Rex Stout: Help Wanted, Male

Wolfe sighed again. “Archie came dashing in, cast a glance at Mr. Root seated here, and went on to the front room. Mr. Root grasped the opportunity to do two things: return my gun to the drawer of Archie’s desk, and use a blade of his knife, I would guess the awl, to tear a gash in the corner of his ear. That of course improved the situation for him. But what improved it vastly more was the chance that came soon after, when Archie took him to the bathroom and left him there. He might have found another chance, but that was perfect. He entered the front room from the bathroom, put his own gun, handkerchief attached, in the vase, and returned to the bathroom, and later rejoined the others here.”

“Jesus!” Purley Stebbins said incredulously. “That guy would jump off the Empire State Building to catch an airplane by the tail.”

“No doubt,” Wolfe agreed. “I have called him a fool; and yet it was by no means utterly preposterous if I had not noticed the absence of that cushion. Since this desk sits flush with the floor, no sign of the bullet fired into the bottom drawer would be visible unless the drawer was opened, and why should it be? It was unlikely that Archie would have occasion to find that one of my guns in his desk had been fired, and what if he did? Mr. Root knows how to handle a gun without leaving fingerprints, which is simple. Confound it, no. It was entirely feasible for him to await an opportunity to kill me, this evening, tonight, tomorrow morning, with all suspicion aimed at Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen — and disappear.”

Cramer slowly nodded. “I’m not objecting. I’ll buy it. But you must admit you’ve described quite a few things you can’t prove.”

“I don’t have to. Neither do you. As I said before, Mr. Root will be put on trial for the murder of Mr. Jensen and Mr. Doyle, not for his antics here in my house. And I wish you would take him somewhere else. I’ve seen enough of him.”

“I can’t say I blame you,” Cramer grinned, which was rare. He stood up. “Let’s go, Mr. Root.”

After letting them out and watching Cramer and Purley manipulating Hackett-Root down the steps to the sidewalk and into the police car, I shut the door without bothering about the bolt and returned to the office. Jane and Jensen were standing side by side in front of Wolfe’s desk, just barely not holding hands, beaming down at him.

“... more than neat,” Jensen was saying. “It was absolutely brilliant.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Jane declared. “It was wonderful.”

“It was merely a job,” Wolfe murmured, as if he knew what modesty was.

Nobody paid any attention to me. I sat down and yawned. Jensen seemed to be hesitating about something, then abruptly got it out.

“I owe you money. I came here Wednesday to engage you to investigate my father’s murder. Later, when the police got the crazy idea that I was involved in it, I was even more anxious to engage you, but still you wouldn’t see me, and now of course I understand why. I may not be in debt to you legally, but I am morally, and it will be a great satisfaction to pay it. I haven’t my checkbook with me, so I’ll have to mail you one — say, five thousand dollars?”

Wolfe shook his head. “I accept pay only from clients, as arranged in advance. If you send me a check I’ll have to return it. If you have to send one in order to sleep, send it to the National War Fund.”

I managed to keep my face straight. As for Wolfe’s renunciation, his income for the year had already reached a point where out of an additional five grand he would have been able to keep about one-fifth. As for Jensen’s generosity, if it is okay for males at one age to climb trees and turn somersaults in the presence of females, why isn’t it okay for them at another age to wave checkbooks? The way Jane was looking at him reminded me of the way a fifth-grade girl looked at me once, out in Ohio, when I chinned myself fourteen times.

So they settled it on a basis of reciprocal nobility, and the pair turned to go. Not caring to appear churlish, I went to open the front door for them. As they were passing through, Jane suddenly realized I was there and stopped and impulsively extended her hand.

“I take it back, Archie. You’re not a rat. Shake on it. Is he, Emil?”

“He certainly is not,” Emil baritoned heartily.

“Gee,” I stammered with moist eyes, “this is the happiest day of my life. This will make a new rat of me.” I closed the door.

Back in the office, Wolfe, in his own chair with only one bullet hole that could easily be repaired, and with three bottles of beer on a tray in front of him, was leaning back with his hands resting on the chair arms and his eyes open only to slits, the picture of a man at peace.

He murmured at me, “Archie. Don’t forget to remind me in the morning to telephone Mr. Viscardi about that tarragon.”

“Yes, sir.” I sat down. “And if I may, sir, I would like to offer a suggestion.”

“What?”

“Only a suggestion. Let’s advertise for a man-eating tiger weighing around two hundred and sixty pounds capable of easy and normal movement. We could station him behind the big cabinet and when you enter he would leap on you from the rear.”

It didn’t faze him. He was enjoying the feel of his chair and I doubt if he heard me.