Trio for Blunt Instruments

by Rex Stout

  “No. I want to show my appreciation. Very well; it can be returned to you.” Wolfe swiveled. “Madam, it’s fortunate that you came with your husband. There will be three of us to refresh his memory on what he has told me if at some future time he is inclined to forget. I suggest that you should write it down and…”

  I was listening with only one ear. Now that I knew which target he was aiming at, I should certainly be able to spot what had made him pick it, and I shut my eyes to concentrate. If you had already spotted it, as you probably had, and are thinking I’m thick, you will please consider that all four points went back to before the body was discovered. I got one point in half a minute, but that wasn’t enough, and by the time I opened my eyes Fougere had gone and Rita was on her feet, prattling. Wolfe looked at me. I am expected-by him-both to understand women and to know how to handle them, which is ridiculous. I’ll skip how I handled her and got her out because I was rude again, making twice in less than two hours.

  When I returned to the office after shutting the door behind her I had things to say, but Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed, and his lips were working, so I went to my desk and sat. When we’re alone I’ll interrupt him no matter what he’s doing, with only one exception, the lip exercise. When he’s pushing his lips out and then pulling them in, out and in, he’s working so hard that if I spoke he wouldn’t hear me. It may take only seconds or it may go on and on. That time it was a good three minutes.

  He opened his eyes, sat up, and growled, “We’re going to need Mrs. Fougere.”

  I stood up. “I might possibly catch her. Is it urgent?”

  “No. After dinner will do. Confound it.”

  “I agree.” I sat down. “I’m up with you. There were two things. Right?”

  “Four.”

  “Then I’m shy a couple. I have his phoning and his letting me have the tie. What else?”

  “Only seven ties. Why?”

  “Oh.” I looked at it. “Okay. And?”

  “Well… take you. What have you that is a part of you? Say the relics you keep in a locked drawer. Would you give one of them to someone casually?”

  “No.” I gave that a longer look. “Uhuh,” I conceded. “Check. But all four points wouldn’t convince a jury that he’s a murderer, and I doubt if they would convince Cramer or the DA that he ought to be jugged.”

  “Certainly not. We have a job before we’re ready for Mr. Cramer, and not an easy one. Phenomena needed for proof may not exist, and even if they do they may be undiscoverable. Our only recourse-”

  The doorbell rang. I got up and went to the hall, took a look, stepped back into the office, and said, “Nuts. Cramer.”

  “No,” he snapped.

  “Do you want to count ten?”

  “No.”

  I admit it’s a pleasure to slip the bolt in, open the door the two inches the chain permits, and through the crack tell a police inspector that Mr. Wolfe is engaged and can’t be disturbed. The simple pleasures of a private detective. But that time I didn’t have it. I was still a step short of the door when a bellow came from the office, my name, and I turned and went back.

  “Bring him,” Wolfe commanded.

  The doorbell rang. “Maybe this time you should count ten,” I suggested.

  “No. Bring him.”

  I went. From my long acquaintance with Cramer’s face I can tell with one glance through the glass if he’s on the warpath, so I knew he wasn’t before I opened the door. He even greeted me as if it didn’t hurt. Of course he didn’t let me take his hat, that would have been going too far, but he removed it on his way down the hall. When he’s boiling he leaves it on. From the way he greeted Wolfe it seemed likely that he would have offered a hand to shake if he hadn’t known that Wolfe never did.

  “Another hot day,” he said and sat in the red leather chair, not settling back, and hanging on to his hat. “I just stopped in on my way home. You’re never on your way home, because you’re always home.”

  I stared at him. Unbelievable. He was chatting!

  Wolfe grunted. “I go out now and then. Will you have some beer?” That was logical. If Cramer acted like a guest, he had to act like a host.

  “No, thanks.” Pals. “A couple of questions and I’ll go. The district attorney has about decided to hold Martin Kirk on a homicide charge. Kirk was here today for over an hour. Are you working for him?”

  “Yes.”

  Cramer put his hat on the stand at his elbow. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m here to hand you something-like a chance to cut loose from a murderer. The fact is, frankly, I think it’s possible the DA’s office is moving a little too fast. There are several reasons why I think that. The fact that you have taken Kirk on as a client isn’t the most important one, but I admit it is one. You don’t take on a murder suspect, no matter what he can pay, unless you think you can clear him. I said a couple of questions, and here’s the second one. If I go back downtown instead of home to supper, to persuade the DA to go slow, have you got anything I can use?”

  One corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up a sixteenth of an inch, his kind of a smile. “A new approach, Mr. Cramer. Rather transparent.”

  “The hell it is. It’s a compliment. I wouldn’t use it with any other private dick alive, and you know it. I’m not shoving, I’m just asking.”

  “Well. It’s barely possible…” Wolfe focused narrowed eyes on a corner of his desk and rubbed his nose with a fingertip. Pure fake. He had had his idea, whatever it was, when he bellowed me back to the office. He held the pose for ten seconds and then moved his eyes to Cramer and said, “I know who killed Mrs. Kirk.”

  “Uhuh. The DA thinks he does.”

  “He’s wrong. I have a proposal. I suppose you have spoken with Mr. Vance, James Neville Vance. If you will send a man to his apartment at ten o’clock this evening to take him to you, and you keep him until you hear from me or Mr. Goodwin, and then send or bring him to me, I’ll give you enough to persuade the district attorney that he shouldn’t hold Mr. Kirk on any charge at all.”

  Cramer had his chin up. “Vance? Vance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My God.” He looked at me but saw only a manly, open face. He took a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, stuck it in his mouth, clamped his teeth on it, and took it out again. “You know damn well I won’t. Connive at illegal entry? Of course that’s why you want him away.”

  “Merely your conjecture. I give you the fullest assurance, in good faith without reservation, that there will be no illegal entry or any other illegal act.”

  “Then I don’t see…” Moving back in the chair, he lost the cigar. It dropped to the floor. He ignored it. “No. Vance is a respectable citizen in good standing. You’d have to open up.”

  Wolfe nodded. “I’m prepared to. Not to give you facts, for you already have them; I’ll merely expound. You shouldn’t need it, but you have been centered on Mr. Kirk. Do you know all the details of the necktie episode? Mr. Goodwin getting it in the mail, the phone call he received, and his visit to Mr. Vance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then attend. Four points. First the phone call. It came at a quarter past eleven. You assume that Mr. Kirk made it, pretending he was Vance. That’s untenable, or at least implausible. How would he dare? For all he knew, Mr. Goodwin had phoned Vance or gone to see him immediately after opening the envelope. For him to phone and say he was Vance would have been asinine.”

  Cramer grunted. “He was off his hinges. The shape he was in, he wouldn’t see that.”

  “I concede the possibility. The second point. When Mr. Goodwin went to see Vance he showed him the envelope and letterhead and let him take the tie to examine it. Vance was completely mystified. You know what was said and done. He inspected the ties in his closet and said that the one that had been mailed to Mr. Goodwin was his. But when Mr. Goodwin asked for it he handed it over without hesitation. Preposterous.”

  Cramer shook his head. “I don’t think so. The b
ody hadn’t been discovered. He thought it was just some screwy gag.”

  “Pfui. One of his ties taken from his closet, his stationery used to mail it to a private detective with a message ostensibly from him, and the phone call; and he was so devoid of curiosity or annoyance that he let Mr. Goodwin take the tie, and the envelope and letterhead, with no sign of reluctance? Nonsense.”

  “But he did. If he killed her, why isn’t it still nonsense?”

  “Because it was part of his devious and crackbrained plan.” Wolfe looked at the clock. “It’s too close to dinnertime to go into that now. It was ill-conceived and ill-executed, and it was infantile, but it wasn’t nonsense. The third point, and the most significant: two missing neckties. He had nine and had given one to Mr. Kirk, and there were only seven left. Of course you have accounted for that in your theory. How?”

  “That’s obvious. Kirk took it from Vance’s closet. Part of his plan to implicate Vance.”

  Wolfe nodded. “As Vance intended you to. But have you examined that assumption thoroughly?”

  “Yes. I don’t like it. That’s one reason I think the DA is moving too fast. Kirk would have been a sap to do that. Someone else could have taken it to implicate Kirk. For instance, Fougere.”

  “Why not Vance himself?”

  “Because a man doesn’t smash a woman’s skull unless he has a damn good reason and Vance had no reason at all.”

  Wolfe grunted. “I challenge that, but first the fourth point. Those neckties were an integral item of James Neville Vance’s projection of his selfhood. Made exclusively for him, they were more than merely distinctive and personal; they were morsels of his ego. Conceivably he might have given one of them to someone close and dear to him, but not to Martin Kirk-not unless it was an essential step in an undertaking of vital importance. So it was.”

  “Damn it,” Cramer growled, “his reason!”

  A corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up. “Your new approach is an improvement, Mr. Cramer. You know I wouldn’t fix on a man as a murderer without a motive, so I must have one for Mr. Vance, and you want it. Not now. You would get up and go. That would be enough for you to take to the district attorney, and while it would postpone a murder charge against my client it would by no means clear him permanently, because I strongly doubt if you can get enough evidence against Vance to hold him, let alone convict him. My knowledge of Vance’s motive is by hearsay, so don’t bother to warn me about withholding evidence; I have none that you don’t have. If I get some I’ll be glad to share it. I need to know with certainty where Mr. Vance will be this evening from ten o’clock on, and when Mr. Goodwin told me that you were at the door it occurred to me that the surest way would be for you to have him with you. Do you want it in writing, signed by both of us, that there will be no illegal act-under penalty of losing our licenses?”

  Cramer uttered a word about the same flavor as the one Fougere had used, but of course there was no lady present. He followed it up. “I suppose I’d send it to the Commissioner so he could frame it?” He flattened his palms on the chair arms. “Look, Wolfe. I know you. I know you’ve got something. I admit your four points taken together add up. I’ll take your word that you won’t send Goodwin to break and enter. I know I can’t pry any more out of you even if it wasn’t time for you to eat, and anyway I eat too. But you say I’m to keep Vance until I hear from you or Goodwin, and that might mean all night, and he’s not just some bum. Nothing doing. Make it tomorrow morning, say ten o’clock, and limit it to six hours if I don’t hear from you or Goodwin, and I’ll buy it.”

  Wolfe grinned. “That’s better anyway. I was rushing it. I said send a man to get him.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Very well.” Wolfe turned. “Archie. Mr. Cramer and I need a few minutes to make sure of details. Tell Fritz. And use the phone in the kitchen to get Mrs. Fougere. I must see her this evening. Also get Saul and Fred and Orrie. I want them either this evening or at eight in the morning.”

  I rose. “Does it matter which?”

  “No.”

  I beat it to the kitchen.

  8

  IF YOU EVER NEED an operative and only the best will do, get Saul Panzer if you can. If Saul isn’t available, get Fred Durkin or Orrie Cather. That was the trio who entered James Neville Vance’s apartment with me at a quarter past ten Thursday morning.

  What made the entry legal was that when I rang the bells, both downstairs and upstairs, the doors were opened from the inside. Who opened them was Rita Fougere. Upstairs she held it open until we were in and then closed it. I preferred not to touch the door-not that it mattered, but I like things neat.

  The door shut, Rita turned to me. She still had those eyes, but the lids were puffy, and her face had had no attention at all. “Where’s Martin?” she asked. Her soft little voice was more like a croak. “Have you heard from him?”

  I shook my head. “As Mr. Wolfe told you last evening, he’s being held as a material witness. Getting a lawyer to arrange for bail would cost money-his money. This will be cheaper and better if it works. Mr. Wolfe told you that.”

  “I know, but… what if it doesn’t?”

  “That’s his department.” I turned. “This is Mr. Panzer. Mr. Durkin. Mr. Cather. They know who you are. As you know, you’re to stay put, and if you’d like to help you might make some coffee. If the phone rings answer it. If the doorbell rings don’t answer it. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Gentlemen, sic ‘em.”

  The way you prowl a place depends on what you’re after. If you’re looking for one large item, say a stolen elephant, of course it’s simple. The toughest is when you’re just looking. We did want one specific item, a necktie, but also we wanted anything whatever that might help, no matter what, and Saul and Fred and Orrie had been thoroughly briefed. So we were just looking after Saul found the necktie, and that means things like inspecting the seams of a mattress and unfolding handkerchiefs and flipping through the pages of books. It takes a lot longer when you are leaving everything exactly as it was.

  We had been at it over an hour when Saul found the tie. I had shown them the seven on the rack in the closet so they would know what it looked like. Saul and Orrie were up in the studio, and when I heard them coming down the spiral stair I knew they had something and met them at the foot, and Saul handed it to me. It was folded, and pinned to it was one of Vance’s engraved letterheads, on which Saul had written: “Found by me at 11:25 A.M. on August 9, 1962, inside a piano score of Scriabin’s Vers la Flamme which was in a cabinet in the studio of James Neville Vance at 219 Horn Street, Manhattan, New York City.” He had signed it with his little twirl on the tail of the z.

  “You’re my hero,” I told him. “It would be an honor to tie your shoestrings and I want your autograph. But you know how Orrie is on gags and so do I. We’ll take a look.”

  I entered the bedroom, with them following, and went to the closet. The seven were still on the rack; I counted them twice. “Okay,” I told Saul, “it’s it. I’ll vote for you for President.” I took the seven from the rack and handed them to him. “Here, we’ll take them along.”

  After that it was just looking, both in the apartment and in the studio, and that gets tedious. By two o’clock it was damn tedious because we were hungry and we had decided not to take time out to eat, but Cramer had agreed to keep Vance for six hours, and while we had Exhibit A and that was all Wolfe really expected, an Exhibit X would be deeply appreciated. So we kept at it.

  A little before three o’clock I was standing in the middle of the living room frowning around. Rita was lying on a couch with her eyes closed. Fred was up in the studio with Saul and Orrie. I was trying to remember some little something that had been in my mind an hour ago, and finally I did. When Fred had taken a pile of gloves from a drawer he had looked in each glove but hadn’t felt in it, and he hadn’t taken them to the light. I went to the bedroom, got the gloves from the drawer, took them to the window, and really looked; a
nd in the fifth glove, a pigskin hand-sewed number, there was Exhibit X. When I saw it inside the glove I thought it was just a gob of some kind of junk, but when I pulled it out and saw what it was I felt something I hadn’t felt very often, a hot spot at the base of my spine. I don’t often talk to myself either, but I said aloud, “Believe it or not, that’s exactly what it is. It has to be.” I put it back in the glove, put the glove in my pocket, returned the other gloves to the drawer, went to the phone on the bedstand, and dialed a number.

  Wolfe’s voice came: “Yes?” I’ve been trying for years to get him to answer the phone properly.

  “Me,” I said. “We’ll be there in less than half an hour. Saul found the tie. It was in a piano score in a cabinet in the studio. I just found Exhibit X. I can tell you what he did. After he killed her he cut off a lock of her hair with blood on it, plenty of blood, and took it for a keepsake. After the blood was dry he put it inside one of his gloves in a drawer, which is where I found it. That has to be it. You may not believe it till you see it, but you will then.”

  “Indeed.” A pause. “Satisfactory. Very satisfactory. Bring the glove.”

  “Certainly. A suggestion-or call it a request. Tell Cramer to have him there at a quarter after four, or half past. We’re starving, including Mrs. Fougere, and we need time-”

  “You know my schedule. I’ll tell Mr. Cramer six o’clock. Fritz will-”

  “No.” I was emphatic. “For once you’ll have to skip it. The six hours is up at four o’clock, and if you put it off until six Cramer may let him go home, with or without an escort, and he might find that both the tie and the keepsake are gone. Would that be satisfactory?”

  Silence. “No.” More silence. “Confound it.” Still more. “Very well. Fritz will have something ready.”

  “Better make it half past and-”

  He had hung up.

  9

  INSPECTOR CRAMER SETTLED BACK in the red leather chair, narrowed his eyes at Wolfe, and rasped, “I’ve told Mr. Vance that this won’t be on any official record and he can answer your questions or not as he pleases.”