by Rex Stout
That was the second time I had ever heard a woman call him Nero, but the other time it had been a gag. For Julie it was just natural. If she stayed two days and two nights in a man’s house, and ate with him, and collaborated with him, and helped him with his orchids, it would have been silly to call him Mister. If she got the fifty grand and picked a college that wasn’t too far away, I might drop in after she had been there a while to see what effect she was having. It was a cinch that she would have more effect on it than it would have on her.
I accepted her offer to help with the germination records.
At the dinner table Wolfe didn’t repeat his performance of the day before. It was no longer necessary to quiz her, and he put her in her place by discussing the difference between imagination and invention in literature. She did get a word in now and then. Once when his mouth was full of sweetbreads she said, “You’re talking over my head on purpose. Show me one thing in one book and ask me if it’s imagination or invention and I’ll tell you every time, and let’s see you prove I’m wrong.” That’s no way to talk to a man who is doing his best to prepare you for college.
While Fritz was pouring after-dinner coffee in the office, Julie said, “I’d give a brand-new dollar bill to know what she’s doing. What’s her number? I’ll call her.”
“Yeah,” I said.
She looked at Wolfe. “You get on my nerves because you haven’t got any. You wouldn’t give a rusty nickel to know what she’s doing.”
“Why should I?” he growled, and sipped coffee.
It was obvious that they had had enough of each other for a while, and when we had finished with the coffee I took her down to the basement. The basement has Fritz’s room and bath, a storeroom, and a large room with a pool table. I had mentioned it to her, and she had said she would like to learn how to use a cue, and it might take her mind off of Stella Fleming, not to mention mine. But she didn’t get her pool lesson. I had taken the cover off, and picked a cue for her, and racked the balls, when the doorbell rang. If I hadn’t caught her arm she would have beaten me to the stairs, and she was right at my heels when I reached the hall and took a look at the front.
“My God,” she said, “she hashed it.” I stepped to the office door and told Wolfe, “Cramer.” He looked up from his book and tightened his lips. I told Julie, “Go to the kitchen and stay there.” The doorbell rang. Julie went, but not to the kitchen, to the alcove, where the hole was. I said, “If you sneeze, I’ll boil you in oil,” and went to the front and opened the door.
From the look Cramer gave me, he was set to boil me in oil whether I sneezed or not. That was all he had for me, the look. By the time I had his coat hung up he was at the office door, and when I got there he was already in the red leather chair and talking. He was saying, “… and you knew Barry Fleming fired those shots, and I want to know how you knew. You also knew Barry Fleming had killed Isabel Kerr, and I want to know how you knew that.”
Good-by, fifty grand, I thought as I crossed to my desk. They had Fleming, and ten to one they would open him up, no matter how Stella had handled him. Maybe they already had.
Wolfe said, “You’re fuming, Mr. Cramer.”
“You’re damn right I am.”
“Then you’re at a disadvantage. Don’t you want to compose your mind?”
“I want you to answer questions!”
“If I know the answers. You say that I knew that Barry Fleming killed Isabel Kerr. I remind you that last evening I told you that I had no evidence that would help to convict anyone of that murder, that I had only a surmise. I repeat that. I still have no evidence. Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Is Barry Fleming in custody?”
“No.” Cramer’s jaw was set. “Look, Wolfe. You’ve got what you wanted. You wanted to spring Cather, and you’ve worked it. He’s clear. Now. I don’t need evidence for Fleming, even if you’ve got it. I want some facts. I want to know if Barry Fleming fired those shots at Julie Jaquette, and if so why.”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. “Is that important? Important to you? Since you have him for murder – or have you? You say he’s not in custody. If by any chance you think I have him here, waiting for you, I haven’t. Is it -”
“You haven’t got him here. He’s dead.”
“Indeed. By violence?”
“Yes.”
A corner of Wolfe’s mouth twisted up. “Mr. Goodwin and Miss Jaquette and I haven’t left the house all day. So if you had any expectation -”
“Oh, cork it. He shot himself. About three hours ago. In the temple with a Bristol twenty-two automatic. It was his, he had a permit. And I want -”
“If you please. At his home?”
“Yes. I -”
“Was a policeman there? Had he been questioned?”
“No. If you -”
“Then how the devil do you know he killed Isabel Kerr? How do you know anything at all? Don’t expect me to clear it up. I have told you twice, I have no evidence -”
“Goddammit, I don’t need evidence. Not about Isabel Kerr. If you want it about him, okay. When he got home this afternoon, he and his wife had a talk, she says, and he wrote something and signed it. She went out to buy some groceries and was gone about half an hour and when she went back he was dead. How do I know he killed Isabel Kerr? She had it, what he wrote and signed.”
He got a piece of folded paper from his breast pocket. “It has been checked with his handwriting, but the laboratory will verify it.” He unfolded it. “It’s his printed letterhead. Dated today.” He read:
“To Whom It May Concern:
I hereby state and acknowledge that on Saturday, January 29, 1966, I struck my sister-in-law, Isabel Kerr, on the head with an ashtray and killed her. It was not premeditated. I did it in an uncontrollable frenzy of anger and resentment. The resentment had been festering for three years. She had been living in great luxury and my wife and I were paying for it. All of my savings were gone, and with my small salary I would soon be at the end of my rope, but she would not listen to reason, and my wife was so devoted to her that she would not do what had to be done. That Saturday morning I tried once more to persuade Isabel, but could not, and I lost control of myself and hit her. I did not mean to kill her, but I do not expect forgiveness, even from my wife. My wife insists that I must write this so that she will have evidence of the circumstances of Isabel’s death. She has given me no promises and I do not know what she will do with it.
Barry Fleming”
Cramer folded it and returned it to his pocket. “Naturally, the first thing you’ll say, and I said, is that he doesn’t say he’s going to kill himself. No good-by. But they often don’t. The gun was there on the floor, and the bullet went through his right temple at the right angle. She talked a little to the precinct man, but now she’s out, completely out, under sedation. Of course we’ll get at her later, but I’m not expecting much. I’m spilling this to you because it settles the Kerr thing and you might as well know it, but it doesn’t settle everything. The shots that were fired at Julie Jaquette. You told me yesterday that you didn’t know who fired them.”
“I didn’t. I still don’t.”
“That’s a goddam lie.”
“I lie only when I must. Now it isn’t necessary. I told you yesterday that I suspected there was a connection between the murder of Isabel Kerr and the shots fired at Miss Jaquette, that I could guess, but I didn’t know.” Wolfe turned a hand over. “Mr. Cramer. There are certain details that I don’t intend to divulge, and anyway, you don’t need them now and would have no use for them. The murder is solved, and the culprit is dead. But not only are you a policeman with duties, you are also a man with the itch of curiosity, and furthermore I gall you. So I tell you this: I learned, no matter how, who was supplying the money for Isabel Kerr’s luxurious way of life, and certain facts about it, and that led me to my surmise that Barry Fleming had killed her. I also learned, again no matter how, that Barry
Fleming feared that Miss Jaquette would disclose certain facts which he thought she had got from Isabel Kerr, and therefore she was in danger and should be protected. I did not know he fired the shots; I don’t know it now. As for lying, I give you my word of honor that what I have just told you is completely true. Miss Jaquette is still here, and you may see her if you have time to waste; I presume she would chaff you as she did yesterday.”
Cramer looked at me. He knew from experience that when Wolfe gave his word of honor he meant it. He squinted at me, frowning, until I wondered if my tie was crooked. “I thought you did everything right,” he said. “Always cocky. How much did it miss her, with you standing there, about a foot?”
What I would have liked to do you don’t do to a cop, especially an inspector. All I could do was squint back at him. He got to his feet and looked down at Wolfe. “I’m still curious,” he said. “You learned a lot, and of course you learned it from Cather. Do you realize that if he hadn’t buttoned his lip, if he had told us what he told you, all of it, he would have been out before now, and Fleming would be in and still alive? Sure you realize it. But you had to do it. You had to show once more how sharp you are. I wish to God – oh, what’s the use.”
He turned and started for the door, but short of it he stopped and wheeled. “Don’t you think you ought to send flowers to his funeral?”
I would have gone to hold his coat if he hadn’t made that crack. It had missed her by a yard, not a foot. When I heard the front door close, I went to the hall for a look. He was out. I turned and called Julie, and she came around the alcove corner. There was a funny look on her face, as if she was trying to say the alphabet backward and didn’t know how to start. She stopped and fastened the look on me, and I took her arm and steered her into the office. She went to the red leather chair, sank into it, and told Wolfe, “You knew that would happen. You knew it.”
He scowled at her. “I did not. I am not a Chaldean. It was Archie, not I, who gave her the idea. ‘Give an entirely different reason’ was his suggestion, and she seized it. Brilliantly. Archie. What exactly did I say to X?”
“You said, quote, ‘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.’ End quote. And that he would be the judge of the situation.”
“I called her a beetle,” Julie said. “My God, she must be… first her sister, and now her husband. What are you doing, Archie?”
I had got a quarter from my pocket and tossed it up. “I’m deciding something that can’t be decided any other way.” I bent over for a look. “Tails. She shot him.”
Chapter 17
One day last week I got a letter:
Dear Archie –
Thanks for telling me about Orrie Cather marrying that airline girl. You know what I think of that but I wish them well, I really do. Why not? I say that to people sometimes, I wish you well, and you ought to see them stare.
In a class one day last week we were supposed to say something about imagination and invention and I cleaned it up. I said nearly everything Nero said that day at dinner and it made their eyes pop. They don’t know any better. I’m not sure anybody here knows any better about anything, but I’m giving it a whirl and we’ll see. Somebody here must know something I want to know but I haven’t seen any sign of it yet. How is Fritz? Tell him I can still taste that hedgehog omelet. And the sauce with the sweetbreads.
Write if you want to. I wish you well.
J
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