a palm, slowly back and forth. On Tuesday that had been followed by a request for a drink, but now apparently he was beyond that. He raised his head, pulled his shoulders up, looked at Wolfe, and said, “You said I couldn’t hire you or pay you.”
“And told you why,” Wolfe said.
“I know. But the situation is – I want you to reconsider it.” He turned to me. “You said you could find out when that man Cather learned my name. Have you?”
I shook my head. “You said it isn’t important now.”
“You also said it could have been as long as four months ago.”
“Right. I said ‘certainly.’ Or eight months, or ten.”
“Four is enough.” He returned to Wolfe. “I know you have had a wide experience, but you may not realize the absolute necessity of good repute for a man of my standing. Byron wrote ‘The glory and the nothing of a name,’ but he was a poet. A poet can take liberties that are fatal to a man like me. As I think I told you, I took great precautions when I visited Miss Kerr. No one who ever saw me enter or leave that building could possibly have recognized me. I had full reliance on her discretion; I was more than liberal with her, financially. I was completely certain that nobody whatever knew of my… diversion.”
He stopped, apparently inviting comment. Wolfe obliged. “You should know that your only safe secrets are those you have yourself forgotten.”
He nodded. “I now suspect that there are many things I should know that I don’t know. My reliance on Miss Kerr was misplaced. I was a fool. I should have known that she might… form an attachment. I assume she did, with Cather? She became attached to him?”
Wolfe turned to me. “Archie?”
“She burned,” I told Ballou. “She wanted to marry him.”
“I see. I was a fool. But that explains why she told him my name, and that’s important. She was discreet, but of course with him there was no discretion. Doesn’t that follow?”
He wanted an answer, and Wolfe supplied it. “Yes.”
“Then he knew my name, but no one else did. Then he’s a scoundrel and a blackmailer. I have been paying him a thousand dollars a month for four months. Almost certainly he is also a murderer. He killed her. I don’t know why he killed her, but he’s a scoundrel.”
Wolfe’s eyes came to me, and I met them. I put one brow up. His eyes went back to Ballou. “Why the devil,” he demanded, “didn’t you tell me this before? Two days ago.”
“I didn’t see it then. Not as I do now, after considering it. You had given me a bad jolt. And you had said that Cather didn’t kill her. I think he did. He’s a blackguard. I think he’ll be tried and convicted, and that’s why I’m here. You said the other day that if he is tried my name will inevitably be divulged, and that must not happen. My name connected not merely with a diversion but with a sensational murder – it must not happen.” He pointed to the package he had put on Wolfe’s desk. “That parcel contains fifty thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills. You told me the other day that you were committed, but you don’t have to stay committed to a blackmailer and a murderer.”
He took a breath. “That fifty thousand is just a retainer. I’m in a tougher trap than I realized, and I have to get out, no matter what it costs. I admit I don’t see how it can be done, but you know Cather and you’ll know how to deal with him. I’m not asking or expecting anything crooked. If they have the evidence to try him and convict him, all right, that’s the law. But my name must not appear. You said that, since no one has called on me, my name isn’t in that diary, and also evidently Cather hasn’t mentioned my name to the police. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes.” Wolfe was pinching his lip with a thumbtip and a fingertip. “You’re going much too fast, Mr. Ballou. I concede that I don’t have to stay committed to a blackmailer and a murderer, but am I? I need to know more. Describe the man you paid the money to.”
“I have never seen him. I mailed it to him.”
“When and how did he demand it?”
“On the telephone. One evening in September,
at my home, I was told that a man who gave his name as Robert Service Kipling wished to speak to me. Of course I took the phone. He told me that he didn’t have to explain why he used that name and told me to go to a nearby drugstore and be at the booth at ten o’clock and answer the phone when it rang. You will understand why I went. At ten o’clock the phone rang in the booth, and I answered it. It was the same voice. It isn’t necessary to tell you what he said. He said enough to convince me that he knew of my visits to that apartment and their purpose. He said he had no desire to interfere with them, and he thought I should show my appreciation for his cooperation. He told me to mail him ten hundred-dollar bills the next day, and the same amount on the fifteenth of each month. I said I would.”
He rubbed his brow with a palm. “I know it is wrong, on principle, to submit to blackmail. But the threat was not exposure, he didn’t say he had evidence in his possession, he merely made it plain that I would have to pay him or stop going there. He wouldn’t answer my questions, how had he learned my name, but obviously he hadn’t merely seen me and recognized me, from things he said. Just his giving his name as Robert Service Kipling would have been enough for that. I mailed the money the next day, and each month since. I simply preferred to pay him rather than give it up. Now I know. Unquestionably it was Cather. Miss Kerr had told him.”
Wolfe nodded. “A reasonable conjecture, but that’s all. His name and address, for mailing?”
“It was a fake name, naturally. The address was General Delivery, Grand Central Station, Lexington Avenue and Forty-fifth Street. The name was Milton Thales.”
“Thales? T,H,A,L,E,S?”
“Yes.”
“Indeed. Interesting.” Wolfe closed his eyes and in a moment opened them. “You made no effort to learn who he was?”
“No. What for? What good would that do?”
“If it was Mr. Cather, it might have prevented this. Did you tell Miss Kerr about it?”
“Yes. I asked if she had told anyone, anyone, my name, and she said she hadn’t. She lied. She was very – well, she was indignant. I was a little surprised at her reaction. It didn’t seem to be -” He stopped. He pursed his lips and frowned, and then he nodded. “I see. Of course. I said I don’t know why he killed her, but it’s obvious. She knew it must be Cather, and she told him, and she told him he had to stop, and he killed her. My God, if I had known – damn him. Damn him!”
It was closer to passion than I had thought was in his compass, and I was going to offer him a drink, but Wolfe spoke. “A detail. The voice on the telephone. Indubitably a man?”
“Yes. He was disguising it, a kind of falsetto, but I was sure it was a man. No doubt at all.”
“Has he communicated with you again? Telephoned?”
“Once. The seventeenth of December. That name again, Robert Service Kipling. At my home. He said he thought I would like to know that the material was being received, and that was all.”
Wolfe leaned back, closed his eyes, clasped his hands at the high point of his middle, and pushed his lips out. Ballou started to say something, and I showed him a palm, but it really didn’t matter. When Wolfe’s lips start working like that, out and in, out and in, he has taken off and he hears nothing. Ballou lowered his head and shut his eyes, so in effect I was left alone for about three minutes. Finally Wolfe opened his eyes and asked me if I could get Saul and Fred, and I said yes but I didn’t know how soon. He said, “The kitchen. Tell them to come at once,” and I went.
Making phone calls merely to tell men they’re wanted – I had to try three numbers to get Saul – doesn’t take much brainpower, and my mind could work on something else. Not figuring the odds on Orrie as a blackmailer; that was so long a shot it was just no bet. The riddle was, why was Thales an interesting name for a blackmailer? Wolfe had really meant it; it wasn’t the tone he uses when he’s faking. If he thought it was interesting I should too, since I knew everything he did. I would give a nice new dollar bill to know how many of the people who read this report will be on to it. I still wasn’t when I returned to the office, though I sat and pecked at it for a good five minutes after I got Saul.
Two paces inside the office I stopped. The red leather chair was empty. I asked Wolfe, “Did you bounce him?”
He shook his head. “He’s in the front room. Lying down. Of course he shouldn’t be seen by Saul and Fred. You got them?”
“They’re on the way.” I crossed to my desk. “It’s too bad Orrie sank to blackmail, but then a wedding ring, furniture, marriage license – it mounts up.”
“Nonsense.”
“You can say that, with fifty grand there on your desk? Why is it interesting that he picked Thales for a name?”
“You mispronounce it. So did Mr. Ballou.”
“It isn’t Thales?”
“Certainly not. It’s Tha-lez.”
“Oh, that’s why it’s interesting.”
“The Milton is interesting too. Thales of Miletus, the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., was the chief of the seven ‘wise men’ of ancient Greece. He preceded Euclid by three centuries. He founded the geometry of lines. He made the first prediction of an eclipse of the sun, to the day. His was the first great name in the history of mathematics. Thales of Miletus.”
“I’ll be damned.” I sat and looked at it for a full minute. “I will be damned. He had a hell of a nerve. Ballou went to college. He might have liked mathematics. He might have known all about Thales of Miletus.”
“But did he know that Miss Kerr’s brother-in-law is a teacher of mathematics?”
“Probably not. Who would ever expect a goddam blackmailer to have a sense of humor? Did you tell Ballou?”
“No. It can wait. I would like some beer.”
“And I would like some milk.” I rose. “This is more like it, something to chew on.” I went to the kitchen. Fritz was below in his room, and I didn’t need any help. As I poured the milk and put the beer and glass on the tray, and took them to the office, my mind was on the newer and hotter riddle, going back to Monday afternoon and remembering how Barry Fleming had looked and acted and what he had said. After a couple of sips of milk, recollecting that we had a guest, I went to the front room to ask if he would like a drink.
He was stretched out on the sofa with his arm curled over his eyes. He didn’t want anything. In the short time I was gone Wolfe had been to the shelves and got a book, a volume of the Britannica, and had it open. As I picked up my glass he said, “Thales perfected the theory of the scalene triangle and the theory of lines. He discovered the theorem that the sides of equiangular triangles are proportional. He discovered that when two straight lines intersect the vertically opposite angles are equal, and that the circle is bisected by its diameter.”
I said, “Golly.”
It was close to eleven o’clock when Fred arrived. I took him to the kitchen, because Wolfe was still consulting the encyclopedia, though he must have finished with Thales long ago. When Saul came, I sent him to join Fred in the kitchen and told Wolfe to let us know when he was ready for company, and he glared at me because he was in the middle of an interesting article. The way I know it was interesting is that there isn’t a single page in the whole twenty-four volumes that he wouldn’t think was interesting. I went to the kitchen and brought them, and Saul took the red leather chair and Fred one of the yellow ones.
That was the shortest session with the help on record. “I apologize,” Wolfe said, “for getting you out so late on a winter night, but I need you. There has been a development. The man who maintained that apartment for Miss Kerr – call him X – is in the front room. He came to tell me something that he should have told me two days ago. Last September a man telephoned him and demanded money. The man knew of his visits to that apartment and threatened to make them impossible unless the money was paid, a thousand dollars at once and a thousand dollars a month, in cash, to be mailed to him at general delivery – an assumed name, of course. The money has been paid, a total of five thousand doll
ars. X is convinced, for reasons he considers valid, that the blackmailer is Orrie Cather. Sunday evening I asked your opinion as to whether Orrie had killed Miss Kerr. I now ask your opinion as to whether he is a blackmailer. Did he blackmail X? Fred?”
Fred was frowning, concentrating. “Just like you said?” he asked. “Just straight open-and-shut blackmail?”
“Yes.”
Fred shook his head. “No, sir. Impossible.”
“Saul?”
“To be sure I have it right,” Saul said, “this was at the time when Orrie was seeing her himself?”
“Yes.”
“Then no. As Fred said, impossible. That would take a real snake.”
“Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. “Archie and I had made our conclusion, and I know, barely short of certainty, who the blackmailer is, but I wanted your opinions. I didn’t get you here just for that; there will be instructions for tomorrow. Archie, may they wait in your room?”
Not the kitchen. He was taking no chances. What if a man-eating tiger bounded in through the kitchen window and they scooted down the hall and saw Ballou? I told them they were welcome to my room as long as they didn’t rummage, and they headed for the stairs. Wolfe gave them a full minute to get up the two flights and then told me to bring Ballou. He was still on the sofa, but when I entered he sat up and started talking. I told him to save it for Wolfe, and he got to his feet and came. I swear his first glance, as he crossed to the red leather chair, was at the package on Wolfe’s desk. A habit is a habit, even when you’re up a tree.
As he sat, he spoke. “I’ve been going over it. I have answered your questions, and I have made you a liberal offer, more than liberal. Either you accept it or you don’t. The other day you told me Cather wasn’t a murderer. Don’t try to tell me now that he’s not a blackmailer.”