And Be a Villain

by Rex Stout

  Of course it was vulgar, but I couldn’t help it. I threw back my head and let out a roar. It wasn’t so much the news itself as it was the look on O’Hara’s face as the full beauty of it seeped through to him.

  “The fat bum!” Purley whimpered.

  I told O’Hara distinctly: “The next time Cramer asks you to step into another room with him I’d advise you to step.”

  He didn’t hear me.

  “It wasn’t a question,” Cramer said, “of Wolfe having me buffaloed. With him the only question is what has he got and how and when will he use it. If that goes on the air I would just as soon quit.”

  “What—” O’Hara stopped to wet his lips. “What would you suggest?”

  Cramer didn’t answer. He pulled a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, got it between his teeth, took it out again and hurled it for the wastebasket, missing by two feet, walked to a chair, sat down, and breathed.

  “There are only two things,” he said. “Just let it land is one. The other is to ask Goodwin to call him and request him to recall the announcement—and tell him he’ll be home right away to report.” Cramer breathed again. “I won’t ask Goodwin that. Do you want to?”

  “No! It’s blackmail!” O’Hara yelled in pain.

  “Yeah,” Cramer agreed. “Only when Wolfe does it there’s nothing anonymous about it. The newscast will be on in thirty-five minutes.”

  O’Hara would rather have eaten soap. “It may be a bluff,” he pleaded. “Pure bluff!”

  “Certainly it may. And it may not. It’s easy enough to call it—just sit down and wait. If you’re not going to call on Goodwin I guess I’ll have to see if I can get hold of the Commissioner.” Cramer stood up.

  O’Hara turned to me. I have to hand it to him, he looked me in the eye as he asked:

  “Will you do it?”

  I grinned at him. “That warrant Purley showed me is around somewhere. It will be vacated?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ve got witnesses.” I crossed to the desk and began returning my belongings to the proper pockets. The anonymous letter was there where O’Hara had left it when he had advanced to overwhelm me, and I picked it up and displayed it. “I’m taking this,” I said, “but I’ll let you look at it again if you want to. May I use the phone?”

  I circled the desk, dropped into O’Hara’s personal chair, pulled the instrument to me, and asked the male switchboard voice to get Mr. Nero Wolfe. The voice asked who I was and I told it. Then we had some comedy. After I had waited a good two minutes there was a knock on the door and O’Hara called come in. The door swung wide open and two individuals entered with guns in their hands, stern and alert. When they saw the arrangements they stopped dead and looked foolish.

  “What do you want?” O’Hara barked.

  “The phone,” one said. “Goodwin. We didn’t know …”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Purley exploded. “Ain’t I here?” It was a breach of discipline, with his superiors present.

  They bumped at the threshold, getting out, pulling the door after them. I couldn’t possibly have been blamed for helping myself to another hearty laugh, but there’s a limit to what even a Deputy Commissioner will take, so I choked it off and sat tight until there was a voice in my ear that I knew better than any other voice on earth.

  “Archie,” I said.

  “Where are you?” The voice was icy with rage, but not at me.

  “I’m in O’Hara’s office, at his desk, using his phone. I am half starved. O’Hara, Cramer, and Sergeant Stebbins are present. To be perfectly fair, Cramer and Purley are innocent. This boneheaded play was a solo by O’Hara. He fully realizes his mistake and sincerely apologizes. The warrant for my arrest is a thing of the past. The letter about Miss Vance is in my pocket. I have conceded nothing. I’m free to go where I please, including home. O’Hara requests, as a personal favor, that you kill the announcement you gave WPIT. Can that be done?”

  “It can if I choose. It was arranged through Mr. Richards.”

  “So I suspected. You should have seen O’Hara’s face when the tidings reached him. If you choose, and all of us here hope you do, go ahead and kill it and I’ll be there in twenty minutes or less. Tell Fritz I’m hungry.”

  “Mr. O’Hara is a nincompoop. Tell him I said so. I’ll have the announcement suspended temporarily, but there will be conditions. Stay there. I’ll phone you shortly.”

  I cradled the phone, leaned back, and grinned at the three inquiring faces. “He’ll call back. He thinks he can head it off temporarily, but he’s got some idea about conditions.” I focused on O’Hara. “He said to tell you that he says you’re a nincompoop, but I think it would be more tactful not to mention it, so I won’t.”

  “Someday,” O’Hara said, “he’ll land on his nose.”

  They all sat down and began exchanging comments. I didn’t listen because my mind was occupied. I was willing to chalk up for Wolfe a neat and well-timed swagger, and to admit that it got the desired results, but now what? Did he really have anything at all, and if so how much? It had better be fairly good. Cramer and Stebbins were not exactly ready to clasp our hands across the corpses, and as for O’Hara, I only hoped to God that when Wolfe called back he wouldn’t tell me to slap the Deputy Commissioner on the back and tell him it had been just a prank and wasn’t it fun? All in all, it was such a gloomy outlook that when the buzzer sounded and I reached for the phone I would just as soon have been somewhere else.

  Wolfe’s voice asked if they were still there and I said yes. He said to tell them that the announcement had been postponed and would not be broadcast at ten o’clock, and I did so. Then he asked for my report of the day’s events.

  “Now?” I demanded. “On the phone?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Concisely, but including all essentials. If there is a contradiction to demolish I must know it.”

  Even with the suspicion gnawing at me that I had got roped in for a supporting role in an enormous bluff, I did enjoy it. It was a situation anyone would appreciate. There I was, in O’Hara’s chair at his desk in his office, giving a detailed report to Wolfe of a murder I had witnessed and a police operation I had helped with, and for over half an hour those three bozos simply utterly had to sit and listen. Whatever position they might be in all too soon, all they could do now was to take it and like it. I did enjoy it. Now and then Wolfe interrupted with a question, and when I had finished he took me back to fill in a few gaps. Then he proceeded to give me instructions, and as I listened it became apparent that if it was a bluff at least he wasn’t going to leave me behind the enemy lines to fight my way out. I asked him to repeat it to make sure I had it straight. He did so.

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell Fritz I’m hungry.” I hung up and faced the three on chairs:

  “I’m sorry it took so long, but he pays my salary and what could I do? As I told you, the announcement has been postponed. He is willing to kill it, but that sort of depends. He thinks it would be appropriate for Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins to help with the windup. He would appreciate it if you will start by delivering eight people at his office as soon as possible. He wants the five who were at the Fraser apartment today, not including the girl, Nancylee, or Cora the cook. Also Savarese. Also Anderson, president of the Hi-Spot Company, and Owen, the public relations man. All he wants you to do is to get them there, and to be present yourselves, but with the understanding that he will run the show. With that provision, he states that when you leave you will be prepared to make an arrest and take the murderer with you, and the announcement he gave WPIT will not be made. You can do the announcing.” I arose and moved, crossing to a chair over by the wall near the door to reclaim my hat and coat. Then I turned:

  “It’s after ten o’clock, and if this thing is on I’m not going to start it on an empty stomach. In my opinion, even if all he has in mind is a game of blind man’s bluff, which I doubt, it’s well worth it. Orchard died twenty-five days ago. Beula Poole nine days. Miss
Koppel ten hours. You could put your inventory on a postage stamp.” I had my hand on the doorknob. “How about it? Feel like helping?”

  Cramer growled at me, “Why Anderson and Owen? What does he want them for?”

  “Search me. Of course he likes a good audience.”

  “Maybe we can’t get them.”

  “You can try. You’re an inspector and murder is a very bad crime.”

  “It may take hours.”

  “Yeah, it looks like an all-night party. If I can stand it you can, not to mention Mr. Wolfe. All right, then we’ll be seeing you.” I opened the door and took a step, but turned:

  “Oh, I forgot, he told me to tell you, this anonymous letter about Elinor Vance is just some homemade bait that didn’t get used. I typed it myself this morning. If you get a chance tonight you can do a sample on my machine and compare.”

  O’Hara barked ferociously, “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”

  “I didn’t like the way I was asked, Commissioner. The only man I know of more sensitive than me is Nero Wolfe.”

  Chapter 24

  IT WAS NOT SURPRISING that Cramer delivered the whole order. Certainly none of those people could have been compelled to go out into the night, and let themselves be conveyed to Nero Wolfe’s office, or any place else, without slapping a charge on them, but it doesn’t take much compelling when you’re in that kind of a fix. They were all there well before midnight. Wolfe stayed up in his room until they all arrived. I had supposed that while I ate my warmed-over cutlets he would have some questions or instructions for me, and probably both, but no. If he had anything he already had it and needed no contributions from me. He saw to it that my food was hot and my salad crisp and then beat it upstairs.

  The atmosphere, as they gathered, was naturally not very genial, but it wasn’t so much tense as it was glum. They were simply sunk. As soon as Elinor Vance got onto a chair she rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands, and stayed that way. Tully Strong folded his arms, let his head sag until his chin met his chest, and shut his eyes. Madeline Fraser sat in the red leather chair, which I got her into before President Anderson arrived, looking first at one of her fellow beings and then at another, but she gave the impression that she merely felt she ought to be conscious of something and they would do as well as anything else.

  Bill Meadows, seated near Elinor Vance, was leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head, glaring at the ceiling. Nat Traub was a sight, with his necktie off center, his hair mussed, and his eyes bloodshot. His facial growth was the kind that needs shaving twice a day, and it hadn’t had it. He was so restless he couldn’t stay in his chair, but when he left it there was no place he wanted to go, so all he could do was sit down again. I did not, on that account, tag him for it, since he had a right to be haggard. A Meltette taken from a box delivered by him had poisoned and killed someone, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how his client had reacted to that.

  Two conversations were going on. Professor Savarese was telling Purley Stebbins something at length, presumably the latest in formulas, and Purley was making himself an accessory by nodding now and then. Anderson and Owen, the Hi-Spot delegates, were standing by the couch talking with Cramer, and, judging from the snatches I caught, they might finally decide to sit down and they might not. They had been the last to arrive. I, having passed the word to Wolfe that the delivery had been completed, was wondering what was keeping him when I heard the sound of his elevator.

  They were so busy with their internal affairs that Traub and I were the only ones who were aware that our host had joined us until he reached the corner of his desk and turned to make a survey. The conversations stopped. Savarese bounded across to shake hands. Elinor Vance lifted her head, showing such a woebegone face that I had to restrain an impulse to take the anonymous letter from my pocket and tear it up then and there. Traub sat down for the twentieth time. Bill Meadows unclasped his hands and pressed his finger tips against his eyes. President Anderson sputtered:

  “Since when have you been running the Police Department?”

  That’s what a big executive is supposed to do, go straight to the point.

  Wolfe, getting loose from Savarese, moved to his chair and got himself arranged in it. I guess it’s partly his size, unquestionably impressive, which holds people’s attention when he is in motion, but his manner and style have a lot to do with it. You get both suspense and surprise. You know he’s going to be clumsy and wait to see it, but by gum you never do. First thing you know there he is, in his chair or wherever he was bound for, and there was nothing clumsy about it at all. It was smooth and balanced and efficient.

  He looked up at the clock, which said twenty to twelve, and remarked to the audience, “It’s late, isn’t it?” He regarded the Hi-Spot president:

  “Let’s not start bickering, Mr. Anderson. You weren’t dragged here by force, were you? You were impelled either by concern or curiosity. In either case you won’t leave until you hear what I have to say, so why not sit down and listen? If you want to be contentious wait until you learn what you have to contend with. It works better that way.”

  He took in the others. “Perhaps, though, I should answer Mr. Anderson’s question, though it was obviously rhetorical. I am not running the Police Department, far from it. I don’t know what you were told when you were asked to come here, but I assume you know that nothing I say is backed by any official authority, for I have none. Mr. Cramer and Mr. Stebbins are present as observers. That is correct, Mr. Cramer?”

  The Inspector, seated on the corner of the couch, nodded. “They understand that.”

  “Good. Then Mr. Anderson’s question was not only rhetorical, it was gibberish. I shall—”

  “I have a question!” a voice said, harsh and strained.

  “Yes, Mr. Meadows, what is it?”

  “If this isn’t official, what happens to the notes Goodwin is making?”

  “That depends on what we accomplish. They may never leave this house, and end up by being added to the stack in the cellar. Or a transcription of them may be accepted as evidence in a courtroom.—I wish you’d sit down, Mr. Savarese. It’s more tranquil if everyone is seated.”

  Wolfe shifted his center of gravity. During his first ten minutes in a chair minor adjustments were always required.

  “I should begin,” he said with just a trace of peevishness, “by admitting that I am in a highly vulnerable position. I have told Mr. Cramer that when he leaves here he will take a murderer with him; but though I know who the murderer is, I haven’t a morsel of evidence against him, and neither has anyone else. Still—”

  “Wait a minute,” Cramer growled.

  Wolfe shook his head. “It’s important, Mr. Cramer, to keep this unofficial—until I reach a certain point, if I ever do—so it would be best for you to say nothing whatever.” His eyes moved. “I think the best approach is to explain how I learned the identity of the murderer—and by the way, here’s an interesting point: though I was already close to certitude, it was clinched for me only two hours ago, when Mr. Goodwin told me that there were sixteen eager candidates for the sponsorship just abandoned by Hi-Spot. That removed my shred of doubt.”

  “For God’s sake,” Nat Traub blurted, “let the fine points go! Let’s have it!”

  “You’ll have to be patient, sir,” Wolfe reproved him. “I’m not merely reporting, I’m doing a job. Whether a murderer gets arrested, and tried, and convicted, depends entirely on how I handle this. There is no evidence, and if I don’t squeeze it out of you people now, tonight, there may never be any. The trouble all along, both for the police and for me, has been that no finger pointed without wavering. In going for a murderer as well concealed as this one it is always necessary to trample down improbabilities to get a path started, but it is foolhardy to do so until a direction is plainly indicated. This time there was no such plain indication, and frankly, I had begun to doubt if there would be one—until yesterday morning, when Mr. Ander
son and Mr. Owen visited this office. They gave it to me.”

  “You’re a liar!” Anderson stated.

  “You see?” Wolfe upturned a palm. “Some day, sir, you’re going to get on the wrong train by trying to board yours before it arrives. How do you know whether I’m a liar or not until you know what I’m saying? You did come here. You gave me a check for the full amount of my fee, told me that I was no longer in your hire, and said that you had withdrawn as a sponsor of Miss Fraser’s program. You gave as your reason for withdrawal that the practice of blackmail had been injected into the case, and you didn’t want your product connected in the public mind with blackmail because it is dirty and makes people gag. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes. But—”

  “I’ll do the butting. After you left I sat in this chair twelve straight hours, with intermissions only for meals, using my brain on you. If I had known then that before the day was out sixteen other products were scrambling to take your Hi-Spot’s place, I would have reached my conclusion in much less than twelve hours, but I didn’t. What I was exploring was the question, what had happened to you? You had been so greedy for publicity that you had even made a trip down here to get into a photograph with me. Now, suddenly, you were fleeing like a comely maiden from a smallpox scare. Why?”

  “I told you—”

  “I know. But that wasn’t good enough. Examined with care, it was actually flimsy. I don’t propose to recite all my twistings and windings for those twelve hours, but first of all I rejected the reason you gave. What, then? I considered every possible circumstance and all conceivable combinations. That you were yourself the murderer and feared I might sniff you out; that you were not the murderer, but the blackmailer; that, yourself innocent, you knew the identity of one of the culprits, or both, and did not wish to be associated with the disclosure; and a thousand others. Upon each and all of my conjectures I brought to bear what I knew of you—your position, your record, your temperament, and your character. At the end only one supposition wholly satisfied me. I concluded that you had somehow become convinced that someone closely connected with that program, which you were sponsoring, had committed the murders, and that there was a possibility that that fact would be discovered. More: I concluded that it was not Miss Koppel or Miss Vance or Mr. Meadows or Mr. Strong, and certainly not Mr. Savarese. It is the public mind that you are anxious about, and in the public mind those people are quite insignificant. Miss Fraser is that program, and that program is Miss Fraser. It could only be her. You knew, or thought you knew, that Miss Fraser herself had killed Mr. Orchard, and possibly Miss Poole too, and you were getting as far away from her as you could as quickly as you could. Your face tells me you don’t like that.”