Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself

They were all staring at her, and no wonder. From her tone and her expression you might have thought Wolfe was conducting a class in the technique of writing and she was anxious to learn. “I doubt if it could properly be called a mistake,” he said. “A little thoughtless, perhaps. After all, no one had ever compared the stories before I did, and I wouldn’t have compared them with your book if I hadn’t got that hint from Miss Porter. Indeed, Miss Wynn, I wouldn’t say that you made any mistakes at all.”

“Of course I did.” She was quietly indignant. “You’re just being polite. All my life I’ve been making mistakes. The biggest one was when I decided I was going to be a writer, but of course I was young then. You don’t mind if I talk about it? I want to.”

“Go ahead. But fourteen people are listening.”

“It’s you I want to talk to. I’ve been wanting to ever since the first time we came and I thought you knew. If I had talked to you then I wouldn’t have had to — to do what I did. But I didn’t think you would say I didn’t make any mistakes. I shouldn’t have told Alice about you. You told us when you started, I mean when you started today, that she gave it away that she knew about our hiring you when Mr. Goodwin told her he had an offer from a newspaper, and so your attention was focused on her. But I had made the worst mistake with her before that, when she claimed my book was plagiarized from a story she wrote. Of course I know that was poetic justice. I know I deserved it. But after so many years, when I actually had a book published, and the first printing sold out, and then three more printings, and it was actually third on the best-seller list, and then my publisher got that letter from Alice, I lost my head. That was an awful mistake, I should have told her I wouldn’t pay her anything, not a cent. I should have dared her to try to make me. But I was so scared I gave in to her. Wasn’t that a mistake?”

Wolfe grunted. “If so, not an egregious one. She had the upper hand — especially after the manuscript of her story was found in a file in your publisher’s office.”

“But that was part of the mistake, my putting it there. She made me. She said if I didn’t she would tell everything — about the claim against Ellen Sturdevant, and of course that would bring it out about the others. And she told me—”

“My God.” Reuben Imhof groaned. He had gripped her arm. “Amy, look at me. Damn it, look at me! You put that manuscript in that file?”

“You’re hurting my arm,” she said.

“Look at me! You did that?”

“I’m talking to Mr. Wolfe.”

“Incredible.” He groaned again. He let go of her arm. “Absolutely incredible.”

Wolfe asked, “You were saying, Miss Wynn?”

“I was saying that she told me about what she had put in an envelope and left with somebody to be opened if she died. I don’t see how you can say I didn’t make any mistakes. I hadn’t realized how dangerous it was for her to have the typewriter I used to write that story for her to use, ‘There Is Only Love.’ We thought it would be a good idea for her to have it because she was supposed to have written the story, but I hadn’t realized that it could be traced to me because I had bought it. I had bought it secondhand, but typewriters have numbers on them somewhere. You can’t say I didn’t make any mistakes. You ought to say I didn’t do anything right. Did I?”

“If by ‘right’ you mean ‘well,’ you did indeed.”

“What? What did I do well? Tell me.”

“It would take an hour, Miss Wynn. You did a thousand things well. Your conception and execution of the swindles were impeccable, providing for all details and avoiding all pitfalls. Your choice of accomplices was admirable. Your handling of the situation these past two weeks has been superb. I have had some experience with people under stress wearing masks, both men and women, and I have never seen finer performances than yours — the first time you called on me with your fellow committee members, two weeks ago today, when I questioned you at some length; the second time, when Mr. Oshin made his suggestion about Simon Jacobs and asked you to contribute ten thousand dollars; later that day at Mr. Imhof’s office when Mr. Goodwin was told of the discovery of the manuscript which you had yourself put in the file; the third time you came with the committee, when the question whether to dismiss me was debated; the meeting of that council yesterday, when that question was again discussed in my presence — your performance on all of those occasions was extraordinary.”

Wolfe turned a palm up. “On one occasion you showed ready and notable wit — on Friday, four days ago, when Miss Porter drove to New York to see you at your apartment. By then, of course, she was confronting you with a direr menace than exposure of your swindles; she was threatening to reveal you as a murderer. That is true?”

“Yes. That’s why she came to see me. How did I show any wit?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Mr. Imhof used the right word for you, Miss Wynn. ‘Incredible.’ Apparently you have performed prodigies of sagacity and finesse without knowing it. Not surely by inadvertence; it must be that your singular faculties operate below the level of consciousness — or above it. Perhaps the psychologists should add a new term, superconscious. When Miss Porter came to your apartment on Friday afternoon did she tell you that she had been followed?”

“No. But I was afraid that maybe she had been.”

“That makes it even better. Brilliant. So you telephoned Mr. Imhof and told him Miss Porter was there with an offer to settle her claim, and asked his advice. You don’t call that brilliant?”

“Of course not.” She meant it. “It was just common sense.”

Wolfe shook his head again. “You are beyond me. Added to your other achievements, you committed three murders in an emergency with such resourcefulness and dexterity that a highly skilled police force is completely at sea. I offer a suggestion. I suggest that you request the District Attorney to arrange for your brain to be turned over to competent scientists. I shall myself suggest it to Mr. Cramer of the police. Will you do that?”

A sound came from Cora Ballard, half gasp and half moan. It was the first sound from any of them except Imhof since Dol Bonner had reported. No one looked at her. No one was looking at anyone but Amy Wynn.

“You’re just being polite,” Amy Wynn said. “If I had any brains this wouldn’t be happening. It’s crazy to say I didn’t make any mistakes.”

“You made one,” Wolfe said. “Only one of any consequence. You shouldn’t have allowed the committee to hire me. I don’t know how you could have managed it, but I don’t know how you have managed any of your miracles, and you don’t either. If it had occurred to you, you would have done it somehow. I am not crowing; I merely say that it is unlikely that anyone else would have hit upon the combination of maneuvers by which you have been exposed. You wanted to talk. Have you anything else to say?”

Her nose twitched. “You have never shaken hands with me.”

“I rarely shake hands with anyone. I beg you not to offer yours.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to now.” She stood up. “No, there’s nothing else. I had some things to do before I–I have some things to do.” She was moving.

She was incredible. I was absolutely glued to my chair. I don’t say that if there had been only the three of us, Wolfe and her and me, I would have sat there and let her walk out, but the fact remains that I didn’t stir. She passed, in no hurry, in front of Philip Harvey and between Cora Ballard and Mortimer Oshin; and when, four paces from the door, she found her way blocked by Saul and Fred and Orrie, she turned square around and looked at Wolfe. Just looked. No more talk. Her nose twitched.