by Rex Stout
When they got it settled and the commercial started Susan turned to me. “Shall I leave it on for the news?”
“Sure, might as well, I haven’t heard the baseball scores.”
I never did hear them, not on that TV set. It was Bill Brundage, the one who has the trick of rolling his eyes up, pretending he’s looking for a word, when it’s right there in front of him and everybody knows it. I listened with one ear while he gave us the latest on the budget, Secretary Dulles, a couple of Senatorial investigations, and so forth, and then suddenly he got both ears.
“The body of Corey Brigham, well-known socialite and man-about-town, was found this afternoon in a car parked on Thirty-ninth Street near Seventh Avenue. According to the police, he had been shot in the chest. The body was on the floor of the car in front of the rear seat, covered with a rug. It was discovered when a boy saw the toe of a shoe at the edge of the rug and notified a policeman. The windows of the car were closed and there was no gun in the car. Mr. Corey Brigham lived at the Churchill Towers. He was a bachelor and was a familiar figure in society circles and in the amusement world.”
Susan’s fingers had gripped my arm, with more muscle than I would have guessed she had. Apparently just realizing it, she took her hand back and said, “I beg your pardon.” Her voice was low, as always, and Bill Brundage was talking, but I caught it, and that’s what she said. I reached across her lap to the chair on the other side and flipped the switch on the control box.
“Corey Brigham?” she said. “He said Corey Brigham, didn’t he?”
“He certainly did.” I got up, went to the door, turned on lights, and came back. “I’m going to tell Mr. Jarrell. Do you want to come?”
“What?” Her face tilted up. It was shocked. “Oh, of course, tell them. You tell them.”
Evidently she wasn’t coming, so I left her. Going along the corridor I was thinking that the news might not be news to one of them. It was even possible that it hadn’t been news to Susan. At the card table in the lounge they were in the middle of a hand, and I went and stood by until the last trick was raked in.
“I wasted my queen, damn it,” Jarrell said. He turned to me. “Anything new, Goodwin?”
“Not from the district attorney,” I told him. “Just routine, about the last time I saw Jim Eber-and for me the only time. Now he’ll be asking about the last time I saw Corey Brigham. You too. All of you.”
I had three of their faces: Jarrell, Trella, and Wyman. Nora was shuffling. None of them told me anything. There was no point in prolonging it, so I went on. “Something new on TV just now. The body of Corey Brigham has been found in a parked car. Shot. Murdered.”
Jarrell said, “Good God. No!” Nora stopped shuffling and her head jerked to me. Trella’s blue eyes stretched at me. Wyman said, “You wouldn’t be pulling a gag, would you?”
“No gag. Your wife was there, I mean in the studio. She heard it.”
Wyman shoved his chair back and was up and gone. Jarrell demanded, “Found in a car? Whose car?”
“I don’t know. For what I do know I’ll give you the broadcast verbatim. I’m good at that.” I did so, not trying to copy Bill Brundage’s delivery, just his words. At the end I added, “Now you know all I know.”
Trella spoke. “You said he was murdered. That didn’t say murder. He might have shot himself.”
I shook my head. “No gun in the car.”
“Anyway,” Nora said, “he wouldn’t have got under a rug. If Corey Brigham was going to shoot himself he would do it in the dining room of the Penguin Club.” It wasn’t as mean as it reads; she was merely stating a fact.
“He had no family,” Trella said. “I guess we were his closest friends. Shouldn’t you do something, Otis?”
“You don’t need me,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to break up your game.” To Jarrell: “I’ll be with Mr. Wolfe, in case.”
“No.” He was emphatic. “I want you here.”
“You’ll soon be too busy here to bother with me. First your former secretary, and now your friend Brigham. I’m afraid that calls for officious prying, and I’d rather not be in the way.”
I moved, and I didn’t mosey. I was surprised that someone hadn’t already come, since they had got sufficiently interested in the Jarrells to collect miscellaneous facts and the collection must have included the name of Corey Brigham. The one who came might be Lieutenant Rowcliff-it was his kind of errand; and while I liked nothing better than twisting Rowcliff’s ear, I wasn’t in the humor for it at the moment. I wanted a word with Wolfe before twisting anybody’s ear, even Rowcliff’s. So I didn’t mosey, leaving the premises, crossing the avenue, and getting a taxi headed downtown.
When I entered the office Wolfe was there alone, no Orrie on Sunday, and one glance at him was enough. He had a book in his hand, with a finger inserted to keep his place, but he wasn’t reading, and a good caption for a picture of the face he turned to me would have been The Gathering Storm.
“So,” I said, crossing to his desk, “I see I don’t bring news. You’ve already heard it.”
“I have,” he growled. “Where were you?”
“Watching television with Susan. We heard it together. I notified Jarrell and his wife and Wyman and Nora Kent. Lois and Roger Foote weren’t here. Nobody screamed. Then I beat it to come and get instructions. If I had stayed I wouldn’t have known whether the time has come to let the cat out or not. Do you?”
“No.”
“Do you mean you don’t know or the time hasn’t come?”
“Both.”
I swiveled my chair around and sat. “That’s impossible. If I said a thing like that you’d say I had a screw loose, only you never use that expression. I’ll put it in its simplest terms. Do you wish to speak to Cramer?”
“No. I’ll speak to Mr. Cramer only when it is requisite.” The gathering storm had cleared some. “Archie. I’m glad you came. I confess I needed you, to say no to. Now that I have said it, I can read.” He opened the book. “I will speak to no one on the phone, and no one will enter my door, until I have more facts.” His eyes went to the book and he was reading.
I was glad he was glad I had come, but I wasn’t glad, if I make myself clear. I might as well have stayed up there and twisted Rowcliff’s ear.
Chapter 11
I SLEPT IN MY own bed that night for the first time in nearly a week.
That was a very interesting period, Sunday evening and part of Monday. I suppose you noticed what Wolfe said, that he would see no one and hear no one until he had more facts. Exactly how he thought he would get facts, under the conditions he imposed, seeing or hearing no one, I couldn’t say. Maybe by ESP or holding a seance. However, by noon on Monday it had become evident that he hadn’t meant it that way. What he had really meant was that he wanted no facts. If he had seen a fact coming he would have shut his eyes, and if he had heard one coming he would have stuck fingers in his ears.
So it was a very interesting period. There he was, a practicing private detective with no other source of income except selling a few orchid plants now and then, with a retainer of ten grand in cash in the safe, with a multi-millionaire client with a bad itch, with a fine fat fee in prospect if he got a move on and did some first-class detecting; and he was afraid to stay in the same room with me for fear I would tell him something. He wouldn’t talk with Jarrell on the phone. He wouldn’t turn on the radio or television. I even suspected that he didn’t read the Times Monday morning, though I can’t swear to that because he reads the Times at breakfast, which is taken up to his room by Fritz on a tray. He was a human ostrich with his head stuck in the sand, in spite of the fact that he resembles an ostrich in physique less than any other human I know of with the possible exception of Jackie Gleason.
All there was to it, he was in a panic. He was scared stiff that any minute a fact might come bouncing in that would force him to send me down to Cramer bearing gifts, and there was practically nothing on earth he wouldn’t rather do, even eati
ng ice cream with cantaloupe or putting horseradish on oysters.
I understood how he felt, and I even sympathized with him. On the phone with Jarrell, both Sunday evening and Monday morning, I did my best to string him along, telling him that Wolfe was sitting tight, which he was, God knows, and explaining why it was better for me to be out of the way, at least temporarily. It wasn’t too bad. Lieutenant Rowcliff had called on the Jarrell family, as I had expected, but hadn’t been too nasty about the coincidence that two of Jarrell’s associates, his former secretary and a close friend, had got it within a week. He had been nasty, of course-Rowcliff would be nasty to Saint Peter if he ever got near him; but he hadn’t actually snarled.
But although I sympathized with Wolfe, I’m not a genius like him, and if I was sliding into a hole too deep to crawl out of I wanted to know about it in time to get a haircut and have my pants pressed before my appearance in the line-up. Of the half a dozen possible facts that could send me over the edge there was one in particular that I wanted very much to get a line on, but it wasn’t around. None of the newscasts mentioned it, Sunday night or Monday morning. It wasn’t in the Monday morning papers. Lon Cohen didn’t have it. There were four guys-one at headquarters, one on the DA’s staff, and two on Homicide-for whom I had done favors in the past, who could have had it and who might have obliged me, but with two murders in the stew it was too risky to ask them.
So I was still factless when, ten minutes before noon, the phone rang and I got an invitation to call at the DA’s office at my earliest convenience. Wolfe was still up in the plant rooms. He always came down at eleven o’clock, but hadn’t shown that morning-for fear, as I said, that I would tell him something. I buzzed him on the house phone to tell him where I was going, went out and walked to Ninth Avenue, and took a taxi to Leonard Street.
That time I was kept waiting only a few minutes before I was taken in to Mandelbaum. He was polite, as usual, getting to his feet to shake hands. I was only a private detective, true, but as far as he knew I had committed neither a felony nor a misdemeanor, and the only way an assistant DA can get the “assistant” removed from his title is to have it voted off, making it DA, and I was a voter. The chair for me at the end of his desk was of course placed so I was facing a window.
What he wanted from me was the same as before, things I had seen and heard at Jarrell’s place, but this time concentrating on Corey Brigham instead of James L. Eber. I had to concede that that had now become relevant, and there was more ground to cover since Brigham had been there for dinner and bridge on Monday, and again on Wednesday, and also I might have heard comments about him at other times. Mandelbaum was patient, and thorough, and didn’t try to be tricky. He did double back a lot, but doubling back has been routine for so many centuries that you can’t call it a trick. I didn’t mention one of my contacts with Brigham, the conference at Wolfe’s office Friday afternoon, and to my surprise he didn’t either. I would have thought they would have dug that up by now, but apparently not.
After he told the stenographer to go and type the statement, and she went, I stood up. “It will take her quite a while,” I said. “I have to run a couple of errands, and I’ll drop in later and sign it. If you don’t mind.”
“Quite all right. Certainly. If you make it today. Say by five o’clock.”
“Oh, sure.” I turned to go, and turned back, and grinned at him. “By the way, you may have noticed that I didn’t live up to my reputation for wisecracks.”
“Yes, I noticed that. Maybe you’re running out.”
“I hope not. I’ll do better next time. I guess my mind was too busy with something I had just heard-about the bullets.”
“What bullets?”
“Why, the two bullets. Haven’t you got that yet? That the bullet that killed Eber and the one that killed Brigham were fired by the same gun?”
“I thought that was-” He stopped. “Where did you hear that?”
I gave him another grin. “I know, it’s being saved. Don’t worry, I won’t slip it out-I may not even tell Mr. Wolfe. But it won’t keep long, it’s too hot. The guy who told me, it was burning his tongue, and he knows me.”
“Who was it? Who told you?”
“I think it was Commissioner Kelly. There’s a wisecrack, I seem to be recovering. I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Sorry. I’ll be in to sign the statement before five.” I was going. He called after me, wanting to know who had told me, but I said I couldn’t remember, and went.
So the fact was a fact, and I had it. I hadn’t risked anything. If it had turned out not to be a fact, and his reaction would have shown it, it could have been that someone had been stringing me, and of course I wouldn’t have remembered who. Okay, I had it. If Wolfe had known what I was bringing home with me he would probably have locked himself in his room and not answered the phone, and I would have had to yell through the door.
He had just sat down to lunch-red snapper filets baked in butter and lemon juice and almonds-so I had to hold it. Even without the rule that business was taboo at the table, I wouldn’t have had the heart to rain his meal. But I still might want time to get a haircut and have my pants pressed, so as soon as we had crossed to the office and coffee had been poured I spoke. “I hate to bring it up right after lunch, but I think you ought to know. We’re out of the frying pan. We’re in the fire. At least that is my opinion.”
He usually takes three little sips of coffee at its hottest before putting the cup down, but that time, knowing my tones of voice, he took only two.
“Opinion?”
“Yes, sir. It may be only that because it’s an inference. For more than an hour Mandelbaum asked me what I had seen and heard from, by, to, and about Corey Brigham. I said I’d drop in later to sign the statement, got up to go, and said something. So you can form your own opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
I did so. His frown at the start was a double-breasted scowl at the end. He said nothing, he just scowled. It isn’t often that his feelings are too strong for words.
“If you want to,” I said, “you can be sore at me for fishing it up. If I hadn’t worked that on him it would have been another day, possibly two, before you had to face it. But you can be sore and use your mind at the same time, I’ve seen you, and it looks to me as if a mind is needed. I’m assuming that your opinion is the same as mine.”
He snorted. “Opinion? Bah. He might as well have certified it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s a simpleton. He should have known you were gulling him.”
“Yes, sir. You can be sore at him.”
“Soreness won’t help. Nor will it help to use my mind-supposing that I have one. This is disaster. There is only one forlorn issue to raise: whether we should verify it before we act, and if so how.”
“If you had been there I doubt if you would think it was necessary. If you could have seen his face when he said ‘I thought that was-’ and chopped it off.”
“No doubt. He’s a simpleton.”
He flattened his palms on his desk and stared into space. That didn’t look promising. It didn’t mean he was using his mind; when he uses his mind he leans back and closes his eyes, and when he’s hard at it his lips go in and out. So he wasn’t working. He was merely getting set to swallow a pill that would taste bad even after it was down and dissolved. It took him a full three minutes.
Then he transferred his palms to the chair arms and spoke. “Very well. Your notebook. A letter to Mr. Jarrell, to be delivered at once by messenger. It might be best to take it yourself, to make sure he gets it without delay.”
He took a breath. “Dear Mr. Jarrell. I enclose herewith my check for ten thousand dollars, returning the retainer you paid me in that amount for which I gave you a receipt. My outlay for expenses has not been large and I shall not bill you.
“Paragraph. A circumstance has transpired which makes it necessary for me to report to the proper authority some of the information I have acquired while acting on your
behalf, particularly the disappearance of your Bowdoin thirty-eight revolver. Not being at liberty to specify the circumstance, I will say only that it compels me to take this step in spite of my strong inclination against it. I shall take it later this afternoon, after you have received this letter and the enclosure.
“Paragraph. I assume, naturally, that in this situation you will no longer desire my services and that our association ceases forthwith. In the unlikely event that you-”
He stopped short and I raised my eyes from the notebook. His lips were clamped tight and a muscle at the side of his neck was twitching. He was having a fit.
“No,” he said. “I will not. Tear it up.”
I hadn’t cared much for it myself. I put the pen down, ripped two pages from the notebook, tore them across three times, and dropped them in the wastebasket.
“Get Mr. Cramer,” he said.
I cared for that even less. Apparently he had decided it was too ticklish to wait even a few hours and was going to let go even before notifying the client. Of course that wasn’t unethical, with two murders sizzling, but it was rather unindomitable. I would have liked to take a stand, but in the first place he was in no mood for one of my stands, and in the second place the only alternative was the letter to Jarrell and that had been torn up. So I got Cramer, who, judging from his tone, was in a mood too. He told Wolfe he could give him a minute.
“That may do,” Wolfe said. “You may remember our conversation Saturday. Day before yesterday.”
“Yeah, I remember it. What about it?”
“I said then that if I have reason to think I have information relevant to the crime you’re investigating I am bound to give it to you. I now suspect that I have such information but I want to make sure. To do so I must proceed on the basis of knowledge that has come to me in a peculiar manner and I don’t know if I can rely on it. Mr. Goodwin has learned, or thinks he has, that the markings on the bullet which killed Corey Brigham have been compared with those on the bullet which killed James L. Eber, and that they are identical. I can proceed to verify my suspicion only if I accept that as established, and I decided to consult you. Do you advise me to proceed?”
