by Rex Stout
The reaction to that was perceptible. Purcell stared, not blinking. “Pulled?” he asked. “You said pulled?”
“Yes.”
“But he wasn’t pulled. Unless you mean he pulled himself.”
“No. He was unconscious. Someone pulled him across to the statue, to the desired spot, and pushed the statue over on him. I’m not going to elaborate on that, not now, to you; I mentioned it only because I felt I owed you an explanation of Mr. Tedder’s remark about Mr. Vail’s drink.”
“But you’re saying Jimmy was murdered.”
“Yes.”
“But the police don’t say he was.”
“No?”
“But you didn’t tell Noel that.”
“But I did.”
“You told Noel Jimmy was murdered?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t.”
“The word ‘know’ has various connotations. I have formed that conclusion.”
“Then you didn’t really—you don’t care about Dinah Utley. You’ve been taking advantage of me.” His cheeks were red. “You’ve been making a fool of me.” He got to his feet. “Noel should have told me. That wasn’t fair. You should have told me too. I guess I am a fool.” He turned and headed for the door.
I stayed in my chair. There are times when it’s better to let a departing guest get his own hat and open the door for himself. When I heard it close I went to the hall to see that he had remembered to cross the sill before he shut it, then went back to my desk. Wolfe had straightened up and was making faces.
“If he’s it,” I said, “if he’s not a fool, you might as well cross it off.”
He made another face.
10
I have never completely understood Wolfe’s attitude on food and eating and probably never will. In some ways it’s strictly personal. If Fritz presents a platter of broiled squabs and one of them is a little plumper or a more beautiful brown than the others, Wolfe cops it. If the supply of wild thyme honey from Greece is getting low, I am given to understand, through Fritz, that plain American honey on griddle cakes is quite acceptable. And so on. But it really pains him if I am out on a prolonged errand at mealtime because I may insult my palate with a drugstore sandwich, and, even worse, I may offend my stomach by leaving it empty. If there is reason to believe that a caller is hungry, even if it is someone whom he intends to take apart, he has Fritz bring a tray, and not scraps. As for interruptions at meals, for him there is absolutely nothing doing; when he is once in his chair at the table he leaves it only when the last bite of cheese or dessert is down. That’s personal, but he has tried off and on to extend it to me, and he would if I would stand for it. The point is, does he hate to have my meal broken into because it interrupts his, or because it interrupts mine, or just on general principles? Search me.
Anyhow, he does. So when the phone rang while I was helping myself to another beef fillet, and Fritz answered it and came to say that Mrs. Vail wished to speak to Mr. Wolfe, and I pushed back my chair to go, Wolfe growled and glowered. He didn’t tell me not to go, because he knew I would go anyway.
When I told our former client that Wolfe was at dinner and said he could call her back in half an hour, she said she wanted to see him. Now. I said okay, if she left in ten minutes he would be available when she arrived, and she said no, she couldn’t come, she was worn out, and she sounded like it.
“That narrows it down,” I told her, “if it’s too private for the phone. Either I come there and get it and bring it back, or let it wait.”
“It mustn’t wait. Doesn’t he ever go anywhere?”
“Not on business.”
“Can you come now?”
I glanced at my wrist. “I can be there by nine o’clock. Will that do?”
She said she supposed it would have to, and I returned to the dining room and my place and asked Fritz to bring my coffee with my pie. The routine is back to the office for coffee because that’s where the one and only chair is, and Wolfe’s current book is there if I’m going out. When he had finished his pie and put his fork down, I said I was going to call on Mrs. Vail by request and asked for instructions.
He grunted. “Intelligence guided by experience. You know the situation. We owe her nothing.”
I went. Having gone out to the stoop to feel the weather and decided I could survive without a coat, I walked to Eighth Avenue and got an uptown taxi. On the way uptown I looked it over. Wolfe’s statement that I knew the situation left out something: I knew it from my angle, but not from his. He might already have made some deduction, not final; for instance, that Noel Tedder was a kidnaper, a murderer, and a liar. Or sister Margot, or Uncle Ralph. It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the twentieth, that he had kept a deduction to himself.
Noel must have been waiting in the hall, for two seconds after I pushed the button he opened the door. He did own some regular clothes—a plain dark gray suit, white shirt, and gray tie, but of course he might have bought them for the funeral. He shut the door, turned to me, and demanded, “Why the hell did Wolfe tell Uncle Ralph that Jimmy was murdered?”
“You may have three guesses,” I told him. “Mine is that he had to, since you had told Uncle Ralph that someone had put something in Jimmy’s drink and Mr. Wolfe would explain it. Did you have to mention Jimmy’s drink?”
“No. That slipped out. But what the hell, if Wolfe’s so damn smart couldn’t he have dodged it?”
“Sure he could. As for why he didn’t, sometimes I know why he does a thing while he’s doing it, sometimes I know an hour later, sometimes a week later, and sometimes never. Why, did Purcell tell your mother?”
“Certainly he did. There’s hell to pay.”
“All right, I’m the roving paymaster. Where is she?”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“I’ll know when I hear myself. I play by ear. I told her I’d be here by nine o’clock, and it’s five after.”
He thought he had more to say, decided he hadn’t, told me to come along, and led the way to the rear. I was looking forward to seeing the library again, especially if Benjamin Franklin was still there on the floor, but in the elevator he pushed the button marked 3. When it stopped I followed him out, along the hall, and into a room that one glance told me would suit my wife fine if I ever had a wife, which I probably wouldn’t because she would probably want that kind of room. It was a big soft room—soft lights, soft grays and pinks, soft rug, soft drapes. I crossed the rug, after Noel, to where Mrs. Vail was flat in a big bed, most of her covered by a soft pink sheet that could have been silk, her head propped against a couple of soft pink pillows.
“You may go, Noel,” she said.
She looked terrible. Of course any woman is something quite different if you see her without any make-up, but even allowing for that she still looked terrible. Her face was pasty, her cheeks sagged, and she was puffed up around the eyes. When Noel had gone, closing the door, she told me to sit down, and I moved a chair around.
“I don’t know what good it will do, you coming,” she said. “I want to ask Nero Wolfe what he means by this—this outrage. Telling my brother and my son that my husband was murdered. Can you tell me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you what he means by telling them. I assume you know why your son came to see him yesterday.”
“Yes. To get him to help him find the money. When Noel asked me if he could have the money if he found it, I said yes. The money didn’t matter; my husband was back. Now he’s dead, and nothing matters. But he wasn’t murdered.”
So Noel had broached it. “Your son asked you again yesterday,” I said, “and you said yes again. Didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did. Nothing matters now, certainly that money doesn’t— No, I’m wrong, something does matter. If you can’t tell me why Nero Wolfe says my husband was murdered, then he will. If I have to go there, I will. I shouldn’t, my doctor has ordered me to stay in bed, but I will.”
> I could see her tottering into the office supported by me, and Wolfe, after one look at her, getting up and marching out. He has done that more than once. “I can’t tell you why Mr. Wolfe says it,” I said, “but I can tell you why he thinks it.” I might as well, since if I didn’t Noel could. “Your husband was asleep on the couch when the rest of you left the room, leaving a light on. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And the idea is that later he woke up, realized where he was, stood up, started for the door, lost his balance, grabbed at the statue, and pulled it down on him. Right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Mr. Wolfe won’t take. He doesn’t believe that a man awake enough to walk would be so befuddled that he couldn’t dodge a falling statue. He realizes that he couldn’t have been merely asleep when someone hauled him off the couch and over to the statue; he must have been unconscious. Since the autopsy found no sign that he had been slugged, he must have been doped. You had all been having drinks in the library, he had bourbon and water, so there had been opportunity to dope him. Therefore Mr. Wolfe deduces that he was murdered.”
Her eyes were straight at me through the surrounding puffs. “That’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
I nodded. “Sure it is, to you. If Mr. Wolfe is right, then your daughter or your son or your brother or your lawyer, or you yourself, murdered Jimmy Vail. I think he’s right, but I work for him. Granting that it wasn’t you, you’re up against a tough one. Naturally you would want whoever killed your husband to get what was coming to him, but naturally you wouldn’t want your son or daughter or brother to get tagged for murder, and maybe not your lawyer. I admit that’s tough, and I don’t wonder that you say it’s ridiculous. I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything; I was just telling you why Mr. Wolfe thinks your husband was murdered. What else would you want to ask him if he was here?”
“I’d tell him he’s a fool. A stupid fool.”
“I’ll deliver the message. What else?”
“I’d tell him that I have told my son that I’m taking back what I told him about the money, that he can have it if he finds it. He can’t. I didn’t know he would go to Nero Wolfe.”
“You went to Nero Wolfe.”
“That was different. I would have gone to the devil himself to get my husband back.”
I gave my intelligence three seconds to be guided by experience before I spoke. “I’ll deliver that message too,” I said, “but I can tell you now what his reaction will be. He’s stubborn and he’s conceited, and he not only likes money, he needs it. Your son came to him and offered a deal, and he accepted it, and he won’t let go just because you’ve changed your mind. If he can find that money he will, and he’ll take his share. In my private opinion the chance of his finding it is about one in a million, but he won’t stop trying. On the contrary. He’s very sensitive. This attitude you’re taking will make him try harder, and he might even do something peevish like writing a piece for a newspaper explaning why he has deduced that Jimmy Vail was murdered. That would be just like him. If you want some free advice, I suggest that you have your son in, here and now, and tell him you’re not taking it back. I’ll report it to Mr. Wolfe, and he’ll decide if he wants to risk his time and money on a wild-goose chase.”
It didn’t work. As I spoke her lips kept getting tighter, and when I stopped she snapped, “He wouldn’t get any share. Even if he found it. It’s my money.”
“That would be one for the lawyers. He would claim that his agreement with your son was based on an agreement your son had with you, made before witnesses. It would be the kind of mix-up lawyers love; they can juggle it around for years.”
“You may go,” she said.
“Sure.” I rose. “But you understand—”
“Get out!”
I can take a hint. I walked out, shutting the door behind me, and proceeded to the elevator. When I emerged on the ground floor, there was Noel. He came to me.
“What did she say?” he squeaked.
“This and that.” I caught a glimpse of someone through an arch. “She’s a little upset. How about a little walk? If there’s a bar handy, I could buy you a drink, provided it’s not champagne.”
He twisted his neck to glance up the stairs, brought his face back to me, said, “That’s an idea,” and went and opened the door. I passed through and onto the sidewalk, and he joined me. I suggested Barney’s, at 78th and Madison, and we turned downtown.
A booth in a bar and grill is not an ideal spot for a private conversation. You can see if there is anyone in the booth in front of you curious enough to listen in, but you have to leave the one behind to luck or keep interrupting to look back. Noel and I got a break at Barney’s. As we entered, a couple was leaving the booth at the far end, and we grabbed it, and I had a wall behind me. A white apron came and removed glasses and gave the table a swipe, and we ordered.
“So it’s off,” Noel said. “You couldn’t budge her.” I had told him en route how it stood.
“Not an inch.” I was regretful, even gloomy. “You know why I wanted to buy you a drink? Because I wanted one myself. That talk with your mother took me back, back years ago, in Ohio. My mother. How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“I was only seventeen, just out of high school. But of course the situation was different; it was easier for me than it would be for you. My mother wasn’t wealthy like yours. I couldn’t hit her for a hundred or a thousand or whatever I happened to need.”
“Hell, neither can I. It’s not that easy.”
“It may not be easy, but the fact remains that she has it, and all you have to do is use the right approach. With me, with my mother, that wasn’t the problem. She was a born female tyrant, and that was all there was to it. There wasn’t a single goddam thing, big or little, that I could decide on my own. While your mother was talking I couldn’t help thinking it was just too bad you couldn’t do what I did.”
The drinks came and we sampled them. Noel’s sample was a gulp. “What did you do?” he asked.
“I told her to go to hell. One nice hot June day, the day after I graduated from high school, I told her to go to hell, and beat it. Of course I don’t mean it literally, that it’s too bad you can’t do what I did. It’s a different situation. You wouldn’t have to. Now that Jimmy Vail’s dead, you’re the man of the house. All you’d have to do is just make it clear that you’ve got two feet of your own. Not in general terms like that, not just tell her to her face, ‘Mother, I’ve got two feet of my own,’ that wouldn’t get you anywhere. It would have to be on a specific issue, and you couldn’t ask for a better one than her taking back a definite promise she made you. That would be a beaut. You could tell her, ‘Mother, you said I could have that money if I found it, and on the strength of that I made a deal with Nero Wolfe, and he’ll hold me to it, and I’m going to hold you to it.”’
He took a swallow of gin and tonic. “She’d say it’s her money.”
“But it isn’t. Not after what she told you before witnesses. She has given it to you, with only one condition attached, that you find it, and therefore it’s a gift and you wouldn’t have to pay tax on it. Granting that there’s a slim chance of finding it, if we do find it you’ll have four hundred thousand dollars in the till after you give Nero Wolfe his cut—no tax, no nothing. And even if we don’t find it, you’ll have let your mother know that you’ve got your own two feet, not by telling her so but by standing on them on a specific issue. There’s another point, but we’ll skip it.”
“Why? What is it?”
I took a sip of scotch and soda. “It will be important only if Mr. Wolfe finds the money. If he does, one-fifth will be his, and don’t think it won’t. If your mother tries to keep him from getting it, or keeping it, the fur will fly, and some of it will be yours. If it gets to a court, you’ll testify. For him.”
“It wouldn’t. It’s not the money that’s biting my mother, it’s Jimmy. It’s Wolfe’s saying that J
immy was murdered. Why the hell did he tell Uncle Ralph that?”
“He told you too.”
“I had sense enough not to repeat it.” He put his empty glass down. “Look, Goodwin, I don’t give a damn. If Jimmy was murdered, someone that was there killed him, and I still don’t give a damn. Of course it wasn’t my mother, but even if it was, I’m not sure I’d give a damn even then. I’m supposed to be old enough to vote, but by God, the way I’ve had to knuckle under, you’d think I still wet the bed at night. You say I wouldn’t have to do what you did, but if I had four hundred thousand dollars that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d tell my mother to go to hell. I’m not as dumb as I look. I knew what I was doing Wednesday evening. I knew my mother was so glad her darling Jimmy was back she wouldn’t stop to think, and I asked her about the money in front of witnesses, and I intended to go to Nero Wolfe the next morning, but the next morning Jimmy was dead, and that made it different. Now Wolfe has told Uncle Ralph Jimmy was murdered, I don’t know why, and he has told my mother, and you tell me to show her I’ve got my own two feet. Balls. What if I haven’t even got one foot?”
I signaled the white apron for refills. “Let’s try something,” I said and got out my notebook and pen and started writing. I dated a blank page at the top and wrote:
To Nero Wolfe: I hereby confirm the oral agreement we made yesterday. My mother, Mrs. Althea Vail, told me on Wednesday, April 26, and repeated on Friday, April 28, that if I find the $500,000 she gave a kidnaper on Tuesday, April 25, or any part of it, I may keep it for my own. Therefore that money belongs to me if I find it. I have engaged you to help me find it, and I have agreed that if you do find it, or any part of it, you are to keep one-fifth of the amount you find as payment for your services. I hereby confirm that agreement.
The refills had come, and I sampled mine as I read it over. Tearing the sheet out, I handed it to Noel and watched his face. He took his time, then looked up. “So what?”
