Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27 (13 page)

“I’m thinking of Mr. Wolfe’s face when I tell him this. When Stebbins came with the news that Karnow was dead, and therefore the job was up the flue, Mr. Wolfe hinted as far as his dignity would let him that he would consider another job if they had one, but they sidestepped it. So this will upset him. He keeps telling me we mustn’t get discouraged, that some day you will be right about something, but this will be a blow—”

Cramer got up and tramped from the room.

I let Mandelbaum have the tail end of the grin. “Is he getting more sensitive?”

“Someday,” the Assistant DA declared, “certain people are going to decide that Wolfe and you are doing more harm than good, and you won’t have so much fun without a license. I’m too busy to play games. Please beat it.”

When I got back to Thirty-fifth Street, a little after noon, Wolfe was at his desk, fiddling with stacks of cards from the files, plant germination records. I asked if he wanted a report of my visit with Mandelbaum and Cramer, and he said none was needed because he had
talked with Cramer and knew the nature of his current befuddlement. I said I had met Karnow’s relatives and also his lawyer, and would he care for my impressions, and got no reply but a rude grunt, so I passed it and went to my desk to finish some chores that had been interrupted by Stebbins’ phone call. I had just started in when the doorbell rang, and I went to the hall to answer it.

Caroline Karnow was there on the stoop. I went and opened the door, and she stepped in.

“I want to see Mr. Wolfe,” she blurted, and proved it by going right on, to the office door and in. I am supposed to block visitors until I learn if Wolfe will see them, but it would have taken a flying tackle, and I let her go and merely followed. By the time I got there she was in the red leather chair as if she owned it.

Wolfe, a germination card in each hand, was scowling at her.

“They’ve arrested him,” she said. “For murder.”

“Naturally,” Wolfe growled.

“But he didn’t do it!”

“Also naturally. I mean naturally you would say that.”

“But it’s true! I want you to prove it.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not required. They must prove he did. You’re all tight, madam. Too tight. Have you eaten today?”

“Good lord,” she said, “all you two think about is eating. Last night him, and now—” She started to laugh, at first a sort of gurgle, and then really out with it. I got up and went to her, took her head between my hands to turn her face up, and kissed her on the lips unmistakably. With some customers that is more satisfactory than a slap, and just as effective. I paid no attention to her first convulsive jerks, and released her
head only when she quit shaking and got hold of my hair. I pulled loose and backed up a step.

“What on earth—” She gasped.

I decided she had snapped out of it, went to the kitchen and asked Fritz to bring crackers and milk and hot coffee, and returned. As I sat at my desk she demanded, “Did you have to do that?”

“Look,” I said, “evidently you came to get Mr. Wolfe to help you. He can’t stand hysterical women, and in another four seconds he would have been out of the room and would have refused to see you again. That’s one angle of it. I am going on talking to give both you and Mr. Wolfe a chance to calm down. Another angle is that if you think it’s undesirable to be kissed by me I am willing to submit it to a vote by people who ought to know.”

She was passing her hands over her hair. “I suppose I should thank you?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Are you recovered,” Wolfe rasped, “or not?”

“I’m all right.” She swallowed. “I haven’t slept, and it’s quite true I haven’t eaten anything, but I’m all right. They’ve arrested Paul for murder. He wants me to get a lawyer, and of course I have to, but I don’t know who. The one he uses in business is no good for this, and certainly Jim Beebe won’t do, and two other lawyers I know—I don’t think they’re much good. I told Paul I was coming to you, and he said all right.”

“You want me to recommend a lawyer?”

“Yes, but we want you too. We want you to do—well, whatever you do.” Suddenly she was flushing, and the color was good for her face. “Paul says you charge very high, but I suppose I have lots of money again, now that Sidney is dead.” The flush deepened. “I’ve got to tell you something. Last night when you
told us about it, that Sidney had been murdered, for just one second I thought Paul had done it—one awful second.”

“I know you did. Only I would say ten seconds. Then you went to him.”

“Yes. I went and touched him and let him touch me, and then it was over, but it was horrible. And that’s partly why I must ask you, do you believe Paul killed him?”

“No,” Wolfe said flatly.

“You’re not just saying that?”

“I never just say anything.” Wolfe suddenly realized that he had swiveled his chair away from her when she started to erupt, and now swung it back. “Mr. Cramer, a policeman, came this morning and twitted me for having let a murderer hoodwink me. When he had gone I considered the matter. It would have to be that Mr. Aubry, having killed Mr. Karnow, and having discussed it with you, decided to come and engage me to deal with Karnow in order to establish the fact that he didn’t know Karnow was dead. That is Mr. Cramer’s position, and I reject it. I sat here for an hour yesterday, listening to Mr. Aubry and looking at him, and if he had just come from killing the man he was asking me to deal with, I am a dolt. Since I am not a dolt, Mr. Aubry is not a murderer. Therefore—Yes, Fritz. Here’s something for you, madam.”

I would like to think it was my kiss that gave her an appetite, but I suppose it was the assurance from Wolfe that he didn’t think her Paul was guilty of murder. She disposed not only of the crackers and milk but also of a healthy portion of toast spread with Fritz’s liver pâté and chives, while Wolfe busied himself with the cards and I found something to do on my desk.

“I do thank you,” she said. “This is wonderful coffee. I feel better.”

It is so agreeable to Wolfe to have someone enjoy food that he had almost forgiven her for losing control. He nearly smiled at her.

“You must understand,” he said gruffly, “that if you hire me to investigate there are no reservations. I think Mr. Aubry is innocent, but if I find he isn’t I am committed to no evasion or concealment. You understand that?”

“Yes. I don’t—All right.”

“For counsel I suggest Nathaniel Parker. Inquire about him if you wish; if you settle on him we’ll arrange an appointment. Now, if Mr. Aubry didn’t kill Karnow, who did?”

No reply.

“Well?” Wolfe demanded.

She put the coffee cup down. “Are you asking me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we’ll return to that. You said Mr. Aubry has been arrested for murder. Has that charge been entered, or is he being held as a material witness?”

“No, murder. They said I couldn’t get bail for him.”

“Then they must have cogent evidence, surely something other than the manifest motive. He has talked, of course?”

“He certainly has.”

“He has told of his going to the door of Karnow’s room yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what time that was?”

“Half-past three. Very close to that.”

“Then opportunity is established, and motive. As
for the weapon, the published account says it was Karnow’s. Has that been challenged?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then the formula is complete; but a man cannot be convicted by a formula and should not be charged by one. Have they got evidence? Do you know?”

“I know one thing.” She was frowning at him, concentrated, intent. “They told Paul that one of his business cards was found in Sidney’s pocket—the agency name and address, with his name in the corner—and asked him to account for it. He said he and his salesmen hand out dozens of cards every day, and Sidney could have got one many different places. Then they told him this card had his fingerprints on it—clear, fresh ones—and asked him to account for that.”

“Could he?”

“He didn’t to them, but he did to me later, when they let me see him.”

“How did he account for it?”

She hesitated. “I don’t like to, but I have to. He had remembered that last Friday afternoon, when he went to a conference at Jim Beebe’s office, he had left one of his cards there on Jim’s desk.”

“Who was at the conference?”

“Besides Paul—and Jim, of course—there were Sidney’s Aunt Margaret—Mrs. Savage—and Dick Savage, and Ann and her husband, Norman Horne.”

“Were you there?”

“No. I—I didn’t want to go. I had had enough of all the talk.”

“You say he left one of his cards on Mr. Beebe’s desk. Do you mean he remembers that the card was on the desk when he left the conference?”

“Yes, he’s pretty sure it was, but anyway, he left first. All the others were still there.”

“Has Mr. Aubry now told the police of this?”

“I don’t think so. He thought he wouldn’t, because he thought it would look as if he were trying to accuse one of Sidney’s relatives, and that would hurt more than it would help. That was why I didn’t like to tell you about it, but I knew I had to.”

Wolfe grunted. “You did indeed, madam. You are in no position to afford the niceties of decent reticence. Since your husband was almost certainly killed by someone who was mortally inconvenienced by his resurrection, and we are excluding you and Mr. Aubry, his other heirs invite scrutiny and will get it. According to what Mr. Aubry told me yesterday, there are three of them: Mrs. Savage, her son, and her daughter. Where is Mr. Savage?”

“He died years ago. Mrs. Savage is Sidney’s mother’s sister.”

“She got, as did her son and her daughter, nearly a third of a million. What did that sum mean to her? What were her circumstances?”

“I guess it meant a great deal. She wasn’t well off.”

“What was she living on?”

“Well—Sidney had been helping her.”

Wolfe tightened his lips and turned a palm up. “My dear madam. Be as delicate as you please about judgments, but I merely want facts. Must I drag them out of you? A plain question: was Mrs. Savage living on Mr. Karnow’s bounty?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“What has she done with her legacy? Has she conserved it? The fact as you know it.”

“No, she hasn’t.” Caroline’s chin lifted a little. “You’re quite right, I’m being silly—and anyway, lots of people know all about it. Mrs. Savage bought a house in New York, and last winter she bought a villa
in southern France, and she wears expensive clothes and gives big parties. I don’t know how much she has left. Dick had a job with a downtown broker, but he quit when he got the inheritance from Sidney, and he is still looking for something to do. He is—well, he likes to be with women. It’s hard to be fair to Ann because she has wasted herself. She is beautiful and clever, and she’s only twenty-six, but there she is, married to Norman Horne, just throwing herself away.”

“What does Mr. Horne do?”

“He tells people about the time twelve years ago when he scored four touchdowns for Yale against Princeton.”

“Is that lucrative?”

“No. He says he isn’t fitted for a commercial society. I can’t stand him, and I don’t understand how Ann can. They live in an apartment on Park Avenue, and she pays the rent, and as far as I know she pays everything. She must.”

“Well.” Wolfe sighed. “So that’s the job. While Mr. Aubry’s motive was admittedly more powerful than theirs, since he stood to lose not only his fortune but also his wife, they were by no means immune to temptation. How much have you been associating with them the past two years?”

“Not much. With Aunt Margaret and Dick almost not at all. I used to see Ann fairly often, but very little since she married Norman Horne.”

“When was that marriage?”

“Two years ago. Soon after the estate was distributed.” She stopped, and then decided to go on. “That was one of Ann’s unpredictable somersaults. She was engaged to Jim Beebe—announced publicly, and the date set—and then, without even bothering to break it off, she married Norman Horne.”

“Was Mr. Horne a friend of your husband’s?”

“No, they never met. Ann found Norman—I don’t know where. They wouldn’t have been friends even if they had met, because Sidney wouldn’t have liked him. There weren’t many people Sidney did like.”

“Did he like his relatives?”

“No—if you want facts. He didn’t. He saw very little of them.”

“I see.” Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips began to work, pushing out and then pulling in, out and in, out and in. He only does that when he has something substantial to churn around in his skull. But that time I thought he was being a little premature, since he hadn’t even seen them yet, not one. Caroline started to say something, but I shook my head at her, and she subsided.

Finally Wolfe opened his eyes and spoke. “You understand, madam, that the circumstances—particularly the finding of Mr. Aubry’s card, bearing his fingerprints, on the body—warrant an explicit assumption: that your husband was killed by one of the six persons present at the conference in Mr. Beebe’s office Friday afternoon; and, eliminating Mr. Aubry, five are left. You know them all, if not intimately at least familiarly, and I ask you: is one of them more likely than another? For any reason at all?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Do we have to—is this the only way?”

“It is. That’s our assumption until it’s discredited. I want your best answer.”

“I don’t know,” she insisted.

I decided to contribute. “I doubt,” I put in, “if this would be a good buy at a nickel, but this morning at the DA’s office I met the whole bunch. I had a little chat with Mrs. Horne, who seems to like gags, and
when the others appeared she introduced me to them. She told them I was going to give her the third degree, and she added, I quote, ‘I expect I’ll go to pieces and confess—’ Unquote. At that point Horne put his hand on her mouth and told her she talked too much. Mrs. Savage said it was her sense of humor.”

“That’s like Ann,” Caroline said. “Exactly like her, at her worst.”

Wolfe grunted. “Mr. Goodwin has a knack for putting women at their worst. He’s no help, and neither are you. You seem not to realize that unless I can expose one of those five as the murderer of your husband, Mr. Aubry is almost certainly doomed.”