Three for the Chair

by Rex Stout

  “It’s a little steep,” Fyfe said – not a complaint, just a fact – “but it can’t be helped. It’s the only way to satisfy Paul. When will you see him?”

  Wolfe gave the check a look and put it under a paperweight, a chunk of petrified wood that had once been used by a man named Duggan to crack his wife’s skull. He glanced up at the wall clock; in twenty minutes it would be four o’clock, time for his afternoon session in the plant rooms.

  “First,” he told Fyfe, “I need to speak with Doctor Buhl. Can you have him here at six o’clock?”

  David looked doubtful. “I could try. He would have to come in from Mount Kisco, and he’s a busy man. Can’t you leave him out of it? He certified the death, and he’s thoroughly reputable.”

  “It’s impossible to leave him out. I must see him before dealing with the others. If he can be here at six, arrange for the others to come at six-thirty. Your brother and sister, and Mr. Tuttle, and Mr. Arrow.”

  Fyfe stared. “Good heavens,” he protested, “not Arrow! Anyway, he wouldn’t come.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. I won’t ask him.”

  Wolfe shrugged. “Then I will. And it might be better – yes. It may be protracted, and I dine at seven-thirty. If you can arrange for Doctor Buhl to be here at nine, bring the others at half past. That will give us the night if we need it. Of course, Mr. Fyfe, there are several points I could go into with you now – for instance, the situation you found when you returned to the apartment from the theater, and your brother Bertram’s reconciliation with his family – but I have an appointment; and besides, they can be explored more fully this evening. For the present, please give Mr. Goodwin the addresses and phone numbers of everyone involved.” He moved his vast bulk forward in his chair to pick up the penknife and start rubbing it gently on the oilstone. He had undertaken that job, and by gum he intended to finish it.

  “I described the situation,” Fyfe said in a sharper tone. “I invited the inference that Paul had stayed at the apartment in order to approach the nurse. I wholly disapprove of his method of approaching women. I have said he is impetuous.”

  Wolfe was feeling the knife’s edge tenderly with a thumb.

  “What is the point,” Fyfe asked, “about the reconciliation?”

  “Only that you used the word.” Wolfe was honing again. “What needed to be reconciled? It may be irrelevant, but so are most points raised in an investigation. It can wait till this evening.”

  Fyfe was frowning. “It’s an old sore,” he said, the sharpness gone and his voice tired again. “It may not be irrelevant, because it may partly account for Paul’s attitude. Also I suppose we’re over-sensitive about any threat of scandal. Pneumonia is a touchy subject with us. My father died of pneumonia twenty years ago, but it was thought by the police he was murdered. Not only by the police. He was in a ground-floor bedroom in our house at Mount Kisco, and it was January, and on a stormy night, extremely cold, someone raised two windows and left them wide open. I found him dead at five o’clock in the morning. Snow was drifted a foot deep on the floor and there was snow on the bed. My sister Louise, who was caring for him that night, was sound asleep on a couch in the next room. It was thought that some hot chocolate she drank at midnight had been drugged, but that wasn’t proven. The windows weren’t locked and could have been opened from the outside – in fact, they must have been. My father had been a little shrewd in some of his real-estate dealings, and there were people in the community who had been – uh – who were not fond of him.”

  Fyfe repeated the mild little gesture. “So you see, there is the coincidence. Unfortunately, my brother Bert – he was only twenty-two then – he had quarreled with my father and was not living at home. He was living in a rooming house about a mile away and had a job in a garage. The police thought they had enough evidence to arrest him for murder, and he was tried, but the evidence certainly wasn’t conclusive, because he was acquitted. Anyhow he had an alibi. Up to two o’clock that night he had been playing cards with a friend – Vincent Tuttle, who later married my sister – in Tuttle’s room in the rooming house, and it had stopped snowing shortly after two, and the windows must have been opened long before it stopped snowing. But Bert resented some of our testimony on the witness stand – Paul’s and Louise’s and mine – though all we did was tell the truth about things that were known anyway – for example, Bert’s quarrel with my father. Everybody knew about it. The day after he was acquitted Bert left town, and we never heard from him, not a word for twenty years. So that’s why I used the word ‘reconciled.’”

  Wolfe had returned the knife to his pocket and was putting the oilstone in the drawer.

  “Actually,” Fyfe said, “Arrow was wrong when he stated that Bert possessed nothing that had not been acquired with income from the uranium. Bert never claimed his share of our father’s estate, and they couldn’t find him, and we have never applied for its distribution. His one-quarter share was around sixty thousand dollars, and now it’s more than double that. Of course Paul and Louise and I will get it now, but honestly it will give me no pleasure. I may say frankly, Mr. Wolfe, that I am sorry Bert came back. It reopened an old sore, and now his death, and the way it happened, and Paul acting like this …”

  It was one minute to four, and Wolfe was pushing his chair back and leaving it. “Yes indeed, Mr. Fyfe,” he concurred. “A nuisance alive and an affliction dead. Please give Mr. Goodwin the necessary information, and phone when you have made the arrangements for this evening.”

  He headed for the door.

  II

  A LITTLE RESEARCH into backgrounds is often a help, even in cases that apparently don’t call for it, and after Fyfe left I made a few phone calls to various quarters, getting a skimpy crop of useless information. David had taught at Audubon High School for twelve years, and had been head of the English Department for four. Paul’s real estate agency in Mount Kisco was no whirlwind but was seemingly solvent. Vincent Tuttle’s drugstore, also in Mount Kisco, was his own, and was thought to be doing fine. David had had no address or phone number for the nurse, Anne Goren, but Wolfe wanted them all, and I found her in the Manhattan book, listed as an RN. The first two times I dialed her number I got a busy signal, and the next three times no answer. Nor could I get Johnny Arrow. Calls to the Churchill Towers go through the Churchill switchboard, and I left word for him to call, and made half a dozen tries. Finally, just before Fritz announced dinner, I got Tim Evarts, assistant house dick, security officer to you, and asked him a few discreet questions. The answers were both for and against. For, the rent was paid on the de luxe Towers apartment, and the bar and restaurant staff all liked Johnny Arrow, especially his tipping standards. Against, Arrow had plugged a guy in the bar Saturday night, repeatedly and persistently, and had been removed by cops. Tim said that technically it had been a fine performance, but the Churchill bar wasn’t the place for it.

  Fyfe had phoned that the arrangements had been made. At nine o’clock, when Doctor Frederick Buhl arrived, Wolfe and I were through in the dining room, having put away around four pounds of salmon mousse, Wolfe’s own recipe, and a peck of summer salad, and were back in the office. The doorbell took me to the hall, and as I switched on the stoop light what I saw through the one-way glass panel of the front door gave me a double surprise. Doctor Buhl, if it was he, was no doddering old worn-out hick doc; he was an erect, gray-haired, well-dressed man of distinction. And with him was a young female having her own personal points of distinction, discernible even by a swift glance at a distance.

  I went and opened up. He moved aside for her to enter and then followed, saying that he was Doctor Buhl and had an appointment with Nero Wolfe. No hat covered his crown of distinguished gray hair, so there was nothing for the rack, and I led them down the hall and into the office. Inside, he halted to dart a glance around, then crossed to Wolfe’s desk and said aggressively, “I’m Frederick Buhl. David Fyfe asked me to come. What is all this nonsense?”

  “I don’t know,�
�� Wolfe murmured. He keeps his voice down to a murmur after a meal, unless goaded. “I’ve been hired to find out. Sit down, sir. The young woman?”

  “She’s the nurse. Miss Anne Goren. Sit down, Anne.”

  She was already sitting, in a chair I had moved up for her. I was making revisions in my opinion of Paul Fyfe. Probably he had been too impetuous, but the temptation had been strong; and the marks on her neck and cheeks and wrists must have been superficial since no scars were visible. Also a nurse’s uniform is much more provocative than the blue cotton print she was wearing, with a bolero jacket to match. Even in the cotton print, I could have – but skip it. She was there on business. She thanked me for the chair, coldly, no smile.

  Doctor Buhl, in the red leather chair, demanded, “Well, what is it?”

  Wolfe murmured, “Didn’t Mr. Fyfe tell you?”

  “He told me that Paul thought there was something suspicious about Bert’s death and wanted to go to the police, and David and Louise and Vincent Tuttle couldn’t talk him out of it, and they agreed to get you to investigate and accept your decision, and he had talked with you, and you insisted on seeing me. I think it quite unnecessary. I am a reputable physician, and I signed a death certificate.”

  “So I understand,” Wolfe murmured. “But if my decision is to be final it should be well fortified. I have no thought of challenging the propriety of your issuance of the death certificate. But there are a few questions. When did you last see Bertram Fyfe alive?”

  “Saturday evening. I was there half an hour, and left at twenty minutes past seven. The others were there, having dinner in the living room. He had refused to go to a hospital. I had put him under an oxygen tent, but he kept jerking it off, he wouldn’t have it. I couldn’t get him to leave it on, and neither could Miss Goren. He was in considerable pain, or said he was, but his temperature was down to a hundred and two. He was a difficult patient. He couldn’t sleep, and I told the nurse to give him a quarter of a grain of morphine as soon as the guests had gone, and another quarter-grain an hour later if that didn’t work – he had had half a grain the night before.”

  “Then you returned to Mount Kisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you think he might die that night?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then when you got word Sunday morning that he was dead, weren’t you surprised?”

  “Of course I was.” Buhl flattened his palms on the chair arms. “Mr. Wolfe, I am tolerating this as a favor to David Fyfe. You are being inane. I’m sixty years old. I’ve been practising medicine for more than thirty years, and fully half of my patients have surprised me one way or another – by bleeding too much or too little, by getting a rash from taking aspirin, by refusing to show a temperature with a high blood count, by living when they should die, by dying when they should have lived. That is the universal experience of general practitioners. Yes, Bertram Fyfe’s death was a surprise, but it was by no means unprecedented. I examined the body with great care a few hours after he died, and found nothing whatever to make me question the cause of death. So I issued the certificate.”

  “Why did you examine the body with great care?” Wolfe was still murmuring.

  “Because the nurse had left him in the middle of the night – had been forced to leave – and I hadn’t been able to get a replacement. The best I could do was to arrange for one to report at seven in the morning. Under those circumstances I thought it well to make a thorough examination for the record.”

  “And you are completely satisfied that pneumonia was the cause of death, with no contributing factors?”

  “No, of course not. Complete satisfaction is a rarity in my profession, Mr. Wolfe. But I am satisfied that it was proper and correct to issue the certificate, that it was consistent with all the observable evidence, that – in layman’s language – Bertram Fyfe died of pneumonia. I am not quibbling. Long ago a patient of mine died of pneumonia, but it was a cold winter night and someone had opened the windows of his room and let the storm in. But in this case it was a hot summer night and the windows were closed. The apartment was air-conditioned, and I had instructed the nurse to keep the regulator at eighty in that room because a pneumonia patient needs warmth, and she had done so. In the case I mentioned, windows open to a winter storm were certainly a contributing factor, but in this case there was no evidence of any such factor.”

  Wolfe nodded approvingly. “You have covered the point admirably, doctor, but you have also raised one. The air-conditioner. What if someone moved the regulator, after the nurse’s departure, to its lowest extreme? Could it have cooled the room sufficiently to cause your patient to die when you expected him to live?”

  “I would say no. I considered that possibility. Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle have assured me that they did not touch the regulator and that the room’s temperature remained equable, and anyway on so hot a night the conditioner couldn’t have cooled the air to that extent. I wanted to be satisfied on that point, since no nurse had been there, and I arranged with the hotel to check it Saturday night, in that room. After the regulator had been at its extreme for six hours, the temperature was sixty-nine – too low for a pneumonia patient, even one well covered, but certainly not lethal.”

  “I see,” Wolfe murmured. “You did not rely on the assurance of Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle.”

  Buhl smiled. “Is that quite fair? I relied on them as wholly as you rely on me. I was being thorough. I am thorough.”

  “An excellent habit. I have it too. Did you have any suspicion, with or without reason, that someone might have contrived to help the pneumonia kill your patient?”

  “No. I was merely being thorough.”

  Wolfe nodded. “Well.” He heaved a deep sigh, and when it had been disposed of turned his head to focus on the nurse. During the conversation she had sat with her back straight, her chin up, and her hands folded in her lap. I had her profile. There are not many female chins that rate high both from the front and from the side.

  Wolfe spoke. “One question, Miss Goren – or two. Do you concur with all that Doctor Buhl has told me – all that you have knowledge of?”

  “Yes, I do.” Her voice was a little husky, but she hadn’t been using it.

  “I understand that while the others were at the theater Paul Fyfe made advances to you which you repulsed. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did that cause you to neglect your duties in any way? Did it interfere with your proper care of your patient?”

  “No. The patient was sound asleep, under sedation.”

  “Have you any comment or information to offer? I have been hired by David Fyfe to determine whether anything about his brother’s death warrants a police inquiry. Can you tell me anything whatever that might help me decide?”

  Her eyes left him to go to Buhl, then came back again. “No, I can’t,” she said. She stood up. Of course nurses are expected to rise from a chair without commotion, but she just floated up. “Is that all?”

  Wolfe didn’t reply, and she moved. Buhl got to his feet. But when she was half way to the door Wolfe called, considerably above a murmur, “Miss Goren! One moment!” She turned to look at him. “Sit down, please?” he invited her.

  She hesitated, glanced at Buhl, and came back to the chair. “Yes?” she asked.

  Wolfe regarded her briefly, and then turned to Buhl. “I could have asked you before,” he said, “why you brought Miss Goren. It seemed quite unnecessary, since you were fully prepared and qualified to deal with me, and surely it was inconsiderate to drag her into a matter so delicate. It was a reasonable inference that you expected me to ask some question that she could answer and you couldn’t, so you had to have her with you. Evidently I didn’t ask it, but I did provoke her. When I asked if she could tell me anything she looked at you. Manifestly she is withholding something, and you know what it is. I can’t pump it out of you, with no bribe to offer and no threat to brandish, but my curiosity has been aroused and must somehow be satisf
ied. You may prefer to satisfy it yourself.”

  Buhl had sat and, his elbow on the chair arm, was pulling at his fine straight nose with a thumb and forefinger. He let his hand drop. “You’re not just a windbag,” he said. “You’re quite correct. I expected you to bring up something that would require Miss Goren’s presence, and I’m astonished that you didn’t. I wanted to consider it, but I’m perfectly willing to bring it up myself. Haven’t they mentioned the hot-water bags to you?”

  “No, sir. I have been told nothing about hot-water bags.”

  “Then I suppose Paul – but it doesn’t matter what I suppose. Tell him about it, Anne.”

  “He already knows about it,” she said scornfully. “One of them hired him.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Wolfe suggested, “for comparison.” His method with women is neither Paul’s nor mine.

  “Very well.” Her lovely chin was up. “I was keeping two hot-water bags on the patient, one on each side of his chest, and changing the water every two hours. I changed it just before I left – before Mrs. Tuttle ordered me to leave. Sunday evening Paul Fyfe came to my apartment – I have a little apartment on Forty-eighth Street with a friend, another nurse. He said that when he found his brother was dead that morning he pulled the covers down, and the hot-water bags were there, but they were empty, and he took them and put them in the bathroom. Later his sister, Mrs. Tuttle, saw them and called him to look at them and said the nurse had neglected to fill them, and she was going to report it to the doctor. He asked if she hadn’t changed the water herself before she went to bed, and she said no, she hadn’t thought is was necessary because the nurse had changed it just before she left.”

  Miss Goren’s voice wasn’t husky now. It was clear and firm and positive. “He said that he had told his sister that when he took the bags to the bathroom he had emptied the water out of them. He said he told her that on the spur of the moment, to keep her from reporting me to the doctor, but he had realized since that perhaps he shouldn’t have told her that because the empty bags might have had something to do with his brother’s death, and he asked me to go and have dinner with him so we could talk it over. We were standing at the door of the apartment, I hadn’t let him in, and I slammed the door in his face. The next day, yesterday, he phoned three times, and last evening he came to the apartment again, but I didn’t open the door. So he told his brother David and got him to come to you. How does it compare?”