Plot It Yourself

by Rex Stout

  What I was typing, when he interrupted me, was a statement to be signed by Saul Panzer and Dol Bonner, who had come late that afternoon to report. Tuesday afternoon and evening they had spent seven hours at the apartment on Perry Street, and six hours Wednesday at Amy Wynn’s current apartment on Arbor Street. They were prepared to swear on a stack of best-sellers that in neither place was there a manuscript of a story by Alice Porter entitled “Opportunity Knocks.” At Perry Street there had been no manuscript at all, by anybody. At Arbor Street there had been a drawerful of them-two novels, twenty-eight stories, and nine articles-all by Amy Wynn and all showing signs of the wear and tear that comes from a series of trips through the mails. Saul had made a list of the titles and number of pages, but I had decided it wasn’t necessary to include it in the statement. I had dialed Philip Harvey’s number to report to the chairman, but there was no answer, so I had called Reuben Imhof at Victory Press. He was glad to get the good news and said he would tell Amy Wynn,

  Having detoured around the table with its load of paper, I stood at the end of Wolfe’s desk. Ranged before him were three of the items of the collection: the manuscripts of Alice Porter’s “There Is Only Love,” and Simon Jacobs’s “What’s Mine Is Yours,” and the copy of Jane Ogilvy’s “On Earth but Not in Heaven.” In his hand were some sheets from his scratch pad. His elbow was on the chair arm with his forearm perpendicular. It takes energy to hold a forearm straight up, and he only does it when he is especially pleased with himself.

  “I’m looking,” I said. “What is it? Fingerprints?”

  “Better than fingerprints. These three stories were all written by the same person.”

  “Yeah? Not on the same typewriter. I compared them with a glass.”

  “So did I.” He rattled the sheets. “Better than a typewriter. A typewriter can change hands.” He glanced at the top sheet. “In Alice Porter’s story a character avers something six times. In Simon Jacobs’s story, eight times. In Jane Ogilvy’s story, seven times. You know, of course, that nearly every writer of dialogue has his pet substitute, or substitutes, for ‘say.’ Wanting a variation for ‘he said’ or ‘she said,’ they have him declare, state, blurt, spout, cry, pronounce, avow, murmur, mutter, snap-there are dozens of them; and they tend to repeat the same one. Would you accept it as coincidence that this man and those two women have the same favourite, ‘aver’?”

  “Maybe with salt. I heard you say once that it is not inconceivable that the fall in temperature when the sun moves south is merely a coincidence.”

  “Pfui. That was conversation. This is work. There are other similarities, equally remarkable, in these stories. Two of them are verbal.” He looked at the second sheet. “Alice Porter has this: ‘Not for nothing would he abandon the only person he had ever loved.’ And this: ‘She might lose her self-respect, but not for nothing.’ Simon Jacobs has this. ‘And must he forfeit his honour too? Not for nothing?’ And this: ‘Not for nothing had she suffered tortures that no woman could be expected to survive.’ Jane Ogilvy has a man say in reply to a question, ‘Not for nothing, my dear, not for nothing.’ ”

  I scratched my cheek. “Well. Not for nothing did you read the stories.”

  He went to the third sheet. “Another verbal one. Alice Porter has this: ‘Barely had she touched him when he felt his heart pounding.’ And this: ‘Night had barely fallen by the time she reached the door and got out her key.’ And this: ‘Was there still a chance? Barely a chance?’ Simon Jacobs used ‘barely’ four times, in similar constructions, and Jane Ogilvy three times.”

  “I’m sold,” I averred. “Coincidence is out.”

  “But there are two others. One is punctuation. They are all fond of semicolons and use them where most people would prefer a comma or a dash. The other is more subtle but to me the most conclusive. A clever man might successfully disguise every element of his style but one-the paragraphing. Diction and syntax may be determined and controlled by rational processes in full consciousness, but paragraphing-the decision whether to take short hops or long ones, whether to hop in the middle of a thought or action or finish it first-that comes from instinct, from the depths of personality. I will concede the possibility that the verbal similarities, and even the punctuation, could be coincidence, though it is highly improbable; but not the paragraphing. These three stories were paragraphed by the same person.”

  “Plot it yourself,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. The title of a piece I happened to read in the Times Book Review just popped up. It was about the idea that a novelist should just create his characters and let them go ahead and develop the action and the plot. This guy was dead against it. He claimed you should plot it yourself. I was thinking that a detective working on a case can’t plot it himself. It has already been plotted. Look at this. This is now a totally different animal. One thing: with all those similarities, why hasn’t anyone noticed it?”

  “Probably because no one has ever had the three manuscripts together and compared them. Until that committee was formed they were in different hands.”

  I returned to my desk and sat. “Okay. Congratulations. So I’ll have to rearrange my mind. I suppose you already have.”

  “No. I hadn’t even arranged it.”

  I glanced up at the clock. “Quarter past eleven. Harvey might be home. Do you want to swagger?”

  “No. I’m tired. I want to sleep. There’s no hurry.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

  Sometimes he self-propels his seventh of a ton up one flight of stairs to his room, but that night he used the elevator. When he had gone I took the three stories to my desk and spent half an hour studying paragraphing, and though Lily Rowan told me once that I am about as subtle as a sledge hammer-at a moment when her diction was not determined and controlled by rational processes in full consciousness-I saw what Wolfe meant. I put the stories in the safe and then considered the problem of the table-load of paper. The statuses and functions of the inhabitants of that old brownstone on West 35th Street are clearly understood. Wolfe is the owner and the commandant. Fritz Brenner is the chef and housekeeper and is responsible for the condition of the castle with the exception of the plant rooms, the office, and my bedroom. Theodore Horstmann is the orchid-tender, with no responsibilities or business on the lower floors. He eats in the kitchen with Fritz. I eat in the dining room with Wolfe, except when we are not speaking; then I join Fritz and Theodore in the kitchen, or get invited somewhere, or take a friend to a restaurant, or go to Bert’s diner around the corner on Tenth Avenue and eat beans. My status and function are whatever a given situation calls for, and the question who decides what it calls for is what occasionally creates an atmosphere in which Wolfe and I are not speaking. The next sentence is to be, “But the table-load of paper, being in the office, was clearly up to me,” and I have to decide whether to put it here or start a new paragraph with it. You see how subtle it is. Paragraph it yourself.

  I stood surveying the stacks of paper. Scattered through them were assorted items of information about the four claimants. Assuming that one of them had written the stories, which was the most likely candidate? I ran over them in my mind.

  Alice Porter. In her middle thirties, unmarried. No physical description, but a photograph. Fleshy, say 150 pounds. Round face, small nose, eyes too close together. In 1955 had lived at Collander House on West 82nd Street, a hive-home for girls and women who couldn’t afford anything fancy. Was now living near Carmel, sixty miles north of New York, in a cottage which she had presumably bought with some of the loot she had pried out of Ellen Sturdevant. Between 1949 and 1955 had had fourteen stories for children published in magazines, and one children’s book. The Moth That Ate Peanuts , published by Best and Green in 1954, not a success. Joined the National Association of Authors and Dramatists in 1951, was dropped for nonpayment of dues in 1954, rejoined in 1956.

  Simon Jacobs. Description and photograph. Sixty-two years old, thin and scrawny, hair li
ke Mark Twain’s (that item from Title House’s lawyer), stuttered. Married in 1948, therefore at the age of fifty-one. In 1956 was living with his wife and three children in a tenement on West 21st Street, and was still there. Overseas with AEF in First World War, wounded twice. Wrote hundreds of stories for the pulps between 1922 and 1940, using four pen names. Was with the OWI in the Second World War, writing radio scripts in German and Polish. After the-war wrote stories again, but didn’t sell so many, eight or ten a year at three cents a word. In 1947 had a book published by the Owl Press, Barrage at Dawn , of which 35,000 copies were sold, and got married in 1948 and took an apartment in Brooklyn Heights. No more books published. Fewer stories sold. In 1954 moved to the tenement on West 21st Street. Member of the NAAD since 1931, dues always paid promptly, even during the war when he didn’t have to.

  Jane Ogilvy. Descriptions from three sources and several photographs. Late twenties or early thirties, depending on the source. Nice little figure, pretty little face, dreamy-eyed. In 1957 was living with her parents in their house in Riverdale, and still was. Went to Europe alone immediately after she collected from Mariorie Lippin’s estate, but only stayed a month. Her father was in wholesale hardware, high financial rating. She had testified in court that she had had seventeen poems published in magazines, and had read three of them on the witness stand at the request of her attorney. No stories or books published. Member of the NAAD since 1955; was behind a year on her dues.

  Kenenth Rennert. I could supply several pages on him, from the reports of the detective agency hired by Mortimer Oshin. Thirty-four years old, single. Looked younger. Virile (not my word, the detective’s), muscular, handsome. Piercing brown eyes and so on. Living in a nice big room with bath and kitchenette on East 37th Street; the detective had combed it twice. Had mother and sisters in Ottumwa, Iowa; father dead. Graduated from Princeton in 1950. Got a job with a brokerage house, Orcutt and Company, was discharged in 1954 for cause, exact cause not ascertained, but it was something about diddling customers. No public charges. Began writing for television. So far as could be learned had sold only nine scripts in four years, but no other known source of income. Has borrowed money right and the left; probably owes thirty or forty grand. Never a member of the NAAD; not eligible. Has never submitted a play to an agent or producer.

  There they were. My guess, just to sleep on, was Alice Porter. She had worked it first, back in 1955, and was now repeating. She had written a book entitled The Moth That Ate Peanuts , which showed that she would stop at nothing. Her eyes were too close together. My suggestion in the morning, if Wolfe asked for one, as he usually did just to be polite, would be to connect her up with Simon Jacobs in 1956, Jane Ogilvy in 1957, and possibly Kenneth Rennert in 1958. If she had written the stories and they had used them, there had certainly been contacts. Oshin’s detective agency and the lawyer for Mariorie Lippin’s estate hadn’t found any, but whether something is found or not depends on who is looking for it.

  Making room on the shelves of one of the cabinets, I lugged the stuff from the table to it, seven trips, locked the cabinet, returned the table to the front room, and went up to bed.

  Chapter 4

  I never made that suggestion because I slept it off. I had a better one. At eight-fifteen Thursday morning I descended two flights, entered the kitchen, exchanged good mornings with Fritz, picked up my ten-ounce glass of orange juice, took that first sour-sweet sip, which is always the first hint that the fog is going to lift, and inquired, “No omelet?”

  Fritz shut the refrigerator door. “You well know, Archie, what it means when the eggs are not broken.”

  “Sure, but I’m hungry.”

  It meant that when Fritz had taken Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to his room he had been told that I was wanted, and he would not break eggs until he heard me coming down again. I will not gulp orange juice, so after a second sip I took it along-up a flight, left to the door standing open at the end of the hall, and in. Wolfe, barefooted, a yellow mountain in his pajamas, was in his next-to-favourite chair at the table by a window, spooning raspberry jam onto a griddle cake. I returned his greeting and went on, “Copies of The Moth That Ate Peanuts and Barrage at Dawn are probably available at the publishers’, but it might take days to dig up the magazines with Jane Ogilvy’s poems. Also will the books be enough for Alice Porter and Simon Jacobs, or will you want some stories too?”

  He grunted. “No special sagacity was required.”

  “No, sir. I’m not swaggering. It’s just that I’m hungry and wanted to save time.”

  “You have. First the books. No stories may be needed. Jane Ogilvy’s poems would almost certainly be worthless; I have read three of them. A writer of gimcrack verse chooses words only to scan and rhyme, and there is no paragraphing.”

  I sipped orange juice. “If they want to know why we want the books, do I explain?”

  “No. Evade.” He forked a bite of cake and jam.

  “What if Harvey calls?”

  “We have nothing to report. Possibly later. I want those books.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.” He lifted the fork and opened his mouth.

  When I got back to the kitchen Fritz had broken the eggs and was stirring. I sat at the table by the wall, propped the morning Times on the rack, and sipped orange juice. Fritz asked, “A good case?”

  For him a good case is one which will not interfere with meals, will not last long enough to make Wolfe cranky, and will probably produce a nice fat fee. “So-so,” I told him. “All we have to do is read a couple of books. Maybe.”

  He put the skillet on. “That Miss Bonner is helping?”

  I grinned at him. He regards every woman who enters the house as a potential threat to his kitchen, not to mention the rest of his precinct, and he was particularly suspicious of Dol Bonner, Dol being short for Theodolinda, the only female owner and operator of a detective agency in New York. “No,” I said, “she came yesterday on a personal matter. Mr Wolfe keeps phoning her to ask her to dinner, and she wants me to get him to stop annoying her.”

  He pointed the spoon at me. “Archie, if I could lie with your aplomb I would be an ambassador. You know women. You know quite well that one with eyes the colour of that Miss Bonner and eyelashes of that length, her own, is a dangerous animal.”

  By nine o’clock the morning fog had gone entirely, thanks to the apricot omelet, griddle cakes with bacon and honey, and two cups of coffee, and I went to the office and dialed Philip Harvey’s number. From his reaction you might have thought it was not yet dawn. After smoothing him down and promising never to call him again earlier than noon, short of a real emergency, I told him what I wanted-the names of people at Best and Green and the Owl Press who could be expected to co-operate. He said he knew no one at either place, told me to call the executive secretary of NAAD, and hung up. A hell of a chairman. When I got the executive secretary she wanted to know what kind of co-operation I was going to ask for. I told her, and she wanted to know why Nero Wolfe wanted the books. I said that no good detective ever tells anybody why he wants something, and if I gave her a reason it would be a phony, and I finally wore her down and got a couple of names.

  Mr Arnold Green of Best and Green was extremely suspicious. He didn’t come right out with it, but I gathered that he suspected that the Joint Committee on Plagiarism was a conspiracy, abetted by some of his competitors, to twist the nose of Best and Green by getting something on an author whose book they had published five years ago; and anyway, The Moth That Ate Peanuts was a flop and had been remaindered, and the only copies they had left, maybe four or five, were in the morgue. And more anyway, what did that book have to do with the investigation Nero Wolfe was making? When he had simmered down a little I said I fully appreciated his point of view, and I would tell Mr Knapp and Mr Dexter and Mr Imhof that for some reason, probably a good one, he refused to send Mr Wolf a copy of the book, and he said I misunderstood, that he wasn’t refusing, that there might possibly be a cop
y somewhere around the office. If so he would send it down by messenger, and if not he would send someone to the morgue for one.

  Mr W. R. Pratt of the Owl Press was strictly business. When I said that Nero Wolfe had been hired to make an investigation by the Joint Committee on Plag-he cut in to say he knew that and what did I want; and when I said that Mr Wolfe wanted a copy of Barrage at Dawn as soon as possible and would be obliged if he would kindly-he cut in again to say that if I would give the address to his secretary she would send it at once by messenger. He asked no questions, but his secretary did. Her first words were, “Whom do we bill?” That outfit was right on its toes.

  Barrage at Dawn arrived first, which didn’t surprise me, with an invoice enclosed which included an item of a dollar, fifty for messenger service. Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms and was looking through the morning’s mail. When I handed him the book he made a face at it and dropped it on his desk, but in a couple of minutes he picked it up, frowned at the cover, and opened it. He was well into it when The Moth That Ate Peanuts arrived, and since, as I said, my function is whatever an occasion calls for, I tackled that one, looking for “aver” or “not for nothing” or something like “Barely had the moth swallowed the ten-thousandth peanut when it got a stomach-ache.” Also, of course, semicolons and paragraphing. I was more than halfway through when Wolfe asked for it, and I got up and handed it to him and took Barrage at Dawn .

  A little after one, with lunchtime approaching, Wolfe shut The Moth That Ate Peanuts , tossed it onto his desk, and growled, “Pfui. Neither one. Confound it.”

  I closed Barrage at Dawn and put it down. “I can see,” I said, “that you might cross Simon Jacobs off, but Alice Porter’s is a children’s book. You wouldn’t expect a moth to aver, even if it was a peanut addict. I would hate to give up Alice Porter. She started it and she’s repeating.”