Three for the Chair

by Rex Stout

  Wolfe was frowning at her. “Pfui,” he said, and gave her up and turned to Buhl. “So that’s it,” he growled.

  Buhl nodded. “Miss Goren phoned to tell me about it Sunday evening, and again yesterday, and again last night. Naturally, since her professional competence was in question. Do you wonder that I expected you to bring it up?”

  “No indeed. But I hadn’t heard of it. How much chance is there that Miss Goren did in fact fail to put water in the bags?”

  “None whatever, since she says she put it in. She trained at the Mount Kisco Hospital, and I know her well. I always use her, if she’s available, when I have a patient in New York. That can be eliminated.”

  “Then either Paul Fyfe is lying, or someone took the bags from the bed, emptied them, and put them back. Which seems senseless. Certainly it could have had no appreciable effect on the patient. Could it?”

  “No. Appreciable, no.” Buhl passed a palm over his distinguished gray hair. “But it could have an effect on Miss Goren’s professional reputation, and I feel some responsibility. I put her on the case. You haven’t asked me for an opinion, but I offer one. I think Bertram Fyfe died of pneumonia, with no contributing factors except those he contributed himself – his refusal to go to a hospital, his rejection of the oxygen tent, perhaps his capricious insistence on having them come to dinner despite his illness. He was a headstrong boy, and apparently he never changed. As for the hot-water bags, I think Paul Fyfe is lying. I don’t want to slander him, but the vagaries of his conduct with women are common knowledge in his home community. A woman who strikes his fancy doesn’t merely attract him; he is obsessed. It would be consonant with his former known behavior if, seeing the bags in the bed, he had formed the notion of acquiring a weapon to use on Miss Goren and took the bags to the bathroom and emptied them.”

  “Then,” Wolfe objected, “he was an ass to tell his sister he had emptied them.”

  Buhl shook his head. “Only to sidetrack her. He could tell Miss Goren he had done her that service, and at the same time could threaten, at least tacitly, to disclose her negligence. I don’t say he wasn’t an ass; obsessed people usually are. I merely say that I think he told his sister the truth and told Miss Goren a lie. I think he emptied the bags himself. I understand he will be here this evening, with the others, and I ask you to let them know that any attempt to charge Miss Goren with an act of negligence will be deeply resented by me and strongly opposed. I will advise her to bring an action for slander and will support it. If you prefer that I tell them myself –”

  The doorbell rang. I got up and went to the hall for a look, and stepped back in.

  “They’re here,” I told Wolfe. “David and two men and a woman.”

  He looked up at the clock. “Ten minutes late. Bring them in.”

  “No!” Anne Goren was on her feet. “I won’t! I won’t be in a room with them! Doctor Buhl! Please!”

  I must say I agreed with her. I wasn’t obsessed, but I absolutely agreed. After a second’s hesitation Buhl did too, and told Wolfe so. Wolfe looked at her, and decided to make it unanimous.

  “All right,” he conceded. “Archie, take Miss Goren and Doctor Buhl to the front room, and after the others are in here let them out.”

  “Yes, sir.” As I went to open the door to the front room the bell rang again. Paul being impetuous. If he had known who was there he would probably have bounded through the glass panel.

  III

  THE WAY IT LOOKED to me, as I sat at my desk and got out my notebook after ushering the newcomers in and letting Buhl and Anne Goren out, an investigation of a death that had surprised the doctor was about to deteriorate into an inquiry about a real-estate agent’s methods of courtship – not the sort of job that Wolfe would ever consider worthy of his genius, fee or no fee, and I was looking forward to it.

  In appearance Paul was not up to his billing. He was a good eight inches shorter than me, broad and a little pudgy, and probably thought he looked like Napoleon – and maybe he did a little, or would have without the shiner (left eye) and the bruises on both sides of his swollen jaw. Evidently Johnny Arrow used both fists. Paul and the Tuttles were on chairs lined up in front of Wolfe’s desk, leaving the red leather chair to David.

  Louise was taller than either of her brothers, and better-looking. For a middle-aged woman she wasn’t a bad sight at all, though a little bony, and her hair was too short. As for her husband, Tuttle, he was simply short of hair. His shiny dome, rising to a peak, dominated the scene and made such details as eyes and nose and chin unimportant. You had to concentrate to take them in.

  When I came back and sat after letting Buhl and Anne Goren out, Wolfe was speaking. “… and Doctor Buhl stated that in his opinion your brother died of pneumonia, with no suspicious circumstances. Since he had already certified the death, that leaves us where we were.” He focused on Paul. “I understand that you maintain that the police should be asked to investigate. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. You’re damn right it is.” He had a baritone and gave it plenty of breath.

  “And the others disagree.” Wolfe’s head moved. “You disagree, sir?”

  “As I told you.” David looked and sounded tireder than ever. “Yes, I disagree.”

  “And you, Mrs. Tuttle?”

  “I certainly do.” She was a word-clipper, with a high thin voice. “I don’t believe in asking for trouble. Neither does my husband.” Her head jerked sideways. “Vince?”

  “That’s right, my dear,” Tuttle rumbled. “I always agree with you, even when I don’t. This time I do.”

  Wolfe went back to Paul. “Then it seems to be up to you. If you go to the police what do you tell them?”

  “I tell them plenty.” The ceiling light made Paul’s shiner look worse than it really was. “I tell them that when Doctor Buhl left Saturday evening he told us that Bert’s condition was satisfactory and we could go and enjoy the play, and a few hours later Bert was dead. I tell them that that guy Arrow was making a play for the nurse, and she was giving him the eye, and he could have had an opportunity to get at her stuff and substitute something for the morphine she was going to shoot into Bert. Doctor Buhl told us he was giving morphine. I tell them that Arrow stands to rake in several million bucks that he never would have got a smell of as long as Bert was alive. I tell them that Arrow saw that Bert was getting on with us, one of the family again, and he didn’t like it and showed he didn’t.”

  Paul stopped to press gently at his jaw with fingertips. “It hurts me to talk,” he said. “The goddam hoodlum. Look, I’m no prince. The way you’re looking at me, you might be asking am I my brother’s keeper, and hell no. I didn’t get along any too well with Bert when we were kids, and I hadn’t seen him for twenty years, so what. I might as well tell you what. A murderer can’t collect on his crime, and if Arrow killed him that agreement is out the window, and it will all be in Bert’s estate, and it will be ours. That’s obvious, so why not say it? I won’t have to tell the police that because they’ll know it.”

  “That’s no way to talk, Paul,” David said sharply.

  “That’s right,” Tuttle agreed. “It certainly isn’t.”

  “Oh, can it,” Paul told his brother-in-law. “Who are you?”

  “He’s my husband,” Louise snapped at him. “He could teach you a lot of things if you were teachable.”

  All in the family. Wolfe took over. “I concede,” he told Paul, “that you might stir the police into curiosity, but surmise is not enough. Have you anything else to tell them?”

  “No. I don’t need anything else.”

  “For me you do.” Wolfe leaned back, pulled in a bushel of air, and let it out again. “Let’s see if we can find something. What time did you arrive at your brother’s apartment Saturday evening?”

  “Saturday afternoon around five o’clock.” The bottom half of Paul’s face was suddenly contorted, and I thought he was having a spasm until I realized he was merely trying to grin, which is a problem
with a sore jaw. “I get it,” he said, “where was I at nine minutes to six on August sixth? Okay. I left Mount Kisco at a quarter to four, alone in my car, and drove to New York. My first stop was at Schramm’s on Madison Avenue, to buy two quarts of their mango ice cream to take back to Mount Kisco for a Sunday party. Then I drove to Fifty-second Street and parked the car, which can be done on a Saturday afternoon, and walked to the Churchill, arriving at the apartment a little after five. I went early because I had spoken with the nurse on the phone and liked her voice, and I thought I might get acquainted with her before the others came. Not a chance. That guy Arrow had her in the living room, telling her about prospecting for uranium. Every ten minutes or so she would sneak in for a look at her patient and then come back for more about prospecting. Then Dave came, and then Louise and Vince, and we were just starting dinner around a quarter to seven when Doctor Buhl came. Want more?”

  “You might as well finish.”

  “Anything you say. Buhl was in with Bert about half an hour, and when he left – I told you what he told us. We not only ate, we drank, and maybe I overdid it a little. I thought it wouldn’t be right to leave the nurse alone with Bert, and when the others left to go to the show I stayed. I thought if the nurse liked to hear about prospecting she might like to hear about other things too, but apparently not. After a little – oh, some remarks back and forth – she went in Bert’s room and shut the door and locked it. She told my sister later that I banged on the door and yelled at her that if she didn’t come out I’d break the door down, but I don’t remember it that way. Anyhow, by that time Bert was dead to the world with morphine, if it was morphine. She did come out, and we talked, and I may have touched her, but the marks on her that she showed them when they got back from the theater – she must have done that herself. I wasn’t that drunk, I was just a little high. Finally she got at the phone and said if I didn’t leave she would call down to the desk and tell them to send someone up, and I beat it. Want more?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Righto. I went down to the bar and sat at a table and had a drink. Two or three drinks. Something made me remember the ice cream I had put in the refrigerator in the apartment, and I was deciding whether to go up and get it, when suddenly Arrow was there telling me to stand up. He grabbed my shoulder and yanked me up and told me to put up my hands and get set, and then he hauled off and socked me. I don’t know how many times he hit me, but look at me. Finally they blocked him off and a cop came. I edged out, on out of the bar, and took an elevator up to the apartment, and Vince let me in. That part is a little hazy, but I know they put me on a couch because I woke up by falling off it, only I wasn’t really awake. I had some kind of idea about being hurt and wanting to see the nurse, and I went to Bert’s room and on in. The window curtains were drawn, and I turned on a light and went to the bed. He looked dead, with his mouth open, and I pulled the covers down and felt for his heart and he felt dead. There were two hot-water bags there, one on each side of him. They looked empty, and I picked one up and it was empty, and I thought to myself, she was careless because I made her sore and that won’t do, and the other one was empty too, and I took them to the bathroom before I went –”

  “Paul!” It was Louise, staring at him. “You told me you emptied them!”

  “Sure I did.” He grinned at her, or tried to. “I didn’t want you to report her to the doctor. What the hell, can’t a man be gallant?” He returned to Wolfe. “You said I had to tell you something else. Okay, that’s something else. Like it?”

  “So you lied to Louise,” Tuttle rumbled.

  “Or you’re lying now,” David said, not tired at all. “You have said nothing about this to me.”

  “Of course not. Damn it, I was being gallant.”

  They all pitched in, cawing at one another, all in the family. With Louise’s high soprano, Paul’s baritone, Tuttle’s rumble, and David’s falsetto, it made quite a quartette.

  Wolfe shut his eyes and tightened his lips, took it up to a point, and then crashed the sound barrier. “Jabber! Stop it, please.” He picked on Paul. “You, sir, speak of gallantry. I didn’t mention that Miss Goren was here with Doctor Buhl. She was, and she told me of your visits to her apartment and your phone calls, so we’ll leave gallantry out, but there are two points at issue. First, the fact: did you find the bags empty, or did you empty them?”

  “I found them empty. I told my sister –”

  “I know what you told your sister, and the reason you give. Taking it that you found the bags empty, surely it is frivolous to offer that as an item for the police. Doctor Buhl told me that even if Miss Goren neglected to put hot water in them, which he doesn’t believe, it would have had no appreciable effect on the patient, so it has no appreciable effect on me. That is the second point. But your conjecture that something was substituted for the morphine – that might indeed have an effect if you can give it any support. Can you?”

  “I don’t have to. Let the police see if they can.”

  “No. That won’t do. A conjecture is well enough for private exploration, but using it to put a man under official suspicion of homicide is inadmissible. For example, it would not be a fatuous conjecture if I guessed that you, not knowing of the agreement between your brother and Mr. Arrow, and assuming that you would inherit a third of his fortune, killed him; but certainly I would not proceed –”

  “You’d better not,” Paul cut in. His mug was contorted again, trying to grin. “I did know about the agreement.”

  “Yes? Who told you?”

  “I did,” David said. “Bert told me, and I told Paul and Louise.”

  “You see?” Wolfe turned a hand over. “There goes my conjecture. If I were stubborn I could of course still cling to it, guessing that you had anticipated it and conspired to meet it, knowing that your dead brother can’t testify, but that would be witless if I had no single fact in support.” He shook his head at Paul. “I’m afraid you’re trying to open fire without ammunition. But I have been engaged to investigate, so I won’t scrimp it.” He went to David. “I know how you feel about this, Mr. Fyfe, so I don’t expect anything significant from you, but a few questions won’t hurt. What do you know about the morphine?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, except that Doctor Buhl told us he had left some with the nurse to be given to Bert after we left.”

  “Did you go in your brother’s room after Doctor Buhl left?”

  “Yes, we all did – Paul and Louise and Vincent and I. We told him the dinner was excellent and we were sorry he couldn’t be with us at the theater.”

  “Where was Mr. Arrow?”

  “I don’t know. I believe he had said something about changing his shirt.”

  “Did he go in your brother’s room after Doctor Buhl left?”

  “I don’t know.” David shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Wolfe grunted. “Not that that would indict him. How about later, when you returned from the theater? Did he go in your brother’s room then?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did I didn’t see him.” David was frowning. “I told you about the situation. The nurse was very upset and said she had phoned Doctor Buhl to send a replacement. When she told us what had happened Arrow left – that is, he left the apartment. Then my sister and the nurse had some words, and my sister told the nurse to go, and after she went my sister phoned Doctor Buhl and told him she and her husband would stay until a replacement came. Shortly after that I went home. I live in Riverdale.”

  “But before leaving you went to your brother’s room?”

  “Yes.”

  “How was he then?”

  “He was sound asleep, making some noise breathing, but he seemed all right. When Louise phoned Doctor Buhl he told her that Bert had had half a grain of morphine and would probably not wake before morning.”

  Wolfe’s head moved. “Mrs. Tuttle. You have heard what your brothers have said. Have you any corrections or additions?”

  She w
as having a little trouble. Her mouth was working and her hands, in her lap, were clasped tight. She met Wolfe’s look but didn’t reply, until suddenly she cried, “It’s not my fault! No one is going to blame it on me!”

  Wolfe made a face. “Why should they, madam?”

  “Because they did about my father! Do you know about my father?”

  “I know how he died. Your brother told me.”

  “Well, they blamed me then – everybody did! Because I was taking care of him and I slept and didn’t go to his room and find the open windows! They even asked me if I put a drug in my chocolate so I would sleep! A twenty-four-year-old girl doesn’t have to take drugs to sleep!”

  “Now, my dear.” Tuttle patted her shoulder. “That’s all in the past, it’s all forgotten. There were no open windows in Bert’s room Saturday night.”

  “But I sent the nurse away.” She was talking to Wolfe. “And I told Doctor Buhl I would be responsible, and I went to bed and went to sleep without even looking at the hot-water bags, and they were empty.” She jerked her head around to her younger brother. “Tell the truth, Paul, the real truth. Were the bags empty?”

  He patted her too. “Take it easy, Lou. Sure they were empty, on my word of honor as a Boy Scout, but that didn’t kill him and I never said it did.”

  “No one’s blaming you,” Tuttle assured her. “As for your going to sleep, why shouldn’t you? It was after one o’clock, and Doctor Buhl had said Bert would sleep all night. Believe me, my dear, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”