by Rex Stout
When they were out, and the door shut, and I returned to the office, Wolfe was out from behind his desk. “A notion,” I said. “Mrs. Hazen may be out on bail by the middle of the morning and accessible to them, and you’re up in the plant rooms until eleven o’clock, not to be disturbed. Even if she’s locked up, those people have lawyers and connections, Perdis especially. He may play poker with the DA. I could phone Parker to see her in the morning and tell her that no matter what she hears you’re not loony, you’re just a genius, and you know where you’re headed for even when nobody else does, including me.”
“Not necessary.” He went to the door and turned. “Make sure that the safe’s locked. I’m tired. Good night.”
He knows darned well that I always make sure the safe’s locked, but of course it doesn’t often have some—
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thing in it that’s supposed to be worth a million bucks. Up in my room on the third floor, as I undressed I made assorted tries at deciding what was next on his program, and didn’t like any of them.
As it turned out the next thing on the program wasn’t decided either by me or by him, but by Inspector Cramer. In the morning Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock as usual, and also as usual I had the mail opened and the dusting done and fresh water in the vase on his desk. He went first to the front of the desk to put a spray of orchids in the vase, Odon-toglossum pyramus, then circled around to his chair. As he sat the doorbell rang. I went to the office door for a look and told him it was Cramer. He slapped a palm on the desk, glared at me, and said nothing, and I went to the front and opened up. I didn’t like the look on Cram-er’s face as he entered and let me take his coat and hat. He almost grinned at me, and he didn’t stride to the office, he just walked. He sat in the red leather chair, crossed his legs comfortably, and told Wolfe, “I haven’t got much time. I want to hear it from you, what Mrs. Hazen came to you for yesterday, just the substance, and then Goodwin will come downtown and get it down in a statement, all of it. With his wonderful memory.”
Wolfe was glowering at him. “Mr. Cramer. It shouldn’t be-”
“Save it. She’s booked for murder. We have the gun. Hazen got his car from the garage Monday night. It has been found parked on Twenty-first Street. There was a gun in the dashboard compartment, and it fired the bullet that killed him. We have traced it. It was bought by Hazen six years ago and he had a permit for it. He kept it in a drawer in his bedroom, and the maid saw it there yesterday morning when she went up to see why he hadn’t come down for breakfast. Don’t ask me why Mrs. Hazen took it from there afterwards and went to where she had parked the car on Twenty-first Street and put it in the car. I don’t know, but maybe you do. So let’s hear you.”
Chapter 7
I squeezed my eyes shut because if I had kept them open they would have popped, and I didn’t want to give Cramer that satisfaction. But I am supposed to help Wolfe when he needs it, and right then he sure could use a few seconds to arrange his mind, so I opened my eyes and asked Cramer, just curious, “What kind of a gun?”
He ignored it. He was having too good a time looking at Wolfe to bother with me. Wolfe was paying me another compliment. I was responsible for our assumption that Mrs. Hazen was innocent, but he didn’t glance at me. He lowered his chin, scratched the tip of his nose, regarded Cramer for ten seconds, and then turned to me.
“Archie. It may be desirable to have a record of what Mr. Cramer just said. Type it. Verbatim. Double-spaced, one carbon.”
As I got at the typewriter Cramer said, “I don’t object. Naturally you’ve got to stall while you try to figure a way to climb down without breaking your neck.”
No comment from Wolfe. I put in paper and hit the keys. Since I had had years of practice reporting long and involved conversations that had had time to fade, that one was no trick at all. As I rolled the paper out Wolfe said, “Initial the original,” and I did so, and handed it to him. He read it through, in no hurry, took his pen and initialed it, handed it back to me, and turned to Cramer.
“I’m not stalling,” he said. “If what you just told me is true, your demand for information is warranted. If it
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isn’t true you’re gulling me into disclosing a confidential communication from a client, and I want a record-”
“Then she’s your client?”
“She is now. She wasn’t when you were here yesterday, but she hired me later through Mr. Parker. I want a record of your words, and I have it. I also want more facts, to make sure that those you have given me are not qualified by others. That’s a reasonable precaution, I think. What time did Mr. Hazen take his car from the garage Monday evening?”
“A little after eleven o’clock.”
“That was after the dinner guests left?”
“Yes. They left at a quarter to eleven.”
“Was anyone with him at the garage?”
“No.”
“Was anyone else with him anywhere, out of the car or in it, after a quarter to eleven?”
“No.”
“Is it assumed that he was shot in that alley where the body was found?”
“No. He was shot in the car.”
“Have you any additional facts implicating Mrs. Ha-zen, of any kind? Not conjectures, facts. For example, was she seen in or near the car, driving it, or when it was parked on Twenty-first Street during the night, or when-as you have it-she went there yesterday to put the gun in the dashboard compartment?”
“No. No more facts. I expect to get some from you.”
“You will. Naturally, when you learned that Mrs. Hazen had been to see me you focused on her, but surely not exclusively. Have you inquired into the movements of the dinner guests after they left?”
“Yes.”
“Have any of them been conclusively eliminated?”
“No. Not conclusively.”
Wolfe closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them. “That seems to cover it.” He took a breath. “Of course I don’t like this. And you’re not squeezing it out of me, though you think you are. I would tell you nothing and take the consequences if it weren’t that I need some
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information that I can get only from you. I have to know where the gun came from that Mrs. Hazen left with me yesterday. If you’ll agree-”
“She left a gun with you?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you about it, and give it to you, if you will give me its history at the earliest possible moment. I want your word.”
“You won’t get it. Mrs. Hazen is charged with mur-der. If she left a gun with you it’s evidence in a murder investigation.”
Wolfe shook his head. “No. It’s evidence in my investigation, but not in yours. You have your gun, the one the murderer used. How can it embarrass you to tell me about this one?”
Cramer considered it. “You’re going to tell me what she said about it.”
“I am.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“I have your word?”
“Yes.”
“Get the gun, Archie.”
I went to the safe and squatted to twirl the knob. Ordinarily I leave it unlocked when I’m in the office, but with that box in it I was taking no chances, so after I had worked the combination and got the gun I shut the door and turned the knob. As I crossed to Cramer I spoke. “By the way, I asked a question that wasn’t answered.
What make is your gun? The one that killed him.”
“Drexel thirty-two.”
“So’s this.” I handed it to him. “Of course there are millions of Drexel thirty-twos.”
He gave it a look, and darned if he didn’t sniff it. As I said, that’s automatic. Also he flipped the cylinder open for a glance.
“It was fired yesterday,” Wolfe said, “by Mr. Goodwin, to get a bullet. The bullet I gave you.”
Cramer nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing on God’s earth you wouldn’t do. It could have been��� What the hell,
it wasn’t. Okay, let’s hear you.”
Wolfe unloaded. He didn’t enjoy it and neither did I,
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spilling it, but we had to know about the gun and it might have taken us days. He skipped the details, including no quotes, but gave it straight, both parts, before the news came over the radio and after. He didn’t include my reasons for deciding that she hadn’t shot her husband, but I didn’t mind; it might have got Cramer confused and that would have been a pity. He was a little confused anyhow; toward the end he was frowning, pulling at his lip now and then, a wary look in his eyes. When Wolfe finished he sat looking at it before he spoke.
“What have you left out?” he demanded.
Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing material. You said you wanted the substance; you have it. How long will it take to trace the gun?”
“I don’t get it. After she came to you with that fairy tale, and the news came about her husband, and you learned that we were holding her, you took her for a client? I don’t get it. I have never known you to take a murderer for a client. Whether it’s just your goddamn luck, or what, I don’t know, but you haven’t. Why did you take her?”
A corner of Wolfe’s mouth turned up. “I asked Mr. Goodwin’s opinion and he said she was innocent. His judgment of women under thirty is infallible. How long will it take to trace the gun?”
“Nuts.” Cramer stood up. “Maybe an hour, maybe a week. I’m taking Goodwin. They’ll take his statement at the District Attorney’s office, a complete report of the conversation. I’ll have a man here at two o’clock to take yours. If I took you down you’d only-”
“I shall sign no statement. I am not obliged to. If you send a man he won’t be admitted. If you have questions, ask them.”
Cramer’s round red face got redder. But that was as far as it went; his memory of what had happened on the three occasions he had taken Wolfe downtown was presumably what stopped him. He stuck the gun in his pocket and turned to me. “Come on, Goodwin. We’ll see.”
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As I arose the phone rang and I reached to get it. It was Nathaniel Parker. He was upset. “Archie? Nat Parker. Mrs. Hazen is being held on a charge of homicide, of course without bail. I want to see Wolfe before I see her. I have to know what she told him yesterday. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Fine,” I said. “He’s in a perfect mood for it. Come ahead.” I hung up, told Wolfe, “Parker will be here in twenty minutes,” and went to the hall for my coat and hat, with Cramer at my heels.
Chapter 8
During the next nine hours I had various opportunities to try to sort it out. En route in a police car to the DA’s office, later from there to Homicide West on 20th Street, and several waiting periods while assorted officers of the law, including the DA himself at one point, decided what to do next.
It was complicated enough even before an assistant DA kindly permitted me to use a phone, around three o’clock, and I called Wolfe. Of course the game was button, button, who had the gun when and where? Either gun. If Lucy Hazen had lied, how much? Had the gun that the maid had seen in the drawer Tuesday morning been the one that had shot Hazen or the one she had brought to Wolfe? If the former, Lucy was a liar and also either was a murderer or could name him. If the latter, who had put it in the drawer and when? And why? It wasn’t that there were no possible answers;
there were too many. And too many of them made it too likely that Lucy had made a monkey of me and therefore were not acceptable.
The first hour or so I was entertained by an assistant DA named Mandel, who was not a stranger to me, and a
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Homicide Bureau lieutenant, and it was obvious that the gun puzzle was as tough for them as it was for me, though they didn’t say so. Then, while we were having sandwiches and coffee, no recess called, at Mandel’s desk, a phone call came for him, and he took the lieutenant to another room, and when they returned their attitude was quite different. Apparently they were no longer interested in guns; they concentrated on what Lucy had said to Wolfe and me, her exact words; and finally, a little before three o’clock, Mandel called a stenographer in and told me to start dictating my statement. Of course the room was wired for sound, and they would have fun later comparing my dictated statement with what I had told them. It was then that I insisted on making a phone call and was escorted to a booth.
I got Wolfe. “Me. In a booth at the DA’s office, and it may be tapped. They should be finished with me by the end of the week. They were curious about guns, and then a phone call came and they weren’t. I thought you might like to know.”
“I already know.” He didn’t sound depressed. “Mr. Cramer phoned shortly after one. The gun we gave him had been traced without difficulty. It was purchased by Mrs. Hazen’s father, Titus Postel, in 1953, and he committed suicide with it five years ago, in 1955.”
“And she had it?”
“Not established. I have told Mr. Parker to ask her when he sees her this afternoon. Meanwhile I have got Saul and given him an errand.”
I would have liked to ask him what errand, but that wasn’t advisable since we might have company on the line. Saul Panzer, the first and best man on our list when we need help, charges more than any other free-lance operative in New York, and is worth five times as much. I told Wolfe I might or might not be home for dinner.
Dictating my statement to the stenographer, I had to keep jerking my mind back to it. The gun puzzle was okay now for the cops, since they had tagged Lucy; now
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they didn’t have to buy it that she had been nutty enough to take the gun home after she shot him and put it in the drawer, and the next day get it and take it back to the car. It was much neater. She had got the gun from the drawer Monday, put the one she had, that had been her father’s, in its place, and left it in the car after she shot him. And Tuesday she had got the gun from the drawer and brought it to Wolfe as a prop for her fairy tale, evidently not knowing that guns have numbers that can be traced. What better could you ask for?
But for me, unless I was ready to give Lucy up as a bad job, it was what worse could I ask for. Before, there had been too many answers; now there weren’t any. I had to file it while I dictated my statement, in which I was supposed to include everything Lucy had said to us in Wolfe’s office, and while I went over it after it was typed, and it wasn’t easy. Then I was taken to the office of the DA himself, and he and Mandel pecked at me for an hour; and when they finished, around 6:30, and I supposed that was all for the day, I was informed that Cramer wanted me at Homicide West. If I had balked they would have booked me as a material witness and Parker couldn’t come to the rescue until morning, so I took it.
In one respect it was an improvement. The dick at Homicide West whom Cramer sent for sandwiches happened to be civilized enough to think that even a dog has a right to eat what he likes, and I got what I asked for, corned beef on rye and milk. Except for that, it was just more of the same, for more than two hours with Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins. I didn’t even have the satisfaction of getting a chance to break my record with Lieutenant Rowcliff. I once got him stut-tering in two minutes and twenty seconds, and I have a bet with Saul Panzer that I can do it in two minutes flat with three more tries.
Cramer and Stebbins finally decided they had had enough of me. It was 9:32 by my watch, and 9:34 by the clock on the wall, which was wrong, as I crossed the reception room of the precinct house to the door, and on
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out. I stood on the sidewalk for three good breaths of the cold fresh air, giving my lungs a treat and deciding which way to turn. If right, toward Eighth Avenue, it would be for a taxi; if left, toward Ninth, it would be for a fifteen-minute walk. Voting for the walk, I moved, and had taken three steps when my shoulder was grabbed and yanked from behind and a voice came, with feeling: “You dirty rat!”
The yank had turned me some and I turned myself the rest of the wa
y. It was Theodore Weed. His hands were fists, and the right one was back a foot, with the elbow bent. His eyes were blazing and his bony jaw was set.
“Not here, you damn fool,” I said. “Even if you drop me with one swing, which is doubtful, I’ll yell police as I go down and here they’ll come. Besides, I have a right to know why I’m a rat while I’m still conscious. Why?”
“You know why. You’re a filthy stool, and Nero Wolfe too. You’re working for Lucy? You are like hell. You gave the police the gun.”
“How do you know we did?”
“Things they asked me. Do you deny it?”
My brain was a little tired after the long day, but it was doing its best. This character was by no means crossed off. We only had his word for it that he would give both arms to help Lucy; he had said himself that she didn’t know how he felt about her. A chat with him wouldn’t hurt and might help, but I couldn’t take him home with me until I knew what Wolfe had on his program, if anything.
He still had fists. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We’ll go around the comer to Jake’s and I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll discuss it. Then if you still want to take a poke at me Jake will let us use the back room provided we let him watch. Afterwards you can comb your hair if you’re up to it. It needs it.”
It didn’t appeal to him, but what would have? A couple of passersby, noticing his stance and his fists, had stopped to see, and a harness bull, emerging from the station, had also stopped. So he came.
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At Jake’s, when we had sat at a table by the wall and given our orders to the white apron, and I said I had to make a phone call, he got up and came along to the booth. Very bad manners, but I didn’t correct him. I even let him stand in the door of the booth so I couldn’t close it. I dialed a number and got it.
“Me. In a booth on Eighth Avenue. Theodore Weed is here at my elbow. He stopped me on the sidewalk to tell me that you and I are filthy stools because we gave the gun to the cops. When I asked him how he knew we did he said from things they asked him, which is possible since he had just come from Homicide West, probably from a session with Rowcliff, and you know Rowcliff. I’m buying him a drink, but I thought you might like to apologize to him personally for tossing our client to the wolves. He has blood in his eye.”