by Rex Stout
Cramer: Yes.
Julie: Then you ought to listen better. Nobody was annoying me. I didn’t need protection. I needed Archie.
Cramer: If you didn’t need protection, why did someone shoot at you, try to kill you?
Julie: I’ve been thinking about that. Just because he hit Fred, there by me, that doesn’t prove he was shooting at me. Maybe he was shooting at Fred. Or maybe he was just shooting at anybody. Like that boy in Brooklyn who shot some woman going by in a car. They get a kick –
Cramer: Save it. I don’t believe a word of it. Do you know what the penalty is for giving false information to an officer investigating a crime?
Julie: No. What is it?
Cramer: You can get five years.
Julie: What crime are you investigating? Archie said you were investigating the murder of my friend Isabel Kerr, but you don’t sound like it. You only ask about me being protected and somebody shooting a gun. I must be thick.
Cramer: No, Miss Jaquette, you’re not thick. You’re a damn good liar. Extra good. I hope you know what you’re doing. Do you know that Wolfe and Goodwin are two of the slickest operators in New York?
Julie: I don’t know much about Nero Wolfe. I know a lot about Archie.
Cramer: Well, they are. How much are they paying you?
Julie: Paying me? Well. First I’m a liar, and now what am I?
Cramer: That’s what I’d like to know. Do you still think Orrie Cather killed your friend Isabel Kerr?
Julie: I never said that.
Cramer: You didn’t have to. It was obvious from what you did say and put in your statement. Do you remember what you said?
Julie: Certainly I do. I can say the alphabet backward.
Cramer: Do you want to retract any of it?
Julie: No. It was all true.
Cramer: Then you still think he killed her?
Julie: You ought to listen better. I told you I didn’t say that.
Cramer: You implied it strong enough. Don’t forget we have your signed statement. Don’t forget that.
Five seconds of silence except for a faint sound that could have been Cramer leaving his chair.
Cramer: I warn you again, Miss Jaquette, giving false information to an officer investigating a capital crime is a felony. Do you want to reconsider it?
Julie: No, thanks. You can leave the door open.
Another faint sound, the door opening. I slid off the stool, went to the cupboard and turned the switch, crossed to the door to the hall, and swung it open. Heavy footsteps were coming down the stairs. Cramer appeared, turned left, and passed the office door without looking in. He must have seen me as he was putting his coat on, but he didn’t wave good-by. When he was out and the door shut, I turned and said, “That was ad lib, nothing like it in the script. I enjoyed every minute of it. You’d better start the eggs, Fritz, she must be hungry.” I headed for the stairs and mounted the two flights.
The door was wide open. She was squatting on the floor, looking at the underside of the table. At the sound of my footsteps she turned her head, scrambled up, and said, “I’m looking for the bug.”
“You won’t find it there. It’s not that simple. It came through fine.”
“You heard it?”
“Sure. Why he called you a liar is beyond me. If ever I heard the ring of truth. How soon do you want breakfast?”
“Now. Right now.”
“It’s nearly ready. Get in bed and I’ll bring it.”
Chapter 14
I don’t mention everything, for instance phone calls that have nothing to do with progress or the lack of it. There had been two phone calls from Jill Hardy, one from Dr. Gamm, two from Lon Cohen, and three from Nathaniel Parker. But I mention the one from Parker that Sunday afternoon because what he wanted to do might have helped or hurt. He had decided he should make a habeas corpus play Monday morning to get Orrie bailed out, and it took Wolfe ten minutes to talk him out of it. It wasn’t easy. Wolfe couldn’t very well tell him that we were no longer worried about Orrie, that we now had another fish to fry.
Or maybe we did. When I went to bed Sunday night, after winning $1.25 from Julie at gin, there had been no discussion and no instructions, nothing. The Ten Little Indians was closed Sundays. Julie had had an afternoon nap, and I had had a long walk. Wolfe had had the Times and a book, and probably, while I was out, his weekly battle with television. That may occur almost any evening, when he has got disgusted with a book, but usually it’s a Sunday afternoon, because that’s when TV is supposed to be dressed for company. He turns on one channel after another, getting grimmer and grimmer, until he is completely assured that it’s getting worse instead of better, and quits.
The only time he and Julie were together was at the dinner table, and it was different from any meal at that table I could remember. Ordinarily Wolfe is perfectly willing to do most of the talking, with or without company, but that time, from the Neptune bouchees right through to the chestnut whip, he not only let the guest, a female guest, take over, he egged her on. He asked her questions, dozens of questions, about her work and her background and the people she knew. By the time coffee came, I had settled on the only possible explanation: he had decided that I didn’t understand women as well as he had thought I did, and it was up to him to fill the gap. I could have told him that that kind of approach wouldn’t help much, but apparently I was no longer regarded as an expert.
So I got a surprise when I entered the kitchen Monday morning and Fritz told me I was wanted, and I went up one flight and knocked and entered, and Wolfe said, “Good morning. Can that woman be trusted in a matter that requires adroit execution and full discretion?”
“You ought to know,” I said, “after the quiz you put her through.”
“I don’t. Do you?”
“Yes. Adroit, yes. You heard her with Cramer. It would depend on how well she liked it, whatever it was. The discretion would also depend. She would never spill anything she didn’t want to spill. She wouldn’t talk just to hear herself.”
“How much verity was there in what she told Mr. Cramer?”
“None at all. She couldn’t think I’m what a man because she couldn’t think any man is.”
“Then we’ll risk it. Ask Mr. Ballou to come at eleven o’clock. Tell him I’ll need only ten minutes. Miss Jaquette must not see him. Can you make sure she doesn’t?”
I said I could, and went up one flight to see if there was any sign of life there. It was only a quarter to nine, but she had gone to bed early – for her – and she might have opened the door to enjoy it. She hadn’t. I had told her to buzz either the kitchen or the office on the house phone when she wanted breakfast, and to allow half an hour. I went down to the office and did the chores.
I didn’t know if Avery Ballou was the early kind of president, and waited till a quarter to ten to dial the number of the Federal Holding Corporation. A woman answered, of course, and switched me to a man. He would submit my name to Mr. Ballou only if I told him what I wanted; that’s one of the ways junior executives try to keep wise to what their seniors are up to. I finally persuaded him the name was enough and Ballou would want it, but there was a long wait before his voice came.
“Goodwin? Archie Goodwin?”
“Right. Mr. Ballou?”
“Yes.”
“There has been a development in that matter we discussed Thursday evening, and we must tell you about it. Can you be here at eleven o’clock? Same address.”
“This morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. Is it urgent?”
“Yes. Eleven-thirty or twelve would do, but eleven would be better. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
“Hold the wire… All right. I’ll be there at eleven or shortly after.”
If the junior executive had listened in, he must have been wondering what the hell could make Ballou jump like that, and wishing he knew.
After buzzing the plant rooms to tell Wolfe he was coming, I had a
problem. Even if Julie was awake, it wasn’t advisable to go up and tell her that a man was coming whom she must not see, so would she please stay in her room with the door shut. She was a fine brave plucky game girl, and she might go to my room, which fronts on 35th Street, and look out the window just to be helpful. It wouldn’t be fair to tempt her like that, so I went to the kitchen, explained the situation to Fritz, and arranged with him. When the bell rang and I went to the door, he would go up to the second stair landing with the vacuum cleaner and camp there. If her door was open, he would vacuum the hall carpet. He said he couldn’t vacuum that carpet for an hour, and I said he wouldn’t have to.
Actually it was only eight or nine minutes. Wolfe came down on the dot at eleven, as he always does, and hadn’t finished looking through the mail when the bell rang. I waited until Fritz was on his way upstairs, then admitted the caller, took his hat and coat, and followed him to the office. He stood and told Wolfe he didn’t have time to sit.
“I like eyes at a level,” Wolfe said. “It takes three seconds to sit.”
Ballou sat.
“I’ll make it as brief as possible,” Wolfe said. “The first point, I am now satisfied that you didn’t kill Isabel Kerr, because I know who did, barely short of certainty. Her brother-in-law. The blackmailer. The second point, there is no longer any question of achieving my primary purpose, to clear Mr. Cather. That is assured. The third point, I would like to earn that fifty thousand dollars. How can I earn it?”
“I thought that was understood. Keep me out of this mess. Keep my name out. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I have wanted a dozen times to call you, but I’m afraid to talk on the phone.”
Wolfe shook his head. “It needs definition. Your name is known now. Five people know it – Mr. and Mrs. Fleming, Mr. Cather, Mr. Goodwin, and I. As for the last three, the best you can get is our assurance that we will disclose it to no one. As for Mr. and Mrs. Fleming, the best I could possibly do would be to create a situation which would make it highly unlikely that they would ever disclose it. I can’t open their skulls and remove the cells where your name is filed. You see that.”
“Yes.”
“You would be the judge of the situation. I want to earn the money, not extort it. Now the fourth point, the reason I had to see you without delay. To proceed with any expectation of success, I must enlist help. I need the assistance of a woman named Julie Jaquette, or Amy Jackson, who was the friend -”
“I know the name. I know about her.”
“From Miss Kerr.”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t know your name, and she doesn’t need to. She calls you the lobster. I want to ask her help, without telling her your name, and I want to tell her that if we succeed she will receive fifty thousand dollars in cash. Will you supply it?”
Ballou frowned at him.
“You told me,” Wolfe said, “that the fifty thousand was just a retainer and implied that there would be more if I served your purpose. I wouldn’t want more. I’ll get it done in a day or two, or not at all. I make it contingent on success, against precedent, to preclude any smell of extortion. Also, the prospect is dim. What are the odds against us, Archie?”
I didn’t have to consider. “A thousand to one.”
“This is pointless,” Ballou said. “You know damned well I’m trapped. You told me you’re my only hope. What’s another fifty thousand, or ten times fifty? If you think she can help, all right. You don’t seem -”
He wasn’t interrupted; I was, by the sound of the vacuum cleaner. I rose and went to the hall, stood at the foot of the stairs, and heard no voices, just the vacuum cleaner. I was thinking the conversation was finished anyway and was turning to go and tell him where the door was, when he came. I was at the rack, ready with his coat, by the time he got there. His car was out in front, and I waited until he was in it and it was rolling, before going to the stairs and on up to the second landing.
Fritz was giving the carpet a play, and Julie, in pajamas and barefoot, was standing in the doorway, watching him. He had his back to her, pretending he didn’t know she was there. I went and switched the vacuum off with my toe and spoke. “You might have waited until she was up.”
“I am up,” she said. “What time is it? I forgot to wind my watch.”
A bellow came from below. “Archie! Where are you?” I called down where I was, and more bellow came. “Tell Miss Jaquette I want her!”
Ballou had been gone not more than three minutes, and already he had a situation created. Which I handled. I told Julie her breakfast couldn’t be ready for half an hour and asked if she would consider having grapefruit juice and coffee in the office while Wolfe explained something to her. She asked why I couldn’t explain it, and I said because Wolfe knew more words. She went to change, and I went down and thanked Fritz for helping out in a pinch, requested coffee for the guest, and poured a glass of grapefruit juice.
And after that handling, when I went to the office Wolfe said perhaps it would be better for him to discuss it with me, and then I would discuss it with her. I didn’t try to talk him out of it; I just said no. I admit it was still in my gizzard that it was pure luck that she hadn’t been ironed out while I was standing right by her. I’m all for luck, but you shouldn’t crowd it. After what I had told her about lowering the blind and closing the drapes, I should have gone over for a look behind the wall before she got out of the taxi.
When she came down, not in the blue thing, in a dark green woolen dress, the tray was there on the stand by the red leather chair. She sat, picked up the glass and took a sip of juice, and said, “I’m all balled up. This will be the first time since I don’t know when that I don’t have breakfast in bed. It had better be good – I mean what you’re going to explain.”
Wolfe was regarding her, his lips tight. “I apologize. But we should lose no time. I say ‘we’ because I’m going to propose a collaboration. Have you all the money you want, Miss Jaquette?”
She had started the glass for her mouth but stopped it halfway. “Of all the dumb questions,” she said.
“But not pointless. Nor impertinent. I need to know if a chance – a long one, but a chance – of making fifty thousand dollars would interest you. Would it?”
“That’s even dumber.”
“Would it?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I am.”
“Fifty grand in cash?”
“Yes.”
“Less income tax.”
“Not until you paid it. I suggest nothing; I state a fact: it would be in cash, and you would sign no receipt.”
She sipped juice. “Do you know what I would do if I had fifty grand in one wad? I would go to school for four straight years. Or five.” She sipped juice. “I suppose some college; I finished high school. I have a feeling there are a lot of things I ought to know that I don’t know. I always have it. You say you’re being serious?”
“Yes. There is a possibility of earning a hundred thousand dollars, and we would share it equally. It would come from the man who paid Isabel Kerr’s bills – the man you call the lobster. He was here just now, and we -”
“He was here? You know him?”
“Yes. It was his third visit. He was here twice last week. He is a man of wealth and what is called standing. To you his name is X and will remain X. He fears that his name will become public in connection with what he calls his diversion and a sensational murder, and you and Mr. Goodwin and I will try to prevent it. If we succeed, he will pay. For that you have my word, he will pay. His fear is extreme. Shall I go on?”
She had put the glass down, not quite empty. “You are serious,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You mean it.”
“Yes.”
“All right, go on. How do we prevent it?”
“That’s the question. Probably we can’t, but possibly we can. If I go on I must tell you things that must not be repeated, and first you must answer two questions. Are you willin
g to help?”
“How? I don’t see how I can help.”
“You already have. You have established the identity of the blackmailer indubitably, and the identity of the murderer as a sound conclusion. If you can help with this, are you willing?”
She looked at me. I not only looked back, I nodded. She told Wolfe, “Yes, I’m willing.”
“Do you engage to keep secret what I tell you in confidence?”
“Yes, that’s all right. I can do that.”
“Then you’re a paragon. But there are things you have to know – for instance, that Mr. Goodwin and I learned X’s name from Orrie Cather. Miss Kerr told his name to two people only, Orrie Cather and her sister. That may be safely assumed, because she didn’t even tell you. Mrs. Fleming told her husband, so there are five people who know it. I will answer for three of the five: Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Cather, and me. There would be some question about Mr. Cather if he were going to be tried for murder, but he isn’t. That leaves Mr. and Mrs. Fleming as the only sources for the disclosure of X’s name. I am taking pains to make sure that it’s clear to you.”
“You sure are. Have I told you that I can say the alphabet backward?”
“You have told Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Cramer. So can I. Now for the fact that gives us our one chance in a thousand. There is one person who dreads the publication of X’s association with Miss Kerr even more intensely than X does. Tell her, Archie.”
I took five seconds, not to figure it, but to realize that I had never looked at it from that angle. I told Julie, “Stella. I told you Saturday how she reacted. Remember? She doesn’t want a trial even if they get the right man. Of course, X’s name would come out only in connection with Isabel.” I looked at Wolfe. “Yeah. I’ll be damned. But how?”
“That’s what we need Miss Jaquette for.” His eyes were narrowed at her. “Don’t you want coffee? It’s getting cold.”
She picked up the glass and finished the juice, put it down, poured coffee, picked up the cup, and took a sip. She looked at Wolfe and shook her head. “I don’t get it. What’s so great about that fact?”
“The possibilities it presents. Suppose that Mrs. Fleming knows, or even strongly suspects, that her husband killed her sister, and knows why, and also knows that he may be arrested and charged at any moment, and later brought to trial. What would she do?”
