Rex Stout - If Death Ever Slept

It was a cinch Cramer wouldn’t forget it, but evidently he decided that for the present he might as well lump it, for there wasn’t a peep out of him during those thirty hours.

I could see no point in Alan Green’s getting back into the picture, and apparently Jarrell couldn’t either, for he also reported that Alan Green was no more. He was telling the family, and also Corey Brigham, who I was and why, but was leaving the why vague. He had engaged the services of Nero Wolfe on a business matter, and Wolfe had sent me there to collect some facts he needed. He was also telling them I wouldn’t be back, but on that Wolfe balked. I was going back, and I was staying until further notice. When Jarrell asked what for, Wolfe said to collect facts. When Jarrell asked what facts, Wolfe said facts that he needed. Jarrell, knowing that if I wasn’t let in he would soon be letting Cramer in to ask about a gun, had to take it. When Wolfe had hung up and pushed his phone back I asked him to give me a list of the facts he needed.

“How the devil can I,” he demanded, “when I don’t know what they are? If something happens I want you there, and with you there it’s more likely to happen. Now that they know who you are, you are a threat, a pinch at their nerves, at least for one of them, and he may be impelled to act.”

Since it was May it might have been expected that at least some of them would be leaving town for what was left of the week end, and they probably would have if their nerves weren’t being pinched. Perhaps Jarrell had told them to stick around; anyway, they were all at the dinner table Saturday. Their attitude toward me, with my own name back, varied. Roger Foote thought it was a hell of a good joke, his asking Wolfe to investigate my past; he couldn’t get over it, and didn’t. Trella not only couldn’t see the joke; she couldn’t see me. Her cooing days were over as far as I was concerned. Wyman didn’t visibly react one way or another. Susan went out of her way to indicate that she still regarded me as human. In the lounge at cocktail time she actually came up to me as I was mixing a Bloody Mary for Lois, and said she hoped she wouldn’t forget and call me Mr. Green.

“I’m afraid,” she added, almost smiling, “that my brain should have more cells. It put you and that name, Alan Green, in a cell together, and now it doesn’t know what to do.”

I told her it didn’t matter what she called me as long as it began with G. I hadn’t forgotten that she was supposed to be a snake, or that she had been the only one to bid me welcome, or that she had pulled me halfway across a room on an invisible string. That hadn’t happened again, but once was enough. I didn’t have her tagged yet, not by any means. As a matter of fact, I was a little surprised to see her and Wyman still there, since Jarrell had accused her of swiping his gun before witnesses. Maybe, I thought, they were staying on just to get that detail settled. Her little mouth in her little oval face could have found it hard to smile, not because it was shy but because it was stubborn.

I had supposed there would be bridge after dinner, but no. Jarrell and Trella had tickets for a show, and Wyman and Susan for another show. Nora Kent was going out, destination unspecified. Roger Foote suggested gin for an hour or so, saying that he had to turn in early because he was going to get up at six in the morning to go to Belmont. I asked what for, since there was no racing on Sunday, and he said he had to go and look at the horses. Declining his gin invitation, I approached Lois. There was no point in my staying in for the evening, since there would be no one there to have their nerves pinched except Roger, and he was soon going to bed, so I told Lois that now that my name was changed it would be both possible and agreeable to take her to the Flamingo Club. She may have had no plans because her week end had been upset, or she may have had plans but took pity on me, or my charm may simply have been too much for her. Anyhow, we went, and got home around two o’clock.

On Sunday it looked at first as if I might do fairly well as a threat. Four of them were at breakfast with me — Wyman, Susan, Lois, and Nora. Jarrell had already had his and gone out somewhere, Roger had gone to look at horses, and I gathered that Trella wasn’t up yet. But the future didn’t look promising. Nora was going to church and then to the Picasso show at the Modern Museum, apparently to spend the day. Susan was going to church. Wyman went to the side terrace with an armload of Sunday papers. So when Lois said she was going for a walk I said I was too and which way should I head, away from her or with her? She said we could try with and see how it worked. I found that she wouldn’t walk in the park, probably on account of squirrels, so we kept to the avenues, Madison and Park. After half an hour she took a taxi to go to have lunch with friends, not named. I was invited to come along, but thought I had better go and see if there was anyone around to be threatened. On the way back I phoned Wolfe to tell him what had happened: nothing. In the reception hall, Steck told me Jarrell wanted me in the library.

He thought he had news, but I wasn’t impressed. He had spent an hour at the Penguin Club with an old friend, or at least an old acquaintance, Police Commissioner Kelly, and had been assured that while the district attorney and the police would do their utmost to bring the murderer of Jarrell’s former secretary to the bar of justice, there would be no officious prying into Jarrell’s private affairs. Respectable citizens deserved to be treated with respect, and would be. Jarrell said he was going to ring Wolfe to tell him about it, and I said that would be fine. I didn’t add that Wolfe would be even less impressed than I was. Officious prying would be no name for it if and when they learned about Jarrell’s gun.

Having bought a newspaper of my own on the way back, I went to the lounge with it, finding no one there, and caught up with the world, including the latest non-news on the Eber murder. There was no mention of the startling fact that Otis Jarrell’s new secretary had turned out to be no other than Nero Wolfe’s man Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the celebrated detective, Archie Goodwin. Evidently Cramer and the DA weren’t going to give us any free publicity until and unless we were involved in murder, a typical small-minded attitude of small men, and it was up to Wolfe’s public-relations department, namely me, to do something about it; and besides, I owed Lon Cohen a bone. So I went up to my room and phoned him, and wished I hadn’t, since he tried to insist on a hunk of meat with it. I had no sooner hung up than a ring called me to the green phone. It was Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum, who invited me to appear at his office at three o’clock that afternoon for a little informal chat. I told him I would be delighted, and went down to get some oats, having been informed by Steck that lunch would be at one-thirty.

Lunch wasn’t very gay, since there were only three of them there — Jarrell, Wyman, and Susan. Susan said maybe thirty words altogether, as for instance, “Will you have cream, Mr. Goodwin?” When I announced that I would have to leave at two-thirty for an appointment at the district attorney’s office, thinking that might pinch a nerve, Wyman merely used a thumb and forefinger to pinch his thin straight nose, whether or not meant as a vulgar insult I couldn’t say, and Susan merely said that she supposed talking with an assistant district attorney was nothing for a detective but she would be frightened out of her wits. Jarrell said nothing then, but when we left the table he took me aside and wanted to know. I told him that since the police commissioner had promised that there would be no officious prying into his private affairs there was no problem. I would just tell Mandelbaum that I was part of Mr. Jarrell’s private affairs and therefore a clam.