Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 45 (7 page)

“It’s going on eleven o’clock,” I said. “I would love to start on it right now, but I suppose I can’t.”

“Of course not,” he growled. He drank beer. “Do we need to discuss it?”

“I don’t think so.” I went and got a bottle of scotch from the cupboard. There are times when milk will not do. “I have a suggestion. Do you want it?”

He said yes, and I gave it to him.

7

a
t five minutes past eleven Tuesday morning, I was seated in a comfortable chair at the end of a big, expensive desk in a big, expensive room on the thirtieth floor of a big, expensive building on Broad Street, near Wall, facing a man whose tan was much deeper than Theodore Falk’s—so deep that his hide might have been bronze.

Getting to him had been simple, but first I had had to confirm that he existed and owned a yacht. At one minute past nine I had dialed the number of the magazine
Fore and Aft
; no answer. Modern office hours. Half an hour later I got them, and was told by a man, after I held the wire while he looked it up, that a man named James J. Farquhar had a fifty-eight-foot Derecktor cruiser named
Prospero
. So it was a yacht, not just a rowboat with a mast or an outboard motor. Next I dialed the number of the Federal Holding Corporation, and via two women and a man, which was par, got through to Avery Ballou. He sounded as if he still remembered what Wolfe and I had done for him three years ago, and still appreciated it. I told him we needed a little favor and asked if he knew a banker named James Farquhar.

“Sure,” he said. “He’s next to the top at Trinity Fiduciary. What has he done?”

“As far as I know, nothing. It isn’t another paternity problem. I want to ask him a couple of questions about something that he’s not involved in—and he won’t be. He’s the best bet for a piece of information we need, that’s all. But the sooner we get it, the better, and Mr. Wolfe thought you might be willing to ring him and tell him that if I phone him for an appointment, it would be a good idea for him to tell me to come right away and get rid of me.”

He said he would, and ten minutes later his secretary phoned and said Farquhar was expecting a call from me. She even gave me the phone number, and I dialed it and got
his
secretary.

So at 11:05 there I was, at his desk. I was apologizing. “Mr. Wolfe didn’t want to bother you,” I said, “about a matter that you will consider trivial, but he sort of had to. It’s about something that happened more than three weeks ago—Friday, May sixteenth. A lawyer has a client who is being sued for damages, fifty thousand dollars, and he has asked Mr. Wolfe to check on a couple of things. The client’s name is O’Neill, Roger O’Neill, and a man named Walsh claims that around half past eight that evening he was in his small boat, fishing in the Sound, near Madison, about a mile off shore, and O’Neill’s big cruiser came along fast, doing at least twenty, he says, and hit his boat right in the middle—cut it right in two. The sun had set but it wasn’t dark yet, and Walsh says he had a light up. He wasn’t hurt much, but his twelve-year-old son was; he’s still in the hospital.”

Farquhar was frowning. “But where do I come in? I have a busy morning.”

“I’m keeping it as brief as possible. Walsh says there were witnesses. He says a bigger boat, around seventy feet, was cruising by, about two hundred yards farther out, and there were people on deck who must have seen it happen. He tried to see its name, but he was in the water and the light was dim. He thinks it was
Properoo
.” I spelled it. “We can’t find a boat with that name listed anywhere, but your yacht,
Prospero
, comes close to it. Friday, May sixteenth. Three weeks ago last Friday. Were you out on the Sound that day?”

“I’m out
every
Friday. That Friday … three weeks …” He shut his eyes and tilted his head back. “That was … No …. Oh, sure.” His eyes opened and his head leveled. “I was across the Sound. Nowhere near Madison. Before nine o’clock we anchored in a cove near Stony Brook, on the other shore.”

“Then it wasn’t you.” I stood up. “Have you ever seen a boat named
Properoo
?”

“No.”

“If you don’t mind—Mr. Wolfe always expects me to get everything. Who was on board with you?”

“My wife, and four guests. Mr. and Mrs. Percy Young, and Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. And the crew, two. Really, damn it—”

“Okay. I’m sorry I bothered you for nothing, and Mr. Wolfe will be too. Many thanks.”

I went.

In the elevator, going down, a woman moved away from me, clear away. I wasn’t bothering to manage my face, and probably its expression indicated that I was all set to choke or shoot somebody. I was. Down in the lobby I went to a phone booth and dialed the number I knew best, and when Fritz answered I said, “Me. I want him.”

It took a couple of minutes. It always does; he hates the phone.

“Yes, Archie?”

“I’m in a booth in a building on Broad Street. I have just had a talk with James J. Farquhar. At nine o’clock Friday evening, May sixteenth, he anchored his yacht in a cove on the Long Island shore. The four guests aboard were Mr. and Mrs. Percy Young and Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. I’m calling because it’s nearly eleven-thirty, and if I proceed as instructed I couldn’t have her there in less than an hour, which would be too close to lunch. I suggest that I phone her instead of going to get her, and—”

“No. Come home. I’ll telephone her. The number?”

“On my yellow pad in the middle drawer. But wouldn’t it—”

“No.” He hung up.

So he too was set for murder. He was going to dial it himself. He was going to risk keeping lunch waiting. As I headed for the subway, which would be quicker than scouting for a taxi in that territory, I was trying to remember if any other client, male or female, had ever equaled this, and couldn’t name one.

But when I entered the old brownstone, and the office, a few minutes before noon, I saw he wasn’t going to choke her or shoot her. He was going to slice her up. At his desk, with his oilstone and a can of oil on a sheet of paper, he was sharpening his penknife. Though he doesn’t use it much, he sharpens it about once a week, but almost never at that time of day. Evidently his subconscious had taken over. I went to my desk and sat, opened a drawer and took out the Marley .38, and asked, “Do I shoot her before you carve her, or after?”

He gave me a look. “How likely is it that Mr. Browning telephoned him last night, or saw him, and arranged it?”

“No. A hundred to one. I took my time with a phony buildup and watched his face. Also at least seven other people would have to be arranged: his wife, the four guests, and the crew. Not a chance. You got Miss Haber?”

“Yes.” He looked at the clock. “Thirty-five minutes ago. I made it—”

The doorbell rang. I put the Marley in the drawer and closed it, and went. But in the hall, I saw more than I expected. I stepped back in and asked Wolfe, “Did you invite Mrs. Odell too?”

“No.”

“Then she invited herself. She came along. So?”

He shut his eyes, opened them, shut them, opened them. “Very well. You may have to drag her to the front room.”

That would have been a pleasure—preferably by the hair with her kicking and screaming. She performed as expected. When I opened the front door, she brushed past me rudely and streaked down the hall, with Miss Haber at her tail, trotting to keep up. Thinking she might actually scratch or bite, I was right behind as she entered the office and opened up, heading for Wolfe’s desk. I’m not sure whether the five words she got out were “If you think you can” or “If you think you’re going,” before Wolfe banged a fist on the desk and bellowed at her:

“
Shut up!
”

I don’t know how he does it. His bellow is a loud explosion, a boom, as a bellow should be, but also it has an edge, it cuts, which doesn’t seem possible. She stopped and stood with her mouth open. I was between her and him.

“I told Miss Haber to come,” Wolfe said in his iciest tone. “Not you. If you sit and listen, you may stay. If you don’t, Mr. Goodwin will remove you—from the room and the house. He would enjoy it. I have something to say to Miss Haber, and I will not tolerate interruption. Well?”

Her mouth was even wider than normal because her teeth were clamped on her lower lip. She moved, not fast, toward the red leather chair, but Wolfe snapped, “No. I want Miss Haber in that chair. Archie?”

I went and brought a yellow chair and put it closer to my desk than his. She gave me a look that I did not deserve, and came and sat. I doubted if Charlotte Haber would make it to the red leather chair without help, so I went and touched her arm, and steered her to it.

Wolfe’s eyes at her were only slits. “I told you on the telephone,” he said, “that if you were not here by twelve o’clock, I would telephone a policeman, Inspector Cramer of Homicide South, and tell him what you told me Sunday evening about your telephone call to Mr. Browning on May sixteenth. I’ll probably find it necessary to tell him anyway, but I thought it proper to give you a chance to explain. Why did you tell me that lie?”

She was making a fair try at meeting his eyes. She spoke: “It wasn’t—” Her tongue got in the way and she stopped and started over: “It wasn’t a lie. It was exactly like I told you. If Mr. Browning won’t admit it, if he denies—”

“Pfui. I haven’t discussed it with Mr. Browning. The conclusive evidence that you couldn’t have made that call did not come from him. Even candor may not serve you now, but certainly nothing else will. Unless you tell me what and who induced you to tell me that lie, you’re in for it. You’ll leave here not with your employer, but with a policeman, probably for detention as a material witness. I will not—”

“You can’t!” Mrs. Odell was on the edge of her chair. “You know you can’t! You guaranteed in writing!”

“Remove her, Archie,” Wolfe said. “If necessary, drag her.”

I rose. She tilted her head to focus up at me and said, “You don’t dare. Don’t dare to touch me.”

I said, “I dare easy. I admit I’d rather not, but I have bounced bigger and stronger women than you and have no scars. Look. You tried to steal home and got nailed, and no wonder. You didn’t even have sense enough to check where Browning was that Friday night. As for that guarantee in that receipt you got, it says, quote, ‘Unless circumstances arise that put me or him under legal compulsion to reveal it.’ End quote. Okay, the circumstances are here. The cops have spent a thousand hours trying to find out why your husband went to the room and opened the drawer, and who knew he was going to. Now
I
know. So I’m withholding essential evidence in a murder case, and there’s a statute that puts me under legal compulsion to reveal it. Also, I’m not just a law-abiding citizen, I’m a licensed private detective, and I don’t want to lose my license and have to start a new career, like panhandling or demonstrating. So even if Mr. Wolfe got big-hearted and decided just to bow out, there would still be me. I feel responsible. I
am
responsible. I started this by writing you that letter. Mr. Wolfe told Miss Haber that unless she comes clean he will open the bag. I may or may not stay with him on the
unless
. I am good and sore, and for a dirty crinkled dollar bill with a corner gone I would go now to the drug store on the corner and ring a police sergeant I know. I also know a man on the
Gazette
who would love to have a hot item for the front page, and I could back it up with an affidavit. And would.”

I turned to Wolfe. “If I may offer a suggestion. If you still want her bounced, okay, but from her face I think she has got it down.”

I turned back to her. “If you get the idea that you can say it was
all
a lie, that you wanted to fasten it on Browning and made it
all
up, nothing doing. They found the LSD in your husband’s pocket and they’ve got it. You’re stuck, absolutely, and if you try to wriggle you’ll just make it worse.”

She had kept her eyes at me. Now they went to her right, clear around past Wolfe to Miss Haber, and they certainly saw nothing helpful. Below the crease in the narrow forehead, the secretary’s eyes weren’t aimed anywhere. They could have been seeing her hands clasped on her lap, but probably they weren’t seeing anything.

Mrs. Odell aimed hers at Wolfe. “You said you haven’t discussed it with Browning. The—the LSD. Who have you discussed it with?”

“Mr. Goodwin. No one else.”

“Then how did you—How can you—”

“Mr. Goodwin talked this morning with a man who owns a yacht. At nine o’clock in the evening of Friday, May sixteenth, when he anchored in a cove on the Long Island shore, two of the guests aboard were Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. In all my experience with chicanery, madam, I have never encountered a more inept performance. A factor in our animus is probably the insult to our intelligence; you should have known that we would inquire as to Mr. Browning’s whereabouts that evening, and therefore
you
should have. By the glance you just gave Miss Haber I suspect that you are contemplating another inanity: saying it was some other evening. Pfui. Don’t try it. Look at Miss Haber.”

She didn’t have to; she already had. And she proceeded to demonstrate that she was by no means a complete fool. She cocked her head at me for a long, steady look, and then cocked it at Wolfe. “I don’t believe,” she said, “that you have really decided to tell the police about it. If you had, you wouldn’t have phoned Miss Haber and—”

“I haven’t said I have decided. I said, to Miss Haber, ‘Unless you tell me what and who induced you to tell that lie.’”

“
I’ll
tell you.
I
induced her.”

“When?”

“Three days ago. Saturday evening. And Sunday morning, before I called Goodwin.
What
induced her was money. She needs money. She has a younger brother who has got himself into—but that doesn’t matter, what she needs it for. And anyway, I think Browning put that bomb there. I’m
sure
he did. I don’t know how he knew Peter was going to open that drawer, but I’m sure he did. Maybe Peter told somebody. You didn’t know Peter, you don’t know what a wonderful man he was. He married me for my money, but he was a wonderful husband. And Browning killed him, and with all the money I have, now there’s only one thing I want to do with it. I don’t think the police will ever get him, and you know something they don’t know. Can you handle Goodwin?”