Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 (22 page)

“Mr. O’Garro?”

“Don’t answer, Pat,” Hansen commanded him.

“Pah.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Something so easy to explore? If you prefer the plague—”

“I prefer,” O’Garro said, “to have this out with you here and now.” His bluster was gone. He was being very careful and keeping his eyes straight at Wolfe. “I was here all yesterday afternoon. I saw Assa and spoke with him several times, but always with others present. Buff and I left together around half-past seven and met Assa at a restaurant. We ate something and went from there to your place—Buff and I did. Assa stopped off for an errand and came on alone.”

“What was his errand?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“At the restaurant, what did he say about his visit to me?”

“Nothing. He didn’t mention it. The first I heard of it was here from you.”

“When did you make the appointment to meet him at the restaurant?”

“I didn’t make it.”

“Who did?”

O’Garro’s jaw worked. His eyes hadn’t left Wolfe. “I’ll reserve that,” he said.

“You preferred,” Wolfe reminded him, “to have it out here and now.”

“That will do,” Hansen said, with authority. “As your counsel, Pat, I instruct you, and you too, Oliver, to answer no more questions. I said this man is treacherous and I repeat it. He was in your employ in a confidential capacity, and he is trying to put you in jeopardy on a capital charge. Don’t answer him.—If you have anything else to say, Wolfe, we’re listening.”

Wolfe ignored him and looked at Buff. “Fortunately, Mr. Buff, Mr. O’Garro has spared me the effort
of persuading you to disobey your attorney, since he has told me that you left here with him around seven-thirty.” His eyes moved. “I deny that I am treacherous. My client is a business entity called Lippert, Buff and Assa. Until the moment of Mr. Assa’s death I devoted myself exclusively to my client’s interests by working on the job that had been given me. Indeed, I am still doing so, but the circumstances have altered. The question is, what will best serve the interests of that business entity under these new circumstances? Its corollary is, how can I finish my job and learn who took the wallet without exposing the murderer? I can’t.”

He flattened his palms on the desk. “Mr. Dahlmann, who was apparently equipped to furnish the vitality and vigor formerly supplied by Mr. Lippert, has been killed—by one of you. Mr. Assa, who rashly incurred great personal risk for the sake of the firm, has also been killed—by one of you. Who, then, is the traitor? Who has reduced the firm to a strait from which it may never recover? If it is reasonable for you to expect me to regard my client’s interests as paramount, as it is, it is equally reasonable for me to expect you to do the same; and you are simpletons if you don’t see that those interests demand the exposure of the murderer as quickly and surely as possible.”

His eyes fixed on the lawyer. “Mr. Hansen. You are counsel for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa?”

“I am.”

“Are you Mr. Buff’s personal attorney?”

“Of record? No.”

“Or Mr. O’Garro’s?”

“No.”

“Then I charge you with treachery to your client. I
assert that you betray your client’s vital interests when you instruct these men to withhold answers to my questions.—No no, don’t bother to reply. Draft a twenty-page brief tomorrow at your leisure.” He left him for the members of the firm. “I have noted that you have not raised the question of motive. I myself have not broached it because I know little or nothing about it—that is, the motive for killing Dahlmann. Mr. Cramer of course has a stack of them, good, bad, and indifferent. I have nothing at all for Mr. Hansen and next to nothing for Mr. Heery, and anyway the timetable shelves them tentatively. For Mr. O’Garro, nothing. For Mr. Buff, nothing conclusive, but material for speculation. I have gathered that he more or less inherited his eminence in the firm on the death of Mr. Lippert, who had trained him; that since Mr. Lippert’s death he has gloried in his status of senior partner and clung to it tenaciously; that his abilities are negligible except for one narrow field; and that there was a widespread expectation that before long Mr. Dahlmann would become the master instead of the servant. I don’t know how severely that prospect galled Mr. Buff, but you must know.” He focused on the senior partner. “Especially you, Mr. Buff. Would you care to tell me?”

Buff darted a glance at Hansen, but the lawyer had no instructions, and he went to Wolfe. His round red face was puffy and flabby, and a strand of his white hair, dangling over his brow, had been annoying me and I had been tempted to tell him to brush it back. Around the corner at the end of the table, at my right, he was close enough for me to do it myself.

He wasn’t indignant. He was a big man and an important man, and this was a very serious matter. “Your attempt to give me a motive,” he told Wolfe, “is
not very successful. We all resented Dahlmann a little. He got on our nerves. I think some of us hated him—for instance, O’Garro here. O’Garro always did hate him. But in trying to give me a motive you’re overlooking something. If I killed him to keep him from crowding me out at LBA, I must have been crazy, because why did I take the wallet? Taking the wallet was what got LBA into these grave difficulties. Was I crazy?”

“By no means.” Wolfe met his eyes. “You may have gone there merely to get the wallet, and took the gun along because you were determined to get it, and the opportunity to get rid of him became irresistible after you were with him. Leaving, you would certainly take the wallet. That was what you had gone for; and in any case, you didn’t want it found on his body with that paper in it. You were not in a state of mind to consider calmly the consequences of your taking it. By the way, what have you done with the paper? It must have been in the wallet, since you sent the answers to the contestants.”

“That’s going too far, Wolfe.” Buff’s voice raised a little. “You only suggested a motive, but now you’re accusing me. With witnesses here, don’t forget that. But what you said about the vital interests of this firm, that they are paramount, that made sense and I agree with you. At a time like this personal considerations are of no account. So I must tell you of a little mistake O’Garro made—I don’t say he did it deliberately, it may have slipped his mind that he did make the appointment for us to meet Assa at the restaurant. He was in his office, and he came to my office and said that Assa had phoned and he had arranged for us to meet him at Grainger’s at a quarter to eight.”

I thought O’Garro was going to plug him, and O’Garro thought so too. He was across from me, at Buff’s right, and he was out of his chair, his eyes blazing, with two fists ready, but he didn’t swing. He put his fists on the table and leaned on them, toward Buff, until his face was only a foot away from the senior partner’s.

“You’re too old to hit,” he said, grinding it out between his teeth. “Too old and too goddam dirty. You said I hated Dahlmann. Maybe I didn’t love him, but I didn’t hate him. You did. Seeing him coming up on his way to take over and boot you out—no wonder you hated him—and by God, I felt sorry for you!”

O’Garro straightened up and looked at us. “I felt sorry for him, gentlemen. That’s how clever I was. I felt sorry for him.” He looked at Wolfe. “You asked me who made the appointment with Assa and I said I’d reserve it. Buff made it, and came to my room and told me. Any more questions?”

“One or two for Mr. Buff.” Wolfe regarded him with half-closed eyes. “Mr. Buff. When were you alone with Mr. Assa yesterday afternoon, and where and for how long?”

“I refuse to answer.” Buff was having trouble with his voice. “I decline to answer on advice of counsel.”

“Who is your counsel?”

“Rudolph Hansen.”

“He says he isn’t.” Wolfe’s eyes moved. “Mr. Hansen? Are you now counsel for Mr. Buff?”

“No.” It sounded final. “As it stands now I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, because of a possible conflict of interest. His attorney is named Arnold Duffen, with an office a few blocks from here.”

Buff looked at him. The round red face was puffier.
“Arnold may not be immediately available, Rudolph. I want to consult you privately. Now.”

“No. Impossible.”

“Then I must try to get him.” Buff was leaving his chair. “Not here. From my room.”

I stopped him by taking his arm. He was going to pull away, but I don’t take a murderer’s arm the way I do a nymph’s, and he ended back in his chair. I released him, but got up and stood beside him.

“I wish,” Wolfe said, “to extend you gentlemen all possible courtesy, but I must transfer the responsibility for that bottle of poison as soon as may be. Need I wait longer?”

For three seconds no one spoke, and then O’Garro said, “Use the phone on your left.”

T
he most important result from the standpoint of the People of the State of New York came a couple of months later, in June, when Oliver Buff was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of Vernon Assa, Cramer and the DA’s office having collected a batch of evidence which did, after all, include one good fingerprint from the KCN bottle. But from our standpoint the most important result came much earlier, in fact the very next day, when Rudolph Hansen phoned after lunch and made a date for him and O’Garro and Heery to see Wolfe at six o’clock. They came right on the dot, just as Wolfe got down from the plant rooms. When I took them to the office I saw that O’Garro got the red leather chair, thinking he rated it as the surviving partner. Probably his name would now go into the firm’s title. They sure needed some new ones.

They still looked as if they could use some sleep, say about a week, but at least they had their hair combed. They were gloomy but polite. After some recent developments had been mentioned, such as a statement by Buff’s secretary that on Monday afternoon she had seen Assa in Buff’s room, talking with
him, with a brown wallet in his hand, Hansen opened up. He said that in spite of everything it would be a great relief to proceed with the contest in a manner that would leave no loopholes for contention or litigation, and in connection with that process they wanted Wolfe’s help. Wolfe asked him how.

“We want you to handle it,” Hansen said. “We want you to write the verses, give them to the contestants, and set the conditions and deadline, and, when the answers are received, check them and award the prizes. We want to leave the whole thing to you. Heery refuses to let LBA handle it, and in the circumstances we can’t blame him, and it’s his money. You’ll have full authority. There’ll be no interference from anybody. For this service LBA will agree to pay you fifty thousand dollars, plus expenses.”

“I won’t do it,” Wolfe said flatly.

“Damn it, you must!” Heery rapped out.

“No, sir. I must not. I have stretched my dignity pretty thin on occasion to keep myself going, but I will not write verses for a perfume contest. That is not to impugn the dignity of any other man who may undertake it. Dignities are like faces; no two are the same. I beg you not to insist; I won’t consider it. I confess that my refusal might give me a sharper twinge but for the fact that I am about to send the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa a bill for precisely that amount—fifty thousand dollars. Plus expenses.”

“What for?” Hansen was cold.

“For the job I was hired for and have completed.”

“We’ve discussed that,” O’Garro said. “We don’t see it.”

“You didn’t do the job,” Hansen said, settling it.

“No? Who did?”

“Nobody. Circumstances beyond our control and
out of your control. If anybody did it, it was Buff himself, when he sent the answers to the contestants. Also Assa learning that Buff had the wallet, but the main thing was the contestants getting the answers. That was what saved the contest.”

“You acknowledge that?”

“Certainly we acknowledge it. It’s obvious.”

“Very well. I suppose this was unavoidable.” Wolfe turned. “Archie, give Mr. Hansen a dollar.”

I got one out and went and proffered it, but Hansen didn’t take it. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“I am retaining you as my attorney, as before. I wish what I am going to tell you to have the protection of a confidential relationship between you and me. Since the interest of Mr. O’Garro and Mr. Heery runs with mine I’ll trust their discretion. You may end the relationship at any moment. That’s what you told me. You and I began with a privileged communication; we’ll end with one.”

Hansen took the dollar, not enthusiastically, and I returned to my desk. “Go ahead,” he said.

“You’re gouging this out of me.” Wolfe was frowning. “I would have preferred to keep it to myself, but rather this than a prolonged wrangle. When you get the list of expenses accompanying my bill there will be an item on it, One second-hand Underwood typewriter, eighty-two dollars.’ It is now at the bottom of the river, because I wanted to exclude all possibility of a slip, but I have several pages that were typed on it—or rather, I know where they are and can easily get them—and if you will secure from Inspector Cramer one of the sheets of answers that were received by the contestants, or a good facsimile, I’ll arrange an opportunity for you to make a comparison. You’ll find that the answers sent to the contestants
were typed on the machine charged for in my expense list.”

Heery burst out laughing. In the pressure of events I had forgotten what a good laugher he was, and that time he really meant it. After a few healthy roars he stopped to blurt, “You amazing sonofabitch!” and then roared some more. Hansen and O’Garro were staring, O’Garro with a deep frown, chewing at it.

When Heery had subsided enough for a normal voice to be heard Hansen spoke. “You’re saying that you sent the answers to the contestants?”

“They were sent by a man in my employ. I can produce him if you insist, but I would prefer not to name him.”

“I think we won’t insist. Pat?”

“No.” O’Garro’s frown was going. “I will be damned.”

“No wonder,” Hansen told Wolfe, “you wanted it a privileged communication. This changes things.”

“It should,” Wolfe said drily. “Since you have just declared that sending the answers to the contestants saved the contest. It was to their advantage too, most of them. That was one of my objects, and the other, of course, was to spur somebody into doing something. I didn’t know who or what, but I thought that would stimulate action, and it did.”