Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself

I flipped a hand. “Any one of a dozen reasons. The best is the simplest. Also it’s been done so often that she wouldn’t have to invent it. She wrote a detailed account of how she and X put the bite on Ellen Sturdevant, probably saying it was X’s idea, and put it in an envelope. She also put in the envelope things that would corroborate it, for instance something in X’s handwriting, maybe a couple of letters he had written her; that would make it better. She sealed the envelope thoroughly with wax and tape, and wrote on it, ‘To be opened on my death and not before,’ and signed it. Then she deposited it with somebody she was sure she could trust to follow the instructions, and she told X about it, probably sending him or giving him a copy of what she had written. So X was up a stump. It was done first about three thousand B.C., and maybe a million times since, but it still works. It has saved the lives of thousands of blackmailers, and also of a lot of fine citizens like Alice Porter.” I flipped a hand again. “I like that best, but of course there are others.”

He grunted. “That one will do. That’s the assumption I have made. I think it highly probable. So where is the envelope?”

I raised a brow. “Probably somewhere in the United States, and there are now fifty of them. I doubt if she sent it out of the country. Do you want me to find it?”

“Yes,”

I got up. “Are you in a hurry?”

“Don’t clown. If such an envelope exists, and I strongly suspect that it does, I want to know where it is. If we can get our hands on it, all the better, but merely to locate it would be enough. Where would you start?”

“I’d have to think it over. Her bank, her lawyer if she has one, her pastor if she goes to church, a relative or an intimate friend—”

“Much too diffuse. It would take days. You might get a hint, or even better than a hint, from the executive secretary, Cora Ballard. Alice Porter joined that association in nineteen fifty-one, was dropped for nonpayment of dues in nineteen fifty-four, and rejoined in nineteen fifty-six. I gathered that Miss Ballard is extremely well informed about the members, and presumably she will help if she can. See her.”

“Okay. She may not be enthusiastic. She wanted them to fire you. But I suppose she’ll—”

The doorbell rang. I stepped to the hall, took a look through the one-way glass panel, and turned to tell Wolfe, “Cramer.” He made a face and growled, “I have nothing for him.” I asked if I should tell him that and ask him to come back tomorrow, and he said yes, and then said, “Confound it, he’ll be after me all day and you won’t be here. Let him in.”

I went to the front and opened the door and got a shock, or rather, a series of shocks. Cramer said, “Good morning,” distinctly, as he crossed the threshold, plainly implying that I was a fellow being. Then he dropped his hat on the bench and waited while I closed the door, instead of tramping on to the office. Then he not only told Wolfe good morning but asked him how he was. Evidently it was Brotherhood Day. I had to control an impulse to slap him on the back or poke him in the ribs. To cap it, he said as he sat in the red leather chair, “I hope you won’t be charging me rent for this chair.” Wolfe said politely that a guest was always welcome to a seat to rest his legs, and Cramer said, “And a glass of beer?”

It was a ticklish situation. If Wolfe pushed the button, the beer signal, two shorts and a long, Fritz would get a wrong impression and there would have to be an explanation. He looked at me, and I got up and went to the kitchen, got a tray and a bottle and a glass, telling Fritz it was for a guest, and returned. As I entered Cramer was saying, “... but I never expected to see the day when you would cut down on your beer. What next? Thank you, Goodwin.” He poured. “What I’m here for, I came to apologize. One day last week — Friday, I think it was — I accused you of using Jane Ogilvy for a decoy and bungling it. I may have been wrong. If you or Goodwin told anybody you were going after her he’s not admitting it. And Kenneth Rennert was killed that same night, and you certainly wouldn’t have set them both up. So I owe you an apology.” He picked up the glass and drank.

“It’s welcome,” Wolfe told him. “All the more since you owe me a dozen other apologies that you have never made. Let this one do for all.”

“You’re so goddam impervious.” Cramer put the glass down on the stand. “Instead of coming to apologize, I could have come to tell you to stop interfering with a homicide investigation. You sent Goodwin to Putnam County to coerce a woman into coming to see you, a woman who was under surveillance by officers of the law.”

“Possibly you did.”

“Did what?”

“Come for that purpose. There was no coercion.”

“The hell there wasn’t. She went to the sheriff’s office in Carmel this morning and told him to keep his men away from her place, and she said that Goodwin had told her that Sergeant Stebbins had sicked Putnam County on her because he suspected her of murder, and she had better go with him to see you, and go quick. That’s not coercion?” He looked at me. “Did you tell her that?”

“Sure I did. Why not? Have you crossed her off?”

“No.” He went to Wolfe. “He admits it. I call that interfering in a murder investigation, and so would any judge. And this is once too often. I’m being fair. I have apologized for accusing you of something I can’t prove. But by God, I can prove this.”

Wolfe put his palms on the chair arms. “Mr. Cramer. I know, of course, what you’re after. You have no intention or desire to charge me formally with obstructing justice; that would be both troublesome and futile. What you want is to learn whether I got any information that would help you in a case that has you baffled; and if I did, you want to know what it is. I’m willing to oblige you, and to the full. As you know, Mr. Goodwin has an extraordinary memory. Archie. Give Mr. Cramer our conversation with Miss Porter last evening. In toto. Omit nothing.”

I shut my eyes for a moment to concentrate. Getting it straight with no fumbling would be a little tricky, with all the names and titles and dates, and the way Wolfe had steered it along to the main point. Evidently, for some reason, he wanted Cramer to have it all, and I didn’t want him stopping me to insert something I was leaving out. I started slow, speeded up when I got going, and tripped only once, when I said “extortion” instead of “attempted extortion,” and I caught that and corrected it. Toward the end, knowing that I had it by the tail, I leaned back and crossed my legs just to show that there was really nothing to it for a man of my caliber. Finishing, I yawned. “Sorry,” I said, “but I’m a little short on sleep. Did I skip anything?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “Satisfactory.” His eyes went to Cramer. “So you have it, every word. There was manifestly no attempt to interfere with a homicide investigation; murder was mentioned only incidentally. You are welcome to the information I got from her.”

“Yeah.” Cramer didn’t sound grateful. “I could put it under a fingernail. She didn’t tell you a single solitary thing. And I don’t believe it, and you don’t expect me to. Why did you let her go ? You had her. You had her backed into a corner that she couldn’t possibly squirm out of, and you quit and sent her home. Why?”

Wolfe turned a hand over. “Because nothing more was to be expected of her, at the moment. She had identified X for me. More accurately, she had given me a hint, a strong one, and I wanted to confirm it. I have done so. Now that I know him, or her, the rest should be easy.”

Cramer took a cigar from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and clamped his teeth on it. I wasn’t as impressed as he was, since the second I had seen Wolfe lean back and shut his eyes and start his lips going I had known there would soon be some fireworks, though I hadn’t expected anything quite so showy. Not caring to have Cramer know that this development was as new to me as to him, I yawned again.