Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself

“They couldn’t be,” Harvey said. “It’s not that simple. I’m not a lawyer, and if you want it in legal terms you can get it from the NAAD counsel, but there’s a property right, I believe they call it, in these things even if they haven’t been copyrighted. It was in a court trial before a judge that a jury awarded Jane Ogilvy a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Do you want me to get our counsel on the phone?”

“That can wait. First I need to know what you want to hire me to do. The first three cases are history, and apparently the fourth, Mr. Oshin’s, soon will be. Do you want me to investigate on behalf of Miss Wynn?”

“No. I should say, yes and no. This committee was set up six weeks ago, before the claim on Miss Wynn was made. It had been authorized at a meeting of the NAAD council in March. It seemed fairly obvious to us what had happened. Alice Porter’s putting the squeeze on Ellen Sturdevant, and getting away with it, had started a ball rolling. Her method was copied exactly by Simon Jacobs with Richard Echols, except for one detail, the way he established the priority of his manuscript and the assumption of Echols’ access to it; and he changed that one detail because he actually had sent a novelette to that literary agency, Norris and Baum, and had it returned. He merely took advantage of something that had happened two years back. Of course the manuscript which was the basis of his claim — the one he allowed Title House and Echols to inspect — was not the one he had sent to Norris and Baurn in nineteen fifty-four. He had written it after Echols’ novel had been published and gave it the same title as the one he had sent to Norris and Baum — ‘What’s Mine Is Yours.’ ”

Wolfe grunted. “You may omit the obvious. You are assuming, I take it, that that was the procedure in all five cases: plagiarism upside down. The manuscript supporting the claim was written after the book was published or the play produced and had achieved success.”

“Certainly,” Harvey agreed. “That was the pattern. The third one, Jane Ogilvy, followed it exactly, the only difference being that she had a stroke of luck. Whatever plan she had for discovery of the manuscript in Marjorie Lippin’s home, she didn’t have to use it, for Mrs. Lippin conveniently died. Again, with Kenneth Rennert, the only difference was the way the manuscript was found.”

He stopped to cover his mouth with his palm, and a noise came, too feeble to be called a belch. “Sausage for breakfast,” he said, for the record. “I shouldn’t. That’s how it stood when this committee had its first meeting. At the NAAD council meeting a prominent novelist had said that he had a new book scheduled for early fall and he hoped to God it would be a flop, and nobody laughed. At the first meeting of this committee Gerald Knapp, president of Knapp and Bowen — How did you put it, Mr. Knapp?”

Knapp passed his tongue over his lips. “I said that it hasn’t hit us yet, but we have three novels on the bestseller list, and we hate to open our mail.”

“So that’s the situation,” Harvey told Wolfe. “And now Alice Porter is repeating. Something has to be done. It has to be stopped. About a dozen lawyers have been consulted, authors’ and publishers’ lawyers, and none of them has an idea that is worth a damn. Except one maybe — the one who suggested that we put it up to you. Can you stop it?”

Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t mean that, Mr. Harvey.”

“I don’t mean what?”

“That question. If you expect me to say no, you wouldn’t have come. If you expect me to say yes, you must think me a swaggerer, and again you wouldn’t have come. I certainly wouldn’t undertake to make it impossible for anyone ever again to extort money from an author by the stratagem you have described.”

“We wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Then what would you expect?”

“We would expect you to do something about this situation that would make us pay your bill not only because we had to but also because we felt that you had earned it and we had got our money’s worth.”

Wolfe nodded. “That’s more like it. That was phrased as might be expected from the author of Why the Gods Laugh , which I have just read. I had been thinking that you write better than you talk, but you put that well because you had been challenged. Do you want to hire me on those terms?”

Harvey looked at Gerald Knapp, and then at Dexter. They looked at each other. Reuben Imhof asked Wolfe, “Could you give us some idea of how you would go about it and what your fee would be?”

“No, sir,” Wolfe told him.

“What the hell,” Mortimer Oshin said, squashing a cigarette, “he couldn’t guarantee anything anyway, could he?”

“I would vote for proceeding on those terms,” Gerald Knapp said, “providing it is understood that we can terminate the arrangement at any time.”

“That sounds like a clause in a book contract,” Harvey said. “Will you accept it, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you’re in favor, Mr. Knapp?”

“Yes. It was our attorney who suggested coming to Nero Wolfe.”

“Miss Wynn?”

“Yes, if the others are. That was a good idea, having my apartment searched, and the one on Perry Street.”

“Mr. Oshin?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. Dexter?”

“With the understanding that we can terminate at will, yes.”

“Mr. Imhof?”

Imhof had his head cocked. “I’m willing to go along, but I’d like to mention a couple of points. Mr. Wolfe says he can’t give us any idea of how he’ll go about it, and naturally we can’t expect him to pull a rabbit out of a hat here and now, but, as he said himself, the first three cases are history and the fourth one soon will be. But Miss Wynn’s isn’t. It’s hot. The claim has just been made, and it was made by Alice Porter, the woman who started it. So I think he should concentrate on that. My second point is this, if he does concentrate on Alice Porter, and if he gets her, if he makes her withdraw the claim, I think Miss Wynn might feel that it would be fair and proper for her to pay part of Mr. Wolfe’s fee. Don’t you think so, Amy?”

“Why — yes.” Her nose twitched. “Of course.”

“It might also,” Harvey put in, “be fair and proper for the Victory Press to pay part. Don’t you think so?”

“We will.” Imhof grinned at him. “We’ll contribute to the BPA’s share. We might even kick in a little extra.” He went to Wolfe. “How about concentrating on Alice Porter?”

“I may do that, sir. Upon consideration.” Wolfe focused on the chairman. “Who is my client? Not this committee.”

“Well...” Harvey looked at Gerald Knapp. Knapp smiled and spoke. “The arrangement, Mr. Wolfe, is that the Book Publishers of America and the National Association of Authors and Dramatists will each pay half of any expenses incurred by this committee. They are your clients. You will report to Mr. Harvey, the committee chairman, as their agent. I trust that is satisfactory?”

“Yes. This may be a laborious and costly operation, and I must ask for an advance against expenses. Say five thousand dollars?”

Knapp looked at Harvey. Harvey said, “All right. You’ll get it.”

“Very well.” Wolfe straightened up, took a deep breath, and let it out. It looked as if he were going to have to dig in and do a little work, and it takes a lot of oxygen to face a prospect as dismal as that. “Naturally,” he said, “I must have all records and documents pertaining to all of the cases, or copies of them. Everything. Including, for instance, the reports from the detective agency hired by Mr. Oshin. I can form no plan until I am fully informed, but it may help to get answers to a few questions now. Mr. Harvey. Has any effort been made to discover a connection among Alice Porter, Simon Jacobs, Jane Ogilvy, and Kenneth Rennert, or between any two of them?”