by Rex Stout
“J. Edgar Hoover. Have they arrested anybody?”
“No. My God, give ‘em time to sweep up and sit down and think. It was only twelve hours ago. I’ve been thinking ever since I heard your voice just now. What I think, I think it was you who called headquarters last night and told them to go and look, and I’m sore. You should have called me first.”
“I should, at that. Next time. Have they or you or anyone got any kind of a lead?”
“To the murderer, no. So far the most interesting item is that up to a couple of weeks ago he was working for a guy named Otis Jarrell, you know who he is-by God! It was him you phoned me the other day to get dope on!”
“Sure it was. That’s one reason-”
“Is Jarrell Wolfe’s client?”
“For the present, as far as you’re concerned, Wolfe has no client. I was saying, that’s one reason I’m calling now. I thought you might remember I had asked about him, and I wanted to tell you not to trust your memory until further notice. Just go ahead and gather the news and serve the public. You may possibly hear from me someday.”
“Come on up here. I’ll buy you a lunch.”
“I can’t make it, Lon. Sorry. Don’t use any wooden bullets.”
As I pushed the phone back Orrie asked, “What’s an arquebus?”
“Figure it out yourself. A combination of an ark and a bus. Amphibian.”
“Then don’t.” He sat up. “If I’m not supposed to be in on whatever you think you’re doing, okay, but I have a right to know what an arquebus is. Do you want me out of here?”
I told him no, I could think better with him there for contrast.
But he got bounced when Wolfe came down at eleven o’clock. From the kitchen I had buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to tell him I was there, so he wasn’t surprised to see me. He went to his desk, glanced at the morning mail, which was skimpy, straightened his desk blotter, and focused on me. “Well?”
“In my opinion,” I said, “the time has come for a complete report.”
His eyes went over my shoulder to the couch. “If we need you on this, Orrie, you will get all the required information. That can wait.”
“Yes, sir.” Orrie got up and went.
When the door had closed behind him I spoke. “I called Lon Cohen. The bullet that killed Eber is a thirty-eight. Jarrell didn’t know that when he entered my room this morning, knocking but not waiting for an invitation. He only knew what he had heard on the radio at eight o’clock, and I suppose you heard it too. Even so, he badly needed a tranquilizer. When I report in full you’ll know what he said. It ended with his telling me to beat it quick before the cops arrived. He said to tell you he’s still your client and he’ll get in touch with you, and there’s no limit to what your discretion may be worth to him. Me too. My discretion is as good as yours. Now that I know it was a thirty-eight, I have only two alternatives. Either I go down to Homicide and open the bag, or I give you the whole works from the beginning, words and music, and you listen, and then put your mind on it. If I get tossed in the coop for withholding evidence you can’t operate anyhow, with me not here to supervise, so you might as well be with me.”
“Pfui. As I said last night, there is no obligation to report what may be merely a coincidence.” He sighed. However, I concede that I’ll have to listen. As for putting my mind on it, we’ll see. Go ahead.”
It took me two hours. I will not say that I gave him every word that had been pronounced in my hearing since Monday afternoon, four days back, but I came close to it. I left out some of Tuesday evening at Colonna’s with Lois; things that are said between dances, when the band is good and your partner is better than good, are apt to be irrelevant and off key in a working detective’s report. Aside from that I didn’t miss much, and nothing of any importance, and neither did he. If he listens at all, he listens. The only interruptions were the two bottles of beer he rang for, brought by Fritz-both, of course, for Wolfe. The last half hour he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t getting it.
I stood up and stretched and sat down again. “So what it amounts to is that we are to sit it out, nothing to do but eat and sleep, and name our figure.”
“Not an intolerable lot, Archie. The figure you suggested last evening was half a million.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve decided that Billy Graham wouldn’t approve. Say that the chance is one in ten that one of them killed Eber. I think it’s at least fifty-fifty, but even if it’s only one in ten I pass. So do you. You have to. You know darned well it’s one of two things. One is to call it off with Jarrell, back clear out, and hand it over to Cramer. He would appreciate it.”
He made a face. His eyes opened. “What’s the other?”
“You go to work.”
“At what? Investigating the murder of Mr. Eber? No one has hired me to.”
I grinned at him. “No good. You call it quibbling, I call it dodging. The murder is in only because one of them might have done it, with Jarrell’s gun. The question is, do we tell Cramer about the gun. We would rather not. The client would rather not. The only way out, if we’re not going to tell Cramer, is to find out if one of them killed Eber-not to satisfy a judge and jury, just to satisfy us. If they didn’t, to hell with Cramer. If they did, we go on from there. The only way to find out is for you to go to work, and the only way for you to get to work is for me to phone Jarrell and tell him to have them here, all of them, at six o’clock today. What’s wrong with that?”
“You would,” he growled.
“Yes, sir. Of course there’s a complication: me. To them I’m Alan Green, so I can’t be here as Archie Goodwin, but that’s easy. Orrie can be Archie Goodwin, at my desk, and I’ll be Alan Green. Since I was in on the discovery that the gun was gone, I should be present.” I looked up at the wall clock. “Lunch in eight minutes. I should phone Jarrell now.”
I made it slow motion, taking ten seconds to swivel, pull the phone over, lift the receiver, and start dialing, to give him plenty of time to stop me. He didn’t. How could he, after my invincible logic? Nor did he move to take his phone.
Then a voice was in my ear. “Mr. Otis Jarrell’s office.”
It wasn’t Nora, but a male, and I thought I knew what male. I said I was Alan Green and wanted to speak to Mr. Jarrell, and in a moment had him.
“Yes, Green?”
I kept my voice down. “Is anyone else on?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Was that Wyman answering?”
“Yes.”
“He’s there in the office with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’d better let me do the talking and stick to yes and no. I’m here with Mr. Wolfe. Do you know that the bullet that killed Eber is a thirty-eight?”
“No.”
“Well, it is. Have you had any callers?”
“Yes.”
“Anything drastic?”
“No.”
“Ring me later and tell me about it if you want to. I’m calling for Mr. Wolfe. Now that we know it was a thirty-eight, he thinks I should tell the police about your gun. It could be a question of withholding evidence. He feels strongly about it, but he is willing to postpone it, on one condition. The condition is that you have everybody in this office at six o’clock today so he can question them. By everybody he means you, your wife, Wyman, Susan, Lois, Nora Kent, Roger Foote, and Corey Brigham. I’ll be here as Alan Green, your secretary. Another man will be at my desk as Archie Goodwin.”
“I don’t see how-”
“Hold it. I know you’re biting nails, but hold it. You can tell them that Mr. Wolfe will explain why this conference is necessary, and he will. Have you told any of them about your gun being taken?”
“No.”
“Don’t. He will. He’ll explain that when you learned that Eber had been shot with a thirty-eight-that should be on the air by now, and it will be in the e
arly afternoon papers-you were concerned, naturally, and you hired him to investigate, and he insisted on seeing all of you. I know you’ve got objections. You’ll have to swallow them, but if you want help on it get rid of Wyman and Nora and call me back. If you don’t call back we’ll be expecting you, all of you, here at six o’clock.”
“No. I’ll call back.”
“Sure, glad to have you.”
I hung up, turned, and told Wolfe, “You heard all of it except his noes and yeses. Satisfactory?”
“No,” he said, but that was just reflex.
I’ll say one thing for Wolfe, he hates to have anyone else’s meal interrupted almost as much as his own. One of the standing rules in that house is that when we are at table, and nothing really hot is on, Fritz answers the phone in the kitchen, and if it seems urgent I go and get it. There may be something or somebody Wolfe would leave the table for, but I don’t know what or who.
That day Fritz was passing a platter of what Wolfe calls hedgehog omelet, which tastes a lot better than it sounds, when the phone rang, and I told Fritz not to bother and went to the office. It was Jarrell calling back, and he had a lot of words besides yes and no. I permitted him to let off steam until it occurred to me that the omelet would be either cold or shriveled, and then told him firmly that it was either bring them or else. Back at the table, I found that the omelet had had no chance to either cool or shrivel, not with Orrie there to help Wolfe with it. I did get a bite.
We had just started on the avocado, whipped with sugar and lime juice and green chartreuse, when the doorbell rang. During meals Fritz was supposed to get that too, but I thought Jarrell might have rushed down to use more words face-to-face, so I got up and went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass panel in the front door. Having looked, I returned to the dining room and told Wolfe, “One’s here already. The stenographer. Nora Kent.”
He swallowed avocado. “Nonsense. You said six o’clock.”
“Yes, sir. She must be on her own.” The bell rang again. “And she wants in.” I aimed a thumb at Orrie. “Archie Goodwin here can take her to the office and shut the door.”
“Confound it.” He was going to have to work sooner than expected. To Orrie: “You are Archie Goodwin.”
“Yes, sir,” Orrie said. “It’s a comedown, but I’ll try. Do I know her?”
“No. You have never seen or heard of her.” The bell rang again. “Take her to the office and come and finish your lunch.”
He went. He closed the door, but the office was just across the hall, and it might startle her if she heard Alan Green’s voice as she went by, so I used my mouth for an avocado depot only. Sounds came faintly, since the walls and doors on that floor are all soundproofed.
When Orrie entered he shut the door, returned to his place, picked up his spoon, and spoke. “You didn’t say to rub it in that I’m Archie Goodwin, and she didn’t ask, so I didn’t mention it. She said her name was Nora Kent, and she wants to see Mr. Wolfe. How long am I going to be Archie Goodwin?”
I put in. “Mr. Wolfe never talks business at the table, you know that, Orrie. You haven’t been told yet, but you were going to be me at a party later on, and now you can practice. Just sit at my desk and look astute. I’ll have my eye on you. I’ll be at the hole-unless Mr. Wolfe has other plans.”
“No,” Wolfe muttered. “I have no plans.”
The hole, ten inches square, was at eye level in the wall twelve feet to the right of Wolfe’s desk. On the office side it was covered by what appeared to be just a pretty picture of a waterfall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. My longest stretch there was one night when we had four people in the front room waiting for Wolfe to show up (he was in the kitchen chinning with Fritz), and we were expecting and hoping that one of them would sneak into the office to get something from a drawer of Wolfe’s desk, and we wanted to know which one. That time I stood there at that hole more than three hours, and the door from the front room never opened.
This time it was much less than three hours. Orrie waited to open the door to the office until I was around the corner to the wing, so I saw his performance when they went in. As Goodwin he was barely adequate introducing Wolfe to her, hamming it, I thought; and crossing to my desk and sitting, he was entirely out of character, no grace or flair at all. I would have to rehearse him before six o’clock came. I had a good view of him and Nora, but could get Wolfe, in profile, only by sticking my nose into the hole and pressing my forehead against the upper edge.
WOLFE: I’m sorry you had to wait, Miss Kent. It is Miss Kent?
NORA: Yes. I am employed by Mr. Otis Jarrell. His stenographer. I believe you know him.
WOLFE: There is no taboo on beliefs, or shouldn’t be. The right to believe will be the last to go. Proceed.
NORA: You do know Mr. Jarrell?
WOLFE: My dear madam. I have rights too-for instance, the right to decline inquisition by a stranger. You are not here by appointment.
(That was meant to cut. If it did, no blood showed.)
NORA: There wasn’t time to make one. I had to see you at once. I had to ask you why you sent your confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, to take a job with Mr. Jarrell as his secretary.
WOLFE: I wasn’t aware that I had done so. Archie, did I send you to take a job as Mr. Jarrell’s secretary?
ORRIE: No, sir, not that I remember.
NORA: (with no glance at Orrie) He’s not Archie Goodwin. I knew Archie Goodwin the minute I saw him, Monday afternoon. I keep a scrapbook, Mr. Wolfe, a personal scrapbook. Among the things I put in it are pictures of people who have done things that I admire. There are three pictures of you, two from newspapers and one from a magazine, put in at different times, and one of Archie Goodwin. It was in the Gazette last year when you caught that murderer-you remember-Patrick Degan. I knew him the minute I saw him, and after I looked in my scrapbook there was no question about it.
(Orrie was looking straight at the pretty picture of the waterfall, at me though he couldn’t see me, with blood in his eye, and I couldn’t blame him. He had been given to understand that the part was a cinch, that he wouldn’t have to do or say anything to avert suspicion because she wouldn’t have any. And there he was, a monkey. I couldn’t blame him.)
WOLFE: (not visibly fazed, but also a monkey) I am flattered, Miss Kent, to be in your scrapbook. No doubt Mr. Goodwin is also flattered, though he might challenge your taste in having three pictures of me and only one of him. It will save—
NORA: Why did you send him there?
WOLFE: If you please. It will save time, and also breath, to proceed on an assumption, without prejudice. Obviously you’re convinced that Mr. Goodwin took a job as Mr. Jarrell’s secretary, and that I sent him, and it would be futile to try to talk you out of it. So we’ll assume you’re right. I don’t concede it, but I’m willing to assume it for the sake of discussion. What about it?
NORA: I am right! You know it!
WOLFE: No. You may have it as an assumption, but not as a fact. What difference does it make? Let’s get on. Did Mr. Goodwin take the job under his own name?
NORA: Certainly not. You know he didn’t. Mr. Jarrell introduced him to me as Alan Green.
WOLFE: Did you tell Mr. Jarrell that that wasn’t his real name? That you recognized him as Archie Goodwin?
NORA: No.
WOLFE: Why not?
NORA: Because I wasn’t sure what the situation was. I thought that Mr. Jarrell might have hired you to do something and he knew who Green was, but he didn’t want me to know or anyone else. I thought in that case I had better keep it to myself. But now it’s different. Now I think that someone else may have hired you, someone who wanted to know something about Mr. Jarrell’s affairs, and you arranged somehow for Goodwin to take that job, and Mr. Jarrell doesn’t know who he is.
WOLFE: You didn’t have to come to me to settle that. Ask Mr.
Jarrell. Have you?
NORA: No. I told you why. And then-there are reasons…
WOLFE: There often are. If none are at hand we contrive some. A moment ago you said, “But now it’s different.” What changed it?
NORA: You know what changed it. Murder. The murder of Jim Eber. Archie Goodwin has told you all about it.
WOLFE: I’m willing to include that in the assumption. I think, madam, you had better tell me why you came here and what you want-still, of course, on our assumption.
(I said Monday afternoon that she didn’t look her age, forty-seven. She did now. Her gray eyes were just as sharp and competent, and she kept her shoulders just as straight, but she seemed to have creases and wrinkles I hadn’t observed before. Of course it could have been the light angle, or possibly it was looking through the waterfall.)
NORA: If we’re assuming that I’m right, that man (indicating Orrie) can’t be Archie Goodwin, and I don’t know who he is. I haven’t got his picture in my scrapbook. I’ll tell you why I came.
WOLFE: That’s reasonable, certainly. Archie, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave us.
(Poor Orrie. As Orrie Cather he had been chased twice, and now he was chased as Archie Goodwin. His only hope now was to be cast as Nero Wolfe. When he was out and the door shut Nora spoke.)
NORA: All right, I’ll tell you. Right after lunch today I went on an errand, and when I got back Mr. Jarrell told me that the bullet that killed Jim Eber was a thirty-eight. That was all he told me, just that. But I knew why he told me, it was because his own gun is a thirty-eight. He has always kept it in a drawer of his desk. I saw it there Wednesday afternoon. But it wasn’t there Thursday morning, yesterday, and it hasn’t been there since. Mr. Jarrell hasn’t asked me about it, he hasn’t mentioned it. I don’t know-WOLFE: Haven’t you mentioned it?
(Orrie was at my elbow.)
NORA: No. If I mentioned it, and he had taken it himself, he would think I was prying into matters that don’t concern me. I don’t know whether he took it himself or not. But yesterday afternoon a man from Horland’s Protective Agency delivered some pictures that must have been taken by the camera that works automatically when the door of the library is opened. The clock above the door said sixteen minutes past six. The pictures showed the door opening and a rug coming in-just the rug, flat, held up perpendicular, hanging straight down. Of course there was someone behind it. Archie Goodwin looked at the pictures, and of course he has told you all about it.
