by Rex Stout
He spoke. "What time did you get home?"
"Two-twenty-four."
"Where did you go?"
"With a girl to a night club. She's the one. The wedding is set for Sunday. Her folks are in Brazil, and there's no one to give her away, so you'll have to give me away."
"Pfui." He took a bite of buttered griddle cake and ham. "What happened?"
"Outline or blow by blow?"
"Outline. We'll fill in later."
"Ten came, including a female lawyer, young and handsome but tough, and an old warhorse. They drank upstairs and wrecked only two Oncidiums. By the-"
"Forbesi?"
"No. Varicosum. By the time we descended they were genial. I sat at your place. I had warned Fritz that the soup and patties would fill them up and they would snoot the duckling, and they did. I made speeches, which were well received, but no mention of murder until coffee, when I was asked to tell them about detective work, as arranged, and obliged. I set forth our current problem. At an appropriate moment I sent for our client and Mrs. Abrams, and if you had been
there you would have been stirred, though of course you wouldn't admit it. They admitted it by wiping their eyes. By the way, Wellman had a nerve to suspect me of going too far too fast. He never met Mrs. Abrams until last evening, and he took her home. Oh, yes, I told them about finding Baird Archer's name in Rachel Abrams' account book, because I had to tie her in to clear the track for Mrs. Abrams. If it gets printed Cramer will yap, but it was me that found the book, and he admits I talk too much."
"So do I." Wolfe took a sip of steaming black coffee. "You say they were stirred?"
"Yes. Their valves opened. But all they did was start a free-for-all about who informed on O'Malley, the former senior partner, and got him disbarred for bribing a jury foreman, and about who killed Dykes. They have assorted theories, but if they have any evidence worth buying they're saving it. One named Eleanor Gruber, who is a looker but too busy being clever-she was O'Malley's secretary and is now Louis Kus-tin's-she undertook to straighten me out. She hates to see us waste our time trying to clinch a link between Dykes and Joan and Rachel, because there isn't any. Nobody contradicted her. I decided to adjourn and try one at a time, having been introduced, selected one named Sue Dondero, Emmett Phelps's secretary, and took her to a night club and spent thirty-four of our client's dollars. The immediate objective was to get on a satisfactory personal basis, but I found an opportunity to let her know that we intend, if necessary, to blow the firm of Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs into so many little pieces that the Department of Sanitation will have us up for cluttering the streets. As I said, the wedding is Sunday. I hope you'll like her."
I upturned a palm. "It all depends. If one or more of them has really got a finger caught, either a firm member or an employee, I may have made a start at least. If not, Miss Gruber is not only shapely but sensible, and I may ditch Sue for her. Time will tell, unless you want to tell me now."
Wolfe had finished with the ham, and the eggs done with black butter and sherry, and was starting the windup, a griddle cake with no butter but plenty of thyme honey. In the office he would have been scowling, but he would not allow himself to get into a scowling mood while eating.
"I dislike business with breakfast," he stated.
"Yeah, I know you do."
"You can fill in later. Get Saul and put him on the disbarment of Mr. O'Malley."
"That was covered fairly well in the police file on Dykes. I've told you about it."
"Nevertheless, put Saul on it. Put Fred and Orrie on Dykes's associations outside that law office."
"He didn't have any to speak of."
"Put them on it. We've made this assumption and we'll either validate it or void it. Pursue your acquaintance with those women. Take one of them to lunch."
"Lunch isn't a good time. They only have-"
"We'll argue later. I want to read the paper. Have you had breakfast?"
"No. I got up late."
"Go and eat."
"Glad to."
Before I did so, I called Saul and Fred and Orrie and told them to come in for briefing. After breakfast I had that to attend to and also various office chores I had got behind on. There was a phone call from Purley Stebbins, who wanted to know how I had made out with my dinner party, and I asked him which one or ones he was tailing, or, as an alternative, which one he had on a line, but he brushed me off. I made no attempt to arrange to buy a lunch. So fast a follow-up on Sue would have been bad strategy, and a midday fifty minutes with one of the others would have given me no scope. Besides, I had had less than five hours' sleep and hadn't shaved.
When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven he went over the morning mail, dictated a couple of letters, looked through a catalogue, and then requested a full report. To him a full report means every word and gesture and expression, and I have learned to fill the order not only to his satisfaction but to mine. It took more than an hour. When I was through, after asking a few questions, he issued a command.
"Phone Miss Troy and take her to lunch."
I remained calm. "I understand and sympathize," I told him, "but I can't oblige. You're desperate and therefore impulsive. I could present an overwhelming case against it, but will mention only two items: first, it's nearly one o'clock and that's too late, and second, I don't feel like it. There are some things I know more about than you do, and one of them is my extractive ability with women. Take it from me, it would be hard
to conceive a lousier idea than for me to invite a middle-aged lawyer's niece with pimples to a quick bite in a crowded mid-town beanery, especially since she is probably right now on a stool at a fountain lunch working on a maple-nut sundae."
He shivered.
"I'm sorry to upset you, but maple-nut sundaes are-"
"Shut up," he growled.
All the same, I was quite aware that it was up to me. True, Saul and Fred and Orrie were out collecting, but they were even farther away from Joan Wellman than I was, and that was some distance. If one of those ten females, or one of the other six whom I hadn't met, had just one measly little fact tucked away that would start Wolfe's lips pushing out and in, no one but me was going to dig it out, and if I didn't want it to drag on into the Christmas season, only ten months away, I had better pull something.
Back in the office after lunch, Wolfe was seated at his desk, reading a book of lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, his mind a million miles from murder, and I was wandering around trying to think of something to pull, when the phone range and I went to answer it.
A woman's voice told me, "Mr. Corrigan would like to speak to Mr. Wolfe. Put Mr. Wolfe on, please?"
I made a face. "Get home all right, Mrs. Adams?"
"Yes."
"Good. Mr. Wolfe is busy reading poetry. Put Corrigan on."
"Really, Mr. Goodwin."
"I'm stubborner than you are, and you made the call, I didn't. Put him on." I covered the transmitter and told Wolfe, "Mr. James A. Corrigan, the senior partner."
Wolfe put the book down and took his instrument. I stayed on, as always when I wasn't signaled to get off.
"This is Nero Wolfe."
"This is Jim Corrigan. I'd like to have a talk with with you."
"Go ahead."
"Not on the phone, Mr. Wolfe. It would be better to meet, and some of my associates would like to sit in. Would it be convenient for you to call at our office, say around five-thirty? One of my associates is in court."
"I don't call at people's offices, Mr. Corrigan. I stay in my office. I won't be available at five-thirty, but six would do if you wish to come."
"Six would be all right, but it would be better to make it
here. There will be four of us-perhaps five. Six o'clock here?"
"No, sir. If at all, here."
"Hold the wire a minute."
It was more like three minutes. Then he was on again. "Sorry to keep you waiting. All right, we'll be there at six or a little after."
Wolfe cradled his phone, and I did likewise.
"Well," I remarked, "at least we touched a sore spot somewhere. That's the first cheep we've got out of anybody in ten days."
Wolfe picked up bis book.
11
THAT was the biggest array of legal talent ever gathered in the office. Four counselors-at-law in good standing and one disbarred.
James A. Corrigan (secretary, Charlotte Adams) was about titie same age as his secretary, or maybe a little younger. He had the jaw of a prizefighter and the frame of a retired jockey and the hungriest pair of eyes I ever saw-not hungry the way a dog looks at a bone you're holding up but the way a cat looks at a bird in a cage.
Emmett Phelps (secretary, Sue Dondero) was a surprise to me. Sue had told me that he was the firm's encyclopedia, the guy who knew all the precedents and references and could turn to them with his eyes shut, but he didn't look it. Something over fifty, and a couple of inches over six feet, broad-shouldered and long-armed, on him a general's or admiral's uniform would have looked fine.
Louis Kustin (secretary, Eleanor Gruber) was the youngster of the bunch, about my age. Instead of hungry eyes he had sleepy ones, very dark, but that must have been a cover because Sue had told me that he was their trial man, and hot, having taken over the tougher courtroom assignments when O'Malley had been disbarred. He looked smaller than he was on account of the way he slumped.
Frederick Briggs, Helen Troy's Uncle Fred, had white hair
and a long bony face. If he had a secretary I hadn't met her. From the way he blinked like a half-wit at everyone who spoke, it seemed a wonder he had been made a partner even in his seventh decade-or it could have been his eighth-but it takes all kinds to make a law firm. I wouldn't have hired him to change blotters.
Conroy O'Malley, who had been the senior partner and the courtroom wizard until he got bounced off the bar for bribing a juror, looked as bitter as you would expect, with a sidewise twist to his mouth that seemed to be permanent. With his mouth straightened and the sag out of his cheeks and a flash in his eye, it wouldn't have been hard to imagine him dominating a courtroom, but as he was then he couldn't have dominated a phone booth with him alone in it.
I had allotted the red leather chair to Corrigan, the senior partner, with the others in an irregular arc facing Wolfe's desk. Usually, when there are visitors, I don't get out my notebook and pen until Wolfe says to, but there was no law against my trying an experiment, so I had them ready and when Corrigan opened up I began scribbling. The reaction was instantaneous and unanimous. They all yapped at once, absolutely horrified and outraged. I looked astonished.
Wolfe, who knows me fairly well, thought he was going to slip me a caustic remark, but he had to chuckle. The idea of getting the goats of four lawyers and one ex-lawyer at one crack appealed to him too.
"I don't think," he told me mildly, "we'll need a record of this."
I put the notebook on my desk in easy reach. They didn't like it there so handy. Throughout the conference they took turns darting glances at me to make sure I wasn't sneaking in some symbols.
"This is a confidential private conversation," Corrigan stated.
"Yes, sir," Wolfe conceded. "But not privileged. I am not your client."
"Quite right." Corrigan smiled, but his eyes stayed hungry. "We wouldn't mind if you were. We are not a hijacking firm, Mr. Wolfe, but I don't need to say that if you ever need our services it would be a pleasure and an honor."
Wolfe inclined his head an eighth of an inch. I raised a brow the same distance. So they had brought butter along.
"I'll come straight to the point," Corrigan declared. "Last evening you got more than half of our office staff down here and tried to seduce them."
"Seduction in its statutory sense, Mr. Corrigan?"
"No, no, of course not. Orchids, liquors, exotic foods- not to tempt their chastity but their discretion. Administered by your Mr. Goodwin."
"I take the responsibility for Mr. Goodwin's actions on my premises as my agent. Are you charging me with a malum? In se or prohibitum?"
"Not at all. Neither. Perhaps I started badly. I'll describe the situation as we see it, and you correct me if I'm wrong. A man named Wellman has engaged you to investigate the death of his daughter. You have decided that there is a connection between her death and two others, those of Leonard Dykes and Rachel Abrams. In-"
"Not decided. Assumed as a working hypothesis."
"All right. And you're working on it. You have two reasons for the assumption: the appearance of the name Baird Archer in all three cases, and the fact that all three died violently. The second is merely coincidental and would have no significance without the first. Looked at objectively, it doesn't seem like a very good reason. We suspect you're concentrating on this assumption because you can't find anything else to concentrate on, but of course we may be wrong."
"No. You're quite right."
They exchanged glances. Phelps, the six-foot-plus encyclopedia, muttered something I didn't catch. O'Malley, the ex, was the only one who didn't react at all. He was too busy being bitter.
"Naturally," Corrigan said reasonably, "we can't expect you to spread your cards out. We didn't come here to question you, we came to let you question us."
"About what?"
"Any and all relevant matters. We're willing to spread our cards out, Mr. Wolfe; we have to. Frankly, our firm is in a highly vulnerable position. We've had all the scandal we can absorb. Only a little over a year ago our senior partner was disbarred and narrowly escaped a felony conviction. That was a major blow to the firm. We reorganized, months passed, we were regaining lost ground, and then our chief confidential clerk, Leonard Dykes, was murdered, and it was all reopened. There was never a shred of evidence that there was any connection between O'Malley's disbarment and Dykes's death, but it doesn't take evidence to make scandal. It affected us even more seriously than the first blow; the effect was cumulative. Weeks went by, and Dykes's murder was still unsolved, and it was beginning to die down a little, when suddenly it came back on us through the death of someone we had never heard of, a young woman named Joan Wellman. However, that was much less violent and damaging. It was confined mostly to an effort by the police to find some trace, through us or our staff, of a man who was named Baird Archer, or who had used that name, and the effort was completely unsuccessful. After a week of that it was petering out too, and then here they came again, we didn't know why at the time, but now we know it was because of the death of another young woman we had never heard of, named Rachel Abrams. At that point don't you think we had a right to feel a little persceutedf
Wolfe shrugged. "I doubt if it matters what I think. You did feel persecuted."
"We certainly did. We do. We have had enough. As you know, the Abrams girl died three days ago. Again what the police are after is a trace of a Baird Archer, though God knows if there were any trace of such a man or such a name at our office they should have dug it up long ago. Anyhow, there's nothing we can do except hope they find their damned Baird Archer, and wait for this to begin to die down too. That's how we felt yesterday. Do you know what happened in court this afternoon? Louis Kustin was trying an important case for us, and during a recess opposing counsel came up to him and said -what did he say, Louis?"
Kustin stirred in his chair. "He asked me what I was doing about a new connection when our firm dissolves." His voice had a sharp edge, not at all sleepy like his eyes. "He was trying to get me sore to spoil my style. He didn't succeed."
"You see," Corrigan told Wolfe. "Well, that's how we felt yesterday. Then those boxes of orchids came with notes from your man Goodwin. Then today we learn what happened last night. We learn what happened here, and we also learn that Goodwin told one of our staff that you have an idea that a trail to the murderer of the Wellman girl can be picked up at our office, that he never saw you more bullheaded about an idea, and that your client and you both intend to go the limit. We know enough about you and your methods to know wh
at that means. As long as you've got that idea you'll never let go.
The police and the talk may die down and even die out, but you won't, and God knows what you'll do to our staff. You've damn near got them scratching and pulling hair already."
"Nuts," I cut in. "They've been at it for months."
"They were cooling off. You got 'em tight and then brought in a bereaved father and mother to work on their nerves. God only knows what you'll do next." Corrigan returned to Wolfe. "So here we are. Ask us anything you want to. You say that idea k a working hypothesis, go ahead and work on it. You're investigating the murder of Joan Wellman, and you think one of us has something for you, maybe all of us. Here we are. Get it over with."
Corrigan looked at me and asked politely, "Could I have a drink of water?"
I took it for granted that he meant with something in it and asked him what, meanwhile pushing a button for Fritz, since I wasn't supposed to leave a conference unless I had to. Also I broadened the invitation. Two of them liked Scotch, two bourbon, and one rye. They exchanged remarks. Briggs, the blinking half-wit, got up to stretch and crossed the room for a look at the big globe, probably with the notion of trying to find out where he was. I noticed that Wolfe did not order beer, which seemed to be stretching things pretty thin. I had nothing against his habit of using reasonable precaution not to take refreshment with a murderer, but he had never seen any of those birds before and he had absolutely nothing to point at them with. Bullheaded was putting it mildly.
Corrigan put his half-empty glass down and said, "Go ahead."
Wolfe grunted. "As I understand it, sir, you invite me to ask questions and satisfy myself that my assumption is not valid. That could take all night. I'm sorry, but my dinner dish this evening is not elastic."
"We'll go out and come back."
"And I can't commit myself to satisfaction by an hour or even a day."
"We don't expect a commitment. We just want to get you off our necks as soon as possible without having our organization and our reputation hurt worse than they are already."
