Trouble in Triplicate

by Rex Stout

  “And I’m afraid,” Wolfe said politely, “you couldn’t hire me for that.” He glanced at the clock. “I world advise against your consulting even your wife. An undetected murder is strictly a one-man job. Her advice, sir, is sound. Are you going to take it?”

  “No.” Eugene sounded as stubborn as she said he was.

  “Are you going to kill Mr. Blaney?”

  “No.”

  “Do you still want to pay me five thousand dollars?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Mrs. Poor, who was rapidly becoming Martha to me, tried to horn in, but bigger and louder people than her had failed at that when orchid time was at hand.

  Wolfe ignored her and went on to him, “I advise you against that too, under the circumstances. Here are the circumstances-Archie, take your notebook. Make a receipt reading, ‘Received from Eugene R. Poor five thousand dollars, in return for which I agree, in case he dies within one year, to give the police the information he has given me today, and to take any further action that may seem to me advisable.’ Sign my name and initial it as usual. Get all details from Mr. Poor.” Wolfe pushed back his chair and got the levers of his muscles in position to hoist the bulk.

  Eugene’s eyes were moist with tears, but they came, not from emotion, but from smoke from his second cigar. In fact, throughout the interview his nervousness seemed to concentrate on his cigar. He had dropped it twice, and the smoke seemed determined to go down the wrong way and make him cough. But he was able to speak all right.

  “That’s no good,” he objected. “You don’t even say what kind of action. At least you ought to say-”

  “I advised you against it under the circumstances.” Wolfe was on his feet. “Those, sir, are the circumstances. That’s all I’ll undertake. Suit yourself.” He started to move.

  But Eugene had another round to fire. His hand went into a pocket and came out full of folded money. “I hadn’t mentioned,” he said, displaying the pretty objects, “that I brought it in cash. Speaking of income tax, if you’re up to the ninety percent bracket, getting it in cash would make it a lot more-”

  Wolfe’s look stopped him. “Pfui,” Wolfe said. He hadn’t had as good a chance to show off for a month. “I am not a common cheat, Mr. Poor. Not that I am a saint. Given adequate provocation, I might conceivably cheat a man-or a woman or even a child. But you are suggesting that I cheat, not a man or woman or child, but a hundred and forty million of my fellow citizens. Bah.” We stared at his back as he left, as he knew we would, and in a moment we heard the sound of his elevator door opening.

  I flipped to a fresh page in my notebook and turned to Eugene and Martha. “To refresh your memory,” I said, “the name is Archie Goodwin, and I’m the one that does the work around here. I am also, Mr. Poor, an admirer of your wife.”

  He nearly dropped his cigar again. “You’re what?”

  “I admire your wife as an advice-giver. She has learned one of the most important rules, that far as life falls short of perfection it is more fun outside the grave than in it. With over two hundred thousand bucks-”

  “I’ve had enough advice,” he said as if he meant it. “My mind is made up.”

  “Okay.” I got the notebook in position. “Give me everything you think we’ll need. First, basic facts. Home and business addresses?”

  It took close to an hour, so it was nearly five o’clock when they left. I found him irritating and therefore kept my prejudice intact. I wondered later what difference it would have made in my attitude if I had known that in a few hours he would be dead. Even if you take the line that he had it coming to him, which would be easy to justify, at least it would have made the situation more interesting. But during that hour, as far as I knew, they were just a couple of white-livers, scared stiff by a false alarm named Blaney, so it was merely another job.

  I was still typing from my notes when at six o’clock, after the regulation two hours in the plant rooms, Wolfe came down to the office. He got fixed in his chair, rang for Fritz to bring beer, and demanded, “Did you take that man’s money?”

  I grinned at him. Up to his old tricks. I had been a civilian again for only a week, and here he was already treating me like a hireling just as he had for years, acting as if I had never been a colonel, as in fact I hadn’t, but anyway I had been a major.

  I asked him, “What do you think? If I say I took it, you’ll claim that your attitude as you left plainly indicated that he had insulted you and you wouldn’t play. If I say I refused it, you’ll claim I’ve done you out of a fee. Which do you prefer?”

  He abandoned it. “Did you word the receipt properly?”

  “No, sir. I worded it the way you told me to. The loot is in the safe and I’ll deposit it tomorrow. I told him you’d prefer a check, but he said there it was, he had taken the trouble to get it, why not take it? He still thinks you’ll forget to report it to your hundred and forty million fellow citizens. By the way, if Blaney does perform I’m going to marry the widow. Something unforeseen has happened. I have an ironclad rule that if the ankles are more than half as big around as the calves that settles it, I am absolutely not interested. But you saw her legs, and in spite of them I would rate her-”

  “I did not see her legs. Do your typing. I like to hear you typing. If you are typing you can’t talk.” To humor him I typed, which as it turned out was just as well, since that neat list of facts was going to be needed before bedtime. It was finished when Fritz entered at eight o’clock to announce dinner, the main item of which was a dish called by Wolfe and Fritz “Cassoulettes Castelnaudary,” but by me boiled beans. I admit they were my favorite beans, which is saying something. The only thing that restrained me at all was my advance knowledge of the pumpkin pie to come. Back in the office, where the clock said nine-forty, I was just announcing my intention of catching a movie by the tail at the Rialto when the phone rang. It was Inspector Cramer, whose voice I hadn’t heard for weeks, asking for Wolfe. Wolfe picked up his receiver, and I stuck to mine so as to get it firsthand.

  “Wolfe? Cramer. I’ve got a paper here, taken from the pocket of a dead man, a receipt for five thousand dollars, signed by you, dated today. It says you have information to give the police if he dies. All right, he’s dead. I don’t ask you to come up here, because I know you wouldn’t, and I’m too busy to go down there. What’s the information?”

  Wolfe grunted. “What lolled him?”

  “An explosion. Just give-”

  “Did it kill his wife too?”

  “Naw, she’s okay, only overcome, you know. Just give-”

  “I haven’t got the information. Mr. Goodwin has it. Archie?”

  I spoke up. “It would take quite a while, Inspector, and I’ve got it all typed. I can run up there-”

  “All right, come ahead. The Poor apartment on Eighty-fourth Street. The number is-”

  “I know the number. I know everything. Sit down and rest till I get there.”

  II

  In the living room of an apartment on the sixth floor, on Eighty-fourth near Amsterdam Avenue, I stood and looked down at what was left of Eugene Poor. All I really recognized was the gray herringbone suit and the shirt and tie, on account of what the explosion had done to his face, and also on that account I didn’t look much, for while I may not be a softy I see no point in prolonged staring at a face that has entirely stopped being a face.

  I asked Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who was sticking close by me, apparently to see that I didn’t swipe Eugene’s shoes, “You say a cigar did that to him?”

  Purley nodded. “Yeah, so the wife says. He lit a cigar and it blew up.”

  “Huh. I don’t believe it. Yes, I guess I do too, if she says so. They make novelties. Now, that’s a novelty.” I looked around. The room was full of what you would expect, assorted snoops, all doing the chores, from print collectors up to inspectors, or at least one inspector, namely Cramer himself, who sat at a table near a wall reading the script I had brought him. Most of them I knew, at leas
t by sight, but there was one complete stranger. She was in a chair in a far corner, being questioned by a homicide dick named Rowcliff. Being trained to observe details even when under a strain, I had caught at a glance some of her outstanding characteristics, such as youth, shapeliness, and shallow depressions at the temples, which happen to appeal to me.

  I aimed a thumb in her direction and asked Purley, “Bystander, wife’s sister, or what?”

  He shook his head. “God knows. She came to call just after we got here and we want to know what for.”

  “I hope Rowcliff doesn’t abuse her. I would enjoy a murder where Rowcliff was the one that got it, and so would you.”

  I strolled over to the corner and stopped against them, and the girl and the dick looked up. “Excuse me,” I told her, “when you get through here will you kindly call on Nero Wolfe at this address?” I handed her a card. The temples were even better close up. “Mr. Wolfe is going to solve this murder.”

  Rowcliff snarled. He always snarled. “Get away from here and stay away.”

  Actually he was helpless, because the inspector had sent for me and he knew it.

  I ignored him and told the temples, “If this person takes that card away from you;, it’s in the phone book, Nero Wolfe,” I left them and crossed over to Cramer at the table, dodging photographers and other scientists on the way.

  Cramer didn’t look up, so I asked the top of his head, “Where’s Mrs. Poor?”

  He growled, “Bedroom.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “The hell you do.” He jiggled the sheets I had brought him to even the edges. “Sit down.”

  I sat down and said, “I want to see our client.”

  “So you’ve got a client?”

  “Sure we have, didn’t you see that receipt?”

  He grunted. “Give her a chance. I am. Let her get herself together. Don’t touch that!”

  I was only moving a hand to point at a box of cigars there on the table, with the lid closed. I grinned at him. “The more the merrier. I mean fingerprints. But if that’s the box the loaded one came from, you ought to satisfy my curiosity. He smoked two cigars this afternoon at the office.”

  He shot me a glance, then got out his penknife and opened the lid and lifted the paper flap. It was a box of twenty-five and twenty-four of them were still there. Only one gone. I inspected at close range, sat back, and nodded. “They’re the same. They not only look it, but the bands say Alta Vista. There would be two of those bands still in the ash tray down at the office if Fritz wasn’t so neat.” I squinted again at the array in the box. “They certainly look kosher. Do you suppose they’re all loaded?”

  “I don’t know. The laboratory can answer that one.” He closed the box with the tip of his knife. “Damn orders anyhow.” He tapped the papers with his finger. “This is awful pat. The wife let out a hint or two, and I’ve sent for Blaney. I hope to God it’s a wrap-up, and maybe it is. How did Poor seem this afternoon, scared, nervous, what?”

  “Mostly stubborn. Mind made up.”

  “What about the wife?”

  “Stubborn too. She wanted him to get out from under and go on breathing. She thought they could be as happy as larks on the income from a measly quarter of a million.”

  The next twenty minutes was a record. Inspector Cramer and me conversing without a single ugly remark. It lasted that long only because of various interruptions from his army. The last one, toward the end, was from Rowcliff walking up to the table to say: “Do you want to talk to this young woman, Inspector?”

  “How do I know? What about her?”

  “Her name is Helen Vardis. She’s an employee of Poor’s firm, Blaney and Poor-been with them four years. At first she showed signs of hysteria and then calmed down. First she said she just happened to come here. Then she saw what that was worth and said she came to see Poor by appointment, at his request, on a confidential matter, and wants us to promise not to tell Blaney because she would lose her job.”

  “What confidential matter?”

  “She won’t say. That’s what I’ve been working on.”

  “Work on it some more. She’s got all night.”

  “Yes, sir. Goodwin gave her Nero Wolfe’s card and told her to go to see him.”

  “Oh, he did. Go and work on her.” Rowcliff left and Cramer glared at me. “You did?”

  I looked hurt. “Certainly. Don’t we have to do something to earn that five grand?”

  “I don’t know why, since you’ve already got it. How would you like to go somewhere else? Next thing you’ll be liberating this box of cigars or maybe the corpse, and I can’t spare a squad to watch-now what?”

  There was a commotion at the outer door, and it came on through the foyer into the living room in the shape of a municipal criminologist gripping the arm of a wild-eyed young man who apparently didn’t want to be gripped. They were both talking, or at least making noises. It was hard to tell whether they were being propelled by the young man pulling or the cop pushing.

  Cramer boomed, “Doyle! What the hell? Who is that?”

  The young man goggled around, declaiming, “I have a right-oh!”

  It might have been supposed that what had stopped him was the sight of Poor’s body, especially the face, but his eyes weren’t aimed that way. They were focused toward the far corner where Rowcliff was working on the girl. She was focusing back at him, rising slowly to her feet, her lips moving without opening. They stared at each other long enough to count ten, with everyone else in the room knocking off to watch the charade.

  The young man said, as if he was conveying information, “There you are.”

  She said, as if she didn’t need any information from snakes or rats, “You didn’t lose any time, did you? Now you think you can have her, don’t you?”

  He held the stare, showing no reaction except clamping his jaw, and their audience sat tight. In a moment he seemed to realize it was rather a public performance, and his head started to pivot, doing a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. It was a good thorough job of looking, without any waver or pause, so far as I could see, even when it hit the most sensational item, namely, the corpse. During the process his eyes lost their wild look entirely, and when he spoke his voice was cool and controlled. It was evident that his mental operations were enough in order for him to pick the most intelligent face in the bunch, since it was to me he put the question.

  “Are you in charge here?”

  I replied, “No. This one. Inspector Cramer.”

  He strode across and looked Cramer in the eye and made a speech. “My name is Joe Groll. I work for Blaney and Poor, factory foreman. I followed that girl, Helen Vardis, when she left home tonight, because I wanted to know where she was going, and came here. The police cars and cops going in and out made me want to ask questions, and finally I got the answer that a man named Poor had been murdered, so I wanted to find out. Where is Blaney? Conroy Blaney, the partner-”

  “I know,” Cramer said, looking disgusted. Naturally he was disgusted, since what he had hoped would be a wrap-up was spilling out in various directions. “We’ve sent for Blaney. Why were you following-”

  “That isn’t true!”

  More diversions. Helen Vardis had busted out of her corner to join the table group, close enough to Joe Groll to touch him, but they weren’t touching. Instead of resuming their staring match, they were both intent on Cramer.

  Looking even more disgusted, Cramer asked her, “What isn’t true?”

  “That he was following me!” Helen was mad clear to her temples and pretty as a picture. “Why should he follow me? He came here to-”

  She bit it off sharp.

  “Yeah,” Cramer said encouragingly. “To what?”

  “I don’t know! But I do know who killed Mr. Poor! It was Martha Davis!”

  “That helps. Who is Martha Davis?”

  Joe Groll said, giving information again, “She means Mrs. Poor. That was her name when she worked in the factor
y, before she got married. She means Mrs. Poor lolled her husband. That’s on account of jealousy. She’s crazy.”

  A quiet but energetic voice came from a new direction. “She certainly is.”

  It was Martha, who emerged from a door at the far end and approached the table.

  She was pale and didn’t seem any too sure of her leg action, but she made her objective all right. She spoke to the girl, with no sign of violent emotion that I could detect, not even resentment. “Helen, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I think you will be when you have calmed down and thought things over. You have no right or reason to talk like that. You accuse me of killing my husband? Why?”

  Very likely Helen would have proceeded to tell her why. She was obviously in the mood for it, and it was one of those set-ups when people blurt things that you couldn’t get out of them an hour later with a stomach pump. Any sap knows that, and Cramer was not quite a sap, so when at that moment a cop entered from the foyer escorting a stranger Cramer motioned with his hand for them to back out. But the stranger was not a backer-out. He came on straight to the table and, since the arrangement showed plainly that Cramer was it, addressed the inspector.

  “I’m Conroy Blaney. Where’s Gene Poor?”

  Not that he was aggressive or in any way overwhelming. His voice was a tenor squeak and it fitted his looks. I could have picked him up and set him down again without grunting; he had an undersized nose and not much chin, and he was going bald. But in spite of all those handicaps his sudden appearance had a remarkable effect. Martha Poor simply turned and left the room. The expressions on the faces of Helen Vardis and Joe Groll changed completely; they went deadpan in one second flat. I saw at once that there would be no more blurting, and so did Cramer.

  As for Blaney, he looked around, saw the body of his partner on the floor, stepped toward it and gazed down at it, and squeaked, “Good heavens. Good heavens! Who did it?”

  III

  Next morning at eleven o’clock, when Wolfe came down to the office after his two-hour morning session up in the plant rooms, I made my report. He took it, as usual, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, with no visible sign of consciousness. The final chapter was the details given me by Martha Poor, with whom I had managed to have a talk around midnight by pressing Cramer on the client angle and wearing him down. I gave it to Wolfe.