Three for the Chair

by Rex Stout

  He stopped because Groom had turned his head. Groom had turned his head because the door had opened and a man was approaching, a colleague in uniform. The cop came to him, said, “For you, Captain,” and handed him a folded paper. Groom unfolded the paper, gave it a look, taking his time, told the cop to stick around, glanced at the paper again, and lifted his eyes to Wolfe and me.

  “This is a warrant,” he said, “for your arrest as material witnesses in a murder case. I hereby serve it. Do you want to see it?”

  I turned my head to Wolfe. I can testify that through a full ten-second silence his lids didn’t blink once. Then he spoke, but all he said was, “No.”

  “I do,” I said, and put out a hand, and Groom handed it over. It looked kosher, and even had our names spelled right. The signature of the judge looked like Bymnyomr. “I guess it’s real,” I told Wolfe.

  He was regarding Groom. “I hardly know,” he said icily, “the word to use. High-handed? Bumptious? Headstrong?”

  “You’re not in New York now, Wolfe.” Groom was trying not to show how much he liked himself. “This is the City of Albany. I’ll ask you once more, do you want to change your statement or add to it?”

  “You actually mean to serve this thing?”

  “I have served it. You’re under arrest.”

  Wolfe turned to me. “What’s Mr. Parker’s number?”

  “Eastwood six two-six-oh-five.”

  He arose, circled around the desk to the chair Hyatt had vacated, sat, and took the phone from the cradle. Groom got to his feet, took a step, stopped, stood, and stuck his hands in his pockets. Wolfe took the phone. “A New York City call, please. Eastwood six two-six-oh-five.”

  IV

  FOUR HOURS LATER, at six o’clock, we were still in the coop. Of course I had been behind bars before, but never together with Wolfe. For him it was a first, since I had known him.

  Actually we weren’t behind bars, or at least none were visible. It was a detention room at police headquarters, and wasn’t bad at all, except that it smelled like a hospital in the middle of the Jersey marshes and the chairs were greasy. There was even a private john in a closet in a corner. A cop was there with us, presumably to see that we didn’t cheat the chair by making a suicide pact and carrying it out. When I told him an evening paper would be worth a buck to us he opened the door and yelled down the hall to someone, sticking to his post. Taking no chances.

  Soon after our incarceration we had been told we could send out for grub, and I had ordered two corned-beef sandwiches on white toast and a quart of milk. Wolfe, who had swallowed nothing but coffee since ten o’clock, declined the offer. Whether he was staging a hunger strike or was just too mad to eat, I couldn’t say. When my corned beef on white toast arrived it turned out to be ham on rye, and the ham was only so-so, but the milk was okay.

  Not only was Wolfe not eating in captivity, also he wasn’t talking. Keeping his hat on, he sat on his overcoat spread on an old wooden bench against the wall, mostly leaning back with his eyes closed and his fingers interlaced at the summit of his central mound. Looking at him, and I had seen a lot of him, I would say that instead of calming down he kept getting madder. His only real try at communication, after a couple of hours had passed, was when he opened his eyes and told me he wanted my true opinion about something. I said he could have my true opinion about everything, and apparently we’d have plenty of time for it.

  He grunted. “I foresee that in the future, if you and I continue to be associated, as we probably shall, this episode will be frequently mentioned, in one context or another. Do you agree?”

  “I do. Provided it’s not our last episode. You’re assuming we’ll have a future.”

  “Pfui. We’ll see to that. Answer this. If you had not been seduced by your itch to have a hand in a wiretapping operation and to observe the procedure and technique, do you think I would have undertaken that job for that man? I’m merely asking for your opinion.”

  “Well, you won’t get it.” I stood looking down at him. “If I say no, the future mentions would be too one-sided. If I say yes, it would pile one more provocation on the load you’re already carrying, and it might be too much for you. You can’t think us out of this if you’re boiling too high to think. So I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll split it.”

  “Split what?”

  “The blame. Fifty-fifty. We both ought to be larruped. But not fried.”

  “We’ll leave it to the future,” he growled, and shut his eyes on me.

  At six o’clock I was deep in the second section of the evening paper, reading how to repair nylon brassieres that had got torn somehow, having covered other matters, when the door was flung open. Our guard whirled on his heels, ready to repel an attempt at armed rescue, but it was only a cop conducting a visitor. The visitor, a red-faced guy in a brown cashmere overcoat, stopped for a glance around and then came on and put out a hand.

  “Mr. Wolfe? I’m Stanley Rogers. I’m terribly sorry. I suppose you thought I’d fallen in a hole and pulled the hole in, but Nat Parker didn’t get me until nearly three o’clock, and the judge was in the middle of a case and I had to pull some strings. We’re not being very hospitable up here, are we? This is Mr. Goodwin? It’s a pleasure.” He offered a hand, and I took it. “I asked the judge to make the bail figure five thousand, but he wouldn’t settle for less than twenty. Twenty thousand each. Anyhow, you’re free men, as I have no doubt you deserve to be, only you can’t leave the jurisdiction without permission of the court. I’ve reserved a room for you at the Latham Hotel, but of course it can be canceled if you want to make other arrangements.”

  He had some papers for us to sign. He said that Parker, phoning from New York, had told him to do everything possible for us, and he would cancel a dinner appointment if we wanted him, but Wolfe said that at the moment all he wanted was to get out of there and find something to eat. One offer we took. He had his car out front, and after telling the guard good-by, no tip, and going to an office to check out and claim some personal articles we had been relieved of, he led us out to it and drove us to the garage where we had left the sedan. With Wolfe in back again, I drove to the hotel, got the bags from the trunk, and turned the car over to a lackey.

  About the bags, I could have told Wolfe I had told him so, but decided he was in no shape for it. The evening before, pigheaded as usual, he had refused to admit the possibility of spending a night away from home and insisted that we would need no luggage, but I had packed his bag myself, with some help from Fritz, on the theory that man proposes but some other specimen may dispose. Now, as the bellboy followed us into room 902 and put the bags on the rack, it was a fine opportunity for a casual cutting remark, but I thought it advisable to save it.

  His overcoat hung in the closet, along with mine, Wolfe removed his coat, vest, tie, and shirt, and went to the bathroom and washed his hands and face. Emerging, he put on his dressing gown, a yellow wool number with fine black stripes, got his slippers, sat on a chair to take off his shoes, and told me to phone room service to send up a menu. I reminded him that Rogers had told us the Latham grub was only fair and that the best restaurant in town was only two blocks away.

  “I’m not interested,” he declared. “I have no appetite, and will have no palate. I eat because I must. You know quite well I can’t work on an empty stomach.”

  So he was going to work.

  I don’t remember a gloomier meal. The food was perfectly edible – oysters, consommé, roast beef, creamed potatoes, broccoli, salad, apple pie with cheese, coffee – and we cleaned it up, but the atmosphere had no sparkle. Though Wolfe never talks business at the table, he likes to talk while eating, about anything and everything but business, and nearly always does. That time he didn’t utter a single word from beginning to end, and I made no effort to start him. Finishing his second cup of coffee, he pushed his chair back and muttered at me, “What time is it?”

  I looked. “Twenty after eight.”

  “Well.”
He pulled air in through his mouth all the way down to the roast beef, and let it out through his nose. “I don’t know if you realize the pickle I’m in.”

  “The pickle is split too. Fifty-fifty.”

  “Only to a point. The jeopardy, yes, but I have a special difficulty. We’re going to be held here until this case is solved. I can hurry our release only by solving it, but I don’t want to. Certainly people cannot be permitted to murder with impunity, but I would prefer to have no hand in exposing the man who killed that abominable creature. What am I to do?”

  I waved a hand. “That’s easy. Sit it out. This room isn’t so bad. You can go to sessions of the state legislature when it meets, and get books from the library, and I can teach Sally Colt things if she’s hung up here too. If it drags on into months, as it probably will if that Groom is the best they’ve got, we can rent a little apartment and send for Fritz –”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, sir. Or perhaps Sally and I could solve it without you. I don’t feel as grateful to the bird who did it as you seem to. If –”

  “Bosh. I am not grateful. I wanted to see him again alive. Very well. As between the intolerable and the merely distasteful, I must choose the latter. I presume the others are also being held in the jurisdiction.”

  “If you mean our confreres, sure they are. Maybe not arrested like us, but held, certainly. Groom’s not sold on us enough to let them go, and anyway Hyatt wants them for his hearing.”

  He nodded. “I have to see them. Some of them may be in this hotel. Find them and bring them here.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you any suggestions?”

  “No. My mind’s not in order. I’ll try to get it arranged by the time you get them.”

  That had happened before, many times. He knew that my only alternatives were either to protest that he was biting off more than I could chew, or to take it as a compliment that if he wanted a miracle passed all he had to do was snap his fingers at me; and also he knew which I would pick.

  “Okay,” I told him. “Then will you please phone room service to come and get the dishes? And you might as well phone Fritz so he won’t start worrying. I’ve got some thinking to do.”

  I went to a window, parted the curtains, put the blind up, and stood looking down at the street by night. It wasn’t the first time I had been given the chore of setting up a party, but it had never been with a gang of private dicks, and they would need something special. Brilliant ideas started coming. Tell them Wolfe thought they would be interested to hear what Hyatt had asked him at the hearing. Tell them Wolfe had an idea for getting all of us released from the jurisdiction and wanted to consult with them. Tell them Wolfe had certain information about the murdered man which he had not given to the police and wanted to discuss it. Tell them that Wolfe thought it was important to fix the time of arrival of each of us at room 42 and wanted us to get together on it. And so on, up to a dozen or so. I rattled them around in my skull. The idea was to get one that would work with all of them.

  Suddenly I remembered that Wolfe had once told me that the best way to choose among an assortment of ideas was to take the simplest. I pulled the blind down and turned. He had just finished talking to Fritz and was lowering himself into the chair with arms, which was almost wide enough. I asked him, “You want them together, don’t you?”

  He said yes.

  “How soon?”

  “Oh … twenty minutes. Half an hour.”

  I went and sat on the edge of one of the beds, lifted the phone, and told the girl I understood Mr. Harland Ide was registered and would she please ring his room. In two moments his bass, a little hoarse, told me hello.

  “Mr. Harland Ide?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Archie Goodwin. I’m calling for Mr. Wolfe. We’re in room nine-oh-two. He would like very much to consult you about something, not on the phone. Right now he’s resting. If you’ll do him the favor of dropping in at room nine-oh-two, say in half an hour, he’ll appreciate it very much. Say nine o’clock. We hope you will.”

  A brief silence. “Could you give me an idea?”

  “Better not, on the phone.”

  A slightly longer silence. “All right, I’ll be there.”

  The simplest is the best. Of course their being private detectives was a big advantage. Tell any private detective you want to discuss something that is too hot for the phone, and he’ll swim a river to get to you.

  They weren’t all quite as simple as Ide. Steve Amsel wasn’t registered at the Latham, but I got him at another hotel and sold him on the trip. Jay Kerr was at the Latham, but his line was busy the first two tries and I got him last. Dol Bonner and Sally Colt were on our floor, room 917, and I wished I had gone down the hall and dined with them instead of putting up with a dummy. At first Dol Bonner didn’t care for the idea, but when I told her the others were coming she said we could expect her. Having got Kerr on the third try, I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “All set. Want anyone else? Groom? Hyatt? The secretary of state?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine minutes to nine.”

  “Confound it, I must dress.” He arose and started peeling the dressing gown. He wasn’t going to receive females in negligee, especially in a hotel room.

  V

  IT WAS A GOOD-SIZED room and wasn’t too crowded with seven people, or, counting Wolfe as two, eight. I had phoned down a rush order for four more chairs, so no one had to perch on a bed. Dol Bonner and Sally, still sticking close, were over by the wall. Steve Amsel, next to them, had turned his chair around and folded his arms on top of its back, with his chin resting on his wrist. He was still very neat, and his black eyes were still quick. Harland Ide looked tired, but still dignified enough for a banker. Jay Kerr, the half-bald roly-poly, was the last one to show. He brought along two clues that were spotted immediately by my highly trained powers of observation: a flushed face and a breath.

  “Well well!” he exclaimed at sight of us. “A party, huh? You didn’t tell me, Archie. Well well!”

  “Siddown and listen,” Amsel commanded him. “We waited for you. Wolfe wants to sing a song.”

  “That I’d like to hear,” Kerr said cordially, and sat.

  Wolfe’s eyes went around. “I think the best way to begin,” he said, “is to read you the statement I submitted to the secretary of state.” He took a document from his pocket and unfolded it. “It’s rather long, but I want you to know my position. If you’ll permit me.”

  “Sure,” Kerr told him. “Shoot.”

  He started reading. It took a full ten minutes, but he held his audience. I must admit I felt for him. What he would have liked to do with that affair was scrap it and try to forget it, but, having already been compelled to record it in a sworn statement and to recite it to Hyatt, he now had to spill it again to a collection of his fellow members of a professional association. It must have been about the bitterest pill he ever had to take, but he got it down. When he got to the end he refolded it and handed it to me.

  He rested his elbows on the chair arms and matched his fingertips. “So this morning I couldn’t tell you the name of the murdered man. I spoke then of my ignominy, and I won’t dwell on it. Do any of you want anything in the statement clarified? Any questions?”

  Apparently nobody had any. Wolfe resumed, “Mr. Goodwin told you on the phone that I wanted to consult you about something. It is this. We are all involved in an investigation of a murder and are under restraint. Mr. Goodwin and I have been arrested as material witnesses and released on bail. I don’t know if any of you have been arrested, but certainly your movements have been restricted. I think it will be to our common advantage to pool our information, discuss it, and decide what can be done with it. We are all trained and experienced investigators.”

  Amsel started to speak, but Wolfe raised a hand. “If you please. Before you comment, let me say that neither Mr. Goodwin nor I had anything to do with that man�
��s death, nor have we any knowledge of it. Possibly that is true of all of you. If so, the worth of my suggestion is manifest; we would be nincompoops not to share our information and join our wits. If not, if one of you killed him or had a hand in it, he certainly won’t tell us so, and probably he will be reluctant to give us any information at all; but obviously it would be to the interest of the rest of us to merge our knowledge and our resources. Don’t you agree?”

  For the first time they exchanged glances. Jay Kerr said, “Pretty neat. Well well! Last one in is a monkey.”

  “You put it good,” Amsel declared. “If I don’t play I’m it.”

  “I have a question.” It was Harland Ide. “Why were you and Goodwin arrested and put under bail?”

  “Because,” Wolfe told him, “that man – I presume you all know by now that his name was Donahue – because he told Mr. Hyatt a story this morning which conflicted with my statement. He said that he had given me his name as Donahue and that I knew the tap was illegal.”

  “Ouch,” Kerr said. “No wonder you want us to open up.”

  “I have opened up, Mr. Kerr. I’ll answer any questions you care to ask. And I assure you I’m not impelled by any fear of ultimate disaster, either for Mr. Goodwin or for myself. I merely want to go home.”

  Dol Bonner spoke up. “It seems to me,” she said, “that the only question is whether it will do any good or not. It can’t do any harm. We have already given the police all the information we have, at least I have and Miss Colt has, and tomorrow they’ll be at us again.” She directed the caramel-colored eyes at Wolfe. “What good will it do?”