Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself

The man’s eyes left her to come to me, and she whirled around. “You here again?” she demanded.

I stopped at the fence and addressed the man on the other side. “Trespassing and loitering,” I said sternly. “Also disturbing the peace. A peeping Tom can get up to three years. Beat it.”

“You too,” Alice Porter said. “Both of you beat it.”

“I’m an officer of the law,” the man said, raising a hand to exhibit a medal. “Deputy Sheriff Putnam County.”

Everyone glared at everyone. “Tell Sergeant Stebbins,” I instructed the man, “that Archie Goodwin was here. It will please him.” I turned to her. “When I saw you ten days ago you said you wouldn’t talk, not a word, and evidently you haven’t changed your mind. But you also said you’d listen if I had come to make an offer. Okay, I have one.”

“What kind of an offer?”

“It’s just for you. I doubt if the deputy sheriff would be interested.”

When she looked straight at you her eyes seemed even closer together, and her little nose almost wasn’t there. “All right,” she said, “I’ll listen.” She told the man, “You clear out of here and stay out.” She turned and headed for the house.

It was a procession across the meadow. First her, then the dog, then me; and what made it a procession was the deputy sheriff, who climbed the wall and tagged along behind, ten paces back of me. She didn’t look back until she reached the door of the house; then she saw him. He had stopped at my car and opened the door on the other side, the driver’s side. “That’s all right,” I told her, “let him inspect it. He needs something to do.” When she opened the door the dog trotted in, and I followed.

It was a bigger room than you would expect from the outside, and wasn’t bad at all. She said, “Sit down if you want to,” and went and deposited her 160 pounds on a long wicker bench. I pulled a chair around. “What kind of an offer?” she asked.

I sat, “I haven’t actually got it, Miss Porter. Nero Wolfe has it. If you’ll come with me to his house in New York he’ll tell you about it. It’s an offer to settle your claim against Amy Wynn.”

“An offer from her?”

“I don’t know all the details, but I think so.”

“Then you think wrong.”

“I often do. That’s just the impression I got. It could be that Mr. Wolfe wants to make an offer on behalf of his client, the Joint Committee on Plagiarism of the National Association of Authors and Dramatists and the Book Publishers of America. But I think it’s from Amy Wynn.”

“You’re not very good at thinking. You’d better stop trying. I’m not going to New York to see Nero Wolfe. If he really has an offer and you don’t know what it is, call him on the phone and ask him. There’s the phone. Reverse the charges.”

She meant it. I had crossed my legs. Now I uncrossed them. Since the method Wolfe had suggested wouldn’t work, I would have to roll my own. “Look, Miss Porter. I drove all the way up here instead of phoning because I thought your line might be tapped. Why has that deptuy sheriff been hiding behind that stone fence all day? Why is another one in a car hiding behind some bushes near the road a mile from here? Why did a state cop come to see you this morning? Who started all the fuss? I can tell you. A man named Purley Stebbins of the New York police. He’s a sergeant on the Manhattan West Homicide Squad. He’s investigating three murders that have taken place in the past two weeks that you have probably heard about. That man out there said he’s here to protect you. Blah. He’s here to see that you don’t skip. We’ll be followed when we drive to New York, see if we’re not. I don’t—”

“I’m not going to New York.”

“You’re a damn fool if you don’t. I don’t know what Stebbins has on you for the murders, but he must have something, or thinks he has, or he wouldn’t have come up here and sicked Putnam County on you. I’m telling the truth when I say that Nero Wolfe didn’t tell me exactly why he wants to see you, and see you quick, but I know this, he doesn’t suspect you of murder.”

“You said he wants to make me an offer.”

“Maybe he does. He said to tell you that. All I know is this, if I were in any way connected with a murder, let alone three murders, and if Nero Wolfe was investigating them, and if he wanted to see me and said it was urgent, and if I was innocent, I wouldn’t sit around arguing about it.”

“I’m not connected with any murder.” She was hooked; I could see it her eyes.

“Good. Tell Sergeant Stebbins that.” I left the chair. “He’ll be glad to know it. I apologize for butting in on your talk with your protector.” I turned and was going, and was halfway to the door when her voice came.

“Wait a minute.”

I stood. She was biting her lip. She wasn’t looking at me, but here and there. Finally she focused on me. “If I go with you, how will I get home? I could take my car, but I don’t like to drive at night.”

“I’ll bring you home.”

She arose. “I’ll put on a dress. Go out and tell that damn deputy sheriff to go soak his head.”

I went out, but I didn’t deliver the message. The officer of the law wasn’t in sight at first glance, but then I saw him, across the meadow by the stone fence, and there were two of him. Apparently it was an around-the-clock cover, and his relief had come. To show there was no hard feeling I waved at them, but they didn’t wave back. I got the car turned around, looked in the trunk to see that my emergency kit was still there, and checked the contents of the dash compartment, and pretty soon Alice Porter emerged, locked the door, patted the dog, and came and got in. The dog escorted us through the gap to the dirt road and then let us go.

I stayed under thirty on the blacktop to give anyone who might be interested time to see that she was in the car with me, and to get out to the road and fall in, and when I stopped at the junction with Route 301 I picked him up in the mirror, but I didn’t call Alice Porter’s attention to him until we were the other side of Carmel and I was sure it was a tail. It’s fun to drop a tail, but it would help to put her in a proper mood for conversation with Wolfe if he stuck all the way, so I made no difficulties. She twisted around in the seat about every four minutes for a look back, and by the time we rolled into the garage on Tenth Avenue her neck must have needed a rest. I don’t know if he got his car parked, and out of it, in time to stalk us a block to 35th Street and around the corner to the old brownstone.

I put her in the front room and showed her the door to the bathroom, and then, instead of using the connecting door to the office, went around by the hall. Wolfe, at his desk with a French magazine, looked up. “You got her?”

I nodded. “I thought I’d better report first. Her reaction seemed a little peculiar.”

“How peculiar?”

I gave it to him verbatim. He took ten seconds to digest it and said, “Bring her.” I went and opened the connecting door and said, “In here, Miss Porter.” She had taken off her jacket, and either she didn’t wear a bra or she needed a new one. Wolfe was on his feet; I have never understood why, considering how he feels about women, he bothers to stand when one enters the room. He waited until she was in the red leather chair, with her jacket draped over title arm, to resume his seat.

He eyed her. “Mr. Goodwin tells me,” he said civilly, “that you and your home are well guarded.”

She was forward in the chair, her elbows resting on the arms. “I don’t need any guard,” she said. “He got me to come here by trying to scare me about being suspected of murder. I don’t scare easy. I’m not scared.”