by Rex Stout
“Thank you.” Wolfe’s eyes moved again. “Mr. Daggett…”
He went on, and got more of the same. I finished my highball and tilted my chair back against the wall and closed my eyes. The voices, the questions and answers, were just noises in my ears. I didn’t get the idea, and it didn’t sound to me as if there was any. Of course Wolfe’s declaration that he wouldn’t try any tricks because he didn’t know any, was the same as a giraffe saying it couldn’t reach up for a bite on account of its short neck. But it seemed to me that if he thought that monotonous ring around the rosie was a good trick, the sooner he got out of the mountain air of West Virginia and back to sea level, the better. On the questions and answers went; he didn’t skimp anybody and he kept getting personal; he even discovered that Hyacinth Brown’s wife had gone off and left him three pickaninnies to take care of. Once in awhile I opened my eyes to see how far around he had got, and then closed them again. My wrist watch said a quarter to two when I heard, through the open window, a rooster crowing away off.
I let my chair come down when I heard my name. “Archie. Beer please.”
I was a little slow on the pickup and Moulton got to his feet and beat me to it. I sat down again. Wolfe invited the others to replenish, and a lot of them did. Then, after he had emptied a glass and wiped his lips, he settled back and ran his eyes over the gang, slowly around and back, until he had them all waiting for him.
He said in a new crisp tone: “Gentlemen, I said I would illustrate the difficulty I spoke of. It now confronts us. It was suggested that I ask for the information I want. I did so. You have all heard everything that was said. I wonder how many of you know that one of you told me a direct and deliberate lie.”
Perfect silence. Wolfe let it gather for five seconds and then went on:
“Doubtless you share the common knowledge that on Tuesday evening some eight or ten minutes elapsed from the moment that Mr. Berin left the dining room until the moment that Mr. Vukcic entered it, and that Mr. Berin says that when he left Mr. Laszio was there alive, and Mr. Vukcic says that when he entered Mr. Laszio was not there at all. Of course Mr. Vukcic didn’t look behind the screen. During that interval of eight or ten minutes someone opened the door from the terrace to the dining room and looked in, and saw two colored men. One, in livery, was standing beside the screen with his finger to his lips; the other had opened the door, a few inches, which led to the pantry hall, and was peering through, looking directly at the man by the screen. I have no idea who the man by the screen was. The one peering through the pantry hall door was one of you who are now sitting before me. That’s the one who has lied to me.”
Another silence. It was broken by a loud snicker, again from the tall skinny one who was still squatting against the wall. This time he followed it with a snort: “You tell ’em, boss!” Half a dozen black heads jerked at him and Crabtree said in disgust, “Boney, you damn drunken fool!” and then apologized to Wolfe, “He’s a no good clown, that young man. Yes, sir. About what you say, we’re all sorry you’ve got to feel that one of us told you a lie. You’ve got hold of some bad information.”
“No. I must contradict you. My information is good.”
Moulton inquired in his silky musical voice, “Might I ask who looked in the door and saw all that?”
“No. I’ve told you what was seen, and I know it was seen.” Wolfe’s eyes swept the faces. “Dismiss the idea, all of you, of impeaching my information. Those of you who have no knowledge of that scene in the dining room are out of this anyway; those who know of it know also that my information comes from an eye-witness. Otherwise how would I know, for instance, that the man by the screen had his finger to his lips? No, gentlemen, the situation is simple: I know that at least one of you lied, and he knows that I know it. I wonder if there isn’t a chance of ending so simple a situation in a simple manner and have it done with? Let’s try. Mr. Moulton, was it you who looked through that door—the door from the dining room to the pantry hall and saw the man by the screen with his finger to his lips?”
The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear slowly shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Mr. Grant, was it you?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Whipple, was it you?”
“No, sir.”
He went on around, and piled up fourteen negatives out of fourteen chances. Still batting a thousand. When he had completed that record he poured a glass of beer and sat and frowned at the foam. Nobody spoke and nobody moved. Finally, without drinking the beer, Wolfe leaned back and sighed patiently. He resumed in a murmur:
“I was afraid we would be here most of the night. I told you so. I also told you that I wasn’t going to use threats, and I don’t intend to. But by your unanimous denial you’ve turned a simple situation into a complicated one, and it has to be explained to you.
“First, let’s say that you persist in the denial. In that case, the only thing I can do is inform the authorities and let them interview the person who looked into the dining room from the terrace. They will be convinced, as I am, of the correctness of the information, and they will start on you gentlemen with that knowledge in their possession. They will be certain that one of you saw the man by the screen. I don’t pretend to know what they’ll do to you, or how long you’ll hold out, but that’s what the situation will be, and I shall be out of it.”
Wolfe sighed again, and surveyed the faces. “Now, whoever you are, let’s say that you abandon your denial and tell me the truth, what will happen? Similarly, you will sooner or later have to deal with the local authorities, but under quite different circumstances. I am talking now to one of you—you know which one, I don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that any harm will be done if I tell Mr. Tolman and the sheriff that you and your colleagues came to see me at my request, and that you volunteered the information about what you saw in the dining room. There will be no reason why the person who first gave me the information should enter into it at all, if you tell the truth—though you may be sure that I am prepared to produce that person if necessary. Of course, they won’t like it that you withheld so important a fact Tuesday night, but I think I can arrange beforehand that they’ll be lenient about that. I shall make it a point to do so. None of the rest of you need be concerned in it at all.
“Now…” Wolfe looked around at them again “…here comes the hard part. Whoever you are, I can understand your denial and sympathize with it. You looked through the door—doubtless on account of a noise you had heard—and saw a man of your race standing by the screen, and some forty minutes later, when you learned what had happened, you knew that man had murdered Laszio. Or at the least, strongly suspected it. You not only knew that the murderer was a black man, you probably recognized him, since he wore the Kanawha Spa livery and was therefore a fellow employee, and he directly faced you as you looked through the door. And that presents another complication. If he is a man who is close to you and has a place in your heart, I presume you’ll hold to your denial in spite of anything I may say and the sheriff may do. In that event your colleagues here will share a lot of discomfort with you, but that can’t be helped.
“But if he is not personally close to you, if you have refused to expose him only because he is a fellow man—or more particularly because he is of your color—I’d like to make some remarks. First the fellow man. That’s nonsense. It was realized centuries ago that it is impossible for a man to protect himself against murder, because it’s extremely easy to kill a man, so it was agreed that men should protect each other. But if I help protect you, you must help protect me, whether you like me or not. If you don’t do your part you’re out of the agreement; you’re an outlaw.
“But this murderer was a black man, and you’re black too. I confess that makes it ticklish. The agreements of human society embrace not only protection against murder, but thousands of other things, and it is certainly true that in America—not to mention other continents—the whites have excluded the blacks from some of the benefits of those agreements. It i
s said that the exclusion has sometimes even extended to murder—that in parts of this country a white man may kill a black one, if not with impunity, at least with a good chance of escaping the penalty which the agreement imposes. That’s bad. It’s deplorable, and I don’t blame black men for resenting it. But you are confronted with a fact, not a theory, and how do you propose to change it?
“I am talking to you who saw that man by the screen. If you shield him because he is dear to you, or for any valid personal reason, I have nothing to say, because I don’t like futile talk, and you’ll have to fight it out with the sheriff. But if you shield him because he is your color, there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate and aggravate the very exclusions which you justly resent. The ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded; anyone helping to preserve those distinctions is postponing that ideal; and you are certainly helping to preserve them. If in a question of murder you permit your action to be influenced by the complexion of the man who committed it, no matter whether you yourself are white or pink or black—”
“You’re wrong!”
It was a sharp explosion from the mouth of the muscular kid with the flat nose, the college boy. Some of them jumped, I was startled, and everybody looked at him.
Wolfe said, “I think I can justify my position, Mr. Whipple. If you’ll let me complete—”
“I don’t mean your position. You can have your logic. I mean your facts. One of them.”
Wolfe lifted his brows. “Which one?”
“The complexion of the murderer.” The college boy was looking him straight in the eye. “He wasn’t a black man. I saw him. He was a white man.”
11
RIGHT AWAY I GOT another shock. It was another explosion—this time something crashing to the floor. It took our attention away from the college boy, until we saw it was Boney, the tall skinny one by the wall, who had been lulled to sleep by Wolfe’s oration, and, partly awakened by the electricity of Whipple’s announcement, had jerked himself off balance and toppled over. He started to grumble and Crabtree glared him out of it. There was a general stir.
Wolfe asked softly, “You saw the man by the screen, Mr. Whipple?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When he was standing by the screen. It was I who opened the door and looked through.”
“Indeed. And you say he was white?”
“No.” Whipple’s gaze was steadfast at Wolfe; he hadn’t turned at the sound of Boney’s crash. “I didn’t say he was white, I said he was a white man. When I saw him he was black, because he had blacked himself up.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I saw him. Do you think I can’t tell burnt cork from the real thing? I’m a black man myself. But that wasn’t all. As you said, he was holding his finger against his lips, and his hand was different. It wouldn’t have taken a black man to see that. He had on tight black gloves.”
“Why did you go to the pantry hall and look through the door?”
“I heard a noise in the dining room. Grant wanted some paprika for the oeufs au cheval, and the can was empty, and I went to the cupboard in the hall for a fresh can. That was how I happened to hear the noise. They were making a lot of racket in the kitchen and didn’t hear it in there. I was up on the ladder steps looking for the paprika, and after I found it and got down I opened the door a crack to see what the noise had been.”
“Did you enter the dining room?”
“No.”
Wolfe slowly wiggled a finger. “May I suggest, Mr. Whipple, that the truth is usually good, and lies are sometimes excellent, but a mixture of the two is an abomination?”
“I’m telling the truth and nothing else.”
“You didn’t before. Since the murderer wasn’t a colored man, why not?”
“Because I’ve learned not to mix up in the affairs of the superior race. If it had been a colored man I would have told. Colored men have got to stop disgracing their color and leave that to white men. You see how good your logic was.”
“But my dear sir. That doesn’t impugn my logic, it merely shows that you agree with me. We must discuss it some time. Then you withheld this fact because you considered it white men’s business and none of yours, and you knew if you divulged it you’d be making trouble for yourself.”
“Plenty of trouble. You’re a northerner—”
“I’m a man, or try to be. You’re studying me; you’re an anthropologist. You expect to be a scientist. Give me a considered answer: how sure are you that it was a white man?”
Whipple considered. In a moment he said, “Not sure at all. Burnt cork would look like that on a light brown skin or even a rather dark one, and of course anyone can wear black gloves. But I’m sure about the burnt cork or something similar, and I’m sure about the gloves, and I don’t see why a colored man should be painting the lily. Therefore I took it for granted he was a white man, but of course I’m not sure.”
“It seems a safe deduction. What was he doing when you saw him?”
“Standing at the end of the screen, turning around. He must have seen me by accident; he couldn’t have heard me. That door is noiseless, and I only opened it two or three inches, and there was quite a lot of sound from the radio in the parlor, though the door was closed.”
“He was wearing the Kanawha Spa livery?”
“Yes.”
“What about his hair?”
“He had a livery cap on. I couldn’t see the back of his head.”
“Describe him, height, weight…”
“He was medium. I would guess five feet eight or nine, and a hundred and fifty-five or sixty. I didn’t inspect him much. I saw at once that he was blacked up, and when he put his finger to his lips I thought he was one of the guests doing a stunt, probably a practical joke, and I supposed the noise I had heard was him jolting the screen or something. I let the door come shut and came away. As I did that, he was starting to turn.”
“Toward the table?”
“I would say, toward the door to the terrace.”
Wolfe pursed his lips. Then he opened them: “You thought it was a guest playing a joke. If you had tried to decide who it was, which guest would you have picked?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come, Mr. Whipple. I’m merely trying for general characteristics. Longheaded or round?”
“You asked me to name him. I couldn’t name that man. I couldn’t identify him. He was blacked up and his cap was pulled low. I think he had light-colored eyes. His face was neither round nor long, but medium. I only saw him one second.”
“What about your feeling? Would you say that you had a feeling that you had ever seen him before?”
The college boy shook his head. “The only feeling I had was that I didn’t want to interfere in a white man’s joke. And afterwards, that I didn’t want to interfere in a white man’s murder.”
The foam on Wolfe’s glass of beer was all gone. Wolfe picked it up, frowned at it, and carried it to his mouth and gulped five times, and set it down empty.
“Well.” He put his eyes on Whipple again. “You must forgive me, sir, if I remind you that this story has been extracted from you against your will. I hope you haven’t blacked it up—or whitewashed it. When you returned to the kitchen, did you tell anyone what you had seen?”
“No, sir.”
“The unusual circumstances of a stranger in the dining room, in Kanawha Spa livery, blacked up with black gloves—you didn’t think that worth mentioning?”
“No, sir.”
“You damn fool, Paul.” It was Crabtree, and he sounded irritated. “You think we ain’t as much man as you are?” He turned to Wolfe. “This boy is awful conceited. He’s got a good heart hid from people’s eyesight, but his head’s fixin’ to bust. He’s going to pack all the burden. No, sir. He came back to the kitchen and told us right off, just the sa
me as he’s told it here. We all heard it, passing it around. And for something more special about that, you might ask Moulton there.”
The headwaiter with the chopped-off ear jerked around at him. “You talking, Crabby?”
The runt met his stare. “You heard me. Paul spilled it, didn’t he? I didn’t see anybody put you away on a shelf to save up for the Lord.”
Moulton grunted. He stared at Crabtree some more seconds, then shrugged and turned to Wolfe and was again smooth and suave. “What he’s referring to, I was about to tell you when Paul got through. I saw that man too.”
“The man by the screen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How was that?”
“It was because I thought Paul was taking too long to find the paprika, and I went to the pantry hall after him. When I got there he was just turning away from the door, and he motioned to the dining room with his thumb and said somebody was in there. I didn’t know what he meant; of course I knew Mr. Laszio was there, and I pushed the door a little to take a look. The man’s back was toward me; he was walking toward the door to the terrace; so I couldn’t see his face but I saw his black gloves, and of course I saw the livery he had on. I let the door come shut and asked Paul who it was, and he said he didn’t know, he thought it was one of the guests blacked up. I sent Paul to the kitchen with the paprika, and opened the door another crack and looked through, but the man wasn’t in sight, so I opened the door wider, thinking to ask Mr. Laszio if he wanted anything. He wasn’t by the table. I went on through, and he wasn’t anywhere. That looked funny, because I knew how the tasting was supposed to be done, but I can’t say I was much surprised.”
“Why not?”
“Well, sir … you’ll allow me to say that these guests have acted very individual from the beginning.”
“Yes, I’ll allow that.”
“Yes, sir. So I just supposed Mr. Laszio had gone to the parlor or somewhere.”
“Did you look behind the screen?”
“No, sir. I didn’t see any call for a posse.”
