by Rex Stout
Cramer slowly shook his head. “You see, Wolfe, I know you. God, don’t I know you! But I’m willing to have a talk before I execute it.”
“No, sir.” Wolfe was murmuring again. “I will not submit to duress. I would even prefer to deal with District Attorney Skinner. Tear it up, or proceed to execute it.”
That was a dirty threat. Cramer’s opinion of Skinner was one of the defects of our democratic system of government. Cramer looked at the warrant, at Wolfe, at me, and back at the warrant. Then he picked it up and tore. I reached for the pieces and dropped them in the wastebasket.
Wolfe didn’t look gratified because he was still too sore to let any other emotion in, but he did quit murmuring and allowed himself to talk. “Confound it,” he said. “Don’t ever waste your time like that again. Or mine. Can the gun be traced?”
“No. The number’s gone. It dates from about nineteen-ten. And there are no prints on it that are worth a damn. Nothing but smudges.”
Wolfe nodded. “Naturally. A much simpler technique than wiping it clean or going around in gloves.” He glanced at Stebbins. “Please sit down, sir. Your standing there annoys me.” Back to Cramer. “The murderer is in this house.”
“I suspected he was. Is he your client?”
Wolfe let that one go by without even waving at it. Leaning back in his chair, adjusting himself with accompanying grunts, and interlacing his fingers at the Greenwich meridian on his equator, he was ready to forget the search warrant and get down to business. I winked at Purley, but he pretended not to see it. He had his notebook too, but hadn’t put anything in it yet.
“The main complication,” Wolfe said in his purring tone, “is this. There are a man and a woman in the front room. Granting that one of them is the murderer, which one?”
Cramer frowned at him. “You didn’t say anything about granting. You said that you had caught the murderer.”
“So I have. He or she is in there, under guard. I suppose I’ll have to tell you what happened, if I expect you to start your army of men digging, and it looks as though that’s the only way to go about it. I have no army. To begin with, when I received that threat I hired a man who resembles me-superficially-in physical characteristics to be visible, both in this house and on the street, and I kept to my room. Nothing occurred-”
“Not involved, not inter-”
“Please don’t interrupt,” Wolfe snapped. “I’m telling you what happened.”
He did so. I have a high opinion of myself as a reporter of a series of events, but, listening to Wolfe as an expert, I had to admit I couldn’t have done much better. He didn’t waste any words, but he got it all in. Purley nearly bit the end of his tongue off, trying to get it all in his notebook, but I didn’t bother. Wolfe finished. Cramer sat scowling. Wolfe purred, “Well, sir, there’s the problem. I doubt if it can be solved with what we have, or what is available on the premises. You’ll have to get your men started on the indicated lines. I’ll be available for consultation.”
“I wish,” Cramer growled, gazing at him as if he were looking at a puzzle he had seen and worked at many times but had never got solved, “I wish I knew how much dressing you put on that.”
“Not any. I have only one concern in this. I have no client. I withheld nothing and added nothing.”
“Maybe.” Cramer straightened up like a man of action. “Okay, we’ll proceed on that basis and find out. First of all, I want to ask them some questions.”
“I suppose you do.” Wolfe detested sitting and listening to someone else ask questions, especially in his own office. “And Miss Geer is going to be difficult. She wants a lawyer. You are handicapped, of course, by your official status. Which one do you want first?”
Cramer stood up. “I’ve got to see that room before I talk to either of them. I want to see where things are. Especially that vase.”
I was amazed to see that Wolfe was leaving his chair too, knowing his attitude toward all nonessential movement, but as I went to open the door to the front room for them I reflected that while he hated hearing Cramer ask questions, under the circumstances he would hate even more not hearing him, in case conversation got started in the front room. Stebbins tagged in after them, and I brought up the rear.
Jane was seated on the piano bench. Jensen was on the sofa, but arose as we entered. Fritz was standing by a window, his hand with the gun coming up as Jensen moved.
Wolfe said, “This is Inspector Cramer, Miss Geer.” She didn’t make a sound or move a muscle.
Wolfe said, “I believe you’ve met the inspector, Mr. Jensen.”
“Yes, I have.” Jensen’s voice had gone unused so long it squeaked, and he cleared his throat. “So the agreement not to call in the police was a farce too.” He was bitter.
“There was no such agreement. I said that Mr. Cramer couldn’t be kept out of it indefinitely. The bullet that was fired at me-at Mr. Hackett-came from the gun that was found in that vase”-Wolfe pointed at it-“and so did those that killed your father and Mr. Doyle. So the field has become-ah, restricted.”
“I insist,” Jane put in, in a voice with no resemblance to any I had ever heard her use before, “on my right to consult a lawyer.”
“Just a minute now,” Cramer told her in the tone he thought was soothing. “We’re going to talk this over, but wait till I look around a little.” He proceeded to inspect things, and so did Sergeant Stebbins. They considered distances, and the positions of various objects. Then there was this detail: from what segment of that room could a gun send a bullet through the open door to the office and on through the hole in Wolfe’s chair and the one in the wall?
They were working on that together when Wolfe turned to Fritz and asked him, “What happened to the other cushion?”
Fritz was taken aback. “Other cushion?”
“There were six velvet cushions on that sofa. There are only five. Did you remove it?”
“No, sir.” Fritz gazed at the sofa and counted. “That’s right. They’ve been rearranged to take up the space. I don’t understand it. They were all here yesterday when I cleaned in here.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, sir. Positive.”
“Look for it. Archie, help him. I want to know if that cushion is in this room.”
It seemed like an odd moment to send out a general alarm for a sofa cushion, but since I had nothing else to do at the moment I obliged. Cramer and Purley went on solving a murder and Fritz and I went on hunting the cushion. Jensen watched both operations. Wolfe watched only one-Fritz’s and mine. Jane pretended there was no one in the room but her.
I finally told Wolfe, “It’s gone. It isn’t in here.”
He muttered at me, “I see it isn’t.”
I stared at him. There was an expression on his face that I knew well. It wasn’t exactly excitement, though it always stirred excitement in me. His neck was rigid, as if to prevent any movement of the head, so as not to disturb the brain, his eyes were half shut and not seeing anything, and his lips were moving, pushing out, then relaxing, then pushing out again. I knew it would take more than the loss of a velvet cushion to produce that effect on him. I stared at him.
Suddenly he turned and spoke. “Mr. Cramer! Please leave Mr. Stebbins in here with Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen. You can stay here too, or come with me, as you prefer. Fritz and Archie, come.” He headed for the office.
Cramer, knowing Wolfe’s tones of voice almost as well as I did, spoke to Stebbins and then followed. Fritz and I also followed. So did Jane’s voice.
“This is outrageous! I want-”
I shut the door.
Wolfe waited until he was in his chair before he spoke. “I want to know if that cushion is on the premises. Search the house from the cellar up-except the south room; Mr. Hackett is in there lying down. Start in here.”
Cramer barked, “What the hell is all this about?”
“I’ll give you an explanation,” Wolfe told him, “when I have one. I’m going to s
it here and work and must not be disturbed. It may take ten minutes; it may take ten hours. Go in there; stay here; go anywhere, but let me alone.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips started moving. Cramer slid farther back in his chair, crossed his legs, got out a cigar and sank his teeth in it. Searching the office was quite different from searching the front room.
In the first place, it was a lot bigger. Also, there were a lot more places where you could hide a cushion-files, drawers, bookshelves, magazine and newspaper racks, cabinets, miscellaneous. It had a high ceiling, and the steps had to be used for all the upper shelves and file and cabinet compartments. None of them could be ruled out, because the shelves were deep, and it was no trivial job to pull out all those books and slide them back again. Fritz went at it with his usual deliberate thoroughness, and I couldn’t have been called a whirlwind either because I was using my brain along with my hands, trying to work out how and why the fact of a missing cushion crashed into the structure like a comet shattering a world. Now and then a glance at Wolfe showed me that he was still working, his lips moving and his eyes shut. Half an hour or so had passed, maybe a little more, when I heard him let out a grunt. I nearly toppled off the steps, turning to look at him. He was in motion. He picked up his wastebasket, which was kept at the far corner of his desk, held it so that the light shone directly into it, inspected it, shook his head, put it down again, and began opening the drawers of his desk, all the way out, and inspecting their interiors, starting with the top one on the right side. The first two, the one at the top and the one in the middle, apparently didn’t get him anything, but when he yanked out the double-depth one at the bottom as far as it would go, he looked in, bent over closer to see better, stuck a hand in and seemed to be poking around, closed the drawer, got himself erect, and announced: “I’ve found it.”
In those three little words there was at least two tons of self-satisfaction and smirk.
We all goggled at him.
He looked at me. “Archie. Get down off that thing and don’t fall. Look in your desk and see if one of my guns has been fired.”
I stepped down and went and opened the armament drawer. The first one I picked up was innocent. I tried the second with a sniff and a look and reported, “Yes, sir. There were six cartridges and now there are five. Same as the cushions. The shell is here.”
“Tchah! The confounded ass! Tell Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen that they may come in here if they care to hear what happened, or they may go home or anywhere else. We don’t need them. Take Mr. Stebbins upstairs with you and bring Mr. Hackett down here. Use caution and search him with great care. He is an extremely dangerous man and an unsurpassable idiot.”
IX
I had no hand in the phone call to General Fife-or rather, as I learned later, to Colonel Voss, who was on duty that evening at the downtown G-2 headquarters-because I was busy with the chores. First, with regard to Jane and Jensen. When I delivered Wolfe’s message to them, in a few well-chosen words, they blinked in bewilderment, which was understandable. Then they both opened the valves and here came the steam. I silenced them by mere force of personality. I told Jensen, “You came to see Wolfe to get him to help catch the murderer of your father. He has not only helped, he has done it single-handed, practically without getting out of bed. For God’s sake, what more do you want?”
I told Jane, “You wanted to avoid publicity as a suspect in a murder case so you can be a vice-president. Wolfe has done the avoiding for you. As my contribution, I have made you acquainted with this prominent major. You should beef?”
Naturally they voted for joining the throng in the office, and their pose during the balloting was significant. They stood facing each other, with Jensen’s right hand on Jane’s left shoulder, and Jane’s right hand, or perhaps just the fingers, on Jensen’s left forearm. I left it to them to find the way to the office alone, told Purley Stebbins what our job was, and took him upstairs with me to the south room.
It was approximately ten minutes later that we delivered our cargo in the office. Even though Mr. Hackett staged one of the most convincing demonstrations of unwillingness to cooperate that I have ever encountered, beginning the instant I put a hand on him to frisk him, only about six of the ten minutes were devoted to persuading him that there were worse things than going downstairs.
For the other four minutes I sat on him, examining my shin to see if his kicks had busted the skin and testing my wrist to decide if it was sprained, while Purley was in the bathroom washing blood off his cheek and neck and applying Band-Aids. Not that Hackett had confined himself to kicking and scratching; he hadn’t confined himself at all. Purley and I did the confining.
We got him to the office in one piece, nothing really wrong with him but a few bruises, and put him in a chair. Purley took an upright position right behind him, with the evident intention of standing by, so I went to my desk. Jane and Jensen were on a couple of chairs side by side, over near the big globe. Cramer was as before.
I said, “He was reluctant.”
I’ll say one thing for Wolfe, I’ve never seen him gloat over a guy about to get it. He was contemplating Hackett more as an extraordinary object that deserved study.
I said, “Purley thinks he knows him.”
Purley, as was proper, spoke to his superior. “I swear, Inspector, I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere, but I can’t remember.”
Wolfe nodded. “A uniform makes a difference. I suggest that he was in uniform.”
“Uniform?” Purley scowled. “Army?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Mr. Cramer told me Wednesday morning that the doorman on duty at the apartment house at the time Mr. Jensen and Mr. Doyle were killed was a fat nitwit who had been hired two weeks ago and didn’t know the tenants by name, and also that he claimed to have been in the basement stoking the water heater at the moment the murders were committed. A phone call would tell us whether he is still working there.”
“He isn’t,” Cramer growled. “He left Wednesday afternoon because he didn’t like a place where people got murdered. I never saw him. Some of my men did.”
“Yeah,” Purley said, gazing at Hackett’s face. “By God, it’s him. I thought he didn’t have brains enough to know which end to pick up a shovel.”
“He is,” Wolfe declared, “a remarkable combination of fool and genius. He came to New York determined to kill Mr. Jensen and me. By the way, Mr. Hackett, you look a little dazed. Can you hear what I’m saying?” Hackett made no sound and didn’t flutter an eyelid. “I guess you can,” Wolfe went on. “This will interest you. I requested Military Intelligence to have an examination made of the effects of Captain Peter Root at the prison in Maryland. A few minutes ago I phoned for a report, and got it. Captain Root was lying when he stated that he was not in communication with his father and had not been for years. There are several letters from his father among his belongings, dated in the past two months, and they make it evident that his father, whose name is Thomas Root, regards him as a scion to be proud of. To the point of mania.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at Hackett. “I offer the conjecture that you are in a position to know whether that is correct or not. Is it?”
“One more day,” Hackett said in his husky croak. His hands were twitching. “One more day,” he repeated.
Wolfe nodded. “I know. One more day and you would have killed me, with the suspicion centered on Miss Geer or Mr. Jensen, or both, on account of your flummery here this afternoon. And you would have disappeared, probably after again complaining that you don’t like a place where people get murdered.”
Jensen popped up, “You haven’t explained the flummery.”
“I shall, Mr. Jensen.” Wolfe got more comfortable in his chair. “But first that performance Tuesday evening.” He was keeping his eyes on Hackett. “That was a masterpiece. You decided to kill Mr. Jensen first, which was lucky for me, and, since all apartment-house service staffs are short-handed, got a job there as doorman with no difficulty. All you h
ad to do was await an opportunity, with no passers-by or other onlookers. It came the day after you mailed the threat, an ideal situation in every respect except the presence of the man he had hired to guard him. Arriving at the entrance to the apartment house, naturally they would have no suspicion of the doorman in uniform. Mr. Jensen probably nodded and spoke to you. With no one else in sight, and the elevator man ascending with a passenger, it was too good an opportunity to lose. Muffling the revolver with some piece of cloth, you shot Mr. Doyle in the back, and when Mr. Jensen whirled at the sound you shot him in the front and skedaddled for the stairs to the basement and started stoking the water heater. I imagine the first thing you fed it was the cloth with which you had muffled the gun.”
Wolfe moved his eyes. “Does that rattle anywhere, Mr. Cramer?”
“It sounds tight from here,” Cramer conceded.
“That’s good. Because it is for those murders that Mr. Hackett-or Mr. Root, I suppose I should say-must be convicted. He can’t be electrocuted for hacking a little gash in his own ear.”
Wolfe’s eyes moved again, to me. “Archie, did you find any tools in his pockets?”
“Only a Boy Scout’s dream,” I told him. “One of those knives with scissors, awl, nail file…”
“Let the police have it to look for traces of blood. Just the sort of thing Mr. Cramer does best.”
“The comedy can wait,” Cramer growled. “I’ll take it as is for Tuesday night and go on from there. What about today?”
Wolfe heaved a sigh. “You’re rushing past the most interesting point of all: Mr. Hackett’s answering my advertisement for a man. Was he sufficiently acute to realize that its specifications were roughly a description of me, suspect that I was the advertiser, and proceed to take advantage of it to approach me? Or was it merely that he was short of funds and attracted by the money offered? I lean to the latter, but I confess I am curious. I don’t suppose, Mr. Root, you would care to clear that up for me?”