Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 45

by Please Pass the Guilt

  THERE WERE SEVEN SUSPECTS

  Kenneth Meer wasn’t one of them. Yet a week after the explosion, he was in the psychiatric ward suffering from something the doctors called The Lady Macbeth Syndrome: invisible blood on the hands.

  There were various possibilities: he had planted the bomb himself and the burden of guilt was too great for him. Or: he hadn’t but knew who had. Or: the event itself was too heavy—the havoc, the shrapnel-shattered flesh, the blood on the walls …

  All valid guesses. But just guesses. Meanwhile, a man who had killed for no reason was wandering around with a bomb in a briefcase.

  This time he had all the reason in the world to kill … and kill again!

  PLEASE PASS THE GUILT

  by

  Rex Stout

  Bantam Books by Rex Stout

  Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed

  BEFORE MIDNIGHT

  THE FATHER HUNT

  GAMBIT

  MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD

  PLEASE PASS THE GUILT

  THREE AT WOLFE’S DOOR

  THREE WITNESSES

  TRIO FOR BLUNT INSTRUMENTS

  TROUBLE IN TRIPLICATE

  1

  he grunted—the low brief rumble that isn’t meant to be heard—turned his head to dart a glance at me, and turned back to Dr. Vollmer, who was in the red leather chair facing the end of Wolfe’s desk.

  It wasn’t just that he was being asked for a favor. It there was a man alive who could say no to a request for a favor easier than Nero Wolfe, I hadn’t met him. The trouble was that it was Dr. Vollmer, whose house and office was only a few doors away, who had said he wanted one, and the favor score between him and us was close to a tie. So Wolfe was probably going to be stuck, and therefore the grunt.

  Vollmer crossed his long, lean legs and rubbed his narrow, lean jaw with a knuckle. “It’s really for a friend of mine,” he said, “a man I would like to oblige. His name is Irwin Ostrow, a psychiatrist—not a Freudian. He’s interested in a new approach to psychiatric therapy, and he’s working at it. Crisis intervention, they call it. I’ll have to explain how it works. It’s based on—”

  “First aid,” Wolfe said. “Emotional tourniquet.”

  “How—you know about it?”

  “I read. I read for various purposes, and one of them is to learn what my fellow beings are up to. There are several thousand emergency-treatment centers now operating in this country. The Detroit Psychiatric Institute has a Suicide Prevention Center. The crisis center at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta is staffed by psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, lay therapists, and clergymen. The director of clinical psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital has written and spoken at length about it. His name is Decker.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Barry.”

  Vollmer shook his head. “You know,” he said, “you are the most improbable combination of ignorance and knowledge on earth. You don’t know what a linebacker does. You don’t know what a fugue is.”

  “I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know.”

  “What if it’s unknowable?”

  “Only philosophers and fools waste time on the unknowable. I am neither. What does Dr. Ostrow want to know?”

  Vollmer slid back in the red leather chair, which was deep. “Well. I don’t want to bore you with things you already know. If I do, stop me. The Washington Heights Crisis Clinic is on 178th Street, near Broadway. It’s a storefront operation; people can just walk in, and they do. A woman who can’t stop beating her two-year-old daughter. A man who keeps getting up in the middle of the night and going outdoors in his pajamas. Most of them are on the way to a mental hospital if they’re not headed off quick, and the clinic—but you know all that. Eight days ago, a week ago yesterday, a young man came and told a nurse he needed help and she sent him in to Irwin—Dr. Ostrow. He gave the nurse his name, Ronald Seaver.”

  Vollmer looked at me with his brows up. “I hope they don’t have to go to a crisis clinic,” I said, and turned to Wolfe. “One of your ignorance areas, baseball. Ron Swoboda is an outfielder and Tom Seaver is a pitcher. ‘Ron Seaver’ is obviously a phony, but it might help to know he’s a Met fan, if a clue is needed.”

  “It is,” Vollmer said. “Of course Irwin knew it was an alias, but people often do that their first visit. But he came back five days later, Saturday morning, and again the next day, Sunday, and he not only hasn’t told his real name, he won’t give any facts at all except what his crisis is. It’s blood on his hands. His hands get covered with blood, not visible to anybody else, and he goes and washes them. The first time, ten days ago—no, twelve—it was in the middle of the night and he had to go to the bathroom and wash his hands. It happens any time, no pattern, day or night, but usually when he’s alone. A nurse there says it’s the Lady Macbeth syndrome. He says he knows of no event or experience that could have caused it, but Irwin is sure he’s lying.”

  He turned a palm up. “So that’s his crisis. Irwin says he really has one, a severe one; the possibility of a complete mental breakup is indicated. But they can’t get through to him. One of Irwin’s colleagues there is a woman, a lay therapist, who has had remarkable success with some tough ones, even catatonics, but after two hours with him—that was Sunday, day before yesterday—she told him he was wasting his time and theirs. Then she said she had alternative suggestions: either he could go to a surgeon and have his hands amputated, or he could go to a detective, perhaps Nero Wolfe, and try to dodge his questions. And do you know what he said? He said, ‘I’ll do that. I’ll go to Nero Wolfe.’”

  My brows were up. “He tried to,” I said. “So that was Ron Seaver. He phoned yesterday around noon and said he wanted to come and pay Nero Wolfe a hundred dollars an hour to ask him questions. He wouldn’t give his name and didn’t mention bloody hands. Naturally I thought he was a nut and said no and hung up.”

  Vollmer nodded. “And he phoned Irwin and Irwin phoned me.” To Wolfe: “Of course the hundred dollars an hour wouldn’t tempt you, but I didn’t come to tempt you, I came to ask a favor for a friend. You said you make sure to know what you want to know. Well, Dr. Ostrow thinks it’s possible that this man did have blood on his hands, and he wants to know if he can and should be helped. I admit I do too. I’ve dealt with people in crises myself, any doctor has, but this is a new one to me.”

  Wolfe looked at the wall clock. Twenty minutes to seven. “Will you dine with us? Shad roe Creole. Fritz uses shallots instead of onion and no cayenne. Chablis, not sherry.”

  Vollmer smiled, broad. “Knowing how few people get invited to your table, I should beam. But I know it’s only compassion for my—”

  “I am not compassionate.”

  “Hah. You think my meals are like the one Johnson described to Boswell: ‘ill-killed, ill-dressed, ill-cooked, and ill-served,’ and you feel sorry for me. Thank you, but I have things to do before I eat. If I could come tomorrow and bring that man …”

  Wolfe made a face. “Not for dinner. I suppose he’ll see Dr. Ostrow tomorrow, or telephone. If he does, tell him to come tomorrow evening at nine o’clock. There will be no fee. And no compassion.”

  2

  that was Tuesday, the third of June. The next morning there was a little problem. When we haven’t got a job or jobs going, I usually get out for a walk after breakfast, with or without an excuse like a trip to the bank, but that Wednesday I didn’t. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned that the three employees of the Midtown Home Service Corporation who come once a week are always male because Wolfe insists on it. That Wednesday Andy and Sam came at nine o’clock as usual, but they had a woman along, a husky coa
l-black female with shoulders nearly as broad as mine. Andy, who was white but broad-minded, explained that it was tougher than ever to get men, and repeated one of his favorite remarks, “Goddam it, TV men and carpet layers work in homes.” He called the woman Lucile and started her on the dining room, across the hall from the office on the ground floor of the old brownstone. Of course Wolfe, up in the plant rooms on the roof for his morning session with the orchids, hadn’t seen her. I went back to the kitchen, sat at my little breakfast table for my second cup of coffee, and told Fritz, “We’ll tell him it’s a man in disguise because he’s wanted.”

  “There’s batter for another cake, Archie.”

  “No, thanks. They’re extra good, they always are, but I’ve had five. He’s wanted for peddling pot. Or maybe acid.”

  “But his front? The monts?”

  “Part of the disguise. King-size bra. Is this the Brazilian coffee?”

  “No, Colombian. Of course you’re just talking. If he sees her—” He threw his hands, and aimed his eyes, up.

  “But he probably will. He often comes to the kitchen while you’re giving them lunch.” I sipped hot coffee. “I’ll tell him when he comes down. Have your ear plugs in, he may let out a roar.”

  So I didn’t go for a walk. Anything could happen; Lucile might know about the orchids and sneak up for a look. I was at my desk in the office when the sound of the elevator came at eleven o’clock, and when Wolfe entered and told me good morning and went to put a cluster of Acampe pachyglossa in the vase on his desk, I said, “There’s an amendment to the by-laws. Andy is here with Sam and a woman, a black one named Lucile. She is now up in your room with Andy. He says that more and more men think housework isn’t manly, which is silly since Fritz and Theodore and I work in your house and we’re as manly as they come. It looks like a case of circumstances beyond our control, but if you don’t agree, control it.”

  He sat, got his nineteen stone (it looks better in stone than in pounds) arranged in his made-to-order chair, glanced at his desk calendar, and picked up the stack the mailman had brought. He looked at me. “Are there female Black Panthers?”

  “I’ll look it up. If there are, Lucile isn’t one. She would be a black mare, Clydesdale or Percheron. She can pick up the vacuum cleaner with one finger.”

  “She is in my house by invitation. I’ll have to speak with her, at least a nod and a word.”

  But he didn’t. He didn’t go to the kitchen while they were there at lunch, and Andy, who knew Wolfe’s habits, kept their paths from crossing. Their regular leaving time was four o’clock, but that was also the time for Wolfe’s afternoon turn in the plant rooms, and Andy waited until he was in the elevator on his way up. With them gone, I relaxed. In view of Wolfe’s basic attitude on women, there’s no telling what will happen when one is in that house. I was making entries, from notes supplied by Theodore, on the germination and performance cards, when Dr. Vollmer phoned to say that Ronald Seaver would come at nine o’clock. The only preparation needed took about six minutes—going to a cabinet for a fancy glass-and-metal jar with the sharpened ends of a dozen pencils protruding at the top, and placing it at a certain spot and a certain angle near the right edge of my desk, and putting a certain plug in a certain hidden outlet.

  He was nearly half an hour late. It was 9:23, and we had just finished with after-dinner coffee in the office, when the doorbell rang and I went. Going down the hall, what I saw on the stoop through the one-way glass panel was commonplace for anyone who knows midtown Manhattan: a junior executive, medium-sized, with a poorly designed face tired too young, in a dark gray suit that had been cut to fit, no hat. I opened the door and invited him in, and added as he entered, “If you had told me on the phone you were Ron Seaver I would have asked you to come and discuss the outlook.”

  He smiled—the kind of smile that comes quick and goes quicker—and mumbled, “They’re doing better.”

  I agreed and ushered him down the hall. In the office, he stopped about three steps in and one foot backed up a little. I thought that at sight of Wolfe he was deciding to call it off, and so did he, but when I indicated the red leather chair, he came to Wolfe’s desk, muttered something, and put out a hand, and Wolfe said, “No, there’s blood on it. Sit down.”

  He went to the red leather chair, sat, met Wolfe’s eyes, and said, “If you could see it, if you could actually see it.”

  As I went to my chair at my desk I glanced at the jar of pencils; it was in position.

  Wolfe nodded. “But I can’t. If Dr. Vollmer has described the situation accurately it must be assumed that you are either obtuse or deranged. In your right mind, if you have one, you couldn’t possibly expect the people at the clinic to help you unless you supplied some facts. Are you going to tell me your name?”

  “No.” It wasn’t a mumble.

  “Are you going to tell me anything at all? Where you live, where you work, where you have seen blood that other people saw or could have seen?”

  “No.” His jaw worked a little. “I explained to Dr. Ostrow that I couldn’t. I knew that that clinic had done some remarkable things for people. I had been—I had heard about it. I thought it was just possible—I thought it was worth trying.”

  Wolfe turned to me. “How much did his suit cost?”

  “Two hundred or more. Probably more. The shoes, at least forty.”

  “How much would a magazine or newspaper pay him for an article about that clinic?”

  “My god,” Ronald Seaver blurted, “that’s not—” He bit it off and clamped his jaw.

  “It’s merely one of the valid conjectures.” Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t like to be imposed on, and I doubt if Dr. Ostrow does. The simplest way to learn if you are an impostor is to discover who and what you are. For Mr. Goodwin to follow you when you leave would take time and trouble, and it isn’t necessary. —Archie?”

  I picked up the jar and told Ronald Seaver, “Candid camera inside.” I removed a couple of the pencils and held them up; they were only two-inch stubs. “Leaving room for the camera below. It now has eight shots of you. Tomorrow I’ll show them to people I know—a newspaper man, a couple of cops—”

  When you are sitting in a chair and a man comes at you, your reaction depends on what he has in mind. If he has an idea of hurting you, with or without a weapon, you get on your feet fast. But if he merely intends to take something from you, for instance a jar of pencils, and if you have decided that you are stronger and quicker than he is, you merely pull your feet back. Actually he didn’t even come close. He stopped three steps short, turned to Wolfe, and said, “You can’t do that. Dr. Ostrow wouldn’t permit it.”

  Wolfe nodded. “Of course he wouldn’t, but this office is not in his jurisdiction. You have presumed to take an evening of my time, and I want to know why. Are you desperately in need of help, or are you playing some silly game? I’ll soon know, probably tomorrow, depending on how long it takes Mr. Goodwin to get you identified from the photographs. I hope it won’t be prolonged; I am merely doing a favor for a friend. Good evening, sir. I’ll communicate with Dr. Ostrow, not with you.”

  With me it had been a tossup whether the guy was in some kind of bad jam or was merely on a complicated caper. His long, pointed nose, which didn’t go well with his wide, square chin, had twitched a couple of times, but that didn’t prove anything. Now, however, he gave evidence. His half-closed, unblinking eyes, steady at me, with a deep crease across his forehead, showed that something was really hurting.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said louder than necessary, since he was only two arm’s lengths away.

  Without letting my eyes leave him, I reached for the jar, which I had put back on my desk, stood, removed the top that held the pencil stubs, tilted the jar to show him what was inside, and said, “Autophoton, made in Japan. Electronic control. One will get you ten I’ll have you tagged by sundown tomorrow.”

  His lips parted to let words out, but none came. His head turned to Wolfe, then ba
ck to me, and then he turned clear around and took a slow, short step, and another, and I thought he was heading out. But he veered to the right, toward the big globe near the book shelves, stopped halfway to it, and stood. Apparently he wanted his face to himself while he decided something. It took him a good two minutes, maybe three. He turned, got a leather case from his breast pocket, took things from it, selected one—a card—went to Wolfe’s desk, and handed it to him. By the time Wolfe had given it a look, I was there, and he passed it to me. It was a New York driver’s license: Kenneth Meer, 5 feet 11, age 32, 147 Clover Street, New York 10012.

  “Saving you the trouble of asking questions,” he said, and extended a hand. I gave him the card and he put it back in the case and the case in his pocket; and he turned and went. Not slow short steps; he marched. I followed out to the hall, and when he had opened the front door and crossed the sill and pulled the door shut, not banging it, I went back to my desk, sat, cocked my head at Wolfe, and spoke:

  “You told Doc Vollmer yesterday that you read to learn what your fellow beings are up to. Well?”

  He scowled. “I have told you a dozen times that ‘Doc’ is an obnoxious vulgarism.”

  “I keep forgetting.”

  “Pfui. You never forget anything. It was deliberate. As for Kenneth Meer, there has been no picture of him in the Times. Has there been one in the Gazette?”

  “No. His name several times, but no picture. Nor any report that he got blood on his hands, but of course he saw plenty. I suppose, since it’s a favor for a friend, I’ll have to see a couple of people and find out—”

  “No. Get Dr. Vollmer.”

  “But shouldn’t I—”

  “No.”

  I swiveled and swung the phone around. Of Vollmer’s three numbers, the most likely one at that hour was the unlisted one on the third floor of his house, and when I dialed it he answered himself. Wolfe got at his phone and I stayed on.

  “Good evening, doctor. That man came, half an hour late, and has just left. He refused to give us any information, even his name, and we had to coerce him by a ruse with a concealed camera. Under constraint he identified himself by showing us his motor vehicle operator’s license, and then departed without a word. His name has recently been in the news in connection with a murder, but only as one of those present at the scene; there has been no published indication that he is under suspicion or is likely to be. Do you want his name, for Dr. Ostrow?”