Please Pass the Guilt

by Rex Stout

  One Pirate had watched a third strike go by and another one had popped up to the infield. Now a third one lofted a major-league blooper out to left center and both Cleon Jones and Tommy Agee were on the gallop. It would fall in ... but it didn't. Jones stretched an arm and one-handed it, and kept it. A good inning for Koosman. As the picture of the commercial started, I turned to the couch. "To be honest," I said, "I may as well admit that that letter was dumb. How could you needle the police or the District Attorney about neglecting the most important fact if I didn't tell you what it is? I apologize, and I not only apologize, I pay a forfeit. The most important fact is that your husband entered that room and opened that drawer, and the most important question is, why? Unless and until they have the answer to that the ten best investigators in the world couldn't possibly solve the case. Tell Inspector Cramer that, but don't mention Nero Wolfe. The sound of 24 Please Pass the Guilt that name riles him." I stood up. "I realize that it's possible that you know why he entered the room and opened the drawer, and you have told the DA and he's saving it, but from the published accounts I doubt it, and so does Mr. Wolfe. Thank you for letting me see Cleon Jones make that catch." I turned and was going, but she raised her voice. "Damn it, sit down!" I did so, and as I sat Jerry Grote lined a double to the rightfield corner. Bud Harrelson beat out a bunt and Grote moved to third, and Mrs. Odell pushed the button and the sound came on. More action and two Mets crossed the plate. When Ed Charles made the third out the score was tied, and as the commercial started she pushed the button, looked at me, and said, "Call Wolfe and tell him I want to see him. Now." She aimed a finger. "The phone on that desk. How long will it take him?" "Too long. Forever. You certainly don't know him 'definitely.' He leaves his house only for personal errands no one else can do, never on business. I suppose you'd rather not discuss it on the phone, so you'll have to go to him. The address is on the letterhead. Six o'clock would be a good time, he'll be available then, and the game will be--" "My god, what a nerve," she said. "You think I would?" "No, I think you wouldn't. But you said you want to see him, and I--" "All right, all right. Forget it." She pushed the button. Bob Murphy had replaced Ralph Kiner and he talks louder. She had to raise her voice: ''Miss Haber will take you down. She's in the hall." I got up and went. I hadn't the slightest idea, as I was escorted to the elevator and down, and to the entrance, by Miss Haber, and as I walked to Madison Avenue and turned downtown, headed for a bar where I knew there was a TV, whether or not I had wasted a letterhead and a postage stamp and most of an afternoon. On a bet I would have taken either end. But after all, she had said she wanted to see him, and if I know Please Pass the Guilt 25 women one-tenth as well as Wolfe pretends to think I do, she was strongly inclined to get what she wanted. By the time the game ended, which the Mets won 7 to 5, I would no longer have taken either end. Two to one I had hooked her. That was how it looked as I used my key on the door of the old brownstone a little before six o'clock. Of course I couldn't leave the house that evening. When I'm not there Fritz usually answers the phone, but sometimes Wolfe does, and she might call any minute. She might. She didn't. It was also possible that she would tell either Cramer or the DA about it and he would call. He didn't. When I went to bed around midnight the odds were no longer two to one. But there was still an off chance, and when I went to the office after breakfast Sunday morning, I rang Lily Rowan and told her I was stuck for the day and would send the tickets for the ball game by messenger, and I hoped she could find someone who could yell at the umpire as loud as I did. And then, about eight minutes after the messenger had come and taken the tickets, the phone rang, and it was Mrs. Odell in person, not the secretary. She said she wanted to speak with Wolfe and I said no, that he didn't even know I had written her and seen her. "My god," she said, "you might think he's the President. I want to see him. Bring him." "I can't and he wouldn't. Honestly, Mrs. Odell, I wish he would. It would do him good to get out more, but not a chance. If there was a way of scoring pigheadedness it would be interesting to match him with you. I think he'd win." "Of course I'm pigheaded. I always have been." "I'm perfectly willing to make it 'strong-minded' if you prefer." Silence. It lasted so long that I thought she had quit without bothering to hang up. Then she said, "I'll be there at six o'clock." "Today? Sunday?" "Yes." She hung up. 26 Please Pass the Guilt I took a deep breath and enjoyed it. So far so good, but the highest hurdle was still ahead. The Sunday household routine was different. Theodore didn't come on Sunday and Wolfe's morning with the orchids could be anything from twenty minutes to four hours. Also Fritz might leave for the day right after breakfast, or he might not. That day not, he had said. The question was when to spring it. Going up to the plant rooms with it was of course out of the question; I wasn't welcome there even for a real emergency. I decided not to decide until he came down and I saw what his mood was like. When he showed, a little after eleven, he had the Sunday Times under one arm and a fourteen-inch raceme of Peristeria data in the other hand, and his "Good morning" was a greeting, not just a growl. So when the flowers were in the vase and his bulk was satisfactorily arranged in the made-to-order chair he wouldn't swap for its weight in uranium, I spoke. "Before you get started on the Review of the Week, I have an item you won't like. A woman is coming to see you at six o'clock today. Mrs. Peter J. Odell, whose husband opened a desk drawer and died. I had to ignore the rule on consulting you before making an appointment." He was glaring at me. "I was here. I was available." "Sure, but it was an emergency." I opened a drawer of my desk and took out a paper. "This is a carbon of a letter I sent her Friday afternoon." I rose, handed it to him, and returned to my chair. "She phoned yesterday morning, or her secretary did, and I went to see her yesterday afternoon, at her house on Sixty-third Street. She asked me to phone you to come, which of course wasn't discussable. I told her the only place she could see you was your office. She phoned this morning, an hour ago, and said she would be here at six o'clock." He had read the letter. He read it again, with his lips pressed tight. He dropped it on his desk and looked at me. Not a glare or a scowl, just a hard, straight look. "I don't believe it," he said. "It would be insufferable, as you well know." --Mwc.iirtt.i' ;' wowaMtw-' Please Pass the Guilt 27 I nodded. "Of course that's the reaction I expected. But she'll be here at six. The emergency I referred to is in the safe. Your checkbook. You have of course noticed that since May first I have been giving you a memo of the condition every week instead of twice a month. Of the hundred and fifty-eight days this year you have worked about ten and I have worked less than twenty, not counting office chores. I happened--" "Not 'less' than twenty. 'Fewer.'" "Thank you. I happened to learn that Mrs. Odell's pile goes to eight figures, maybe even nine. The alternatives were (a) quit this job and make her an offer, or (b) get her to make you an offer. I tossed a coin and you won. So I wrote her that letter." "Now," he said through his teeth with his lips barely moving, "/ have alternatives." "Certainly. Fire me, or go to work. If you fire me I won't expect severance pay. I would have to draw the check, and for more than a month every time I have drawn a check I have had to set my jaw. In deciding, please remember that at least twice you have yourself put out a hook when the bank balance got too low for comfort. The last time was when you sent me to see a woman named Fraser. The only difference is that this time I did it without consulting you. I like to earn part of my pay." He cupped his hands over the ends of the chair arms, leaned back, and shut his eyes. But his lips didn't start to work in and out, so he didn't really have a problem; he was just looking at it. He may have thought I was holding my breath, but probably not, because he knows me nearly as well as I know him. I was about to swivel and resume with my copy of the Times when he opened his eyes and straightened up and spoke. "Regarding my remark to you about the most important fact that is not getting the attention it deserves. She will of course want to know what it is, and so do I. Have you a suggestion?" "Sure. I have already told her, yesterday. It's that Odell entered Browning's room and opened the drawer of his desk 28 Please Pass
the Guilt that everybody knew had only bourbon in it. Why? That's the most important question. You have only read the newspaper accounts, but I have also discussed it for an hour and a half with Lon Cohen and learned a few things that haven't been printed." "Confound it." He made a face. "Very well. Talk. From Mr. Cohen, the substance. Your conversation with that woman, verbatim." I talked. most op the people who enter that office for the first time have something eating them, but even so they often notice one or more of the objects in view--the fourteen-bytwenty-six Keraghan rug or the three-foot globe or the floral display in the vase on Wolfe's desk. Mrs. Peter J. Odell didn't. When I escorted her to the office, her eyes fixed on Wolfe and stayed there as she crossed the rug and stopped just short of his desk. Of course he stayed put in his chair, as usual. "Charlotte Haber is my secretary," she said. "I brought her because I may need her." She went to the red leather chair, sat, and put her handbag on the little stand at her elbow. Meanwhile I had moved up one of the yellow chairs for the secretary. From the look Miss Haber had given me at the door, and the one she was now giving Wolfe, it was a good guess that she would rather have been somewhere else. The crease in her narrow forehead made it even narrower, and the way she was puckering her mouth, which was too small anyway, made it almost invisible. "I have asked three men about you," Mrs. Odell told Wolfe. "You're highhanded and opinionated, and you charge high fees, but you're dependable." Wolfe grunted. "You should have inquired further. Competence?"

  "Oh, apparently you're smart enough. I'll decide that myself. Your man told me that you said the police are neglecting 30 Please Pass the Guilt the most important question, why did my husband go to Browning's room and open that drawer? I want to know why that is so important." She got her bag and opened it and took out a checkfold. "How much for telling me that?" He shook his head. "I discuss details only with clients and you haven't hired me. But since Mr. Goodwin has presumed to quote me to you--without my prior knowledge--Ill make an exception. On trial for murder, a man may be convicted without proof of motive. Establishment of motive of course helps with a jury, but it is not requisite. But in an investigation of a murder, motive is of first importance. The question was first asked in an ancient language many centuries ago: Cui bono? To try to learn who put that bomb in that drawer without knowing whom it was intended for is close to hopeless, and to learn whom it was intended for it is essential to know why your husband entered the room and opened the drawer, and who knew he was going to. Actually that's the most important question: Who knew he was going to? Did anybody? If it were my problem I would begin by concentrating on that question to the exclusion of all others. I give you that, madam, with my compliments, since Mr. Goodwin quoted me without bothering to get permission." She still had the checkfold in her hand. "The police think it was intended for Amory Browning." "No doubt. A reasonable assumption. But if it was actually intended for your husband, they're wasting their time and they'll get nowhere." "Why do you think it was intended for my husband?" "I don't. But I think it might have been--and I repeat, I would want first to learn if anyone knew he was going to enter that room and open that drawer, and if so, who." She sat and looked at him. Then she turned her head to look at me, and turned it further to look at Charlotte Haber. I don't know if that was any help, but probably she had already made up her mind and didn't even know she was doing it. Please Pass the Guilt 31 She opened the checkfold, slid a pen out of its loop, wrote, on both the stub and the check, and tore the check out. "You said I haven't hired you," she said. "Now I have. This twenty thousand dollars is for a retainer. I'm going to tell you something and ask you what to do, with the understanding that it is in confidence and you will never tell anyone about it--under any circumstances." Wolfe shook his head. "I can't accept it on those terms." "My god, why not? A lawyer would." "I am not a member of the bar. What a client tells me is not a privileged communication. Archie. Your notebook." I got it from a drawer, and a pen. "One carbon," he said. "I acknowledge receipt of a check for twenty thousand dollars from Mrs. Peter J. Odell as a retainer for my services. Period. I guarantee that any information she gives me will be revealed to no one, comma, either by me or by Archie Goodwin, comma, without her consent, comma, unless circumstances arise that put me or him under legal compulsion to reveal it." He turned to her. "I assure you that we do not invite or welcome legal compulsion. Will that do?" "Idon'tI'Ulookatit." I put paper in the typewriter and hit the keys. On the wall back of my desk is a mirror four feet high and six feet wide, and in it I could see that Miss Haber was looking surprised. No female secretary thinks a man can use eight fingers and two thumbs on a typewriter. I rolled it out, kept the carbon, and got up to hand Wolfe the original. He signed it and handed it back, and I took it to Mrs. Odell. She read it, pursed her lips, read it again, folded it and put it in her bag, and handed me the check. I gave it a look and took it to Wolfe, and without even a glance at it he dropped it on his desk. He looked at the client: "I signed that receipt, madam, but I shall not consider myself definitely committed until I learn what you want me to do. I hope it won't be necessary for me to 32 Please Pass the Guilt return your check, but I can if I must. In any case, what you tell me will be held in confidence if possible. What do you want?" "I want advice. I want to know what 1 can do. I know why my husband went to Amory Browning's room and opened that drawer. So does Miss Haber. That's why she's here. I know the bomb was intended for him, and I know who put it there." I suppose Wolfe has been surprised by things people have said as often as you or me, but his ego has arranged with him not to show it and he rarely does. But that got him. His eyes stretched wide, as wide as I have ever seen them, then they narrowed at her, half closed, and he cleared his throat. "Indeed," he said. "Have you told the police?" "No. I have told no one. No one knows about it except Miss Haber and me. I have hoped the police would get him. Why haven't they found out where and how he got the bomb? My god, are they any good at all? It has been more than two weeks. Now, after what you have said, I have got to do something and I want you to tell me what. How much do you know? Do you know that there was to be a directors' meeting at five o'clock that day to decide who would be the new president of CAN?" "Yes. And that it would be either your husband or Mr. Browning." She nodded. "And they were both to be at the meeting, and give their ideas about policy and what they thought should be done, and answer questions, and then leave, and we would discuss it and then vote. Did you know that?" "No." "Well, that's how it was. If you have read the papers, you know that Amory Browning kept a certain brand of whisky in that bottom drawer of his desk." "Yes." "And that every afternoon around four o'clock he took a drink of it." Please Pass the Guilt 33 "That has been said, yes." "Well, he did. Every afternoon, between four and five o'clock. Everybody knew it. All right, now I'm telling you what you have guaranteed not to repeat. My husband went to that room and opened that drawer to put something in the whisky. It was my idea. Do you know what LSD is?" "Yes. Lysergic acid diethylamide." "My god, you can pronounce it. Well, I got some. You don't need to know how I got it. Miss Haber knows. I got some, it was a powder, and I put it in a little plastic container, and I persuaded my husband to use it. The police know he had it. It was in a pocket of his jacket. You didn't know about that." "No." "They haven't told about it. I think they haven't told anyone but me, and I told them I knew nothing about it. He was going to put it in the whisky. Almost certainly Browning would take a drink before he went to that meeting at five o'clock. We didn't know what that amount of LSD would do to him--of course we didn't know how full the bottle would be. But there was a good chance it would do enough for him to make a bad impression at that meeting, and it was understood and agreed that we would make a final decision that day. All right, now you know why he went to that room and opened that drawer." Wolfe nodded. "I probably do. It isn't likely that you would trump up a tale of such an exploit--and the police have the LSD. You said that Miss Haber knows how you got it. Did she also know how you planned to use it?" "Yes." "Did anyone else know?" "Yes. Amory Browning." Wol
fe shook his head. "My credulity will stretch only so far, madam. Obviously you are going to tell me that Mr. Browning murdered your husband." "That's right. He did." Her head etamed. "Charlotte?" Miss Haber's mouth opened, and closed. She lifted a hand, 34 Please Pass the Guilt and dropped it. "Please, Mrs. Odell," she said. "I don't think -You tell him. Please?" "Well, you're here." Mrs. Odell went back to Wolfe. "There are strong people," she said, "and there are weak people, and Miss Haber is one of the weak ones. She's extremely competent, but weak. She found out for me how to get some LSD, and in fact she got it for me, about a month ago. Then she found out what I was going to do with it by eavesdropping on us--my husband and me. Then she phoned Amory Browning and told him what we were going to do. I didn't know that until three days after my husband died. So she was weak three times- getting the LSD for me without knowing what I wanted it for, and phoning Browning, and telling me. You said the most important question is who knew my husband was going to that room and open that drawer. All right, three people knew: Miss Haber and me, and Amory Browning. And she told Browning four days before it happened, so he had plenty of time to get the bomb." Wolfe was frowning at her with his chin down. "A remarkable performance," he said. "Extraordinary. You seem not to be aware that--" She cut in. "I'm not through. About Browning getting the bomb. Do you watch television?" "Rarely." "About three months ago, CAN had a one-hour special they called 'Where the Little Bombs Come From.' Did you see it?" "No." "Lots of people thought it told too much about what bombs are made of and who makes them, but it really didn't, because they changed all the names and didn't give any addresses. That program was Browning's idea and his staff did all the research, so getting one would have been easy for him. If you mean it would have been remarkable for him to get a bomb in four days and know how to use it, it wouldn't." Please Pass the Guilt 35 Wolfe was still frowning. "I didn't mean that. I meant your performance. That is of course one detail to be considered, but before considering details I must know if I'm going to be concerned with them. If I take the job, what do you expect me to do?" "I expect you to tell me what to do, and I suppose help me do it. I want Amory Browning indicted and tried and convicted, but I do not want what I have told you to be known. I am not going to sit in a witness chair and tell what my husband and I did and answer questions about it. How many things have you done that you wouldn't want everyone to know about?" "Perhaps a thousand. Adulterating a rival's whisky is not one of them, but tastes and methods differ." Wolfe's head turned. "Miss Haber. Do you corroborate what Mrs. Odell has told me of your share in this affair?" The secretary swallowed. I had her in profile, but apparently her eyes were straight at him. She said "Yes," but it was barely audible, and she repeated it louder, "Yes, I do." "You got some LSD at her request?" "Yes, but I'm not going to tell how I got it." "I don't need to know, at least not now. And you learned how she was going to use it by overhearing conversations she had with her husband?" "Yes. I thought I had a right to know. LSD is illegal. It can't be sold legally and you can't even have it in your possession."