Rex Stout - Instead of Evidence

“Why, because Martha wouldn’t lie?”

He frowned at me. “Now don’t smart up. What the hell would she kill him for? She only got him two years ago and he had everything he ever had. Anyway, it was Blaney, and I am fed up with all the gear-grinding, and he is now through with me and I’ll be out of a job, so to hell with him. I’m going to see what I can find. On account of the trick cigars the cops wanted to go through the office and factory, and Blaney told them sure, go ahead, go as far as you like, but he didn’t tell them about the abditories and they didn’t find them.”

“How do you spell it?”

He spelled it “Abditory. Place to hide things. Blaney says it’s a scientific term. The office is full of them. I haven’t had a chance before now since Tuesday night, but with him up in Westchester I’m going to take a look. With a nut like Blaney you never can tell. Want to come along?”

“Have you got keys?”

“Keys? I’m the foreman.”

“Okay, finish your drink.”

He did so, and I got the bill and paid it, and we got our hats and coats and emerged. Meanwhile I was considering a complication and deciding how to handle it. Of course with the sedan I could have lost a dozen taxis if I had wanted to, but it would take time and gas and wear on the tires, and anyhow, the way it was shaping up, it seemed uncalled-for. So when we were on the sidewalk alongside the sedan I asked him to wait a minute, marched back to where the taxi was still parked, jerked the door open and stuck my head in, and said, “There’s no sense in this, Helen. Look at that meter! Come on and ride with us.”

Even in the dim light she recognized me at the first glance, which I took as a compliment. After gasping, she left her mouth hanging open, but in spite of that handicap no one with an eye for essentials would have had any fault to find with the outlook, or perhaps I should say the inlook.

She re-established control of her jaw muscles enough to say briefly, “Get out!”

“Lookit, mister—” the taxi driver began like a menace.

“Everybody relax,” I said pleasantly. “I can’t get out because I’m not in, I’m only looking in.” I told the temples, “This is absolutely childish. You don’t know the first principle of tailing, and this driver you happened to get is, if anything, worse. If you insist on tailing Joe, okay, well put him in the cab and let them go ahead, and you ride with me and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Yeah?” the menace croaked. “Show her how what’s done?”

“See that,” I told her. “See the kind of mind he’s got.”

All her muscles were now under control. “You’re smart as they come, aren’t you?”

“That,” I said, “you will learn more about as time goes on. I’m at least smarter than you are if you let that meter continue to tick. Pay him and come on.”

She moved, so I stood aside and held the door while she got out. On the sidewalk she faced me and said, “You seem to be in charge of everything, so you pay him.”

It was an unpleasant surprise, but I didn’t hesitate, first, because I liked the way she was handling herself, and second, because all expenses would come out of the five grand anyway. So I parted with two bucks, took her elbow and steered her to the sedan, opened the front door and told Joe Groll, “Move over a little. There’s room for three.”

It was his turn to let his jaw hang. Apparently it was going to be prolonged, and he didn’t budge, so I took her elbow again and escorted her around to the other side and told her, “Slide in under the wheel. I’d rather have you next to me anyhow.”

She did so, and I got in and slammed the door. By the time I had got the engine started and rolled to the corner and turned downtown, neither of them had said a word.

“If I were you folks,” I told them, “I would incorporate and call it the Greater New York Mutual Tailing League. I don’t see how you keep track of who is following whom on any given day. Of course if one of you gets convicted of murder that will put a stop to it. You have now, however, the one good reason that I know of for getting married, the fact that a wife can’t testify against a husband or vice versa.” I swerved around a pushcart. “One thing you want to watch. Now that Poor is dead, Helen will try to sell you the idea, Joe, that she was meeting him on the sly merely to keep him informed of anything Blaney seemed to be up to, and Joe will try to sell you the idea, Helen, that he was seeing Martha merely for that too. Now, of course, he can’t marry her, at least not for a long time, because it would look suspicious, and he may want you for a stopgap. You should both be realistic—”

“Can it,” Joe croaked. “We’re not going there, where I said. Stop and let me out.”

“Oh, yes we are.” I stepped on it. “Stopgap or not, you are enjoying feeling her sit next to you as much as I am, and I could keep right on going to the foot of the rainbow. If you really wanted out, what was wrong with any of the stops for traffic lights? She can help us, and it won’t hurt to have a witness. The idea is, Helen, we are bound for the Blaney and Poor office to go through the abditories. We think we hid something in them.”

“What?” she demanded.

“We don’t know. Maybe a detailed estimate in triplicate of what it would cost to kill Poor. Maybe a blueprint of the cigar. Even a rough sketch would help.”

“That’s ridiculous. You sound to me like a clown.”

“Good. It is a well-known fact that clowns have the biggest and warmest hearts on record except mothers and three characters in books by Dickens. So if and when you get tired of being a stopgap, just give me a ring and— here we are.”

I pulled over to the curb in front of Blaney and Poor’s on Varick Street.

That office was no place for a stranger to poke around in. It was on the first floor of a dingy old building in the middle of the block, with part of the factory, so Joe said, in the rear, and the rest on the second floor. As soon as we were inside and had the lights turned on, Helen sat in a chair at a desk and looked disdainful, but as the search went on I noticed she kept her eyes open. Joe tossed his hat and coat on a chair, got a screwdriver from a drawer, went to the typewriter on the desk Helen was sitting at, used the screwdriver, lifted out the typewriter roller, unscrewed an end of it and turned it vertical, and about four dozen dice rolled out. He held the open end of the roller so the light would hit it right, peered in, put the dice back in and screwed the end on, and put the roller back on the machine. His fingers were as swift and accurate as any I had ever seen. Even if I had known about it, I would have needed at least ten minutes for the operation; he took about three.

“Trick dice?” I asked him.

“They’re just a stock item,” he said, and went over to a door in the rear wall, opened it, took it off its hinges, leaned it against a desk, knelt on the floor, removed a strip from the bottom edge of the door — and out came about ten dozen lead pencils.

“Trick pencils?”

“When you press, perfume comes out,” he said, and stretched out flat to look into the abditory.

I thought I might as well help with the doors and ambled over to open one in another wall that would probably be to a closet. I grabbed the knob and turned, and something darted out and banged me on the shin so that almost anyone but me would have screamed in pain. I uttered a word or two. The piece of wood that had hit me had gone back into place and was part of the door again.

“That shouldn’t have been left connected,” Helen said, trying not to look as if she wanted to giggle.

I saw no reason to reply. My shin feeling as it did, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to see if the skin was broken and started to lift my foot to a chair, but the light was dim because the ones in that part of the room hadn’t been turned on, so I stepped to the wall and flipped a switch. A stream of water, a thin stream but with plenty of pressure, came out of the wall and hit me just below the right eye. I leaped to one side and used more and better words.