by Rex Stout
"Naturally Mrs. Odell has told you." "She told me that you showed her the LSD. I don't suppose it was flour or sugar, supplied by you. Why would you? Was it?" "No." Cramer drank, emptied the glass, put it down on the table, picked up the bottle, and poured. He picked up the cigar, put it in his mouth, and took it out again. He looked at Wolfe, whose head was tilted back to drink, and waited for Wolfe's eyes to meet his. "Why I came," he said. "Not to ask for help, but I thought it was possible that an exchange might help both of us. We have collected a lot of facts, thousands of facts, some established and some not. Mrs. Odell has certainly told you things that she hasn't told us, and maybe some of the others have too. We might trade. Of course it would hurt. You would be crossing your client, and I would be giving you official information that is supposed to be withheld. You don't want to and neither do I. 72 Please Pass the Guilt But I'm making a straight offer on the square. I haven't asked you if this is being recorded." "It isn't." "Good." He picked up his glass. "That's why I came." Wolfe swiveled, not his chair, his head, to look at me. The look said, as plain as words, "I hope you're appreciating this," and my look said, "I am." He turned back to Cramer and said, just stating a fact, "It won't do, Mr. Cramer." "It won't?" "No. There is mutual respect between you and me, but not mutual trust If I gave you every word spoken to me by Mrs. Odell, and by the others, you would think it possible, even probable, that I omitted something. You say you have thousands of facts. If you gave me ten thousand, I would think it likely that you had reserved at least one. You know as well as I do that in the long record of man's make-believe, there is no sillier formula than the old legal phrase, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' Pfui." "So you would omit something." "Perhaps. I could add that if I did give you every word, you would know nothing helpful that you don't know now, but you wouldn't believe me." "You're damn right I wouldn't." He looked at the glass in his hand and squinted at it as if he wondered how it got there. "Thanks for the beer." He put the glass, not empty, on the table, saw the cigar, and picked it up. I expected him to throw it at my wastebasket and miss as usual, but he stuck it in the beer glass, the chewed end down. He stood up. "I had a question, I had one question, but I'm not going to ask it. By God, you had the nerve--those men--with me sitting here--" He turned and walked out. I didn't go to see him out, but when I heard the front door open and close, I went to the hall to see that he was out. Back in, I went to the safe to enter the outlay in the petty cash book. Please Pass the Guilt 73 I don't like to leave things hanging. As I headed for my desk, Wolfe said, "I thought I knew that man. Why did he come?" "He said he's desperate." "But he isn't. So healthy an ego isn't capable of despair." I sat. "He wanted to look at you. Of course he knew you wouldn't play along on his cockeyed offer. He thinks be can tell when you've got a good hand, and maybe he can." "Do you think he can? Can you?" "I'd better not answer that, not right now. We've got a job on. Am I to Just sit here and take calls from the help?" "No. You are to seduce either Miss Lugos or Miss Venner. Which one?" I raised one brow. He can't do that. "Why not both?" We discussed it. 10 when I had a chance, after lunch, I looked up "seduce" in the dictionary. "I. To persuade (one) as into disobedience, disloyalty, or desertion of a lord or cause. 2. To lead or draw (one) aside or astray, as into an evil, foolish, or disastrous course or action from that which is good, wise, etc.; as, to be seduced into war; to seduce one from his duty; to tempt or entice; as, pleasures that seduced her from home. 3. To induce to evil; to corrupt, specif., to induce to surrender chastity; to debauch."
Even on the 3 I couldn't charge him at some appropriate moment with having asked me to go too far, since we had no evidence that either of them had any chastity to surrender. The best spot in the metropolitan area at four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon in June is an upper box at Shea Stadium, but I wasn't there that Saturday. I was sitting in the cockpit of a thirty-foot boat, removing a flounder the size of my open hand from the hook at the end of Sylvia Venner's line. The object I enjoy most removing from a hook is a sixteen-inch rainbow or Dolly Varden or cutthroat, but there aren't any in Long Island Sound. We had spent a couple of hours trying for stripers or blues without a bite and had settled for salmon eggs on little hooks. The name of the boat was Happygolucky. I had borrowed it from a man named Sopko, who had once paid Wolfe $7,372.40, including expenses, for getting his son out of a deep hole he had stumbled into. Please Pass the Guilt 75 It was from Sylvia Venner herself, on the telephone Wednesday afternoon, that I had learned that she didn't care for baseball, didn't like dancing, had seen all the shows in town, and wouldn't enjoy dining at Rusterman's because she was on a diet. The idea of a boat had come from her. She said that she loved catching fish, all except actually touching one, but the soonest she could make it was Saturday. In fifty-six hours Saul and Fred and Orrie had produced nothing that would need help from me during the weekend. Friday evening I assembled the score for the two and a half days on a page of my notebook and got this: Number of CAN employes who thought or guessed or hinted --that Odell was putting the bomb in the drawer to get Browning 4 --that Browning planted the bomb to get Odell and somehow got Odell to go and open the drawer 1 --that Dennis Copes planted it to get Kenneth Meer 2 --that no one had planted it; the bomb was a leftover from the research for the program and was supposed to be de-activated 2 --that Sylvia Venner had planted it to get Browning I --that Helen Lugos had planted it to get Kenneth Meer 2 --that Kenneth Meer had planted it to get Helen Lugos 1 --that some kind of activist had planted it to get just anybody 3 --that it would never be known who had planted it for whom 8 If you skipped that I don't blame you; I include it only because I didn't want to waste the time I spent compiling it. It adds up to twenty-four, and they spoke with a total of about a 76 Please Pass the Guilt hundred people, so some seventy or eighty were keeping their thinking or guessing or hinting to themselves. Wolfe and I agreed, Friday evening, to ignore the favorite guess. The idea that Odell had himself supplied the bomb was out His wife would have known about it, and she would not have given Wolfe a hundred grand to start digging. Also why the LSD in his pocket? Because he was on the stuff and had it with him in case his nerves needed a boost? Cramer and the DA bad certainly included that in their tries and had chucked it So no. Out. One of the four who liked it was Dennis Copes, but that didn't prove anything. Saul's description of Copes was "5 feet 9, 160 pounds, brown hair down to his collar, sideburns that needed trimming, showy shirt and tie, neat plain gray HickeyPreeman suit, soft low-pitched voice, nervous hands." He had chatted with him twice and learned nothing useful. Of course he hadn't asked if he knew or thought he knew that Kenneth Meer had the habit of checking on the whisky in the drawer, and though he is as good as Wolfe at the trick of getting an answer to an unasked question, it hadn't worked with Copes. Actually nothing worked with anybody. I have just looked over my notes, and since there is nothing in them that helped us they certainly wouldn't help you. At four o'clock Saturday afternoon it looked as if I wasn't going to get anything helpful from Sylvia Venner either. She had stopped bothering about the dimples. In blue shorts and a white sleeveless shirt with big blue plastic buttons she was showing plenty of nice smooth skin with a medium tan, and her wellarranged face was the kind that looks even better in bright outdoor light than inside. While we were eating the broiled chicken supplied by Fritz, and yogurt and thin little tasteless crackers supplied by her, and pickles and raw carrots and celery, and she was drinking something called Four-Root Juice and I was drinking milk, she had suddenly said, "I suppose you know what etymology is." "Hah," I said. "I work for Nero Wolfe." Please Pass the Guilt 77 "Why," she said, "is that relevant?" "Certainly. He knows more words than Shakespeare knew." "Oh. I don't really know anything about him except what he does. They tried to get him on my program once, but he wouldn't, so I didn't have to research him. Are you up on words too?" "Not really. Just enough to get along on." "I think words are fascinating. I was thinking, looking at you while you were dropping the anchor, take words like 'pecker' and
'prick.' In their vulgar sense, or maybe I should say their colloquial sense." Without batting an eye I said, "You mean 'prick' as a noun. Not as a verb." She nodded. "Yes, a noun. It means 'a pointed instrument.* Tecker' means 'an instrument for pecking,' and 'peck' means *to strike repeatedly and often with a pointed instrument.' So the definition of 'pecker' and 'prick' is identical." "Sure. I've never looked them up, but evidently you have." "Of course. In Webster and in the OED. There's an OED at the office. Of course the point is that--well, well, there's a pun. 'Point.' The point is that they both begin with p, and 'penis' begins with p." "I'll be damned. It certainly does." "Yes. I think that may be relevant to that old saying, 'Watch your p's and q's.' But. But two other words, 'piss' and 'pee'-- p-double-e--they start with p too. What it is, it's male chauvinism."
"I'm not sure I get that." She sipped Four-Root Juice. "It's obvious. Women urinate too. So they have to call it 'piss' or 'pee' just because 'penis' begins with p. What if they called it 'viss' or 'vee,' and they made men call it 'viss' or 'vee' too? Would men like that?" "Viss," I said. "Vee. I don't ..." I considered it, sipping milk. "Oh. Vagina." "Certainly. Virgin too, but that may be just coincidence." 78 Please Pass the Guilt "I admit it's a point. A voint. You may not believe this, but personally I wouldn't object. It even appeals to me. 'Excuse me while I viss.' 'Turn your back while I vee.' I rather like the sound of it." "I don't believe it, and anyway not many men would. It's male chauvinism. And another point, 'poker' begins with a p too. Why didn't they make it 'poker' instead of 'pecker'? Because a poker is three feet long!" "It is not. I've never seen a poker three feet long. More like two feet. Possibly thirty inches." "You're just quibbling. Even two feet." She put her open hands out, apparently she thought two feet apart, but it was about twenty-eight inches. She picked up a pickle. Vickle. "So they couldn't very well call it 'poker.' Take another letter, take /. 'Female' begins with /. What is one of men's favorite fourletter colloquial words that begins with if?" "Offhand I couldn't say. I'd have to think." "All right, think." So there I was, on a borrowed boat on Long Island Sound, alone with a Women's Libberette who was majoring in etymology. If you think that in the above exchange she was making a roundabout approach to a pass at me, I appreciate the compliment, but I doubt it. If so, my reaction cooled it. Even in such an ideal situation as a boat with a cabin at anchor in smooth water, I refuse to be seduced by quotations from Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary. She was not a nitwit. Soon after we got our lines out she said, "What are you waiting for? You haven't asked me a single question about the murder." "What murder?" "Oh, come off it. Do you think I think my dimples took you?" "No. I have never seen better dimples, and there's nothing wrong with other parts of you either, but a newspaperman I know thinks you planted the bomb to get Browning, and I wanted to get a close-up of you. With a good look and some Please Pass the Guilt 79 talk with a woman, I can tell if she is a murderer. The way they eat helps too. For instance, do they lick they fingers." She was frowning at me. "Do you really--no, of course you don't. All right, I'll play. Have you decided about me?" "Not to cross you off, but ten to one you didn't plant the bomb. But three to one, make it five to one, you have a pretty good idea who did. You've been there four years, you know everybody, and you're smart." "I am not smart. If I was smart I would have hooked that skunk Browning instead of letting Helen Lugos take him. Do you know who I could love?" "No, but I'd like to." "All right, I'll tell you. I could love the man who can prove I'm not dumb. I simply can't persuade myself I'm not dumb. Browning is going to be it, he's going to be the top cock, and where will I be? No, I didn't plant the bomb, but I could have." "Who did?" "I don't--now what have I done?" She had snarled her line. Not purposely, to change the subject, because half an hour later, after we had unsnarled her and quit on stripers and were trying for blues, she said, "I've got a pretty good idea who might have. The bomb. But not for any signed statement They always want signed statements. I'm not that dumb." I made a cast. "Not me. I just want an idea to play with." "Play? My god, you should have seen that room. Browning's office. When I got there Helen Lugos and Ken Meer were trying to keep people out. Ken's hands were bloody. When I heard what had happened--that was later--my first idea was that Ken had done it." "How did he know Odell would come and open--" "Not Odell. Browning. To kill Browning. Of course he--" "Isn't Meer with Browning? His right hand?" "Yes, but he hates him. No, that's wrong, it's not hate, it's-- what, jealousy? It's worse than jealousy. It kills him that Helen 80 Please Pass the Guilt does it with Browning. He got an itch for Helen when she came, two years ago, and he's got it bad. I've seen him look at her with that sick look--you know?" I nodded. "Male chauvinism upside down." "What? Oh. It is at that. But I dropped that idea. Ken certainly wants Helen, but he wants to move up even more, and if Browning was president he would be in a very good spot. So I still think he probably planted the bomb, but not for Browning, for Odell. So Odell couldn't be president. He knew Odell was going to come and open that drawer." "How did he know that?" "You'll have to ask him. I can't wrap it up for you." She had her line in and squared around for another cast. By the time the slant of the sun and my watch agreed that it was time to head for the marina, I had got all the questions in but had nothing to light a fire with. She doubted if Dennis Copes was involved because he was the hippie type and hippies aren't really headed anywhere, they just key up--according to her, not me. I know a hippie who tried--but he's not in this. She didn't know if Copes knew or thought he knew that Kenneth Meer inspected that drawer every day. She doubted if anybody inspected the drawer besides Browning himself, but if anyone did it was probably Helen Lugos; inspecting drawers is routine for secretaries. She had herself inspected it once, out of curiosity, about three years ago. Yes, it was twelve-year-old Ten-Mile Creek. The Heron was in the parking lot at the marina and I drove Sylvia--sure, we had been Sylvia and Archie the last three hours --to a human hive in the East Seventies, only a block away from a spot where an FBI man had once insulted me because I was tailing a man he wanted to tail. She didn't invite me up. Wolfe was in the middle of dinner when I got home and he doesn't like to dawdle while I catch up, so I ate in the kitchen, with Fritz. Later, in the office, when I asked him if he wanted Sylvia Please Pass the Guilt 81 Venner verbatim he said yes, omitting only trivia, we had all evening. I asked, including the personal parts, and he said, enough of it to exhibit her. So I had a free hand. Omitting trivia, it took only ten minutes to get us on board the boat and under way, and another five to get us to the spot where we anchored and agreed that the air made us hungry. Of course I enjoyed my description of the picnic lunch in detail, but he didn't. He set his jaw and squinted at me, and did something he seldom does; he used profanity. "Good god," he growled. "Are you-- how do you feel?" "All right now. Of course it was tough, but what the hell, I was working. During the feast she said she supposed I knew what etymology is, and I said hah, I work for Nero Wolfe. She asked if that was relevant and said she didn't know much about him, that they tried to get him on her program but he wouldn't. You remember that." "Yes." "She said, quote, 'I think words are fascinating. Take words like "pecker" and "prick." In their vulgar sense, or maybe I should say their colloquial sense.*" "Me: 'You mean "prick" as a noun, not as a verb.'" "She: 'Yes, a noun. It means "a pointed instrument." "Pecker" just means "an instrument for pecking," and "peck" means "to strike repeatedly and often with a pointed instrument." So the definition of "pecker" and "prick" is identical.'" "Me: 'Sure. I've never looked them up, but evidently--'" His grunt stopped me. He growled, "I said omit trivia." "This is not trivia. She was leading up to a point, and she made it. The point was that men make women say 'piss' and 'pee'--p-double-e--when they urinate because 'penis' begins with P, and what if they made them say 'viss' and 'vee'? Vagina. And she said it's male chauvinism. Doesn't that exhibit her?" And once again I got a completely different reaction from the one I expected. I suppose I will never know him as well as I think I do. I did know where he stood on the question of male 82 Please Pass the Guil
t chauvinism, but I should have considered how he felt about words. He said, "Indeed." I said, "Yes indeed. Women's Lib." He flipped a hand. "That's merely the herd syndrome. Fad. The issue is the influence of male dominance on language. Has that woman made a contribution to the study of linguistics? If so, there should be some indication in the record of matriarchy, but there is no adequate . . ." Letting it hang, he pushed his chair back, rose, went straight to a spot in the shelves, got a book, and returned. As he sat, my good eyes told me it was History of Human Marriage by Westennarck. I had given it a ten-minute try one empty day long ago and decided I could get along without it. As he opened it, I asked, "Shall I tell the squad not to come in the morning because the issue now is a matter of linguistics, or will you need them for research?" He glared at me, transferred it to the book, tossed it on the desk, and said, "Very well, proceed, but only what is material. No flummery." So I no longer had a free hand. I reported. When I finished and he asked for comments, as usual, I said, "Nothing to raise my pay. One, I doubt if she is saving anything that would open a crack. Two, it would suit her fine if Browning dropped dead, but if she planted the bomb she wouldn't have risked a whole afternoon with me. She's not that kind. Three, at least we know that Meer had blood on his hands that other people could see, so maybe that helps to explain him." "Not enough to justify that outrageous meal," he said, and reached for the book. Fritz had left to spend a night and a day and another night as he saw fit, so before I went upstairs to dress properly for joining Lily Rowan's party at the Flamingo, I brought a bottle of beer to help with the language problem. since Wolfe's nine-to-eleven session in the plant rooms doesn't apply on Sundays, he was in the office when the help came at ten o'clock. That was about the most useless two hours we ever spent with them. Wolfe's idea was to have them talk about everyone they had seen, in the slim hope of our getting at least a glimmer of some kind of a hint. No. Nothing. If you are inclined to quit because I seem to be getting nowhere, no wonder. I'm sorry, but in these reports I don't put in stunts to jazz it up, I just report. Of course I can leave things out, and I do. I'll skip that two-hour Sunday conference, except for one little item. Orrie said that Dennis Copes didn't have a secretary, and the girl in the stenographer pool who often took stuff for him was a stuck-up bitch, and he added, "Of course Archie would have had her holding hands." He can't quite ditch the idea that he should have my job. I admit there is one little detail of detective work that he can do better than I can, but he doesn't know what it is so I won't name it. They were told to go back in the morning and try some more. The theory was that somebody there must know something, which seemed reasonable. The only thing that happened that day worth reporting was that Lily Rowan and I, at Shea Stadium, watched the Mets take the Cardinals, 7 to 3. At ten o'clock Monday morning I sent a messenger to the 84 Please Pass the Guilt CAN building with a white cardboard box addressed to Miss Helen Lugos. The box contained a cluster of Broughtonia sanguinea. They had been picked by Wolfe, who won't let even me cut his orchids, but the card in the box had my name. At 11:30 I decided that she must have opened it, phoned, and got a female who said that Miss Lugos was engaged and did I wish to leave a message. When you get up to vice-president, especially one who will soon be president because the other candidate was murdered, even secretaries are often hard to get. I decided that she might not have seen the box yet and postponed it to after lunch. It was after four o'clock and Wolfe was up in the plant rooms when I finally got her. She said right off, "Thank you for the beautiful flowers." Neither warm nor cool, just polite. "You're welcome. I suggested them, Mr. Wolfe picked them, and we both packed them. It's a bribe. Mr. Wolfe thinks I understand women better than he does and wants me to have a talk with you. I don't think this office is the best place for it because that's too much like telling you to come to a--oh, the District Attorney's office. I can come to your place, or we can meet anywhere you say, or we can share a meal in the little pink room at Rusterman's. Perhaps dinner this evening? Women are supposed to like pink rooms, as of course you know. I'm going on talking to give you time to consider it; I didn't suppose you'd have a yes right at the tip of your tongue." "I haven't got one anywhere. Thank you, but no." "Then the pink room is out. Have you a suggestion?" "I have a question. Has Mrs. Odell asked you to talk with me?" "Mrs. Odell hasn't asked me anything. She has hired Nero Wolfe to do a job, and she has asked people at CAN to cooperate, from Mr. Abbott down, as you know. We would like to suit their convenience. In this case, your convenience." "Mrs. Odell didn't hire you, she hired Nero Wolfe." "I work for him." Please Pass the Guilt 85 "I know you do. And I work for Mr. Browning. When he wants to talk with someone, he doesn't expect them to be willing to talk with me instead. If Mr. Wolfe wants to talk with me, all right, I suppose I'll have to. At his office, of course. When does he want me to come?" There was no point in prolonging it. I said distinctly, "At six o'clock today. An hour and a half from now." She said distinctly, "Very well, I'll be there," and hung up. I went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of milk, and told Fritz, "I'm done. Washed up. I've lost my touch. I'm a has-been. You knew me when." He was at the big table doing something to a duckling. "Now, Archie," he said. "He told me about that woman's diet when I took his breakfast up this morning, but you ate a good lunch. What else has happened?" "Another woman. She spit at me just now. Spat. On the^, phone." "Then she is washed up, not you. You are looking at the wrong side. Just turn it over, that's all you ever have to do, just turn it over." "I'll be damned." I stared at him. "You sound like a guru." There was no telling what would happen if Wolfe came down at six o'clock and found an unexpected female sitting in the red leather chair--or rather, there was--so when the glass of milk was down I went up three flights, entered, walked down the aisles between the rainbow benches of the three rooms--cool, medium, and warm--and opened the door of the potting room. He and Theodore were at the long bench, making labels. I stopped halfway across and said, "I'm not breaking a rule. Emergency. We have wasted forty dollars' worth of orchids." He waited until I stopped to turn his head. "She's not available?" "Oh, she's available, but not for menials. When she dies-- the sooner, the better--and ascends, she won't waste her breath on Saint Peter, she'll speak only to Him, with a capital H. She'll 86 Please Pass the Guilt be here at six o'clock to speak to You, with a capital Y. I apologize and will expect a pay cut." "Pfui. I agree that you have not broken a rule." He made a face. "I'll be prompt." On the way out I stopped to apologize to the two pots of Broughtonia sanguinea. On the way down, I decided that the milk needed help and went to the kitchen for a tall glass of gin and tonic with a sprig of mint and a dash of lime juice. Also for Fritz. I needed friendly companionship. I was supposing she would be strictly punctual, maybe even a couple of minutes early, but no. She was female. She came at 6:18, in a peach-colored blouse with long sleeves and a brownish skirt, narrow, down to a couple of inches below her knees, and she talked to me. She said, "I'm sorry I'm a little late." Not being in a mood to meet her halfway, I said, "So am I." Wolfe had not told me how he intended to proceed, though he had come down from the plant rooms on the dot at six o'clock, and though he often asks my advice on how to handle a woman and sometimes even follows it. He soon showed me, and her, that this time he needed no help with his game plan. As she got to the red leather chair, he said, "Good afternoon, Miss Lugos. Thank you for coming," and when she was seated and had her ankles crossed and her skirt tugged, he rose, crossed almost to the door, turned, and said, "I have an errand to do in the kitchen. My agent, Mr. Goodwin, will ask you some questions on behalf of Mrs. Odell." He went. "I'm as surprised as you are," I told her, "but it's just like him. No consideration for other people. I think I told you that he thinks I understand women better than he does. He actually believes that. So here we are, in a private detective's office which could be bugged, instead of the pink room at Rusterman's. If you like something wet after a day's work, name it and we may have it." Please Pass the Guilt 87 Her lips were twitching a little. "I ought to get up and go," she said
. "But I suppose--that would only--" "Yes," I agreed, "it would only. Anyway, you've Subbed it. On the phone you stiff-armed me. You put me in my place. But if you really meant it, you would have sent the orchids back, or even brought them. Unless you dropped them in the wastebasket?" She flushed and her lips tightened. I believe I have mentioned that her face was different from any two angles, and it was different flushed. With most faces that you enjoy looking at, you know exactly why, but not with her kind. Rushed, it was again quite different, and I approved of that too. Then suddenly it became another face entirely. She laughed, with her mouth open and her head back, and I think I grinned with pleasure. I really did. "All right, Mr. Goodwin," she said, "you win. I didn't drop them in the wastebasket. They're in a vase. I almost wish we were at Rusterman's. But as you said, here we are. So ask your questions." I had erased the grin. "Would you like a drink?" "No, thank you." "Then let's see. First, I guess, that evening you heard what those people said, six of them, when Mr. Wolfe asked them where they were that weekend. Were they all telling the truth?" "I don't know. How could I?" "You might. Maybe you have heard Browning say something that shows he wasn't on a boat from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, or maybe Kenneth Meer has said something that shows he wasn't hiking in Vermont. From your look I think you think I'm a damn fool to suppose you would tell me things like that. But I'm not. In an investigation like this only a damn fool would expect a full and honest answer to any question he asks anybody, but he asks them. For instance, the question I ask you now. This: Did Dennis Copes know 88 Please Pass the Guilt that Kenneth Meer looked in that drawer every day to check on the whisky supply?" "That's a trick question. It assumes that Kenneth Meer did look in the drawer every day." "So it does. All right, did he?" "No. As far as I know, he didn't. Mr. Browning checked on the whisky supply himself." "Did he buy it himself?" "He buys it by the case. It's sent to his home and he brings it, two bottles at a time." "Does Kenneth Meer drink bourbon?" "I don't think so. He drinks vodka." "Do you drink bourbon?" "Very seldom. I don't drink much of anything." "Did you look in the drawer every day to check on the whisky supply?" "No. Mr. Browning did the looking himself." "I thought secretaries checked everything." "Well-that's what you thought" "You know Dennis Copes." "Certainly." "Two people think he might have planted the bomb to get Meer because he wants Meer's job. If so, he might have thought Meer looked in the drawer every day. Have you any idea why he might think that?" "No. I have no idea why he thinks anything." "One person thinks that Kenneth Meer planted the bomb to get Browning because you go to bed with him. Have you any idea about that?" "Yes, I have. It's absurd." "A newspaperman I know doesn't think it's absurd. Of course it's really three ideas. One, that you are intimate with Browning, two, that Meer knows it and can't stand it, and three, that he planted the bomb. Are they all absurd?" She wasn't visibly reacting. No flush on her skin, no flash Please Pass the Guilt 89 in her eyes. She said, with no change in pitch, "The police have asked me about this. My relations with Mr. Browning are my business and his. Certainly not yours. Women do go to bed with men, so it may not be absurd for people to think I am intimate with Amory Browning, but the idea that Kenneth Meer tried to kill him, that's absurd. Kenneth Meer has big ideas about his future. He thinks he's headed for the top, and he's counting on Amory Browning to help him along." "But you're there. What if he wants you more than anything else? This is my business, Miss Lugos. The police think it's theirs, too, you just said so. It's not absurd to think a man's desire for a woman can be so hot that no other desire counts. There have been cases." "Kenneth Meer isn't one of them. You don't know him, but I do. How much longer is this going to take?" "I don't know. It depends. Not as long as it would with Mr. Wolfe. He likes to ask questions that seem to be just to pass the time, but I try to stick to the point. For instance, when Mr. Wolfe asked you that evening if you thought the person who put the bomb in the drawer was here in the room, you said you had no idea, but naturally you would say that, with them here. What would you say now, not for quotation?" "I would say exactly the same, I have no idea. Mr. Goodwin, I--I'm tired. I'd like some--some whisky?" "Sure. Scotch, bourbon, rye, Irish. Water, soda, ice." "Just whisky. Any kind--bourbon. It doesn't matter." She wasn't tired. The fingers of both hands, in her lap, had been curling and uncurling. She was tight. I mean tense, taut. As I went to the kitchen and put a bottle of bourbon--not TenMile Creek--and a glass and a pitcher of water on a tray, I was trying to decide if it was just the strain of discussing her personal affairs with a mere agent, or something even touchier. I still hadn't decided when I had put the tray on the little table by her chair and was back at my desk. She poured about two fingers, downed it with three swallows, made a face and swal- 90 Please Pass the Guilt lowed nothing a couple of times, poured half a glass of water, and swallowed that. "I told you--" she began, didn't like how it sounded or felt, and started over. "I told you I don't drink much." I nodded. "I can bring some milk, but it's an antidote for whisky." "No, thank you." She swallowed nothing again. "Okay. You said you have no idea who put the bomb in the drawer." "Yes, I haven't." I got my notebook and pen. "For this, since this room is not bugged, I'll have to make notes. I have to know where you were every minute of that day, that Tuesday, May 20. It was four weeks ago, four weeks tomorrow, but it shouldn't strain your memory, since the police of course asked you that day or the day after. Anyone going to Browning's room went through your room, so we'll have to do the whole day, from the time you arrived. Around ten o'clock?" "There was another door to his room." "But not often used except by him?" "Not often, but sometimes it was. I'm not going to do this. I don't think you have a right to expect me to." "I have no right to expect anything. But Mr. Wolfe can't do the job Mrs. Odell hired him to do unless he can get answers to the essential questions, and this is certainly one of them. One reason I say that is that Kenneth Meer told a newspaperman that anyone who wanted to know how it happened should concentrate on Helen Lugos. Why did Meer say that?" "I don't believe it." She was staring at me, which made her face different again. "I don't believe he said that." "But he did. It's a fact. Miss Lugos." "To a newspaperman?" "Yes. I won't tell you his name, but if I have to, I can produce him and he can tell you. He wasn't a stranger to Meer. They were choir boys together at St. Andrew's. When he tried Please Pass the Guilt 91 to get Meer to go on, Meer clammed. I'm not assuming that when you tell me how and where you spent that day, -I'll know why Meer said that, since you'll tell me exactly what you told the police and evidently it didn't help them any, but I must have it because that's how a detective is supposed to detect. You got to work at ten o'clock?" She said no, nine-thirty. Even with my personal and private shorthand it filled more than four pages of my notebook. The timing was perfect. It was exactly 7:30 when we had her in the file room and the sound and shake of the explosion came, and Fritz stepped in to reach for the doorknob. So it was time to eat. If I am in the office with company, and Wolfe isn't, when dinner's ready, Fritz comes and shuts the office door. That notifies me that food is ready to serve, and also it keeps the sound of voices from annoying Wolfe in the dining room across the hall, if I have to continue the conversation. That time I didn't have to, and I didn't want to. I wanted to consider a couple of the things she had said without her sitting there with her face, and I wanted my share of the ducklings with mushrooms and wild rice and wine while it was hot from the oven. It's one of the dishes Wolfe and Fritz have made up together, and they call it American duckling on account of the wild rice, and I'm for it. So I said she was tired, and she said yes, she was, and got up, and I thanked her, and thanked her again as I opened the front door to let her out. Of course I didn't mention her as I joined Wolfe at the dining table. He had one of the ducklings carved, so that would have been talking business during a meal, which is not done. But when we had finished and moved to the office and Fritz had brought coffee, he showed that the week of marking time was getting on his nerves by demanding, "Well?" before I had lifted my cup. "No," I said. 92 Please Pass the Guilt "Nothing at all?
" "Nothing for me. For you, I can't say. I never can. You want it verbatim, of course." "Yes." I gave it to him, complete, up to the details of her day on Tuesday, May 20. For that I used the notebook. As usual, he just listened; no interruptions, no questions. He is the best listener I know. When I finished, the coffee pot and our cups were empty and Fritz had come for them. I put the notebook in the drawer. "So for me, nothing. Of course she didn't open the bag and shake it, who does? She knows or suspects something that may or may not be true and might or might not help, and to guess what it is needs a better guesser than me. I don't think she planted the bomb. She wasn't there at her desk in the next room when it went off, which was lucky for her, but she says she often went to the file room for something, nearly always when Browning wasn't in his room. Of course the cops have checked that. Also of course it was a waste of time to have her name the seventeen people she saw go into Browning's room. The bomb wasn't put in the drawer while Browning was there unless he did it himself, and there's another door to his room. As for who entered his room when he wasn't there, there was a total of nearly two hours when she wasn't there, according to her. As for her reason that Kenneth Meer wouldn't want to kill Browning, toss a corn. You'd have to use a lie detector on Meer bunself." He grunted. "Miss Venner, and now Miss Lugos." "Meaning I should have seduced at least one of them. Fire me." "Pfui. I complain of your conduct only directly, never by innuendo. You offend only deliberately, never by shortcoming. Miss Lugos did not plant the bomb?" "One will get you ten." Please Pass the Guilt 93 "Does she know who did?" "No bet. She could think she knows. Or not." "Confound it." He got up and went to the shelves for a book. 12 sk days later, at noon Sunday, June 22, the five of us sat in the office and looked at each other. Saul and Fred and Orrie and I looked at Wolfe, and he looked back, his eyes moving, not his head, from me past Orrie and Fred to Saul in the red leather chair. "No," he said. "This is preposterous. Amphigoric. And insupportable." He looked at me. "How much altogether, including you?" I shut my eyes and in less than half a minute opened them. "Say three thousand dollars. A little more." "It will be a deduction on my tax return. Call Mrs. Odell and tell her I am quitting. Draw a check to her for the full amount of the retainer." Fred and Orrie had to turn their heads to look at me. Saul, in the red leather chair, didn't have to turn his head. I looked at Wolfe, especially the left corner of his mouth, to see how bad it was. Plenty of things had happened. There had been three thunderstorms in a row Wednesday afternoon. Jill Gather, Orrie's wife, had threatened to walk out on him because he didn't get home until five in the morning Tuesday after taking a CAN female researcher to dinner and a show, though he explained that the meal and the tickets had been paid for by the client. The West Side Highway, northbound, had been closed for repairs all day Friday. Fred Durkin, tailing a CAN Please Pass the Guilt 95 male employee Thursday evening, had lost him, and he hates to lose a tail; and on Friday, Elaine, his oldest daughter, had admitted she was smoking grass. Saul Panzer had spent two days and a night at Montauk Point trying to find a bomb maker, and drawn a blank. On Friday the Labor Department announced that the Consumer Price Index had gone up .3 of one percent in May. A busy week. Personally I had done wonders. I had answered at least a hundred phone calls, including dozens from the three helpers. They were trying to help. Also including three from Mrs. Odell. I had discussed the situation for about an hour with a member of the CAN news staff, brought by Orrie. His real reason for coming had been to have a chat with Nero Wolfe. I had spent an evening with Sylvia Venner and a male chauvinist friend of hers, also a CAN employee, at her apartment. I had washed my hands and face every day. I could go on, but that's enough to show you that I was fully occupied. Wolfe hadn't been idle either. When Inspector Cramer had rung the doorbell at eleven-thirty Friday morning, he had told me to admit him, and he had held up his end of a twentyminute conversation. Cramer had no chips on his shoulder. What brought him was the fact that Cass R. Abbott, the president of CAN, had come to see Wolfe the day before, a little after six o'clock, and stayed a full hour. Evidently Cramer had the old brownstone under surveillance, and if so, he positively was desperate in spite of his healthy ego. He probably thought that Abbott's coming indicated that Wolfe had a fire lit, and if so, he wanted to warm his hands. I think when he left, he was satisfied that we were as empty as he was, but with those two you never know. What Abbott's coming actually indicated was that the strain was getting on his nerves, and for a man so high up that would not do. When he got parked in the red leather chair, he told Wolfe he would like to speak with him confidentially, 96 Please Pass the Guilt and when Wolfe said he could, there would be no recording, Abbott looked at me, then back to Wolfe, and said, "Privately." Wolfe shook his head. "Professionally nothing is reserved between Mr. Goodwin and me. M he leaves the room and you tell me anything relevant to the job we are doing--trying to do --I would tell him, withholding nothing." "Well." Abbott ran his fingers through his mop of fine, white hair. "I have had a check on you but not on Goodwin. You hold up, but does he?" "If he doesn't, I don't. What good is a chain with a bad link?" Abbott nodded. "A good line. Who said it?" "I did. The thought is not new, no thought is, but said better." "You use words, don't you?" "Yes. On occasion, in six languages, which is a mere smattering. I would like to be able to communicate with any man alive. As it is, even you and I find it difficult. Are you sure you can prevent my getting more or less than you want me to from what you tell me or ask me?" Abbott's raised eyebrows made his long, pale face look even longer. "By god, I can try." "Go ahead." "When I say 'confidential,' I mean you will not repeat to Mrs. Odell anything I say about her." Wolfe nodded. "See? You don't mean that. Of course I would repeat it if it would serve my purpose or her interest to do so. She has hired me. If you mean I am not to tell her your name, I am to give her no hint of who said it, yes. --Archie?" "Right," I said. "Noted and filed." "Then that's understood," Abbott said. He slid further back in the chair, which is deep. "I have known Mrs. Odell twenty years. I suppose you know she is a large stockholder in the Continental Air Network. I know her very well, and I knew him well--her husband. That's one point. Another point is that I have been president of CAN for nine years, and I'm retiring Please Pass the Guilt 97 in a few weeks, and I don't want to leave in an atmosphere of distrust and doubt and suspicion. Not distrust or suspicion of me, not of anyone in particular, it's just in the air. It pervades the whole damn place, the whole organization. To leave when it's like that--it would look like I'm getting out from under." He hit the chair arm with a fist. "This goddam murder has got to be cleared up! You probably wondered why I let you turn those three men loose in my building to go anywhere and see anyone. I did it because the police and the District Attorney were completely stumped, they were getting absolutely nowhere, and I thought you might. One reason I thought you might was that there was a good chance that Mrs. Odell had told you things that she hadn't told them. But that was a week ago, a week yesterday, and where have you got to?" "Here." Wolfe patted his desk blotter. "I'm always here." "Hell, I know you are. Do you know who put that bomb in that drawer? Have you even got a good guess?" "Yes. You did. You thought they were going to choose Mr. Browning, and you favored Mr. Odell." "Sure. All you need is proof. As I thought, you have done no better than the police, and you have had ten days. Last evening I discussed the situation with three of my directors, and as a result I phoned this morning to make this appointment. I am prepared to make a proposal with the backing of my Board. I suppose Mrs. Odell has paid you a retainer. If you will withdraw and return her retainer, we will reimburse you for all expenses you have incurred, and we will engage you to investigate the death of Peter Odell on behalf of the corporation, with a retainer in the same amount as Mrs. Odell's. Or possibly more." I had of course been looking at him. Now I looked at Wolfe. Since he was facing Abbott, he was in profile to me, but I had enough of his right eye to see what I call his slow-motion take. The eye closed, but so slow I couldn't see the motion of the lid. At least twenty seconds. He certainly wasn't
giving Abbott 98 Please Pass the Guilt a long wink, so the other eye was collaborating. They stayed shut about another twenty seconds, then opened in one, and he spoke. "It's obvious, of course. It's transparent." "Transparent? It's direct." "It is indeed. You have concluded that Mr. Odell himself supplied the bomb, intending it for Mr. Browning, and mishandled it. And that Mrs. Odell hired me, not to discover and disclose the truth, but to impede its disclosure and prevent it if possible. You assume that either she is hoodwinking me or she has been candid with me. If the former, you decry my sagacity; if the latter, your proposal invites me to betray a trust. A waste of time, both yours and mine. I would have thought--" "You're taking it wrong. It's not--you're twisting it. We merely think that if you were acting for the corpor--" "Nonsense. Don't persist. I am neither a ninny nor a blackguard. Under a strain you and your colleagues have lost your wits. There is the possibility that you want to pay me to contrive some kind of skulduggery for you, but I doubt if you have misjudged me to that extreme. If you have, don't bother. Don't try floundering. Just go." Abbott did not get up and go. He had to take it that he wasn't going to get what he had come for, but he stuck for another half an hour, trying to find out what we had done or hadn't done and what we expected to do. He found out exactly nothing, and so did Wolfe. When I went back to the office after letting Abbott out, Wolfe glared at me and muttered, "Part of his proposal is worth considering. Returning the retainer." He considered it for two days and three nights. In the office at noon Sunday, after another two-hour session with us--as I reported six pages back--he told me to call Mrs. Odell and tell her he was quitting and to draw a check to her for the full amount of the retainer; and Saul and Fred and Orrie looked at me and I looked at Wolfe, especially the left corner of his mouth, to see how bad it was. Please Pass the Guilt 99 It was bad all right, it was final, but I did not reach for the phone. "Okay," I said. "Since I started it, I admit I should be the one to finish it, but not with a phone call. I'd rather finish it the way I started it, face to face with her, and to do it right I should take the check and hand it to her instead of mailing it. No deduction for expenses?" "No. The full amount Very well, take it." If we had been alone I might have tried discussing it, but with them there it was hopeless. Discussion would have to be with her, and then with him maybe. I went and got the checkbook from the safe, filled out the stub, tore the check out, and swung the typewriter around. I type all checks. That was the first one I had ever drawn for an even hundred grand, and with all the 0's it was a nice round figure. I took it to Wolfe and he signed it and handed it back. As I took it, Saul said, "I've asked so many people so many questions the last ten days, it's a habit, and I'd like to ask one more. How much is it?" Even from Saul that was a mouthful, and my eyes opened at him. But Wolfe merely said, "Show it to him. Them." I did so, and their eyes opened, and Saul said, "For her that's petty cash, she's really loaded. Sometimes you ask us for suggestions, and I'd like to make one. Or just another question. Instead of returning it to her, why not offer it to someone who needs it? A two-column ad in the Times and the Gazette with a heading like could you use a hundred thousand dollars? Then, TO pay that amount in cash to the person who gives me information that will satisfactorily identify the person responsible for the death of Peter Odell by the explosion of a bomb on May twentieth.' Your name at the bottom. Of course the wording would--" Wolfe's "No" stopped him. He repeated it. "No. I will not make a public appeal for someone to do my job for me." "You have," Saul said. "You have advertised for help twice that I know of." 100 Please Pass the Guilt "For an answer to a particular question. Specific knowledge on a specified point. Not a frantic squawk to be pulled out of a mudhole. No." So when they left a few minutes later, they weren't expected back. By noon Monday Fred and Orrie would be on chores for Bascom or some other outfit, and Saul too if he felt like it. As for me, my chore wouldn't wait--or I didn't want it to. As someone said, probably Shakespeare, " 'twere better done," and so forth. Of course a person such as a Mrs. Peter Odell would ordinarily not be in town on a June Sunday, but she would be. She was ignoring weekends, and from a phone call by her Saturday morning she knew there would be a Sunday conference. So I rang her and asked if I could come at five o'clock, because earlier she would probably have the television on and I didn't want to share her attention with Cleon Jones at bat or Torn Seaver on the mound. Wolfe had gone to the kitchen. For Sunday lunch with Fritz away he usually does something simple like eggs au beurre noir and a beet and watercress salad, but that time it was going to be larded shad roe casserole with anchovy butter and parsley and chervil and shallots and marjoram and black pepper and cream and bay leaf and onion and butter. It would take a lot of tasting, and he can taste. I went to the kitchen to tell him Mrs. Odell would see me at five o'clock, and he nodded, and I mounted the two flights to my room. That was a busy four hours; shaving and changing from the skin out, going down for my third of the shad roe, which we ate in the kitchen, looking at the telecast from Montreal- where the Mets were playing the Expos--on the color set, which, like everything else in my room, was bought and paid for by me, and writing. Not on the typewriter, because when I'm being particular, I do better longhand, and that had to be done right. When I went downstairs a little before four-thirty, the third draft was in my pocket, with the check. Wolfe was up in Please Pass the Guilt 101 the plant rooms and I buzzed him on the house phone to tell him I was leaving. Since parking shouldn't be a problem Sunday afternoon, I went to the garage for the Heron, crossed town on Thirtyfourth, and turned uptown on Park. Driving in midtown Manhattan can still be a pleasure--from two to eight a.m. and a couple of hours on Sunday. There was actually a gap at the curb on Sixty-third Street between Fifth and Madison. The LPS man at the entrance to the stone mansion was not the same one, and this one had better manners; he said thank you when he returned my card case. Inside I was ushered to the elevator by the same woman in a neat gray uniform and was told to push the button with a 4. In the upper hall, the client's voice came through the open door to the big room, "In here!" She was on the oversized couch, one leg on it straight and the other one dangling over the edge, with sections of the Sunday Times scattered around. The television was not on--but of course the game was over. As I crossed to her she said, "You'd better have something. You certainly don't on the telephone." "We got careless once when our phone was tapped and we're leery. I don't suppose it's tapped now, but once was enough. Yes, I have something." I got the check from my pocket. "I thought I should bring it instead of mailing it." She took it, frowned at it, frowned at me, again at the check, and back at me. "What's the idea?" "Mr. Wolfe is bowing out. Quite a bow, since he has spent more than three thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars in twelve days and we haven't got a smell. One reason I'm bringing it instead of mailing it, I wanted to tell you that that's all there is to it, he's simply pulling out. He thinks it shows strength of character to admit he's licked. I can't see it and don't intend to, but I'm not a genius." She surprised me. Up to that moment she had given me no reason to suppose that the arrangements inside her skull were any better than average, but she had reached a conclusion be102 Please Pass the Guilt fore I finished. Her eyes showed it, and she said it, with a question: "How much did Browning pay him?" "Uh-huh," I said, and turned a chair to face her, and sat. "You would, naturally. If I talked for five hours, giving cases, I might be able to convince you that he couldn't possibly double-cross a client, on account of his opinion of himself, but I think there's a shorter way. I've told you on the phone about the three men we have called in to help. They were there this morning when he said it was hopeless and he was quitting. When he told me to draw a check to return the retainer, Saul Panzer suggested that instead of returning it, he might put an ad in the Times saying that he would pay it to anyone who would give him information that would indentify the murderer, and Mr. Wolfe said no, he would not make a frantic squawk to be pulled out of a mudhole. That was--" "Of course! He would say that!" "Please hold it, I've just started. So I drew the check and he s
igned it, and I phoned you. But I think I can prove that he didn't sell out, and I want to try. I think I can get him to tear the check up and go on with the job, with your help. May I use your typewriter?" "What for? I don't believe it." "You will. You'll have to." I got up and crossed to a desk, the one with a typewriter on an extension. As I pulled the chair out and sat, I asked where I would find paper and she said, "The top drawer, but you're not fooling me," and I said, "Wait and see," and got out paper and a sheet of carbon. She preferred not to wait. As I got the third draft from my pocket and spread it out on the desk, she kicked the sections of the Times aside, left the couch, and came and stood at my elbow, and I hit the keys. I didn't hurry because I wanted it clean. No exing. As I pulled it out, I said, "I had to type it here because he might recognize it from my machine, and this is going to be your idea." I handed her the original and gave the carbon a look: Please Pass the Guilt 103 NERO WOLFE HAS $50,000 in cash, given to him by me. He will pay it, on my behalf, to any person or persons who supply information to him that leads to the conclusive identification of the man or woman who placed a bomb in a drawer of the desk of Amory Browning on Tuesday, May 20th, resulting in the death of my husband. The information is to be given directly to Nero Wolfe, who will use it on my behalf, and the person or persons supplying it will do so under these conditions: 1. All decisions regarding the significance and value of any item of information will be made solely by Nero Wolfe and will be final. 2. The total amount paid will be $50,000. If more than one person supplies useful information, the determination of their relative value and of the distribution of the $50,000 will be made solely by Nero Wolfe and will be final. 3. Any person who communicates with Nero Wolfe or his agent as a result of this advertisement thereby agrees to the above conditions. "With your name at the bottom," I said. "A reproduction of your signature, Madeline Odell, like on your check, and below it 'Mrs. Peter J. Odell' in parenthesis, as usual, printed. Now hear this. Of course he'll know I wrote it, but if he thinks I wrote it at home and brought it, he'll balk. No go. As I said, that's why I didn't type it there. It has to be your idea, suggested by you after I told you about his reaction to Saul Panzer's suggestion. He may phone you. If he does, you'll have to do it right. Then of course the question will be, what will happen? I think it will work, and certainly it may work. It's ten to one that someone knows something that would crack it open, and fifty grand is a lot of bait." 104 Please Pass the Guilt I was on my feet. "So if you'll sign it, the original, and keep the carbon, and I'll need two samples of your signature on plain paper, one for the Times and one for the Gazette, to make cuts." "You're pretty good," she said. "I try hard. Whence all but me have fled." "What?" "The burning deck." "What burning deck?" "You don't read the right poems." I swiveled the chair. "Sit here? That pen is stingy, I tried it. Mine's better." "So is the one on my desk." She moved, went to the other desk, which was bigger, and sat. "I'm not convinced, you know. This could be an act. You can phone to say it didn't work." "If I do, it won't be an act, it will be because he is pigheaded. I mean strong-minded. It will depend on you if he phones." "Well." She reached for the pen in an elegant jade stand. "I have a suggestion. It shouldn't be fifty thousand. Figures like that, fifty thousand or a hundred thousand, they don't hit. Inbetween figures are better, like sixty-five thousand or eightyfive." "Right. Absolutely. Change it. Make it sixty-five. Just draw a line through the fifty thousand." She tried the pen on a scratch pad. I always do. 13 IT WORKED. Driving downtown and across to the garage on Tenth Avenue, I considered the approach. Over the years I suppose I have told Wolfe 10,000 bare-faced lies, or, if you prefer inbetween figures, make it 8,392, either on personal matters that were none of his business or on business details that couldn't hurt and might help, but I have no desire to break a world record, and anyway the point was to make it stick if possible. I decided on a flank attack and then to play it by ear. When I entered the office at 6:22, he was at his desk working on the Double-Crostic in the Times, and of course I didn't interrupt. I took my jacket off and draped it on the back of my chair, loosened my tie, went to the safe and got the checkbook and took it to my desk, and got interested in the stubs for the month of June. That was a flank attack all right. In a few minutes, maybe eight, he looked up and frowned at me and asked, "What's the balance now?" "It depends," I said. I twisted around to get Exhibit A from my jacket pocket and rose and handed it across. He read it, taking his time, dropped it on the desk, narrowed his eyes at me, and said, "Grrr." "She changed the fifty to sixty-five herself," I said. "That heading could have been Archie Goodwin has sixty-five thousand instead of Nero Wolfe. She didn't actually suggest it, but she thinks I'm pretty good. She said so. When I told her you 106 Please Pass the Guilt were quitting and handed her the check, she said, 'How much did Browning pay him?' I told her that if I talked for five hours I might be able to convince her that you wouldn't double-cross a client, but actually I doubt it. You may not give a damn what she thinks of my employer, but I do. I brought her to you. She said things and I said things, and when it became evident that nothing else would convince her, I went to a typewriter and wrote that. I don't claim the wording is perfect. I am not Norman Mailer." "Bah. That peacock? That blowhard?" "All right, make it Hemingway." "There was a typewriter there?" "Sure. It was the big room on the fourth floor where apparently she does everything but eat and sleep. As you see, the paper is a twenty-pound bond at least half rag. Yours is only twenty percent rag." He gave it a look, a good look, and I made a note to pat myself on the back for not doing it on my typewriter. "I admit," I said, "that I didn't try to talk her out of it. I certainly did not. In discussing it I told her that I thought it would work, that it's ten to one that someone knows something that would crack it open, and that fifty grand is a lot of bait. That was before she changed it to sixty-five. This is a long answer to your question, What's the balance? As I said, it depends. I brought the check back, but it would only cost eight cents to mail it. If we do, the balance will be a little under six thousand dollars. There was the June fifteenth income tax payment. I'm not badgering you, I'm just answering your question. But I'll permit myself to mention that this way it would not be a frantic squawk for someone to pull you out of a mudhole. I will also mention that if I phone her that the ad--correction, advertisement--has been placed, she will mail another check. For sixty-five thousand. She would make it a million if it would help. As of now nothing else on earth matters to her." What he did was typical, absolutely him. He didn't say "Very Please Pass the Guilt 107 well" or "Tear the check up" or even "Confound it." He picked the thing up, read it slowly, scowling at it, put it to one side under a paper weight, said "I'm doing some smoked sturgeon Muscovite. Please bring a bottle of Madeira from the cellar," and picked up the Double-Crostic. 14 the ad was on page 6 of the Times Tuesday morning and page 9 of the Gazette that afternoon--two columns, bold face, with plenty of space all around--and two more conditions had been added: 1. The $65,000 may all be paid to one person, or it may be divided among two or more people. 2. The $65,000 or any part of it will be paid only for information, not for a suggestion, conjecture, or theory.
