by Rex Stout
"No. You did not. I warned you that that was only what I intended to tell you. There was some truth in it, but darned little. I do think that your brother wrote a novel of that title under the name of Baird Archer, and I would like to go through his letters to see if he mentioned it, but I have no copy of the manuscript, there is no prospect of selling it to the movies, I am not a literary agent, and my name is not George Thompson. Now, having-" "Then it was all lies!" "No. It would have-"
She was out of her chair. "Who are you? What's your name?"
"Have my ears changed any?" I demanded.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to listen. It wasn't a lie if I didn't say it, even if I intended to. Now here's what I do say, and it's the truth. You might as well sit down, because this is even longer."
She sat, but on about a third of the chair seat.
"My name," I said, "is Archie Goodwin. I'm a private detective, and I work for Nero Wolfe, also a private detec-"
"Nero Wolfe!"
"Right. It will please him to know that you had heard of him, and I'll be sure to tell him. He has been hired by a man named Wellman to find out who murdered his daughter. And another girl has been murdered, one named Rachel Abrams. Also, before that, your brother was murdered. We have reason to believe that the same person committed all three murders. It's a long and complicated reason, and I'll skip it. K you want the details later you can have them. I'll just say that our theory is that your brother was killed because he wrote that novel, Joan Wellman was killed because she had read it, and Rachel Abrams was killed because she had ' typed it."
"The novel-Len wrote?"
"Yes. Don't ask me what was in it, because we don't know. If we did, I wouldn't have had to come out here to see you. I came to get you to help us catch a man that murdered three people, and one of them was your brother."
"But I can't-" She gulped. "How can I help?"
"I'm telling you. I could have tricked you into helping. I've just proved it. You would have come along for a chance at fifty thousand dollars, you know darned well you would. You'd have let me go through your brother's letters for evidence, and whether we found it or not you'd have written the letter to the law firm. That's all I'm asking you to do, only now I'm giving it to you straight and asking you to do it not for a pile of dough but to help catch the man that killed your brother. If you would have done it for money, and you would, don't you think you ought to do it to bring a murderer to justice?"
She was frowning, concentrating. "But I don't see-You only want me to write a letter?"
"That's right. It's like this. We think your brother wrote that novel, and it was a vital element in the murders. We think that someone in that law office is involved and either committed the murders or knows who did. We think that someone is desperately determined that the contents of that manuscript shall not be known to any living person. If we're right, and you send the kind of letter I described, he'll have to move and move quick, and that's all we need, to start him moving. If we're wrong, your sending the letter will do nobody any harm."
She was keeping the frown. "What did you say you wanted me to say in the letter?"
I repeated it, with fuller detail. Toward the end she began slowly shaking her head. When I stopped she spoke.
"But that would be a lie-saying you have a copy of the manuscript when you haven't. I couldn't tell them a deliberate lie!"
"Maybe not," I said regretfully. "If you're the kind of person who has never told a lie in all your life, I can't expect you to tell one just to help find the man who killed your brother -and who also killed two young women, ran a car over one of them and pushed the other one out of a window. Even if it couldn't possibly hurt any innocent person, I wouldn't want to urge you to tell your very first lie."
"You don't have to be sarcastic." Her face had turned a mild pink. "I didn't say I never told a lie. I'm no angel. You're perfectly right, I would have done it for the money, only then I wouldn't have known it was a lie." Suddenly her eyes twinkled. "Why don't we start over and do it the other way?"
I would have liked to give her a good hug. "Listen," I suggested, "let's take things in order. We've got to go through his letters first anyhow, there's no objection to that, then we can decide on the next step. You get the letters, huh?"
"I guess so." She arose. "They're in a box in the garage."
"Can I help?"
She said no, thanks, and left me. I got up and crossed to a window to look out at the California climate, I would have thought it was beautiful if I had been a seal. It would be beautiful anyway if one of Dykes's letters had what I was after. I wasn't asking for anything elaborate like an outline of the plot; just one little sentence would do.
When she came back, sooner than I expected, she had two bundles of white envelopes in her hands, tied with string. She put them down on the glass-topped table, sat, and pulled the end of a bowknot
I approached. "Start about a year ago. Say March of last year." I pulled a chair up. "Here, give me some."
She shook her head. "I'll do it."
"You might miss it. It might be just a vague reference."
"I won't miss it. I couldn't let you read my brother's letters, Mr. Thompson."
"Goodwin. Archie Goodwin."
"Excuse me. Mr. Goodwin." She was looking at postmarks.
Evidently she meant it, and I decided to table my motion, at least temporarily. Meanwhile I could do a job. I got out my notebook and pen and started writing at the top of a sheet:
Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin & Briggs 522 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y. Gentlemen:
I am writing to ask your advice because my brother worked for you for many years up to the time of his death. His name was Leonard Dykes. I am his sister and in his will he left everything to me, but I suppose you know that.
A man named Walter Finch has just been to see me. He says he is a literary agent. He says that last year my brother wrote a novel.
I stopped to consider. Mrs. Potter was reading a letter, with her teeth clamped on her lower lip. Well, I thought, I can put it in, and it will be easy enough to take it out if we have to. I resumed with my pen:
I already knew that
because my brother mentioned it once in a letter, but that was all I knew about it. Mr. Finch says he has a copy of the manuscript and its title is "Put Not Your Trust," and my brother put the name of Baird Archer on it as the author, but my brother really wrote it. He says he thinks that he can sell it to the movies for $50,000.00, and he says since my brother left everything to me I am the legal owner of it and he wants me to sign a paper that he is my agent and I will pay him 10 per cent of what he gets for it from the movies.
I am writing to you air mail because it is a
big sum of money and I know you will give me good advice. I don't know any lawyer here that I know I can trust. I want to know if the 10 per cent is all right and should I sign the paper. Another thing I want to know is that I haven't seen the manuscript except just the envelope he has it in and he won't leave it with me, and it seems to me I ought to see it and read it if I am going to sell it because I ought to know what I am selling.
Please answer by air mail because Mr. Finch says it is urgent and we must act quick. Thanking you very much.
Sincerely yours,
It didn't come out that way all at once. I did a lot of crossing out and changing, and the preceding was the final result, of which I made a clear copy. I read it over and passed it. There was the one sentence that might have to come out, but I hoped to God it wouldn't.
My accomplice was reading steadily, and I had kept an eye on her progress. There were four envelopes in a little stack at her right, finished, and if she had started with March and he had written one a month, she was up to July. My fingers itched to reach for the next one. I sat and controlled them until she finished another one and began folding it for return to the envelope, and then got up to take a walk. She was reading so damn slow. I crossed to the glass doors at the far e
nd of the room and looked out. In the rain a newly planted tree about twice my height was slanting to one side, and I decided to worry about that but couldn't get my mind on it. I got stubborn and determined that I damn well was going to worry about that tree, and was fighting it out when suddenly her voice came.
"I knew there was something! Here it is. Listenl"
I wheeled and strode. She read it out.
"Here is something just for you, Peggy dear. So many things have been just for you all my life. I wasn't going to tell even you about this, but now it's finished and I have to. I have written a novel! Its title is "Put Not Your Trust." For a certain reason it can't be published under my name and I have to use a nom de plume, but that won't matter much if you know, so I'm telling you. I have
every confidence that it will be published, since I am by no means a duffer when it comes to using the English language. But this is strictly for you alone. You mustn't even tell your husband about it."
Mrs. Potter looked up at me, at her elbow. "There! I had forgotten that he mentioned the title, but I knew-no! What are you-"
She made a quick grab, but not quick enough. I had finally pounced. With my left hand I had snatched the letter from her fingers, and with my right the envelope from the table, and then backed off out of reach.
"Take it easy," I told her. "I'd go through fire for you and I've already gone through water, but this letter goes home with me. It's the only evidence on earth that your brother wrote that novel. I'd rather have this letter than one from Elizabeth Taylor begging me to let her hold my hand. If there's anything in it that you don't want read in a courtroom that part won't be read, but I need it all, including the envelope. If I had to I would knock you down and walk on you to get out of here with it. You'd better take another look at my ears."
She was indignant. "You didn't have to grab it like that."
"Okay, I was impulsive and I apologize. I'll give it back, and you can hand it to me, with the understanding that if you refuse I'll take it by force."
Her eyes twinkled, and she knew it, and flushed a little. She extended a hand. I folded the letter, put it in the envelope, and handed it to her. She looked at it, glanced at me, held it out, and I took it.
"I'm doing this," she said gravely, "because I think my brother would want me to. Poor Len. You think he was killed because he wrote that novel?"
"Yes. Now^I know it. It's up to you whether we get the guy that killed him." I got out my notebook, tore out a sheet, and handed it to her. "All you have to do is write that letter on your own paper. Maybe not quite all. I'll tell you the rest."
She started to read it. I sat down. She looked beautiful. The phony logs in the phony fireplace looked beautiful. Even the pouring rain-but no, I won't overdo it.
15
I PHONED Wolfe at 3:23 from a booth in a dragsters somewhere in Glendale. It is always a pleasure to hear him say "Satisfactory" when I have reported on an errand. This time he did better. When I had given him all of it that he needed, including the letter written by Dykes that I had in my pocket and the one written by Mrs. Potter that I had just put an air-mail stamp on and dropped in the slot at the Glendale Post Office, there was a five-second silence and then an emphatic "Very satisfactory." After another five bucks' worth of discussion of plans for the future, covering contingencies as well as possible, I dove through the rain to my waiting taxi and gave the driver an address in downtown Los Angeles. It rained all the way. At an intersection we missed colliding with a truck by an eighth of an inch, and the driver apologized, saying he wasn't used to driving in the rain. I said he soon would be, and he resented it.
The office of the Southwest Agency was on the ninth floor of a dingy old building with elevators that groaned and creaked. It occupied half the floor. I had been there once before, years back, and, having phoned that morning from the hotel that I would probably be dropping in, I was more or less expected. In a corner room a guy named Ferdinand Dolman, with two chins, and fourteen long brown hairs deployed across a bald top, arose to shake hands and exclaim heartily, "Well, well! Nice to see you again! How's the old fatty?"
Few people know Nero Wolfe well enough to call him the old fatty, and this Dolman was not one of them, but it wasn't worth the trouble to try to teach him manners, so I skipped it. I exchanged words with him enough to make it sociable and then told him what I wanted.
"I've got just the man for you," he declared. "He happens to be here right now, just finished a very difficult job. This is a break for you, it really is." He picked up a phone and told it, "Send Gibson in."
In a minute the door opened and a man entered and approached. I gave him one look, and one was enough. He had
a cauliflower ear, and his eyes were trying to penetrate a haze that was too thick for them.
Dolman started to speak, but I beat him to it. "No," I said emphatically, "not the type. Not a chance."
Gibson grinned. Dolman told him he could go, and he did so. When the door had closed behind him I got candid. "You've got a nerve, trotting in that self-made ape. If he just did a difficult job I'd hate to see who does your easy ones. I want a man who is educated or can talk like it, not too young and not too old, sharp and quick, able to take on a bushel of new facts and have them ready for use."
"Jesus." Dolman clasped his hands behind his head. "J. Edgar Hoover maybe?"
"I don't care what his name is, but if you haven't got one like that, say so, and I'll go shopping."
"Certainly we've got one. With over fifty men on the payroll? Certainly we've got one."
"Show him to me."
He finally did, I admit that, but not until after I had hung around for more than five hours and had interviewed a dozen prospects. I also admit I was being finicky, especially since there was a good chance that all he would ever do was collect his twenty a day and expenses, but after getting it set up as I had I didn't want to run a risk of having it bitched up by some little stumble. The one I picked was about my age, named Nathan Harris. His face was all bones and his fingers were all knuckles, and if I knew anything about eyes he would do. I didn't go by ears, like Peggy Potter.
I took him to my room at the Riviera. We ate in the room, and I kept him there, briefing him, until two in the morning. He was to go home and get some luggage and register at the South Seas Hotel under the name of Walter Finch, and get a room that met the specifications I gave him. I let him make notes all he wanted, with the understanding that he was to have it all in his head by the time it might be needed, which could be never. One decision I made was to tell him only what Walter Finch, the literary agent, might be expected to know, not to hold out on him but to keep from cluttering his mind, so when he left he had never heard the names of Joan Wellman or Rachel Abrams, or Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and feriggs.
Going to bed, I opened the window three inches at the bottom, and in the morning there was a pool that reached to
the edge of the rug. I got my wristwatch from the bedstand and saw 9:20, which meant 12:20 in New York. At the Glen-dale Post Office they had told me that the letter would make a plane which would land at La Guardia at eight in the morning New York time, so it should be delivered at Madison Avenue any time now, possibly right this minute as I stretched and yawned.
One of my worries was Mr. Clarence Potter. Mrs. Potter had assured me that her husband wouldn't try to interfere, whether he approved or not, but it tied a knot in me, especially with an empty stomach, to| think of the damage he could do with a telegram to Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs. It was too much for me. Before I even shut the window or went to the bathroom I called the Glendale number. Her voice answered.
"Good morning, Mrs. Potter. This is Archie Goodwin. I was just wondering-did you tell your husband about it?"
"Yes, of course. I told you I was going to."
"I know you did. How did he take it? Should I see him?"
"No, I don't think so. He doesn't quite understand it. I explained that you have no copy of the manuscript and there
doesn't seem to be one anywhere, but he thinks we should try to find one and perhaps it can be sold to a movie studio. I told him we should wait for an answer to my letter, and he agreed. I'm sure he'll understand when he thinks it over."
"Of course he will. Now about Walter Finch. I've got him, and he's in his room at the South Seas. He's a little taller than average, and you'd probably guess him at thirty-five. He has a bony face, and bony hands with long fingers, and dark brown eyes that you might call black. He looks straight at you when he talks, and his voice is a medium baritone, you'd like it. Do you want to write that down?"
"I don't need to."
"Sure you've got it?"
"Yes."
"I believe you. I'll be in my room at the Riviera all day. Call me any time if anything happens."
"All right, I will."
There's a loyal little woman with twinkles, I thought, hanging up. She knows damn well she's married to a dumbbell, but by gum she'll never say so. I phoned down for breakfast and newspapers, washed and brushed my teeth, and ate in
my pajamas. Then I called the South Seas Hotel and asked for Walter Finch. He was there in his room, 1216, and said he was getting along fine with his homework. I told him to stay put until further notice.
When I had showered and shaved and dressed, and finished with the newspapers and looked out at the rain some, I phoned down for magazines. I refused to let myself start listening for the phone to ring because it might be all day and night and into another day before there was a peep, and it wouldn't help to wear my nerves out. However, I did look at my watch fairly often, translating it into New York time, as I gave the magazines a play. Eleven-fifty meant two-fifty. Twelve-twenty-five meant three-twenty-five. Four minutes after one meant four minutes after four. One-forty-five meant a quarter to five, nearing the end of the office day. I tossed a magazine aside and went to a window to admire the rain again, then called room service and ordered lunch.
I was chewing a bite of albacore steak when the phone rang. To show how composed I was, I finished chewing and swallowing before I picked it up. It was Mrs. Potter.
