She interrupted me. “I know all about it. My husband …” She stopped. The way she suddenly clasped her fingers tight and tried to keep her lips from moving showed that a bust-up was nearer to coming through than I had supposed. But she soon got it shoved under again. “My husband told me all about it.”
I nodded. “That saves time. I’m not a city detective. I’m private. I work for Nero Wolfe, my name’s Goodwin. If you ask me what I’m here for there’s lots of ways to answer you, but you’d have to help me pick the right one. It depends on how you feel.” I had the innocence turned on, the candid eye. I was talking fast. “Of course you feel terrible, certainly, but no matter how bad it is inside of you right now, you’ll go on living. I’ve got some questions to ask for Nero Wolfe, and I can’t be polite and wait for a week until your nerves have had a chance to grow some new skin, I’ve got to ask them now or never. I’m here now, just tell me this and get rid of me. Did you see Paul Chapin shoot your husband?”
“No. But I’ve already—”
“Sure. Let’s get it done. Did anybody see him?”
“No.”
I took a breath. At least, then, we weren’t floating with our bellies up. I said, “All right. Then it’s a question of how you feel. How you feel about this, for instance, that Paul Chapin didn’t shoot your husband at all.”
She stared at me. “What do you mean—I saw him—”
“You didn’t see him shoot. Here’s what I’m getting at, Mrs. Burton. I know your husband didn’t hate Paul Chapin. I know he felt sorry for him and was willing to go with the crowd because he saw no help for it. How about you, did you hate him? Disregard what happened tonight, how much did you hate him?”
For a second I thought I had carried her along; then I saw a change coming in her eyes and her lips beginning to tighten up. She was going to ritz me out. I rushed in ahead of it:
“Listen, Mrs. Burton, I’m not just a smart pup nosing around somebody’s back yard seeing what I can smell. I really know all about this, maybe even some things you don?t know. Right now, in a cabinet down in Nero Wolfe’s office, there is a leather box. I put it there. This big. It’s beautiful tan leather, with fine gold tooling on it, and it’s locked, and it’s full nearly to the top with your gloves and stockings. Some you’ve worn.—Now wait a minute, give me a chance. It belongs to Paul Chapin. Dora Ritter hooked them and gave them to him. It’s his treasure. Nero Wolfe says his soul is in that box. I wouldn’t know about that, I’m no expert on souls. I’m just telling you. The reason I want to know whether you hate Paul Chapin, regardless of his killing your husband, is this: what if he didn’t kill him? Would you like to see them hang it on him anyway?”
She was looking at me, with the idea of ritzing me out put aside for the moment. She said, “I don’t know what you’re driving at. I saw him dead. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Neither do I. That’s what I’m here to find out. I’m trying to make you understand that I’m not annoying you just for curiosity, I’m here on business, and it may turn out to be your business as well as mine. I’m interested in seeing that Paul Chapin gets no more than is coming to him. Right now I don’t suppose you’re interested in anything. You’ve had a shock that would lay most women flat. Well, you’re not flat, and you might as well talk to me as sit and try not to think about it. I’d like to sit here and ask you a few things. If you look like you are going to faint I’ll call the family and get up and go.”
She unclasped her hands. She said, “I don’t faint. You may sit down.”
“Okay.” I used the chair Alice had left. “Now tell me how it happened. The shooting. Who was here?”
“My husband and I, and the cook and the maid. One of the maids was out.”
“No one else? What about the woman you called Alice?”
“That is my oldest friend. She came to … just a little while ago. There was no one else here.”
“And?”
“I was in my room dressing. We were dining out, my daughter was out somewhere. My husband came to my room for a cigarette; he always … he never remembered to have any, and the door between our rooms is always open. The maid came and said Paul Chapin was there. My husband left to go to the foyer to see him, but he didn’t go direct; he went back through his room and his study. I mention that because I stood and listened. The last time Paul had come my husband had told the maid to keep him in the foyer, and before he went there he had gone to his study and got a revolver out of the drawer. I had thought it was childish. This time I listened to see if he did it again, and he did, I heard the drawer opening. Then he called to me, called my name, and I answered what is it, and he called back, nothing, never mind, he would tell me after he had speeded his guest. That was the last … those were his last words I heard. I heard him walking through the apartment—I listened, I suppose, because I was wondering what Paul could want. Then I heard noises—not loud, the foyer is so far away from my room, and then shots. I ran. The maid came out of the dining-room and followed me. We ran to the foyer. It was dark, and the light in the drawing-room was dim and we couldn’t see anything. I heard a noise, someone falling, and Paul’s voice saying my name. I turned on the light switch, and Paul was there on his knee trying to get up. He said my name again, and said he was trying to hop to the switch. Then I saw Lorrie, on the floor at the end of the table. I ran to him, and when I saw him I called to the maid to go for Dr. Foster, who lives a floor below us. I don’t know what Paul did then, I didn’t pay attention to him, the first I knew some men came—”
“All right, hold it.”
She stopped. I looked at her a minute, getting it. She had clasped her hands again and was doing some extra breathing, but not obtrusively. I quit worrying about her. I took out a pad and pencil, and said, “This thing, the way you tell it, needs a lot of fixing. The worst item, of course, is the light being out. That’s plain silly.—Now wait a minute, I’m just talking about what Nero Wolfe calls a feeling for phenomena, I’m trying to enjoy one. Let’s go back to the beginning. On his way to see Paul Chapin, your husband called to you from the study, and then said never mind. Have you any idea what he was going to say?”
“No, how could I—”
“Okay. The way you told it, he called to you after he opened the drawer. Was that the way it was?”
She nodded. “I’m sure it was after I heard the drawer open. I was listening.”
“Yeah. Then you heard him walking to the foyer, and then you heard noises. What kind of noises?”
“I don’t know. Just noises, movements. It is far away, and doors were closed. The noises were faint.”
“Voices?”
“No. I didn’t hear any.”
“Did you hear your husband closing the foyer door after he got there?”
“No. I wouldn’t hear that unless it banged.”
“Then we’ll try this. Since you were listening to his footsteps, even if you couldn’t hear them any more after he got into the drawing-room, there was a moment when you figured that he had reached the foyer. You know what I mean, the feeling that he was there. When I say Now, that will mean that he has just reached the foyer, and you begin feeling the time, the passing of time. Feel it as near the same as you can, and when it’s time for the first shot to go off, you say Now.—Get it? Now.”
I looked at the second hand of my watch; it went crawling up from the 30. She said, “Now.”
I stared at her. “My God, that was only six seconds.”
She nodded. “It was as short as that, I’m sure it was.”
“In that case … all right. Then you ran to the foyer, and there was no light there. Of course you couldn’t be wrong about that.”
“No. The light was off.”
“And you switched it on and saw Chapin kneeling, getting up. Did he have a gun in his hand?”
“No. He had his coat and gloves on. I didn’t see a gun … anywhere.”
“Did Inspector Cramer tell you about the gun?”
She nodded. “It was my husband’s. He shot … it had been fired four times. They found it on the floor.”
“Cramer showed it to you.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s gone from the drawer in the study.”
“Of course.”
“When you turned on the light Chapin was saying something.”
“He was saying my name. After the light was on he said—I can tell you exactly what he said. Anne, a cripple in the dark, my dear Anne, I was trying to hop to the switch. He had fallen.”
“Yeah. Naturally.” I finished scratching on the pad, and looked up at her. She was sitting tight. I said, “Now to go back again. Were you at home all afternoon?”
“No. I was at a gallery looking at prints, and then at a tea. I got home around six.”
“Was your husband here when you got here?”
“Yes, he comes early … on Saturday. He was in his study with Ferdinand Bowen. I went in to say hello. We always … said hello, no matter who was here.”
“So Mr. Bowen was here. Do you know what for?”
“No. That is … no.”
“Now come, Mrs. Burton. You’ve decided to put up with this and it’s pretty swell of you, so come ahead. What was Bowen here for?”
“He was asking a favor. That’s all I know.”
“A financial favor?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Did he get it?”
“No. But this has no connection … no more of this.”
“Okay. When did Bowen leave?”
“Soon after I arrived, I should say a quarter past six. Perhaps twenty after; it was about ten minutes before Dora came, and she was punctual at six-thirty.”
“You don’t say so.” I looked at her. “You mean Dora Chapin.”
“Yes.”
“She came to do your hair.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned.—Excuse me. Nero Wolfe doesn’t permit me to swear in front of ladies. And Dora Chapin got here at six-thirty. Well. When did she leave?”
“It always takes her three-quarters of an hour, so she left at a quarter past seven.” She paused to calculate. “Yes, that would be right. A few minutes later, perhaps. I figured that I had fifteen minutes to finish dressing.”
“So Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty and Paul Chapin arrived at half past. That’s interesting; they almost collided. Who else was here after six o’clock?”
“No one. That’s all. My daughter left around half past six, a little before Dora came. Of course I don’t understand—what is it, Alice?”
A door had opened behind me, and I turned to see. It was the woman, the old friend. She said:
“Nick Cabot is on the phone—they notified him. He wants to know if you want to talk to him.”
Mrs. Burton’s dark eyes flashed aside for an instant, at me. I let my head go sideways enough for her to see it. She spoke to her friend, “No, there is nothing to say. I won’t talk to anyone. Are you folks finding something to eat?”
“We’ll make out. Really, Anne, I think—”
“Please, Alice. Please—”
After a pause the door closed again. I had a grin inside, a little cocky. I said, “You started to say, something you don’t understand …”
She didn’t go on. She sat looking at me with a frown in her eyes but her brow smooth and white. She got up and went to a table, took a cigarette from a box and lit it, and picked up an ash tray. She came back to the couch and sat down and took a couple of whiffs. Then she looked at the cigarette as if wondering where it had come from, and crushed it dead on the tray, and set the tray down. She straightened up and seemed to remember I was looking at her. She spoke suddenly:
“What did you say your name is?”
“Archie Goodwin.”
“Thank you. I should know your name. Strange things can happen, can’t they? Why did you tell me not to talk to Mr. Cabot?”
“No special reason. Right now I don’t want you to be talking to anybody but me.”
She nodded. “And I’m doing it. Mr. Goodwin, you’re not much over half my age and I never saw you before. You seem to be clever. You realized, I suppose, what the shock of seeing my husband dead, shot dead, has done to me. It has shaken things loose. I am doing something very remarkable, for me. I don’t usually talk, below the surface. I never have, since childhood, except with two people. My husband, my dear husband, and Paul Chapin. But we aren’t talking about my husband, there’s nothing to say about him. He’s dead. He is dead … I shall have to tell myself many times … he is dead. He wants to go on living in me, or I want him to. I think—this is what I am really saying—I think I would want Paul to.—Oh, it’s impossible!” She jerked herself up, and her hands got clasped again. “It’s absurd to try to talk about this—even to a stranger—and with Lorrie dead—absurd …”
I said, “Maybe it’s absurd not to. Let it crack open once, spill it out.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to crack open. There’s no reason why I should want to talk about it, but I do. Otherwise why should I let you question me? I saw farther inside myself this evening than I have ever seen before. It wasn’t when I saw my husband dead, it wasn’t when I stood alone in my room, looking at a picture of him, trying to realize he was dead. It was sitting here with that police inspector, with him telling me that a plea of guilty is not accepted in first degree murder, and that I would have to talk with a representative of the District Attorney, and would have to testify in court so that Paul Chapin can be convicted and punished. I don’t want him punished. My husband is dead, isn’t that enough? And if I don’t want him punished, what is it I want to hold onto? Is it pity? I have never pitied him. I have been pretty insolent with life, but not insolent enough to pity Paul Chapin. You told me that he has a box filled with my gloves and stockings which Dora stole for him, and that Nero Wolfe said it holds his soul. Perhaps my soul has been put away in a box too, and I didn’t even know it …”
She got up, abruptly. The ash tray slid off the couch to the floor. She stooped over, and with deliberate fingers that showed no sign of trembling picked up the burnt match stick and the cigarette and put them on the tray. I didn’t move to help her. She went to the table with the tray and then came back to the couch and sat down again. She said:
“I have always disliked Paul Chapin. Once, when I was eighteen years old, I promised to marry him. When I learned of his accident, that he was crippled for life, I was delighted because I wouldn’t have to keep my promise. I didn’t know that then but I realized it later. At no time have I pitied him. I claim no originality in that, I think no woman has ever pitied him, only men. Women do not like him—even those who have been briefly fascinated by him. I dislike him intensely. I have thought about this; I have had occasion to analyze it; it is his deformity that is intolerable. Not his physical deformity. The deformity of his nervous system, of his brain. You have heard of feminine cunning, but you don’t understand it as Paul does, for he has it himself. It is a hateful quality in a man. Women have been fascinated by it, but the two or three who surrendered to it—I not among them, not even at eighteen—got only contempt for a reward.
“He married Dora Ritter. She’s a woman?”
“Oh yes, Dora’s a woman. But she is consecrated to a denial of her womanhood. I am fond of her, I understand her. She knows what beauty is, and she sees herself. That forced her, long ago, to the denial, and her strength of will has maintained it. Paul understood her too. He married her to show his contempt for me; he told me so. He could risk it with Dora because she might be relied upon never to embarrass him with the only demand that he would find humiliating. And as for Dora—she hates him, but she would die for him. Fiercely and secretly, against her denial, she longed for the dignity of marriage, and it was a miracle of luck that Paul offered it under the only circumstances that could make it acceptable to her. Oh, they understand each other!”
I said, “She hates him, and she married him.”<
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“Yes. Dora could do that.”
“I’m surprised she was here today. I understood she had a bad accident Wednesday morning. I saw her. She seems to have some character.”
“It could be called that. Dora is insane. Legally, I suppose not, but nevertheless she is insane. Paul has told her so many times. She tells me about it, in the same tone she uses for the weather. There are two things she can’t bear the thought of: that any woman should suspect her of being capable of tenderness, or that any man should regard her as a woman at all. Her character comes from her indifference to everything else, except Paul Chapin.”
“She bragged to Nero Wolfe that she was married.”
“Of course. It removes her from the field.—Oh, it is impossible to laugh at her, and you can’t pity her any more than you can Paul. A monkey might as well pity me because I haven’t got a tail.”
I said, “You were talking about your soul.”
“Was I? Yes. To you, Mr. Goodwin. I could not speak about it to my friend, Alice—I tried but nothing came. Wasn’t I saying that I don’t want Paul Chapin punished? Perhaps that’s wrong, perhaps I do want him punished, but not crudely by killing him. What have I in my mind? What is in my heart? God knows. But I started to answer your questions when you said something—something about his punishment—”
I nodded. “I said he shouldn’t get more than is coming to him. Of course to you it looks open and shut, and apparently it looks the same way to the cops. You heard shots and ran to the foyer and there it was, a live man and a dead man and a gun. And of course Inspector Cramer has already got the other fixings, for instance the motive all dressed up and its shoes shined, not to mention a willingness to even up with Chapin for certain inconveniences he has been put to. But as Nero Wolfe says, a nurse that pushes the perambulator in the park without putting the baby in it has missed the point. Maybe if I look around I’ll find the baby. For example, Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty. Chapin arrived at seven-thirty, ten minutes later. What if she waited in the hall outside and came back in with him? Or if she couldn’t do that because the maid let him in, he could have opened the door for her while the maid was gone to tell Dr. Burton. She could have snatched the gun from Burton’s pocket and done the shooting and beat it before you could get there. That might explain the light being out; she might have flipped the switch before she opened the outer door so if anyone happened to be passing in the outside hall they couldn’t see in. You say she hates Chapin. Maybe to him it was entirely unexpected, he had no idea what she was up to—”
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