Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself

“About a year.”

“Then you don’t know her very well.”

“I know her well enough. She was recommended by my former secretary when she left to get married.”

I looked at Judith Frey and back at Imhof. “There are two obvious questions about her. One, did she put that thing in the folder herself? Two, granting that she didn’t, could she be trusted to forget that she found it if you asked her to? If not, it would be very risky—”

“I didn’t, Mr. Goodwin.” Miss Frey had a clear, strong voice. “I can see why you ask that, but I didn’t. And if my employer asked me to do anything I couldn’t be trusted to do, I would quit.”

“Good for you.” I returned to Imhof. “But actually I’m just talking. Even if you decide you can trust Miss Frey to keep her mouth shut and burn that thing, what about me? I have seen it. I will of course report to Mr. Wolfe, and he will act in the interest of his client, the committee, and you may find—”

“We’re not going to burn it,” Amy Wynn blurted. Her nose was twitching. Her eyes were red. Her hands, in her lap, were fists. She went on, “I never saw that thing before, and nobody can prove I did! I hate this! I hate it!”

I moved to her. “Naturally you do, Miss Wynn. And after all, you’re the one that will get soaked if Alice Porter gets away with it. Would you like to know what I would advise you to do?”

“I certainly would.”

“This is just off the cuff. After I report to Mr. Wolfe he may change it. First, let me take that manuscript. I’ll try it for fingerprints, but that’s probably hopeless. Mr. Wolfe will compare it with the others. Second, say nothing about it to anyone. You have no lawyer?”

“No.”

“Okay. Third, don’t communicate with Alice Porter. If you get a letter from her, don’t answer it. If she calls you on the phone, hang up. Fourth, let Mr. Wolfe handle this as a part of what he has already been hired for. He can’t question everyone who works here himself, or anyhow he won’t, but he has a couple of good men who will do it for him — provided Mr. Imhof will cooperate.”

“Cooperate hell,” Imhof said. “I’m in this as much as she is. Are you through?”

“No.” I stayed with Amy Wynn. “Fifth and last, I think there’s at least an even chance that Mortimer Oshin’s idea will work. From the look on Simon Jacobs’ face when I asked him if he would do an article on how it felt to have his story stolen, I think he’s hating himself. I think he did it because he was hard up and had a family and had to have cash, and he wishes he hadn’t and would be glad to get it off his chest, and if he can spit it out without fear of going to jail, and get paid besides, I think he will. That’s only what I think, but I saw his face. If I’m right this whole thing will be cracked wide open. And the bait ought to be as juicy as possible, and twenty thousand is twice as juicy as ten. So fifth, I strongly advise you to tell me now that we can make it twenty.”

Her nose twitched. “You mean I agree to pay ten thousand dollars.”

“Right. Provided Richard Echols does his part.”

She looked at Imhof. “Should I?”

Imhof spoke to me. “That’s what we were discussing earlier. We hadn’t decided. I was inclined to be against it. But now, by God, I’m for it. I’m for it so much that I’ll commit Victory Press right now to pay half of it. Five thousand. And five thousand from you, Amy?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Reuben.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank the bastard that planted that thing here in my office. Do you want it in writing?”

“No.” I stood up. “I’ll go and see if Mr. Wolfe approves the advice I gave you. You’ll be hearing from him. I need some sheets of glossy paper and a stamp pad. For sets of prints of you three so I can eliminate them. And some large envelopes.”

That took some time, getting three sets of legible prints with an ordinary stamp pad, and it was nearly five o’clock when I got away, with Imhof doing me the honor of escorting me to the elevator. I decided to walk it. It would take only a few minutes more than a creeping taxi, and my legs needed stretching. After mounting the stoop and letting myself in, I stepped to the end of the hall to stick my head in the kitchen and let Fritz know I was back, and then went to the office, put the envelopes on my desk, and got brushes and powder and other items from a drawer of a cabinet. I couldn’t qualify as a fingerprint expert in a courtroom, but for private purposes I will do.

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at six o’clock he started for his desk, saw the clutter on mine, stopped, and demanded, “What have you got there?”

I swiveled. “Very interesting. I’ve done the first nine pages of this manuscript, ‘Opportunity Knocks,’ by Alice Porter, and there’s no sign of a print, let alone an identifiable one, except Amy Wynn’s and Miss Frey’s and Imhof’s. That justifies the assumption that it was either carefully wiped or was only handled with gloves on. In that case—”

“Where did you get it?” He was at my elbow, surveying the clutter.

I told him, including the dialogue. When I got to where Imhof had said there were thirty-two people in the executive and editorial departments of Victory Press, he went to his desk and sat. At the end I said, “If you want to make any changes in the advice I gave her, I have her home phone number. As I told her, it was off the cuff and subject to your approval.”

He grunted. “Satisfactory. You realize, of course, that this may be merely an added complication, not an advance.”

“Sure. Some person unknown somehow got a key to that office and sneaked in after hours and put it in Amy Wynn’s folder. As before, possibly, in Ellen Sturdevant’s bureau drawer and Marjorie Lippin’s trunk. The only difference is that this is hot — as Imhof said.”

“It’s recent,” he conceded. “Give me the nine pages you have finished with.”

I took them to him and returned to my desk and started on page ten. Fritz, responding to a summons, brought beer, and Wolfe opened the bottle and poured. Page ten had nothing. Page eleven had only two useless smudges, one on the front and one on the back, near a corner. Page twelve had a fair right thumb and a poor right index finger of Reuben Imhof. I was on page thirteen when Wolfe’s voice came. “Give me the rest of it.”

“I’ve only done three more pages. I want—”

“I want all of it. I’ll take care.”

I took it to him, taking care, and then went to the kitchen to see how Fritz was getting on with the braised duckling stuffed with crabmeat, because I didn’t want to sit and watch Wolfe smearing up the last fifteen pages. It isn’t that he doesn’t believe in fingerprints; it’s just that they are only routine and therefore a genius can’t be expected to bother about them. However, by going to the kitchen I merely transferred from one genius to another. When I offered to spread the paste on the cheesecloth which was to be wrapped around the ducklings, Fritz gave me exactly the kind of look Wolfe has given me on various and numerous occasions. I was perched on a stool, making pointed comments to Fritz about the superiority of teamwork, when there was a bellow from the office.

“Archie!”

I went. Wolfe was leaning back with his palms on the chair arms. “Yes, sir?”

“This is a complication. It was written by Alice Porter.”

“Sure. It says so at the top.”

“Don’t be flippant. You fully expected, and so did I, to find that it had been written by the same person as the other three. It wasn’t. Pfui!”

“Well, well, as Kenneth Rennert would say. Of course you’re sure?”

“Certainly.”