Trio for Blunt Instruments

by Rex Stout

  She didn’t want to, even after the concessions he had made, but she had to admit that we had to get some kind of information from somebody, and who else was there to start with? So she finally agreed, definitely, and Wolfe leaned back with his eyes shut and his lips tight, and Fritz came to announce lunch. Sue got up to go, and when I returned after seeing her to the door and out, Wolfe had crossed to the dining room and was at the table. Instead of joining him, I stood and said, “Ordinarily I would think I was well worth it, but right now I’m no bargain at any price. Have we a program for the afternoon?”

  “No. Except to telephone Mr. McLeod.”

  “I saw him at the DA’s office. Then I’m going up and rinse off before I eat. I think I smell. Tell Fritz to save me a bite in the kitchen.”

  I went to the hall and mounted the two flights to my room. During the forty minutes it took to do the job I kept telling my brain to lay off until it caught up, but it wouldn’t. It insisted on trying to analyze the situation, with the emphasis on Sue McLeod. If I had her figured wrong, if she was it, it would almost certainly be a waste of time to try to get anything from three guys who were absolutely hooked, and if there was no program for the afternoon I had damn well better think one up. If it would be a calamity for Wolfe to lose me for good, what would it be for me? By the time I stepped into the shower the brain had it doped that the main point was the piece of pipe. She had not gone into that alley toting that pipe; that was out. But I hadn’t got that point settled conclusively by Cramer or Mandel, and I hadn’t seen a morning paper. I would consult the Times when I went downstairs. But the brain wanted to know now, and when I left the shower I dried in a hurry, went to the phone on the bedtable, dialed the Gazette, got Lon Cohen, and asked him. Of course he knew I had spent the night downtown and he wanted a page or two of facts, but I told him I was naked and would catch cold, and how final was it that whoever had conked Faber had brought the pipe with him? Sewed up, Lon said. Positively. The pipe was at the laboratory, revealing-maybe-its past to the scientists, and three or four dicks with color photos of it were trying to pick up its trail. I thanked him and promised him something for a headline if and when. So that was settled. As I went to a drawer for clean shorts the brain started in on Carl Heydt, but it had darned little to work on, and by the time I tied my tie it was buzzing around trying to find a place to land.

  Downstairs, Wolfe was still in the dining room, but I went on by to the kitchen, got at my breakfast table with the Times, and was served by Fritz with what do you think? Corn fritters. There had been eight perfectly good ears, and Fritz hates to throw good food away. With bacon and homemade blackberry jam they were ambrosia, and in the Times report on the Faber murder Wolfe’s name was mentioned twice and mine four times, so it was a fine meal. I had finished the eighth fritter and was deciding whether to take on another one and a third cup of coffee when the doorbell rang, and I got up and went to the hall for a look. Wolfe was back in the office, and I stuck my head in and said, “McLeod.”

  He let out a growl. True, he had told Sue he must see her father and was even going to phone to ask him to come in from the country, but he always resents an unexpected visitor, no matter who. Ignoring the growl, I went to the front and opened the door, and when McLeod said he wanted to see Mr. Wolfe, with his burr on the r, I invited him in, took his Sunday hat, a dark gray antique fedora in good condition, put it on the shelf, and took him to the office. Wolfe, who is no hand-shaker, told him good afternoon and motioned to the red leather chair.

  McLeod stood. “No need to sit,” he said. “I’ve been told about the corn and I came to apologize. I’m to blame, and I’d like to explain how it happened. I didn’t pick it; that young man did. Kenneth Faber.”

  Wolfe grunted. “Wasn’t that heedless? I telephoned the restaurant this morning and was told that theirs was as bad as mine. You know what we require.”

  He nodded. “I ought to by now. You pay a good price, and I want to say it’ll never happen again. I’d like to explain it. A man was coming Thursday with a bulldozer to work on a lot I’m clearing, but Monday night he told me he’d have to come Wednesday instead, and I had to dynamite a lot of stumps and rock before he came. I got at it by daylight yesterday and I thought I could finish in time to pick the corn, but I had some trouble and I had to leave the corn to that young man. I had showed him and I thought he knew. So I’ve got to apologize and I’ll see it don’t happen again. Of course I’m not expecting you to pay for it.”

  Wolfe grunted. “I’ll pay for the eight ears we used. It was vexatious, Mr. McLeod.”

  “I know it was.” He turned and aimed his gray-blue eyes, with their farmer’s squint, at me. “Since I’m here I’m going to ask you. What did that young man tell you about my daughter?”

  I met his eyes. It was a matter not only of murder, but also of my personal jam that might land me in the jug any minute, and all I really knew of him was that he was Sue’s father and he knew how to pick corn. “Not a lot,” I said. “Where did you get the idea he told me anything about her?”

  “From her. This morning. What he told her he told you. So I’m asking you, to get it straight.”

  “Mr. McLeod,” Wolfe cut in. He nodded at the red leather chair. “Please sit down.”

  “No need to sit. I just want to know what that young man said about my daughter.”

  “She has told you what he said he said. She has also told Mr. Goodwin and me. We have spoken with her at length. She came shortly after eleven o’clock this morning to see Mr. Goodwin and stayed two hours.”

  “My daughter Susan? Came here?”

  “Yes.”

  McLeod moved. In no hurry, he went to the red leather chair, sat, focused on Wolfe, and demanded, “What did she come for?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “You have it wrong side up. That tone is for us, not you. We may or may not oblige you later; that will depend. The young man you permitted to pick my corn has been murdered, and because of false statements made by your daughter to the police Mr. Goodwin may be charged with murder. The danger is great and imminent. You say you spent yesterday dynamiting stumps and rocks. Until what hour?”

  McLeod’s set jaw made his deep-tanned seamed face even squarer. “My daughter doesn’t make false statements,” he said. “What were they?”

  “They were about Mr. Goodwin. Anyone will lie when the alternative is intolerable. She may have been impelled by a desperate need to save herself, but Mr. Goodwin and I do not believe she killed that man. Archie?”

  I nodded. “Right. Now any odds you want to name.”

  “And we’re going to learn who did kill him. Did you?”

  “No. But I would have, if…” He let it hang.

  “If what?”

  “If I had known what he was saying about my daughter. I told them that, the police. I heard about it from them, and from my daughter, last night and this morning. He was a bad man, an evil man. You say you’re going to learn who killed him, but I hope you don’t. I told them that too. They asked me what you did, about yesterday, and I told them I was there in the lot working with the stumps until nearly dark and it made me late with the milking. I can tell you this, I don’t resent you thinking I might have killed him, because I might.”

  “Who was helping you with the stumps?”

  “Nobody, not in the afternoon. He was with me all morning after he did the chores, but then he had to pick the corn and then he had to go with it.”

  “You have no other help?”

  “No.”

  “Other children? A wife?”

  “My wife died ten years ago. We only had Susan. I told you, I don’t resent this, not a bit. I said I would have killed him if I’d known. I didn’t want her to come to New York, I knew something like this might happen-the kind of people she got to know and all the pictures of her. I’m an old-fashioned man and I’m a righteous man, only that word righteous may not mean for you what it means for me. You said you might oblige me later. What did my daughter come
here for?”

  “I don’t know.” Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “Ask her. Her avowed purpose is open to question. This is futile, Mr. McLeod, since you think a righteous man may wink at murder. I wanted-”

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t wink at murder. But I don’t have to want whoever killed Kenneth Faber to get caught and suffer for it. Do I?”

  “No. I wanted to see you. I wanted to ask you, for instance, if you know a man named Carl Heydt, but since-”

  “I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him. I’ve heard his name from my daughter; he was the first one she worked for. What about him?”

  “Nothing, since you don’t know him. Do you know Max Maslow?”

  “No.”

  “Peter Jay?”

  “No. I’ve heard their names from my daughter. She tells me about people; she tries to tell me they’re not as bad as I think they are, only their ideas are different from mine. Now this has happened, and I knew it would, something like this. I don’t wink at murder and I don’t wink at anything sinful.”

  “But if you knew who killed that man or had reason to suspect anyone you wouldn’t tell me-or the police.”

  “I would not.”

  “Then I won’t keep you. Good afternoon, sir.”

  McLeod stayed put. “If you won’t tell me what my daughter came here for I can’t make you. But you can’t tell me she made false statements and not say what they were.”

  Wolfe grunted. “I can and do. I will tell you nothing.” He slapped the desk. “Confound it, after sending me inedible corn you presume to come and make demands on me? Go!”

  McLeod’s mouth opened and closed again. In no hurry, he got up. “I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right.” He turned to go and turned back. “Of course you won’t be wanting any more corn.”

  Wolfe was scowling at him. “Why not? It’s only the middle of September.”

  “I mean not from me.”

  “Then from whom? Mr. Goodwin can’t go scouring the countryside with this imbroglio on our hands. I want corn this week. Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t see… There’s nobody to bring it.”

  “Friday, then?”

  “I might. I’ve got a neighbor- Yes, I guess so. The restaurant too?”

  Wolfe said yes, he would tell them to expect it, and McLeod turned and went. I stepped to the hall, got to the front ahead of him to hand him his hat, and saw him out. When I returned to the office Wolfe was leaning back, frowning at the ceiling. As I crossed to my desk and sat I felt a yawn coming, and I stopped it. A man expecting to be tagged for murder is in no position to yawn, even if he has had no sleep for thirty hours. I had my nose fill the order for more oxygen, swiveled, and said brightly, “That was a big help. Now we know about the corn.”

  Wolfe straightened up. “Pfui. Call Felix and tell him to expect a delivery on Friday.”

  “Yes, sir. Good. Then everything’s jake.”

  “That’s bad slang. There is good slang and bad slang. How long will it take you to type a full report of our conversation with Miss McLeod, yours and mine, from the beginning?”

  “Verbatim?”

  “Yes.”

  “The last half, more than half, is in the notebook. For the first part I’ll have to dig, and though my memory is as good as you think it is, that will be a little slower. Altogether, say four hours. But what’s the idea? Do you want it to remember me by?”

  “No. Two carbons.”

  I cocked my head. “Your memory is as good as mine-nearly. Are you actually telling me to type all that crap just to keep me off your neck until nine o’clock?”

  “No. It may be useful.”

  “Useful how? As your employee I’m supposed to do what I’m told, and I often do, but this is different. This is our joint affair, you said so, trying to save you from the calamity of losing me. Useful how?”

  “I don’t know!” he bellowed. “I say it may be useful, if I decide to use it. Can you suggest something that may be more useful?”

  “Offhand, no.”

  “Then if you type it, two carbons.”

  I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I might or might not start on it before four o’clock, when he would go up to the plant rooms for his afternoon session with the orchids.

  4

  AT FIVE MINUTES PAST NINE that evening the three men whose names had had checkmarks in front of them in Kenneth Faber’s little notebook were in the office, waiting for Wolfe to show. They hadn’t come together; Carl Heydt had arrived first, ten minutes early, then Peter Jay, on the dot at nine, and then Max Maslow. I had put Heydt in the red leather chair, and Jay and Maslow on two of the yellow ones facing Wolfe’s desk. Nearest me was Maslow.

  I had seen Heydt before, of course, but you take a new look at a man when he becomes a homicide candidate. He looked the same as ever-medium height with a slight bulge in the middle, round face with a wide mouth, quick dark eyes that kept on the move. Peter Jay, the something important in the big advertising agency, tall as me but not as broad, with more than his share of chin and a thick dark mane that needed a comb, looked as if he had the regulation ulcer, but it could have been just the current difficulty. Max Maslow, the fashion photographer, was a surprise. With the twisted smile he must have practiced in front of a mirror, the trick haircut, the string tie dangling, and the jacket with four buttons buttoned, he was a screwball if I ever saw one, and I wouldn’t have supposed that Sue McLeod would let such a specimen hang on. I admit it could have been just that his ideas were different from mine, but I like mine.

  Wolfe came. When there is to be a gathering he stays in the kitchen until I buzz on the house phone, and then he doesn’t enter, he makes an entrance. Nothing showy, but it’s an entrance. A line from the door to the corner of his desk just misses the red leather chair, so with Heydt in the chair he would have had to circle around his feet and also pass between Heydt and the other two; and he detoured to his right, between the chair and the wall, to his side of the desk, stood, and shot me a glance. I pronounced their names, indicating who was which, and he gave them a nod, sat, moved his eyes from left to right and back again, and spoke.

  “This can be fairly brief,” he said, “or it can go on for hours. I think, gentlemen, you would prefer brevity, and so would I. I assume you have all been questioned by the police and by the district attorney or one of his assistants?”

  Heydt and Maslow nodded, and Jay said yes. Maslow had his twisted smile on.

  “Then you’re on record, but I’m not privy to that record. Since you came here to oblige Miss McLeod, you should know our position, Mr. Goodwin’s and mine, regarding her. She is not our client; we are under no commitment to her; we are acting solely in our own interest. But as it now stands we are satisfied that she didn’t kill Kenneth Faber.”

  “That’s damn nice of you,” Maslow said. “So am I.”

  “Your own interest?” Jay asked. “What’s your interest?”

  “We’re reserving that. We don’t know how candid Miss McLeod has been with you, any or all of you, or how devious. I will say only that, because of statements made to the police by Miss McLeod, Mr. Goodwin is under heavy suspicion, and that because she knew the suspicion was unfounded she agreed to ask you gentlemen to come to see me. To lift the suspicion from Mr. Goodwin we must find out where it belongs, and for that we need your help.”

  “My God,” Heydt blurted. “I don’t know where it belongs.”

  The other two looked at him, and he looked back. There had been a feel in the atmosphere and the looks made it more than a feel. Evidently each of them had ideas about the other two, but of course it wasn’t as simple as that if one of them had killed Faber, since he would be faking it. Anyhow, they all had ideas and they were itching.

  “Quite possibly,” Wolfe conceded, “none of you knows. But it is not mere conjecture that one of you has good reason to know. All of you knew he would be there that day at that hour, and you could h
ave gone there at some previous time to reconnoiter. All of you had an adequate motive-adequate, at least, for the one it moved: Mr. Faber had either debased or grossly slandered the woman you wanted to marry. All of you had some special significance in his private thoughts or plans; your names were in his notebook, with checkmarks. You are not targets chosen at random for want of better ones; you are plainly marked by circumstances. Do you dispute that?”

  Maslow said, “All right, that’s our bad luck.” Heydt, biting his lip, said nothing. Jay said, “It’s no news that we’re targets. Go on from there.”

  Wolfe nodded. “That’s the rub. The police have questioned you, but I doubt if they have been importunate; they have been set at Mr. Goodwin by Miss McLeod. I don’t know-”

  “That’s your interest,” Jay said. “To get Goodwin from under.”

  “Certainly. I said so. I-”

  “He has known Miss McLeod longer than we have,” Maslow said. “He’s the hero type. He rescued her from the sticks and started her on the path of glory. He’s her hero. I asked her once why she didn’t marry him if he was such a prize, and she said he hadn’t asked her. Now you say she has set the police on him. Permit me to say I don’t believe it. If they’re on him they have a damn good reason. Also permit me to say I hope he does get from under, but not by making me the goat. I’m no hero.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “As I said, I’m reserving what Miss McLeod has told the police. She may tell you if you ask her. As for you gentlemen, I don’t know how curious the police have been about you. Have they tried seriously to find someone who saw one of you in that neighborhood Tuesday afternoon? Of course they have asked you where you were that afternoon, that’s mere routine, but have they properly checked your accounts? Are you under surveillance? I doubt it; and I haven’t the resources for those procedures. I invite you to eliminate yourselves from consideration if you can. The man who killed Kenneth Faber was in that alley, concealed under that platform, shortly after five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Mr. Heydt. Can you furnish incontestable evidence that you weren’t there?”